Tag: Andrew Wakefield

Measles rash

Measles is back, and so are all the old antivax tropes about it

Measles is back, and so are all the old antivax tropes about the disease and the vaccine. Unfortunately, there's an antivaxxer in charge.

/ March 3, 2025
Gaslighting gaslighter

Gaslighting RFK Jr.’s role in the deadly Samoan measles outbreak

One of many shameful incidents in the life of antivax activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was his promotion of anti-MMR fear mongering during a measles epidemic in Samoa. Now that he could become HHS Secretary, his apologists are frantically trying to gaslight you. Here's how.

/ December 30, 2024
Steve Kirsch ad

Steve Kirsch’s “mother of all revelations” about the “deadliness” of COVID-19 vaccines goes poof

On Thursday, Steve Kirsch gave his long-hyped talk about "record-level data" from New Zealand that supposedly demonstrates that COVID-19 vaccines have killed more than 10 million people worldwide. His "analysis" of illegally obtained data from a "whistleblower" was so ridden with false assumptions and rookie errors that even some antivaxxers couldn't accept it.

/ December 4, 2023
RFK Jr Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. comes home to his antivax roots…again

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave the keynote speech at the second annual meeting of his antivax organization, Children's Health Defense. Once again, he demonstrated that not only is he still antivax as hell, but that his proposals are even more bizarre than before. Truly, it was a homecoming for him.

/ November 6, 2023

Steve Kirsch: How “anti-COVID-19 vaccine” antivax often becomes radicalized and just plain antivaccine

Tech bro turned COVID-19 misinformation superspreader and antivaxxer Steve Kirsch has now fully embraced "old school" vaccine-autism conspiracy theories, demonstrating how anti-COVID-19 vaccine antivaxxers frequently become just antivaxxers.

/ June 5, 2023
Andrew Wakefield.

Andrew Wakefield after 25 years: Paving the way for COVID-19 quacks and antivaxxers

It was 25 years ago yesterday that Andrew Wakefield launched the modern iteration of the antivaccine movement.In doing so, he laid down a template that antivax quacks today still follow.

/ February 27, 2023

Countering Geert Vanden Bossche’s dubious viral open letter warning against mass COVID-19 vaccination

Geert Vanden Bossche is a scientist who published an open letter warning of global catastrophe due to deadly variants of COVID-19 selected for by mass vaccination. His argument sounds a lot like an argument Andrew Wakefield once made for MMR. There’s even grift likely involved!

/ March 18, 2021

New book: Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement

This book is a handy compendium of everything worth knowing about the anti-vaccine movement and how to challenge the misinformation.

/ September 8, 2020

England’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year: Mumps and the “Wakefield Cohort”

It may not be the most worrisome virus out there these days, but England has just had its worst year of mumps infections in a decade thanks in large part to their "Wakefield cohort".

/ March 27, 2020

Deception by omission: Del Bigtree’s ICAN calls the studies licensing MMR into question

Del Bigtree's antivaccine group Informed Consent Action Network issued a press release questioning the data used to license the MMR vaccine, with Bigtree claiming on a recent episode of his vlog Highwire that it causes significant GI issues that the FDA "covered up." As usual, Bigtree is deceiving by omission.

/ May 6, 2019