Keeping Anderson Cooper Honest: Is Brian Deer The Fraud

January 10, 2011

Keeping Anderson Cooper Honest: Is Brian Deer The Fraud?

By J.B. Handley



"It is quite clear that you do not understand English. Brian Deer is not a member of the Sunday Times staff. He is a freelance journalist who runs his own website and blog and is not under the control or direction of the Sunday Times. Mr. Deer should not represent himself as a Sunday Times journalist. He is not a member of staff, does NOT have a regular salary from us, is not on our pension scheme and pays his own tax as a freelance. If he says that he writes for the Sunday Times that would be correct. He is a contributor to The Sunday Times on an occasional basis but again we have no control over him ..."



- Alaistair Brett, Legal Manager, Sunday Times



I watched Brian Deer’s appearance on Anderson Cooper 360, the one where he closed his eyes for extended periods of time when Anderson asked him certain tough questions, and kept wondering to myself, “Who IS this guy?”



The answers are coming in fast and hard as to who Brian Deer really is, and I must say I am thoroughly astonished at how badly many major news outlets, particularly CNN and Anderson Cooper, failed the US viewing audience by giving this one journalist, without doing background on him or talking to the Lancet 12 parents, such a platform to falsely reassure American parents. The more I learn about this guy, the weirder it gets. This is a long one, so apologies in advance.



Here’s what we’ve learned about Brian Deer:



1. He’s not a Sunday Times reporter, and never has been, so who the heck is paying his bills?



That’s certainly true from the email above from the Sunday Times, but what does Brian Deer say? He says this:



CHETRY: BRIAN DEER, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST, SUNDAY TIMES OF LONDON: Good morning.



DEER: I’ve been an investigative journalist working for “The Sunday Times of London” since the early 1980s.



DEER: I was commissioned by the “British Medical Journal” to write the piece, yes. That’s what the journalists do.



CHETRY: What about “The Sunday Times of London” and Channel 4 in Britain?



DEER: I work for them. Right. Yes, of course, they pay, I’m a journalist. I was hired to do a job, like you are.



CHETRY: Right.



DEER: You are being paid to your job and I’m being paid to do my job.



Mr. Deer attended Andy Wakefield’s GMC hearings for 160 days between 2007 and 2010. Who paid for all that time? He has published very little since 2004, despite being a freelance journalist. Jane Bryant of the OneClick Group asked Mr. Deer about this during the GMC hearings, here is their conversation:



Jane Bryant: “Brian, who is paying you for your attendance at the Hearing day after day?”



Brian Deer: “The Sunday Times and Channel 4.”



Jane Bryant: “They are all paying you every day?”



Brian Deer: “Well, my finances, you know, it's not necessary....”



Jane Bryant: “I am asking a legitimate question. How much are you being paid?”



Brian Deer: “Who's paying YOU?”



Jane Bryant: “Nobody.”



Deer: “No?”



Jane Bryant: “I provide my services completely free of charge.”



Brian Deer spluttering: “That's... that’s..”



Jane Bryant: “How much are you being paid by the Sunday Times?”



Brian Deer: “I'm not prepared to discuss my personal finances.”



Jane Bryant: “You are not prepared to discuss your finances?”



Brian Deer: “I've told you who’s paying me! I've told you I've never been paid by the drugs companies! I'm not in any way connected with drugs companies!”



Jane Bryant: “I'm not asking you about drugs companies, I'm asking how much you're being paid.”



Brian Deer, shouting: “Some CLOWN, some CLOWN put on his website that he.....”



Both Channel 4 and the Sunday Times have confirmed that they did not pay Mr. Deer to attend the 160 days of GMC hearings. So who did?



When Brian Deer was introduced by Anderson Cooper, it was like this:



BRIAN DEER, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST, "THE SUNDAY TIMES OF LONDON"



Nice job, CNN and Anderson, you have no idea who this guy really is.



2. When Brian Deer began his investigation of Andy Wakefield, he was supported by a pharmaceutical front group



On Anderson Cooper, the following conversation took place:



COOPER: Well, he [Brian Deer] -- he's actually signed a document guaranteeing that he has no financial interest in any of this, or no financial connections to anyone who has an interest in this. 





WAKEFIELD: Well, that's interesting you should say that, because he was supported in his investigation by the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries, which is funded directly and exclusively by the pharmaceutical industry. So…



COOPER: According to him, he's received no funding from -- from any parties that have interests in this over the last three years.



