Dr. Andrew Wakefield reveals real story behind vaccines, autism and more

Tuesday, April 10, 2012 by: NaturalNews
Tags: Andrew Wakefield, vaccines, autism

(NaturalNews) In an interview on The Robert Scott Bell Show, Dr. Andrew Wakefield talks about vaccines and autism, the MMR vaccine, the General Medical Council's case against John Walker Smith and many other important issues pertaining to vaccines. Also discussed is the story of Patti Finn, a New York attorney who was attacked viscously by her own professions simply for offering people informed consent and working on the unconstitutionality of the lack of vaccine exemptions in her State.

Robert Scott Bell: The autism community came together, we had a great event, they were supporting you and raising some funds for your legal efforts to go after the British Medical Journal, Brian Deer, etc. and now we're learning of some tremendous news. This week after the expo, your co-author on the Lancet MMR paper, Professor John Walker Smith was exonerated, won a legal appeal.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: Absolutely, in the High Court in the UK, the long awaited outcome of John Walker Smith's appeal. People who don't know, John Walker Smith is one of the founding fathers of pediatric gastroenterology in the world, he is an outstanding physician and very, very well respected and a leader in the field, a teacher of so many of today's young pediatric gastroenterologists. Back in 1998 we published in the Lancet on the discovery of a new bowel disease in children with autism and an association in time that the parents had made with MMR vaccine and for that, for those efforts, he was in an effort I think to get me to stop vaccine safety research, to send a message to everybody else, he lost his medical license along with me. He was allowed to appeal, I couldn't afford to but he was funded to appeal and he was completely and utterly exonerated in the high court. The judge issued a resounding condemnation of, I think in legal terms, at least in my opinion, the way in which the General Medical Council's case was handled. Asking why would a man of this caliber even consider taking a risk in effect. That's my reading of the opinion, but you know some of the criticisms of the GMC were very, very harsh and it may interest the readers- here you may think that there would be experts in research and experts in pediatric gastroenterology and child psychiatry sitting on the panel to judge this doctor, but there weren't. There were two lay people, one general practitioner with no experience in research, and rather than having a child psychiatrist they had an adult psychiatrist and rather than having a pediatrician they had a geriatrician. So right from the outset you can see how flawed the process was.

Robert Scott Bell: Oh, tremendously so and you know the right to a fair and speedy trial is supposedly available to us here in America, of course there's a lot of doubt about that but talking about how many years this took, even with the support and funding he had that you did not have to finally achieve this victory.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: Yeah in 2004 the allegations were first made by Brian Deer. A complaint was filed by him to the General Medical Council. No patient, no parent ever, ever complained against any of the doctors concerned. In fact, they have been universally supportive and have in many cases been turning out in support at the various hearings that have taken place. So it's a perverse situation where you have a journalist making a complaint against doctors where the parents and the patients have been treated well and really are very, very supportive.

Robert Scott Bell: Incredibly so, many of the parents actually ended up on video on YouTube in support of both you and in this case the release of this information that finally came out that exonerated him, that is Professor Walker Smith. Though, you're right in saying that, that it's really a kind of strange notion that a reporter can file a complaint like this when no patients had and in fact, quite the opposite. The support for both of you and everybody involved has been tremendous from the parent community.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: That's right, and the case really essentially was the General Medical Council's case is that he was performing experimental research on children that was inappropriate, that the tests were not indicated, and that this was an ethical violation. Now, here you have a journalist telling the world's leading pediatric gastroenterologist the test he's ordered on children to establish the source of their gastrointestinal symptoms, for example, is inappropriate. How bizarre a situation is that? Deer has no medical or scientific training whatsoever, and Professor Walker Smith's case and my case indeed has been that this was done for clinical purposes, this was to understand the origins of the suffering of these children and to alleviate it and that's what was achieved and in the process a novel, apparently novel inflammatory bowel disease was discovered and the tragedy, Robert, now is that we've spent all these years fighting this battle when the time could've been spent so much better, actually caring for these children and getting them better and that's very, very sad.

