Interview with Dr. Andrew Wakefield

A wide ranging discussion about scientific history, immunology, and his thirty-year battle with the vaccine cartel.

By JOHN LEAKE

Our initial concept for Courageous Discourse was to showcase individuals in various occupations who have dedicated themselves to discovering and reporting the truth about our world, even if it means threatening powerful interests and risking one’s own career and security. It is therefore highly fitting that my first interview (in what I hope will be a long series) is with Dr. Andrew Wakefield.

We discuss scientific history and the longstanding tension between orthodoxy and heterodox observations and thoughts that have, throughout history, been deemed heretical and therefore warranting severe punishment. Of particular interest to me is the phenomenon of what I call forbidden inquiry—that is, when vested interests issue directives against even questioning an established arrangement. A striking example of this was the CDC’s deliberate destruction of evidence of the link between MMR vaccines and autism in children, especially when the vaccine is administered to children less than 18 months old. This criminal act is a key event in Dr. Wakefield’s 2016 film VAXXED, which he coproduced with Del Bigtree.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield is a physician, author, and filmmaker. He graduated as Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1985 and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists in 2001. He has published over 150 original scientific articles, books, book chapters, and scientific commentaries.

His inquiry about the apparent links between childhood vaccines, intestinal inflammation, and neurological injury in children brought him into major conflict with the vaccine cartel. Refusing to cease his investigation, he was fired from his job in the Department of Medicine at London’s Royal Free Hospital. His urgent call examine the safety of MMR vaccines administered to young children ultimately resulted in the termination of his medical license and his fellowships. With his medical career over, he eventually left his native England and moved to the United States, where he resides today.

In recent years, Dr. Wakefield has devoted himself to making documentary films about the dangers posed by mass vaccination. In addition to VAXXED, he has also produced 1986: The Act and A Diabolical Agenda with Robert Kennedy, Jr. He is currently in pre-production on his first major narrative feature co-written with Terry Rossio (who wrote Aladdin, Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Godzilla vs. King Kong).