Anderson Cooper, did I read that right? “The last 3 years.” Since Deer published his first piece on Andy Wakefield 7 years ago, why didn’t you ask Deer about the last 7 years, rather than the last 3? Maybe you could also get Deer to sign something saying he hasn’t killed anyone in the last month. Ridiculous!





In fact, Deer was originally funded to investigate Andy by a front group for the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industries, just as Andy Wakefield said. From a confidential source:



“Deer was provided with free assistance by Medico-Legal Investigations a company owned and controlled by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry - I have documentation on this. MLI specialise in getting medical doctors prosecuted by the General Medical Council. And that was done before he published in The Sunday Times in Feb 2004.”



3. His most recent hit piece was funded by the British Medical Association, who has many reasons to shut Wakefield up



Anderson Cooper, in cross-examining Andy Wakefield on CNN, said the following:



COOPER: But this is not just one man. This is -- this is published in "The British Medical Journal."



As we all know, Deer’s article appearing in the British Medical Journal has given this story far more gravity with the American media. But, how many reporters even know what the British Medical Journal is? It doesn’t take long to discover the following from the BMJ’s own website:



- BMJ Journals receive advertising revenue from “display advertising for pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical products”



- BMJ Group [publisher of the British Medical Journal] is a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association.



What is the British Medical Association? According to their website, they are:



“the independent trade union and professional association for doctors and medical students, with over 140,000 members worldwide.”



Let me try and put this in plain English (since CNN and Anderson Cooper clearly don’t understand it):



The British Medical Journal receives most of their funding from ads sold to pharmaceutical companies. Additionally, the journal is 100% owned by the BMA, a trade union that represents all of the United Kingdom’s doctors. The UK has socialized medicine, it is nothing like the US in this regard. All the doctors belong to the BMA and the BMA represents the doctors interests in every aspect of their practice, including salary negotioations with the British government.



The BMA is an exceptionally powerful trade union representing doctors. If vaccines cause autism, this will be very bad for the BMA’s members. So, the BMA hired Brian Deer to write a hit piece for their trade journal.



And, Anderson Cooper reported, “According to him [Brian Deer], he's received no funding from -- from any parties that have interests in this over the last three years.” But, the British Medical Journal, wholly owned by the British Medical Association, just paid Brian Deer to write his most recent hit piece, as Brian Deer said:



DEER: I was commissioned by the “British Medical Journal” to write the piece, yes. That’s what the journalists do.



Give me a break!



4. Deer is the person who filed the complaint against Andy Wakefield with the GMC in the first place – he wagged the dog!



Above, I mentioned that Deer was originally supported by a front group for the Assocation for the British Pharmaceutical Industries called Medico-Legal Investigations, a group that a source mentioned “specialise in getting medical doctors prosecuted by the General Medical Council.”



Again, from a source:



“The timing of Deer‘s first letter of complaint to the GMC of 25th February 2004 shows Deer wasted no time after the publication of his Sunday 22rd February 2004 Sunday Times stories against Wakefield. Before a single word had been written by him Deer had consulted with and been given free advice and assistance by Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry company Medico-Legal Investigations Limited, whose speciality was getting doctors on charges before the GMC.”



For those needing some guidance, the General Medical Council is the UK’s licensing board for all doctors: they giveth the ability to practice medicine, and they can take it away, too.



Deer’s first two original complaints are available HERE and HERE and they are simply indisputable, as is the transcript from a court document, right HERE, which states, unequivocally:



“Well before the programme was broadcast Mr Deer had made a complaint to the GMC about the Claimant [Andy Wakefield].”



Let’s try to put this particular fact in some perspective. The General Medical Council is the body that took Andy’s license away. Their ruling caused the Lancet 1998 paper to be retracted, and led directly to the most recent media circus.



Yet, none of the parents from the original 1998 study had an issue with Andy Wakefield. No one at the Royal Free Hospital where he worked had an issue with Andy Wakefield. No one at The Lancet who published Wakefield had an issue with his work.



Brian Deer, a journalist hired by a pharmaceutical front group, a group that specialized in reporting doctors to the GMC, was the only person in all of Britain interested in filing a complaint about Wakefield’s study with the GMC, and he didn’t even do so until 6 years after Wakefield’s work had been published in The Lancet.



Brian Deer created this story, and now reports on this story, and the American media doesn’t understand remotely what’s actually taken place. Journalists, is it really that hard to smell a rat? Anderson Cooper couldn’t ask Brian Deer about this, because I’m sure he doesn’t understand who the GMC is, that Deer himself filed the complaint that led to the GMC hearing, or how this all works.



