Wakefield discussed the politics involved in this controversy and the pressure put on those who speak out. 

He made the stunning statement:"The notion of protecting children against serious infectious disease using safe and effective vaccines is laudable.  Unfortunately, none of the vaccines that are currently on the schedule, in my opinion, come anywhere close to meeting those criteria, either alone, but most particularly in combination."

Wakefield was most critical in his remarks about the ethic/motivations of the vaccine industry and Brian Deer. 

We owe a debt of gratitude to Stacy Francis for allowing Dr. Wakefield this opportunity to explain what happened to him and how it changed his life. 

"It was a very dark time. ...It's rather like a nightmare where you see a catastrophe taking place before your eyes.  You've got all of these parents coming and saying the same thing whether they live in India, or Europe or America, they are telling you the same story.  They're not making it up.  . . . They realize they have a story in common with so many other parents.  So you're seeing a lot of children being damaged.  At the same time your ability  to do something about that is being stripped from you.  You can't help them clinically, you can't help them scientifically.  What do you do?  And that is a nightmare. 

"What's interesting is ultimately, when you lose everything, when you lose your career, and your income, and the letters after your name, it's strangely liberating.  Strangely liberating because you think, right, everything's gone, you've got nothing left you can take away from me, so I'm going to become your worst enemy.   And with my great friend, Polly Tommey, we decided that if you're going to take on the media, you have to become the media.  . . ."

Wakefield pointed out that the push to end exemptions and remove parental rights is bringing this to a head.  He went on to talk about the whistleblower.  He said that in 2001, CDC scientists tested the hypothesis that the younger a child receives the MMR vaccine, the greater the risk for autism.  They found it was correct--and they were told to bury the data.   Thompson refused to announce the fraudulent findings at the IOM Meeting in 2004.  Instead, as Dr. Wakefield said, "The lead author, Dr. Frank De Stefano, went up there and lied.  He presented the false data, said there is no problem.  The IOM said, that's it, no further funding should be given to vaccine safety research.  In Vaccine Court, 5,000 cases were pulled, based on that decision. . . ."

Wakefield continued explaining how William Thompson broke protocol and contacted Dr. Julie Gerberding, then head of the CDC, about the data they found.  For doing that, according to Wakefield, what Thompson got was "a threat to sack him for trying to expose the truth.  And the whole thing then was covered up.  Julie Gerberding left and went to Merck, to become the head of vaccines on some huge salary."  Wakefield also explained how the whistleblower's story came out. 

The upcoming rally at CDC's headquarters in October was talked about.   Dr. Wakefield said he would be there along with Tony Muhammed of the Nation of Islam, and Robert Kennedy, Jr. "We will get the kind of attention that this deserves because it is an utter disgrace.  It's an utter disgrace that you can take, even in this day and age, a particular racial subgroup, who you know are at very high risk, and you can consider that acceptable collateral damage for your policy? . . .

"One of the senior authors of that paper. . . is an African American woman.  Watching this happen. . . .  It's reminiscent of . . . the CDC, the public health experiments in Tuskegee with syphilis.   The experiments in South Central Los Angeles with a measles vaccine that was known to be highly reactogentic, very dangerous.  It was causing deaths in children in developing countries.

"What are we thinking?  What are we thinking to allow this to happen?  Did they think this would never come out?  Did they think they would be able to conceal this forever?  Clearly they did.  That's the thinking of the people who are in charge of the health of this country."

Wakefield went on to describe the differences between the mercury additive, thimerosal, the aluminum used in vaccines, and the live virus MMR vaccine.  He called for recognition of autism as a medical condition, not a psychological one. 

Wakefield made a dramatic appeal for our country to address the future needs of this disabled generation.  "We cannot watch them just fall upon the mercy of a system, a society that does not care."  He said that Polly Tommey in Austin, TX, had started a center for adults with autism that addresses their specific needs called www.autismtrust.org.  The continuing disaster will involve the coming adults that we're not prepared to handle or pay for.