Wakefield and The Western World

The “Anti-Vaxxer” Movement

With the upsurge in Measles in recent years in the Western World, medical professionals are questioning how this happened with such an effective vaccination accessible. Some people attribute this to the rise in the “anti-vaxxer” movement, a movement against vaccinating children due to medically-disproven links Autism. I will discuss in this blog one of the original articles that began this medically significant controversy and current estimations about the Measles toll and the MMR Vaccine.

Andrew Wakefield’s Study

According to an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Wakefield gathered 12 participants —or subjects for the study— from a group of carefully chosen children. Wakefield claimed that these subjects had come into the hospital after dealing with chronic enterocolitis and regressive developmental disorder following vaccination with the MMR vaccine (Egertson, 2010). According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Wakefield took blood samples from children during a children’s birthday party without getting permission from the ethics committee and paying them $7.24 as a reward for participating. He continued to treat the subject unethically during the experiments as he ordered unnecessary procedures such as lumbar punctures (Whalen, 2010). In an article in the British Medical Journal, the author discusses the possible reason for this falsified experiment: Wakefield’s work in a lawsuit paying $230 an hour seeking a bowel-brain “syndrome” long before the paper was ever published.

This suggests clear ulterior motives in publishing this paper. The patients were also recruited through anti-MMR campaigners and funding for the research was provided by lawyers who were representing parents involved in lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers. In fact, many (8/12) patients had parents who came to the hospital originally blaming the MMR vaccine and 5 patients had recorded developmental disorders before receiving the vaccine (Deer, 2011). In a journal article in PubMed Central, they cited 13 independent studies which disproved Wakefield’s claim for not only a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, but also the link between autism and gastrointestinal disorders. In conclusion, the MMR link with autism may still be a controversial concern in 2020, yet it has been proven by review and science to be grossly inaccurate.

Measles, Mumps, and Rubella around the world

Because of vaccination, more than 21 million lives have been saved and measles deaths have been reduced by 80% since 2000.

Despite a drastic (73%) drop in death due to Measles between 2000 and 2018 , Measles death are very common worldwide, especially in developing regions, particularly parts of Africa and Asia according to a WHO report. In addition, more than 140,000 people died from Measles in 2018. However, a recent report by the CDC on January 9, 2020 reported that during the first six months of 2019, there have been more Measles cases reported than in any year since 2006 worldwide. Many regions around the world have been experiencing long and large outbreaks of the Measles in recent years. “Because of vaccination, more than 21 million lives have been saved and measles deaths have been reduced by 80% since 2000.” (CDC, 2020) With the disease so preventable and vaccine access better than ever, there is no reason for these high numbers of deaths and outbreaks globally. We must step up and vaccinate our children to protect not only ourselves, but also others around us, especially those who cannot be vaccinated.