Episode 4: Vaccine Safety Series 2: Andrew Wakefield

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This episode is an updated version of my original blog post "The Antivax Epidemic Good Parents Getting Gamed Episode 2 - Andrew Wakefield from 2019.

Welcome to Episode 2 in my series on Vaccine Safety.

And it's a doozy. Today I am bringing you a horror story - how one corrupt physician hurt children and parents to make money and created a legacy of fear that is still making people sick and leading to deaths that could have been prevented. This is Andrew Wakefield

OK, so we have thirty years' worth of data showing without question that vaccines do not cause autism. I have an entire episode about it. Look there for that evidence, this episode is all about the lying sack of crap that started this whole shitshow that has led to the unnecessary deaths of children.

Andrew Wakefield

Twenty-seven years ago on Feb. 28, 1998, Andrew Wakefield, a British doctor at the time, published a paper in The Lancet falsely linking the MMR vaccine to autism and colitis. The paper and author were investigated and it turned out the science was bogus. Even if it hadn't been bogus, though, the study itself was seriously flawed.

Wakefield drew his conclusions linking autism to the MMR vaccine, using only clinical anecdotes for a mere 12 children. You see, the paper was published as an "early report". It was in essence a case report; a story about patient medical histories. Case reports are helpful, definitely, but no credible scientist would draw conclusions about something like a link between autism and vaccines using a case report alone, let alone a case report with only 12 children. In addition, the MMR vaccine was so common in the UK at the time of the paper, that finding 12 children with autism who'd had the MMR vaccine was almost guaranteed. So even if he had not falsified data, the conclusions in the paper would have still been a horrific misinterpretation.

But he did falsify data and he was investigated. According to Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal at the time, told CNN, “It’s one thing to have a bad study... In this case we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data.”

Exhaustive investigations into Wakefield’s methods by the British General Medical Council proved dozens of charges against him including dishonesty and ethical violations including abuse of developmentally challenged children. They found:

Severe undisclosed conflicts of interest for Wakefield

Wakefield was paid more than 400K pounds (plus expenses) by Norfolk lawyer, Richard Barr (an advocate for the anti-vaccine group, JABS), to "prove" that vaccines were unsafe in an effort to win a lawsuit against a vaccine manufacturer. He had been specifically charged with finding evidence for a bowel-brain syndrome linked to vaccines and was on their payroll for two years before the paper was published. The lawsuit failed. He also stood to gain money through the vaccine alternative he was advocating. Instead of the combined MMR vaccine, he advised people to get their children single shot vaccines over a period of time. He just so happened to have filed a patent for a single disease vaccine. He wasn't telling people not to vaccinate their kids! He was telling them to use his vaccine! Because his paper actually started the anti-vax movement, his vaccines weren't as lucrative as he expected so these days he is on the anti-vax speaker circuit in the US where he is flourishing. He should be indicted and forced to publicly apologize.

Fraudulent manipulation of data in the study

Brian Deer photographed in Feb 2025 by Jay Eff

British investigative journalist Brian Deer spent seven years investigating Andrew Wakefield’s study and what he found was horrifying. Before we get into that I want you to understand who Brian Deer is. He's a multi-award-winning investigative reporter, best known for inquiries into the drug industry, medicine, and social issues for the Sunday Times of London. He is not a shill for vaccine companies. Over the course of his incredible career he has exposed pharm companies for falsifying data that allowed dangerous drugs to be released. He exposes corruption. In 1986, he exposed research by British scientist Michael Briggs at Deakin University in Australia, who fabricated a shit ton of data to make it look like the a contraceptive pill he was working on was safe when it was not. Deer interviewed Briggs who essentially admitted everything. He published two articles in the NY Times in September 1986: “The pill: professor’s safety tests were faked” and “Exposed the bogus work of Professor Briggs”. Deer's investigations have led to removal of dangerous drugs from the market including the antibiotic Septrin in the UK, and he exposed the media psychiatrist Raj Persaud who resigned and was suspended from practicing medicine after being found guilty of plagiarism. If anyone was going to expose vaccines for being dangerous, it would have been Brian Deer, but that's not what he discovered. Instead, he discovered a physician who harmed children to advance his own agenda, which was to support a bogus lawsuit and get his own vaccine on the market.