Robert Scott Bell: And preventing further incidents and the saddest of all the ironies here is that he makes an accusation that you guys were experimenting improperly on children, which is nonsense in my opinion from what I've seen as well, yet the very practice of vaccination he's defending could be argued, I'd say much more legitimately so, to be a massive experiment upon the general pediatric population. Based on the fact that I don't know that they've identified, or let's say tested any one or two or ten vaccines together in the way that they're often giving them now in sequence, very frequently, sometimes together or right after one another.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: Yes, I think that the tests of the triple vaccines such as MMR are inadequate. There have never been any safety studies of giving two doses and yet that is now almost universal practice in the developed world, but that's never, ever been subjected to a safety study. And as you say, some children are now receiving nine, ten vaccines on the same day. That has never, ever been subjected to any kind of scrutiny by the FDA or anyone else. How can that possible adopted into common clinical practice and not be negligent?

Robert Scott Bell: Yeah and I've watched this over the years with our own CDC here in the states, promoting each year with more excitement and fear, the annual influenza, I call it the flu shot season rather than flu season. Without experiments as far as safety, much less efficacy, they just throw this thing out there. And now there are studies and papers, in fact I covered one yesterday, talking about different aspects of primary immunity, cell-mediated immunity where they're now acknowledging the things that homeopaths and these natural doctors and clinicians have been saying, hey listen the antibody's not all that you say it is. It isn't even in many cases necessary for prevention of disease. There's so much more to the immune system that is active, rather than passively relying on, oh we've identified it because we have an antibody present, which is the whole basis for vaccine-ology.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: I think you're quite right. There is so much that we do not know. We don't even know what's in the vaccines. That was exemplified by the recent discovery of the porcine circovirus DNA and the rotavirus vaccines- really most alarming and absolutely no basis for complacency whatsoever, and then when this kind of study comes along and turns on its head our understanding of how we think vaccines work, then we must realize that we know very, very little.

Robert Scott Bell: And that's a frightening proposition on many levels, but it's also one that if you're more invested in ego than science, you would defend almost to the death and attack those who would point out hey, you know, what about this? I don't think we looked at this and rather than as a true scientist, which you have done, you have embraced that, that is what real science is, embracing what these discoveries and observations are and digging deeper into them, they pretty much tried to shut down any genuine scientific inquiry into these vaccines, which begs the question of who is profiting from the continual non-science involved in promoting the agenda?

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: I think that there is a huge gap in our understanding of vaccine safety, and yet we have an industry that is indemnified, doesn't carry any risk, any liability for vaccine damage. So why would you do the safety studies? This is what they've done, they've taken shortcuts, they've not done the safety studies that are necessary. And well now, children I believe are now paying a considerable price for that.

Robert Scott Bell: Oh a huge price, absolutely huge price. I referenced a little bit of my own history of vaccine injury early on, back in the 1960s or early '70s and how it's kind of stimulated thought for me later on, how in fact I've been dealing with- children and adults, even adults into their 70's, working with certain natural techniques to address some of the injuries that occurred even in childhood. That's not accepted as we know by the old guard of the pharmaceutical-industrial complex, but the doctors I talk to that are medically oriented are embracing the information, or at least being inquisitive about it, which is what the whole pursuit of science is supposed to be.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: I think there is an increasing degree of unrest and uncertainty in the mainstream medical profession. Firstly they say, why hasn't this gone away if it was all fraud or false or just coincidence, why are we still having this debate about vaccines and autism 15, 16 years later? And the answer is, of course, because it's real and the parent's stories are entirely valid. So that's why it hasn't gone away, not because of me or you or anyone else. It simply hasn't gone away because people have seen with their own eyes what happened to their children, to the people in their community, on their street, in their church and they know. They trust their instincts and they are not persuaded by the science or the quasi-science that has gone to try and reassure them. So it's not going to go away until people address the issues properly and deal with it, and are honest and transparent with the public.

