How Wrong Can Andy Wakefield Be About Measles Outbreaks?

we know how wrong he was about the MMR vaccine being associated with autism...

In the wake of rising measles cases, Andy Wakefield shows off how he is always wrong and how little he actually knows about measles and vaccines in a new interview.

What does he get wrong this time?

He is telling folks that we are seeing vaccine resistant strains of measles.

“And the problem with vaccination is that it encourages the evolution, the development of vaccine resistant strains, strains that are resistant to the immunity produced by the vaccine. We’re seeing that increasingly with measles in intensively vaccinated countries like France and the UK, so no. We have not, in a word, we have not eradicated measles ever, and nor will we.”

Andy Wakefield

Andy Wakefield was responding to a question by Polly Tommey on measles eradication, both misunderstanding that measles was eliminated in the United States, not eradicated…

Andy Wakefield goes on to mischaracterize data from the Disneyland outbreak, highlighting folks who had an immune reaction to their MMR shots. These are people who tested positive for vaccine strains of measles because of that immune reaction, not because they had vaccine induced measles.

They had a rash and/or fever after their MMR vaccine.

While he and other anti-vaccine influencers consider it proof that the MMR vaccine can cause measles, it is important to understand that these are not measles cases.

Next, Andy Wakefield talks about resistant strains of measles, something else he gets wrong.

“I’ll give you an example and that is the emergent strain of resistant measles, so called D4 strains of measles have been found in intensively vaccinated countries. [They] contain sequences which are associated with much more severe measles, with the persistent infection and the development of fatal encephalitis, so that’s really concerning. Are we watching the evolution of strains of measles virus that are actually in the long term more dangerous? We don’t know, but that’s certainly the implications from looking at the sequencing data.”

Andy Wakefield

Now, even if it had been true that these more severe, resistant D4 strains had been emerging, guess what?

Of the 20 original genotypes of measles, only two remain. So much for evolution…

We don’t see any D4 strains of measles anymore!

And if you were truly concerned and wanted to keep the wild measles virus from evolving or mutating, what should you do?

Get everyone vaccinated and protected to try and get measles infections under control!

Wakefield next says that experts were against universal vaccination in the 1960s…

That’s something else he gets wrong.

“Thus, in the United States measles is a disease the importance of which is not to be measured by total days' disability or number of deaths, but rather by human values and by the fact that tools which promise effective control and early eradication are becoming available.”

Alexander Langmuir

He fails to mention the great majority of experts who were all for getting everyone vaccinated and protected and eliminating measles!

They understood that measles was not “becoming milder and milder and milder,” as Wakefield says, but was still a very deadly disease.

“First, any parent who has seen his small child suffer even for a few days with persistent fever of 105 F, with hacking cough and delirium, wants to see this prevented, if it can be done safely.”

Alexander Langmuir

And no, these experts didn’t want it to be done just because it could be done.

They wanted it to be done because it was necessary.

“And if we had left it alone, that mortality would have approached and maybe reached zero. We didn’t need to protect children against measles. And therefore, we didn’t need to protect children against measles. In fact, measles, as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said, actually confers or appears to confer benefit of cellular immune responses against, for example, cancer. So we made a big mistake and it’s too late.”

Andy Wakefield

The only mistake folks made was ever listening to Wakefield!

That’s why we’re in this mess, isn’t it?

He even mischaracterizes one of the experts at the time who was against universal vaccination, saying that G.S. Wilson claimed that measles killed 1 in a million children in developed countries.

He didn’t.

“But I am not sure that it is quite as straightforward as that. In England and Wales, and I daresay in the United States also, only about one child in 100,000 children who suffer from measles actually dies.”

G.S. Wilson MD

Wakefield is again wrong when he says that measles doesn’t kill healthy children, as we saw recently with the death of the child in Texas who had no underlying health conditions.

What else?

Also, measles doesn’t benefit your immune system. In fact, it causes immune amnesia.

And there is no evidence that measles would have become less deadly if we had gone with his natural immunity model. After all, measles has been around since at least the 9th century and probably earlier. If measles was going to become a mild virus that didn’t kill anyone, why hadn’t it done so already?

Which begs one last question…

Why is anyone still listening to Andy Wakefield and RFK Jr’s Children’s Health Defense?

References

Children’s Health Live. Good Morning TV. March 5, 2025

Emmelot ME, Bodewes R, Maissan C, Vos M, de Swart RL, van Els CACM, Kaaijk P. Impact of genotypic variability of measles virus T-cell epitopes on vaccine-induced T-cell immunity. NPJ Vaccines. 2025 Feb 20;10(1):36. doi: 10.1038/s41541-025-01088-y. PMID: 39979288; PMCID: PMC11842548.

WHO. Distribution of measles and rubella by country, year, month, and final classification. https://immunizationdata.who.int/global?topic=Provisional-measles-and-rubella-data&location= (Accessed March 5, 2025)

WILSON GS. Scientific Problems Remaining Unanswered: Part I. Am J Dis Child. 1962;103(3):518–520. doi:10.1001/archpedi.1962.02080020530077

LANGMUIR AD. Medical importance of measles. Am J Dis Child. 1962 Mar;103:224-6. doi: 10.1001/archpedi.1962.02080020236005. PMID: 14462174.