In 1998 Andrew Wakefield and several colleagues published an article to the Lancet stating the risk of the MMR vaccine to young children developing autism. Since then the article has been recounted and removed from the Lancet for the many problems underlying the “scientific” discovery. Shortly after publication other epidemiological studies were produced; all refuting the causal link between the vaccine and autistic behavior. Which lead to the series of refutation of Wakefield’s bogus study.
In the article Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of shifting hypothesis by Jeffrey S. Gerber and Paul A. Offit it is stated that Wakefield and his team had a very small sample size of 8-12 individuals (this alone should be enough to shake your head on how the paper got published in the first place). The cohort of individuals were also self referred by Wakefield and it did not include control subjects. Then to continue, evidence arose that they all had financial interests in mind which lead to falsifying the results. They did so by picking and choosing the evidence that confirmed their hypothesis instead of presenting all of the findings.
From Wakefield’s study a fearful response to the MMR vaccine surged throughout the world and really sparked a distrust in vaccines as a whole. Repercussions of this fear is now being seen through increased measles/mumps/rubella related deaths worldwide. WHO says that there has been a 30% increase of Measles cases and in 2018 alone more than 140,000 died from Measles globally. The US had over 25 cases as well as four countries in Europe lost their MMR elimination status! The CDC posted a graph showing the years of Measles outbreaks in the US and what stands out to me is that they are not from the beginning of the century but rather 2013, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18. For this number of people to be dying from a vaccine preventable disease speaks volumes on what the fear of vaccines are doing to our world.
Kelly Short's Blog 