More evidence that Andrew Wakefield is still anti-vaccine

Tweeted.

As instructed 🙂

@DrWakefield – is “Dr” really appropriate? http://bit.ly/9AgoUV – Either way, Wakefield – it’s time you met the truth – http://bit.ly/adoTDH

If this doesn’t show Wakefield’s true character (anti-vaccine) to other people, almost nothing else will.

But what do you expect? He has no credibility left to protect, so why should he bother pretending?

@Scottynuke, well, I figure “might as well be polite even if he doesn’t listen” and that was the politest thing I could think of.

and “japester”? I don’t think I’m too familiar with that word…

@Corina:

Jape and joke are synonymous, I was just saying you were being very humorous at putting Wakers and “facts” in the same sentence. 🙂

– SarniaSkeptic

Considering the honorific title of “doctor” relates to licensure in the UK, I think his use of the title is highly inappropriate, as I don’t believe Wakers has a doctoral degree or a licence to practice – Just a BM or BS. Also, interestingly, in the UK, surgeons (like Wakefield) don’t traditionally use the title of Doctor.

Quacks and cranks do tend to be obsessed with credentialism, so none of this really surprises me in the slightest.

I dusted off my Twitter account. I chose to go with dripping sarcasm: “Have you seen this?”.

Wakers isn’t anti-vaccine, he’s pro money. Fawning sycophants aren’t bad either, but cash is king.

Todd,
Nice deconstruct. Near the beginning you wrote ‘vaccines cause mercury’. I’m sure that isn’t quite what you meant but otherwise, nicely done.

Olmstead must be smarting over the slow sales as there is ample evidence for pre-1930s autism, especially with the wider definition in use this century.

@SarniaSkeptic, HadrOn:

For info:

“MBBS” (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, typically a 5-yr undergrad degree) is the basic medical qualification in England, and the one with which students finish UK medical school. To be licensed to practise as a physician you then have to complete 1 or 2 years supervised practise in hospital, following which you get on the General Medical Council list (the “Medical Register”). Any “specialist training” (cf. US residency) comes after that.

It is this medical register (the list of those licensed to practise as medical doctors in the UK) that Wakefield’s name was erased from by the GMC. He still has his MBBS degrees.

Though the UK medical degree is not formally a doctoral degree, in the way that a PhD or an MD is, people with an MBBS are almost invariably addressed as “Doctor”, at least in the UK. So one could debate whether “Saint Andy” is still entitled to the title “Dr”. As I said, the GMC didn’t have the power to revoke his MBBS.

Whether his continued use of the title “Dr” is misleading would depend on the context. If he started up a “holistic detox” clinic and billed himself on the letterhead as “Dr”, then it would arguably be highly misleading. This is because it would imply to most people – prospective customers – that be was a licensed physician, which he no longer is. Just calling himself “Dr” on a book jacket – less clear-cut.

Re. UK surgeons going by “Mister”, this is a relic of the days of the barber-surgeons, and has a kind of inverted snobbery attached to it. You would only call youself “Mr” if you were a consultant surgeon (i.e. an attending, in US parlance, having completed all your general and specialist surgical residency training). Wakefield never did complete surgical training. So he wouldn’t, under British medical custom, be entitled to call himself “Mr” in that surgical sense.

All a bit confusing, I know. But it is a fact that Wakefield never completed medical or surgical training in any speciality – including GI surgery. And he didn’t train as a gastroenterologist either. In the UK he would have been classified as a junior doctor – one who never had formal “named” responsibility for a patient, since this rests with the attendings/consultants – who went into full-time research in his mid-to-late 20s.

scottynuke @ 10
Ah, thanks. I wasn’t entirely sure about what it meant, and so didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Thanks for explaining to me!

And yes, yes it is funny.

Sheldon101: It’s an understandable confusion. He used to prowl the autism conference circuit being reported talking about “my patients” and telling parents that concern over vaccination was grounds to give their child a colonscopy. eg:

http://briandeer.com/wakefield/andi-interview.htm

However, it’s a fascinating fact that he has never had lawful care of a patient at any time in his career. He was once a trainee surgeon (and around that sprang the myth that he was a transplant surgeon, when in fact he was a student in the department of people cutting up dogs and rodents), but, as Dr A points out, he never became a consultant surgeon.

And, as for his claims to be a histopathologist, he insisted under oath before the GMC that he never did that either. What he mostly did at the Royal Free was suck up drug industry and lawyers’ money. His colleagues point out that he never wore a white coat unless a TV crew came round.

It’s all a bit academic now, because he’s finished, but he never really was anything in the first place but a lying, greedy buffoon.

one more woohoo! a great day for patient/consumer safety is upon us.

I went with:

“O hai, @drwakefield! Here’s a cute picture of penguins. Only kidding, it’s @oracknows serving your arse. Again. http://bit.ly/dyxyIu”

Do I win a prize?

@Dr Aust

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

@Travis

Well, I only just tweeted to him, but looking at his tweets, it seems he mostly just posts links to anti-vaccine stuff: articles, youtube vids, etc.

Well, what’s a terrorist to one person is another person’s freedom fighter. In my humble opinion, Andrew is the latter.

I have just watched his 2010 address on autism to the European Parliament. He got a well-deserved standing ovation at the end of it.

http://autismfile.com/media/andrew-wakefield-speaks-to-parliament-on-autism/

Erwin Alber:

I have just watched his 2010 address on autism to the European Parliament.

Obviously you have been hoodwinked. That was not the full parliament. Dr Wakefield did not address the European Parliament. He addressed a meeting hosted by a single member of the European Parliament, United Kingdom Independence Party member, Marta Andreasen.