---
title: The MMR scare:from a 1998 press conference to Vaxxed, and its 1802 ancestors
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mmr-autism-scare/
description: a 12-child case series in The Lancet was launched at a hospital press conference where its lead author called for single vaccines in place of MMR; the…
section: Case studies
---

![Illustration: a redacted Cold War intelligence-dossier collage centred on a world map of influence operations, with the U.S. Capitol among the evidence.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/hero-home.jpg)

[Case studies](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/)

# The MMR scare:from a 1998 press conference to Vaxxed, and its 1802 ancestors

At a glance

A 12-child case series in The Lancet was launched at a hospital press conference where its lead author called for single vaccines in place of MMR…

- **When:** February 26, 1998
- **Actor:** Andrew Wakefield and the Royal Free press conference…
- **Target:** Parents of young children in the UK, then the US, then worldwide
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Confidence:** **documented** Primary documents, court records, official disclosures
- **Techniques:** [Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Bothsidesism](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/bothsidesism/) [Motte and bailey](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/motte-and-bailey/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/)

Full details

- **Actor:** Andrew Wakefield and the Royal Free press conference; UK national and regional newspapers (2001-2002); US celebrity advocates (2007-2009); the makers of Vaxxed (2016). Historical comparisons: 1800s anti-vaccination leagues and pro-vaccination satirists; the 1976 US swine-flu programme

On this page

- [What happened](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mmr-autism-scare/#what-happened)
- [How it works](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mmr-autism-scare/#how-it-works)
- [Then and now](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mmr-autism-scare/#then-and-now)
- [Positions on the record](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mmr-autism-scare/#positions-on-the-record)
- [Same-method test](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mmr-autism-scare/#same-method-test)
- [How to spot it](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mmr-autism-scare/#how-to-spot-it)
- [Images](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mmr-autism-scare/#images)
- [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/mmr-autism-scare/#sources)

On this page

> **Content note.** Some of the 19th-century prints reproduced here show dead and disfigured children. They are shown as published, as evidence of how each side used images.

**In one line:** a 12-child case series in *The Lancet* was launched at a hospital press conference where its lead author called for single vaccines in place of MMR; the paper was later found to rest on misreported cases and an undisclosed legal-aid interest, and was retracted, but the claim kept travelling through press balance, celebrity testimony and a 2016 film.

![Diagram: a 12-child case series gains Lancet prestige, is launched at a press conference with a single-vaccine remedy, is carried by balanced press coverage and celebrity testimony, and outlives its retraction; UK uptake falls and measles returns](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/mmr-autism-scare-diagram.svg)

