Who Trolled Amber? - Dr Anti-Vax: Episode 2 - The rock star

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

Andrew Wakefield becomes a superstar thanks to the support of celebrities and an army of mothers – and establishes anti-vax as a moneymaker.This is part 2 of a 3-part series - to listen exclusively to episode 3 today subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts or become a member and listen on Tortoise's audio app. You can find out more about Tortoise:Download the Tortoise audio app - for a listening experience curated by our journalistsSubscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free content Become a Tortoise member and get access to all of Tortoise's premium audio offerings and more.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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By 2011, Andrew Wakefield is on the rocks. He's been struck off by Britain's medical regulator, and in America, a US vaccine court has trashed his theory that the MMR jab causes autism. In January, Wakefield is accused of fraud. The British Medical Journal alleges that he falsified data in the run-up to his 1998 paper, the one published by The Lancet that started off the whole MMR scare. Wakefield sues the medical journal, but he fails and he's left with a large legal bill. What keeps him afloat during this difficult period is the support of ordinary parents,

foot soldiers in his anti-vax army. of ordinary parents, foot soldiers in his anti-vax army. Remember how in episode one we heard how these parents of profoundly autistic kids, anguished and looking for answers, had become completely dedicated to Wakefield's cause? Well now they come through for him, organising fundraisers and gathering donations for his legal defence fund. But it's not only parents who keep Wakefield's flag flying. Anti-vax sentiment is growing in another important demographic, celebrities. People like Jenny McCarthy, a former Playboy model turned actor. McCarthy has a son, Evan, who's autistic. She's convinced that the MMR jab triggered his condition. With her A-list partner, Jim Carrey, they appear on programs like The View, Larry King,

Oprah. Tonight exclusive, Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, partners in life and partners in the search for answers to autism. What number will it take for people just to start listening to what the mothers of children who have autism have been saying for years? I don't think we can afford to assume that the people who are charged with our public health any longer have our best interests at heart all the time. Ordinary parents and outspoken celebrities, foot soldiers and flag bearers. These are the people who keep Wakefield going through his dark years. They keep money coming in and they keep their hero in the public eye.

So that when Wakefield's luck turns a few years later, he's in a position to exploit his good fortune and transform himself into an anti-vax superstar. Controversy brewing over this documentary. Protesters turned out in support of the documentary Vax. This is fantastic. I mean, I want the headlines to continue. We need this to keep going.

I'm Alexi Mostras, and from Tortoise Media, you're listening to Dr. Antivax. Episode 2, The Rockstar. Francesca Alessi is a producer, camera operator and editor. She worked with Andrew Wakefield on and off for almost 10 years, starting from around 2010. When I was out of school, I was looking for work like everybody else. And one day I was on a website that used to be used a lot at that time, Craigslist. I'm on Craigslist and I see this ad and somebody's looking for a videographer and he's looking

for somebody who's compassionate, somebody who understands children and children with disabilities. And I sent an email to this person. At some point after he's struck off, Wakefield gets the idea of filming some of the parents he's meeting, parents of children with autism. He's casting around for a way to make an impact. Perhaps he can still convince people of his original theory that vaccines trigger bowel problems and autism. At that time, Andrew Wayfield did not have a project in mind per se. He was trying to film different kids that are very, very sick to show the world that if you do look at them internally,

you will be seeing that there is a connection between autism and bowel syndrome. And this is the same thing he was trying to prove in England when he was still there working as a doctor. So he was just taking clips. He wasn't even sure yet what he was going to do with them. At this stage, Francesca doesn't know much about Wakefield's history or about the science. But the project makes her feel like she's doing something good, helping people who need it. The mothers were so passionate about it and their hearts were bleeding completely.

So naturally my compassion moved towards them and trying to tell them, you know, even though the world is not listening, I'm listening. My heart is with you. It doesn't take long for Francesca to become a professional soldier in Wakefield's army. And of course, I'm sold. I'm like, yeah, I want to save the world. Of course, I want to help the children. Of course, I'm going to do this. No matter what.

Wakefield and Francesca keep working. He's trying to find a home for all the footage. They don't really have a clear focus. But then, in 2014, Wakefield gets a call from a man called Brian Hooker. Hooker is a biochemical engineer by training. At the time, he's a professor at a small Christian liberal arts college in California. But he's also a father struggling to look after his profoundly autistic son. Like the other parents, like Jenny McCarthy, Hooker is convinced that childhood vaccines caused his son's condition.

