As the creator of the six email shots that the Daily Friend sends out every week, I receive a few emails directly from readers over issues we write about.
My inbox lit up recently over two subjects; decolonising Christianity and disagreement with articles in support of vaccinating against Covid-19. Coincidentally, the articles were all written by our columnist Ivo Vegter. They can be found at www.dailyfriend.co.za under ‘Authors’.
The anguished responses by Christian readers I could anticipate.
However, the responses from people opposed to vaccine usage was of a number and magnitude of aggravation many times greater.
Some comment contained in-depth analyses that were comprehensively set out from a seemingly medical standpoint. Others were just insulting and/or aggressive.
Probably the most astounding responses were those accusing us of being ‘stupid’ or ‘ignorant’ or worse, for believing what scientists and the media were saying in support of vaccines. There was outrage that we don’t support a minority claim, albeit one with significant support.
I offered space for any rebuttals to Ivo’s articles, but didn’t receive any. People assumed that I should have written a rebuttal with the evidence presented to me reflecting the other side of the debate.
I explained that as the opinion portal of the Institute of Race Relations, we present opposing views on a subject, but our staff don’t write opposing pieces just to open up the debate. We will gladly publish readers’ or others’ opposing views on any subject. Likewise our authors can write an article contrary to the IRR view, but then we state that contributors’ views don’t necessarily reflect the IRR’s.
We will indicate where the IRR does not hold an institutional view on a subject, and on which staff may be divided.
This was the case with ‘decolonising Christianity’. A number of IRR writers wrote counter arguments in response to the piece on Christianity.
The fact that there have been no opposing articles to Ivo’s on vaccines is because the IRR supports his views.
I did, however, follow some of the references given to me to try to understand the vehement opposition to vaccines. These suggested three main sources of anti-vaccination views:
- The continuing effect of the fraud perpetrated by Dr Andrew Wakefield in claiming that there is link between the MMR vaccine and autism;
- Sources supporting alternative medicine, wellness and healthy eating; and
- Religious sites influenced by organisations and religious leaders which accuse orthodox science of using the cells of aborted foetuses in vaccines. This claim seems to have its antecedents in the idea in the past of using animal products in vaccines.
Andrew Wakefield, however, warrants more attention. A former British physician and academic, he claimed in a 1998 study that there was a link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.
Publicity resulted in a sharp decline in vaccination uptake, which led to a number of outbreaks of measles and mumps around the world. The rise in measles and mumps infections resulted in serious illness and deaths.
The study was published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, which, at 198 years old, is among the world’s oldest and best-known general medical journals.
However, other researchers were unable to reproduce his findings. ‘Reproducibility’ is a major principle of the scientific method: the result of an experiment or observational study should be achieved again with a high degree of agreement when the study is replicated with the same methodology by different researchers. Only then should a result be recognised as scientific knowledge.
Vaccination scare
Before the study was published, Wakefield held a press conference in which he called for the suspension of the triple MMR vaccine until more research could be done. This was criticised as ‘science by press conference‘. This press conference fuelled the vaccination scare.
In 2000 he repeated his claims in the United States (US) fuelling the anti-vaccination movement there.
In 2002 Wakefield claimed that the crisis was precipitated ‘…because the doctors, the gurus, are treating the public as though they are some kind of moronic mass who cannot make an informed decision for themselves’.
A 2004 investigation by Sunday Times reporter Brian Deer in the UK identified undisclosed financial conflicts of interest on Wakefield’s part.
The British General Medical Council (GMC) conducted an inquiry into allegations of misconduct and in 2010 the GMC found Wakefield guilty of dishonest research, acting against his patients’ best interests, mistreating developmentally delayed children, and failing in his duties as a responsible consultant.
The Lancet then retracted Wakefield’s publication and Wakefield was also struck off the UK medical register.
In a related legal decision, a British court held that ‘[t]here is now no respectable body of opinion which supports [Dr. Wakefield’s] hypothesis, that MMR vaccine and autism/enterocolitis are causally linked’.
According to Associated Press, immunisation rates in Britain dropped from 92 percent to 73 percent and were as low as 50 percent in some parts of London. Researchers in the US estimated that as many as 125 000 US children born in the late 1990s did not get the MMR vaccine because of Wakefield.
Paul Hébert, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), said Wakefield had ‘spawned a whole anti-vaccine movement. Great Britain has seen measles outbreaks. It probably resulted in a lot of deaths.’
A New York Times Magazine article comments that Wakefield has been blamed for irresponsibly starting a panic that resulted in vaccination rates so low that childhood diseases such as whooping cough and measles, once all but eradicated in the US, have re-emerged, endangering young lives.
In January 2012 Time magazine named Wakefield in a list of ‘Great Science Frauds’.
In 2016 Wakefield directed Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe, alleging a cover-up by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that had contributed to the ‘skyrocketing increase of autism and potentially the most catastrophic epidemic of our lifetime’.
The film was withdrawn from New York’s 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that ‘…it misrepresents what science knows about autism, undermines public confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and attacks the integrity of legitimate scientists and public-health officials’.
Weigh up the health benefits
In medicine there is always a need to weigh up the health benefits of a vaccine or medication against the possible risks. Nothing can be guaranteed.
I received copies of a tweet which claimed ‘53 Dead in Gibraltar in 10 Days After Experimental Pfizer mRNS COVID Injection Started…vaccineimpacet.com.’
The government of Gibraltar issued a press statement on 27 January 2021 saying that 11 073 people had received the Pfizer vaccine, but that there was no evidence that anyone who had been vaccinated had died. Six vaccinated people had died of unrelated causes and with no evidence of a link to the vaccine.
Fake news is real and fear is real, but the research into Covid-19 that is uncontested across the world is supported by too many highly reputable institutions to be rejected so easily.
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