Andrew Wakefield – guru of the anti-vaccination movement

Andrew Wakefield – guru of the anti-vaccination movement. He is a former British doctor who has been proven to have a number of scientific frauds and a conflict of interest, which contradicts his claims to be independent and impartial.

1. Andrew Wakefield is on the lips of science after he published an article that linked autism in children to the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) combination vaccine
2. As a result of court proceedings, it turned out that the article in The Lancet was unreliable
3. The unethical practices of Wakefield’s research also came to light
4. Dr. Wakefield was disqualified from practicing for life
5. You can find more such stories on the Onet homepage.

Who is Andrew Wakefield?

Andrew Wakefield was disqualified for life in 2010 as a medical practitioner by the General Medical Council (GMC) in Great Britain (the body granting and withdrawing the right to practice this profession). It happened after an unprecedented, lasting over 200 days, proceedings before the counterpart of the Polish medical court. The reason for the highest punishment that can be imposed on the doctor was a series of gross violations by Wakefield of the principles of practice and ethics of the doctor and the researcher.

Wakefield is also the lead author of a withdrawn untrustworthy article in The Lancet. The work suggested a link between the combined measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and a ‘new syndrome’ of developmental regression and inflammatory bowel disease. The article is based on the results of a research project involving twelve children.

Wakefield is also the author of a number of speeches (the first of this type – a press conference – took place immediately after the publication of the article in 1998), in which blames vaccines for autism. Anti-vaccine movements, also in Poland, cite Wakefield’s theses. Contrary to what he says, there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism – such a cause-and-effect relationship between vaccine administration and autism has not been found in a number of studies conducted around the world.

Wakefield is hardly an independent scientist

– 22 years ago I had to decide whether I serve my patients or pharmaceutical companies – he said during the performance in Katowice’s Spodek on April 1, 2017.

Wakefield portrays himself as an independent scientist who has fallen into the interests of pharmaceutical companies selling vaccines. However, a British medical court proved him a flagrant conflict of interest.

In February 1996, months before he began the research project at The Royal Free Hospital, where he was employed, Wakefield signed a contract with attorney Richard Barr to conduct a study that could provide evidence that the combination MMR vaccine was causing harm to health. in children vaccinated with it. Wakefield provided the lawyer with a cost estimate for such a research project and received £ 50 from him. pounds for the diagnosis of children.

Investigative journalist Brian Deer of The Sunday Times, who published a series of articles on Wakefield’s counterfeits, found a document by Barr and Wakefield, donated to the institution charged with funding the Legal Aid Board, in which they wrote: Nevertheless, there is undeniable evidence that a particular vaccine is the cause of the disease ».

However, it was not until September 1996, i.e. a few months later, that he applied for a research project – at The Royal Free Hospital. It was supposed to include 25 children, ultimately twelve, but – contrary to the assumptions of the project and contrary to what was described by the population of the studied children in an article in The Lancet – they were not randomly accepted children – most of them came to the project through lawyer Richard Barr or the parents of the children with disorders cooperating with him, and Wakefield himself took an active part in the recruitment of selected children for the research project.

Acceptance of the amount of PLN 50 thousand the pounds has been proven by a British medical court.

He also proved Wakefield’s concealment of the receipt of this money both from the publisher of The Lancet and to colleagues and the management of The Royal Free Hospital. The medical court found this to be a serious breach of the researcher’s ethical principles (it had a legal and ethical obligation to disclose it) and a conflict of interest. The case file states: “Your behavior was dishonest, irresponsible and misleading”.

Moreover, the medical court proved that the money was misappropriated because, according to the contract, it was supposed to be used to perform diagnostic tests on children in a research project agreed with a lawyer, and in fact, the coverage of such costs was not needed – it was paid by the NHS – the English payer for health services.

It’s not everything. The journalist Brian Deer in a journalistic investigation, the results of which were presented in The Sunday Times, Chanel 4 TV and The BMJ, also proved that Wakefield received over 435 additional jobs through a lawyer from the Legal Aid Board. pounds to act as an expert in setting up a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers and to reimburse expenses. Also the fact of accepting this money was concealed by Wakefield, as well as his expert role in the prepared trial.

Who was Richard Barr? He represented a group of parents who believed their children had autism due to the MMR vaccination. Providing evidence of such a link would be of paramount importance in a compensation lawsuit against the manufacturers of this vaccine, where claims could be filed by thousands of people who have had autism and have ever been vaccinated with MMR.

Wakefield was working on a competitive vaccine

Wakefield also concealed the fact that he himself was working on developing a measles vaccine, which would also be a cure for intestinal inflammation. As verified by journalist Brian Deer and proven by a British medical court, Wakefield filed for a patent in 1997, a year before the article was published in The Lancet. Wakefield called the patented substance “Transfer Factor”. Together with the father of one of the children (child 10) studied in the aforementioned project, he also founded a company that was to sell the vaccine, if it could be registered.

If the combination vaccine turned out to be harmful, Wakefield’s single vaccine invented, it can be presumed that given instead of MMR, it could allow him to earn enormous money. Interestingly, immediately after the publication of the article in «The Lancet» at the press conference Wakefield called for a combination vaccine – MMR, to be replaced with single individual vaccines against measles, rubella and mumps. A similar suggestion was made in a press release distributed prior to the publication of the article in The Lancet.

Nay. A British medical court proved that Wakefield had administered this patented substance “Transfer Factor” to one of twelve children from the research project (child 10 in the project and trial documentation), in an experimental manner. However, he neglected to include information about this fact in the child’s medical records, as well as informing the child’s doctor about it. Moreover, according to a British medical court, he gave this substance to a child without competence to do so, as he was not a pediatrician.

