The Italian court that linked MMR with autism used Wakefield's BS from the Lancet as its "proof"

[Godhumor]

That's right, the Judge accepted as "overwhelming evidence" the thoroughly discredited and rescinded Wakefield paper as proof of the link between autism and the MMR vaccine.

Obviously, the Scientific Board of Vaccination schedules is not taking this lying down and wrote a very strong response to both the judge and the Ministry of Health, which is expected to appeal the decision.

Original Italian article found below:
http://www.agi.it/cronaca/notizie/201204101355-cro-rt10101-salute_sconcerto_per_legame_vaccino_trivalente_mpr_e_autismo

Google Translate highlights (so ignore the grammar and strange words)

The Scientific Board of the Vaccine Schedule for Life, which brings together figures of high standing of Hygiene and Health 'Public, General Medicine, Pediatrics, the territorial hospital and university-company headed by' Scientific and Medical Associations - Societa 'Italian of Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Health 'Public (SItI); Italian Federation of General Practitioners (FIMMG); Italian Federation Doctors Paediatricians (FIMP); Company' Italian of Pediatrics (SIP), expressed "strong dismay at the recent judgment of the Court The Rimini returns to associate vaccine Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), Kanner's Syndrome, better known as Autism. " The medical journal Lancet, says a note of Federations, has officially withdrawn the study on possible links between autism and MMR trivalent vaccine. The article, published in 1998 and written by British doctor Andrew Wakefield, and 'was due to a long scientific dispute lasted almost 12 years.

Wakefield claimed that the vaccine was due to intestinal infections, in turn linked to Kanner's syndrome. His claims were discredited by the scientific world, and were at the base of one of the most 'major litigation in the history of medicine. Unfortunately, the note continues, the false thesis proposals led to a strong decrease in the number of vaccinations in the United States, Britain and other parts of Europe, with the result, in many cases disastrous, a sudden increase in cases of measles and its complications, including several cases of encephalitis and death.

...

The board "recommends that those who are 'called to judge - Commissions under Law 210/92 included - take the most rigorous scientific and especially sustainability' of claims, judgments and assessments based on acquisitions universally recognized. It is also unusual that the judgment can ignore the motives and actions of the community 'in both national and international, inter alia, has the right and duty to protect all workers for the sole purpose to practice the profession with the necessary medical and legal guarantees. Unfortunately, decisions like the one just issued are likely to have only one result in loss of confidence in a key preventive tool for the health of children and the entire population, with subsequent re-emergence of serious and sometimes fatal diseases such as measles, leading however, the parents of children with a serious illness such as autism the false belief that he had found the reason of so many sufferings.

...

Finally, "the Board expects that the Ministry of Health as a defendant in the case which challenged the decision at first instance, wants to propose at the Appeal Court of Bologna. In this regard, the Board members are willing to assist the Attorney State by providing advice and literature that serves to reiterate the lex artis and in particular the inability 'to configure the specific immunization with prior causal value in causing autism. "

---------------------------------------

So, in conclusion, the entire court case is based on discredited bullshit and has almost no chance at all of surviving an appeal.

I really thought we saw the end of the Wakefield/Lancet bullshit. Guess not.

[Odin2005]

1. + Infinity!

[Godhumor]

2. Bumping for the morning crew n/t

[hobbit709]

3. But meanwhile the antivaxxers will continue to believe.

[gotnoscript]

4. Nice try

No where do I read that the judge used Wakefield's research as the basis of his decision. All this is is a rebuttal to his decision that cite's Wakefield's witch hunt. Meanwhile a lawsuit by Merck whistleblowers is in court alleging that Merck fabricated the efficacy of its mumps vaccine so that it could receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money. Get a grip DU'ers. Vaccines are a toxic sludge pushed by big pharma which brought you the same scandal as the Vioxx drug which killed thousands, except in this case vaccines are maiming millions for diseases that can easily be prevented with good nutrition and sanitation.

[Godhumor]

5. Um, that's because I only linked to the rebuttal....

But feel free to go Google some Italian websites about the response to the decision that shows the argument that brewed over the discredited BS as the basis for the evidence between actual scientists and anti-vac nutters.

