Reply #3: An entirely valid question with at least two answers

[Orrex]

1. Wakefield passed himself off as a noble crusader for the sake of autistic children and their parents, whom he characterized as innocent victims of the malevolent and aggressive pro-vaccination propagandists. The fact that he undertook this campaign of falsehoods for personal financial game makes him criminally culpable and morally indefensible, and it calls into question everything he's ever done in his professional life. Any article or study that depends at all on Wakefield's anti-vaccination campaign should be rejected outright for its tainted source material.

I don't think that anyone here in this forum or anywhere on DU has suggested that drug companies should be immune from prosecution or legal action when they knowingly engage in a campaign of disinformation. If such companies have engaged in tactics like those that Wakefield has used, then by all means let those companies face censure and both civil and criminal prosecution. Who would argue otherwise?

2. Many here (in the Health forum and elsewhere on DU) have supported Wakefield and his work. If Wakefield's strongest defense is paraphrased as "that's what big pharma does," then the same people who've been condemning big pharma (while supporting Wakefield or his surrogates Jenny McCarthy and RFK Jr, for instance) should be among the first to condemn Wakefield for doing exactly what they've always condemned about pharmaceutical companies. In addition, such a paraphrase is not a denial of Wakefield's criminal culpability; it is in fact a clear statement that he is so culpable.


I for one vow not to mock any of Wakefield's former advocates who now see the light and join in the condemnation of his years-long mission of cruel and exploitative misrepresentation. I will in fact praise the courage of anyone who now comes to reject Wakefield's work.