Shooting the Messenger: the heroism of Andrew Wakefield

Feb
24
2017
by
Ben
/
42
Comments

There he was on Valentine’s Day last week, Andrew Wakefield, appearing back in the UK for the first time in a decade, to present the European premiere of his movie VAXXED, which concerns all the statistical jiggery-pokery employed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the government body invested with protecting the nation against infectious diseases, to conceal any link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. 
Wakefield, you may remember, is the British gastroenterologist whose research had first uncovered a possible link between the triple vaccine and the development of autism and gastrointestinal disorders.
Wakefield was demonized by the UK press until, in a kangaroo court of the General Medical Council, his license to practice medicine was revoked.
US government deception
The authorities and the media did not shut him up, however. Bloodied but unbowed, Wakefield moved to America, carried on doing research into the MMR and has produced VAXXED, the extraordinary movie interviewing CDC insiders detailing exactly how the government agency managed to massage away, in their statistical analysis, a giant increase in autism among African American boys in the study.
The risk was never published because the CDC cherry-picked which participants they wanted to include in their analysis, reducing their study sample by 41 per cent, disqualifying most of the African Americans included in the original data, and skewing the final results to make it appear the vaccine carried minimal risk.
In VAXXED, Dr Walter Thompson one of the CDC insiders involved in the study finally speaks up, to explain about the agency’s deception.
Compelled to make an honest breast of it, he sent thousands of xeroxed pages of the original full data to Dr Brian Hooker, who re-analyzed it and finally discovered an enormous excess risk of autism among children who get the vaccine.
Heartbreaking stories
The movie includes heartbreaking home videos from parents, showing the stark difference in the development and capabilities of their children right before they received the MMR vaccine and after when they’ve lost speech, sociability, and much more.
Although not in the movie, there’s other evidence from the Journal of Public Health and Epidemiology shows a possible link between the introduction of human fetal cell lines in the manufacture of MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccines and autism.
A cover up by the very US government body charged with the task of protecting the nation’s health of Watergate-like proportions is pretty scandalous.
But here’s the biggest scandal of all.
Not one major news outlet on either side of the Atlantic covered the story.   Instead, the UK and US press decided to shoot the messenger.
Wakefield called a fraud
Time magazine highlighted Andy Wakefield in a feature on ‘Great Science Frauds.’  The Huffington Post headlined its article about VAXXED with ‘Disgraced Anti-vaccine Dr Andrew Wakefield Reignites Public Health Fears,’ and, just for good measure, with the subhead: ‘Unethical and immoral but also despicable and irresponsible.’
The Times, which has rabidly pursued Wakefield like a pack of dogs after a fox, was apoplectic over the fact that Amazon Instant Video and Apple’s iTunes, were selling the video and demanded that it be immediately stopped.
The usual ragtag of skeptics, one formerly associated with a lobbying organisation taking donations from Big Pharma and the likes of Coca-Cola, harassed the Curzon, where the UK screening was due to be launched until the theatre pulled it.
The organizers were reduced to passing around information about the screening surreptitiously as though sharing the address of a speakeasy during Prohibition.
Public hero number 1
Ultimately all the media’s efforts at suppression didn’t work. It was shown at Regent’s College, at an even larger venue, and was totally sold-out, with a crowd who gave Wakefield a standing ovation when he appeared on stage.
And so they should.
Wakefield is a hero. He had a nice life in the UK with a nice job as a well-established gastroenterologist.  He saw a link in his pediatric patients presenting with gut problems and autism right after the MMR and had his career destroyed because he felt that simply asking the question about a triple live-vaccine instead of blithely accepting what the pharmaceutical industry maintained about safety was the moral thing to do.
He's another Daniel Ellsberg, the US military analyst who in the 1970s risked everything to disclose what became the Pentagon Papers, what the US government was really doing in Vietnam.
Wakefield was just doing the press’s job for them. But instead of going after the story, the press has gone after the messenger.  In disclosing Big Pharma’s outrageous deception with the MMR, Wakefield has had to put up with the kind of vilification that would destroy the ordinary man.
Here’s what I, as a journalist, cannot figure out. What is the press doing, siding with the authorities and not digging further?  Maybe Trump is right, and the press does have an agenda, and it’s all about protecting the status quo. The good guys have become the bad guys.
Shame, shame on them.
For anyone who wants to watch the movie:  http://vaxxedthemovie.com/stream

