IN 1998, British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield published a study in medical journal, The Lancet, claiming a link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.
This study was largely discredited after an investigation found he had misrepresented and altered information relating to the 12 patients that formed the basis of the study and, in 2010, he lost his medical licence.
Despite being completely discredited by the medical community, the seed had been sown and the conspiracy theorists came out in their numbers, claiming that Wakefield was in fact correct, and just a victim of an international-scale cover-up by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
This was outlined in a Wakefield-directed film, Vaxxed.
This completely debunked study has given rise to the anti-vaccine crusaders or anti-vaxxers, and resulted in placing infants and children in an unnecessarily risky health scenario.
In fact, the World Health Organisation has named ‘vaccine hesitancy’ as one of the top 10 threats to global health this year.
Part of the problem is that Wakefield never backed down from his claims about the dangers of vaccinations, and his beliefs gained traction in celebrity culture.
Rejected from the British medical community, Wakefield went to America where he found the support of celebrities, including Jenny McCarthy, Charlie Sheen, and even Robert DeNiro – the father of an autistic child.
Wakefield also has the support – and global platform – of his current girlfriend, the Australian model, Elle Macpherson.
But the problem has escalated with the rise of social media, creating a platform for every anti-vaxxer sharing conspiracies and misinformation.
And in the United States, with a president notorious for disseminating misinformation while pushing the celebrity culture as reality, the health risks are at their biggest yet.
In 2014, 644 measles cases were reported in the United States. Despite being a fatal disease, other side effects include pneumonia, deafness and brain damage.
Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1960, there were three to four million cases in the United States, with between 400 and 500 deaths.
The vaccination reduced the rate of infection by 99%.
Numerous medical studies have been released to counter Wakefield’s falsified study, all indicating that there is no link between vaccines and autism.
In fact, there have been 17 studies done across three continents involving hundreds of thousands of children – all debunking the anti-vaccination myths.
One such study has just been released by Anders Hviid, lead study author and senior investigator at Statens Serum Institut in Denmark.
His team analysed 650 000 children born between 1999 and 2010 in Denmark, with results indicating no link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
This team of scientists were intent on providing more solid, scientific evidence as a way to cut through the dangerous rhetoric taking over social media.
We can only hope, for the sake of the children and our global health, that this message is heard.
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