I understand that our Debutante of the Lake District, Miss Calumny Moonpower, is now frustrated. Disappointed. Upset. She points a particularly vicious finger at my fellow scientists. They’ve been sandbagging their careers apparently. I’m not exactly clear on all the details. The allegation goes something like this: You guys get millions of dollars from the government for Alzheimer’s research but what do you do? Not cure it. On purpose.

This makes very sense. We get the NIH’s money, then we blow it on not curing things. Frivolous is what we do. Dry ice for the Black And White Cotillion. Hand-stitched leather for the tubes and wires. A maple dashboard for the symposium. And a brand new jaguar for the bottle washer. A full-grown 300 pound Coastal Peruvian jaguar.

But think. Just what if we . . tried?

“By the way, there is no known treatment for Alzheimer’s on the horizon . . a much smarter strategy would be to develop a cure. That’s caring. Scientists tell us that we could have a cure in 10 years for Alzheimer’s if we’d only put our mind to it. So why aren’t we seeking to cure diseases like Alzheimer’s? Or diabetes, juvenile diabetes, heart disease, cancer, Parkinson’s disease?”

What if we . . cured things? We’ve been researching the likes of cancer and heart disease, sure, for years. We know all about them, absolutely. Why now can’t we use this knowledge? To . . cure them? Hmm?

Turns out there’s an answer for that. Diseases seem to be getting better on their own without us. A little at least, without our yet having lifted a finger. You wouldn’t want to screw that up, would ya? Naw.

“How did we possibly get to the point of this political malpractice? Because our government, proclaiming to care so much, has created a cadre of overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators. That’s not caring.”

And then, right when I’m about to cure brain cancer, the attorney taxes me.

Paul Broun’s lecture at the Museum of Bambi Tolerance. What’s he saying?

“I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.”

Much early embryology came from the work of the great Italian anatomists: Aldrovandi, Aranzio, Leonardo da Vinci, Marcello Malpighi, Gabriele Falloppio, Girolamo Cardano, Emilio Parisano, Fortunio Liceti, Stefano Lorenzini, Spallanzani, Enrico Sertoli, Mauro Rusconi, etc.

Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons.

. . the prevailing notion in human embryology was preformation: the idea that semen contains an embryo — a preformed, miniature infant, or “homunculus” — that simply becomes larger during development.

That’s the old wisdom. The values knowledge. See? Scott Walker was teensy, then tiny, then he got swoll up and bukkake’d Wisconsin. Unnggh! Surrender Pipe Fitting Local 187! Nurses Dorothy! Those Koch brothers, they can’t get enough large developed semen. Hoo, I’m kidding about David and Charles putting other guy’s penises in their grasping rich mouths until someone orgasms on their pinched and grateful faces. Lighten up.

As microscopy improved during the 19th century, biologists could see that embryos took shape in a series of progressive steps, and epigenesis displaced preformation as the favoured explanation among embryologists.

Among the devil, you say. Satan may have sprung from a spoonful of spotted Cheeze Whiz, but not me. Speaking of Pelosi, he once sent a beast to breathe on Paul Broun’s armored Jeep. Paul was like “Don’t tell me it’s only yawning.”

“God directed that bullet, because if I’d missed, that lion would have been in the back of the truck with me and I’d have been clawed to death.”

Here lies Paul Broun. Dead by Liza Minnelli, woof. In Africa you say?

It’s a Yahoo! article, but the synopsis delivers.

Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice
LiveScience.com | By Stephanie Pappas

. . The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.

Hello, Dad. Rest in peace.

As suspected, low intelligence in childhood corresponded with racism in adulthood. But the factor that explained the relationship between these two variables was political: When researchers included social conservatism in the analysis, those ideologies accounted for much of the link between brains and bias.

People with lower cognitive abilities also had less contact with people of other races.

“This finding is consistent with recent research demonstrating that intergroup contact is mentally challenging and cognitively draining, and consistent with findings that contact reduces prejudice,” said Hodson, who along with his colleagues published these results online Jan. 5 in the journal Psychological Science.

The “Definer of Civilization” never met civilization? This is a scandal.

