That Andrew Wakefield himself is not terribly stupid is obvious. Few have the brains – or the gall – to turn some entirely dubious cod science into the opportunity to be bonking Elle McPherson. So, there is that.
However, certain of his idea are indeed terribly stupid. The specific link between vaccines and autism is simply wrong. It was worth investigating, certainly, but it turns out simply not to be true. So that’s the end of that. Another of his ideas, that vaccines are dangerous, sure they are. That’s why we have vaccine compensation funds. It’s just that vaccines are less dangerous than non-vaccines. As the historical littering of the countryside with dead children tells us.
But this becomes stupid:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]He also claimed the pharmaceutical industry had financial motivations for promoting vaccines, saying the injections were “a remarkable commercial success in terms of volumes of sales precisely because it doesn’t work”.[/perfectpullquote]The thing being that vaccines aren’t a particularly profitable area of drug production. Because they’re used in vast quantities governments are often enough the buyers. And it’s only the US government that refuses to negotiate on price. When it’s not governments it’s often enough charities etc for poorer countries. They don’t overpay.
Further, vaccines get used for long periods of time – well into out of patent life. Where there’s huge competition to produce those large quantities. Meaning they’re produced at low margins. True, it’s not as bad as antibiotics, where the patent business model just doesn’t work in producing the next generation, but the vaccine business isn’t some grand gold mine for producers.
There’s also that other stupidity. The extinction of smallpox, the absence of polio wards, this shows that vaccines don’t work?
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Wakefield shows that humans will not let go of an idea they have championed just because it has been shown to be wrong.
I've no elephants in my garden, so my elephant repellant must be working.
It was worth investigating, certainly, but it turns out simply not to be true. So that’s the end of that.
How do we know that it is wrong? It was hardly investigated thoroughly.
I have had a look at the paper you have referenced: https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2727726/measles-mumps-rubella-vaccination-autism-nationwide-cohort-study
I would say that it was by no means definitive. CIs seem rather wide to me, and the practice of removing or correcting for all autism risk factors before analysis, while intended to isolate vaccination as a sole cause, neatly eradicates any possible findings that vaccination accentuates a risk factor. And then we have the fact that it is a statistical study, like practically all modern science, and hence easy to tilt in any direction.
The lies which have been promulgated by climate change 'studies' have made me deeply suspicious of ALL modern science, and medicine is certainly not immune. A glance at https://retractionwatch.com will soon illustrate the kind of thing I mean...
What SHOULD have happened was that Wakefield should have been required to defend his findings by proposing experiments which could be duplicated by other scientists, and given every opportunity to do so. Instead, he was smeared, other scientists developed opposing studies without his involvement, and eventually he was struck off for reasons unconnected with the truth or otherwise of his hypothesis.
I hold no particular brief for Wakefield, and am quite prepared to believe that there is no link between autism and MMR vaccination. But what I saw was not a scientific study which would give me confidence that my beliefs were justified - it was a rogue researcher proposing a sensational hypothesis being struck down by a medical establishment. Neither side seemed to comply with Feynman's description of the ideal scientific method...