Robert Scott Bell: Yes, and if we see the positive thing, you know we start out today talking about your colleague John Walker Smith, how do we anticipate or can we anticipate something to support your efforts should you even want to be reinstated there? I don't even know what you're looking to do in that area, but certainly it was a great injustice that they did what they did to you. But now that one of your co-authors has been found to be completely exonerated, is this something that could help you in your efforts?

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: that's a very interesting point Robert. Is there a merit to try and get back on the medical registry in the United Kingdom? I don't anticipate practicing medicine in the UK again. My home is in Austin, Texas and that's where I intend to stay and fight this fight. But it's something on which I'll be taking legal advice and I'll let you know.

Robert Scott Bell: Well great. Keep me up to date on that. Anything we can do to support you. In fact, we're going to be interviewing Patti Finn, who's a New York attorney who has been attacked viscously by her own professions simply for pointing out that in the state of New York and in West Virginia she actually worked on the unconstitutionality of the fact that there were no exemptions really unless you got a medical exemption for vaccines in that state- though in New York I believe you have philosophical or specifically religious exemptions, but the simple act of communicating that to parents even though it's in the constitution, it's in the statutes there, that was deemed unethical and somehow immoral.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: Isn't that incredible? Isn't that absolutely extraordinary that a lawyer offering people what is in fact informed consent, the risks and benefits of vaccines and the option to forego vaccination on behalf of your children is deemed to be unethical by her. That is extraordinary. Of course, there is a big move not to disclose the true extent of vaccine injury to parents on the basis that their children may then not be vaccinated. But if a vaccine adverse reaction occurs, then those parents are going to completely distrust the system from there on in. They're going to tell their friends and relatives and so it spreads. So this lack of transparency, this lack of honesty is not only totally unethical, but leads to the downfall of public health vaccination programs in itself.

Robert Scott Bell: Isn't that- yeah, that's another irony of this. If they were just forthcoming and honest about this they might have more compliance so to speak. I don't like the term compliance because it indicates the use of force in many cases or deception, but their own reluctance to investigate these things is causing more suspicion than would have occurred had they embraced it and looked at it.

Robert Scott Bell: We're back, Dr. Andrew Wakefield is with us again, and so grateful to have you on board. In fact, it was so heartening to see you last weekend at the Health Freedom Expo and how you were embraced and respected and thanked, whereas much of your old family, if I could call it that, that artificial family of modern medicine back in Britain or other areas in the old media if you will, has looked at you with great disdain and basically strewn you to the ash heap. I'm glad you're not there anymore and recognizing that there are a whole group of people out here that really respect and appreciate what you're doing.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: It was a great meeting, what a wonderful group of people the health freedom people are. I mean I met a few of them down here in Texas but to get together at such a huge venue and particularly George Noory's panel, that was most exciting. Some very interesting people.

Robert Scott Bell: Very fascinating what's happening there and the bridges that are being made. I want to say a shout out to Tim Bolen for helping bring it all together, it was a lot of work behind the scenes because so much of the battles we've fought in the health freedom community are mirrored in what you're going through with the so-called autism community and I think the alignment is very powerful, and even if not everyone agrees with everybody on everything, the thing is there's a great deal of respect. You know, Mark and David Geier, brilliant doctors and scientists and they have a different perspective on some things, but they were embraced a couple of years back I thought, and I've interviewed them before and I respect them immensely for standing up for real science in this regard. And so, there are places that people can go that may not be let's say embraced by that which is the old powers, the old media, big government, big pharma complex, but there's a lot more out there that is very encouraging to see.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: Yes, may I echo your thanks to Tim Bolen for putting it together. That was a wonderful move on his part and Mark and David have done some wonderful work. They've kept publishing through thick and thin on the issue of thimerosal in particular, its role in the autism epidemic and they've done a wonderful job. We're collaborating with them now on a separate study which seeks to look at this, so it's great to see them still very much in the hunt.