What do you say of the ‘debate’(?) about evolution when WaPo’s education columnist Jay Mathews supports teaching intelligent design in Science classes? It makes you want to punch him right in his Hiatt (in case Fred’s hanging around) . .

Santorum’s good but hated education idea
Jay Mathews | Fred’s Employer

I won’t say who is getting my vote for president. But I confess a nonpartisan desire that former senator Rick Santorum (R) remain in the race long enough to focus attention on an intriguing, if deeply controversial, educational issue.

Let’s see, maybe I have a WaPo reader hat. Or posture. *ahrrem* ‘This is intriguing. What is this controversial issue? I am a smart and reasonable man. Therefore I am interested columnist Mathews. Please good sir, tell me.’

So hang on, Senator. Show a little courage and you could spark new interest in one of the few causes we share: encouraging high school discussion of alternatives to evolutionary theory.

Teaching all sides of the evolution issue is supported in opinion polls.

‘Evolution you say? Sounds fascinating and complicated. Let’s us teach all sides of this controversy. What could be the harm? Thanks Jay, you’ve performed an invaluable service and I’ll go back to playing Angry Haystacks. Until the next fuss, taa.’

But now hear shrill Science man. He will un-intrigue and de-fascinate everything in a depressing WaPo-free manner —->

There exists a super-secret place where we scientists squirrel away the many sides of the evolution ‘debate.’ Shocking, isn’t it? We are aware of all argument traditions.

You may find the many many arguments in a school of thought called . . ‘Evolution.’ What? No kidding! It came out of arguments. Think of it as a 152 year-long Science thread. Everyone who isn’t trolling agrees that the argument currently stands: Life on Earth evolved from earlier, less complicated forms by way of natural selection operating in and upon environmental flux and genetic variation blah blah. There’s more to it, but it’s getting late.

How do you think scientists operate, incidentally? By way of conspiracy? Do you think a whole bunch of the older ones got together and planned the Theory of Evolution? Is it a product, like GM’s Chevy Volt? That’s a fine looking car, but what if I want a four door? Reasonable people want alternatives.

When something is the product of every alternative being argued and tested across a century and a half, there are no immediate alternatives. All the currently possible ‘sides’ have been exhausted. That’s how you build a great theory. Evolution is one of the greatest theories in history.

If you want to know how science guys like me feel when a WaPo columnist starts considering Martian Deconstruction for the curriculum, read this:

It is important to note that Santorum and I have different reasons for wanting high schools to allow discussion of intelligent design — the notion that some supernatural force (not necessarily God) brought life to earth.

Danger! Science is perfectly equipped to deal with us and our world. Because we exist. Science can never address the non-natural, non-existent world. We can’t tell you how often my guitar farts in the 23rd dimension. No one knows who won the lemonade parabola rodeo. Who knows what sort of hand ‘Super’ played in evolution? If there’s no evidence for it, why should science bother with it? Let’s argue about anti-weather. Let’s build skyscrapers from gestures.

The minute you drag fake things into the reality-obsessed argument, chaos ensues. The attempt to bring creationism into the world of science is an attempt to destroy science. I hope I made that clear. Also:

It was hard for me to become interested in classroom explanations of natural selection when I was a student. Introducing a contrary theory like intelligent design and having students discuss its differences from Darwinism would enliven the class.

Jay Mathews is a disgrace.

Is this news? Or should I say, “Kentucky — what did you expect?”

The school superintendent for Hart County has seen the end-of-course test for Biology, and he’s shocked. So much evolution. Is this really what we want? Is it the right thing to do?

“I have a deep concern about the increased emphasis on the evolution content required,” [Ricky D.] Line wrote. “After carefully reviewing the Blueprint, I find the increase is substantial and alarming.”

Line contends that the Blueprint essentially would “require students to believe that humans … evolved from primates such as apes and … were not created by God.”

Before we argue over what students eventually believe, I’ll say that Biology just happens to be Biology. To paraphrase a better scientist, nothing in it makes sense except in the light of evolution. There’s no way to get a grasp on one without the other. It would be like trying to teach students to be doctors while embargoing the topic of respiration.

“My argument is, do we want our children to be taught these things as facts? Personally, I don’t,” Line said. “I don’t think life on earth began as a one-celled organism. I don’t think that all of us came from a common ancestor … I don’t think the Big Bang theory describes the explanation of the origin of the universe.”

You think your personal beliefs suddenly matter? And you are . . who? A school prophet or a bureaucrat? The growing narcissism of Christians is dumbfounding. I don’t dictate your sermons, Ricky, and I’m wise enough not to be your pastor.

But, from your comments, you’re a schools chief seeking to block the teachings of a number of fields of science, including Biology, Physics and Astronomy. You oppose curiosity, rational thought, and intellectual development. As it would be with any science illiterate superintendent, you must be fired (tarred and feathered, even better).

Centuries of hard work by millions of people, all to develop these robust disciplines we know as science. What’s the result? Americans are living better, longer lives than ever before. But because of Ricky’s personal feelings, he would professionally block Hart County students from knowing about any of it.

Why do you hate America, Ricky?

Here’s no surprise: Republican Rick Perry will campaign for president as a global warming denier. Here he was yesterday addressing a group of New Hampshire businessmen:

“I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. I think we’re seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. Yes, our climates change. They’ve been changing ever since the earth was formed.”

The only thing you could commend of this statement is its professional demeanor. This is as slick a denial as you’re likely to get from a major Republican. It’s right out of the professional denialists’ playbook:

1.) Call the science politicized (hint at the CRU e-mail hacking).
2.) Hint that the scientists are greedy and opportunistic.
3.) Say the broad consensus is fractured and weakening.
4.) Appeal to morons: the weather changes, duh.

Meanwhile, the facts remain: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, there’s a lot more of it around, and the heat is rising. The overall trends of decades and centuries, the stone-cold facts, cannot be reversed by even the slickest rhetoric.

Perry’s statement is particularly striking given that so much Texas farm and cattle land have been turned into Arabian desert this year by seemingly permanent, searing heat. If ever there were a demonstration of what Texas could become without our taking climate change seriously, this Summer is it. Lastly:

“I don’t think from my perspective that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money on still a scientific theory that has not been proven, and from my perspective, is more and more being put into question.”

You want a scientific ‘fact’? Try this one: the overall theories of large-scale phenomena are never ‘proven.’ Too much of them remain permanently hidden from the sorts of views (e.g. actually seeing it occur) to allow scientists to say, “The theory is officially proven.”

The Theory of Gravity hasn’t been proven. No one’s seen a graviton, nobody’s discovered a gravity wave — gravity interactions are still deeply mysterious things. Yet, gravity continues to function in a completely predictable way. We have so much confidence in gravity that we successfully sent men to the moon and back.

Perry’s lack of science understanding is predictably dismal, and it puts him in common company with the anti-Evolutionists and regressives in his sad party. Count on him using ignorance to his routine political advantage in the coming months.

I suppose I could’ve come up with a better title, but David Brooks doesn’t earn anything more sophisticated. His New York Times op-ed on ‘end of life’ care and its costs to society is a dismal attempt at meaningful thoughts.

Rather than composing something insightful and provocative, seeing as we’re dealing with our deaths, in Death and Budgets he writes a cliche. It’s what you’d expect from a Conservative sharp enough to earn the routine praise of “He’s not that bad.”

It was a post from the wittier and far more engaging Dudley Clendinen that inspired Brooks to his latest humdrum. Dudley is dying from one of the most awful, most cruel afflictions, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Lou Gehrig’s disease. It will rob him of all his fundamental neurological functions: movement, speaking, eating, crapping and breathing. Dudley knows his future, and he’s made his plans:

When the music stops — when I can’t tie my bow tie, tell a funny story, walk my dog, talk with Whitney, kiss someone special, or tap out lines like this — I’ll know that Life is over.

It’s time to be gone.

That is awesome courage. It’s humbling to be aware of what he faces and how he’s chosen to die. Dudley will kill himself. I thank the stars for my having avoided challenges even half as terrifying, so far. I hope my luck continues.

Reflecting upon the life and approaching death of Dudley, David Brooks appreciated something else; he was struck by the appropriateness of it all. Why don’t more people do this? If only they knew.

