Andrew Wakefield, the controversial doctor who published the original study linking childhood immunizations to autism, is still sticking to his theory despite being discredited by the medical community.
Wakefield, 54, made a big impact on parent’s decisions to immunize their children with his 1998 paper detailing his concerns on the correlation between the Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.
While Wakefield did not claim to have proof that MMR caused autism, his theory is contributed as a main factor to the declining number of childhood vaccinations. At the time of his study, Wakefield was working in gastroenterology research at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
Wakefield based his theory on a paper he wrote about 12 children he studied. He concluded that three vaccines given together could change a child’s immune system, allowing the measles virus in the vaccine to pass into the intestines. He believed it would cause a bowel disorder, which he called “autistic enterocolitis” which would in turn cause autism.
The controversial theory has been blamed by many for the reemergence of nearly eradicated childhood diseases, including measles and whooping cough, due to the lowest vaccination rate in years.
Wakefield, who was regarded as an expert in the medical field regarding autism after the publication of his paper, experienced a major decline in popularity following closer scrutiny of his study.
In 2003 the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found no evidence of a link between autism and the MMR vaccine and The Lancet, original publisher of Wakefield’s paper, retracted the story. This year, the British Medical Journal called his study “fraudulent.”
In addition the General Medical Council in Britain revoked Wakefield’s medical license after a hearing based on ethical violations of Wakefield’s study, including subjecting developmentally disabled children to unnecessary invasive procedures, mishandling funds and financing received from lawyers building a case against vaccination manufacturers.
Wakefield was asked to leave the Royal Free Hospital in 2004 when he reportedly refused to follow a request to duplicate his original findings.
Despite the backlash he received from his publication, Wakefield is standing behind his theory. “Is that a serious question?” he said in disbelief when asked if he still believes in his findings. “”Yes, I do still think MMR was causing it.”
And Wakefield is not the only one who still believes. Approximately 250 people, the majority parents of autistic children, attended a recent speech he gave in Texas on the topic. He received thanks and generous applause from the crowd.
“To our community, Andrew Wakefield is Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ rolled up into one,” said J.B. Handley, co-founder of Generation Rescue, a group that disputes vaccine safety to the New York Times. “He’s a symbol of how all of us feel.”
Symptoms of autism are generally seen in children between the ages of 12 and 24 months, when parents notice a regression of previously normally developing children. The MMR vaccine is typically given between 12 and 15 months.
In the last 10 years cases of autism have risen from 1 in 150 to 1 in 110. For boys, 1 in 70 is diagnosed with the condition.
“We still do not have an explanation for the vast majority of autism cases,” says Thomas Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health.
Insel says it’s clear that some environmental factor or factors is to blame, but they “haven’t found anything that looks like a smoking gun.” He added that since the MMR vaccine was so aggressively studied following Wakefield’s paper, it is one of the few factors that can now be ruled out.
“With autism, people have done this all along — grasped onto various explanations and reached premature closure on each of them,” Insel says of Wakefield’s work. “What I take from the Wakefield story is that everyone is desperate to find answers to what we see as an urgent problem. And if I’m really brutally honest about this, we still don’t have an answer.”
Brian Deer, who won the Specialist Journalist of the Year award, has been investigating Wakefield since 2004. He said he thinks that if Wakefield “believed it was true… he would prove it next time.”
