Misplaced Pages

#676323

75-568: The activities of these associated lobbying bodies have been called "antiscientific" and "akin to climate change denialism" by scientists, alleging also that they seek primarily to engage in harassment of food scientists. OCA was embroiled in controversy for work they did with Andrew Wakefield to mislead the Somali immigrant community about the safety of vaccines. Reporting has also exposed their close ties and financial relationship with Joseph Mercola , an alternative medicine proponent and "major funder of

150-490: A High Court order compelling Wakefield to continue with his action, or discontinue it. After a hearing on 27 and 28 October 2005, Justice David Eady ruled against a stay of proceedings : It thus appears that the Claimant wishes to use the existence of the libel proceedings for public relations purposes, and to deter other critics, while at the same time isolating himself from the "downside" of such litigation, in having to answer

225-536: A collaborating laboratory questioned the accuracy of the data underpinning Wakefield's claims. In June 2005, the BBC programme Horizon reported on an unnamed and unpublished study of blood samples from a group of 100 autistic children and 200 children without autism. They reported finding 99% of the samples contained no trace of the measles virus, and the samples that did contain the virus were just as likely to be from non-autistic children, i.e., only three samples contained

300-442: A copy of the published patent application. At page 1, the first paragraph of this stated: The present invention relates to a new vaccine/immunisation for the prevention and/or prophylaxis against measles virus infection and to a pharmaceutical or therapeutic composition for the treatment of IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease); particularly Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis and regressive behavioural disease (RBD). Before describing

375-542: A correlation they found between vaccination and autism in African-American boys in a CDC study. However a 2011 IOM report showed that evidence favors rejection of a relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism. The film contains edited excerpts of several phone calls between Hooker and Thompson recorded without Thompson's knowledge. Hooker's 2014 paper on the narrative was subsequently retracted due to "serious concerns about

450-622: A discredited scientist and dishonest filmmaker down a rabbit hole that leads only to long-debunked conspiracy theories. I am profoundly disappointed." The film was given a private screening in Cannes in 2017 while the Cannes Film Festival was underway, and at that time Cinema Libre said that it had earned $ 1.2 million and that they had signed distribution deals in Italy, Germany, Poland, and China. On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes ,

525-557: A dog in this fight; he is the dog". In November 2019, a sequel, Vaxxed II: The People's Truth , was released. In 1998 Wakefield and 12 other authors published a fraudulent study in The Lancet in which he falsely claimed that the MMR vaccine caused autism. In 2010 the study was retracted, and Wakefield was struck off the medical register in the United Kingdom due to "ethical violations and

600-404: A failure to disclose financial conflicts of interest" and for his invention of evidence linking the MMR vaccine to autism. A substantial body of subsequent research has established that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism . Wakefield went on to become a leader in the anti-vaccination movement that his discredited study helped create. Del Bigtree , a producer of Vaxxed ,

675-469: A film critic from Variety magazine. describes the film as a "slickly produced but scientifically dubious hodgepodge of free-floating paranoia" and warns of its "anti-Big Pharma conspiracy mongering." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: The vast majority of people who see this film will not have the scientific knowledge to assess the film's veracity. But it's fair to say that

750-532: A general practitioner, at the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital in Taplow , England. As a student at the independent King Edward's School, Bath , he was captain of his local rugby team. After leaving King Edward's School, Wakefield studied medicine at St Mary's Hospital Medical School (now Imperial College School of Medicine ), fully qualifying in 1981. Wakefield became a fellow of

825-592: A letter from Wakefield's lawyers to him dated 31 January 2005 said: "Dr Wakefield did not plan a rival vaccine." In the Dispatches programme, Deer also revealed that Nicholas Chadwick, a researcher working under Wakefield's supervision in the Royal Free medical school, had failed to find measles virus in the children reported on in The Lancet . In January 2005, Wakefield initiated libel proceedings against Channel 4,

SECTION 10

#1733106739677

900-483: A number of peer-reviewed studies in 1998 and concluding that the measles virus did not cause Crohn's disease, and neither did the MMR vaccine. Later, in 1995, while conducting research into Crohn's disease, he was approached by Rosemary Kessick, the parent of a child with autism, who was seeking help with her son's bowel problems and autism; Kessick ran a group called Allergy Induced Autism. In 1996, Wakefield turned his attention to researching possible connections between