Clendinen’s article is worth reading for the way he defines what life is. Life is not just breathing and existing as a self-enclosed skin bag. It’s doing the activities with others you were put on earth to do.

Ugh. I’d like to apologize for Brooks. I immediately recall the quadriplegics in the world who go on living difficult but meaningful lives, each an apparent “self-enclosed skin bag.” I think of the brilliant and productive Stephen Hawking, now 69. Brooks won’t sniff the edges of the boundless idea “What makes life worth living?” An over-simplification of Clendinen’s idea suffices totally for Brooks. Dreadfully lazy.

Lumbering forward, Brooks adds that our elder society aren’t really getting any better. They’re merely lingering in an enfeebled state.

Years ago, people hoped that science could delay the onset of morbidity. We would live longer, healthier lives and then die quickly. This is not happening. Most of us will still suffer from chronic diseases for years near the end of life, and then die slowly.

Huh? From where did Brooks conjure a “die quickly” objective? I don’t work in research any more, but I used to, in molecular biology. And in all my days, I never heard any rational person say that old people dying suddenly was either a likely or worthwhile development. It’s a senseless claim.

Brooks made this up, I think. If anything is the hallmark of poor medical care, it’s sudden death. This is what goes on in Third World countries, with their lacks of doctors and drugs and hospitals and research. Lingering death is what you get when you have good medical care, period. This is a good sign, David, and you should hail its arrival.

Knowing this, yes, it’s time to have some serious discussions. We are likely to end up in a chronic, debilitating condition. We should be thankful for the many years we had before we got there. But it is not incumbent upon us to bow out in a manner convenient to David Brooks . .

. . it is hard to see us reducing health care inflation seriously unless people and their families are willing to do what Clendinen is doing — confront death and their obligations to the living.

. . especially when you see what a dreadful animal of convenience he is. Clendinen, in choosing suicide, obliges no one but himself. He chooses to die, in the face of any and all of Brooks’ societal obligations, because that’s what’s best for him. Brooks comes close to lessening Clendinen’s wholly personal courage by tossing him into a utilitarian hopper. It’s clumsy and ugly, frankly.

And I can imagine someone else facing the same fate who’d write from the opposite perspective: that he or she would reject any other way out, that they would fight on, with all the indignities, to the bitter end. I promise you, I would be moved by that. And I don’t particularly care to think of what it means to society.

Accepting death in a manner appropriate to you is a daunting thing to ponder, awesome in its size and consequence. If we’re to take ‘end of life’ issues seriously, let’s avoid lazy parables. Let’s avoid lauding suicides as practical and good medical care as problematic.

Let’s also affirm that the growing tendency of the dying to be capable of hanging on is a positive development. This is a choice mankind never had before. Let’s agree lack of medical care prevented millions of people from getting the opportunity to say ‘yes’ to this particular fate. Let’s admit that David’s friends, the insurance companies, have been sentencing people to premature death for decades, and this is not a solution. It has been an anti-societal abomination. Let’s call out David’s buddies for their war on science and scientists in the form of Bible-based Creationism and head-banging Global Warming denials. When a medical ‘scientist’ tells you your condition will deteriorate and result in death, you’ve got to be able to accept his prognosis. Given the most important decision of your life, you’ve got to know he isn’t lying.

When everyone has the right to hang on long after perhaps we’d predict, then we can have a robust discussion about what’s best for all of society. After.

Every Conservative’s favorite professor, David Barton, visited Christian TV’s Celebration. That’s when American History fairly reached through the viewer’s flat screen, past the den, into the library, where it punched Encyclopedia Britannica’s nutsack:

I had no idea Thomas Paine was a Creationist. The revelation is noteworthy in light of Darwin’s publishing The Origin of Species in 1859, a year after Robert E. Lee shot the Bismarck in a duel.

Global Warming? GLOBAL WARMING? No way, dude! How do I know? Beeeccaauuuse . . whatever! You people are stupid!

Speaking of which, some sorry doomsday-er writing for a broken-down self-publishing site wrote a hilarious piece of guffaw science a couple days ago. Boy, the Global Warming deniers did lap it up. Like it was truffle syrup:

Magnetic polar shifts causing massive global superstorms
by Terrence Aym | Salem-News | Feb 4, 2011

NASA has been warning about it…scientific papers have been written about it…geologists have seen its traces in rock strata and ice core samples…

Now “it” is here: an unstoppable magnetic pole shift that has sped up and is causing life-threatening havoc with the world’s weather.

