The first scientific mistake on the path to the modern anti-vax movement could have been fraud, or it could have just been the result of confirmation bias, wishful thinking, and poor skill. If you're just joining us, you may want to check out the first two parts of this Antivax origin series. There will be many more parts. Now, it's 1988, and Andrew Wakefield has had the idea what if Crohn's was caused by a virus. But which virus could it be? Most scientists would have started by casting a Y-Net, searching gut tissue for evidence of any virus. But Whitfield took a different approach. As he described in a later interest, I sat down with two volumes of a virology textbook and worked through it. Nope, not a biologist. I got to measles virus and it described how it gets into the gut, causing ulcers and inflammation. You could have been reading an account of Crohn's disease. Part of the accent. Of course, the same textbook also said that those lesions and inflammation were also found all over the body, eyes, nose, throat, lungs, and vagina. Pretty much anywhere there's mucosal membranes. Places not associated with Crohn's. But Wakefield was sold and set out to prove it, searching gut tissue specifically for evidence of measles. Note that a true scientist sets out to gather data to either prove or disprove a hypothesis. He never even attempted the disproof. Several years later, back in London, Wakefield published this paper in the Journal of Irology. He had used three different measurement techniques, including an electron microscope, finding evidence of measles in 32 out of 34 Crohn's gut patient samples. It was a slam dunk, or so he told us. This finding was big, and it prompted five separate labs across the world to try and duplicate his results over the next few years. First, they tried the methods that he described and found nothing. newer technique, way more sensitive than any microscope, capable of identifying even a single virium. Now the gold standard test, it's called PCR. You may have heard of it. It couldn't find any measles across all of the studies. It was likely that Wakefield samples were contaminated, misinterpreted, or he didn't use proper controls, which was later shown to be the case. Years later, one of the virologists commissioned to review that Wakefield paper stated that according to his lab's electron microscopy specialist, those images showed microfilments, a normal component of cells, not measles. these labs didn't use sensitive enough techniques, even though one of his own grad students assisted in the development of some of these methods, with Wakefield's name on the paper. But these negative findings took time to come out, and Wakefield was already off to the races with his shoddy results. It was time for him to find some unethical funding, to experiment on children, and shift his target to vaccines as the culprit. Part 3 coming soon.
Additional notes
Replying to @Avisha - 🧬Science Made Simple ⚠️ NOTE: If you are someone who wants to debate any part of this, you are allowed to do so in the comments so long as you speak respectfully and cite sources. I first recorded this 7-part series back in 2022, but never ended up finishing editing the landscape-oriented YT video. It’s sad that this has once again become extremely relevant, as certain individuals featuring very prominently in today’s new cycle are some of the most prominent propagators of this myth. They often couch their statements in qualifiers like “oh i’m not ANTI vaccinations, I just think that they all need more testing to show that they don’t cause autism.” But the ENTIRE REASON why those two concepts are even linked has no foundation in legitimate science, so any statements that give the link any level of credence by someone in a clear position to know better should be taken as an IMMEDIATE RED FLAG 🚩 I’ll be uploading this entire series today, and hopefully get the longer YT vid up this week. Much of the original legwork for this series was done by Brian Deer for his book "The Doctor Who Fooled the World,” but I went back and read each of his cited sources, all of the research papers, more from my own research, and even the court proceedings where Wakefield’s medical license was revoked. #vaccines #autism #science #learnontiktok #whofides #edutok
References
- Source named in caption: Brian Deer, The Doctor Who Fooled the World. No direct DOI, PMID, or source URL was listed in the workbook row.
- Source category named in caption: court proceedings where Andrew Wakefield's medical license was revoked. No direct source URL was listed in the workbook row.
- Source named in transcript: Wakefield measles/Crohn's paper in Journal of Virology and follow-up replication attempts; no DOI/source URL was listed in the workbook row.