As I showed you above, the documentation is clear that Brian Deer filed the original complaint on Wakefield with the GMC, we have both his actual complaint and something stated in British court to prove it. When confronted with this information, what does Brian Deer actually say?



Here’s journalist Jane Bryant discussing her interview with Brian Deer outside the GMC hearing in 2008:



When asked if Deer was the complainant and if this was his case with the GMC, Deer simply exploded. Springing to his feet, placing his body inches from mine and invading my space, Deer proceeded to threaten, to rant and to jab his fingers close to my face.



Brian Deer: “No! I've not complained! I've got letters from the GMC saying I'm not the complainant! Ask me the question again! Ask me and I'll tell you!”



Here’s journalist Martin Walker:



“The GMC hearing could be part of a law school learning module on abuse of process, nowhere more so than in its origins. How could it be possible for a single pro vaccine journalist to have such command of the medical-legal process that he can initiate one of the biggest prosecutions in GMC history against three doctors whose research casts doubt on the safety of MMR? How could it be possible that an agency solely funded by the pharmaceutical industry could help this journalist bring the complaint before the GMC? Finally and perhaps most disconcertingly, how is it possible for the General Medical Council, an organisation granted serious legal powers under an act of parliament, to work in collusion with the government and the pharmaceutical industry dragging out a prosecution over a period of five years in order to protect the government’s vaccine programme?”



5. Deer appears to be the journalist stooge in this whole thing, and the real instigator of the Wakefield investigation may be far more powerful



From another source:



“Deer was also not working alone. Deer was working hand-in-hand with Dr. Evan Harris a British Member of Parliament, Glaxo-Wellcome Fellow and active Member of the British Medical Association and Harris even at that early stage attended with Deer at the offices of The Lancet, as Lancet Editor Dr Horton recorded later in his book, on these events ["MMR Science and Fiction: Exploring the Vaccine Crisis,"]. This was also confirmed by Harris indirectly in Parliament and later by the public attendance by him with Deer at the GMC hearings against Wakefield in London, England.”



If you’ve been tracking this whole mess, and if you’re anything like me, this is the “A-Ha” moment, when more of this makes sense.



To make everything just a bit uglier, here’s AoA’s own John Stone discussing Evan Harris:



“Evan Harris, the MP who made allegations in a debate about MMR in the House of Commons in March 2004, disclosed that his father, Frank, was a recently retired professor paediatrics, but not that the latter had sat on the Committee on Safety in Medicines in 1990-92 (an appointment listed in his entry in Who’s Who) in the period leading to the withdrawal of the Urabe strain MMR vaccines in September 1992.”



Again, in plain English:



Evan Harris was a member of the British Parliament (sort of like a US Congressman) from 1997-2010 (he just lost the most recent election). He was also a Doctor who attended Oxford Medical School (sort of like Bill Frist was a doctor turned politician). His father was a doctor and a medical professor, and his father sat on a British medical safety board during a scandalous withdrawal that took place of a failed MMR vaccine. Evan Harris has said, during a speech in parliament:



"On the safety of MMR, the evidence and scientific consensus are overwhelming. There is a lot of good research that fails to find any significant safety problem with MMR..."



Now it all makes sense.



6. The CEO of the Lancet joined Glaxo’s board, soon before Deer’s first article in 2004 in the Sunday Times



From a JABS briefing note regarding the GMC hearing:



“A further deeply unsatisfactory feature is that Dr Horton has never disclosed that his boss, Sir Crispin Davis, chief executive of Reed Elsevier, was appointed a non-executive director of MMR defendants GlaxoSmithKline in summer 2003 only a few months before the Sunday Times article in February 2004 that accused Dr Wakefield.”



Plain English: Dr. Richard Horton was the editor of The Lancet, publisher of Wakefield’s study. Horton, in particular, seems to have developed amnesia about the Wakefield study, and effectively threw Andy under the bus. Contrary to how some media members portray them, medical journals are for-profit entities, and Reed Elsevier is a company that own The Lancet along with many other journals. In the Summer of 2003, the CEO of Reed Eselvier became a board member of GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s largest vaccine makers, and a maker of the MMR.



I’d like to pint out that this connection between The Lancet and Glaxo is not hard to figure out. So what did Anderson Cooper ask Brian Deer? The following:



COOPER: ... as you know, James Murdoch, the owner of -- of your employer, "The London Times," joined the board of GlaxoSmithKline, which is a manufacturer of MMR. He joined that board in 2009.





DEER: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)





COOPER: Some people have brought that up as a -- as a conflict of interest.





DEER: No, it's absurd, absolutely absurd.





Note to Anderson Cooper: wrong dude, wrong year.



