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By Erin K Costello  The anti-vaccination community targets several pro-vaccination professionals regularly with their vitriol. One of these professionals is Dr. Paul Offit. The main reasons for this hate against Dr. Offit is due to being a pro-vaccine advocate, and for being the co-creator of of a rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq, currently sold by Merck. This vaccine has earned Dr. Offit a substantial amount of money. For this reason the anti-vaccination movement does not trust Dr. Offit. Despite the fact Dr. Offit never tried to hide his association with Merck or with the creation of RotaTeq, those against vaccinations see Dr. Offit as a corrupt profiteer. Because of this I can’t help but to wonder; if the anti-vaccination community find the openness of Dr. Offit’s association to a vaccine as a nefarious conflict of interest, then why is it these same people don’t apply this same skepticism to Andrew Wakefield? I am going to go through a time-line of Andrew Wakefield’s actions both before his 1998 press conference heard around the world where he all but claimed the MMR vaccine caused autism, and after his 1998 press conference. 1996 This story did not begin in 1998. It actually began in 1996 when Wakefield was hired by a lawyer named Richard Barr. Richard Barr was a solicitor (lawyer) in the English town of King’s Lynn. Barr was hoping to raise a class action lawsuit against the drug companies that manufactured the MMR vaccine. Wakefield and Barr had negotiated a contract for Wakefield to conduct clinical and scientific research in hopes to provide evidence of the MMR leading to autism. Wakefield charged a rate of £150 per hour, which was billed through a company belonging to his wife, totaling £439,553 (about $750,000 at the time), as well as the initial £55,000 that he applied for in June 1996. Both of these payments were never disclosed to the Lancet. It was in 1996 that the patients involved in this study were referred to Wakefield. All of whom were represented by Barr. [Images regarding Wakefield's payment at the bottom of post.] 1997 On June 6, 1997, a patent was filed with the U.K patent office for a single measles vaccine by Andrew Wakefield. This new vaccine was claimed to be safer than the current 3 in 1 MMR vaccine. [Images of this patent at the bottom of post] February 1998 In February of 1998, The Royal Free Hospital School Of Medicine issued a press release to reveal their findings. They discuss having found a new inflammatory bowel disease linked to regressive autism, and caused by the MMR vaccine. Along with the press conference, the school issued a video tape describing the study’s findings. On this video tape is Wakefield answering questions from an interviewer. During this interview Wakefield states four times how the MMR vaccine should be split up into single vaccines, primarily the measles vaccine should be a single vaccine. First he states, “And I have to say that there is sufficient anxiety in my own mind of the safety, the long term safety of the polyvalent, that is the MMR vaccination in combination, that I think that it should be suspended in favour of the single vaccines, that is continued use of the individual measles, mumps and rubella components.” Next he says, “Certainly if you continue, as I would recommend to use the single vaccine, you do not incur a greater risk of those diseases in the children, so that you do not lose the benefits of vaccination if you space them over time.” Then again, “And it may be – and studies will show this or not – that giving the measles on its own reduces the risk of this particular syndrome developing.” And finally, “Again, this was very contentious and you would not get consensus from all members of the group on this, but that is my feeling, that the, the risk of this particular syndrome developing is related to the combined vaccine, the MMR, rather than the single vaccines.” Never during his answers does he declare he has a patent pending for a single measles vaccine. April 1998 On April 6, 1998, a patent application was filed in the U.K listing Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine and Neuroimmuno Therapeuties Research Foundation as applicants, and Andrew Jeremy Wakefield and Hugh Fundenberg as inventors for a treatment or a MMR virus mediated disease, or for MMR induced regressive autism. By this time line it seems as though Wakefield first set out to create the disease, and then provide the cure as well as vaccine for the disease. Isn’t that what anti-vaccinationists accuse big pharma of doing? [Images of this patent at the bottom of post] February 2004 February 22, 2004, The Sunday Times featured an article by journalist Brian Deer, which revealed all the information stated above. It was due to Brian Deer's investigative journalism that this scandal had been revealed. There are numerous reports by Deer throughout the years that describe in detail how all of this unfolded, and how Wakefield is still to this day lying about his research, the conspiracy against him, as well as describe the attacks Deer has had to deal with as backlash for simply exposing the truth about Wakefield’s secret conflict of interest in his study. Brian Deer has a website dedicated to his award winning journalism that proudly displays all the articles he has written regarding Wakefield. I urge you to visit his website and read about his amazing work. Given this information above, as well as the documents to prove this information, along with the fact The Lancet has since retracted Wakefield’s study, the school has since called his work misleading, false, and unethical, and Wakefield has been stripped of his medical license, it is amazing that so many anti-vaxxers still blindly believe anything this man has to say. They still donate to him, buy his products, and pay to hear him speak at events. Yet, an established physician such as Dr. Paul Offit who has conducted himself with transparency is ridiculed and hated by these same people. It becomes apparent that facts do not matter to the anti-vaccine community. This also makes it a perfect customer base for charlatans. I hope to cover more of these popular figures profiting off this movement in the coming weeks. I only aim to reveal the facts so people can see them for who they really are, and not for who they claim to be. Images Concerning Wakefield's Payment. Courtesy Of Brian Deer.
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