975-511: A physician in the UK, and is not licensed in the US. He lives in the US where he has a following, including the anti-vaccinationist Jenny McCarthy , who wrote the foreword for Wakefield's autobiography, Callous Disregard . She has a son with autism-like symptoms that she believes were caused by the MMR vaccine. According to Deer, as of 2011 , Wakefield lives near Austin with his family. Wakefield has set up

1050-546: A professor of paediatric medicine at Columbia University Medical Center , said the film-makers "were saying, there's this silver bullet here, and the CDC is hiding it, and no one else has looked at this issue, which is not the case". Thompson does not appear in the film and did not see it before it was released. Thompson had released a statement on the controversy in 2014 which the New York Times discussed in its coverage of Vaxxed ;

1125-429: A proposed "new syndrome" of enterocolitis and regressive autism and associated this with MMR as an "apparent precipitating event." But in fact: In an accompanying editorial, BMJ editors said: Clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare ... Who perpetrated this fraud? There is no doubt that it was Wakefield. Is it possible that he was wrong, but not dishonest: that he

1200-493: A purported link between the MMR vaccine and autism . According to Variety , the film "purports to investigate the claims of a senior scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who revealed that the CDC had allegedly manipulated and destroyed data on an important study about autism and the MMR vaccine"; critics derided Vaxxed as an anti-vaccine propaganda film. The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews from academics and critics. The film

1275-524: A responsible consultant". The Lancet fully retracted Wakefield's 1998 publication on the basis of the GMC's findings, noting that elements of the manuscript had been falsified and that the journal had been "deceived" by Wakefield. Three months later, Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register , in part for his deliberate falsification of research published in The Lancet , and was barred from practising medicine in

1350-464: A senior scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who revealed that the CDC had allegedly manipulated and destroyed data on an important study about autism and the MMR vaccine." The film features the so-called "CDC whistleblower" narrative that is based on anti-vaccination activist and associate professor Brian Hooker 's paper describing claims by senior CDC scientist William Thompson that he and his co-authors had omitted mention of

1425-505: A substantial defence of justification ... I am quite satisfied, therefore, that the Claimant wished to extract whatever advantage he could from the existence of the proceedings while not wishing to progress them or to give the Defendants an opportunity of meeting the claims. The judgment identified Channel 4's "very lengthy extracts" summarizing Deer's allegations against Wakefield: Eady's ruling states that, "The views or conclusions of

1500-616: Is directed by the person who perpetuated the hoax." A review by Ed Cara from the health and science news-site Medical Daily states that "[ Vaxxed ] doesn't care about convincing its audience with evidence. Instead, Wakefield, Hooker, and producer Del Bigtree run the viewer through a well-trod gauntlet of emotional pleas, context-free statistics ... and shadowy conspiracies." Eric Kohn from an independent film news-site Indiewire says: "Wakefield's by-the-numbers approach to didactic storytelling relies on tons of random factoids positioned out of context to drive home his agenda." Joe Leydon,

1575-586: The Royal College of Surgeons in 1985. At the University of Toronto from 1986 to 1989, he was a member of a team that studied tissue rejection problems with small intestine transplantation, using animal models. He continued his studies of small intestine transplantation under a Wellcome Trust travelling fellowship at University of Toronto in Canada. Back in the UK, he worked on the liver transplant programme at

SECTION 20

#1733106739677

1650-576: The Royal Free Hospital in London. In 1993, Wakefield attracted professional attention when he published reports in which he concluded that measles virus might cause Crohn's disease ; and two years later he published a paper in The Lancet proposing a link between the measles vaccine and Crohn's disease. Subsequent research failed to confirm this hypothesis, with a group of experts in Britain reviewing

1725-622: The Royal Free and University College School of Medicine . He resigned from his positions there in 2001, "by mutual agreement", then moved to the United States. In 2004, Wakefield co-founded and began working at the Thoughtful House research center (now renamed Johnson Center for Child Health and Development) in Austin, Texas, serving as executive director there until February 2010, when he resigned in

1800-471: The Times described it as "saying that while he questioned the 2004 study's presentation of some data, he would never advise people not to get vaccinated." The film had been scheduled to premiere at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival but this was the subject of public outcry and widespread criticism, particularly for allowing Wakefield to distribute his discredited theories. Actor Robert De Niro , who co-founded

1875-460: The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism . He has subsequently become known for anti-vaccination activism. Publicity around it caused a sharp decline in vaccination uptake, leading to a number of outbreaks of measles around the world and many deaths therefrom. He was a surgeon on the liver transplant programme at the Royal Free Hospital in London and became senior lecturer and honorary consultant in experimental gastroenterology at