Dr. Wakefield’s actions were against the child’s clinical interests 10 and undermined confidence in the physician’s position.

– we read in an extensive document from the proceedings against Wakefield before the British medical court.

Wakefield was putting children at risk

In a document of almost 150 pages from the proceedings before the British medical court, the sentence: “Dr. Wakefield’s action was contrary to the best interests of the child (here the number assigned in the project documentation)” is repeated many times and refers, for example, to the unnecessary exposure of young patients to invasive diagnostic tests, such as ileocolonoscopy – endoscopic examination of the colon and the end of the small intestine, or lumbar puncture.

Moreover, it was proved in the proceedings before the British medical court that Wakefield did not have approval from the Bioethics Committee for most of his research.

– Tests such as colonoscopy and puncture are invasive, unpleasant and painful. They can also cause dangerous complications, so they are only performed when absolutely necessary. In case of puncture, it may be a headache resulting from the reduction of pressure in the skull due to the collection of material for examination, but it may also damage the nerve or cause internal hemorrhage. The physician has the power to perform invasive tests, but only when the benefits outweigh the risks. If we have meningitis, puncture may be a necessary diagnosis, because it is necessary to determine whether it is a condition caused by bacteria or fungi, which determines effective treatment – emphasizes Dr. Wojciech Masełbas, an expert in the field of clinical trials. He calls Wakefield’s research “diagnostics for diagnosis alone”.

The rest of the text is below the video.

Vaccinations benefit not only their producers

– The only ones who benefit [from vaccines] are pharmaceutical companies – Wakefield said during the performance in Katowice.

The fact is that selling vaccines generates profits for the companies that make them. However, this is a transaction with other beneficiaries: millions of people around the world who do not die of infectious diseases or their complications, and do not lose many functions forever. Beneficiaries are also countries that do not spend on treating these diseases and helping people with disabilities.

To check this, it is enough to compare the incidence of infectious diseases of countries without universal vaccination programs with countries that have such programs, or to consider, checking the dates of introduction of universal vaccination, why the last case of polio in Poland was recorded in 1984. and only in 2020 WHO declared Africa free from the disease.

The editors recommend: Polio – a disease that has disappeared from the map of the world thanks to vaccines

Wakefield distorts the facts

– I believed my parents – Wakefield said to the audience gathered in Katowice Spodek.

The parents of several children enrolled in the research project believed that the MMR vaccine was responsible for their children’s health problems.

Wakefield in the article “The Lancet” wrote that the symptoms of disorders, incl. loss of previously acquired skills, such as speech, occurred within 14 days of MMR vaccination.

The problem is that all the children enrolled in the research project published in The Lancet had been in contact with a variety of doctors before, and the medical records of five of them do not support such a temporal relationship between symptoms and vaccination. For example, child 5 had received the MMR vaccine at 16 months of age, and parental behavior was noted in his records five months earlier.

On the other hand, the primary care physician, referring child No. 8 to the project (at the mother’s request), noted in a letter to the researchers that “both hospital staff and primary care clinic staff taking care of her [child No. 8] noticed significant irregularities in her months before MMR vaccination ».

Wakefield uses false data

“Vaccines are dangerous,” Wakefield said in Katowice.

He assured that in the US the risk of autism is currently 1 in 25, and in 2030 one in two children will have autism. He blamed it on universal vaccination. It’s not true.

The underlying cause of autism has not yet been elucidated. It is indicated, inter alia, to potential genetic determinants, e.g. the risk of this disorder increases significantly if siblings have it. The aftermath of Wakefield’s forgery – an unreliable study of 12 children – and his public appearances, was a series of studies involving large populations of children. The link between vaccines and autism has not been proven.

The prevalence of autism in the population ranges from 1% to a maximum of 3%. All you have to do is look around and count: do we really notice that one in every 25 children we know have autism? Even one in ten?

No money for an appeal? Rather chances of winning

During his performance in Katowice, Wakefield said he had been wrongly accused and disqualified from practicing his profession. In his opinion, he cannot appeal against the verdict because there is no money for it.

The co-author of the article in «The Lancet» was prof. John Walker-Smith, who was also disqualified from practicing in a separate proceeding before the British medical court. He had other allegations than Wakefield. Walker-Smith appealed against this ruling and won.

Wakefield claimed during a meeting with his fans in Katowice that Prof. Walker-Smith shows that the proceedings before the British medical court were unfair.

What are the facts?

“Wakefield filed an appeal in 2010 and withdrew it because his lawyers told the insurance company (Wakefield) that the trial was unwinnable,” wrote Brian Deer, an investigative journalist who revealed the scale of Wakefield’s fraud, to Health Service.

He explained that Walker-Smith’s lawyers had no such concerns, and that the appeal money was provided by the same insurance company that had insured and would finance Wakefield’s appeal.

Wakefield has never managed to prove fraud and dishonesty to the author of the articles that expose him to Brian Deer, who received prestigious awards for his publications, for example twice – the British Press Award. The disgraced doctor sued The Sunday Times for defamation, the newspaper in which Brian Deer published the results of his investigation. Not only did he not win, but he also had to cover the costs of the trial.

“Like a duck quacks, so Wakefield lies,” Deer wrote in an email to the Health Service.

Justyna Wojteczek / health.pap. pl Serwis Zdrowie

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I certify that there is no conflict of interest between my activities as a journalist and vaccine manufacturers, and that no pharmaceutical company has inspired me in any way to write this and other articles about vaccines.

Justyna Wojteczek

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