The British Origins of the Modern Anti-Vaccination Movement
British anti-vaccine activists were instrumental in the spread of opposition to vaccination in America. In the nineteenth century, British anti-vaccine activist William Tebb helped found the Anti Vaccination Society of America. In the late twentieth century, another British vaccine opponent, Andrew Wakefield, fueled yet another anti-vaccination panic across the Pond. Wakefield was a doctor who published a relatively obscure study in The Lancet – a prestigious medical journal. In it, he alleged that he had discovered a link between the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, and autism. His claims were widely reported, and led to a drop in vaccination rates in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and eventually, the US.
Many children died or suffered serious permanent injuries as a result. That was bad. What was even worse is that the study published in The Lancet was fraudulent. Not as in “controversial”, or “poorly researched” or “mistaken”, but as in straightforward deliberately fraudulent. As in the serious and deliberate type of criminal fraud for which fraudsters lose the license to practice their profession. That fraud gave birth to an irrational movement that has killed or seriously injured many, and threatens to kill or seriously harm many millions more.