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Ben

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42 comments on “Shooting the Messenger: the heroism of Andrew Wakefield”

  1. Yes he is a hero and should be recognised as such, all his work has been shown to be correct by other countries doing the same research and they also came up with the link. Andrew Wakefield for the Nobel Prize

  2. The AMA, and apparently the CDC are some of the biggest most well funded crooks in existence today.
    Hence your great book (s) on what the doctors won't tell you- oh and lets not forget the real criminals Pharmacueticals companies which cntrol the doctors and most likely the CDC
    The separateness the USA feels as a states nation reflects in the I got mine now you get yours philosophy that detaches good judgement form good judgement and lastly good justice.

  3. Kudos and more Kudos to you for publishing this overview. I had to fight like crazy to keep my great grandson from receiving this MMR vaccine. First I had to educate and almost threaten my granddaughter not to let it happen and then made her switch doctors.
    I thought an African American male, DO, would be more understanding, not so. They made me sign papers and to date, I don't think my granddaughter has given in. From what I read, children older than 3yrs of age, could handle this better and that gives us enough time to think of how we will handle school requirements.
    Thank you again for this article I will share it with everyone I know.
    Together We Grow,
    Nancy

    1. Thank goodness we live in the UK where vaccine is not compulsory, I couldn't live anywhere that it is. My children (now around 40 had one or two vaccines before I realised the error of my ways). My grandchildren have had none, after reading the vaccination bible my daughter was comp!etely convinced. They are the most healthy children I know, no allergies, no asthma, no eczema, no infections etc.
      Luckily my own parents also did not believe in vaccine. I had one when my Mum was obviously persuaded this new dipthetia vaccine was good. I was told many years later that that vaccine had damaged the part of my brain that deals with the bladder. I had yo have a booster yo go to India in 1999. It finished the brain bladder bit and I suffered from interstitial cystitis for about 8 years, gradually recovering through lifestyle and diet, now about 95% OK. But that is a terrible disease and all due to vaccine.
      No vaccines, don't go to countries that insist on them. Never have another one.
      Jennifer in England

      1. Hi Jennifer, your story could be mine! I too have suffered interstitial cystitis for the past 6 years wondering why.... I too was given a diphtheria vaccination but also yellow fever and small pox all before 6 months old because my father was taking up work in the West Indies!! My bladder has always been very weak, even when a child - I hadn't heard that the diphtheria vaccine could damage that particular part of the brain! Like you IC now mostly controlled with life style and diet. Keep up the good work!
        Mary

  4. You ask why journalists are not digging further. From what I've seen they have multiple times and have concluded the link between autism and the vaccines is not there. There also seem to be numerous studies by different medical organizations that also came to the same conclusion. What do we make of the fact that Wakefield seems to have been paid $800,000 by some anti vaccine clients?
    You may be off base on this one.

  5. Well done. I also could not believe how the press have responded and it makes me severely doubt what else is written across a wide range of topics. Perhaps Andrew Wakefield should meet Professor Seralini and compare notes.. Disgraceful that people raising such legitimate and far- reaching questions get treated in this way.

  6. Thanks for this. Of course I have followed this and I care about it very much, but you have put the essence of the story succinctly and even wittily and I am grateful to be able to read it.
    I am hoping for the justice that must come.
    Kind Regards

  7. Grandkids are not vaccinated will fight Tooth and Nail to get the Real danger of these vaccines out in the Open
    know too many children Hurt by them as well as the Elderly and Flu Shots

  8. It amazed me that the results listed about the African American boys were published on some places - but were not being published in many publication. Even I could see that Andy Wakefield was being proved correct. The Times newspaper (Murdoch publications) obviously had a monetary interest in MMR and it paid them to keep Andy Wakefield's information out of the public's attention. I repeated that information to as many people as I could but now it seems Australia is banning children attending school if they are not vaccinated up to the eyes. The next vaccination that worries me is Gardisil.