But unlike them, he spent years trying to get information out of America's public health agency, the CDC. That's the agency responsible for monitoring vaccine safety. Before he's ever met Andrew Wakefield, Hooker spends his time submitting hundreds of freedom of information requests to the CDC, trying to force them to disclose data. Hooker remembers that period well. I was publishing the results of these Freedom of Information Act requests. I was writing articles, not scientific articles. And then suddenly in 2013, I get a phone call from a CDC official named William Thompson. He started to share background documents and he started to share details of where specifically where the CDC committed fraud in a paper that was published

in 2004 on the MMR vaccine. Thompson says that the CDC intentionally covered up evidence about the MMR jab. He claims that in 2004, the agency omitted data suggesting that some African-American boys who received the MMR vaccine were at an increased risk of autism. Hooker doesn't know much about the MMR vaccine, but he knows someone who's been obsessed with it for a while. When the whistleblower, Dr Thompson, started talking about the MMR vaccine, I contacted Andy straight away. It's exactly what Wakefield has been looking for. In his mind, this is a smoking gun, evidence of a massive CDC cover-up, confirmation that he was right all along.

So Wakefield persuades Hooker to start recording his phone calls with Thompson and he begins to make a film. But he needs help. Wakefield is not an experienced filmmaker. He just doesn't have the contacts or the clout to get it all together. But he gets himself into the right room. The phone rings and it's this PR person, Donna Schumann. She said, do you know who Dr. Andy Wakefield is? I said, yes. What's going on?

She said, we're meeting in the Hollywood Hills. Andy Wakefield's going to be there. And so I, you know, of course, showed up. This is Del Bigtree. At the time, he was a producer on a daytime TV talk show called The Doctors. He was already convinced that vaccines are harmful. But right before meeting Wakefield, he'd been hearing whispers about the CDC whistleblower, and he was intrigued. I'll never forget, somebody walked up and said, hey Andy, you've got to do your pitch.

And then you said, you know, what I'm doing about it is I'm making a documentary about a whistleblower at the CDC named Dr. William Thompson. I think you said you'd been working on the documentary for over a year and you needed funding to finish it up. And I'll never forget just thinking, I mean, it's impossible to describe what a moment like that feels like. You know, in film, we do that trick where you sort of dolly forward but focus pull back so the background slides in around you and the ray of sunshine beats down on the character you know it felt like just thought wow all right well what this is one of those filmic you know spiritual encounter moments in 2016 wakefield and big tree with fr Francesca's help, released the film.

It's called Vaxxed. There's a whistleblower from the CDC who's going to come out and say that the CDC had committed fraud on the MMR study and that they knew that vaccines were actually causing autism. Conspiracy at the CDC. That's the film's central thread. But the real emotional force of Vaxxed comes from the personal stories of the parents. Stories that anyone, scene sceptic or advocate, would find heartbreaking.

My oldest son, Ian, was walking and running. After the vaccine, he was no longer able to do that. So I called the clinic and I said, I think my child's had adverse reaction to those shots. The parents' stories are compelling, but they're not quite enough. It needs a celebrity, a flag bearer, for the film to really take off. The winner is Robert De Niro and the Godfather. In 2016, Robert De Niro invites Vaxxed to be part of his Tribeca Film Festival,

an annual event held in New York since 2002. But when the other Tribeca participants find out that Vaxxed is part of the festival, they threaten to pull out. They don't want to be associated with something that they see as anti-science. Under pressure, De Niro eventually pulls the film, but it's clear he doesn't want to be associated with something that they see as anti-science. Under pressure, De Niro eventually pulls the film, but it's clear he doesn't want to. The actor has an autistic son himself. There was a bit of controversy, some headlines at the beginning of this year's festival when it was announced that this film called Vaxxed would be screened at the festival. Later the festival

pulled it. Was it because of the backlash? I think the movie is something that people should see. I, as a parent of a child who has autism, I'm concerned, and I want to know the truth. I think the film was controversial because people felt that the filmmaker had been discredited. Even he, I'm not so sure about. At the end of the day, even him.

The film is dropped from Tribeca, but thanks to De Niro, it receives national media attention. OK, leading us off is controversy surrounding Robert De Niro. Controversial documentary has been pulled from the Tribeca Film Festival. Filmmakers tried to show protesters turned out in support of the documentary Vax, but a film, it is about reported links between a particular vaccine and an increase in cases of autism. It's the best thing that could have happened. This is fantastic.

