Christopher Ariel Shaw is a Canadian neuroscientist and professor of
ophthalmology
Ophthalmology (, ) is the branch of medicine that deals with the diagnosis, treatment, and surgery of eye diseases and disorders.
An ophthalmologist is a physician who undergoes subspecialty training in medical and surgical eye care. Following a ...
at the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...
.
Vaccine research
Shaw has done controversial research on the alleged adverse effects of
vaccine
A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifi ...
s, including publishing two 2011 reports about the effect of aluminum
adjuvants
In pharmacology, an adjuvant is a drug or other substance, or a combination of substances, that is used to increase the efficacy or potency of certain drugs. Specifically, the term can refer to:
* Adjuvant therapy in cancer management
* Analge ...
in vaccines. The
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
's Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety criticized the two 2011 reports, calling them "seriously flawed". The Committee wrote: "The core argument made in these studies is based on ecological comparisons of aluminium content in vaccines and rates of
autism spectrum disorders
Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing di ...
in several countries. In general, ecological studies cannot be used to assert a causal association because they do not link exposure to outcome in individuals, and only make correlations of exposure and outcomes on population averages". Shaw has received nearly $900,000 in research funding from the Dwoskin Family Foundation and the Katlyn Fox Foundation, both of which question the safety of vaccines. The University of British Columbia and numerous experts said there is no problem with the source of this funding, noting that many researchers accept money from pharmaceutical companies and other entities.
In October 2017, Shaw and his colleague, Lucija Tomljenovic, announced that they were retracting a paper they had co-authored in the ''Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry'', claiming to find that aluminum in vaccines caused symptoms "consistent with those in autism" in mice, after multiple other researchers had criticized the underlying data as invalid or falsified. After seeing some of these criticisms on
PubPeer
PubPeer is a website that allows users to discuss and review scientific research after publication, i.e. post-publication peer review, established in 2012.
The site has served as a whistleblowing platform, in that it highlighted shortcomings in ...
, Shaw and his lab reanalyzed the figures that had been criticized, and requested a retraction from the journal, saying "It appears as if some of the images in mostly what were non-significant results had been flipped. We don't know why, we don't know how … but there was a screw-up, there's no question about that."
In response to this retraction, the University of British Columbia issued a statement defending academic freedom as well as Shaw's academic integrity.
[
In October 2017, Shaw and Tomljenovic and several other coauthors published an article in '' Open Access Library Journal'', published by ]Scientific Research Publishing
Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP) is a predatory academic publisher of open-access electronic journals, conference proceedings, and scientific anthologies that are of questionable quality. , it offered 244 English-language open-access journ ...
, a predatory open access publisher, about a tetanus vaccine
Tetanus vaccine, also known as tetanus toxoid (TT), is a toxoid vaccine used to prevent tetanus. During childhood, five doses are recommended, with a sixth given during adolescence.
After three doses, almost everyone is initially immune, but ...
that had been used in Kenya in 2014.[ The authors withdrew the article, then published it again in the same journal.]senior editor
A managing editor (ME) is a senior member of a publication's management team. Typically, the managing editor reports directly to the editor-in-chief and oversees all aspects of the publication.
United States
In the United States, a managing edito ...
of the '' International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research'', an anti-vaccine journal.
Publications
Books
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* Shaw, Christopher (2018). "Aluminum as a CNS and immune system toxin across the lifespan". I
''Neurotoxicity of Aluminum''
Qiao Niu (Editor). Springer Publishing
Springer Publishing Company is an American publishing company of academic journals and books, focusing on the fields of nursing, gerontology, psychology, social work, counseling, public health, and rehabilitation (neuropsychology). It was estab ...
.
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Research articles
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Retracted articles
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Review articles
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References
External links
Faculty page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Christopher Ariel
Canadian neuroscientists
Living people
Academic staff of the University of British Columbia
University of California, Irvine alumni
Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni
Dalhousie University alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)