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Providing "help" to people with disabilities just because the people are disabled.

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Disability is a problem that need to be fixed 

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Disability is a problem that need to be fixed 

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Thinks that People with disabilities are less hireable and do not contribute as much to the economy.

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Thinks that People with disabilities are less hireable and do not contribute as much to the economy.

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If you are not productive and contributing to society you are not worthy

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If you are not productive and contributing to society you are not worthy

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dumb people think laziness or stealing money from government "welfare"

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dumb people think laziness or stealing money from government "welfare"

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Your life's worth is equivalent to your economic/monetary value.

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Your life's worth is equivalent to your economic/monetary value.

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"You're so brave/heroic for (doing some action[s] to help a person with disabilities"

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"You're so brave/heroic for (doing some action[s] to help a person with disabilities"

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Jerry Lee Lewis

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Changing Society to better help people with disabilities

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Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 1956) is a British former physician and academic who was struck off the medical register due to his involvement in the Lancet MMR autism fraud, a 1998 study that falsely claimed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. He has subsequently become known for anti-vaccination activism. Publicity around the 1998 study caused a sharp decline in vaccination uptake, leading to a number of outbreaks of measles around the world. He was a surgeon on the liver transplant programme at the Royal Free Hospital in London and became senior lecturer and honorary consultant in experimental gastroenterology at the Royal Free and University College School of Medicine. He resigned from his positions there in 2001, "by mutual agreement", then moved to the United States. In 2004, Wakefield began working at the Thoughtful House research center in Austin, Texas, serving as Executive Director there until February 2010, when he resigned in the wake of findings against him by the British General Medical Council.

Wakefield published his 1998 paper on autism in the prestigious medical journal , claiming a novel form of enterocolitis linked to autism. However, other researchers were unable to reproduce his findings, and a 2004 investigation by Sunday Times reporter Brian Deer identified undisclosed financial conflicts of interest on Wakefield's part. Most of Wakefield's co-authors then withdrew their support for the study's interpretations, and the British General Medical Council (GMC) conducted an inquiry into allegations of misconduct against Wakefield and two former colleagues, focusing on Deer's findings.

In 2010, the GMC found that Wakefield had been dishonest in his research, had acted against his patients' best interests and mistreated developmentally delayed children, and had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant". The Lancet fully retracted Wakefield's 1998 publication on the basis of the GMC's findings, noting that elements of the manuscript had been falsified and that the journal had been "deceived" by Wakefield. Three months later, Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register, due in part to his deliberate falsification of research published in The Lancet, and was barred from practising medicine in the UK. In a related legal decision, a British court held that "[t]here is now no respectable body of opinion which supports [Mr. Wakefield's] hypothesis, that MMR vaccine and autism/enterocolitis are causally linked". Wakefield has continued to defend his research and conclusions, saying there was no fraud, hoax or profit motive. In 2016, Wakefield directed the anti-vaccination film Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe.

Early life and education

Wakefield was born in 1956; his father was a neurologist and his mother was a general practitioner. After leaving the independent King Edward's School, Bath, Wakefield studied medicine at St Mary's Hospital Medical School (now Imperial College School of Medicine), fully qualifying in 1981.

Wakefield became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1985.

At the University of Toronto from 1986 to 1989, he was a member of a team that studied tissue rejection problems with small intestine transplantation, using animal models. He continued his studies of small intestine transplantation under a Wellcome Trust travelling fellowship at University of Toronto in Canada.

Claims of measles virus-Crohn's disease link

Back in the UK, he worked on the liver transplant programme at the Royal Free Hospital in London. In 1993, Wakefield attracted professional attention when he published reports in which he concluded that measles virus might cause Crohn's disease; and two years later he published a paper in proposing a link between the measles vaccine and Crohn's disease. Subsequent research failed to confirm this hypothesis, with a group of experts in Britain reviewing a number of peer-reviewed studies in 1998 and concluding that the measles virus did not cause Crohn's disease, and neither did the MMR vaccine.

Later, in 1995, while conducting research into Crohn's disease, he was approached by Rosemary Kessick, the parent of a child with autism, who was seeking help with her son's bowel problems and autism; Kessick ran a group called Allergy Induced Autism. In 1996, Wakefield turned his attention to researching possible connections between the MMR vaccine and autism.

At the time of his MMR research study, Wakefield was senior lecturer and honorary consultant in experimental gastroenterology at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine (from 2008, UCL Medical School). He resigned in 2001, by "mutual agreement and was made a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists", and moved to the US in 2001 (or 2004, by another account). He was reportedly asked to leave the Royal Free Hospital after refusing a request to validate his 1998 Lancet paper with a controlled study.

Wakefield subsequently helped establish and served as the executive director of Thoughtful House Center for Children, which studies autism in Austin, Texas, where, according to The Times, he "continued to promote the theory of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, despite admitting it was 'not proved'." He resigned from Thoughtful House in February 2010, after the British General Medical Council found that he had been "dishonest and irresponsible" in conducting his earlier autism research in England. The Times reported in May 2010 that he was a medical advisor for Visceral, a UK charity that "researches bowel disease and developmental disorders".

Wakefield is barred from practising as a physician in the UK, and is not licensed in the US. He lives in the US where he has a following, including the anti-vaccinationist Jenny McCarthy, who wrote the foreword for Wakefield's autobiography, Callous Disregard. She has a son with autism-like symptoms that she believes were caused by the MMR vaccine. According to Brian Deer, as of 2011, Wakefield lives near Austin with his family.

Wakefield has set up the non-profit Strategic Autism Initiative to commission studies into the condition, and is currently listed as a director of a company called Medical Interventions for Autism and another called the Autism Media Channel.

On 28 February 1998, Wakefield was the lead author of a study of twelve children with autism that was published in The Lancet. The study proposed a new syndrome called autistic enterocolitis, and raised the possibility of a link between a novel form of bowel disease, autism, and the MMR vaccine. The authors said that the parents of eight of the twelve children linked what were described as "behavioural symptoms" with MMR, and reported that the onset of these symptoms began within two weeks of MMR vaccination.

