Vaccines and Autism: A Measured Response
hbomberguy3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2021–2025
documentary · general · evergreen · 2021–2025 on HN
hbomberguy's long video dissects the anti-vaccine movement, analyzing Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent MMR-autism study, the media's role and Wakefield's loss of his license. It combines detailed research with humor.
HN commenters call it the definitive, thorough answer to whether vaccines cause autism and recommend it as an entertaining deep dive.
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7 comments from Hacker News
hbomberguy rocks. His documentary on Andrew Wakefield has become my definitive answer to people who ask me if the MMR vaccine causes autism, a question I have been asked directly and indirectly for decades. Despite the fact I'd been asked this for decades, and despite me having much time to research this topic in that time, his 2 hour documentary released two years ago blew everything I had ever seen anybody say on the subject out of the water. ▶ this video
I highly recommend this deep dive, with some entertainment value: Vaccines and Autism: A Measured Response [1]. It shows how absurd those claims are [1]: ▶ this video
Wakefield got off easy. This video does a good (and humorous) job of reviewing everything that was wrong with him and his study and it's a dense... 1h40m ▶ this video
The early research in support of this conclusion (despite the fact no subsequent research has born it out) was pure charlatanism, bad science and the theory is rightly derided because those who continue to propagate it do so out of naked self interest and financial gain: ▶ this video
He conducted research for money. This involved ~7 children spending 1 week in a hospital. The children were young (mean age 6) and some had severe autism, so they had to be sedated, held down by adults, etc. His "informed consent" form does not describe the risks. ▶ this video (Where was the IRB during all this? Good question.)
They had Wakefield creating antivaxxers and then they had a journalist that got to the bottom of his BS. This expose was highly publicised so people got through into their heads that antivaxx is BS. Wakefield then ran away to US and Brits lived happily ever after ... till Brexit. At least that's what's postulated here ▶ this video
I have seen the argument made that one of the reasons for high vaccine confidence in the UK is as a result of Andrew Wakefield's MMR fraud, which was perhaps debunked more effectively in the UK than the US. ▶ this video