The reference links for the strip are in the next blog entry.
Now! Let's have a heated debate!
2013 update. Since I wrote this blog entry, this cartoon strip as well as many others on such subjects as homeopathy, chiropratic, evolution, and the supposed NASA Moon hoax landings, have been published in a book: Science Tales in the UK (Myriad Edtions) and How To Fake A Moon Landing in the US and Canada (Abrams). Here's the link to my main blog.
I am Darryl Cunningham and this is my main blog.
So I am spreading this link to all my friends so they can finally see the truth. Thank you again for making this, I just wish more people could see it!
For his "controls," Wakefield bribed children 20 pds each at a child's birthday party to give blood. Here's a Youtube video of him laughing at how the children were vomiting and fainting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTHDKNEx3lo
His behaviour verges on psychopathic in my view, and it's astonishing he carries any moral authority with anyone concerning anything at all.
Thank God he was let go from his job at Thoughtful House: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/19/wakefield-quits-texas-autism-centre
When I was first diagnosed with IIH I had to have LPs every two weeks. The thought of that being done, unnecessarily to kids, makes me want to vomit. I was 22 and I thought I was going to die from the pain, it was so scary, and I knew what was happening. Wakefield is a criminal.
I fought sleep to go get her medicine from the pharmacy, made it home, gave her her first dose and went to sleep. Fast forward 7 hours or so after I had finally gotten some sleep and I decided to read the pamphlet that came with the tamiflu... "DO NOT GIVE TO CHILDREN UNDER 1! NO CLINICAL STUDIES HAVE BEEN DONE ON CHILDREN UNDER AGE 1. IN CHILDREN UNDER 3 TAMIFLU IS KNOWN TO CAUSE GREATLY INCREASED RISK FEREBRAL SEIZURES." Even more enraged, I threw the medicine away. 9 days later we were all fine, sick of being sick, but fine nonetheless. I haven't been back to Children's Hospital and I doubt I will ever go back to them.
I've suffered permanent nerve damage because of a doctor who couldn't be bothered with actually looking up known side-effects in the PDR and INCREASED my dosage in hopes of treating the symptoms the medication itself was causing. (Nothing crippling, but it does get painful; the only thing that keeps it under control, alas, is Valium, which is getting increasingly hard to get because "everybody knows" it's dangerous despite the decades of evidence that it's effective and safe for most users... but that's another story.)
And I know two other people who have suffered medically because of his ill-considered prescriptions, yet the guy is not only still practicing, in this small town there's no one else to turn to for his specialty; people kiss up to him because his approval is needed to get access to certain treatments.
Yep, it's a scary world, and sometimes the people who are supposed to keep us safe are the scariest part.
Small babies do not show serious infections in the same way as everyone else, particularly with respect to blood tests. Babies can be seriously ill with relatively normal tests (or tests with very mild abnormalities). Having said that, the critical age is under 4 weeks, but until the age of three months, doctors need to be very, very careful with them. The reason doctors want to perform lumbar punctures where possible (and indicated) on babies is because it will direct a specific course of management including the actual antibiotic they give as well as the duration of treatment (meningitis requires longer courses than blood or urine infections). Babies also tolerate procedures we would consider painful extremely well, provided adequate comfort measures and reassurances are given. I agree with you (and the second doctor you saw) that doing simple, less-invasive investigations first is the correct course of action. In my practice, I often mention lumbar punctures as a possibility for further investigation depending on the results of the initial tests. Also, it's important to remember that it is possible to have bacterial seeding into the CSF (the fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord which is what we sample on lumbar puncture) from a primary infection elsewhere and that the important thing is knowing how long to treat the infection for and whether further investigations in the future (such as brain scans, hearing tests, etc) are required to determine the extent of damage caused by certain types of meningitis. Partially-treated meningitis can be extremely problematic and therapy to minimise long-term damage is vital, should it be the case.
Very few medications are actually licensed for children under one year because the pharmaceutical companies often struggle to recruit babies into trials (plus there is considerable financial burden). Doctors (specifically paediatricians) are aware of this and utilise their knowledge of both the drugs and infant physiology to recommend specific unlicensed treatments. Tamiflu (oseltamivir), once it was being used during the H1N1 crisis a few years ago, was found to be particularly problematic in children and it was ceased to be used in kids in Australia (with some specific exceptions where the risks of the drug side-effects were outweighed by the risks of influenza on those individuals). We regularly saw kids coming back in with vomiting and headaches after Tamiflu administration.
However, your description of your experience sounds awful: when your kids are sick it's the worst thing in the world, made worse only by you being sick at the same time. You have my sincerest sympathies for the stress you experienced and I hope that you never experience something so stressful again.
Fuck off