These possible triggers were reported as MMR in eight cases, and measles infection in one. The paper was instantly controversial, leading to widespread publicity in the UK and the convening of a special panel of the UK's Medical Research Council the following month. One 2005 study in Japan found that there was no causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism in groups of children given the triple MMR vaccine and children who received individual measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations. In Japan, the MMR vaccine had been replaced with individual vaccinations in 1993.

Although the paper said that no causal connection had been proven, before it was published, Wakefield made statements at a press conference and in a video news release issued by the hospital, calling for suspension of the triple MMR vaccine until more research could be done. This was later criticized as ' science by press conference'. According to BBC News, it was this press conference, rather than the paper in The Lancet, that fuelled the MMR vaccination scare. The BBC report said he told journalists: "it was a 'moral issue' and he could no longer support the continued use of the three-in-one jab for measles, mumps and rubella. 'Urgent further research is needed to determine whether MMR may give rise to this complication in a small number of people,' Wakefield said at the time." He said, "If you give three viruses together, three live viruses, then you potentially increase the risk of an adverse event occurring, particularly when one of those viruses influences the immune system in the way that measles does." He suggested parents should opt for single vaccinations against measles, mumps and rubella, separated by gaps of one year. interviewed him in November 2000, and he repeated these claims to the U.S. audience, providing a new focus for the nascent anti-vaccination movement in the U.S., which had been primarily concerned about thiomersal in vaccines. In December 2001, Wakefield resigned from the Royal Free Hospital, saying, "I have been asked to go because my research results are unpopular." The medical school said that he had left "by mutual agreement". In February 2002, Wakefield stated: "What precipitated this crisis was the removal of the single vaccine, the removal of choice, and that is what has caused the furore-because the doctors, the gurus, are treating the public as though they are some kind of moronic mass who cannot make an informed decision for themselves."

Aftermath of initial controversy

Wakefield continued to conduct clinical research in the United States after leaving the Royal Free Hospital in December 2001. He joined a controversial American researcher, Jeff Bradstreet, at the International Child Development Resource Center, to conduct further studies on the possible relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism.

In 2004, Wakefield began working at the Thoughtful House research center in Austin, Texas. Wakefield served as Executive Director of Thoughtful House until February 2010, when he resigned in the wake of findings against him by the British General Medical Council.

In February 2004, the controversy resurfaced when Wakefield was accused of a conflict of interest. In The Sunday Times, Brian Deer reported that some of the parents of the 12 children in the study in The Lancet were recruited via a UK lawyer preparing a lawsuit against MMR manufacturers, and that the Royal Free Hospital had received £55,000 from the UK's Legal Aid Board (now the Legal Services Commission) to pay for the research. Previously, in October 2003, the board had cut off public funding for the litigation against MMR manufacturers. Following an investigation of the allegations in The Sunday Times by the UK General Medical Council, Wakefield was charged with serious professional misconduct, including dishonesty. In December 2006, Deer, writing in The Sunday Times, further reported that in addition to the money they donated to the Royal Free Hospital, the lawyers responsible for the MMR lawsuit had paid Wakefield personally more than £400,000, which he had not previously disclosed.

Twenty-four hours before the 2004 Sunday Times report by Deer, The Lancet's editor Richard Horton responded to the investigation in a public statement, describing Wakefield's research as "fatally flawed" and said he believed the paper would have been rejected as biased if the peer reviewers had been aware of Wakefield's conflict of interest. Ten of Wakefield's twelve co-authors of the paper in The Lancet later published a retraction of an interpretation. The section of the paper retracted read as follows:

Interpretation. We identified associated gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression in a group of previously normal children, which was generally associated in time with possible environmental triggers.

The retraction stated:

Wakefield v Channel 4 Television & Others

In November 2004, Channel 4 broadcast a one-hour Dispatches investigation by reporter Brian Deer; the Toronto Star said Deer had "produced documentary evidence that Wakefield applied for a patent on a single-jab measles vaccine before his campaign against the MMR vaccine, raising questions about his motives".

In addition to Wakefield's unpublished initial patent submission, Deer released a copy of the published patent application. At page 1, the first paragraph of this stated:

The present invention relates to a new vaccine/immunisation for the prevention and/or prophylaxis against measles virus infection and to a pharmaceutical or therapeutic composition for the treatment of IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease); particularly Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis and regressive behavioural disease (RBD) (also referred to as "Pervasive Developmental Disorder).

Before describing the research in Wakefield's 1998 paper in The Lancet, at the same page this patent explicitly states that the use of the MMR vaccine causes autism:

It has now also been shown that use of the MMR vaccine (which is taken to include live attenuated measles vaccine virus, measles virus, mumps vaccine virus and rubella vaccine virus, and wild strains of the aforementioned viruses) results in ileal lymphoid nodular hyperplasia, chronic colitis and pervasive developmental disorder including autism (RBD), in some infants.

According to Deer, a letter from Wakefield's lawyers to him dated 31 January 2005 said: "Dr Wakefield did not plan a rival vaccine."

In the Dispatches programme, Deer also revealed that Nicholas Chadwick, a researcher working under Wakefield's supervision in the Royal Free medical school, had failed to find measles virus in the children reported on in The Lancet.

In January 2005, Wakefield initiated libel proceedings against Channel 4, the independent production company Twenty Twenty and Brian Deer, The Sunday Times, and against Deer personally along with his website briandeer.com in the case Wakefield v Channel Four Television and Others [2006] EWHC 3289 (QB); [2007] 94 BMLR 1. Within weeks of issuing his claims, however, Wakefield sought to have the action frozen until after the conclusion of General Medical Council proceedings against him. Channel 4 and Deer sought a High Court order compelling Wakefield to continue with his action, or discontinue it. After a hearing on 27 and 28 October 2005, Mr Justice David Eady ruled against a stay of proceedings:

The judgment identified Channel 4's "very lengthy extracts" summarizing Deer's allegations against Wakefield:

(i) [Wakefield] spread fear that the MMR vaccine might lead to autism, even though he knew that his own laboratory had carried out tests whose results dramatically contradicted his claims in that the measles virus had not been found in a single one of the children concerned in his study and he knew or ought to have known that there was absolutely no basis at all for his belief that the MMR should be broken up into single vaccines.