I mean, I want the headlines to continue. We need this to keep going. I mean, we wanted that fire. It put us in the mainstream. To Wakefield's supporters, it plays directly into this narrative of censorship and conspiracy. With all this media attention, another cinema quickly snaps it up. The premiere of Vaxxed was in New York. A lot of people came. So many people came to see it to the point that the

theatre had to arrange security because there were too many people outside. They couldn't manage. Within months, Vaxxed is being shown on screens around the world. I convinced him to have the movie translated in Italian and I did the Italian translation myself. So we put subtitles in Italian, then we did subtitles in other languages, in French and so forth. And once that happened, the movie exploded worldwide tenfold. When mainstream reviews come out, most are scathing.

Some mention important points that Vax just omits, like the statement issued by William Thompson, the CDC's supposed whistleblower, saying that he believes vaccines have saved and continue to save countless lives. Or more details about the study that was supposedly fixed, the one that found that autism rates were higher in African-American boys. Critics of Vaxxed pointed out that the disparity in this study

was more due to how the data was collected. It was more like a disagreement between colleagues than a massive conspiracy, an argument about one outcome in one subgroup in just one study. What's more, the supposed whistleblower, Thompson, remains as a CDC employee after vaxxed. He even gets a promotion. And his later work exploring any links between MMR and autism finds no relationship. But scathing reviews and fact checks don't really matter.

This time around, Wakefield doesn't have to rely on the mainstream press to endorse his message. 2016 is the golden age of social media. And online, Vaxxed is going viral. I did this promo in which I filmed people watching the movie and a little bit of the Q&A after the movie. And that video went viral. And we were literally sitting at dinner and every five minutes that thing went up 5,000 likes.

We were getting 1,000 likes a minute. And I had videos that were watched like millions of times. According to Francesca, Vaxxed is a turning point for Andrew Wakefield. 18 years after his original paper in The Lancet,

and despite judges and doctors and experts all saying he's wrong, by 2016 he's back back and bigger than ever. It's what made him. He was like never before treated like the biggest rock star there is. And I've been in places walking down the street or airports that people turn around and they say, oh my God, is that you?

Randomly, as if I was walking with David Bowie. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Hi, I'm Una Chaplin, and I'm the host of a new podcast called Hollywood Exiles. Here's a show that we recommend. A story of glamour and scandal and political intrigue and a battle for the soul of a nation. Hollywood Exiles from CBC Podcasts and the BBC World Service. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com

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Or you can binge full seasons of The Spy Who ad-free with Wondery Plus. Okay, so it's time for a sense check. When I started looking into Andrew Wakefield, I'll confess that I was not coming at it from a neutral perspective. I support vaccines, and I've read enough about Wakefield to know that he was discredited. But it's hard not to watch endless videos of upset parents, parents who are convinced that vaccines damage their children without questioning your assumptions. And then when you see the autism rates have also gone up

significantly in the last 20 years, like really significantly, you begin, or at least I begun, to feel a tiny sliver of doubt. What if there was something to all this? I wanted to chat all this through with Ilan, my producer, who's spent some time getting immersed into the science. So if we start off with the autism rates, do we know, are they actually going up? And if so, why? Yes. All right. So the headline answer to that is yes, they do appear to have gone up a lot. The CDC has an extensive monitoring program. Their estimates suggest that the proportion of kids with autism has gone from around 0.7% in 2000

to just under 3% in 2020. That's a very big increase. It's almost quadrupling in the space of 20 years. And, you know, studies in the UK give slightly different estimates, but broadly the trend is the same. But I spoke to some experts about this and they suggested the situation isn't quite as straightforward as that. So one chap I spoke to is Professor Eric von Bonn, who was one of the expert witnesses at the CEDEO trial. Yeah, yeah, he gave evidence. He did, yeah.

And he's actually done a lot of research on autism prevalence around the world. So he's really a sort of top expert on this. And I asked him, is this a real increase or is there something else going on? And this is what he had to say. We now diagnose children that we would not have diagnosed before. If you look at the over time, the proportion of children in epidemiological surveys who have autism and no intellectual disability has increased. So the recent studies include a much higher proportion of high functioning or non-intellectually disabled children with autism compared to the disabled part. So the increase is, you could say, is almost entirely accounted for by inclusion in the case definition of high functioning forms, but there is no evidence that the low functioning or

profound autism or non-verbal autism has increased during that period. Okay, so that's one really crucial point that he made. We are now diagnosing children who would not have been diagnosed. Okay, but doctors are kind of more aware of the condition, more ready to diagnose it. And at the same time, the sort of official criteria has kind of expanded. Exactly. But there is still uncertainty and disagreement as to whether this rise in prevalence is entirely accounted for by those things or if there is still some real increase going on that we need to be worried about. So there could be something happening that is actually increasing the number of autistic kids? something happening that is actually increasing the number of autistic kids?

