Antivax legacy…

Twenty-three years ago, British doctor Andrew Wakefield published an article linking childhood autism to the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet¹ and announced at a press conference that he had concerns about the MMR vaccine and its relationship to autism.

With some very careless media reporting, the findings went viral.

MMR vaccinations plunged.

It was a very small “study.”

“12 children (mean age 6 years [range 3–10], 11 boys) were referred to a paediatric gastroenterology unit with a history of normal development followed by loss of acquired skills, including language, together with diarrhoea and abdominal pain.”²

A 2003 paper in the The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine after reviewing a dozen epidemiological studies “concluded that there was no evidence of an association between autism and MMR.” Numerous studies in peer-reviewed journals concluded the same.  The British General Medical Council “revoked Wakefield’s medical license after a lengthy hearing, citing numerous ethical violations that tainted his work, like failing to disclose financing from lawyers who were mounting a case against vaccine manufacturers.” The Lancet retracted Wakefield’s paper in 2010. In 2011, The British Medical Journal concluded his research was unethically financed and fraudulent.³

Wakefield’s fraudulent actions have been tied to various epidemics and deaths.  His study and claims linking the MMR vaccine to autism led to decline in vaccination rates in the US, UK and Ireland, with a corresponding rise in measles and mumps cases along with serious illness and death.⁴

One 2011 study concluded, “The alleged autism-vaccine connection is, perhaps, the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years.”⁵

Kids died.

In 2019, The Skeptic Magazine awarded Wakefield its 2018 Rusty Razor award for “pseudoscience and bad critical thinking.” At that time, the anti-vaxxer movement had “had an ugly resurgence in recent years, in turn prompting a notable rise of easily preventable diseases across the developed world.” The CDC had recently released a report saying that “the number of US children under the age of two who haven’t received any life-saving immunizations has quadrupled since 2001.”⁶

It’s happening again. Untruths and distortions about the COVID vaccines are killing thousands every week.  “Anti-vaxxers, along with conservative politicians and TV commentators, are slandering vaccines as ineffective, dangerous and part of a government plot to enslave the citizenry.”⁷

New COVID cases are soaring.

99% of new COVID patients in hospitals are unvaccinated.

Some will die.

Trouble is, some people don’t listen to evidence. Instead, they surf a seductively scary sea of false information, much of it anecdotal, on TV and social media. Mendacity works. Researchers at MIT have found that even minimal exposure to this nonsense depresses vaccination rates.

Meanwhile, the whole subject of COVID-19 has become so politicized that reasoned debate is difficult. More than 85 percent of Democrats have had at least one shot, but only 52 percent of Republicans. The New York Times reports that the least vaccinated counties in the U.S. have one thing in common: they all voted for Donald Trump. For some Republicans, refusing to get vaccinated has become a badge of political loyalty.

It’s tempting to say: “Darwin was right. Let these idiots go. It’s their choice.” But that response is neither humane nor intelligent. People may get COVID-19 through their own stupidity, but they go on to infect other people – and all of them become potential petri dishes for new, more contagious, more vaccine-resistant variants.⁸

I got my first vaccination – Moderna – as soon as I could.

The second Moderna injection was four weeks later.

I plan to get the booster eight months after that one.

How ‘bout you?

1. Morrison, Donald. “Turning the Tide in the Vaccine (Mis)Information Wars.” The Berkshire Eagle, July 22, 2021. Accessed August 21, 2021. https://www.berkshireeagle.com/opinion/columnists/donald-morrison-turning….
2. Wakefield, Andrew J, et al. “RETRACTED: Ileal-Lymphoid-Nodular Hyperplasia, Non-Specific Colitis, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Children.” The Lancet, February 28, 1998. Accessed August 21, 2021. https://www.thelancet.com/…..
   • This is the RETRACTED article. The web article and the pdf both display the word RETRACTED prominently.
3. Dominus, Susan. “The Crash and Burn of an Autism Guru.” The New York Times, April 21, 2011. Accessed August 21, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24.
4. “Andrew Wakefield (Section: Epidemics, Effects, and Reception).” Wikipedia, last edit August 19, 2021. Accessed August 21, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield.
5. Flaherty DK. The Vaccine-Autism Connection: A Public Health Crisis Caused by Unethical Medical Practices and Fraudulent Science. Annals of Pharmacotherapy. 2011;45(10):1302-1304. Accessed August 21, 2021. https://journals.sagepub.com/…
6. Hale, Tom. “This Year’s Award for the Worst Pseudoscience Is Especially Deserved.” IFLScience. IFLScience, July 8, 2019. Accessed August 21, 2021. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine….
7. Morrison
8. ibid