Pathetic!

As I've said several thousand times already, whatever you think happens when kids are injected with MMR, the performance of science's political wing has been a disgrace. These latest smears against Wakefield mark a new low.

Apart from anything else, the smear doesn't even make sense in the context of the scienceistas' own narrative. They have previously tried to cast Wakefield as an unhinged fanatic, yet now they claim he was actually a mercenary scuzball all along. Hello ? Which is it ? Crusader or hired gun ?

We'll leave aside the point that if Wakefield was really motivated by money then he would surely have done better to bow before the scienceistas, repent his heresy and accept the inevitable high-profile professorship in a top uni with a lifetime supply of grant money. What's really objectionable about these allegations is the sheer chutzpah of it all.

Wakefield, according to the official narrative, is untrustworthy because at the time he did his research into MMR he was also working on a similar study for the Legal Aid Board to investigate whether parents sueing over MMR-related damage had a case worth funding. In other words, Wakefield supposedly spun the study the way the parents wanted so that.... what exactly ? What did Wakefield hope to gain from producing bent results ? What was his payoff ? Even if you believe that he who pays the piper gets to pick the tune, note that the study was funded by the Legal Aid Board, an independant organisation funded by a government that had stood to face a firestorm if MMR was proven dangerous. If there was any pressure to spin, it was hardly in the direction of whistleblowing.

So, first principles tells us these allegations are ultralame. That's without taking into account that they were so shocking in nature that it was six years before anyone felt moved to comment on them. What does it mean when people dig up charges from half a decade ago ? Desperation, usually. But, here's the bit that really sticks in the throat: Big Science says Wakefield can't be trusted because, via an independant third party, he had a relationship with people who had an interest in him producing a specific result. Quick, someone buy the scienceistas a mirror. From day one this government has invested a lot of political capital in the safety of MMR - enough to ensure bankruptcy if the wheels come off - so how about the Lancet telling us how many of Wakefield's critics have received money from the government, are receiving money from the government or aim to in the future ?

It's not as if the government is even subtle about its attempts to spin the debate:

John Reid, the Health Secretary, yesterday backed calls for an independent inquiry. He urged the General Medical Council to mount an investigation "as a matter of urgency".

No tilt there then. It's just a pity John Reid doesn't feel the same need for an inquiry into the wider issue of MMR itself. Then again, is there a better metaphor for the whole debate than John Reid trying to pass off a witch hunt as an inquiry ? The whole debate has suffered from the self-evident contradiction in members of the scientific establishment issuing forth vacuous puff pieces about their role as disintrested seekers after truth while not denying themselves the use of any loathsome and underhand political trick. These latest non-revelations are just the latest example. We certainly should trust science, it's just the scientists that bear watching. You'd get more honesty out of an MP - at least they have some residual understanding of their role as public servants.