Andrew Wakefield
Notes
Andrew Wakefield (born 1956), British former gastroenterologist and the origin of the modern vaccine-autism conspiracy. His 1998 paper in The Lancet, based on twelve children, claimed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism; the investigation by the journalist Brian Deer showed that the children had been recruited through lawyers suing vaccine manufacturers, that Wakefield had been paid by those lawyers, and that the case histories had been altered. The Lancet retracted the paper in February 2010 and the General Medical Council struck him off in May 2010 for dishonesty and for subjecting children to unnecessary invasive procedures.
He appears here because he is the single most consequential piece of medical fraud in living memory: MMR uptake in Britain fell from over 90 per cent to around 80, measles returned, and children died. He has never retracted, now lives in the United States, and remains a hero of the Anti-Vaccine movement. The based-level is not hyperbole.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield