The disgraced ex-doctor and godfather of the anti-vax movement sparked fresh outrage today by claiming kids shouldn’t be given any jabs.
Andrew Wakefield made the hugely controversial comments in a new podcast.
Medics and charities immediately questioned why he was being ‘given air time to peddle his dangerous and ill-founded opinions’.
Wakefield was struck off the UK’s medical register after publishing a now-debunked study in the 90s which linked the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine with autism.
Tens of thousands of parents refused to let medics vaccinate their children due to the ex-gastroenterologist’s bogus paper, with the knock-on effects still felt to this day.
His paper in The Lancet — considered the most damaging medical hoax of the last century — was found to be fabricated. Wakefield himself had a financial interest in uncovering a damaging link to the jab.
Wakefield, now in his 60s, was questioned about his current stance on vaccines in a new podcast hosted by Ahmad Malik, a surgeon who has discredited Covid jabs.
The episode, aired on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, was titled: ‘Andrew Wakefield The Original “Anti-vaxxer Quack” Or An Ethical Doctor Way Ahead Of His Time?’
He was not challenged on his disproven claims that the MMR jab, given to kids when they turn one, causes autism.
‘The parents we had seen at the Royal Free (where the original study took place) were absolutely right, just as many parents had been right since, that the Lancet paper was right,’ he said.
He added: ‘It (autism) was vanishingly rare and now its dramatically common. Trying to normalise autism is a real perversion of the truth.’
Mr Malik, a private orthopaedic surgeon who practices in both London and Buckinghamshire, pushed him further, asking what his ‘current’ opinion on vaccines was.
Wakefield, who now makes anti-vax documentaries and films for a living, responded by saying if he was a new parent: ‘What vaccines would I allow that child to have? The answer is none, none at all.
‘I could not recommend for a child of mine or a baby of mine to receive any of these vaccines.’
Mr Malik’s fellow medics reacted angrily to Wakefield being given a platform to share his disproven views.
Fellow orthopaedic surgeon Dr Roshana Mehdian noted that Dr Malik was registered with the General Medical Council, the body that regulates medics in the UK.
She noted that it comes ‘amidst a measles outbreak in London’.
Dr Bharat Pankhania, an expert in disease management and clinical lecturer at Exeter Medical School, added: ‘This man is responsible for a lot of harm, which continues to this day.’