  9. Where is the debate if vaccines work and are so wonderful why will the authorities not sit and debate these issues with Andrew Wakefield why not

    1. Once a scapegoat is found then (pseudo) credibility is gained by vilifying them.
      Sad this is human nature.

  10. Thank you for piece. Andrew Wakefield was ahead of his time on the gut brain connection with autism and even further ahead of his time with his concerns about MMR vaccinations and these problems turning up.

  11. FINALLY a real journalist! THANK YOU!! And my vaccine injured son would thank you too if he could. Dr. Wakefield has never given up on us! He is our hero!

  12. Thanks for keeping the truth alive and for highlighting the courage, conviction and determination that Andrew Wakefield possesses. We need many more people like him to keep our societies whole, sane and healthy!

  13. It should not come as a surprise that most media will side with what the majority of medical "experts" conclude. The problem is with the medical science. As shown by the growing scandal of overdiagnosis and overtreatment, particularly with cancer, most medical researchers don't understand the difference between correlation and proof of cause and effect using randomised controlled trials. For example most medical experts still promote screening for breast, bowel, lung, prostate and ovarian cancer despite the fact that no randomised controlled trial has shown any overall saving of lives. Similarly no such trial has been held to show any benefits of surgery for any type of cancer.

  14. Lynne
    It is a good article, but just to be clear AW was a lead researcher at the Royal Free hospital in London, he did not treat patients: this is why the GMC dragged two of his colleagues into the disciplinary hearing. The BBC broadcast in excitement from the hearing in 2008 that AW admitted - shock-horror - that he was not qualified to treat to children but he never did: the clinical decisions were made by Prof Walker-Smith and Dr Murch. The 2003 Channel 5 drama "Hear the Silence" was misleading in this respect. Later on Prof Walker-Smith, who was also senior author of the controversial "paper" was completely exonerated in the High Court. This could not have happened if reporting in the paper had not been accurate, or if there had been as alleged unauthorised or unethical procedures.

  15. We can be pretty sure this is not an isolated damaging drug, and that there are many other damaging or useless drugs out there.
    John

  16. I recently had to have a tetanus booster after being injured in a gardening accident. I was absolutely amazed to find out that at the age of 63 I had also had diptheria and polio included in the vaccine! This is medication without consent, a very scary situation to say the least. How much else are we being fed without out consent? Jackie. England.

    1. My husband also had an anti-tetanus (DTap) vaccination after stepping on a nail in 2009 and getting an inflamed and swollen foot at the age of 78. We didn't realise at the time that the jab (Repevax) contained also anti-polio, anti-diptheria and anti-pertussis components. He had never had vaccinations as a child in the Netherlands as his father was against them.
      Three months later he had a routine blood test and was found to have lymphocytosis with leukocytes raised to 35k. (Norms are between 4k and 10k). Some months later he was eventually diagnosed with Splenic Lymphoma with Villous Lymphocytes - no treatment but just watch and wait. His lymphocytes just continued to increase while hemaglobin and platelets dropped.
      When total lymphocytes reached 113k in Nov 2012, his hematologist proposed chemotherapy with monoclonal antibodies. My husband, then 82 years old, was completely adverse to chemotherapy and we requested either a total splenectomy or monoclonal antibodies without chemo.
      Both those options were refused by his hematologist, who continued to insist on chemo.
      To cut a long story short, we managed to get expert advice and then to find an excellent hematologist who treated him with four separate slow drips of Mabthera over four weeks in 2014. His leukocytes reduced from 220k to 100k and his enormous hard spleen became more supple. We were then recommended to an excellent surgeon who did a total splenectomy in January 2015.
      Since then his leukocytes have come down to 13k, hemaglobin and platelets are now in the normal range.
      We will never be able to prove that all this was triggered by the Repevax vaccination but we both know that after having it he didn't feel at all the same as he did before.