And to the other part of your rant, anti-vaccination is child abuse, plain and simple.

[gotnoscript]

7. No.

You do the work and supply the evidence yourself. As for rants, you seem to be pretty good at it yourself. Show me two studies: 1) The vaccinated are healthier than the completely unvaccinated among the same population and 2) The rate of autism is the same among the completely unvaccinated as in the vaccinated. Good luck.

[Godhumor]

9. The entirety of scientific evidence sports vaccines. The entirety

I'm not sure why some people can't accept that fact. And yes it is fact. And the rebuttal above directly calls out use of the discredited Wakefield scam by the court.

I'd ask your for proof of your positions, but there isn't any. Again not vaccinating children is child abuse--nothing you could possibly say will change that fact either.

[gotnoscript]

11. Nonsense.

I'm a researcher working at a major University and I've done the research. There are plenty of studies showing the dangers of vaccines and how they cause all sorts of immune disorders. Your statement shows your complete ignorance and you're dogma has little affect over me.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

13. and I am a prize fighter, airline pilot, professional baseball player

and a bunch of other crap that I cannot prove on the intertubes...

sP

[Godhumor]

16. Let's see the research then

Actual scientific research, not discredited, not without peer-review, not crap linked to by anti-vac sites.

And my "dogma" is at least based on scientific consensus. Yours is based on literally nothing substantial.

[gotnoscript]

19. Really?

And you know that for a fact? No self doubts at all? So only research from pro-vaccine, pharmaceutical funded sources are allowed. You're gaming the system. Arguing with someone who holds such rigidity is futile.

[Godhumor]

21. Asking for research following the scientific method is rigidity?

Hey, what's the sound a duck makes?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

24. yeah...ONE peer reviewed study...

JUST ONE...please... (won't hold my breath).


sP

[obamanut2012]

22. is this the same university where Jenny McCarthy brags about

Getting her medical degree? The University of Google?

[cpwm17]

6. When I was a kid mumps and chicken pox were a normal parts of growing up

I got both of them.

Vaccines have almost eliminated them in the US. The anti-vaxers have caused these diseases to make a comeback - that's outrageous.

A little before my time, polio was a major problem. When vaccinations were introduced in the US, polio almost instantly disappeared in the US. Nutrition has nothing to do with it.

The anti-vaxers are dangerous kooks.

[cpwm17]

10. Learn some history. It wasn't that long ago these deseases were major problems in the US

Jonas Salk was an American hero for his work in eliminating polio with the vaccine he developed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk

Until 1955, when the Salk vaccine was introduced, polio was considered the most frightening public health problem of the post-war United States. Annual epidemics were increasingly devastating. The 1952 epidemic was the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 people died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis,[1] with most of its victims being children. The "public reaction was to a plague", said historian William O'Neill. "Citizens of urban areas were to be terrified every summer when this frightful visitor returned." According to a 2009 PBS documentary, "Apart from the atomic bomb, America's greatest fear was polio."[2] As a result, scientists were in a frantic race to find a way to prevent or cure the disease. U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt was the world's most recognized victim of the disease and founded the organization that would fund the development of a vaccine.

[NickB79]

12. Someone needs to take a walk amongst the tombstones

And I'm not talking about how we tombstone trolls here at DU. I'm talking about literal tombstones, in century-old graveyards. Then you could see the massive number of children who died from communicable diseases before the advent of vaccines.

[obamanut2012]

23. +1

[NickB79]

14. Yeah, smallpox is totally treatable with some vitamin D and soap.

[obamanut2012]

20. Vaccines save untold millions from death and disfigurement

There are people alive who have lived decades and decades in an iron lung. Go ask them if vax are "toxic sludge."

[SidDithers]

15. Thanks for the details...

Sid

[obamanut2012]

17. Giuliano Mignini, suing scientists for earthquakes, and this

Gawd, the Italian justice system is more screwed up than ours.

Basing a verdict on discredited junk studies by a discredited "doctor." For shame.

Thanks so much for posting this, Godhumor!

[xchrom]

18. Du rec. Nt