1950-548: The GMC disciplinary body would not, so far as I can tell, be relevant or admissible", that Channel 4's allegations "go to undermine fundamentally the Claimant's professional integrity and honesty", and that, "It cannot seriously be suggested that priority should be given to GMC proceedings for the resolution of issues." In December 2006, Deer released records obtained from the Legal Services Commission, showing that it had paid £435,643 in undisclosed fees to Wakefield for

2025-423: The GMC ruled against Wakefield on all issues, stating that he had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant", acted against the interests of his patients, and "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in his controversial research. On 24 May 2010, he was struck off the United Kingdom medical register. It was the harshest sanction that the GMC could impose, and effectively ended his career as a physician. In announcing

2100-460: The GMC. In April 2010, Deer expanded on laboratory aspects of his findings in a report in the BMJ , recounting how normal clinical histopathology results (obtained from the Royal Free hospital) had been subjected to wholesale changes, from normal to abnormal, in the medical school and published in The Lancet . On 2 January 2011, Deer provided two tables comparing the data on the twelve children, showing

2175-600: The International Child Development Resource Center, to conduct further studies on the possible relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism. In 2004, Wakefield began working at the Thoughtful House research centre in Austin, Texas. Wakefield served as executive director of Thoughtful House until February 2010, when he resigned in the wake of findings against him by the British General Medical Council . In February 2004,

2250-487: The MMR vaccine and autism or with bowel disease, which Wakefield called " autistic enterocolitis ". Between July 2007 and May 2010, a 217-day "fitness to practise" hearing of the UK General Medical Council examined charges of professional misconduct against Wakefield and two colleagues involved in the paper in The Lancet . The charges included that he: Wakefield denied the charges; on 28 January 2010,

2325-535: The MMR vaccine and autism. At the time of his MMR research study, Wakefield was senior lecturer and honorary consultant in experimental gastroenterology at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine (from 2008, UCL Medical School ). He resigned in 2001, by "mutual agreement and was made a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists", and moved to the US in 2001 (or 2004, by another account). He

Organic Consumers Association - Misplaced Pages Continue

2400-442: The MMR vaccine had been replaced with individual vaccinations in 1993. Although the paper said that no causal connection had been proven, before it was published, Wakefield made statements at a press conference and in a video news release issued by the hospital, calling for suspension of the triple MMR vaccine until more research could be done. This was later criticized as ' science by press conference '. According to BBC News , it

2475-502: The U.S. audience, providing a new focus for the nascent anti-vaccination movement in the U.S., which had been primarily concerned about thiomersal in vaccines. In December 2001, Wakefield resigned from the Royal Free Hospital, saying, "I have been asked to go because my research results are unpopular." The medical school said that he had left "by mutual agreement". In February 2002, Wakefield stated: "What precipitated this crisis

2550-427: The UK. In a related legal decision, a British court held that "[t]here is now no respectable body of opinion which supports [Wakefield's] hypothesis, that MMR vaccine and autism/enterocolitis are causally linked". In 2016, Wakefield directed the anti-vaccination film Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe . Wakefield was born on 3 September 1956, to Graham Wakefield, a neurologist, and Bridget d'Estouteville Matthews,

2625-460: The United States is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Andrew Wakefield Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 3 September 1956) is a British fraudster , discredited academic, anti-vaccine activist, and former physician. He was struck off the medical register for his involvement in The Lancet MMR autism fraud , a 1998 study that fraudulently claimed a link between

2700-705: The anti-vaccine movement". The Washington Post reported that Mercola had donated $ 3.3m to OCA. Mercola and Ronnie Cummins published a book titled The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Great Reset , Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal: Why We Must Unite in a Global Movement for Health and Freedom which the McGill Office for Science and Society described as "monumentally wrong". Cummins died in 2023. His wife Rose Welch took over as national director. This article about an organization in

2775-489: The children might suffer"). Wakefield argued that he had been unfairly treated by the medical and scientific establishment. In February 2009, The Sunday Times reported that a further investigation by the newspaper had revealed that Wakefield "changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism", citing evidence obtained by the newspaper from medical records and interviews with witnesses, and supported by evidence presented to

2850-476: The controversy resurfaced when Wakefield was accused of a conflict of interest. In The Sunday Times , Brian Deer reported that some of the parents of the 12 children in the study in The Lancet were recruited via a UK lawyer preparing a lawsuit against MMR manufacturers, and that the Royal Free Hospital had received £55,000 from the UK's Legal Aid Board (now the Legal Services Commission ) to pay for