Forget about global warming—man-made or natural—what drives planetary weather patterns is the climate and what drives the climate is the sun’s magnetosphere and its electromagnetic interaction with a planet’s own magnetic field.

Terrence Aym discovered the real cause of Earth’s weather: his mind.

The magnetic field drives weather to a significant degree and when that field starts migrating superstorms start erupting.

The superstorms have arrived.

Did you get that? Here it is, again:

Solar Winds –> Shifting Poles –> Boogie Shoes –> Blue 32 –> SUPERSTORMS

No? Fine, let’s let the science experts from the Point N. Laff Institute for Wingnuttery explain it:

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT…
Posted by John Hinderaker | Power Line | February 5, 2011

…try this: the Earth’s northern magnetic pole is speeding to the East at an accelerating rate, and the North and South magnetic poles may be about to change places . .

The problem, for those who tend to worry, is that only one Doomsday scenario has to turn out to be true for us to be in big trouble.

That problem would be for all of us, regardless. But . . WAIT! This just in — more breaking news of global catastrophe . .

How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a ‘world-killing’ event
by Terrence Aym | Helium.com

Ominous reports are leaking past the BP Gulf salvage operation news blackout that the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico may be about to reach biblical proportions.

251 million years ago a mammoth undersea methane bubble caused massive explosions, poisoned the atmosphere and destroyed more than 96 percent of all life on Earth . .

The bottom line: BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling operation may have triggered an irreversible, cascading geological Apocalypse that will culminate with the first mass extinction of life on Earth in many millions of years.

WELL. What say you of Terrence “you’re dead to me” Aym, Professor Moran?

Earth’s Magnetic Pole Flipping?
by Rick Moran | Right Wing Nuthouse | 2/6/2011

. . There’s good news and bad news here. The good news is that there appears to be absolutely nothing we can do to affect what is happening. In other words, there won’t be any “mangnetic [sic] credits” or “geo-magneto swap” schemes to enrich the Al Gores of the world. I’m pretty sure magnets won’t be outlawed nor will magnetism be declared hazardous to our health.

The bad news is Jesus is coming and he’s taking names and kicking butt.

So, the Great Jesus Pole Dance of Magnetic Apocalypse: you bet. Global Warming: don’t be stupid!

Hey, Terrence? What of this ‘Jesus’?

Astronomers now predict killer asteroid will hit Earth in 2036
by Terrence Aym | Helium.com

Grim astronomers in Russia have recalculated the trajectory of the ominous asteroid Apophis and now predict it will slam into Earth on April 13, 2036 . .

Yes, here he comes. And he’s a hard man. Dr. Ledeen? Your thoughts?

So Maybe it Was Global Freezing After All?
By Michael Ledeen | National Review | February 5, 2011

The Russians have been saying it for decades, and maybe it’s true. Here is a compelling roundup of the recent literature that suggests that. It’s great reading for us “we do not live in a benevolent universe” types (I’m a longtime Velikovsky fan). If true, it’s kinda important. I’m going to invest in cashmere futures …

The “compelling roundup” of science literature is, of course, the Magneto-Superstorm! article by the ironically self-styled Renaissance man, Terrence Aym. This guy:

How Brilliant Computer Scientists Solved the Bermuda Triangle Mystery
Terrence Aym | Salem-News | Aug-06-2010

(CHICAGO) – According to two research scientists the mystery of vanished ships and airplanes in the region dubbed “The Bermuda Triangle” has been solved.

Step aside outer space aliens, time anomalies, submerged giant Atlantean pyramids and bizarre meteorological phenomena … the “Triangle” simply suffers from an acute case of gas . .

And the link is already dead.

ADD: The post is back up. And WHEW, cuz, you know . . freaky.

