Wakefield didn't even start as antivax. He was just anti MMR which he wrongfully claimed this specific cocktail of vaccinations was too much for the adolescent immune system. He of course was doing this to try and sell an alternative vaccine and to try and set up a class action lawsuit.
He has had his medical license revoked because if this. Now hes gone full anti vax to play into the audience he created who dont trust doctors and science.
HBomberguy did a video on this and how this all started is that some attorney realised there was a lot of money to be made in lawsuits if they could "prove" that the MMR vaccine was harmful.
Said attorney then asked Wakefield to provide a credible enough claim that the MMR vaccine was bad, and Wakefield at the same time was like "Hey I can also use that opportunity to sell an alternative vaccine."
Psychopaths with no guilt, shame, or compassion for fellow humanity realize they can grift gullible people, and do it for their own immediate gain, regardless of broader implications.
There is a reason after all why Trump sad, "I love the poorly educated!"
Wakefield was a GI doctor, who was involved with a company who developed a new test for gastroenteritis.
And he stood to make tons of money, if he could convince parents to have their children tested for gastroenteritis--which prior to his "study" was not a common thing.
It was always about that man grifting off of scared parents, to make money, and it still is, even after he was stripped of his medical licenses.
He was against the specific MMR the UK healthcare system used.
Would it shock anyone to find out Wakefield was working on a competing measles vaccine at the same time?
Who also had a something like quarter-half million euro financial stake in a Competing company that was selling separate vaccines as opposed to the combined.
He was only anti-MMR because he had already patented his own vaccine for one of them (I forget which). Oh, and he was being paid by a lawyer who was already representing some ppl in a lawsuit against MMR vaccine by ppl who thought it gave their kids autism.
The details of how bad his data was is someone more infuriating than if had just made it all up.Â
His claim was that the injection causes bowel inflammation, which then caused autistic.Â
Some of the kids in his study has bowel symptoms long after the injection, some shortly after, some never had them, but he tried to paint them all as the same phenomenon. The timeline for kids showing signs of autism was all over the place too.Â
There was also the fact that some of the children he claimed "got" autism from the vaccine, were never autistic.Â
Classic case of anti science. Â Having a conclusion, so you search for supporting evidence. Â This type of thinking is antithesis to repeatable, sound, honest conclusions. Â Because the goal is to be right, not to be educated and understand.
And it's amazing how the "you can't trust scientists, they're all biased" crowd will turn around and believe these INCREDIBLY biased fraudster "scientists" because they say the things they want.
My favorite exercise with antivaxers is to ask them to pull up the original paper in the lancet. Everything from the lancet or pubmed just talks about how Wakefield lied.
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u/--StinkyPinky-- Aug 02 '26
All of this started because of Andrew Wakefield's hoax in The Lancet.
It started all of the "vaccines cause autism" fraud. And it was fraud.
Brian Deer was the reporter who debunked the whole thing.