You Can Avoid Getting Wakefielded

Vincent Iannelli, MD

2 years ago

Andrew Wakefield was the lead author on his retracted paper.

When you are famous and get something named after you, it’s a good thing. Not so much when you are infamous.

“After leaving Thoughtful House, Wakefield became president of the nonprofit Strategic Autism Initiative to further autism research. In the first three years, it raised $623,439 and paid Wakefield a salary adding up to $316,667 over that period for working 30 hours a week in 2010 and 2011 and 15 hours in 2012, according to IRS filings.”
Discredited autism guru Andrew Wakefield takes aim at CDC

What do you think of when you hear the name Andy Wakefield or that someone was “Wakefielded” these days?

Getting Wakefielded

Of course, anti-vax folks hold a different image of Andy Wakefield and a different idea of what it means to be Wakefielded…

Remember that it isn’t just autism, anti-vaccine influencers have a multitude of different theories to explain how vaccines are to blame for everything.

To them, he isn’t a fraud, was proven right, and can do no wrong…

“To our community, Andrew Wakefield is Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ rolled up into one.”
J.B. Handley

What does the rest of the world think?

In the traditional sense, considering Wakefield’s retracted Lancet paper, getting Wakefielded refers to someone falsifying or manipulating research to make it seem like it proves something that it doesn’t.

What Getting Wakefielded Really Should Mean

As we are getting to know more about Andy Wakefield‘s activities since his paper was retracted and he lost his medical license, and the effects of his fraud, we know what getting Wakefielded really should mean!

“This is the legacy of the Wakefield scare,” said Dr. David Elliman, spokesman for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, referring to a paper published in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues that is widely rejected by scientists.
Measles uptick in Britain: Blame Andrew Wakefield’s autism-vaccine study

When a community is Wakefielded, they are hit with anti-vaccine messaging…

The people of Samoa were Wakefielded by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr and Taylor Winterstein just before their big outbreak.

And then, not surprisingly, a big outbreak of a vaccine preventable disease soon seems to follow.

Were parents in West Africa Wakefielded by Peter Aaby and his team? Made to think that the DPT vaccine was dangerous and now getting hit with low vaccination rates and deadly diphtheria outbreaks?

Which other communities might have been Wakefielded?

in 1974, reduced DPT coverage in the UK after a paper by Dr John Wilson claimed their might be a link between the pertussis vaccine and brain damage led to pertussis epidemics. Wilson’s study was found to be seriously flawed, subsequent vaccine lawsuits failed, and folks eventually started to get vaccinated again. The media and Wilson Wakefielded everyone, but no lessons were learned…
in 1981 David Miller published a flawed study trying to link the DPT vaccine to seizures and neurological problems – finding that no one else was ever able to reproduce, but which led to media attention, including the Vaccine Roulette show.
the UK, with measles outbreaks every few years since 2002 – were they Wakefielded by Andy Wakefield?
the Somali American community around Minneapolis, also hit with a measles outbreak following multiple visits by Andy Wakefield. And then, just like the NRA stages a big gun show in an area after a school shooting, Wakefield brought his VAXXED bus to the area while they were still working to contain the outbreak!
the PEACH project folks and had been distributing their magazines filled with misinformation about vaccines in Orthodox Jewish communities since at least 2014 = Wakefielded, as a 2019 New York measles outbreak eventually became the largest outbreak since the endemic spread of measles had ended
before the 2019 New York outbreak ended, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr made an appearance
a 2013 measles outbreak at Eagle Mountain International Church in Texas, a vaccine-skeptical megachurch whose pastor had reservations about vaccines
a 2010 pertussis epidemic in California in which 10 babies died – the epidemic was tied to an increase in personal belief exemptions and followed the publication of Bob Sears Vaccine Book that pushed an alternative vaccination schedule, Jenny McCarthy appearing on Oprah and Larry King telling parents that vaccines are not safe, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr‘s Deadly Immunity article in Rolling Stone.

How many more people have been Wakefielded by today’s anti-vaccine influencers?