Oh, and there you go again, in interviewing Deer you referred to the London/Sunday times as “your employer”—implying Deer is an employee of the Sunday Times, when he’s not.



7. The Sunday Times editor who originally hired Deer also had a serious conflict



Does it ever end?



“Deer was hired to investigate Wakefield by Sunday Times editor Paul Nuki, who is son of Prof George Nuki, who was on the Commitee on Safety of Medicines when MMR and Pluserix were introduced.”



8. Deer had access to the medical records of the Lancet 12 children long before the GMC hearing, which is apparently illegal



British laws are equally strong about the confidentiality of medical information. The parents of the Lancet 12 have been clamoring for years to understand how Brian Deer had access to their children’s medical records, since they never gave their permission. Here’s a note in the last 48 hours from a Lancet 12 parent to me:



“I was not interviewed by Brian Deer. I have appeared in the media representing families of vaccine damaged families and talked about my [child] but never gave out any confidential medical information only what reactions he had after the MMR vaccine. Brian Deer knows medical information that he would only have found in his medical notes and long before the start of the GMC so he cannot state that he got the information from the GMC.”



Here’s another comment:



“Brian Deer had the names of the Lancet Children and dates they entered the Royal Free hospital on his web‐site for all to see long before the GMC hearing. His view was that some of us parent were in the media. The problem with that is that I did not tell the media that my boy was part of the Lancet study until Brian Deer let it be known. I have e‐mailed him on numerous occasions asking him how he got hold of my child’s medical notes without my permission. He has never interviewed me or my family and has not replied to this question.



I believe Brian Deer got hold of confidential information on our children and want to know how this can happen. He told me in an e‐mail that he managed to prise confidential documents from the Royal Free Hospital. This question below has not been answered by Brian Deer: Could Brian Deer also please let the BMJ know the means by which UK legislation allows free lance (or any other) journalists, to view original research files, and compare them with Royal Free (or any other hospital or private practice) medical files of children with full identities available, all test results available, without parental consent; the studies' authors consent; privacy restraints or hospital ethics committee approval?”



Here’s a Lancet 12 parent’s recent complaint to the BMJ for his most recent article:



“I am making a formal complaint to the BMJ for allowing Brian Deer to publish this article about my child and others. How can the BMJ allow a journalist without any qualifications in bowel disease to make these assumptions? My [child] suffers every day with their bowels and are in great pain. The bowel disease they have has been getting worse throughout the years and other doctors who specialise in bowel disease have confirmed the disease. If it had not been for Dr. Wakefield, Professor Walker Smith and Professor Simon Murch I dread to think how my [child] would have coped. Professor John Walker-Smith was just last week awarded a Distinguished Service Award by The European Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. He was nominated by Professor Alan Walker of Harvard Medical School and agreed unanimously by the Board. What qualifications does Brian Deer have? How many lives has Brian Deer saved? Brian Deer did not have the courtesy to interview me in the beginning and yet he boasts about knowing my boys medical information. What information does the BMJ have to back Brian Deer's complaints up with? I demand full disclosure.”



9. Deer actively assisted the US Department of Justice in their defense of vaccines in the recent omnibus proceedings



Here’s Brian Deer bragging about his assistance of the US Department of Justice in defending itself in the Autism Omnibus proceedings:



“That said, I’m also very proud that, like the GMC, the US government sought my help in mounting its case in Cedillo, copiously borrowing pages of evidence from my website and displaying some in court. I was surprised by this. I assumed that they would have sophisticated contacts with other governments and with industry, and could pretty much get what they wanted. However, on a number of occasions I would come home, find an email from the department of justice asking me for a document, and see that the next day it was being run in court. Bit of a seat of the pants job by the DoJ (brought about by the plaintiffs changing their case at the last minute). Indeed, I recall supplying a key document on the O’Leary lab business, which the DoJ didn’t seem to know about just weeks before the hearing. Hence the late surfacing of Bustin and Chadwick. It was me wot done that, and I’m glad. I don’t say these things to boast, only perhaps to wonder why — if there are all kinds of grand conspiracies behind the defence of vaccine safety — governments and regulators are so untogether that a mere journalist can get ahead of them in the game."



Is there a problem with Brian Deer assisting the US government? There is if he is sharing confidential medical files he’s not supposed to have.



(Note: we have FOIA emails showing Deer corresponding with the DOJ, more on that at a later date.)



