Dr. Andrew Wakefield

Introduction

In today’s contemporary world, misinformation and falsified scientific data are common occurrences. There exist many reasons why people, both scientists, and ordinary people, engage in creating and spreading misinformation and falsified scientific data. Some of the reasons include cultural, religious, and monetary reasons. This report aims to shed light on the unethical and misleading actions of Dr. Andrew Wakefield pertaining to an existing link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.

Unethical behavior

Dr. Wakefield participated in unethical behavior by using confidential information provided by parents of children with autism to promote his theory about the link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. For example, he published a paper in 1998 claiming that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine could cause autism, even though he did not have any scientific evidence to support this claim (Hussain et al., 2018). Utilizing confidential information without the children’s parents’ consent was against the medical industry’s protocols.

Misconduct

Dr. Andrew Wakefield engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct by making false claims about the safety of vaccines. He was the lead author of a paper published in the Lancet in 1998. The paper presented a possible link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism (Adekola, 2020). He falsified the evidence presented in the paper and did not follow the guidelines put in place by the medical industry’s governing bodies while carrying out his research. Furthermore, Dr. Andrew Wakefield was also found to ignore laboratory data and experiments that disproved his hypothesis. Dr. Andrew Wakefield engaged in misconduct by not following the protocols put in place by the medical industry on how to carry out research.

Misconceptions

There is evidence that Dr. Andrew Wakefield engaged in misconception while conducting research on the link between autism and MMR vaccines. Specifically, he published a paper in 1998 claiming that the MMR vaccine caused autism, even though he had no scientific evidence to support this claim (DeStefano et al., 2019). These claims were a misconception because they lacked any scientific evidence backing them up.

Fraud

Dr. Andrew Wakefield committed fraud by publishing falsified research to promote his financial interests. Evidence suggests Dr. Wakefield may have been financially motivated to create a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Dr. Andrew Wakefield had plans to capitalize on the MMR vaccination scare that his paper was to provoke. While collaborating with one of the parents in his study, Dr. Andrew Wakefield made plans to launch a venture that would provide new “litigation-driven testing” and medical kits, with the sales being boosted by the MMR vaccination scare he created (Kennedy, 2019). The parent working in collaboration with Dr. Andrew Wakefield, claimed that Dr. Andrew Wakefield believed he could earn over 43 million dollars annually from the diagnostic kits he made for the new condition referred to as autistic enterocolitis. Autistic enterocolitis was a new condition that Dr. Andrew Wakefield had concocted.

Effects of Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s actions

Dr. Andrew Wakefield caused many parents worldwide to fear that the MMR vaccine could cause autism. The effects of his fraud have been far-reaching, and many parents still refuse to vaccinate their children out of fear of autism. This refusal has led to a resurgence of preventable diseases and may have contributed to the recent measles outbreak in the United States and the UK. Evidence of his effects can be observed in the notable increase in measles cases in the USA in 2008, which were more than in any other year since 1997 (Raghupathi et al., 2020). In addition, most of the affected patients (90%) were unvaccinated. In 2010, Wakefield was found guilty of professional misconduct by the General Medical Council (GMC), which ruled that he had falsified data in his 1998 paper. This ruling led to him losing his license to practice medicine.

Conclusion

The effects caused by misinformation and falsified scientific data have far-reaching consequences in today’s contemporary world. Falsified scientific data, like the one presented by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, can result in negative consequences for a nation or the entire globe. The consequences can result in individuals losing faith in modern medicine and other scientific ventures crucial to the survival of the human race. As such, the scientific community should be extremely cautious of new scientific studies, and scientific peers should verify any data provided by others to prevent a reoccurrence of the Dr. Andrew Wakefield situation.

References

Adekola, J. (2020). The UK MMR Vaccine Debate. In Power and Risk in Policymaking (pp. 61-72). Palgrave Pivot, Cham.

DeStefano, F., & Shimabukuro, T. T. (2019). The MMR vaccine and autism. Annual review of virology, 6(1), 585.

Hussain, A., Ali, S., Ahmed, M., & Hussain, S. (2018). The anti-vaccination movement: a regression in modern medicine. Cureus, 10(7).

Kennedy, J. (2019). Populist politics and vaccine hesitancy in Western Europe: an analysis of national-level data. European journal of public health, 29(3), 512-516.

Raghupathi, V., Ren, J., & Raghupathi, W. (2020). Studying public perception about vaccination: A sentiment analysis of tweets. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(10), 3464.