You’re right. Even if Wakefield did a Madoff, his loyalest supporters wouldn’t believe it. If they accepted his family was not sequestered or under threat, they’d probably claim Wakefield had been given an umbrella full of MMR and mysterious forces are now controlling his brain and forcing him to say these things.

Even if Andrew Wakefield put up his hands and confessed, there would be all sorts of conspiracy theories about his family being got at or kidnapped or such.

It happened during the Autism Omnibus Proceedings, one of the Petitioners’ ‘expert witnesses’ was so bad that leading anti-vax figure, Sherri Tenpenny was forced to spin a remarkable theory.

Ya have to wonder if someone got to her or threatened her kids by her response. Absolutely unbelievable and I would suspect was really unexpected by the Chin-Conway team or they wouldn’t have put her on the stand. [NB Chin-Conway were the legal team for the petitioners.]

So, there is a precedent.

Conned people don’t want to believe that they are conned. They will go to absurd lengths to defend him even if it does make them look ridiculous.

- had the parents been told about his previous track record in trying to claim MMR caused another disease, and that that theory had been comprehensively rubbished, and indeed quietly dumped by the man himself;
- had they known about the patent applications and that Wakefield stood to make a lot of money out of proving the theory;
- had they really known he was not in any way properly qualified to give them paediatric medical advice;
- had they been clearly told that he and his views were “well outside the mainstream” and got the opposing view from someone else better qualified in paediatric gastroenterology…

Anyway, I am sure it wouldn’t have made any difference to some of the parents, possibly most of them, but it might have spared a few. How much time, energy and “emotional capital” have they invested in this doomed crusade?

It has always been relatively easy for scientists and other doctors to see through Wakefield. Doctors know that bad doctors exist, because they’ve seen them at work, and scientists know that bad scientists do, ditto. The overwhelming consensus in the trade since very early on has been:

“A bloke who wouldn’t let inconvenient facts get in the way of his messianic belief in his right-ness, even to the extent of finagling the data”.

Nick Chadwick’s revelations really just confirmed what everyone already suspected, which is why the new stuff, if confirmed, will come as no great surprise except as demonstrating the extent and long-standing nature of it all.

I read somewhere that one of the experts in the vaccine court hearings said that people like Wakefield had convinced parents that the sun moves around the earth.

It seems that nothing will make him change his opinion of himself.

I still can’t believe I feel for it. I know lots of people will see the latest rulings as a cover-up but when you read these things in black and white it exposes them.

Admin edit: if anyone doesn’t get this, check the opening strap for the Wakefield letter. :-)