(ii) In spreading such fear, acted dishonestly and for mercenary motives in that, although he improperly failed to disclose the fact, he planned a rival vaccine and products (such as a diagnostic kit based on his theory) that could have made his fortune

(iii) Gravely abused the children under his care by unethically carrying out extensive invasive procedures (on occasions requiring three people to hold a child down), thereby driving nurses to leave and causing his medical colleagues serious concern and unhappiness

(iv) Improperly and/or dishonestly failed to disclose to his colleagues and to the public that his research on autistic children had begun with a contract with solicitors who were trying to sue the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine

(v) Improperly or dishonestly lent his reputation to the International Child Development Resource Centre, which promoted to very vulnerable parents expensive products for whose efficacy (as he knew or should have known) there was no scientific evidence

Mr. Justice Eady's ruling states that, "The views or conclusions of the GMC disciplinary body would not, so far as I can tell, be relevant or admissible", that Channel 4's allegations "go to undermine fundamentally the Claimant's professional integrity and honesty", and that, "It cannot seriously be suggested that priority should be given to GMC proceedings for the resolution of issues."

In December 2006, Deer released records obtained from the Legal Services Commission, showing that it had paid £435,643 in undisclosed fees to Wakefield for the purpose of building a case against the MMR vaccine. Those payments, The Sunday Times reported, had begun two years before publication of Wakefield's paper in The Lancet. Within days of Deer's report, Wakefield dropped all his libel actions and was ordered to pay all defendants' legal costs.

Other concerns

Wakefield's data was also questioned; a former graduate student, who appeared in Deer's programme, later testified that Wakefield ignored laboratory data that conflicted with his hypothesis. An independent investigation of a collaborating laboratory questioned the accuracy of the data underpinning Wakefield's claims.

In June 2005, the BBC programme reported on an unnamed and unpublished study of blood samples from a group of 100 autistic children and 200 children without autism. They reported finding 99% of the samples contained no trace of the measles virus, and the samples that did contain the virus were just as likely to be from non-autistic children, i.e., only three samples contained the measles virus, one from an autistic child and two from a typically developing child. The study's authors found no evidence of any link between MMR and autism.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the United States National Academy of Sciences, along with the CDC and the UK National Health Service, have found no link between vaccines and autism. Reviews in the medical literature have also found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism or with bowel disease, which Wakefield called " autistic enterocolitis".

General Medical Council hearings

Between July 2007 and May 2010, a 217-day "fitness to practise" hearing of the UK General Medical Council examined charges of professional misconduct against Wakefield and two colleagues involved in the paper in The Lancet. The charges included that he:

"Was being paid to conduct the study by solicitors representing parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR".

Ordered investigations "without the requisite paediatric qualifications" including colonoscopies, colon biopsies and lumbar punctures ("spinal taps") on his research subjects without the approval of his department's ethics board and contrary to the children's clinical interests, when these diagnostic tests were not indicated by the children's symptoms or medical history.

"Act[ed] 'dishonestly and irresponsibly' in failing to disclose ... how patients were recruited for the study" as well as in his descriptions in the Lancet papers and in questions after the paper published, about what ailments the children had, and when those ailments were observed relative to their getting vaccinated.:Paragraphs 33-36, pp 45-48

"Conduct[ed] the study on a basis not approved by the hospital's ethics committee."

Purchased blood samples-for £5 each-from children present at his son's birthday party, which Wakefield joked about in a later presentation.

"[S]howed callous disregard for any distress or pain the children might suffer"

Wakefield denied the charges; on 28 January 2010, the GMC ruled against Wakefield on all issues, stating that he had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant", acted against the interests of his patients, and "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in his controversial research. On 24 May 2010, he was struck off the United Kingdom medical register. It was the harshest sanction that the GMC could impose, and effectively ended his career as a physician. In announcing the ruling, the GMC said that Wakefield had "brought the medical profession into disrepute", and no sanction short of erasing his name from the register was appropriate for the "serious and wide-ranging findings" of misconduct. On the same day, Wakefield's autobiography, Callous Disregard was published, using the same words as one of the charges against him ("he showed callous disregard for any distress or pain the children might suffer"). Wakefield argued that he had been unfairly treated by the medical and scientific establishment.

Fraud and conflict of interest allegations

In February 2009, The Sunday Times reported that a further investigation by the newspaper had revealed that Wakefield "changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism", citing evidence obtained by the newspaper from medical records and interviews with witnesses, and supported by evidence presented to the GMC.

In April 2010, Deer expanded on laboratory aspects of his findings in a report in the , recounting how normal clinical histopathology results (obtained from the Royal Free hospital) had been subjected to wholesale changes, from normal to abnormal, in the medical school and published in The Lancet. On 2 January 2011, Deer provided two tables comparing the data on the twelve children, showing the original hospital data and the data with the wholesale changes as used in the 1998 The Lancet article.

On 5 January 2011, BMJ published an article by Brian Deer entitled "How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed". Deer said that, based on examination of the medical records of the 12 children in the original study, his research had found:

The paper in The Lancet was a case series of 12 child patients; it reported a proposed "new syndrome" of enterocolitis and regressive autism and associated this with MMR as an "apparent precipitating event." But in fact:

Three of nine children reported with regressive autism did not have autism diagnosed at all. Only one child clearly had regressive autism;

Despite the paper claiming that all 12 children were "previously normal", five had documented pre-existing developmental concerns;

Some children were reported to have experienced first behavioural symptoms within days of MMR, but the records documented these as starting some months after vaccination;

In nine cases, unremarkable colonic histopathology results-noting no or minimal fluctuations in inflammatory cell populations-were changed after a medical school "research review" to "non-specific colitis";

The parents of eight children were reported as blaming MMR, but 11 families made this allegation at the hospital. The exclusion of three allegations-all giving times to onset of problems in months-helped to create the appearance of a 14-day temporal link;

Patients were recruited through anti-MMR campaigners, and the study was commissioned and funded for planned litigation.

