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Andrew Wakefield calls Trump “on our side” over vaccines after meeting

BMJ 2016; 355 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i6545 (Published 05 December 2016) Cite this as: BMJ 2016;355:i6545
  1. Owen Dyer
  1. Montreal

Anti-vaccine advocates across the US are optimistic about the prospect of one of their own occupying the Oval Office, after it emerged last month that the most famous vaccine critic in the US, Andrew Wakefield, met with Donald Trump before the election, leading a delegation of vaccine activists.

“For the first time in a long time, I feel very positive about this, because Donald Trump is not beholden to the pharmaceutical industry,” Wakefield told the US medical news website Stat last week. Wakefield was struck off as a doctor in the UK in 2010 for deliberately falsifying research to suggest that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine caused autism and inflammatory bowel disease.

Trump’s transition team is not commenting on any plans they might have to change federal policy on vaccinations. Trump has previously said that he would push to eliminate …

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