Dr. Andrew Wakefield: The MMR-Autism Link Was Covered Up—And Millions Were Put at Risk

"People have to be held accountable for the damage they've done."

Dr. Andrew Wakefield explains why he took up the cause of exposing the link between vaccines and autism, despite enormous pushback.

"In 1995, mothers started calling me and saying: My child was absolutely normal, and then they had a triple vaccine—MMR—and they regressed into autism."

"And so we investigated this. And, as is always the case in medicine, the parents were right."

"And so we pursued the vaccine issue against a lot of pushback from my colleagues, and the medical school, and heavy investment from pharmaceutical companies."

"And it turned out to be absolutely right... to the extent that when the CDC investigated it later... they found the data so compelling—that linked the MMR vaccine to autism—they had to destroy the data."

"One of their senior scientists came forward 14 years later and said: We have done a terrible thing. We have lied, and we have put millions of children at risk of serious, permanent neurological injury."