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How disgraced anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield was embraced by Trump's America
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/18/how-disgraced-anti-vaxxer-andrew-wakefield-was-embraced-by-trumps-america?CMP=share_btn_twTwenty years after his discredited paper linked autism to the MMR jab, the doctor – who was struck off the medical register in the UK – has become a leading light in the US and frighteningly influential worldwide
There cannot be many doctors as thoroughly discredited and ostracised as Andrew Wakefield has been in the UK who are subsequently seen smiling at the inauguration ball of a US president and later discovered to be dating the Australian model Elle Macpherson.
But there he is. Wakefield was all but drummed out of Britain. The gastroenterologist lost his job, had his scientific paper linking the MMR vaccine and autism retracted by medical journal the Lancet and, in 2010, was struck off the medical register. He disappeared to the US and it was assumed he had gone to ground, having lost all credibility. He was a spent force, even though his name was often in the air as the anti-MMR views he seeded around the world led to many parents shunning the vaccine and outbreaks of measles wherever anyone had heard Wakefield’s creed.
It was known he was in Texas with those who shared his views on vaccines and conspiracy. But he was not a public figure. Until Donald Trump was elected US president of the United States.
Under an anti-establishment presidency, the anti-vaccine crusader, whose views appear to have become all the more entrenched by his drubbing at the hands of eminent scientists around the world, is back in the limelight and his new visibility could give his arguments even more currency. At one of President Trump’s inaugural balls in January last year, he was quoted as contemplating the overthrow of the (pro-vaccine) US medical establishment in words that brought to mind Trump himself. “What we need now is a huge shakeup at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – a huge shakeup. We need that to change dramatically.”
There cannot be many doctors as thoroughly discredited and ostracised as Andrew Wakefield has been in the UK who are subsequently seen smiling at the inauguration ball of a US president and later discovered to be dating the Australian model Elle Macpherson.
But there he is. Wakefield was all but drummed out of Britain. The gastroenterologist lost his job, had his scientific paper linking the MMR vaccine and autism retracted by medical journal the Lancet and, in 2010, was struck off the medical register. He disappeared to the US and it was assumed he had gone to ground, having lost all credibility. He was a spent force, even though his name was often in the air as the anti-MMR views he seeded around the world led to many parents shunning the vaccine and outbreaks of measles wherever anyone had heard Wakefield’s creed.
It was known he was in Texas with those who shared his views on vaccines and conspiracy. But he was not a public figure. Until Donald Trump was elected US president of the United States.
Under an anti-establishment presidency, the anti-vaccine crusader, whose views appear to have become all the more entrenched by his drubbing at the hands of eminent scientists around the world, is back in the limelight and his new visibility could give his arguments even more currency. At one of President Trump’s inaugural balls in January last year, he was quoted as contemplating the overthrow of the (pro-vaccine) US medical establishment in words that brought to mind Trump himself. “What we need now is a huge shakeup at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – a huge shakeup. We need that to change dramatically.”
Anti-vax, anti-science President. Fuck Wakefield and Trump.
Sid
2 replies
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