In an accompanying editorial, BMJ editors said:

The British Medical Journal editorial concluded that Wakefield's paper was an "elaborate fraud".

In a BMJ follow-up article on 11 January 2011, Deer stated that Wakefield had planned to capitalize on the MMR vaccination scare provoked by his paper. He said that based upon documents he had obtained under Freedom of information legislation, Wakefield-in partnership with the father of one of the boys in the study-had planned to launch a venture on the back of an MMR vaccination scare that would profit from new medical tests and "litigation driven testing". The Washington Post reported that Deer said that Wakefield predicted he "could make more than $43 million a year from diagnostic kits" for the new condition, autistic enterocolitis. According to Deer's report in BMJ, the ventures, Immunospecifics Biotechnologies Ltd and Carmel Healthcare Ltd-named after Wakefield's wife-failed after Wakefield's superiors at University College London's medical school gave him a two-page letter that said:

WebMD reported on Deer's BMJ report, saying that the $43 million predicted yearly profits would come from marketing kits for "diagnosing patients with autism" and that "the initial market for the diagnostic will be litigation-driven testing of patients with AE [autistic enterocolitis, an unproven condition concocted by Wakefield] from both the UK and the US". According to WebMD, the BMJ article also claimed that Carmel Healthcare Ltd. would succeed in marketing products and developing a replacement vaccine if "public confidence in the MMR vaccine was damaged".

In October 2012, research published in PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, identified Wakefield's 1998 paper as the most cited retracted scientific paper, with 758 citations, and gave the "reason for retraction" as "fraud".

Journal retractions

On 2 February 2010, The Lancet formally retracted Wakefield's 1998 paper. The retraction states: "The claims in the original paper that children were 'consecutively referred' and that investigations were 'approved' by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false."

The following day, the editor of a specialist journal, NeuroToxicology, withdrew another Wakefield paper that was in press. The article, which concerned research on monkeys, had already been published online and sought to implicate vaccines in autism.

In May 2010, The American Journal of Gastroenterology retracted a paper of Wakefield's that used data from the 12 patients of the article in The Lancet.

On 5 January 2011, British Medical Journal editors recommended that Wakefield's other publications should be scrutinized and retracted if need be.

Wakefield response

As of January 2011, Wakefield continued to maintain his innocence. In a press release, he stated,

In an Internet radio interview, Wakefield said the BMJ series "was utter nonsense" and denied "that he used the cases of the 12 children in his study to promote his business venture". Deer has filed financial disclosure forms and rejects Wakefield's claim that he is funded by the pharmaceutical industry. According to CNN, Wakefield said the patent he held was for "an 'over-the-counter nutritional supplement' that boosts the immune system". WebMD reported that Wakefield said he was the victim of "a ruthless, pragmatic attempt to crush any attempt to investigate valid vaccine safety concerns".

Wakefield says that Deer is a "hit man who was brought in to take [him] down" and that other scientists have simply taken Deer at his word. While on Anderson Cooper 360°, he said that he had not read the BMJ articles yet, but he denied their validity and denied that Deer had interviewed the families of the children in the study. He also urged viewers to read his book, Callous Disregard, which he said would explain why he was being targeted, to which Anderson Cooper replied: "But sir, if you're lying, then your book is also a lie. If your study is a lie, your book is a lie."

Wakefield later implied that there is a conspiracy by public health officials and pharmaceutical companies to discredit him, including suggesting they pay bloggers to post rumours about him on websites or that they artificially inflated reports of deaths from measles.

Deer counter-response

Deer responded to Wakefield's charge by challenging Wakefield to sue him:

If it is true that Andrew Wakefield is not guilty as charged, he has the remedy of bringing a libel action against myself, The Sunday Times of London, against the medical journal here, and he would be the richest man in America.

Deer mentioned that all of Wakefield's previous libel actions had been dismissed or withdrawn.

In January 2012, Wakefield filed a defamation lawsuit in Texas state court against Deer, Fiona Godlee, and the BMJ for false accusations of fraud, seeking a jury trial in Travis County. The filing identified Wakefield as a resident of Austin, and cited the " Texas Long-Arm Statute" as justification for initiating the proceeding in Texas. The BMJ responded that it stood by its reports and would "defend the claim vigorously". In August 2012 District Court Judge Amy Meachum dismissed Wakefield's suit for lack of jurisdiction. Her ruling was upheld on appeal in September 2014 and Wakefield was ordered to pay all parties' costs.

On 5 April 2011, Deer was named the UK's specialist journalist of the year in the British Press Awards, organised by the Society of Editors. The judges said that Deer's investigation of Wakefield was a "tremendous righting of a wrong".

Epidemics, effects, and reception

Physicians, medical journals, and editors have made statements tying Wakefield's fraudulent actions to various epidemics and deaths. Michael J. Smith, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Louisville, an "infectious diseases expert who has studied the autism controversy's effect on immunization rates", said, "Clearly, the results of this [Wakefield] study have had repercussions."

Wakefield's study and his claim that the MMR vaccine might cause autism led to a decline in vaccination rates in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, and a corresponding rise in measles and mumps infections, resulting in serious illness and deaths. His continued claims that the vaccine is harmful have contributed to a climate of distrust of all vaccines and the reemergence of other previously-controlled diseases.

The Associated Press said:

ABC News Channel WWAY3 said:

Since Dr. Andrew Wakefield's study was released in 1998, many parents have been convinced the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine could lead to autism. But that study may have done more harm than good. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the United States, more cases of measles were reported in 2008 than any year since 1997. More than 90 percent of those infected had not been vaccinated, or their vaccination status was not known.

Paul Hébert, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) said:

A profile in a New York Times Magazine article commented:

Journalist Brian Deer called for criminal charges against Wakefield.