## What happened

- **26-28 February 1998.** The Royal Free Hospital in London holds a press conference for a *Lancet* paper by Andrew Wakefield and 12 co-authors on 12 children with bowel and developmental disorders. It reports that parents linked the onset of behavioural symptoms to MMR in eight children, and states: "We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described." At the press conference Wakefield said he could not support continued use of the three vaccines in combination until the issue was resolved, and called for single vaccines.
- **Late 1990s, Swansea.** The *South Wales Evening Post* runs a sustained campaign against MMR. Mason and Donnelly (2000) found a statistically significant fall in MMR uptake in its circulation area compared with the rest of Wales.
- **December 2001.** The Blairs decline to say whether their baby son Leo has had MMR, calling it a private matter; Tony Blair calls some front-page coverage "horrible and unjustified".
- **January-September 2002.** A Cardiff University study counts 561 UK media reports on MMR: 69% mention the claimed link, 37% mention the evidence that the vaccine is safe.
- **November 2002.** A Danish nationwide cohort (Madsen et al., *NEJM*, 537,303 children) finds no link: relative risk of autistic disorder in vaccinated children 0.92.
- **1995-96 to 2003-04.** Uptake of MMR by age two in England falls from a peak of about 92% (1995-96) to about 80% (2003-04), per NHS immunisation statistics and the House of Commons Library.
- **20-22 February 2004.** Brian Deer reports in *The Sunday Times* that Wakefield had received £55,000 from the Legal Aid Board for a pilot study for litigants against vaccine makers, with children overlapping the *Lancet* series. *The Lancet* states that this funding was a conflict of interest that should have been disclosed and was not.
- **6 March 2004.** Ten of the paper's co-authors publish a "retraction of an interpretation", stating that no causal link between MMR and autism was established because the data were insufficient.
- **September 2007 to June 2008.** Jenny McCarthy tells Oprah Winfrey that her son's autism followed his MMR shot. In June 2008 she and Jim Carrey lead the "Green Our Vaccines" rally in Washington under the line "not anti-vaccine, pro-safe vaccine".
- **July 2008.** The Health Protection Agency reports measles endemic in the UK again, 14 years after local transmission was halted; England and Wales had 971 confirmed cases in 2007.
- **28 January 2010.** A General Medical Council fitness-to-practise panel finds that Wakefield acted dishonestly and irresponsibly, and with "callous disregard" for the children's distress.
- **2 February 2010.** *The Lancet* fully retracts the paper, stating that the claims that the children were "consecutively referred" and that the investigations were "approved" by the local ethics committee have been proven false.
- **24 May 2010.** The GMC erases Wakefield from the medical register. (His senior co-author John Walker-Smith was also erased, but won his appeal in the High Court in 2012.)
- **January 2011.** The *BMJ* publishes Deer's investigation and an editorial calling the paper "an elaborate fraud". Deer reports that three of nine children described as having regressive autism did not have autism diagnosed at all, and that five children described as previously normal had documented pre-existing developmental concerns.
- **November 2012 to July 2013.** A measles outbreak centred on Swansea: 1,219 notifications in the outbreak area, 88 people in hospital, one death.
- **March 2016.** Tribeca Film Festival pulls *Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe*, directed by Wakefield; Robert De Niro says it does not further "the discussion I had hoped for". It is released independently.
- **March 2019.** A second Danish cohort (Hviid et al., *Annals of Internal Medicine*, 657,461 children) again finds no link: hazard ratio 0.93.
- **July 2018 to December 2019, Samoa.** Two infants die after nurses mix MMR powder with an expired muscle relaxant instead of diluent; the nurses are jailed for manslaughter, and vaccination is suspended for about ten months. First-dose measles coverage in 2018 falls to about 31%. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (then "a prominent anti-vaccine activist", in AP's words) writes to Samoa's prime minister in early 2019 asking to study its MMR vaccines, and visits in June. From late 2019, measles causes more than 5,700 cases and 83 deaths. A local activist, Edwin Tamasese, is charged with incitement over posts against the vaccination drive; the court later finds he has no case to answer.

![Andrew Wakefield in a Vaxxed T-shirt, Warsaw, 2019](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/mmr-autism-scare-wakefield-2019.jpg)

*Andrew Wakefield speaking at a march in Warsaw, 2 June 2019, wearing a* Vaxxed *T-shirt. Photo: Bladość, CC BY-SA 4.0.*

## How it works

- [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/): the evidence pile was 12 children, not consecutively referred, some of them overlapping with a litigation pilot, with case details that the *BMJ* and GMC found did not match the hospital records. A case series has no comparison group, so it cannot show cause, and the paper's own caveat said so. The message that travelled did not carry that denominator.
- [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/): *The Lancet*'s name and a teaching hospital's press room lent the claim a standing that a 12-case series does not carry on its own. The journal's 2010 retraction withdrew that standing.
- [Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/): a named consultant at a press conference, then famous parents. McCarthy told Oprah her knowledge came from "the University of Google". Parents describing what they saw in their own child are primary witnesses, which the definition excludes; the technique lies in presenting a celebrity's vouching as a substitute for the cohort studies.
- [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/): a staged harm (autism) and a single prescribed remedy (separate jabs), offered without base rates. The 1802 anti-vaccination print below uses the same device with a monster. On the official side, see the 1808 print and the 1976 note under "Then and now".
- [Bothsidesism](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/bothsidesism/): Lewis and Speers found coverage that gave the claim and the evidence similar weight; 53% of people surveyed at the height of coverage assumed that because both sides got equal coverage, there must be equal evidence for each, and only 23% knew the bulk of evidence favoured the vaccine.
- [Motte and bailey](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/motte-and-bailey/): a documented, dated sequence. Bold claim: MMR caused her son's autism (Oprah, 2007). Retreat: "not anti-vaccine, pro-safe vaccine" (the 2008 rally's framing, repeated to PBS *Frontline* as "We're not an anti-vaccine movement ... we're pro-safe vaccine"). Reoccupation: "If you ask a parent of an autistic child if they want the measles or the autism, we will stand in line for the f___ing measles" (*Time*, 2009). Retreat again: "I am not 'anti-vaccine'" (*Chicago Sun-Times*, 2014). McCarthy's stated position is that she wants safer vaccines and a spaced schedule; the tag applies to the pattern of statements, not to that aim.
- [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/): both sides of the 19th-century fight. The 1808 pro-vaccination print labels opponents "Mercenary & Merciless Spreaders of Death"; the League postcards call vaccination a "Blood-Poisoning Operation" and compulsion a "Crime".