10. The Lancet 12 parents are terrified of Brian Deer and deem him to be unhinged, dangerous, and able to cause harm to their families



I have personally spoken, in the last 24 hours, to Lancet 12 parents living in the UK. They have no idea how big this story is in the US, as it’s barely even news in the UK. It was unfathomable to me that they would fear this unmarried, childless man who I watched on CNN, and here are some of the explanations I received for where their fear comes from:



“One thing that happens are accusations of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. People feel that their children could be taken away at any time if they make demands on the system, and there are a range of pretexts. Parents can be told their adult children don't want to see them. Also we are a very centrally run country: it can be easy to make people's lives a misery through executive abuse, deprivation of services etc. Mostly, I suspect, people just knuckle under - don't think of questioning the system.”



And, here’s another comment:



“I think also you have to remember that we live in a society in which all of Deer's manifold illegalities happened with the covert support of the state.”



Wow, I guess I need to drop a God Bless America right now! Brian Deer, welcome to the red, white, and blue, where the people still have the final say, and feel free to speak their mind without fear of retribution.



Here’s journalist Jane Bryant discussing Deer:



“The only conclusion that can be reasonably reached from the debacle described is that journalist Brian Deer is considerably more than economical with the truth. He is a nasty, aggressive man, completely out of control and rapidly developing own-goal status for the pro vaccine lobby. A similar incident occurred with Deer outside the office of the General Medical on the 27 March 2007, at the start of the Defence presentation. Caught on film hectoring and lecturing the parents of the vaccine damaged autistic children, the parents are so frightened of Deer that they are scared to place this film in the public domain.”



And, here’s an email from Brian Deer to a member of parliament in the district where one of the Lancet 12 parents lives:



“My experience of [Lancet 12 parent] is that she is a spiteful, vexatious lady, who apparently continues to conspire on behalf of Dr Andrew Wakefield in false allegations that evidence exists to suggest that the MMR vaccine causes autism. Her motives appear to me to be both emotional comfort and substantial financial gain…In my view, [Lancet parent] needs to confront her own conscience with regard to her conduct of recent years of promoting baseless fears of MMR.”



- Brian Deer email, October 23, 2006



11. Deer’s most recent report in the BMJ, the one making all the news, is based on an impossibility that the press should be able to understand



From a post on AoA yesterday:



“Central to the latest claims of journalist Brian Deer published in the British Medical Journal 6th January is the allegation that Dr Wakefield ‘altered numerous facts about the patients’ medical histories in order to support his claim to have identified a new syndrome.’



What Deer and the BMJ fail to point out is that not only did Wakefield not produce the results, which were the work of a team of 12 other specialists at the Royal Free Hospital, London, England but that:-



It was not possible for Wakefield or anyone else to falsify the prior clinical records of the children because no one at the Royal Free Hospital London had them nor is it normal practice for them to have had them. So there could be no fraud over ‘altering’ those histories. It just was not possible.”



Plain English: In Britain, when you are referred from a local doctor to a major hospital, like the one where Andy worked, your previous doctor's records DO NOT travel with you.



When the GMC held a hearing, they were able to get the "local" records of all the kids. Because Royal Free hospital is a more sophisticated place, and because they had NONE of the previous records to work with, they made their own diagnoses.



Through the GMC hearing, Deer had access to the local records of the kids (which Wakefield and colleagues never had) - if Deer found differences, he reported those as "fraud." It's a confusing, but important, nuance, and any doctor in Britain could verify how these things work - Americans are used to bringing our medical records with us when we switch doctors.



From an American attorney:



“Attacking the Royal Free team for dx differing from local GP's is like saying that the Mayo Clinic commits medical fraud every time they come up with a dx for a new and exotic disorder that differs from the local docs -- that's why people go to Mayo in the first place, last resort, and that's why the UK parents went to the Royal Free.”



And, finally, from an AoA post:



My first reaction to this latest story was: "Why in heck would Wakefield have to invent stories about children who exhibited autistic symptoms after MMR and had significant bowel disease? They're a dime a dozen!"



12. Despite Anderson Cooper’s assurances to the American people, Brian Deer has not interviewed the Lancet 12 parents



Here’s what Anderson Cooper said to Andy Wakefield:



COOPER: Brian Deer has talked to the patients -- has talked to the parents -- has talked to the parents of the patients who were in your original study. And he discovered that not one of the 12 cases you claim to have studied was free of -- quote -- "misrepresentation or alteration." 

In no single case could the medical records be fully reconciled with the descriptions, diagnoses or histories published in the journal. Some of the parents in your original study say what you claimed about their kids' medical histories was not true. 

Are those parents now lying?