Oklahoma Lawmaker Sally Kern Proposes Bill That Forces Teachers To Question Evolution
Think Progress | Jan 28 2011

State Rep. Sally Kern (R) has proposed the second anti-evolution bill this year in Oklahoma. Entitled the “Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act,” the bill, which will be first considered next month, would require the state and local authorities to “assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies” and permit teachers to “help students understand, analyze, critique, and review” the scientific strengths and weaknesses of “existing theories . .”

Wait — haven’t I seen her somewhere before?

But the only topics mentioned in the bill as contestable are “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”

I have seen her before. Hang on . .

Kern also proclaimed that homosexuality is comparable to “toe-cancer” and that “it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam. Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it’s the death knell of this country.”

I bumped into her at a spa . .

. . in Nagano.

Global Warming data:

Himalayan glaciers not melting because of climate change, report finds
Himalayan glaciers are actually advancing rather than retreating, claims the first major study since a controversial UN report said they would be melted within quarter of a century.

That’s NOT what the study says. Science reporting is crap, and the Telegraph sucks. I don’t say this because I just read the journal article, I say it because THAT’S WHAT THE TELEGRAPH’S OWN REPORTING SAYS:

The new study by scientists at the Universities of California and Potsdam has found that half of the glaciers in the Karakoram range, in the northwestern Himlaya, are in fact advancing and that global warming is not the deciding factor in whether a glacier survives or melts.

Their report, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found the key factor affecting their advance or retreat is the amount of debris – rocks and mud – strewn on their surface, not the general nature of climate change.

Glaciers surrounded by high mountains and covered with more than two centimetres of debris are protected from melting.

The melting of glaciers is a complicated process. Those glaciers between high mountains (providing shade, I assume) and covered in debris are growing while others are melting. So access to direct sunlight may be a critical factor? Okay.

What does this say about Anthropogenic Global Warming? Does it counter the theory? If all 264 glaciers were growing, I’d say ‘maybe, YES.’ So no. Does it support AGW? On its face, no.

To me, it says that climate change is not so monstrous a beast that it’s overwhelming all other factors and turning the world into a big pool of water overnight.

More generally of AGW stuff — what can we say? I think we can all agree on these three things:

1.) Carbon dioxide is DEFINITELY a greenhouse gas. It absorbs and returns infrared radiation (heat).
2.) The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is DEFINITELY up over the last 100 years. Up something like 35%.
3.) The temperature of the globe is DEFINITELY creeping up over the last 100 years. Probably longer. The 10 hottest years on recent record (since 1880) occurred since 1997:

No matter what anybody else tells you, if they can’t agree on those three things, there can be no discussion. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this complicated issue, and that’s where I’m convinced by the data.

Meanwhile, Don Surber’s version of ‘crunching the data’ amounts to ‘NYAH NYAH.’ While the new study probably adds much more detail to the understanding of the dynamics of Himalayan glaciation trends, eclipsing a previous report that said all glaciers were retreating, HA HA HA:

Three years after this [previous] report was issued — after it received a Nobel Prize — teh UN changed teh date to 2305, citing a typo.

This came in the wake of Climategate which pretty much was the last nail in the coffin for this crackpot theory.

I love how the right trot out the most unserious, un-schooled, overwrought dinks to debate science. Don thinks that stolen e-mails make reams of data disappear. Very sensible. He probably thinks the Earth will suddenly stop warming tomorrow, and everybody will just somehow realize it, and there’ll be a big parade where we carry Don our shoulders to a convention hall full of football trophies, chicken wings and beer.

Wow.

You want to know why I believe this study over the UN? Because it makes sense.

Nyah Nyah.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield, British former surgeon and author of a famous Lancet paper that purported to link autism to MMR vaccines, drew his harshest professional criticism yesterday. The British medical journal BMJ, relying on the latest work by noted investigative journalist Brian Deer, alleged that his autism study “was in fact an elaborate fraud.” Wakefield denied the allegation, decrying the claim an “attempt to crush any attempt to investigate valid vaccine safety concerns.”

This allegation by BMJ is the latest of many calling into question both the study’s science and the doctor’s credibility. The 1998 paper in Lancet linked childhood autism to the MMR vaccine by way of a hypothetical gastrointestinal inflammation that occurred immediately after MMR administration. Wakefield theorized that the inflammation systematically released gut proteins that then attacked the children’s brains.