## Then and now

![The Cow-Pock, or the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation!, James Gillray, 1802](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/mmr-autism-scare-gillray-cowpock-1802.jpg)

*James Gillray,* The Cow-Pock, or the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation! *(1802). Edward Jenner vaccinates a frightened woman while cows sprout from other patients' faces and arms. The subtitle directs viewers to "the Publications of ye Anti-Vaccine Society", the pamphlets whose fears it exaggerates. Library of Congress, public domain.*

Gillray drew literally the fear his subtitle attributes to anti-vaccine publications: that matter taken from a cow would make people bovine. The 1998 scare had a different mechanism (a named researcher, a journal, a press conference) but the same shape: a new injection given to healthy children, a feared hidden harm, and a remedy (refuse it, or split it).

**Content note:** Period caricature of a monster devouring infants. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) ![Vaccination, a monster fed with infants, etching c. 1802](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/mmr-autism-scare-vaccination-monster.jpg)

*"Vaccination", attributed to Charles Williams (c. 1802). A horned monster labelled with pestilence, plague and leprosy eats baskets of infants and excretes them with horns; an obelisk honours the anti-vaccination doctors Moseley, Squirrell, Rowley and Birch, and young men with lettered shields attack the monster. Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0.* Fear-appeal from the anti-vaccination side.

![Vaccination against Small Pox, or Mercenary and Merciless Spreaders of Death and Devastation Driven out of Society!, Isaac Cruikshank, 1808](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/mmr-autism-scare-cruikshank-1808.jpg)

*Isaac Cruikshank (1808). Jenner and two colleagues drive off three smallpox inoculators, opponents of vaccination; children dead of smallpox lie at their feet. Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0.* The pro-vaccination side used the same tools: a loaded label and a pile of dead children.

Britain made infant smallpox vaccination compulsory from 1853 and tightened enforcement in 1867. In early 1885 the *Vaccination Inquirer* referred to "4,000 or 5,000" pending prosecutions in Leicester. On 23 March 1885 a mass demonstration marched there, with a child's coffin and an effigy of Jenner; estimates run from 20,000 to 100,000. The 1898 Act added a conscientious-objection route.

![The Vaccination Inquirer, The Vaccination Revolt at Leicester, 1885](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/mmr-autism-scare-leicester-1885.jpg)

*The* Vaccination Inquirer *announces the Leicester demonstration of 23 March 1885, calling on "all opponents of the Vaccination Tyranny". Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0.*

![National Anti-Vaccination League postcards, c. 1898](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/mmr-autism-scare-league-postcards.jpg)

*National Anti-Vaccination League postcards (c. 1898 or later): Leicester's smallpox deaths set against the Army and Navy's, with a testimonial from the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace; "Whom does vaccination profit?"; "DO YOUR OWN THINKING". Public domain.*

![Anti-Vaccination Society of America advertisement, 1902](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/mmr-autism-scare-avsa-ad-1902.jpg)

*Anti-Vaccination Society of America membership notice (1902): "Liberty cannot be given, it must be taken." Public domain.* The liberty frame predates MMR by a century.

**Official messaging, the same test.** In 1976 President Ford announced mass vaccination against a swine-flu strain, saying: "no one knows exactly how serious this threat could be. Nevertheless, we cannot afford to take a chance with the health of our Nation." The warning states its own uncertainty, so it falls under the fear-appeal definition's "not" clause and is not tagged. More than 40 million Americans were vaccinated before the programme was halted in December 1976 over a small increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome (Sencer and Millar, 2006). The CDC poster below makes a plain request without staged harm.