Robert Scott Bell: They're not backing down, like the Tom Petty song, I won't back down. We're seeing more courageous stands against the so-called monsters that are out there. Where we used to cower in fear, I'm just talking in general terms, now people are having the courage of their convictions as they identify it and as I said, if they attack the moms for standing up and acknowledging what they saw in their own children, that would ultimately be their downfall. And we've seen the rise of the warrior moms and now the warrior dads on this issue to where they could've attacked certain doctors, etc, because of your license, they pull your license, but moms don't have or need a license. And you can't deny what they've seen, and their attacks are now coming back to haunt them.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: Well I think they've completely misunderestimated - I think that was a George Bushism, wasn't it-

Robert Scott Bell: That was a good George Bushism! Well, now that you're in Texas, I guess it could be excused.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: That they've underestimated the mothers, who are formidable. What a formidable force, and far more frightening in many respects than the CDC or the pharmaceutical industry. They know what happened to their children, they're not going to be put off, they're not going to back down from this fight and they are a tremendous inspiration. So much of what I've understood, what I know now about autism and the gut-brain link and the immune system link and detoxification and so on has come from parental insights and not, sadly, from any insights from the medical profession or scientists. That is instructive in itself. Therefore when they say this is what happened to my child in the face of a vaccine, we have to take that extremely seriously.

Robert Scott Bell: Very much so. And I'm encouraged to see that yesterday, this is research that was published in the online journal Immunity, well I think it's also a published journal or printed, but Immunity by Cell Press, so it isn't that there's no science being done but that often it doesn't make the front page of the paper or CNN doesn't cover it or who else has interviewed- even George Stephanopoulos, I remember he interviewed you on this, he'll likely not give much coverage to the fact that you're cohort in the paper was exonerated in this way. And so you find that if it ends up being a footnote, it's something- we can't rely upon the old media. That's why we have the new media, that's why we have natural news with Mike Adams, that's why we have the Robert Scott Bell show, Alex Jones and others that are putting this out there. George Noory in his own way overnight on Coast to Coast, getting information out that is not normally brought out in such a way, and it's embraced, not marginalized, ridiculed and basically thrown off into a corner somewhere.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: That's right, I hope to be talking to Mike Adams and Alex Jones soon on this particular issue. It is a very, very sad time when the mainstream is constrained, first by example by the head of HHS, saying do not give the other side of this debate equal air time. Do not give it consideration. They actually said this, and so it will not be covered, the other side will not be covered and then, on the other hand, just carrying the public relations message forward of the CDC and the pharmaceutical industry and saying, for example, that the mercury-autism debate is over when 74 percent plus of the studies that have been published support a link. That is the facts of the matter, that is the science behind it, and yet the public is being told that the science is in, it's all over, there's no problem, not to worry. No. The public have been deceived time and again, so it is a blessing that we have no an alternative media that doesn't need to pander to its sponsors.

Robert Scott Bell: Well that's true, and the first amendment is alive and well despite the attempts to squash it out and the fires of liberty are burning brightly here and there and with you and in that Cell journal, Immunity, talking about the immune system has two main branches, innate immunity and adaptive immunity. I mean, the simple act of acknowledging that is almost revolutionary. When they say, oh wait, maybe it isn't the antibody that is all that we need, so there's a lot of good things coming out. I know you gotta go take care of your wife so I don't want to hold you any longer, but I'm so appreciative of your willingness to stand up and do the right thing. Of course you know you have an open door here. As things continue, we'll monitor not only that lawsuit but other events that are coming out to empower parents and children everywhere not only to get well and to stay well, but also to prevent themselves from being harmed by that which is patently unscientific and quite dangerous.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: Robert thank you very much, it's great to talk to you again.

Robert Scott Bell: Dr. Wakefield, real quick before you go, give out the website for the justice fund for those who want to support your efforts.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: Thank you very much, it's the DrWakefieldJusticeFund.org

Robert Scott Bell:And we have the links up at RobertScottBell.com to get directly to that should you want to support all the good works that are happening here because there are many so-called fronts on this to simply bring out the facts and allow people to have the freedom to chose which direction they want to go. We're not trying to force anybody into anything, and that's why I respect you immensely, Dr. Wakefield.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield: Thank you so much.

Source for this transcription: http://www.naturalnewsradio.com