Comments for The Geek Manifesto

Comment on About Mark Henderson by How I write about science 2013: Mark Henderson | Wellcome Trust Blog

How I write about science 2013: Mark Henderson | Wellcome Trust Blog — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 05:55:24 +0000

[...] Mark Henderson is Head of Communications at the Wellcome Trust, former Science Editor of The Times and author of The Geek Manifesto. [...]

Comment on Five things not to do if you must write up an Andrew Wakefield press release by “The Independent” makes a mess on MMR but at least tries to rectify | drpaulmorgan

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 12:17:56 +0000

[...] http://geekmanifesto.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/five-things-not-to-do-if-you-must-write-up-an-andrew-w… [...]

Comment on Five things not to do if you must write up an Andrew Wakefield press release by Friday Bites – 19/04/2013 | PsyBites

Friday Bites – 19/04/2013 | PsyBites — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:37:52 +0000

[...] Recently you may have seen news of a certain measles outbreak, which seems to boil down to a disastrous case of science gone wrong. Andrew Wakefield, the man responsible for drawing a nonexistent link between measles and autism, essentially put a lot of parents off giving their children the MMR vaccine, with the effects only now surfacing in regions that put his original work to press. Whilst Wakefield diverts responsibility to the government, one journalist understandably reflects on the things that shouldn’t be included in an Andrew Wakefield press release. [...]

Comment on Five things not to do if you must write up an Andrew Wakefield press release by John Davies

John Davies — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 23:31:36 +0000

There’s a spat above, between Jake and others, about the validity of the Wakefield ‘research’. We should all be grateful to Brian Deer, who did the work, and has summarised it here, showing that debating the ‘research’s’ validity and application is futile, because it was done for money, paid up front for the result that the payers demanded, so that it is worthless.

John

Comment on Five things not to do if you must write up an Andrew Wakefield press release by dingo199

dingo199 — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:20:31 +0000

Thanks Jake for admitting that you purposely cherrypick and misquote, and that you are too dim to understand that this alters the meaning of the statement.
I do hope your thesis supervisor at George Washington University has taken note.

Comment on Five things not to do if you must write up an Andrew Wakefield press release by PedroStephano

PedroStephano — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:18:44 +0000

(6) don’t, whatever you do, use the word “doctor” as he’s not, neither in UK nor USA

Comment on Five things not to do if you must write up an Andrew Wakefield press release by Colin

Colin — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 06:45:09 +0000

Jake,

I think you are being deliberately misleading here. Clearly you believe and no facts will stop you.

Cochrane was commenting on the “design and reporting” of safety studies. The fact that a study is not set up or reported well, does not necessarily mean the results are not valid. Cochrane are experts at putting together summary results from a combination of studies. They have done that with all the MMR studies they could use, and then reached their final conclusion. There is no link to Autism. This combined study is following the cases of millions of children. The results are statistically and scientifically overwhelming. There is no doubt.

Wakefield own study on a mere 13 children was extremely flawed, in both design and reporting. It was a self-selected sample and didn’t get ethics approval. It reported facts that didn’t stand up to the data. The data was also manipulated to “prove” the result Wakefield wanted. Others looking at the same data set have questioned even whether any but one of the children actually had Autism. Which means you have to take a case of one child versus the millions in Cochrane,

Only people who deny the very clear evidence will doubt MMR is safe.

Comment on Five things not to do if you must write up an Andrew Wakefield press release by Jake Crosby

Jake Crosby — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 05:08:52 +0000

“Again you give misinformation.” Your quote does not contradict what I said.

“I think the relevant cherry-picked, out of context Cochrane quote is actually: “The design and reporting of safety studies is largely inadequate”.

My quoting “largely inadequate” wasn’t “cherry-picked” or “out of context” – simply more concise.

Comment on Five things not to do if you must write up an Andrew Wakefield press release by L@rgEy

L@rgEy — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:36:11 +0000

Jake, are you also a Scientologist, per chance?

Comment on Five things not to do if you must write up an Andrew Wakefield press release by Tom

Tom — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:00:28 +0000

Getting back to the science for a moment – Jake, can I ask you a couple of things, do you reckon there is good evidence that MMR can lead to autism? And do you think that every scientist and clinician who says there is no link is part of the vaccine lobby?

And Jill, do you think that a judge’s deciding to award damages is proof of a causal link?