• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

33 Charts

  • About
    • What is 33 Charts?
    • Bryan Vartabedian MD
  • Blog
  • 33mail
  • Foci
    • Social/Public Media
    • Physicians
    • Patients
    • Hospitals
    • Information
    • Process/Flow
    • Technology
    • Digital culture
    • Future Medicine
  • The Public Physician
Uncategorized

Vaccines, Autism and Andrew Wakefield’s Victims

January 8, 2011 By Bryan Vartabedian · Reading Time: 2 minutes

I thought we had seen Wakefield’s last stand.  But this week the British Medical Journal released a report detailing the calculated fraud that went into Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 Lancet publication linking the MMR vaccine with autism.  What’s newsworthy is the extent to which the data reported by Wakefield was fabricated.  For a thorough delineation of his shenanigans, read Orac’s coverage.

Much like the attention we offer a serial killer at the expense of his victims, Wakefield’s public evisceration comes at the expense of those he has damaged.  We shouldn’t overlook his impact on 3 populations:

Children.  Wakefield’s most obvious victim is our children.  While the pediatric community has worked desperately over the past two generations to make deadly childhood disease part of history, Wakefield and his disciples have done their part to see to it that diseases like whooping cough remain front and center.  To appreciate Wakefield’s most critical impact on children, grab a copy of The Forgotten Story.  It’s a compilation of first-hand stories told by the families of those touched by vaccine-preventable illness.  The expression on the faces of the young parents holding pictures of their children is chilling.

Parents.  Any parent who has ever had a fleeting second thought about protecting their child from measles, mumps or rubella is a victim of Andrew Wakefield’s crafted manipulation.  Parental fear is the fuel of a conspiratorial cottage industry that is slowly losing its base.

Pediatricians.  Ultimately it’s the pediatricians who are left to clean up the mess and advocate for those who can’t advocate for themselves.  The cumulative hours spent by pediatric providers helping young families manage their fear represents an extraordinary expenditure.  The fraudulent connection between vaccines and autism will continue to occupy the precious minutes of well-child exams for years to come.

While I have been known to prematurely predict Wakefield’s final stand, his impact remains and he continues to claim victims.  I can comfortably predict that Wakefield will go down in history as one of modern medicine’s most important figures.  Not for what he advanced but for taking the most first steps toward reversing the eradication of deadly childhood disease.

Related Articles

  • Wakefield in the White House
  • Wakefield's Last Stand
  • Vaccines, Autism and Firearms

Tagged With: Vaccines

Related Articles

  • Wakefield in the White House
  • Wakefield's Last Stand
  • Vaccines, Autism and Firearms

Primary Sidebar

Bryan Vartabedian, MD

Bryan Vartabedian, MD
Bryan Vartabedian is the Chief Pediatrics Officer at Texas Children’s Hospital North Austin and one of health care’s influential
voices on technology & medicine.
Learn More

Popular Articles

  • The Fate of Fired Cleveland Clinic Resident Lara Kollab
  • Cures Act Final Rule – How It Will Change Medicine
  • 12 Things About Doximity You Probably Didn’t Know
  • Should Physicians Give Their Cell Phone Number to Patients?
  • Doximity Dialer Video – Telemedicine’s Latest Power Player

Sign up for 33mail newsletter

Featured Articles

Reactive and Creative Spaces

100,000 Connected Lemmings

Doctors and the Endemic Culture of Permission

Doctors and social media: Damned if you engage, damned if you don’t

Health Care and the Visibility-Value Continuum

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Footer

What is 33 Charts?

With a mashup of curated and original content that crosses the spaces of digital health, media, communication, technology, patient experience, digital culture, and the humanities, 33 charts offers unique insight and analysis on the changing face of medicine.

Founded in 2009 as a center of community and thought leadership for the issues doctors face in a digital world, 33 charts was included in the National Library of Medicine permanent web archive in 2014.
Learn More

Foci

  • Digital culture
  • Digital Health
  • EHR/Health IT
  • Future Medicine
  • Hospitals
  • Information
  • Patients
  • Physicians
  • Process/Flow
  • Quality
  • Social/Public Media
  • Technology

Copyright © 2023 · 33 Charts · Privacy Policy