  17. Concerning vaccines generally I was pleased to read in February WDDTY that one large drug company (GSK) is pulling the HPV vaccine from the US market. I assume this is likely due to the amount of legal cases being brought concerning the devastating consequences to some young girls, including death, after receiving this vaccination. However I was speaking to someone in London recently who has just started a new job with a company that is promoting the HPV vaccine in Africa. It greatly disturbs me to hear that this vaccine is being promoted in a country where families are possibly going to be too poor and uneducated to be able to complain when young girls are badly damaged from it. I hope that more can be done to expose the dangers of the HPV vaccine in the same way that Andrew Wakefield has exposed the Dangers of the MMR vaccine.

  18. Thank you Lynne for publishing this. Andrew Wakefield is an absolute hero. Whenever his name has cropped up, e.g. in the comments in Edzard Ernst's articles, it's like a pack of dogs were out to get him. It needs a real strength of character to stand up to that kind of behaviour. Andrew needs our support. I used to be in two minds about the link to autism for the MMR vaccine - not any more. Thank you.

  19. I managed to obtain both "Vaxed" & "Unvaxed" from the US which gives the complete picture. Dr Len Horowitz presents the whole scenario & makes compelling reading.

  20. Absolutely - the mainstream media have become the enemy. Were they fulfilling the expected role of objective journalism, the public would long ago have been aware that we're losing more infants to vaccines each year in the U.S. than we were losing to all childhood diseases combined in the years just preceding the vaccines.

  21. As an Australian grandparent with a long nursing career I recognised the dangers vaccines could do to children when my grandson regressed after his MMR. I have worked with physicians who also recognised the dangers, and accordingly did not vaccinate their own children BUT continued to do so for unsuspecting parents! They do not have the raw courage Andy has displayed. Having Andy Wakefield on our side has been a blessing for parents of spectrum children. He has shown the ethics all physicians should have..."first do no harm".... can truly be applied to him, and he is one who can sleep easily at night. All kudos to you Andy, you have made our collective burden lighter by the stand you have taken. The world is a better place because of your integrity. As parents we have researched and found biomedical answers and protocols for thousands of our collective kids who have now reached a NT (neurotypical) status, and have moved (and are moving) to independent lives. Many children now fully recover from their initial diagnosis thanks to lateral thinking physicians and practitioners (like Andy) who go out on a limb to bring healing to our children, plus the sheer willpower of their parents who refuse to accept a "no help" status for their vaccine damaged child.

  22. Hopefully medical scholars will get inspiration from this to understand autism better. If there is a drug that increases the risk of autism, then a drug against autism seems feasible.

  23. Many of us who know the truth, and have been suppressed and told "there is no link!," for years are so thankful for Dr. Wakefield's unwavering dedication to find truth! Lord, thank you and continue to give this man and literally hundreds of thousands of suffering families your strength!

  24. Son vaccine damaged . I suffer M.E. possibly following vaccinations in 1986 prior to deterioration in health big time.

  25. Now I am disappointed that I have found out you are an anti vaxxer conspiracy theorist. I had read two of your books from the library and planned to buy them all until I read this.
    Andrew Wakefield falsified that study so he could sell his own measles vaccine. He now continues the charade for money and revenge. While the medical field has plenty of skeletons in its closet, the fact is that less than one in a million have any type of adversion to vaccines. Car seats, parachutes and various other supposedly safe things are much more dangerous than vaccines.
    And no, I am no "Pharma shill." I am an anthropologist and a statistician and an amateur quantum physicist and Law of Attraction practicer.
    I will choose to spend my money elsewhere and inform all those I have told about your book to look elsewhere for information.

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