On 1 April 2011, the James Randi Educational Foundation awarded Wakefield the Pigasus Award for "refusal to face reality".

A 2011 journal article described the vaccine-autism connection as "the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years".

In 2011, Wakefield was at the top of the list of the worst doctors of 2011 in list of "Physicians of the Year: Best and Worst". In January 2012, magazine named Wakefield in a list of "Great Science Frauds". In 2012 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement in Quackery award by the Good Thinking Society.

A writer from The New York Times, who was covering a 2011 event in Tomball, Texas where Wakefield spoke, was threatened by its organizer, Michelle Guppy: "Be nice to him, or we will hurt you." Guppy is the coordinator of the Houston Autism Disability Network.

In June 2012, a local court in Rimini, Italy, ruled that the MMR vaccination had caused autism in a 15-month-old boy. The court relied heavily on Wakefield's discredited Lancet paper and largely ignored the scientific evidence presented to it. The decision was appealed. On 13 February 2015, the decision was overturned by a Court of Appeals in Bologna.

In February 2015, Wakefield denied that he bore any responsibility for the measles epidemic that started at Disneyland. He also reaffirmed his discredited belief that "MMR contributes to the current autism epidemic". By that time at least 166 measles cases had been reported. Paul Offit did not agree, saying that the outbreak was "directly related to Dr. Wakefield's theory".

Filmmaker Miranda Bailey followed Wakefield and his wife Carmel and their children for five years filming a documentary about Wakefield as a person, The Pathological Optimist. According to Robert Ladendorf writing for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, Bailey attempted to remain neutral and add a "human touch", which Ladendorf says was successful. Wakefield is shown "as a soft-spoken but beleaguered family man trying to resurrect his reputation and raising money for his legal fund."

In 2018, The Skeptic awarded Wakefield the Rusty Razor award "for pseudoscience and bad critical thinking." The award is decided annually by readers' votes. Editor Deborah Hyde said, "Our contributors clearly felt that anti-vaccination damage is still a current issue, despite Mr. Wakefield first having come to public attention so long ago. These childhood diseases can do real damage, so we're proud to be an organisation that gets the good news out there - the evidence is overwhelming that vaccination is safe. Protect your children and your community by using it."

Political activism

Wakefield was scheduled to testify before the Oregon Senate Health Care Committee on 9 March 2015, in opposition to Senate Bill 442, "a bill that would eliminate nonmedical exemptions from Oregon's school immunization law".

The Oregon Chiropractic Association had invited him. The chairman of the committee then canceled the meeting "after it became clear that" Wakefield planned to testify. She denied that her decision had anything to do with Wakefield's plans.

On 24 April 2015, Wakefield received two standing ovations from the students at Life Chiropractic College West when he told them to oppose Senate Bill SB277, a bill that proposes elimination of non-medical vaccine exemptions. Wakefield had previously been a featured speaker at a 2014 "California Jam" gathering of chiropractors, as well as a 2015 "California Jam" seminar, with continuing education credits, sponsored by Life Chiropractic College West. On 3 July 2015, Wakefield participated in a protest held in Santa Monica, California, against SB 277, a recently enacted bill which removed the personal belief exemption to school vaccine requirements in California state law.

In 2016, Wakefield directed the anti-vaccination propaganda film Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe. The film purports to show "an appalling cover-up committed by the government agency charged with protecting the health of American citizens [the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)] ... an alarming deception that has contributed to the skyrocketing increase of autism and potentially the most catastrophic epidemic of our lifetime." The film was withdrawn from New York's 2016 Tribeca Film Festival after the festival's founder Robert De Niro (who has a child with autism) reversed his decision to include it. Wakefield called this action censorship. Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, writing in The Wall Street Journal, said: "If Vaxxed had been submitted as science fiction, it would merit attention for its story line, character development and dialogue. But as a documentary it misrepresents what science knows about autism, undermines public confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and attacks the integrity of legitimate scientists and public-health officials".

Selected publications

Journal articles

Withdrawn: Hewitson L, Houser LA, Stott C, Sackett G, Tomko JL, Atwood D, Blue L, White ER, Wakefield AJ (October 2009). "WITHDRAWN: Delayed acquisition of neonatal reflexes in newborn primates receiving a thimerosal-containing Hepatitis B vaccine: Influence of gestational age and birth weight". Neurotoxicology. doi:10.1016/j.neuro.2009.09.008. PMID 19800915.

Retracted: Wakefield AJ, Anthony A, Murch SH, Thomson M, Montgomery SM, Davies S, O'Leary JJ, Berelowitz M, Walker-Smith JA (September 2000). "Enterocolitis in children with developmental disorders". Am. J. Gastroenterol. 95 (9): 2285-2295. PMID 11007230.

Retracted: Wakefield AJ, Murch SH, Anthony A, Linnell J, Casson DM, Malik M, Berelowitz M, Dhillon AP, Thomson MA, Harvey P, Valentine A, Davies SE, Walker-Smith JA (1998). "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children". . 351 (9103): 637-641. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(97)11096-0. PMID 9500320. S2CID 439791. (Retracted)

Wakefield AJ, Ekbom A, Dhillon AP, Pittilo RM, Pounder RE (March 1995). "Crohn's disease: pathogenesis and persistent measles virus infection". Gastroenterology. 108 (3): 911-916. doi:10.1016/0016-5085(95)90467-0. PMID 7875495.

Wakefield AJ, Pittilo RM, Sim R, Cosby SL, Stephenson JR, Dhillon AP, Pounder RE (April 1993). "Evidence of persistent measles virus infection in Crohn's disease". J. Med. Virol. 39 (4): 345-353. doi:10.1002/jmv.1890390415. PMID 8492105. S2CID 29899812.

Wakefield, AJ; Sankey EA; Dhillon AP; et al. (May 1991). "Granulomatous vasculitis in Crohn's disease". Gastroenterology. 100 (5 Pt 1): 1279-1287. doi:10.1016/0016-5085(91)90779-K. PMID 2013373.

