In Defense of Dr. Andrew Wakefield

It’s been hard to miss the recent news reports about measles outbreaks around the United States. Frequently the statistics are followed in the next breath by complaints that the outbreak is due to anti-vaccine advocates. These advocates, we are often told, were inspired by Andrew Wakefield, the “discredited MMR vaccine doctor.”

I feel compelled to share what Dr. Wakefield told me during an interview in the fall of 2001. That interview was published at the time by our nonprofit organization, Association for Comprehensive NeuroTherapy, and is now published once more below in its entirety, without editing.

I’m neither a researcher nor scientist. I know there are controversies about Dr. Wakefield’s most quoted study in 1998. Newsweek carried an article this week (February 10, 2015) debunking his work and calling him the father of the anti-vaccine movement. See here. But based on his comments in the interview below, my guess is Wakefield would say that the large scale studies lauded in the Newsweek article did not test his actual hypothesis.

The reader should note that Andrew Wakefield warned against stopping vaccines for measles.



(Read this very informative interview here..)