Hilary's Desk

Following on from my previous two posts here, and here, I decided to dig just a wee bit deeper. Why? Because there was one sentence in Michael J Smith’s study which I couldn’t work out. It was this: "Finally, our analyses were limited to publicly available data from the original study. Future VSD studies without this restriction would be able to assess a wider range of outcomes. These include putative vaccine adverse effects such as neurodevelopmental delay, autism, and autoimmune disorders." Lets rephrase this. If Michael J Smith’s study wasn’t restricted to solely using the publicly available data from the original study, he would have been able to study neurodevelopmental delay? …… But hang on! Wasn’t that the WHOLE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY? To reassure parents that vaccinating on time wouldn’t cause neurodevelopmental delay? So….What exactly were these data limitations, Michael?  Why didn't you specify them in your study? Read Full Blog

Further to yesterday's blog about Michael J Smith's opinion piece in Pediatrics, telling us not very much, a very interesting observation on it was made here, in post 9 for those who want the specific place.  Read Full Blog

Today, Pediatrics published a retrospective study with the above title, which purportedly provides the "strongest clinical evidence to date that on-time..." and that these results offer reassuring information" etc etc... I received an alert, and downloaded the study. And started reading. Most of the tables you can't make much of, since they simply tell you end-points and you have no way of knowing whether those end points are even accurate or not. I burst out laughing in the first paragraph of the results though when I read this: "A total of 491 (47%) of 1047 children met the study definition for timely receipt. An additional 235 (23%) received all recommended vaccines during the study period but not on time. The remaining 311 (20%) did not receive all recommended vaccines during the study period." Read Full Blog