Today’s post will be about the ever so deceitful Andrew Wakefield and what is now known as his “MMR causes Autism” hypothesis. This post will involve some intense topics such as lies, deceit and fraud, so caution advised.
The man of dishonor, Andrew Wakefield, is a former British doctor who is now a huge supporter of the anti-vaccination movement. His involvement with this movement began in the late 1990’s as did his rise to fame. According to the Indian Journal of Psychiatry, in 1998 Wakefield and 12 of his colleagues published findings that there was a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR vaccine) and autism. According to The Lancet, Wakefield hypothesized the MMR vaccine causes damage to the guts of children who then revert developmentally and become autistic. When news of this hit the public, widespread hysteria ensued. Parents stopped getting their children vaccinated over concern that they might develop autism. This panic would have been fine if it were not for the fact that Wakefield had just committed scientific fraud. Not only does the MMR vaccine benefit children, the CDC reports there is no link between vaccines and developing autism. With that being said, let’s delve into the experimental design carried out over 20 years ago.
The first flaw of many in Wakefield’s unethical experimental design was his sample size. He only studied a mere 12 children. That’s all! To make matters worse, this article states the children were not randomly selected but rather the parents of these children came to Wakefield specifically. A true scientist would know that the best method to use for this kind of research would be a double-blind procedure. This is where neither the participants nor the experimenters know who is in the test or control group. However, Wakefield chose not to go this route. So what was his reason?
What better reason could there be besides money? The Indian Journal of Psychiatry found Wakefield had been funded by lawyers who had been hired by parents who were currently involved in lawsuits against vaccine-producing companies. Just let that sink in for a second. He was given money (probably a lot, too) to produce biased results to benefit a select group of people with an agenda.
Since the discovery of Wakefield’s false findings, The Lancet has retracted his 1998 paper, and in 2010 Andrew Wakefield became a discredited former doctor. Unfortunately, the MMR vaccine scare that arose from Wakefield’s professional misconduct is still impacting vaccine hesitancy today. According to NCBI, measles cases in the U.S. reached a 20-year high in 2014 due to people not being vaccinated. This shows Wakefield’s paper is still being used as a driving force for the anti-vaccination movement.
The only good thing to come out of the Wakefield scandal is increased awareness for the importance of ethical responsibility. Scientists are among the most reputable sources when it comes to credible information. We as a community put our trust in the findings that scientists publish. We expect well-researched, factual, and, more importantly, TRUTHFUL results that will influence our decision-making for the better. Scientists should be aware of the impact their findings have on the public because any error or falsification can have detrimental consequences as seen in the Wakefield incident.
The Fascination with Vaccination 