Deer's investigation led to publication of a three part series in the British Medical Journal:

• Part 1: How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed 

• Part 2: How the vaccine crisis was meant to make money 

• Part 3: The Lancet’s two days to bury bad news 

  
  

Deer actually followed up with each of the 12 families used in the Wakefield "study". What he learned through his years of diligent research, was that "No case was free of misreporting or alteration." Wakefield altered the data to fit his agenda - he had actually been told to find evidence for an autism-colitis syndrome. The backbone of his paper was regressive autism - autism in which children develop on schedule initially before autism symptoms appear. But only one out of the 12 children in his paper was ever actually diagnosed with regressive autism - child 2. Three of the nine described in the paper as having regressive autism, clearly did not have regressive autism and in fact were never diagnosed with autism at all; before, during, or after the study.

Further, if a child's "autism" symptoms appeared before they were vaccinated, Wakefield reported in his paper that the symptoms appeared after vaccination. Another example of data falsification are the histological findings of child 3. Histological findings are the results of a microscopic examination of tissue samples. They are used to diagnose disease, study tissue structure, and monitor tissue healing. After surgery child 3 was subjected to for the study but did not need, pathologists examined colonic samples and found them to be normal. Three months after he was released from the hospital, a co-conspirator of Wakefield's asked for the boy's records and on them, changed the diagnosis from normal to "indeterminate ileocolitis". Stunning corruption on display here.

Here is a summary from Deer's report, indicating what was altered in the paper compared to what was in the actual medical reports.

Comparison of three features of the 12 children in the Lancet paper with features apparent in the NHS records, including those from the Royal Free hospital

You can use the bar at the bottom of the table to scroll left and right and see all data

Child no	Regressive autism		Non-specific colitis		First symptoms days after MMR		All three features
			Lancet	Records*		Lancet	Records†	Lancet	Records‡	Lancet	Records
1	Yes	?		Yes	Yes		Yes	No		Yes	No
2	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes		Yes	No		Yes	No
3	Yes	?		Yes	No		Yes	?		Yes	No
4	Yes	?		Yes	No		Yes	No		Yes	No
5	Yes	?		Yes	No		No	No		No	No
6	Yes	No		Yes	Yes		Yes	?		Yes	No
7	Yes	No		No	No		Yes	No		No	No
8	No	No		Yes	No		Yes	No		No	No
9	No	No		Yes	No		No	No		No	No
10	No	No		Yes	No		No	No		No	No
11	Yes	?		Yes	No		Yes	No		Yes	No
12	Yes	No		Yes	No		No	No		No	No
Total	9/12	?6/12		11/12	3/12		8/12	?2/12		6/12	0/12

See supplementary data on bmj.com for a version of this table with detailed footnotes.

*Regressive developmental disorder—autism.

†Royal Free hospital pathology service.

‡First behavioural symptoms ≤14 days after MMR.

Unethical treatment of children in the study

The 12 kids in the study were treated like guinea pigs. Surgery was done on children even though there were no clinical indications to do so. Others were admitted for invasive procedures without being seen beforehand. Described in one journal article: "Dr Wakefield, John Walker-Smith, and Simon Murch are accused of ignoring limitations placed on them by the research ethics committee of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust and subjecting children to procedures that were not clinically indicated, including lumbar punctures, barium meals, general anaesthesia, and colonoscopy." In addition, they gave child 10 an experimental drug called “oral measles virus-specific dialyzable lymphocyte extract transfer factor”. They did this without having any information on it's safety in children and an entire year before the ethics committee gave them the approval to do so. Turns out, this was another business investment for Wakefield. He had "submitted a proposal to the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine 'to set up a company called Immunospecifics Biotechnologies Ltd to specialise in the production, formulation and sale of Transfer Factor.' The proposal stated that Child 10's father, known as Mr 10, would be managing director of the company, while Dr Wakefield would be research director."