So, on the first night Anderson Cooper discussed this case (last Wednesday), he implied Brian Deer had talked to ALL of the Lancet 12 parents (the same parents who are scared of Brian Deer and think he is unhinged). The second night Anderson discussed this case, he had Brian Deer on, and here is what he said:



COOPER: Did you speak to any of the parents from the 12 cases?





DEER [closing his eyes tightly]: I personally interviewed one, two, three families of the 12. Somebody else -- two others were interviewed on my behalf by other journalists. So, that's five of the 12.
Oh, no, actually, I interview -- and I have had conversations with another, so quite a substantial number...



That’s quite an answer, Brian Deer. Anderson Cooper said, 24 hours earlier, that you’d talked to all the parents. With eyes tightly shut, you have to count to figure it out?



Here’s what I know: of the parents I know of, NONE ever talked to Brian Deer about their children’s history, and none can imagine that any parents did.



I have also confirmed that the very first parent of the Lancet 12 that Brian Deer did in fact interview, he posed as “Brian Lawrence” and never revealed his true identity to the parent of Child #2. Anderson Cooper, do you routinely use a false identity to trick people into talking to you? I doubt it.



Here’s an email sent from one of the Lancet 12 parents to Brian Deer, confronting him on his misrepresentations:



From: Lancet 12 Parent



Sent: 16 April 2010



To: @briandeer.com




Subject: [my child]



Brian,



Why are you saying that [child name] does not have bowel disease? You are not a doctor and have no expertise in bowel disease. Dr. Wakefield, Professor Simon Murch and Professor Walker-Smith do.



You never interviewed me and have no knowledge about [child] conditions.



Please stop as you are putting [child’s] health at risk.



[Lancet 12 Parent]



Here’s a Lancet 12 parent, in a private email about their child’s bowel disease (that Deer alleges the child doesn’t have):



“One thing we do know is that [child’s] body is still unable to tolerate any food what so ever, after the doctor wanted to see if the steroids had had any impact on this, we were told to try [child] with a small amount of plain boiled potato, within minutes he vomited it back up, not only was he violently sick he was up most of the night crying in pain and hitting out at me for making him so poorly. If only he could talk and tell us where the pain was, it's heart breaking knowing he's in pain but unable to tell us. It is now 1 year since [child] has eaten.”



13. Anderson Cooper called Brian Deer “an independent journalist who's won many awards” and he’s neither



Hopefully, this article has convinced you that Brian Deer is not an independent journalist.



As far as awards go, his fairly narcissistic and odd website (checkout the picture gallery!) cites exactly ONE award he has one, in 1999, at The British Press Awards HERE: Specialist Reporter of the Year -- Brian Deer, Sunday Times



Many awards? Independent? Give me another break!



Conclusion



What can I say? I’ve told you everything I know, draw your own conclusions, who is the real fraud here? Why isn’t this news in the UK?



I have personally shared this information with Anderson Cooper’s producer and CNN’s medical editor. I have personally introduced Lancet 12 parents to CNN and others as of Friday.



I hope they interview the Lancet 12 parents and let America see our side. This is one of the most ridiculous whitewashings I have ever seen. CNN and many others got caught with their pants down—will they clean up their own mess, or leave it to the parents to deal with?



Thank God for the Internet, AoA, and the ability to speak the truth.



J.B. Handley is co-founder of Generation Rescue



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JenB – adding to your list of why the frenzy in the US – the public rejection of the H1N1 vaccine despite a full-blown media campaign, the legislature overturning of Texas Gov. Perry’s Gardasil mandate, the commercial flop of Gardasil, the low uptake rates of the seasonal flu vaccines, the increased use of philosophical and religious exemptions…the list goes on and on. The chumps are no longer unquestioningly following the edicts of the medical experts. They are trying to blame it all on one man and one study despite the fact that they know it goes way beyond Andy Wakefield.



The “experts” are running out of things to do to him. I can only imagine what will come next.



Posted by: Jeff C.
January 10, 2011 at 04:20 PM



Richard Deth, professor of pharmacology, offers his response to the controversy surrounding a study to link a childhood vaccine to autism.



Chilling research into vaccine-autism link

http://www.northeastern.edu/news/stories/2011/01/deth.html



Posted by: Rachael
January 10, 2011 at 04:06 PM



It is telling that Deer "writes for" the Sunday Times, but they "have no control over him..."



It's also very curious to me (maybe this is more commonplace than I am aware of?) that a medical journal would pay a reporter to write something for them to publish, something that I think even a layperson can see does not hold water. Do they believe this leaves them in a position of less responsibility for what is written? This article is "peer-reviewed" after all.