Growing scientific criticism and Deer’s original investigative report on the study in 2004 resulted in almost all the doctor’s co-authors retracting their conclusions. Deer showed that Wakefield had been in the substantial pay of lawyers with an interest in suing over an alleged vaccine/autism link, a revelation that the editor of Lancet called “fatal conflict of interest.” Wakefield denied that his being paid or that refusing to disclose payments were problematic. No credible, large-scale study has supported Wakefield’s theory of the autism/vaccine link.

Deer’s latest work, which relies upon medical records, alleges that the 12 children Wakefield based his study upon either did not subsequently become autistic, did not have GI inflammation, or had it before the vaccine. In other words, the vaccine –> inflammation –> autism theoretical cascade was a virtual impossibility from the beginning because the 12 cases were wildly different: they didn’t or couldn’t suddenly develop inflammation and autism. The only conclusion is that Wakefield falsified the patient data to make them fit his hypothesis. [via]

How bad was the deception?

First of all, in order for this all to make sense, the children had to have what is known as “regressive autism”. In other words, they had to have been fine — normal, in fact — and then get much worse after the MMR shot, developing autism. Children who obviously weren’t right from the start would have had something wrong already, and not have autism caused by the MMR vaccine. In Wakefield’s paper, he described 9 of the 12 children as having regressive autism. Mr. Deer’s investigation found that three of the 9 children he reported as regressive autism were not. Moreover, an additional 5 of the remaining 6 could not be proven to have regressive autism. So — at best — only 6 of the 12 children in the study had regressive autism; more likely, only one did.

Next, Wakefield’s paper alleged that a colitis brought on by the vaccine is what led the shot to become so damaging. In his paper, he reported that 11 of 12 of the children had a nonspecific colitis. What did the records show? That only 3 of the 12 had nonspecific colitis. The other 6 cases were falsified.

And, of course, the final piece of the puzzle was that symptoms needed to start not long after the vaccine was given. In Wakefield’s paper, 8 of the 12 patients reported symptoms days after the MMR. Mr. Deer’s investigation confirmed that for 10 of the 12 children, this was false. For the other two it was unknown. So — at best — 2 of the 12 children showed symptoms near the vaccine. At worst, none did.

BMJ continues:

Furthermore, Wakefield has been given ample opportunity either to replicate the paper’s findings, or to say he was mistaken. He has declined to do either. He refused to join 10 of his coauthors in retracting the paper’s interpretation in 2004, and has repeatedly denied doing anything wrong at all. Instead, although now disgraced and stripped of his clinical and academic credentials, he continues to push his views.

Last year, Wakefield was stripped of his ability to practice medicine in Britain, and Lancet took the extraordinary step of retracting the paper, citing falsifications and unethical medical practices. Wakefield now operates an autism-oriented facility in Austin, Texas, called Thoughtful House Center for Children. His currently heroic status as a fighter for autistic children can be directly traced back to the original Lancet study and the immediate and long-lasting press he’s gotten for supposedly establishing the link:

At a press conference held by the Royal Free medical school, London, in conjunction with the publication, Wakefield recommended separating the three components of the injections by at least a year. The paper, press conference, a video news release, and resulting media coverage were linked to a steep decline in vaccination rates in the United Kingdom.

It also led to declines in vaccinations in America, too. The hangover from the fraudulent study is twofold: vaccines are still baselessly viewed with fear, and childhood cases of measles and mumps continue to rise in both countries. Deaths have resulted.

In Britain, immunisation rates collapsed from 92% before the Lancet paper was published, to 80% at the peak of Britain’s alarm. Measles has returned as officially “endemic”.

With less than 95% of the population vaccinated, Britain has lost its herd immunity against the disease. In 1998 there were 56 cases reported; last year there were 1,348, according to figures released last week that showed a 36% increase on 2007. Two British children have died from measles, and others put on ventilators, while many parents of autistic children torture themselves for having let a son or daughter receive the injection.

“There’s not a day go by I don’t cry because of what happened,” said the mother of a severely disabled 12-year-old girl. “I shouldn’t have took her [for the MMR], and you know everyone will say, ‘Don’t blame yourself’, but I do. I blame myself.”