One of the strangest things he did - and talked about in public - was paying kids for blood samples at a birthday party. For that he was charged with "taking blood in an inappropriate social setting without ethical approval, of offering financial inducements, of showing a callous disregard for the distress and pain of the children, of abusing his trust as a practitioner, and of bringing the medical profession into disrepute."

The Fallout

Wakefield was found guilty of 30 charges, including four counts of dishonesty and 12 of clinically unjustified invasive procedures on children and deemed irresponsible and unethical. Andrew Wakefield and a co-author were stripped of their medical licenses. Each of his co-authors removed their names from The Lancet paper voluntarily. Wakefield refused to do so and to this day advocates against vaccines. After the extensive investigation, The Lancet formally retracted the paper in 2010 - twelve years after it had been published.  

The day after the official retraction of that paper, the editor of NeuroToxicology, withdrew another Wakefield paper that implicated vaccines in autism and had already been published online. The American Journal of Gastroenterology also retracted a paper of Wakefield's that used data from the 12 patients from the Lancet article.

Wakefield keeps saying Deer lied and he's the target of a big conspiracy but in an interview with CNN Deer responded with, "...this material has been published in the United Kingdom in extraordinary detail. If it is true that Andrew Wakefield is not guilty as charged, he has the remedy of bringing a libel action against myself, the Sunday Times of London, against the medical journal here, and he would be the richest man in America."

By the way, all of Wakefield's lawsuits have been dismissed because he did it. He was investigated and found guilty on 30 counts. That he keeps insisting he's innocent is just him capitalizing on the issue so he can keep making money as a leader of the anti-vax movement. He'd never admit to what he did. To do so would kill his only form of livelihood.

So Wakefield did what all disgraced fraudsters do and moved to Texas, where he makes ends meet the only way he can these days, by speaking at anti-vax events, writing anti-vax books, and making anti-vax movies. He is still harming children. The US isn't the only place in the grip of this lie. The UK declared measles was eliminated in 2016 and just three years later confirmed 231 cases in the first quarter of 2019. Hell, even Boris Johnson spoke out in favor of vaccines when he was in charge.

Brian Deer keeps warning people about Wakefield's continued grotesque manipulation of parents' fears to make money. In 2020 he published a book called The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Science, Deception, and the War on Vaccines, in which he reveals the players in the conspiracy, where it began, who was responsible, how they pulled it off, and who paid. In an interview with Amy Goodman on Jan 31, 2025, Brian Deer talked about his expose on Wakefield saying, "The suffering that parents have been exposed to as a result of this man Andrew Wakefield, in particular, and his research paper [...] published in London in 1998, and, I would say, was the honor of my life to have caused to be retracted and exposed for what it was." When asked about the relationship between Wakefield and RFK jr., Deer had this to say, "Well, they basically run this movement together. Kennedy, Andrew Wakefield and another man, Del Bigtree, who works with them both, are, if you like, the innermost circle of this movement, which has evolved in recent years."

RFK founded the Children's Health Defense which is pure antivax bullshit disguised as a parent's best friend. It's being exposed for its deception. Brian Deer wrote an Op-Ed for the NYT called I'll Never Forget What Kennedy Did During Samoa's Measles Outbreak. I recommend reading it or watching his interview with Amy Goodman on the issue. He also has published a story on it in The Telegraph, which I also recommend. I will be doing an episode on RFK and how his far reaching bullshit has really harmed children and you won't want to miss it.

And if you want to know more you need to read Deer's book. RFK getting confirmed at HHS is a betrayal of the American people. Get your vaccines while you still have access, my fellow Americans. He's coming for them.

