Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

LeftishBrit

(41,205 posts)
Sat May 5, 2018, 01:14 PM May 2018

Andrew Wakefield: How a disgraced UK doctor has reinvented himself in anti-vaxxer Trump's USA

It has been 20 years since the gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield co-authored a now notorious and debunked medical paper that claimed to have found a link between autism and the use of a common children’s vaccine.

The paper, later retracted by The Lancet, helped lead to a drop-off in vaccination rates and an increase in outbreak diseases such as measles, not only in Britain and Europe, but in the US. The doctor was subsequently found guilty by the British General Medical Council (GMC) of three-dozen charges, including dishonesty and abuse of children, and struck off the medical register.

Yet two decades later, Wakefield, unable to practice in the UK, has remade himself in Donald Trump’s America, travelling the country to promote views experts say have had deadly consequences and seemingly finding an ally in the president....

Yet since Trump’s election, Wakefield’s campaign has found fresh momentum. The president claimed during a 2015 Republican debate that the child of an employee developed autism after receiving a vaccine, asserting a link that has been stridently disputed by the British and US governments’ leading experts and numerous peer-reviewed papers....

(More at link):

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/andrew-wakefield-anti-vaxxer-trump-us-mmr-autism-link-lancet-fake-a8331826.html?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#link_time=1525446924

5 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Andrew Wakefield: How a disgraced UK doctor has reinvented himself in anti-vaxxer Trump's USA (Original Post) LeftishBrit May 2018 OP
I hope Wakefield rots in hell, and the sooner the better. CaliforniaPeggy May 2018 #1
Ditto, ditto, ditto hlthe2b May 2018 #2
Wakefield does all this for one reason. Archae May 2018 #4
The US seems to be the dumping ground for UK cons who have been exposed over there. Nitram May 2018 #3
Yup, even once-lauded scientists go off the deep end. Archae May 2018 #5

Archae

(46,327 posts)
5. Yup, even once-lauded scientists go off the deep end.
Sat May 5, 2018, 03:39 PM
May 2018

Jane Goodall has nothing but good things to say about the con man Jeffrey Smith and his anti-GMO fraud.

Latest Discussions»Culture Forums»Skepticism, Science & Pseudoscience»Andrew Wakefield: How a d...