Talk:Andrew Wakefield

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A news item involving Andrew Wakefield was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 6 January 2011.

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Frequently asked questions

Many of these questions arise frequently on the talk page concerning Andrew Wakefield.

To view an explanation to the answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question.

Q1: Is the article with its negative material biased? (No.)

A1: No. The article with its negative material is not biased. While the article must include both positive and negative views according to the policies of Wikipedia, the balance must accurately reflect the balance in those sources according to their reliability. There are two relevant policies: biographies of living people and neutral point of view. According to these two policies, both of which are non-negotiable, we must reflect the subject as it is seen by reliable independent sources, but we must do so accurately and in a neutral way.

Q2: Should material critical of Wakefield be in the lead? (Yes.)

A2: Yes. Wakefield is at the heart of one of the most discussed scientific frauds in recent times. This is not Wikipedia's judgment, it is the consensus view of reliable independent sources, we reflect those.

Q3: Is the negative material in the article NPOV? (Yes.)

A3: Yes. Including negative material is part of achieving a neutral article. A neutral point of view does not necessarily equate to a sympathetic point of view. Neutrality is achieved by including all points of view – both positive and negative – in rough proportion to their prominence.

Q4: Does Wikipedia consider the MMR-autism link a fringe theory? (Yes)

A4: Yes. The MMR-autism link is described as refuted in all significant independent sources. It is a fringe view.

Q5: Should studies that show a link between autism and MMR (or vaccines more generally) go into the article? (Only if they meet WP:MEDRS.)

A5: Only if they meet WP:MEDRS. We do not include low quality sources that contradict much higher quality sources. At present there are no studies meeting our sourcing guidelines for medical topics which credibly support the MMR-autism link, and there is an enormous body of research showing that there is no temporal link or association.

Q6: Should another article called "Criticism of Andrew Wakefield" be created? (No.)

A6: No. Another article called "Criticism of Andrew Wakefield" should not be created. This is called a "POV fork" and is discouraged.

Q7: Should evidence of a link between the gut and / or its microbiome and autism be included in the article? (No.)

A7: No. This would be a novel synthesis from primary sources, which is forbidden. Wakefield's work did not address this, and even if there were a proven causal link between the gut or its microbiome and autism, this would be irrelevant to Wakefield's published research and its subsequent refutation and retraction.

Q8: Should all references to material critical of Wakefield be put in a single section in the article? (No.)

A8: No. Sources critical of Wakefield should be integrated normally in the course of presenting the topic and its reception, not shunted into a single criticism section. Such segregation is generally frowned upon as poor writing style on Wikipedia.

Q9: Should the article characterize Wakefield's work as fraudulent? (Yes.)

A9: Yes. Wakefield's research has been retracted due to undeclared conflicts of interest and has been criticised in the literature for ethical and methodological issues. It is credibly identified as research fraud, and there is no significant informed dissent from this judgment in the published literature.

Q10: Should the article include favourable commentary from "vaccine skeptical" sources? (No.)

A10: No. The article may only contain material from reliable independent sources, and medical claims must be drawn only from sources that meet our subject-specific sourcing requirements. Sources within the anti-vaccination movement rarely meet our general sourcing reliability guidelines and almost never meet our medical sourcing guidelines. We do not accept agenda-driven claims from poor quality sources to "balance" more reliable sources, however much we might like or dislike the conclusions of either.

So, where is the "fraud"?

He has different opinion, for sure, but where is the "FRAUD"? 98.51.145.194 (talk) 01:32, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Read the article. It's clearly explained there. --McSly (talk) 01:38, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"A different opinion" that he justified with a fraudulent study, sparking nation-wide vaccine hesitancy and outbreaks of preventable diseases. Woozybydefault (talk) 13:45, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Status of Fraud

Might it be more appropriate to state in the introductory paragraph that the 1998 Lancet study was allegedly fraudulent given that Andrew Wakefield continues to deny that any fraud occurred and offers a somewhat reasonable rebuttal to such allegations in his book Callous Disregard? Nezahaulcoyotl (talk) 22:19, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to wait for a more experienced editor in this field, but I would say definitely not. It why he was struck off. It's explained in the article. Wikipedia uses reliable sources, which are even more rigorous in WP:BLP articles. Wikipedia BLP'S generally do not care what the person writes about themselves, Wikipedia relies on what independent sources say, which in this case, is that his actions were deemed fraudulent and he lost his licence to practice medicine. Knitsey (talk) 22:26, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, WP:GEVAL, WP:FRINGE, WP:PSCI, and WP:MEDRS—all these say the proposed edits are inadmissible. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:45, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please quote the passages in WP:GEVAL, WP: FRINGE and WP:PSCI that demonstrate that these edits are inadmissible? Also, is WP:MEDRS really relevant to this discussion since we're not debating whether or not vaccines really cause autism, we're debating whether or not a study that found that vaccines cause autism was proven beyond a doubt to be fraudulent? Nezahaulcoyotl (talk) 04:45, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Scientists are very often wrong in their research. But that isn't scientific fraud or medical fraud. It is simply a judgment made upon limited data. So, there was no big scandal if he were only wrong. He could have admitted he was wrong, and proceed further unscathed. But it was a combination of an undisclosed conflict of interest, plus breaching the ethics of medical research (the way he approached the kids to be tested). tgeorgescu (talk) 16:31, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

He does not even give any reasons why anybody should believe him. He just claims there is a conspiracy against him, which does what all conspiracy theories are invented to do: it enables him to blame every piece of evidence against him on the conspirators faking it. Only gullible idiots believe that sort of thing, and they tend to not write reliable sources, so it is not a reason to add WP:FALSEBALANCE to the article. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:02, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The reason he gives in Callous Disregard for why people should believe that he was unfairly discredited is that the children who already displayed deficits characteristic of autism prior to inoculation displayed much more severe deficits subsequent to inoculation. However, I am willing to show indifference to the notion that the study was fraudulent due to an undisclosed conflict of interest and for that reason alone, I will consider this matter settled. Nezahaulcoyotl (talk) 20:07, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to read this article and any cited sources you find pertinent, or the Lancet MMR autism fraud article itself - we have sufficient RS to support using "fraudulent". We already mention Wakefield's rebuttals and his book in our article here. Cannolis (talk) 05:39, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some good may have come out of it.

After making the topic a hot potato that few would touch some 40+ researchers have taken the trouble to investigate the idea of a link of some sort between autism and the gut microbiome and have come away convinced.

Andrews research may have been inadequate to draw conclusions but the correlation does seems to be there.

Multi-level analysis of the gut-brain axis shows autism spectrum disorder-associated molecular and microbial profiles
Idyllic press (talk) 12:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]