![CDC swine-flu vaccination, 1976](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/mmr-autism-scare-swine-flu-1976.png)

*A clinician gives a jet-injector vaccination during the 1976 swine-flu campaign. CDC / Robert E. Bates, public domain.*

![Keep Measles a Memory: Immunize!, CDC poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/mmr-autism-scare-cdc-keep-measles-a-memory.jpg)

*"Keep Measles a Memory: Immunize!", U.S. Public Health Service / Centers for Disease Control (undated, 1980-1992 by the agency names on it). Public domain.*

For a later case where doubt was built by setting a real evidence pile against "no proof", see [A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/frank-statement-1954/); for a modern official health campaign that does meet the fear-appeal definition, see [The Real Cost — "Your Skin"](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/real-cost-your-skin-2014/).

## Positions on the record

- **Wakefield's stated position:** he denies fraud, accepted the Legal Aid funding facts in 2004 but denied they created a conflict of interest (*The Lancet*'s editor called that view "perverse"), and in 1998 recommended single vaccines, not no vaccination. He remains off the UK medical register.
- **Parents' stated concerns:** parents who delayed or declined MMR commonly said they wanted single vaccines or more certainty; in South Wales, parents interviewed after the 2013 outbreak described media coverage as part of their decision. Many newspapers read the Blairs' silence about Leo as doing little to settle those doubts. These concerns are part of the record; they are not the fraud finding, and holding them is not the same as taking part in it.
- **Public-health position:** MMR is safe, and the claimed autism link is not supported by the large cohort studies.
- **Kennedy's position on Samoa:** he told the US Senate in 2025 that his 2019 visit had nothing to do with vaccines. Documents reported by AP and *The Guardian* in August 2026 show his earlier letter to Samoa's prime minister asked to study its MMR vaccines. Samoa's Ministry of Health says his visit coincided with increased anti-vaccine sentiment, but "there is no conclusive evidence" that it directly contributed to the fall in coverage or the outbreak.
- **What is documented:** the MMR-autism claim is false on the record: co-authors' retraction (2004), *The Lancet*'s full retraction (2010), the GMC findings (2010) and nationwide cohort studies (2002, 2019). The finding of fraud rests on the *BMJ* investigation (2011) and the GMC's findings of dishonesty. The UK fall in uptake and the measles resurgence are documented.
- **What is not shown:** that every vaccine-hesitant parent was misled by Wakefield; how much of Samoa's coverage collapse came from the 2018 nurse error and suspension rather than from anti-vaccine messaging; and any conduct finding against the co-authors who were cleared (Walker-Smith on appeal, Simon Murch by the panel).

## Same-method test

Swap the direction and the finding holds. A drug maker that launched a 12-child case series at a press conference to promote a vaccine, with an undisclosed financial interest, would get the same card-stacking, transfer and conflict-of-interest findings. The 1808 Cruikshank print is the mirror in the record: the pro-vaccination side called its opponents "spreaders of death" and drew the dead children to prove it, and it is scored with the same name-calling and fear-appeal definitions as the 1802 monster. The difference lies in the record, not the method: smallpox vaccination went on to eradicate the disease (declared by WHO in 1980), while the 1998 claim was retracted and found false.

## How to spot it

- Ask for the denominator: a case series of 12 cannot show cause; cohorts of half a million can test it.
- Check whether the paper's own text says what the press conference says.
- Look for money or litigation behind a study, and whether it was disclosed.
- Equal airtime is balance only if the evidence is equal.
- When a speaker says "not anti-X, just pro-safe-X", compare it with what the same speaker said a year before and after.

