Tag: Andrew Wakefield

Antivaccine pseudoscience disguised as autism advocacy in the Minnesota legislature

Recently, Sen. Jim Abeler of Minnesota created the MN Autism Council, an advisory panel tasked with advising the legislature on autism policy. A closer look at the story reveals that Sen. Abeler is a chiropractor, two of the members are antivaxers, and one of them was a founding member tasked with forming the council. This is how antivaccine activism is disguised as...

/ January 28, 2019
Gardasil

Death by Gardasil? Not so fast there…

There is a type of "vaccine injury" story promoted by the antivaccine movement that is particularly pernicious, a narrative I call "death by Gardasil." The stories, which use tenuous connections between vaccination against HPV to prevent cervical cancer and the unexpected death of a teen or young adult, are always tragic, and you can't help but feel incredible empathy for the parents....

/ February 5, 2018

The Pathological Optimist: More hagiography than documentary about Andrew Wakefield

The Pathological Optimist is a recently released documentary by Miranda Bailey about Andrew Wakefield that I got a chance to see. In interviews and in the film's promotional materials, Bailey takes great pains to emphasize that she "doesn't take a side" about Wakefield. Unfortunately, her film demonstrates that, when it comes to pseudoscience, "not taking a side" is taking a side, and...

/ October 9, 2017

Chiropractic pediatrics conference features anti-vaccination ideology . . . as usual

For the third time in four years, a chiropractic pediatrics conference will feature anti-vaccination propaganda as part of its program. Chiropractors will spread this misinformation to their patients' parents.

/ August 3, 2017

Outbreaks among Somali immigrants in Minnesota: Thanks for the measles again, Andy

Andrew Wakefield's antivaccine propaganda film VAXXED claims that MMR vaccination causes autism in African American boys. Unfortunately, this is not the first time Wakefield has targeted people of color with antivaccine misinformation. Before there was VAXXED, Wakefield and antivaxers targeted Somali immigrants in Minnesota. Measles outbreaks have been the result.

/ April 24, 2017

Reviewing Andrew Wakefield’s VAXXED: Antivaccine propaganda at its most pernicious

Antivaccine "hero" Andrew Wakefield has recruited Del Bigtree to help him make a movie about the "CDC whistleblower" manufactroversy and anti vaccine conspiracy theories in general. The results are so ham-fisted that they would make Leni Riefenstahl shout, "Zu viel!" ("Too much!")

/ July 11, 2016

Behold my power, quacks, and despair! Mike Adams publishes several defamatory articles about yours truly…

Internet crank, quack, and conspiracy theorist Mike Adams has launched a campaign of character assassination against yours truly. I didn't know I had so much power.

/ April 20, 2016

VAXXED and the Tribeca Film Festival: How Robert De Niro learned the hard way about Andrew Wakefield and the antivaccine movement

Disgraced antivaccine doctor, Andrew Wakefield, managed to pull another fast one. His antivaccine propaganda film, VAXXED, was mysteriously accepted for a screening at the Tribeca Film Festival. It turns out that TFF co-founder Robert De Niro had pulled some strings. The well-deserved backlash provides yet another example of how Andrew Wakefield discredits everything he touches.

/ March 28, 2016

Vaccine Whistleblower: BS Hooker and William Thompson try to talk about epidemiology

Here we go again with the whole “CDC Whistleblower” thing, this time with a book about the recorded conversations between Brian J. Hooker and William Thompson. Well, not the whole conversations, of course. If they were to release the whole conversations, we might get the truth, and the truth always gets in the way of the antivax crowd. Instead, we get an...

/ August 24, 2015

Vaccine Whistleblower: An antivaccine “exposé” full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

Antivaccine lawyer Kevin Barry has published a book containing what are allegedly the transcripts of telephone conversations between "CDC whistleblower" William Thompson and biochemical engineer turned incompetent antivaccine epidemiologist Brian Hooker. Suffice to say, the transcripts do not show evidence of a massive coverup at the CDC of evidence that vaccines cause autism.

/ August 24, 2015