andrew wakefield

The measles outbreak in the USA has now killed at least two people, including a 6 year old girl, and has infected at least 430.

430 might not seem like a huge number, but it’s worth remembering that even if infection doesn’t cause death, it can result in deafness, blindness and brain damage, as well as having other serious long-term effects.

And we’ve been through some of the reasons that this outbreak is happening. Indeed, the parents of the little girl that died gave an interview after her death in which they said that they remained strongly anti-vaccination. And while you can argue that that’s their right (sadly, it is), maybe for some context we should add another of the things they said in the same interview:

“The measles wasn’t that bad.”

That ‘s them describing the disease that just killed their daughter.

Absolutely terrifying. Not least given that they have 4 other kids.

Of course, one of the other reasons (other than religion) that measles vaccination has waned is Andrew Wakefield’s long-disproven link between MMR and autism.

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

There are now many, many studies refuting Wakefield’s “work” – and it’s a horrible lesson in how incredibly damaging and dangerous spreading falsehoods can be.

It’s absolutely clear that Wakefield’s “study” was – at best – terrible science, and – at worst – completely fraudulent.

So it’s both weird and worrying that The Department of Health and Human Services in the US has decided to launch a study into… er… “the connection between immunisations and autism”, and even weirder and more worrying that [gosh] they’ve chosen a prominent anti-vaxxer to help run it.

David Geier has written several papers on the alleged dangers of vaccines in causing developmental disorders in children, several of them funded by the non-profit Institute of Chronic Illnesses (ICI), Inc. The CEO of the Institute of Chronic Illnesses (ICI), Inc. is one David Grier.

He’s certainly never medically examined children even though he holds no medical qualification.

Grier and his father have long been grifting while pretending that there’s a link between vaccines and autism. They then tested and “treated” their patients at huge expense to the parents, while raking in money for representing them at (unsuccessful) legal hearings into their childrens’ disorders.

Anyway, he seems like the perfect guy to run an unbiased, objective, non-partisan study into this allegedly contentious and emotive non-issue.

What – I ask again – could possibly go wrong?

A new study, ironically published in The Lancet, raises serious doubts that the goal of elimination of measles in Europe by 2010 can be attained. The reason for this re-emergence of a disease which was completely under control 15 years ago is the “shoddy, litigation- and profit-driven pseudoscience” of Andrew Wakefield, whose now discredited study published in The Lancet in 1998, linked the MMR vaccine with autism in children.

Measles virus: small, but nasty

It later emerged that Wakefield was paid up to £55,000 by solicitors acting on behalf of the families of some autistic children to prove a link between the vaccine and the condition. This was something that he somehow forgot to mention to his fellow authors, medical authorities or The Lancet.

Simon Murch, one of the leading doctors involved with Wakefield’s research at the Royal Free, said that news of the £55,000 legal funding was “a very unpleasant surprise”.
“We never knew anything about the £55,000 — he had his own separate research fund,” said Murch. “All of us were surprised… We are pretty angry.”

10 years on and Wakefield’s scaremongering has resulted in a 13-year high in the number of measles cases in the UK: an “embarrassing problem” according to the WHO report’s authors. Vaccination levels have improved somewhat over the past 2 years, with concerted “catch-up” campigns for those who missed vaccination, but even cases of measles in South America, which was all but free of the disease, have been traced back to Europe.

Between 2007-8 in Europe, there were over 12,000 cases of measles, which should have been erradicated from the continent by next year. Over 1,000 of them were in the UK:

1,049 is the highest number of measles cases recorded in England and Wales since the current method of monitoring the disease was introduced in 1995.
This rise is due to relatively low MMR vaccine uptake over the past decade and there are now a large number of children who are not fully vaccinated with MMR. This means that measles is spreading easily among unvaccinated children.

As a microbiologist and a parent, I strongly urge all parents to do the decent thing and vaccinate their children. These are not called “preventable diseases” for nothing. Apart from the benefits for you and your kids, there should be a collective sense of social responsibility to help reduce the reservoir of these illnesses in society.
The results of a decade of misinformation, poor science and hysterical reporting are becoming evident now: disease, disability and even death for hundreds of children, all of which could and should have been avoided.

Don’t let it happen to your kids.

Tag: andrew wakefield

What could possibly go wrong?

Wakefield’s Shameful Legacy