Fact:
Christopher Gillberg is a scientific board member of Cure Autism Now
http://www.canfoundation.org/aboutcan/sciboard.cfm
Ray Gallup rees wrote:
ALAN REES Ginstgatan 7
230 44 Bunkeflostrand SWEDEN Mobile : +46 707 444841 mailto:rees@pp.sbbs.se
8 February 2003 Has Gillberg been caught cheating? Pass it on.
Headlines in the Swedish press yesterday. Professor Christoper Gillberg, the
co-author of The Biology of the Autistic Syndromes is involved in yet another
scandal. This time he has been accused of fraudulent scientific research and his
critics have been granted a court order to force him to reveal his raw data -
something he has previously refused to do (as have Roy Meadows and Brent Taylor
before him). Gillberg is, of course, no stranger to controversy. He is already
notorious for admitting to a number of people in private that he had not
vaccinated his own offspring, while declaring in public that there is no link
between vaccines and autism. He even conducted an epidemiological study in the
Gothenburg region to prove there is no link. This study was roundly condemned as
worthless and it was elegantly torn apart by David Thrower in his customary
fashion. You can find David s analysis of this and many other vaccine studies
at:
http://www.whale.to/vaccines.html
or
http://66.70.140.217/vaccines.html http://click.topica.com/maaaO5paaVN7Ga4JkBVb/
www.freewebz.com/schafer/URL/g.htm
Sloppy research is bad enough, but now he is being accused of actually
cheating. The study was a 15-year follow-up of 42 children diagnosed as having
DAMP. On the basis of this study, 3,000 Swedish children have been prescribed
amphetamines (Ritalin) and Gillberg and his colleagues argue that another 70,000
children are in need of it. Given the horrific effects of amphetamine, this is a
very serious matter.
Leif Elinder, a paediatrician in Uppsala and Eva Kärfve, a sociologist at the
University of Lund have pointed out a number of peculiar features of the study:
- Nearly all the patients turned time after time up for comprehensive
examinations without receiving any diagnosis or treatment.
- Leif Elinder has commented that the dropout rate appears to be incredibly low,
when it is usually quite large in studies such as these.
- Eva Kärfve has pointed out that the dropout rate seems to be not just low, but
positively non-existent. Indeed, the number of participants appears to have
actually increased over the course of the study! She has therefore accused the
researchers of subsequently recruiting participants who did not belong to the
original study.
- DAMP, like autism, affects far more boys than girls. However, while more than
half of the control group consisted of girls, most of whom came from stable
families and prosperous homes, 75% of the DAMP children were boys from
dysfunctional families in run-down areas with poor housing.
And so on and so forth& Gillberg was asked to produce his raw data. He refused
on the grounds that the information was confidential. Since participants in such
studies are usually only identified by numbers or codes and their identities are
concealed, this is a remarkable objection and clearly one that did not impress
the court. So now Gillberg must hand over his data.
What will happen to him? Perhaps he will follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, Stephen Breuning, who also studied the effects of amphetamines on hyperactive children in the 1980 s. He was found to have faked his data and was sent to jail for fraud. That is exactly where a lot of people think Christopher Gillberg belongs. After all, this study is one of many, and how many of them would stand up to close inspection?
Just ask David Thrower. And how about the finances? This study received
grants from a foundation (Allmänna Arvsfonden) but the money was not to be used
for salaries or computers. According to a newspaper article the money was used
for&um&salaries and computers. No legal action has been taken on this
matter&yet.
Actually, the financing of these studies is a study in itself. It has been
pointed out that Gillberg & colleagues all seem to sit on boards that vet
research projects and approve grants. Some cynics have implied that they are in
fact dishing money out to each other. Personally I think this is a monstrous
libel, but why was all that money given to someone called Carina Gillberg? Could
she possibly be related to Chris?
One wonders.
Gillberg seems to consider himself misunderstood. He has said that he is being
persecuted by Eva Kärfve. I am told he has even referred to me in less than
complimentary terms. No doubt he will set the record straight.
His mail address is:
mailto:christopher.gillberg@pediat.gu.se Fax: +46 31 341 5545 Phone +46 31 341
6749 I am, as usual, overworked and short of time and will be off base for a
couple of days. I am therefore sending this to a few people in the hope that
everyone will pass it on and word will spread. Someone with more time and
resources than I have may like to follow this up.