Andrew Wakefield
British former doctor (born 1956)
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Key Takeaways
- Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 3 September 1956) is an English fraudster, anti-vaccine activist, and former senior surgeon.
- The publicity surrounding the study caused a sharp decline in vaccination uptake, leading to a number of outbreaks of measles around the world and many deaths as a result.
- He resigned from his positions there in 2001 "by mutual agreement", then moved to the United States.
- He served as executive director of the centre until February 2010, when he resigned in the wake of findings against him by the British General Medical Council which had struck him off their register.
Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 3 September 1956) is an English fraudster, anti-vaccine activist, and former senior surgeon. He was struck off the medical register for "serious professional misconduct" due to his involvement in the fraudulent 1998 Lancet MMR autism study that falsely claimed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.
The publicity surrounding the study caused a sharp decline in vaccination uptake, leading to a number of outbreaks of measles around the world and many deaths as a result. He was a surgeon on the liver transplant programme at the Royal Free Hospital in London, and became a senior lecturer and honorary consultant in experimental gastroenterology at the Royal Free and University College School of Medicine. He resigned from his positions there in 2001 "by mutual agreement", then moved to the United States. In 2004, Wakefield co-founded and began working at the Thoughtful House research centre (later renamed the Johnson Center for Child Health and Development) in Austin, Texas. He served as executive director of the centre until February 2010, when he resigned in the wake of findings against him by the British General Medical Council which had struck him off their register. He has subsequently become known for his anti-vaccination activism.
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