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Who is Andrew Wakefield?

Andrew Wakefield infamously published a paper in the journal Lancet, which was later retracted, that some say started the modern anti-vaccine movement.

Is Andrew Wakefield to blame for low immunization rates and continuing outbreaks?
Is Wakefield to blame for low immunization rates and continuing outbreaks?

At the press conference for the study, in 1998, he said:

“Again, this was very contentious and you would not get consensus from all members of the group on this, but that is my feeling, that the, the risk of this particular syndrome developing is related to the combined vaccine, the MMR, rather than the single vaccines.”

Andrew Wakefield

Since then, Wakefield:

  • created a company to make a replacement for the MMR vaccine (1999)
  • watched rates of MMR vaccination drop to new lows in the UK
  • has 10 of 13 co-authors of his paper issue a partial retraction (2004)
  • observed increasing numbers of measles outbreaks in the UK (2006)
  • gets investigated by the General Medical Council (2007)
  • has his paper fully retracted by the Lancet and he is erased from the medical register (2010)

Wakefield then moves to the United States to become an autism “expert” and later begins to make anti-vaccine movies.

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