Science (journal)

Interview with Dr Andrew Wakefield about the British Medical Journal, science and vaccines

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• published: 05 Feb 2011
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Interview with Dr Andrew Wakefield about the British Medical Journal, science and vaccines. In this video interview, Dr Wakefield says that BMJ is factually incorrect in accusing Wakefield of falsifying the study data in his 1998 paper published in The Lancet. "[The data] were faithfully reproduced in the Lancet paper, and they were made in the most scrupulous, meticulous way. Those are the facts. Brian Deer knew those facts. When he made his allegations to the BMJ, he knew those facts. Did he disclose them to the BMJ? More importantly, did the BMJ, as a peer reviewed scientific journal, did they check the facts? Because the facts were fully available to them in the book Callous Disregard." Dr Wakefield also explains how this desperate move by the BMJ to attack Dr Wakefield has eroded the credibility of the publication: "They have been hijacked by a freelance journalist who is not expert in any of these fields. They have handed over their journal to this man and allowed him to publish knowingly false allegations, and they have gone along with it. In my opinion, they [the BMJ] have blown their scientific credibility. In their desperation... their fundamental belief that vaccines must be safe, [they say] please don't tell me this terrible disease has been caused by the physician, don't tell me that. Tell me anything but that, and we will take any information, even information from Brian Deer, that will convince us it's safe, and we will publish that, because that conforms with our belief system. That makes us feel more comfortable. That makes us feel that we, as a profession, are not culpable in this extraordinary disorder." In this interview, Dr Wakefield also discusses the motivation for the BMJ to grasp at any effort to discredit those who question the safety of vaccines: "They are so keen to prove me wrong, to prove the parents wrong, and to exonerate the medical profession, their political friends, their pharmaceutical friends, whoever it is, that they have gone ahead in this reckless way and done this. And now, based upon the clear, unambiguous, historical factual records, then I can come out and talk to you like this and say this without any fear of retribution from the BMJ because they've got themselves into this mess. The facts are the facts." He goes on to say about the BMJ, "An investigation will be forced upon them."