Andrew Wakefield, MB (doctor of medicine)

June 4, 2009

Like it or not, there is an unrelenting debate about whether vaccines have poisoned the minds of some children. That vaccines may do so is acknowledged  (by, among others, autism expert Professor Sir Michael Rutter ) and is not actually the debate at hand; the real questions are, which children and how many? The base of the tsunami that is the autism epidemic – one sustained hitherto, by competing arguments for the rising number of diagnoses and those invested in non-environmental causes – is no longer able to support its top.  In accordance with simple wave mechanics, the tsunami’s slope is too great and breaking is inevitable. Breaking, for the purpose of this metaphor, extends to the shoreline’s horizon, from the child to the family, to schools, to the state budget, to public confidence in healthcare infrastructure, and beyond.

Charles Shepherd, MD

Winter 2001

ME Association, United Kingdom

There is widespread agreement that a variety of infections are capable of precipitating chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in susceptible individuals. In l988, Lloyd et al reported that several of their patients had linked the onset of CFS to receiving a vaccination in the absence of any coincidental infection.^l Since then, other anecdotal reports have also linked vaccinations to the onset of CFS.^2,3

The explanation for vaccine-induced CFS may be because the primary purpose of any vaccine is to mimic the effects of infection on the immune system. If an antigenic challenge by infection can precipitate CFS, then it is conceivable that vaccines could act in a very similar manner.