Wakefield’s fraudulent Lancet paper linked MMR vaccine to autism

Evidence

In 2016, the conspiracy movie Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe was scheduled to be released during New York’s Tribeca Film Festival with support from actor Robert De Niro. The film’s director was Andrew Wakefield, a discredited British anti-vaccination activist who lost his medical licence in 2010 due to ethical violations. To understand why he lost his licence we need to go back to 1998, when Wakefield and his colleagues published a paper in the highly prestigious medical journal The Lancet claiming that, based on a case study of twelve children – and no control group – they had discovered a link between the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine and autism. This paper became arguably one of the most serious frauds in the history of medicine. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 256

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The debunked MMR-autism paper laid the foundation for the anti-Covid vaccine movement. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 641; The autism-vaccine panic served as the prototype for Covid vaccine refusal framing — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 662; The MMR-autism study was fraudulent, with recruited patients and fabricated diagnoses. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 257

Broader Connections

• The MMR-autism study was fraudulent, with recruited patients and fabricated diagnoses. #expands (0.90) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 257
• The debunked MMR-autism paper laid the foundation for the anti-Covid vaccine movement. #expands (0.85) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 641
• The autism-vaccine panic served as the prototype for Covid vaccine refusal framing #expands (0.80) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 662