Thursday, January 28, 2010

Dr Wakefield found guilty, anyone surprised?

As I predicted a week ago, Britan's General Medical Council has found that Dr Wakefield acted "dishonestly and irresponsibly" and showed a "showed a callous disregard" for the suffering of children.  I think the GMC also suggested that he steals candy from babies and pushes elderly women down stairs in his spare time.

If you are interested you can read about it here or here or here or here or here, just to name a few places.

Now, is anyone surprised that the GMC came down on Dr Wakefield like a ton of bricks?

You shouldn't be.  I believe the outcome was preordained when the case started two and a half years ago.  The medical establishment is determined to have their pound of flesh from Dr. Wakefield and they are going to get it.

I haven't been able to get a copy of the ruling but most of the media reports that I have read have focused on the  blood draw at the birthday party without talking about the other charges.  There were a good number of other charges so it will be interesting to see what the final ruling has to say.  I expect it will say that he is guilty (or whatever the term is) of most of the other charges as well.

In somewhat sad news, Age of Autism is carrying a story about organizations filing complaints with the GMC alleging that participants in the proceedings against  Dr. Wakefield's hearing gave false statements and testimony.  I don't know if these allegations have any merit or not but at this point I have to say - give it a rest already.  You have lost this round and it is time to move on.  Even if everything that you say is true, you aren't going to win.  It is time to cut your loses and move on.

I know it is long past time for the autism community to move on.

Updated : If you are interested in the text of the ruling it is available from Age of Autism here.

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