2925-461: The documentary, though characterized as antivaccination, isn't quite that. The point of view is more nuanced. It's against the vaccination of children ages 2 and younger. And it's particularly against the MMR — that is, the giving of three vaccines at once ... it's a passionate advocate for its viewpoint, and that makes for compelling viewing. ... Of course, it's possible that the children would have developed autism anyway, and that one event didn't cause

3000-466: The father of one of the boys in the study—had planned to launch a venture on the back of an MMR vaccination scare that would profit from new medical tests and "litigation driven testing". The Washington Post reported that Deer said that Wakefield predicted he "could make more than $ 43 million a year from diagnostic kits" for the new condition, autistic enterocolitis . According to Deer's report in BMJ ,

3075-420: The festival, initially defended the decision to show the film, writing on Facebook that the film was "very personal" to him due to him having a child with autism, and saying that he hoped the film would open a dialog about the controversy. But shortly before the evening of March 26 De Niro announced that the film would not screen, stating that consultation with other film festival representatives, and members of

Organic Consumers Association - Misplaced Pages Continue

3150-436: The film has an approval rating of 38% based on 13 reviews, and an average rating of 4.3/10. In his film debut, Wakefield has cast himself as the victim of a massive conspiracy to hide the truth ... What drove Wakefield from being a respected researcher to a conspiracy theorist? Documentary director Penny Lane stated, "This film is not some sort of disinterested investigation into the 'vaccines cause autism' hoax; this film

3225-531: The film is video of individuals telling their stories to those who drove the Vaxxed promotional bus across the US in 2016. Of the film, Newsweek stated that it "touts the myth that there is a "vaccine injury epidemic."" and that the "trailer features distressing footage of parents making anecdotal and unfounded claims that vaccines caused their children to have developmental problems, including autism." The Guardian stated that "The film makes no effort to address

3300-475: The film, Todd Drezner, the father of an autistic son and creator of a neurodiversity -themed movie that was distributed by Cinema Libre, wrote an open letter to Cinema Libre criticizing Vaxxed and Cinema Libre's decision to distribute it, writing: "By releasing Vaxxed , Cinema Libre is actively harming thousands of autistic people. While we should be discussing ways to best support autistic people and help them lead fulfilling lives, you would instead have us follow

3375-617: The fraud, the panel found him guilty of dishonesty concerning the study's admissions criteria, its funding by the Legal Aid Board, and his statements about it afterwards. The British Medical Journal editorial concluded that Wakefield's paper was an "elaborate fraud". In a BMJ follow-up article on 11 January 2011, Deer stated that Wakefield had planned to capitalize on the MMR vaccination scare provoked by his paper. He said that based upon documents he had obtained under Freedom of information legislation , Wakefield—in partnership with

3450-452: The independent production company Twenty Twenty and Brian Deer, The Sunday Times , and against Deer personally along with his website briandeer.com in the case Wakefield v Channel Four Television and Others [2006] EWHC 3289 (QB); [2007] 94 BMLR 1. Within weeks of issuing his claims, however, Wakefield sought to have the action frozen until after the conclusion of General Medical Council proceedings against him. Channel 4 and Deer sought

3525-544: The interpretation placed upon these findings in the paper, according to precedent. In November 2004, Channel 4 broadcast a one-hour Dispatches investigation by reporter Brian Deer; the Toronto Star said Deer had "produced documentary evidence that Wakefield applied for a patent on a single-jab measles vaccine before his campaign against the MMR vaccine, raising questions about his motives". In addition to Wakefield's unpublished initial patent submission, Deer released

3600-614: The measles virus, one from an autistic child and two from a typically developing child. The study's authors found no evidence of any link between MMR and autism. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the United States National Academy of Sciences , along with the CDC and the UK National Health Service , have found no link between vaccines and autism. Reviews in the medical literature have also found no link between

3675-423: The money they donated to the Royal Free Hospital, the lawyers responsible for the MMR lawsuit had paid Wakefield personally more than £400,000, which he had not previously disclosed. Twenty-four hours before the 2004 Sunday Times report by Deer, The Lancet ' s editor Richard Horton responded to the investigation in a public statement, describing Wakefield's research as "fatally flawed" and said he believed