As for why the big media "frenzy" here in the U.S., these things come to my mind: the polls saying 25% believe vaccines are in involved in the autism epidemic, 89% saying vaccine safety research should be a priority (doesn't that mean that 89% are not comfortable with what mainstream medicine says about the vaccine schedule, etc.), the press the Hannah Poling settlement fishy legal language received, and I'm not happy to write this, but in light of the effects of the public release of the Hannah Poling case, I think some want to prevent coverage of the most recent vaccine court decision.



I also think Dr. Wakefield's (and others') recently completed monkey vaccine study is something they really want to discredit before it is even scrutinized by the public.



Posted by: JenB
January 10, 2011 at 03:57 PM



Oh yes,



I was in another doctor's office this morning, this time with my husband - he was getting a steroid shot in his spine hoping the inflamation will go down.



CNN was on - favorite channel of medical offices, I guess.



Newest studies of why autism happens; wait for it: All depends on how close apart the children are born.



I never said a word, but there were several in the room that tsked and shook their heads in disgust.



Posted by: Benedetta
January 10, 2011 at 03:09 PM



According to the bibliography wiki Anderson Cooper had a brother that committed suicide. Anderson Cooper's mother says she believes that an allergic reaction to a asthma medicine caused her son to go into psychosis. I witnessed this heart breaker in my own duaghter this summer. So, Anderson Cooper of all reporters should have been so very sensitive about all this. But he was not - he has not got a clue. Perhaps someday will will dawn on him.



Anderson Cooper also had a father that died at a very young age of 50 with a heart attack, and I am so very suspious that vaccines do have a lot to do with such early heart deaths since my daughter had Kawasaki's and my son had swelling of the heart and heart murmur shortly following their vaccines.



His own family is most probably very affected by all this, and it does not seem that he has spent a second in thought or in reading material for the other side other than what he has been taught.



Posted by: Benedetta
January 10, 2011 at 03:00 PM



Wow, JB...thank you so much for outlining it crystal clear for all to see. THIS is the real story. Let's hope Sharyl Attkisson picks it up! Great work as always!



Jenny



Posted by: Jenny
January 10, 2011 at 02:37 PM



The way in which the establishment went after Wakefield shows me all I need to know. The establishment clearly has much to hide. Otherwise one man with a crazy theory should have been old news by now. Clearly that one man with a crazy theory was right. So right that the establishment is scared enough to have a nut like BD go to bat for them. Of coarse when the house of cards fall down they can blame the nut, BD, because he is the face. Gosh, how I pray for that day. BD, if you are reading, I hope you are nervous!



Posted by: SY
January 10, 2011 at 02:25 PM



First, weasles, can we talk weasles, why does Brian Deer remind me of them? And oh, if you ever read the book NEVER BE LIED TO AGAIN, the man was a pure illustration of a liar, did all the body language of a consistant liar. Second, the vast majority of the American people are NOT being allowed to know the true state of their nation as it now appears to be impossible that the mainstream press reported to be nothing more than “journalism of appeasement, corruption, smoke and mirrors” failing on a daily basis to keep their citizens informed of the most important events occurring around them. What more can be the news of the day, then say, forty kids snatched away from a kidnapper called autism in one day? Or that a product (think baby cribs or toys) are recalled because it killed ONE baby within a day. Where are our priorities? I'd like to have Deer held to some standard of why or how he appropriated those records? BMJ Fiona said to me by email that he obtained those through FOIA documents? Since when can FOIA obtain private medical records? And, why does Fiona lie that her journal is fair, and stands against pharma, when she is paid by them to put these documents out? What the HELL is happening to our world? Common decency and honesty has been lost for profit and gain and blood money? We don't deserve to be called the "united" states. That said, I found an old youtube that Polly put out in UK with David Kirby about how media there is even worse. They didn't even hear anything about this latest diatribe? Really, what is going on that they fear so much? Could it be, low uptake of flu vaccines, or moms questioning their doctors FOR ONCE, or the vaccine court decisions of late, or the fact, that people generally are waking up from their deep slumbers? God, I hope so. I think we need to stop putting our boob tubes/mind altering stuff on, and start investigating for ourselves, what the real truth is.



Posted by: kathy blanco
January 10, 2011 at 02:23 PM



Anyone seen this today on HuffPo? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-ropeik/wakefield-debunked-but-va_b_805826.html#postComment



JB, maybe you could submit your article as a response.



Posted by: Pamela
January 10, 2011 at 01:48 PM



Great summary, as always JB. To those of us fully immersed in this subject, the deceit is crystal clear. Unfortunately, the general public knows nothing of the details. To them, it is much easier to believe the story line of a single corrupt researcher rather than a coordinated attack from the medical establishment.



