Wakefield did not stand up and say an unpopular thing. He was and is engaged in an effort to line his own pockets at the expense of truth and health.
And yes, the h. pylorum issue is always trotted out by anti-vaxxers, anti "big pharmas" and so forth as proof that those horrible doctor / scientist cohorts are really involved in keeping us all sick so they can get rich. And it is a salutory tale. But the plain fact is that the guy did not have good evidence to support his theory, until when he did have good evidence everyone sat up and took notice. Do we not, now, accept that h. pylorum causes ulcers, and treat accordingly? The point is that science and scientists may not be right at any given time, but it and they will get there. Anti-vaxxers are going to go on and on because they are (generally) stupid people who are deluded that they are clever enough to have spotted something those smug dome-heads who think they know everything have missed.
But they haven't.
God help us if more people stand up and say unpopular things in the same way Wakefield did. Thousands of children have been sick; many of them have been seriously damaged; two have died. That kind of unpopularity I am comfortable with.
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