3750-497: The non-profit Strategic Autism Initiative to commission studies into the condition, and is currently listed as a director of a company called Medical Interventions for Autism and another called the Autism Media Channel. On 28 February 1998, Wakefield was the lead author of a study of twelve children with autism that was published in The Lancet . The study proposed a new syndrome called autistic enterocolitis , and raised

3825-438: The original hospital data and the data with the wholesale changes as used in the 1998 The Lancet article. On 5 January 2011, BMJ published an article by Brian Deer entitled "How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed". Deer said that, based on examination of the medical records of the 12 children in the original study, his research had found: The paper in The Lancet was a case series of 12 child patients; it reported

SECTION 50

#1733106739677

3900-410: The other. But the parents presented here are convinced otherwise. Pete Vonder Haar of Houston Press described the film as a "tragic fraud." Sarah Gill of The Age called the film "another desperate attempt to hoodwink the public for no greater purpose than making money." In November 2019, Vaxxed II: The People's Truth , produced by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , was released in the US. The core of

3975-434: The paper would have been rejected as biased if the peer reviewers had been aware of Wakefield's conflict of interest. Ten of Wakefield's twelve co-authors of the paper in The Lancet later published a retraction of an interpretation. The section of the paper retracted read as follows: Interpretation. We identified associated gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression in a group of previously normal children, which

4050-414: The possibility of a link between a novel form of bowel disease, autism, and the MMR vaccine. The authors said that the parents of eight of the twelve children linked what were described as "behavioural symptoms" with MMR, and reported that the onset of these symptoms began within two weeks of MMR vaccination. These possible triggers were reported as MMR in eight cases, and measles infection in one. The paper

4125-577: The purpose of building a case against the MMR vaccine. Those payments, The Sunday Times reported, had begun two years before publication of Wakefield's paper in The Lancet . Within days of Deer's report, Wakefield dropped all his libel actions and was ordered to pay all defendants' legal costs. Wakefield's data was also questioned; a former graduate student, who appeared in Deer's programme, later testified that Wakefield ignored laboratory data that conflicted with his hypothesis. An independent investigation of

4200-595: The research in Wakefield's 1998 paper in The Lancet , at the same page this patent explicitly states that the use of the MMR vaccine causes autism: It has now also been shown that use of the MMR vaccine (which is taken to include live attenuated measles vaccine virus, measles virus, mumps vaccine virus and rubella vaccine virus, and wild strains of the aforementioned viruses) results in ileal lymphoid nodular hyperplasia, chronic colitis and pervasive developmental disorder including autism (RBD), in some infants. According to Deer,

4275-513: The research. Previously, in October 2003, the board had cut off public funding for the litigation against MMR manufacturers. Following an investigation of the allegations in The Sunday Times by the UK General Medical Council, Wakefield was charged with serious professional misconduct, including dishonesty. In December 2006, Deer, writing in The Sunday Times , further reported that in addition to

4350-418: The ruling, the GMC said that Wakefield had "brought the medical profession into disrepute", and no sanction short of erasing his name from the register was appropriate for the "serious and wide-ranging findings" of misconduct. On the same day, Wakefield's autobiography, Callous Disregard was published, using the same words as one of the charges against him ("he showed callous disregard for any distress or pain

4425-618: The scientific community, had led him to conclude that screening the film would not contribute to or further the discussion of the topic presented. After the film was dropped from the Tribeca Film Festival, it was picked up for distribution by Cinema Libre. The film premiered at the Angelika Film Center in New York City on April 1, 2016 to an audience of "a few dozen". In reaction to Cinema Libre's decision to distribute

4500-462: The scientific evidence that the parents’ experiences of autism in their children have nothing to do with vaccines, or the coincidence that symptoms of autism often appear between 12 and 24 months of age, exactly when the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is given." A 2024 video production named Vaxxed III: Authorized To Kill was released in September 2024, produced not by Kennedy himself, but

4575-469: The study's interpretations, and the General Medical Council (GMC) conducted an inquiry into allegations of misconduct against Wakefield and two former colleagues, focusing on Deer's findings. In 2010, the GMC found that Wakefield had been dishonest in his research, had acted against his patients' best interests and mistreated developmentally delayed children, and had "failed in his duties as

SECTION 60

#1733106739677

4650-502: The time." He said, "If you give three viruses together, three live viruses, then you potentially increase the risk of an adverse event occurring, particularly when one of those viruses influences the immune system in the way that measles does." He suggested parents should opt for single vaccinations against measles, mumps and rubella, separated by gaps of one year. 60 Minutes interviewed him in November 2000, and he repeated these claims to

