Andrew Wakefield's Theories About MMR Vaccines and Autism

Potent Force in Autism World

Andrew Wakefield is among the most controversial figures in autism circles. His research on the question of whether the Mumps-Measles-Rubella (MMR) vaccine could be the cause of an autism epidemic has created a huge rift in the autism community.

In 2010, Wakefield's influential research paper on the subject was retracted by the British medical journal The Lancet. Yet Wakefield and his vaccine theories remain a potent force in the autism community.

This article explains Wakefield's positions on vaccines and autism, and how they were developed. It discusses how anti-vaccine advocates claim a link to autism that Wakefield's refuted research never demonstrated.

Getting Vaccinated
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Dr. Wakefield is an academic gastroenterologist (digestive system specialist) and surgeon with a special interest in inflammatory diseases. Born in Britain in 1957, he was educated in Canada and became a physician at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

Early in his career, Wakefield made an important contribution to medical research when he identified the cause of Crohn's disease, a major gastrointestinal illness, as decreased blood flow to the intestines.

Soon after this discovery, Wakefield began digging into the question of whether it was measles virus from the MMR vaccine that caused the blockage of blood flow leading to Crohn's. While the answer to this question was "no," the possibility of measles virus as a culprit for GI issues continued to interest him.

In 1995, Wakefield was approached by a group of parents who told him that their children had become autistic following the MMR vaccine. They asked him to look into a possible connection, and he was willing to do so.

His theory: if the measles vaccine had caused inflammation in their intestines, children could develop "leaky gut syndrome," making it possible for harmful proteins to make their way to the brain. If this occurred, he theorized, the children's autism could have been caused by the MMR vaccine.

In 1998, Wakefield and a group of colleagues published a research study which linked inflammatory bowel symptoms in 12 autistic children to the MMR vaccine. That study, published in the respected British medical journal The Lancet, launched a massive anti-vaccine movement in the United Kingdom, the United States, and around the world.

Reporter Brian Deer of the London Sunday Times began investigating Wakefield and found evidence of conflicts of interest and instances of ethical misconduct. Soon after Deer reported on his findings, ten of Wakefield's 13 co-authors renounced the study's conclusions. The Lancet officially revoked the publication of the article due to ethical concerns, following an investigation by the UK's General Medical Council.

While Wakefield's original MMR/autism research has been repudiated and never fully replicated, it remains the underpinning of a movement which continues to point to vaccines as the theoretical cause of a huge increase in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnoses.

Millions of dollars have been raised to warn parents of the possibility that autism could be caused by vaccines, and to build up a "green vaccine" movement in the US and UK. Wakefield, who presently practices in both Florida and Texas, stands by his work and insists that his research was properly conducted.

It's important to note, however, that for all the anti-vaccine rhetoric in the autism community, Wakefield himself did not make an absolute claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism. An archived copy of Wakefield's former Texas-based website, "Thoughtful House," stresses there is no established link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Research, however, continues.

4 Sources
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  1. Editors. Retraction--Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet. 2010 Feb 6;375(9713):445. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60175-4. 

  2. BBC News. Profile: Dr Andrew Wakefield.

  3. Deer B. How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed. BMJ. 2011;342:5347. doi:10.1136/bmj.c5347

  4. Thoughtful House Website.

Additional Reading

By Lisa Jo Rudy
Lisa Jo Rudy, MDiv, is a writer, advocate, author, and consultant specializing in the field of autism.