We really need a short summary presented by an established mainstream reporter that has followed the ASD-vaccine situation (e.g. Alysin Camerota or Sheryl Atkinson). The report should be concise at hit the flowing points:



1) The Wakefield story was not the result of an independent investigation but that of a single journalist with a history of deceitful statements and numerous conflicts of interest



2) The timeline he lays out could not have taken place (the Child Health Safety article, but *vastly* simplified)



3) The parents of the twelve reject Deer’s conclusions and fully support Dr. Wakefield



4) The medical journals are not independent, non-profit entities, but are linked to, and controlled by the pharmaceutical industry



5) This is not solely about the MMR-Autism link, but the explosion of the schedule (without adequate testing) concurrent with the vast increase in childhood immune and neurological disorders (ASD, ADHD, Asthma, Allergies, diabetes, etc.)



Pretty much the article you wrote above, but condensed for those without a personal stake in the issue. Trying to get too far into the details will get us dismissed as 9-11 truther or Obama birth certificate types. The public is not inclined to learn the details; I never did until I was personally affected. The conflict of interest within the medical establishment is a story that practically tells itself if steered in the correct direction by a skilled reporter.





Posted by: Jeff C.
January 10, 2011 at 01:42 PM



JB YOU are a hero, too!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!



Posted by: Julie L.
January 10, 2011 at 01:15 PM



Killer article, JB. Brian Deer is definitely the fraud.



Posted by: Jake Crosby
January 10, 2011 at 12:50 PM



OMG JB take them down! The house of cards is in a pile on the floor!



Posted by: Nora
January 10, 2011 at 12:48 PM



Why the medical establishment, the GMC no less, gives credence to someone with no medical background on something as critical as immunization and why did the Lancet gives someone with no medical background a platform.

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

Um...because Keith Olberman "bronzed" him on Countdown?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NJXwJjZHwM



Posted by: Media Scholar
January 10, 2011 at 12:47 PM



Does Deer remind anyone else of a floppier version of Bricktop from "Snatch"? (Not a PG clip):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpF-oUvwruI&feature=related



NHS is in direct and open cahoots with the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) which apparently hired Deer as a hitman, so UK parents have reason to be concerned about bureaucratic harassment for questioning Deer.



http://www.abpi.org.uk/publications/pdfs/jointworking_05.pdf



ABPI's wiki page says they produce booklets for schools and patient literature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_the_British_Pharmaceutical_Industry



I found it interesting that, like the close ties between industry and govt. in the US, ABPI and NHS have the "full circle"-- from iatrogenic brain injury to drug profits-- covered. Some of the companies which appear to be promoted by this "cooperative" are American, like Eli Lilly and J&J. Here's a few of NHS's "booklets":

http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/medshow/risperrydone.html

http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/medshow/atomoxeteen.html



Posted by: Gatogorra
January 10, 2011 at 12:02 PM



It is almost certainly not in the news in the UK because the UK media consider it to be legally dubious. In fact, they mostly didn't touch it before, when previously launched in 2009, outside Times newspapers. Despite the immense prejudice against Andy even they cannot work out how he could have fabricated the paper without the other signatories - independently responsible for it various findings if not its design - noticing.



Posted by: John Stone
January 10, 2011 at 11:56 AM



Again, as he is so honest, Mr. Deer sometimes likes to use his middle name when talking to some of the Lancet 12 parents...



Lancet parent 11 : Brian Deer using the name Brian Richards.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxeVXPn9XG4









Posted by: cmo
January 10, 2011 at 11:20 AM



I will be spreading this information far and wide.

Thanks JB, again for keeping it real.



Posted by: Casey
January 10, 2011 at 11:10 AM



Sorry for off-topic, but this grabbed my eye == http://abcnews.go.com/Health/AutismRisk/closely-spaced-pregnancies-linked-increased-autism-risk/story?id=12564585



The timing is somewhat interesting given the anti-Wakefield media blitz of the past week.



So, now autism starts in the womb, so how can we blame post-partum vaxes? Then again, is there not just as much of a correlation factor between proximity of second birth and proximity of vax? Diffuse, deflect, dissuade, business as usual.



Posted by: Rob
January 10, 2011 at 11:01 AM



It has been my experience that even in the US, where you hand your medical record to each doctor, their notes still contradict previous entries; and are generally hasty and haphazard scrawlings containing numerous errors.



This may mark the beginning of the end for Deer, he has become a liability to those he works for.



Posted by: GH
January 10, 2011 at 10:43 AM



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