{"id":246,"date":"2010-02-08T17:22:34","date_gmt":"2010-02-08T16:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=246"},"modified":"2010-02-08T17:22:34","modified_gmt":"2010-02-08T16:22:34","slug":"wakefield-the-cooked-up-controversy-that-will-not-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2010\/02\/08\/wakefield-the-cooked-up-controversy-that-will-not-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Wakefield – the Cooked-up “Controversy” that Will Not Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

I didn’t pay much attention the Wakefield MMR paper when it first started generating controversy: I wasn’t bothered whether its conclusions were correct or not, because I figured that it’s in the nature of science for certain putative discoveries later to be debunked.\u00a0 But the years passed, and as I paid a bit more attention, it began to be clear that there was more to the story than a disagreement about how to interpret data.\u00a0 Over at Ministry of Truth, Unity provides a nice little account<\/a> of just what was wrong not just with Wakefield’s research findings, but with the research wholesale: I won’t reproduce the litany of problems that have been raised, but it’s worth remembering that, notwithstanding GMC censure and the retraction of his paper, he’s still working at a clinic in Texas seemingly funded by anti-vaccination campaigners… which brings me nicely to this little gem, reported in last week’s New York Times<\/em><\/a>, from Jim Moody.\u00a0 Moody speaks on behalf of an organisation that promotes the supposed link between the MMR vaccination and autism, and he thinks that “the retraction would strengthen Dr. Wakefield\u2019s credibility with many parents.”<\/p>\n

\u201cAttacking scientists and attacking doctors is dangerous,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is about suppressing research, and it will fuel the controversy by bringing it all up again.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What’s notable about this is the manner in which it seems to track the “teach the controversy” canard that’s dug out by creationists when it comes to the teaching of evolution.\u00a0 That is to say: the fact that Wakefield’s research has been retracted does not, in this world, indicate that it’s been debunked, so much as it indicates that he’s being cruelly silenced.\u00a0 You can see where this is leading: his paper being retracted strengthens the mania of the anti-vax lobby; its not being retracted would have been treated as a vindication that there’s something to his claims that merits further publicity.\u00a0 Heads I win, tails you lose.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to know how to respond to this kind of intransigence.\u00a0 Chris Mooney also considers this problem in his post at Science Progress<\/a>:<\/p>\n

What would it take\u2014beyond the overwhelming scientific evidence, which already exists\u2014for this battle to finally go away? A Lancet<\/em> retraction isn\u2019t going to do it, that\u2019s for sure. For vaccine skeptics, that\u2019s just more evidence of corruption and collusion in the medical establishment. Indeed, I doubt any individual scientific development has the strength to move these folks\u2014because we aren\u2019t dealing with a phenomenon that\u2019s scientific in nature.<\/p>\n

Instead, I believe we need some real attempts at bridge-building between medical institutions\u2014which, let\u2019s admit it, can often seem remote and haughty\u2014and the leaders of the anti-vaccination movement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But this seems to me to be precisely the wrong way to go about things.\u00a0 It is so for a couple of reasons.\u00a0 One of them is articulated perfectly by Ophelia Benson<\/a>, and has to do with\u00a0Mooney’s conflation of the political with the epistmic.\u00a0 But I think that there’s a straightforwardly political objection, too, and it’s simply this: that there are some things – creationism, antivaccinationism, the “birther movement” –\u00a0in respect of which to attempt to build a bridge is de facto<\/em> to concede defeat.<\/p>\n

The reason for this is essentially that, in offering this sort of conciliation, one doesn’t encourage one’s opponents to come out and play on the sunny plains of science; rather, one gives them an incentive to stay in their fox-hole.\u00a0 Bluntly, why should they move if we’re willing to abandon, or\u00a0could be construed as being willing\u00a0to abandon,\u00a0our own position to move closer to theirs?\u00a0 I can see the political attraction of a move like Mooney’s:\u00a0it\u00a0pours oil on the waters, and\u00a0if you squint, it looks magnanimous.\u00a0 But I think that it’s misguided: there are some waters on which oil should not be poured.<\/p>\n

It takes a bit more courage, but I think that there’s a lot to be said for the medical establishment digging in its heels and insisting that the evidence is thus-and-so; that new evidence is always welcome, but that there are tight criteria of validity that have to be met.\u00a0 This isn’t, after all, a mere academic spat about the classification of a galaxy or the manner in which Darwin has been married with Mendel; people’s lives and wellbeing are at stake here.\u00a0 It’s worth having the fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn’t pay much attention the Wakefield MMR paper when it first started generating controversy: I wasn’t bothered whether its conclusions were correct or not, because I figured that it’s in the nature of science for certain putative discoveries later to be debunked.\u00a0 But the years passed, and as I paid a bit more attention, […]<\/p>\n

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