There could be. And my impression of the kind of scientific consensus on that is that it's not settled. They're looking at it, there's difference of opinion. Okay. So can you understand why vaccine sceptics say that vaccines might be causing autism? Well, the one area that has been investigated is whether vaccines are causing this rise. So, you know, Andrew Wakefield is threaded through this series. We found him everywhere. And his kind of career defining claim was to link the MMR vaccine in particular to autism. That is a topic that's been incredibly well investigated. And I want to give you a flavor of the kind of research that's been done. There are these two particularly famous studies, right, which came out of Denmark. So the first one came out in 2002. So

that's quite a long time ago, right? That's before the CEDEO trial. And they looked at all the children born in Denmark between 1991 and 1998. The second study came out in 2019, and that one looked at all the children born in Denmark between 1999 and 2010. And crudely, what they did was they compared how many kids were diagnosed with autism in the group who received the MMR vaccine, and how many kids were diagnosed with autism in the group who received the MMR vaccine and how many kids were diagnosed with autism in the unvaccinated group because there is a you know a small percentage five percent or so who hadn't received the vaccine of their own choice so of course if MMR triggers autism you'd expect the rate of autism to be higher in the group who were vaccinated yeah but the conclusion in those really really big studies was that the rates

of autism were the same in each group. So it suggests no effect of the MMR vaccine. Right, right. And these are just two sort of particularly big, particularly famous studies, but there have been other studies by other groups around the world, Poland, Japan, Finland, the UK, and in the US, groups around the world, Poland, Japan, Finland, the UK, and in the US, and they've come to similar conclusions that the MMR vaccine doesn't appear to have any effect on autism rates. Having looked at all of this evidence, when you hear these parents speak about their children, like if you were sitting in a room with one of them, what would you say to them? children. Like if you were sitting in a room with one of them, what would you say to them?

Well, I would never contradict an individual parent's experience of their own child's medical history. But I guess I will hear those stories with the awareness that, you know, just as in the Cedillo case, even the most dedicated and loving parents can be wrong about their own children's medical history or what's caused their own child's medical situation. It is possible. In addition to that, millions of children receive these vaccines and they receive them around the same age when characteristics of autism first start to emerge or more accurately, first start to be noticed or tend to be noticed. So you do expect a certain number of children to receive vaccines and have characteristics of autism start to emerge at the same time. That is an inevitability. But let me just say this. Overall, you know, anecdote and experience

are absolutely legitimate as a starting point for scientific investigation, right? But in this case, that scientific, that systematic investigation, it has been done and it is compelling. I come out of the conversation with Ilan feeling a bit better. The parents' stories are compelling, there's no getting around it. These are not stupid people. These aren't conspiracy theorists. They're genuine people who love their kids. But every serious scientific attempt to test whether vaccines cause autism has concluded that they don't. After Vaxxed, donations to anti-vaccine groups shoot up, not just to groups set up by Wakefield, but those founded by other emerging anti-vaxxers like Del Bigtree, the film's producer. I wanted to see how much money Andrew Wakefield has made

since coming to America, and from Vaxxed itself. So I start looking into his accounts. Wakefield's financial setup is complex and confusing. Some of his companies don't have any publicly available records at all, but he also sets up several non-profit foundations which are required by law to post annual returns. In 2010, Wakefield creates the first of these non-profits. It's called the Strategic Autism Initiative, and it's set up to promote medical and autism research. You can see from documents filed online that in 2011 the organisation receives $283,000 in donations. But you can also see that Wakefield gets paid $200,000. The next year, the non-profit gets $113,000 in donations and Wakefield is paid $100,000.

So in these two years alone, nearly all of the strategic autism initiatives donations, 75% of them, go to pay the salary of Andrew Wakefield. By the time FACTS comes out, Wakefield is running a new non-profit. This one's called the AMC Foundation. It's set up to produce documentaries about autism, and it helped fund the Vaxxed movie itself. In 2016, AMC takes in $1.3 million. Donations the year after are $754,000. That's serious money. This time around, AMC's documents don't tell us how much Wakefield was paid in salary. Instead, they only show that almost all of its donations were transferred straight to a for-profit company called the Autism Media Channel, a company half-owned by Andrew Wakefield. I want to know more about how controversial this setup is,

so I call up US financial journalist and investigator Roddy Boyd. I cannot imagine any non-profit attorney or veteran non-profit executive looking at that situation and feeling anything other than panic. Look, this is a most unusual transaction and it rings a lot of alarm bells in my head. It is possible that this might pass legal muster, but if it does ring alarm bells. We put these allegations to Wakefield, but he didn't get back to us. Polly Tommy, the other half-owner of the Autism Media Channel, has previously defended the transactions with AMC, saying that everything was cleared legally. By my calculations, Wakefield's

non-profits have collectively registered income of well over five million dollars. Most of that cash comes in and is transferred straight out again to for-profit companies controlled by Wakefield finds himself playing in a whole new league. At the beginning, he struggled to raise $5,000. And now he can raise easily $50,000 in one day, just being at a dinner where somebody invites him for dinner, pays for the dinner and then hands him over a check. I think that that has changed him completely. And also because of his new connections.