Wakefield AJ, Sawyerr AM, Dhillon AP, Pittilo RM, Rowles PM, Lewis AA, Pounder RE (November 1989). "Pathogenesis of Crohn's disease: multifocal gastrointestinal infarction". . 2 (8671): 1057-1062. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(89)91078-7. PMID 2572794. S2CID 23490194.

References

External links

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Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 1956) is a British former physician and academic who was struck off the medical register due to his involvement in the Lancet MMR autism fraud, a 1998 study that falsely claimed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.

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As families face back-to-school medical requirements this month, the country feels the impact of a vaccine resistance movement decades in the making.

Anti-vaccine demonstrators outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta in June. Credit... Audra Melton for The New York Times

The question is often whispered, the questioners sheepish. But increasingly, parents at the Central Park playground where Dr. Elizabeth A. Comen takes her young children have been asking her: "Do you vaccinate your kids?"

Dr. Comen, an oncologist who has treated patients for cancers related to the human papillomavirus that a vaccine can now prevent, replies emphatically: Absolutely.

She never imagined she would be getting such queries. Yet these playground exchanges are reflective of the national conversation at the end of the second decade of the 21st century - a time of stunning scientific and medical advances but also a time when the United States may, next month, lose its World Health Organization designation as a country that has eliminated measles, because of outbreaks this year. The W.H.O. has listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top threats to global health.

As millions of families face back-to-school medical requirements and forms this month, the contentiousness surrounding vaccines is heating up again, with possibly even more fervor.

Though the situation may seem improbable to some, anti-vaccine sentiment has been building for decades, a byproduct of an internet humming with rumor and misinformation; the backlash against Big Pharma; an infatuation with celebrities that gives special credence to the anti-immunization statements fromactors like Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey and Alicia Silverstone, the rapper Kevin Gates and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And now, the Trump administration's anti-science rhetoric.

"Science has become just another voice in the room," said Dr. Paul A. Offit, an infectious disease expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "It has lost its platform. Now, you simply declare your own truth."

The constituents who make up the so-called vaccine resistant come fromdisparate groups, and include anti-government libertarians, apostles of the all-natural and parents who believe that doctors should not dictate medical decisions about children. Labeling resisters with one dismissive stereotype would be wrongheaded.

"To just say that these parents are ignorant or selfish is an easy trope," said Jennifer Reich, a sociologist at the University of Colorado Denver, who studies vaccine-resistant families.
[Why did we start listening to celebrities about vaccines? Read more.]
It remains true that the overwhelming majority of American parents have their children vaccinated. Parent-driven groups like Voices for Vaccines, formed to counter anti-vaccination sentiment, have proliferated. Five states have eliminated exemptions for religious and philosophical reasons, permitting only medical opt-outs.

Seven states reported rates for the M.M.R. vaccine that were far lower for kindergartners, including Kansas at 89.1 percent; New Hampshire, 92.4 percent; the District of Columbia, 81.3 percent. (The highest is West Virginia at 98.4 percent.)

Almost all states have at least one anti-vaccine group. At least four have registered political action committees, supporting candidates who favor less restrictive vaccine exemption policies.

Public health experts say that patients and many doctors may not appreciate the severity of diseases that immunizations have thwarted, like polio, which can affect the spinal cord and brain - because they probably have not seen cases.

"Vaccines are a victim of their own success," said Dr. Offit, a co-inventor of a vaccine for rotavirus, which can cause severe diarrhea in young children. "We have largely eliminated the memory of many diseases."

The growth of vaccine doubt in America coincides with several competing forces and attitudes.

Since the early 2000s, as the number of required childhood vaccines was increasing, a generation of parents was becoming hypervigilant about their children and, through social media, patting each other on the backs for doing so. In their view, parents who permitted vaccination were gullible toadies of status quo medicine.

In 2011, Dana Fuqua, of Aurora, Colo., pregnant with her first child, felt that irresistible pull of groupthink parenting.

She had just moved to the area, so she reached out to mothers' groups on Facebook. Colorado, with a kindergarten vaccination compliance rate of 88.7 percent, has a rambunctious vaccine-resistant movement. Ms. Fuqua's new friends urged her to have a drug-free birth, use cloth diapers and never to let a drop of formula pass her baby's lips. Vaccines, it followed, were anathema.

The women intimidated her. They had advanced degrees; she had only a bachelor of science and a nursing background.

"I didn't argue with them," Ms. Fuqua said. "I was so desperate for their support that I compromised by delaying the vaccine schedule, so I wouldn't get kicked out of the group."

But when her second child was born prematurely, susceptible to illness, the group's approval was not as important as her baby's safety.Her position, she said, shifted from, "'I can't hang out with you if you had a vaccine because you could be shedding a virus'" - a common, falsebelief among the vaccine resistant - to, " 'If you haven't had a vaccine, I will not associate with you.'"

She had both children fully vaccinated.

There have been anti-vaccination movements at least since 1796, when Edward Jenner invented the smallpox vaccine. But many experts say that the current one can be traced to 1982, when NBC aired a documentary, "DPT: Vaccine Roulette," that took up a controversy percolating in England: a purported tie between the vaccine for pertussis - a potentially fatal disease that can cause lung problems - and seizures in young children.

Doctors sharply criticized the show as dangerously inaccurate. But fear spread. Anti-vaccination groups formed. Many companies stopped making vaccines, which were considered loss-leaders and not worth the corporate headache.

Then, in 1998, Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist, published a Lancet study ( since discredited and withdrawn), associating the M.M.R. vaccine with autism.

Faced with risking autism or measles, some parents thought the answer was obvious. Most had never seen measles, mumps or rubella because vaccines had nearly eliminated them. But they believed they knew autism.

And most people are notoriously poor at assessing risk, say experts in medical decision-making.

Many stumble on omission bias: "We would rather not do something and have something bad happen, than do something and have something bad happen," explained Alison M. Buttenheim, an associate professor of nursing and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

People are flummoxed by numerical risk. "We pay more attention to numerators, such as '16 adverse events,' than we do to denominators, such as 'per million vaccine doses,' " Dr. Buttenheim said.