Back to the topic at hand. So that's Wakefield, and then there's this guy:

But What About Brian Hooker, You Ask?

Brian Hooker published a ridiculous and immediately retracted paper in 2014 in Translational Neurodegeneration: "Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young african american boys: a reanalysis of CDC data." He did so many things wrong with this paper but regardless of anything else he did, the fact that he analyzed case control data as a cohort study invalidates the entire thing. But he also manipulated the stats by using the wrong statistical tests in an effort to get the stats to validate what he wanted the data to say. How did another bogus autism paper get published?

Well, it was a brand new journal and based on the journal's reason for retraction - "...undeclared competing interests on the part of the author which compromised the peer review process." - I'd say he included in his list of suggested reviewers, those who were in fact his very own anti-vax cronies. So forget Hooker. He was just trying to cash in on the anti-vax trend. In the process he stirred up more anti-vax "ammunition" and made it harder for people trying to help parents by getting the facts out there. 

So here we are...over two decades later and the damage done is unconscionable. And you know how we know for an ABSOLUTE FACT that Wakefield was full of shit? Decreasing vaccination has not reduced autism diagnoses. Not even a little. If you were fooled by Wakefield, now is a really good time to say well, crap, he fooled me. OK, so now I know better and will vaccinate my kids. Seriously. You might be really invested in this lie and that sucks, but if what you care about is evidence then you can't keep regurgitating his bullshit. He's not trustworthy. It's OK to change your mind about vaccines based on the extensive evidence.

To add insult to injury in this whole mess, a robust and well-executed study, published in 2015, revealed that the measles vaccine is more important than we realized. It turns out that the measles vaccine not only prevents measles, it reduces mortality from any infectious disease by up to 80%! This is because when you get sick with the measles, the virus wrecks your immune memory and it takes 2-3 years for that to recover. This is a big deal. It's why we're fighting so hard to educate people. I know you all just want to protect your kids, but refusing vaccination is only doing more harm. 

Currently (March 23, 2025), there is a terrible measles outbreak in Texas in which 309 cases have been identified since late January, with 40 people hospitalized, one child has died, and another death is pending investigation, so far. As of March 20, 2025, a total of 378 confirmed measles cases were reported in the US by 18 jurisdictions: Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, New York State, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and Washington. Learn everything you need to know about the measles disease in my measles episode. It's not an insignificant disease and the vaccine is safe and effective. And get a measles booster if you're older than 30. Talk to your doctor. You can get your antibody titer tested or you can skip that and get a booster or the 2 shot series. Ask your doctor what's right for you and show him or her this study, this study, and this study on waning protection from measles vaccines. It was never an issue because we'd all but eradicated it but that's not the case anymore. Better yet, have him or her listen to my podcasts or check out this podcast webpage which has all the links.

Wakefield and Hooker are not alone in the blame for this misinformation campaign. The media picks up these stories and runs with them. Media in all forms have a responsibility to provide clear, evidenced-based reporting. Instead of perpetuating anti-vax propaganda, they need to provide real, verifiable data, to talk about the many well-devised and well-executed studies that show without a doubt that vaccines do not cause autism. They need to interview scientists, not celebrities. And when people spread lies they need to call them out and advocate for truth. They need to be Brian Deer. See my episode, Vaccine Safety Episode 1: Vaccines and Autism for more on the copious studies that show vaccines do not cause autism.

There are two devastated demographics in this vaccine-autism debacle: children and communities who are at risk of measles and the immune deficits it brings, and those children and families who are struggling with autism. When anti-vaxxers harp on vaccines, they not only put entire communities at risk for deadly epidemics, they prevent researchers from unscrambling the true physiological/genetic/environmental anomalies that lead to autism.

And that is tragic for us all.

For informational purposes only, please discuss getting vaccinated with your physician. Feel free to show them this podcast.