According to The Lancet, Andrew Wakefield was a physician who had affiliations with the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group, University departments of Medicine and Histopathology, Royal Free Hospital, and many more. His article in 1998 discusses how he investigated a “consecutive series of children with chronic enterocolitis and regressive developmental disorder.” Wakefield studied twelve children from the age of three to ten. He acquired his cohort because they were patients who had been referred to a pediatric gastroenterology clinic and had also lost common skills they had previously acquired . They were admitted to the hospital for one week for testing. The article goes on to suggest that his findings correlate to the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine being linked to behavioral regression. Parents started to become concerned if there was a link with the vaccine and autism.
As vaccination rates for the MMR vaccine began to decline, epidemiological studies were conducted to refute the link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Shortly after, ten of the twelve co-authors retracted the interpretation. His research was not verified by other scientist, in fact many refuted. According to the US National Library of Medicine , scientist across the world spent their time trying to refute his claims in hopes to stop people from not vaccinating their children. Wakefield had more motives than just medical advances. The article also states, ” Wakefield had failed to disclose financial interests. Wakefield had been funded by lawyers who had been engaged by parents in lawsuits against vaccine-producing companies.” Wakefield published the article and did the study to gain financially.
According to the CDC website article, there are 36 cases of measles per 1 million people worldwide, and about 134,200 die. The deaths are not just due to measles solely. But, as many as one out of every twenty get pneumonia, which is the common cause of death from the measles in young children. According to the article, Measles was eliminated in the Western Hemisphere in 1996 and 2016, but not the rest of the world. The CDC website also reports that the Measles outbreaks can still occur in the United States, even in those who had one or two doses of the MMR vaccine. Outbreaks are popping up mainly in close-contact settings, like schools. These are greater in countries without high coverage of vaccines. Chickenpox(Varicella) also used to be very common in the United States. But, according to the CDC the since the vaccine started in 1995, more than 3.5 million cases are prevented in the United States alone. Despite this, some countries routinely use this vaccine for their children. According to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s article some developed nations, like the United Kingdom, only recommend it for people who may be more susceptible. In contrast, Japan, Australia, and some European and Middle Eastern countries include it in the vaccine program like the U.S.
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