A concept called "ambiguity aversion" is also involved, she added. "Parents would like to be told that vaccines are 100 percent safe," she said. "But that's not a standard we hold any medical treatment to."

Relatively few people are absolutists about refusing all vaccines. "But if you're uncertain about a decision, you'll find those who confirm your bias and cement what you think," said Rupali J. Limaye, a social scientist who studies vaccine behaviors at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Nowhere is that reinforcement more clamorous than on social media, Dr. Limaye added. "You may only see your pediatrician a few times a year but you can spend all day on the internet," she said.

People tend to believe an individual's anecdotal narrative over abstract numbers. By 2007, when Ms. McCarthy, the actress, insisted that vaccines caused her son's autism, thousands found her to be more persuasive than data showing otherwise. A nascent movement took hold.

At the same time that these powerful attacks on vaccine confidence were underway, a constellation of trends was emerging.

The definition of a good parent was becoming fraught with the responsibility for overseeing every aspect of a child's life.

"As we adopted a culture of individualistic parenting, public health became a hard sell," Dr. Reich said.

The primary reason for healthy people to get the flu shot is to protect those with compromised immune systems, like infants and older adults, from getting sick. But altruism isn't a great motivator for parents, Dr. Buttenheim said. "They are much more concerned about protecting their own child at all costs," she said.

Contrast that attitude with the collective good will of the 1950s, say medical sociologists, when American parents who had seen President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's wheelchair as a debilitating symbol of polio patriotically sought to vaccinate their children to help eradicate the disease worldwide.

By 2014, studies showed that parental confidence in authorities like the C.D.C. and in pediatricians was dropping, especially around vaccines. Mistrust of Big Pharma was even more pronounced.

By then, Donald Trump was offering support on Twitter for the discredited link between autism and vaccination. As president-elect, he met with leaders of the anti-vaccination movement, although as measles cases surged, he endorsed vaccination.

As parenting became rife with orthodoxy, the Marcus Welby model of the paternalistic doctor retreated. Patients asserted autonomy, brandishing internet printouts at doctors. Shared decision-making became the model of doctor-patient engagement.

Pediatricians offered to stagger vaccine schedules. Some were even flexible about vaccinations altogether.

In 2011, shortly after Emma Wagner had given birth in Savannah, Ga., a pediatrician on the ward examined the baby. "He asked me if I was interested in the hepatitis B vaccine," she said of an inoculation typically done at birth.

She was apprehensive.

He replied, "'That's fine, because your 2-day-old daughter isn't a prostitute and isn't using I.V. drugs, so hep B isn't at the top of my worries.'"

Ms. Wagner said she "swallowed the anti-vax Kool-Aid. I was motivated by fear. I thought, 'Until I know for certain that these are safe, I won't do it.' The pediatrician said, 'I will support your decision and in a few years we'll talk about exemptions for school.'"

She has since become a staunch supporter of immunization.

Libertarianism also courses through vaccine hesitation, with parents who assert that government should not be able to tell them what to put in their bodies - a position often marketed as "the right to choose."

"Having the government order them to do something reinforces conspiracy theories," said Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins. "And people perceive their risk to be higher when it's not voluntary."

In reality, he said, one's risk of harm is greater while driving to an airport than it is being on the airplane itself. But driving is voluntary and gives the illusion of control. People fear flying because they cannot control the plane. By extension, many childhood vaccines are not voluntary, which rattles those who prefer to believe they can control their health.

With so many different but deeply held convictions, public health experts struggle to design vaccine-positive campaigns.

In 2017, researchers applied the six values of "the moral foundations theory" to vaccine attitudes, surveying 1,007 American parents.

The results were intriguing. Those most resistant to vaccines scored highest in two values: purity ("my body is a temple") and liberty ("I want to make my child's health care decisions").

A third, said Saad B. Omer, director of Yale's Global Health Institute and an author of the study, was also telling: deference to authority - a score indicating whether one was likely to adhere to the advice of experts like a pediatrician or the C.D.C.

Dr. Salmon's team at Johns Hopkins is working on an app to capture parents' vaccine attitudes and to tailor information to persuade them to vaccinate their children.

Pediatricians are front-line persuaders, he said, and they should be compensated for the time it takes to educate parents.

Most experts note that physicians themselves, never mind parents, have no idea about the federal vaccine monitoring systems, which have been in place for more than 20 years.

"We ask parents in the first two years of their child's life to protect them against 14 diseases, that most people don't see, using fluids they don't understand," Dr. Offit said. "It's time for us to stand back and explain ourselves better."

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How Anti-Vaccine Sentiment Took Hold in the United States (Published 2019)

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As families face back-to-school medical requirements this month, the country feels the impact of a vaccine resistance movement decades in the making. The question is often whispered, the questioners sheepish. But increasingly, parents at the Central Park playground where Dr. Elizabeth A. Comen takes her young children have been asking her: "Do you vaccinate your kids?"

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Prioritizing hiring people without disabilities even if they have less experience/skills

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Prioritizing hiring people without disabilities even if they have less experience/skills

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Removing Barriers

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New on ADA.gov

Explore the new content we've added to ADA.gov

This document discusses and explains the requirements of the ADA's integration mandate and the Supreme Court's decision in Olmstead v. L.C. ex rel. Zimring, 527 U.S. 581 (1999), as applied to segregated employment settings and facility-based day programs. In addition, this document provides a link to the Department's Federal Register notice, which provides more information about this guidance.

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Disability rights are civil rights. From voting to parking, the ADA is a law that protects people with disabilities in many areas of public life.

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A recent investigation by NBC found private groups on Facebook, linked to YouTube videos, were encouraging parents to use bleach to "cure" their children of autism.

Known as the Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), group members were exposed to video instructions on how to make chlorine dioxide-based solutions for their children. The report found parents left testimonials and anti-vaccine content, while some mothers of autistic children even went undercover to report and ban these pages.

