Andrew Wakefield

For Real or For Fraud?

Andrew Wakefield was a scientist who published the paper, Ilead-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, nonspecific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children, in the Lancet Journal in 1998. Now if that title isn’t impressive, I don’t know what is. In this scientific article, Wakefield announced his research discoveries of the correlation between the MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccine, regressive autism, and inflammation of the colon. After these results were not replicated in other laboratories and were refuted in the scientific community, Wakefield basically looked like a fraud, yet the hysteria he cause was enough to bring back an almost eradicated disease in the United Kingdom.

The Research

From what I can tell from reading the actual research report, Wakefield really did not create a non-biased, educated hypothesis. Instead, he took a small group of children with varying gastrointestinal problems and used the word of mouth from the parents and tests he did not run to put it all together and blame it on the MMR vaccine. A huge flaw in this research is the sample size. Wakefield used only twelve children in his study. That sample size is not enough to get any useful information from. Also, there was only one girl in this sample so yes the sample was very inclusive…(sarcasm). It does not seem that the children being studied were intially screened or that the research was conducted witout bias. First of all, the report itself says that the mothers and fathers of the children noticed the onsets of slowed mental development RIGHT AFTER GETTING THE VACCINE, basically. Although it may not have been right after, they all already attributed their childrens’ declining mental states to the vaccine before any tests had been done. Secondly, there is no mention of a placebo or double blind procedure. A double blind procedure is one in which neither the researcher or the subject now what treatment they are getting or what control group they are placed in. This is done to eliminate bias and allow the science to speak for itself. So, there goes the honesty of the results.

What is crazy is that the children used in his study did not have vert similar symptoms and signs to conclude they all were sick with the same thing. Only eleven of them were referred to a GI specialist and not all of them had been seen by a psychiatrist. Even for the children that did see a psychiatrist, a new one was not brought in to further assess their mental states, rather the researchers used their previous diagnosis’ as a factor for their own research. This whole process lacked uniformity. For example, only four stool samples were obtained from the eleven subjects and only nine of them had a colonoscopy all the way to the cecum. The methods are just all over the place and not consistent.

The Social Implications

The releasing of this research spread fear like a wild fire in a forest. It was not vaccine hesitancy, it was vaccine-phobia. According to David Gorski with Science-Based Medicine, the amount of people who refused the MMR vaccine shot up so much that fourteen years after the release of this research, measles, a disease previously eradicated in the U.K., was deemed endemic again. The levels dropped lower than herd immunity levels. No one was safe at that point because virtually no one was immune.

Almost immediately after the release of Wakefield’s findings, other scientist tried to replicate his results and none were successful. A major theory behind why he found correlation between young children, the MMR vaccine, and developmental regression is the fact that these things occur at a young age. CHILDREN receive the vaccine and autism is first seen in CHILDREN. What a coincidence. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, Wakefield was actually found guilty of literally fraud and this was the final nail in the coffin. The twelve scientists who did this research who found guilt of falsifying facts in an attempt to increase their financial gain in the journalism world. So, there was widespread fear of vaccines which caused outbreaks of measles in the U.K and the U.S up until 2008-2009 and this hesitancy continues to linger today (almost 20 years later). All of this happened because a reporter wanted to make some money and a group of scientists went along with it…..NICE.