Monday night Channel 4 in the UK broadcast a documentary “Trump, The Doctor and the Vaccine Scandal”, Filmed over three months it showed the influence on Trump of the fraudulent ex-doctor Andrew Wakefield and the use Wakefield is making of this to promote his own dangerous and false ideas, quoting Trump as if an authority on medical science. Wakefield gave Trump a copy of his own conspiracy theory movie “Vaxxed” last year which claims a cover-up by the CDC (a .claim debunked in the program)
Wakefield started the whole vaccine scare by falsifying data in 1998 when employed by a group of solicitors representing those who were suing vaccine manufacturers, something revealed in a 2004 in the same “Dispatches" strand by another C4 reporter. (He later went on to get quite a bit of money giving single vaccine innoculations based on his fake theory that multiple vaccines like MME were causing autism.) His fraudulent data and unprofessional conduct during his “research”, including taking blood from children at a birthday party, got him “struck off the medical register” in 2010. This means he is no longer a doctor.
The edition was presented by one of C4’s respected reporters, Cathy Newman who set out the relationship Wakefield has established with Trump. He was even invited to the official inauguration ball. They showed him questioning the safety of the HPV vaccine, which is actually one of the safest.
In 2010 Wakefield founded the Strategic Autism Initiative to “undertake research” and drew in loads of money. Over the five years it was running, 41% of the income, $316,667, was used to pay Wakefield’s salary, Marc Owens, a former director of the IRS’s Non-Profits Division. “That’s a huge percentage. To have the salary of a single individual comprise the major expense of the organization over the course of the years suggests something else is going on” While not conclusive “it suggests there has been ongoing diversion of the income of a charity into the hands of an individual in a position of authority”.
The report went on to describe how Robert Kennedy Jnr is a believer that vaccines cause brain disorders and showed him addressing a rally of anti-vaccers. When he went to Trump Tower in January, he claimed the Don had asked him to head a commission to investigate vaccine safety. When challenged about his peddling falsehood and undermining the vaccination program, Kennedy responded “you might say that but I am not the one putting mercury in the vaccines” and then went on to blame “lack of critical scrutiny by the press that is allowing a reckless kind of behavior by the CDC and the vaccine industry”. He then went on to accuse the reporter of bias and spreading the lies of the pharmaceutical industry. He invited her to the rally. One Wakefield supporter challenged his striking off because it was not in front of a judge and [lay] jury. They are instead held by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service which adjudicates in cases referred to it by the General Medical Council.
The show also found that Wakefield had pitched a reality TV show based on the “treatment” of children with autism. The pitch tape showed children self-harming and very intrusive treatments, including a colonoscopy, being performed on a young teenage boy, without concealing his identity by blurring his face (the show did). Julia Beacon, Executive Director of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, and autistic herself, was disturbed at the “freak show” aspect of the tape simply questioning whether a broadcaster would show a non-autistic child being treated in that way. (Nobody commissioned the show but it is still available on his YouTube channel please do not give it more hits). The reporter finally caught up with him in Berlin while he was on a semi-covert tour touting his movie “Vaxxed”. She challenged him about his falsehoods. He then claimed the whistleblower supported his hypothosis. She was shouted down but managed to get over the point that where he lives (Texas) there is a huge problem of unvaccinated children (she had interviewed a mother of a toddler who had a heart transplant at a few days old who cannot be vaccinated because of her condition and relies on “herd immunity” for protection against potentially fatal infections).
Wakefield asked Cathy Newman to quote his response in full when she tackled him after the film show, so I will too.
I don’t talk to fake news. Thank you.
Wakefield was invited to respond to this point and others raised in the report “but declined to do so” (UK TV speak for “we gave him the chance so judge for yourself”).
The show ended by showing the march of scientists against Trump and a movement which dismisses science as fake news. Newman remarked that there was nothing fake about the recently announced outbreak of mumps in Wakefield’s adopted home state of Texas.
Conspiracy theorist, dismissal of criticism as “fake news” and diverting charity money for his own purposes. Sounds like Wakefield is a perfect fit for Trump’s America.
Please note: as far as possible I have transcribed the quotes accurately. It is currently available in the UK on Channel 4’s catch-up service. I am not sure if this is viewable outside the UK so apologies if it is geo-blocked. I should also apologise of on behalf of the country for having you endangered by this snake oil salesman..