Here's a real medical scandal for What Doctors Don't Tell You

If the scandalous rag What Doctors Don't Tell You had any real pretentions to bringing to light the abominable things that some people within the medical profession do, they should consider plastering this story over their front cover.  It is worthy of an expose

A doctor, a surgeon no less, has been found to be receiving cash from a solicitor working on a case against the manufacturers of a vaccine.  The doctor is being paid to provide evidence for a disease that doesn't actually exist to help a possible court case.  Over several years, the doctor nets £440,000. At the same time, the doctor is developing a vaccine that, he hopes, will be used in place of the currently used one, thereby making him a fortune from the patent. 

In the course of preparing to publish on the fictitious disease, the doctor carries out some tests that are not ethically acceptable, on children.  Some are done at a children's party. Records are ignored or changed.  Results that contradict the fictitious disease are not used. The paper that is finally published is not in line with the original research proposal. 

Isn't this the sort of story that WDDTY should be highlighting?

Well, in a way they do.

The latest issue of the frankly irresponsible monthly, What Doctors Don't Tell You has expanded its letters page, possibly because there is less advertising, possibly because some of the unthinking readers have actually put a finger to the keyboard and sent something in.  One thing for certain, the right to reply won't extend to letters that contradict their party line.  And that party line is that the doctor whose story I have outlined above, is not a fraud who treated children despicably but has been responsible for one of the most egregious of scientific frauds of recent times but is actually a hero.

Because on the letters page is this:

Dear WDDTY, further to the autism article (April 2014), I sat through some of the GMC [General Medical Council] hearings on Dr Andrew Wakefield, and it's difficult after speaking to the parents of the autistic children in his study not to draw some parallels with the MMR vaccine.

In each case, the child was progressing normally and then began to show autistic tendencies within days of having the vaccination.  I really can't see how it could be a coincidence in every single case.

I very much got the impression that Dr Wakefield and his colleagues were being 'hung out to dry' by the GMC for even suggesting a problem with medicine's Holy Grail of vaccinations. The fact that the GMC allowed mass murderer Dr Harold Shipman to keep his licence probably tells us everything we need to know!

Gary Long, Devon

If What Doctors Don't Tell You really were interested in living up to their title, they would have consigned Andrew Wakefield (note, he's not a doctor any more) to the file labelled fraud.  He's not a fraud like the imaginary frauds of the climate science deniers.  He is one whose fraud has been well documented, tested in tribunal and shown to be real. 

Wakefield and Shipman show two sides of the same coin of evilness.  Who knows how many people have died at their hands?  Remember, deaths from measles in the UK were unknown for many years until 2006.  Shipman killed deliberately, in cold blood. Wakefield has not directly killed anyone but his efforts to taint a perfectly good vaccine has resulted in may unnecessary cases of measles, mumps and rubella over the last sixteen years.  Have any died as a result?  We cannot tell for certain but if the man could show a conscience, it might help.

It is National Infant Vaccination Week in the States.  Vaccinate your children.  My granddaughter is up to date on hers because her mother has the sense to plan for the future and not trust to luck.

Gary Long of Devon, you are so wrong.