Leading British Autism Doctor Victimized

Dr. Andrew Wakefield was terminated from his position this weekend for no other reason than reporting the truth of his findings critical of the safety of the MMR vaccine.

Whenever ignorance, envy, greed and suppression dominate the business of a state (or a profession), there will always be heroes who step forward to challenge the status quo. They are usually individuals who lead ordinary lives until, one day, they are faced with an extraordinary situation and make a conscious decision to do the right thing no matter what price they have to pay.

Andrew Wakefield, a brilliant young British gastroenterologist rising quickly in the ranks of his peers, made a conscious decision in 1997 that he could not turn away from a truth he had discovered during the course of his scientific research, even though he knew it could cost him his career.

When he realized the lives of children depended upon his having the courage to refuse to remain silent about the association he found between MMR vaccine and autism, he chose to do what was right instead of do what was safe.

Now he is paying the price being exacted by a scientific profession and militarized public health infrastructure that cannot tolerate independent thought and scientific investigation for fear it will lead to change.

Like all those involved in perpetuating totalitarian systems that suppress free thought, expression and action, those who have tried to silence and destroy Andrew Wakefield have only succeeded in revealing to the people how afraid they are of what he has to say.

Dr. Wakefield will not only survive what they have done, he will triumph over it. The truth about vaccines and neuroimmune damage, like autism, will shine bright and clear in the end, no matter how many try to hide it because of the courage of individuals like Andrew Wakefield.

When he started work at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School in 1987 Dr. Wakefield was the man everyone wanted to know.

The doctor, who studied at St. Mary's Hospital in west London and trained in bowel transplantation at the University of Toronto, arrived with plans to investigate the cause of two devastating inflammatory bowel diseases: Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

Throughout the early 1990s his research was supported by grants worth millions from pharmaceutical companies and charities.

These began to fall away when, in 1995, he published a study suggesting that measles vaccination could be a risk factor for the bowel illnesses, the first warning that his research produced unpopular results.

He was unprepared, however, for the opprobrium that ensued when in 1998 he published a medical paper in The Lancet, reporting that he and his colleagues had identified a previously unknown combination of bowel disease and autism in 12 children.

Bowel symptoms are common in autistic children but had until then been regarded as simply a manifestation of their behavioral problems.

The finding that these children had real and severe bowel disease was a groundbreaking discovery. Had the paper stuck to these facts alone Dr. Wakefield might still be in a job.

Against the advice of others in the team, however, he insisted that their joint paper record that eight parents said their previously normal child had fallen ill after receiving the MMR inoculation - a mixture of weakened but live measles, mumps and rubella virus given to a 1.5 million children a year.

The result was uproar and with each piece of research the doctor has announced since - including evidence of measles virus infection in damaged bowel tissue from some of the children - the louder the medical establishment's condemnation of him has grown.

When Dr. Wakefield said in January that he had now seen 170 children with the bowel effects and autism, and that a majority of the parents involved had said their children fell ill after being given the MMR vaccine, the Department of Health's response was to launch a £3 million publicity campaign to reassure parents that it is safe.

The Department of Health said parents often first noticed signs of autism in their children around the time MMR is usually given but that did not mean the two were connected. A spokesman said: "Our view is that the triple vaccine is the safest way to protect children against three potentially serious diseases."

Yesterday Dr. Wakefield said he still did not regret his decision to get involved in the MMR controversy. "Losing a London hospital teaching job doesn't do much for my CV but there are bigger issues at stake," he said.

"What matters now most of all is what happens to these children."

Dawn Richardson, PROVE (Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education)

DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:

Dr. Wakefield is one of the most well respected academic researchers in the world in autism. It is sad to see him pulled from this position, but I suspect even better things are in store for him.

Related Articles:

Vaccine Scene 2001: Update and Overview

Dr. Wakefield's Latest: MMR and Autism

MMR Links to 170 Cases of Autism

Prominent Scientists Assert MMR Vaccine Should Not Have Been Licensed in the UK

Autism and the Gastrointestinal Tract

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