He begins to move in political circles. 2016, I had a meeting, a private meeting with Donald Trump in Kissimmee in Florida. And I went into the room and he said, let's get a picture. I know I like this guy. I like this guy. And we sat down and we talked and we talked about vaccines and autism. And he said, stop. You don't need to tell me that vaccines cause autism. He said I've experienced it personally and we talked for the next 50 minutes about that subject. In 2017 Andrew Wakefield splits from his wife and starts dating Elle Macpherson. Yeah that's the Australian supermodel known as The Body, the multi-millionaire businesswoman who's made the cover of Sports Illustrated a record five times.

Wakefield and McPherson, Andy and Elle, they're pictured arm in arm at a farmer's market in LA. She introduces him at press events for his movies. Good evening everybody, nice to be up here. I feel very honoured to be sharing the stage with you. It's quite unusual, we walk down the street and more people recognise him than me, which goes to show you how long my career is. It's really weird to me to see this world famous supermodel dating this slightly awkward, aging Brit, telling an audience that he's more famous than she is. But all that fame comes with a cost. There's actually a quote from Marcos Aurelius, the Roman emperor, that says, if you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, giving power. And this encapsulates the situation. Because in my experience, in my opinion,

I think that he has evolved dramatically internally. Francesca says that after Vaxxed, Wakefield changes. In 2018, she's working with him on his latest film, something called 1986 The Act. But, she says, by then he's become more arrogant, more showy. And after Trump's warm welcome, increasingly political. So, we are at the point of, he's getting more radicalised towards the right. He's getting money and more and more money from these very radicalized people.

He has a higher income and now different ideologies. The movie keeps changing. I start to disagree with him. And somebody said to me, somebody who knows him very well, he said to me, there is one thing you never tell Wakefield and that thing is no. Francesca's relationship with Wakefield over this period becomes really strained. Eventually they fall out in spectacular fashion. They stop speaking and Francesca sues Wakefield in court, alleging that he's reneged on a promise to pay her

and to cut her into the movie's profits. That claim was dismissed and Wakefield counter-sues, alleging that Francesca's incompetence has almost ruined his movie. A judge recently found in Wakefield's favour on part of his claim. The rest of the case is ongoing. on part of his claim. The rest of the case is ongoing. What is clear is that if she loses, Francesca faces a big bill. When I speak to her, it's clear that the court case has taken its toll. So he left me with the rent to pay on my own,

of a two-bedroom apartment that I didn't need. I was left without a job. And on top of it, he knew my mother had cancer. He knew my mother had cancer. And he knew perfectly that my father, my father was completely paralyzed, almost from the neck down. I did all the things and more that I've told you. And you know, I have this situation. What do you do? You sue me for $450,000?

Who does that? You want to know who Wakefield is? Answer that question. We invited Wakefield to respond, to give his side of the story, but he didn't get back to us. Francesca left us with a question. Who is Andrew Wakefield? To me, he's someone who's stubborn and relentless, someone who does not give up. He lost his medical career,

he lost the respect of the scientific community, but his ambition has only grown. After Vaxxed, his attacks on vaccines expand and evolve, his donations swell, his army of supporters grows, and now powerful politicians are starting to sense an opportunity. A chance to use anti-vax feeling as a vote winner, as a wedge issue to drive between the American people. A chance to go even further than Wakefield has ever dared.

The aim of these new anti-vaxxers seems to switch from challenging the science to gaining power. In the third and final episode of Dr Antivax, COVID radicalises the movement. But it is the silver lining of the dark cloud of COVID is that it has woken so many people up. And a new leader emerges. And if I have to die for this, I'm going to die with my boots on.

Thanks for listening. You can get early access to this and to all our Tortoise Investigative series, plus ad-free listening, by subscribing to Tortoise Plus on Apple Podcasts. Or for the best Tortoise listening experience curated by our own journalists, download the Tortoise app. And please leave ratings and reviews. They really help. Dr. Antivax is written and reported by me, Alexi Mostras, and Ilan Goodman.

The producer is Ilan Goodman. Sound design is by Tom Birchall. The editor is David Taylor. TORTUS