4725-402: The two programmes carry Food and Drug Administration -required mandatory disclaimers at the end of each episode which state their advice is not a medical endorsement and viewers should consult with a physician based on the advice given. The film was produced by Autism Media Channel, of which Wakefield is a director. According to Variety , the film "purports to investigate the claims of

4800-481: The validity of its conclusions" and in 2015 the CDC had confirmed that any such initial correlation had ceased to exist once they performed a more in-depth analysis of the children in the study. These sometimes spliced-together unauthorized phone recordings of Thompson, according to the Houston Press , form the "crux of the entire movie ... And ... that's it". On the "CDC whistleblower" narrative, Philip LaRussa,

4875-471: The ventures, Immunospecifics Biotechnologies Ltd and Carmel Healthcare Ltd—named after Wakefield's wife—failed after Wakefield's superiors at University College London's medical school gave him a two-page letter that said: Vaxxed Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe is a 2016 American pseudoscience propaganda film alleging a cover-up by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of

4950-613: The wake of findings against him by the British General Medical Council . Wakefield published his 1998 paper on autism in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet , claiming to have identified a novel form of enterocolitis linked to autism. However, other researchers were unable to reproduce his findings, and a 2004 investigation by Sunday Times reporter Brian Deer identified undisclosed financial conflicts of interest on Wakefield's part. Wakefield reportedly stood to earn up to $ 43 million per year selling test kits. Most of Wakefield's co-authors then withdrew their support for

5025-564: Was 'not proved'." He resigned from Thoughtful House in February 2010, after the British General Medical Council found that he had been "dishonest and irresponsible" in conducting his earlier autism research in England. The Times reported in May 2010 that he was a medical advisor for Visceral, a UK charity that "researches bowel disease and developmental disorders". Wakefield is barred from practising as

5100-416: Was directed by discredited anti-vaccine activist Andrew Wakefield , who was struck off the medical register in the United Kingdom in 2010 due to ethical violations related to his fraudulent research into the role of vaccines in autism. It was scheduled to premiere at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival but was withdrawn by the festival. In reviewing the film, Indiewire said that "Wakefield doesn't just have

5175-501: Was formerly a producer of The Doctors , an American medical advice talk show . The British Medical Journal conducted a study on The Doctors and The Dr. Oz Show and concluded with this warning about the shows: "Consumers should be skeptical about any recommendations provided ... as details are limited and only a third to one half of recommendations are based on believable or somewhat believable evidence". As with all American medical programmes and medical teleshopping shows,

5250-455: Was generally associated in time with possible environmental triggers. The retraction stated: We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established between (the) vaccine and autism, as the data were insufficient. However the possibility of such a link was raised, and consequent events have had major implications for public health. In view of this, we consider now is the appropriate time that we should together formally retract

5325-458: Was instantly controversial, leading to widespread publicity in the UK and the convening of a special panel of the UK's Medical Research Council the following month. One 2005 study in Japan found that there was no causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism in groups of children given the triple MMR vaccine and children who received individual measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations. In Japan,

5400-485: Was reportedly asked to leave the Royal Free Hospital after refusing a request to validate his 1998 Lancet paper with a controlled study. Wakefield subsequently helped establish and served as the executive director of Thoughtful House Center for Children, which studies autism in Austin, Texas , where, according to The Times , he "continued to promote the theory of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, despite admitting it

5475-417: Was so incompetent that he was unable to fairly describe the project, or to report even one of the 12 children's cases accurately? No. A great deal of thought and effort must have gone into drafting the paper to achieve the results he wanted: the discrepancies all led in one direction; misreporting was gross. Moreover, although the scale of the GMC's 217-day hearing precluded additional charges focused directly on

5550-504: Was the removal of the single vaccine, the removal of choice, and that is what has caused the furore—because the doctors, the gurus, are treating the public as though they are some kind of moronic mass who cannot make an informed decision for themselves." Wakefield continued to conduct clinical research in the United States after leaving the Royal Free Hospital in December 2001. He joined a controversial American researcher, Jeff Bradstreet , at

5625-419: Was this press conference, rather than the paper in The Lancet , that fuelled the MMR vaccination scare. The BBC report said he told journalists: "it was a 'moral issue' and he could no longer support the continued use of the three-in-one jab for measles, mumps and rubella. 'Urgent further research is needed to determine whether MMR may give rise to this complication in a small number of people,' Wakefield said at

#676323