Autism has no direct cause or cure, and experts added as a result, some parents turn to harmful methods.

In one 2017 case, a mother was investigated after giving her six-year-old son a bleach enema to "cure" autism, Metro U.K. reported. The mother claimed autism was caused by parasites that could be "cleansed" using the bleach-based treatment. There is no medical evidence to support this claim.

MMS could be traced back to former Scientologist Jim Humble, who first promoted his "cure" 20 years ago.

"Humble, 86, claimed he'd used the chemical compound to heal a case of malaria while on a South American expedition. It worked so well, Humble says in his book and on his website, that he named himself the archbishop of a new religion devoted to chlorine dioxide, branded MMS," NBC reported, adding Humble claimed MMS could cure diabetes, AIDS and even cancer.
READ MORE: 'It has made me a better person': What it's like to raise a child with autism
Business Insider, who also recently released an investigation on the topic, added millions of people had watched MMS videos on YouTube. After Business Insider contacted YouTube, the videos were taken down.

In the past few months, YouTube has been focused on cracking down on harmful content, and in a statement to Global News, said that videos and channel owners were terminated immediately.

"YouTube does not allow content that encourages dangerous activities with a risk of physical harm, and we work to quickly remove flagged videos that violate these policies," a spokesperson said.

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What is MMS?

NBC added MMS also gained momentum in 2015 when former Chicago real-estate agent Kerri Rivera brought the method into autism parenting communities through her book and social media pages. Rivera, who is not a medical doctor, promoted the idea of using the bleach solution to "treat" autistic children.

"Today, she lives and operates a clinic offering chlorine dioxide regimens in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and claims to have cured autism in more than 500 children," the site noted.

However, the ingredients that make up Rivera's MMS solution are not illegal, but in the U.S., it is illegal to market or sell chlorine dioxide-based products as a cure for ailments.

According to a statement to Global News, Autism Canada understands why some parents seek out unproven therapies to help their child.

"We recognize the urgency parents may feel when confronted with a diagnosis of autism, which may lead them to undertake desperate treatments."

In 2015, the organization released a statement on MMS after it began heavily surfacing on social media pages.

"It was clear that this product had side effects that were seriously damaging to the body."
READ MORE: Parents of children with autism call for Lisa MacLeod's resignation during emotional telephone town hall
The organization noted it promotes a multi-disciplinary approach as the most effective way of treating and managing autism.

"For example, there is a growing body of research evidence pointing to the value of implementing changes like diet and/or supplementing deficient vitamins and minerals (nutraceuticals), etc. These are emerging treatments for the underlying factors that contribute to autism and related symptoms. Parents often remark on improved language, eye contact, social engagement and their child's ability to learn."

It added parents and individuals should combine medical and non-medical treatments.

"Having different techniques helps to unlock a person's potential. Medical interventions focus on improving the physical health of the individual while non-medical interventions focus on improving their social and emotional health."

The organization does not endorse treatments, interventions and therapies, however, it lists them on their website so people can make informed choices.

"It is a starting point for parents and individuals to investigate options that may fit or resonate with them. We state that therapies for autism, like any condition, should be discussed with a trusted medical practitioner or certified therapist before use."

'Every child or adult is different'

Electra Dalamagas, a family intervention specialist at Autism Montreal, told Global News that when it comes to autism, every child or adult is different. "They have different needs, they're unique, and they have different health issues," she said. "It's important to not assume a one size [treatment] fits all."

Dalamagas added autistic adults and children are still grossly misunderstood and this even trickles down into the health-care community. In 2018, the National Autism Spectrum Disorder Surveillance System Report found an estimated one in 66 children in Canada have autism.

And because autism is misunderstood, parents are often left with confusing, conflicting and inaccurate information online. "There's a desire to want to help the individuals who have any health issues... but whatever treatment may be recommended can't cause harm."

Another problem is how much access parents have to misinformation on the internet. Sites like YouTube or Facebook can create communities of like-minded people spreading false information. And with the recent attention of sites shutting down pages encouraging the anti-vax movement, Dalamagas argued much more has to be done for the autism community.
READ MORE: Canadian autism group calls on federal government for national strategy
She added if you come across any medical or non-medical treatment online, parents should always consult with a medical doctor who works with austistic children before trying it.

The other issue with misinformation, Dalamagas explained, is some children deal with ongoing health issues in addition to having autism, leading to more urgency. Some parents don't have access to professional health care, either.

Dalamagas said she can see why some in desperation turn to harmful methods, but it comes down to awareness.

"Parents should focus on getting accurate information to make educated decisions."

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Some parents turn to bleach to 'cure' autism - why these myths are still rampant - National | Globalnews.ca

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YouTube removed the videos but some reports claim they are still easily accessible.

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Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint

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Restraint and seclusion are crisis management strategies that are used in many schools across the nation and the world. Physical Restraint, is exactly what it sounds like, it is a personal restriction that immobilizes or reduces the ability of a student to move his or her torso, arms, legs or head freely. Seclusion is the involuntary confinement of a student alone in a room or area from which the student is physically prevented from leaving. These interventions are dangerous and have led to serious injuries and even death in students, teachers and staff.

Learn more about restraint and seclusion

According to federal guidance restraint and/or seclusion should never be used except in situations where a child's behavior poses an imminent danger of serious physical harm to self or others, and restraint and seclusion should be avoided to the greatest extent possible without endangering the safety of students and staff. The important wording here is "serious physical harm", these measures are not intended merely for unsafe situations, but rather to situations that could result in death or serious bodily injury. As such based on federal guidance restraint and seclusion should be exceedingly rare. However, it has been found that restraint and seclusion are occurring far more frequently in schools across the nation and are not always limited to situations that involve imminent serious physical harm.

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Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Restraint and seclusion are crisis management strategies that are used in many schools across the nation and the world. Physical Restraint, is exactly what it sounds like, it is a personal restriction that immobilizes or reduces the ability of a student to move his or her torso, arms, legs or head freely.