## Images

| Image | Source | Licence |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Mechanism diagram (above) | Drawn for FRAME from this page's sourced facts (`make_diagrams.py`) | CC BY 4.0, FRAME |
| Andrew Wakefield, Warsaw, 2019 | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrew_Wakefield_2019_(cropped).jpg), Bladość | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| Gillray, *The Cow-Pock* (1802) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_cow-pock_-_or_-_the_wonderful_effects_of_the_new_inoculation_LCCN94509853.jpg), Library of Congress | Public domain |
| "Vaccination" monster (c. 1802) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_monster_being_fed_baskets_of_infants_and_excreting_them_wi_Wellcome_V0011073.jpg), Wellcome Collection | CC BY 4.0 |
| Cruikshank, *Vaccination against Small Pox* (1808) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jenner_and_his_two_colleagues_seeing_off_three_anti-vaccinat_Wellcome_V0011075.jpg), Wellcome Collection | CC BY 4.0 |
| *Vaccination Inquirer*, Leicester (1885) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vaccination_Inquirer;_Anti_vaccination_revolt_Wellcome_L0000113.jpg), Wellcome Collection | CC BY 4.0 |
| National Anti-Vaccination League postcards (c. 1898) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anti_vaccination_league_postcards.jpg) | Public domain |
| Anti-Vaccination Society of America notice (1902) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anti-Vaccination_Society_of_America_advertisement_from_1902.jpg), College of Physicians of Philadelphia | Public domain |
| Swine-flu vaccination (1976) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CDIC_PHIL_8365,_Woman_receiving_vaccination_with_jet_injector.png), CDC PHIL 8365 | Public domain (U.S. government work) |
| "Keep Measles a Memory" (1980-1992) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Keep_measles_a_memory-_immunize!_(6944448611).jpg), National Library of Medicine | Public domain (U.S. government work) |
| *The Frank Statement* (1954), *The Real Cost* (2014) | FRAME gallery | See gallery entries |

### Image gaps

- **The 1998 press conference, the *Lancet* paper's first page and the 2010 retraction notice.** Copyrighted (Elsevier and broadcasters). Linked under Sources, not hosted. **Not fillable** with open material found so far.
- **UK newspaper front pages, 2001-2002 (Leo Blair, MMR).** Copyrighted. Not fillable.
- **The *Vaxxed* poster and film stills.** Copyrighted. Not fillable.
- **Jenny McCarthy on Oprah (2007) and the 2008 Washington rally.** Broadcast and agency photos are copyrighted; no openly licensed rally photo was found. **Possibly fillable** if a CC photo of the rally turns up on Commons or Flickr.
- **Photos of the 1885 Leicester procession.** None found on Commons; the *Inquirer* page stands in. Possibly fillable from Leicester archives.
- **A UK Department of Health MMR campaign leaflet (2001-2004).** Crown copyright material may be reusable under the Open Government Licence, but none was found on Commons, and UK government sites could not be reached from this environment. **Fillable.**
- **The Gillray print as a gallery entry.** It is public domain and deploys fear-appeal imagery, but the gallery's era field has no pre-1914 bucket, so it is a page image only. The same applies to the 1802, 1808, 1885, c. 1898 and 1902 items.

## Sources

- [Wakefield AJ et al., "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children", *The Lancet* 351 (1998), retracted](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(97)11096-0/fulltext)
- [*The Lancet*, "Retraction", 2 February 2010](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)60175-4/fulltext)
- [*The Lancet*, statement by the editors, 20 February 2004](https://www.thelancet.com/pb-assets/Lancet/extras/statement20Feb2004web.pdf)
- [Murch SH et al., "Retraction of an interpretation", *The Lancet* 363 (6 March 2004)](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(04)15715-2/fulltext)
- [Deer B, "How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed", *BMJ* 2011;342:c5347](https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347)
- [Godlee F, Smith J, Marcovitch H, "Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent", *BMJ* 2011;342:c7452](https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452)
- [Deer B, *The Sunday Times*, 22 February 2004, archived by the author](https://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-deer-2.htm)
- [GMC Fitness to Practise Panel, findings of fact, 28 January 2010](https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/gmc-charge-sheet.pdf)
- [Dyer C, "Wakefield is struck off for the 'serious and wide-ranging findings against him'", *BMJ* 2010;340:c2803](https://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c2803)
- [*Walker-Smith v General Medical Council* \[2012\] EWHC 503 (Admin)](https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/admin/2012/503)
- [Madsen KM et al., "A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism", *NEJM* 347 (2002)](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134)
- [Hviid A et al., "Measles, Mumps, Rubella Vaccination and Autism: A Nationwide Cohort Study", *Annals of Internal Medicine* 170 (2019)](https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M18-2101)
- [NHS Immunisation Statistics, England, 2004-05](https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-immunisation-statistics/nhs-immunisation-statistics-england-2004-05)
- [House of Commons Library, "Measles and MMR statistics", SN/SG/2581 (2009)](https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN02581/SN02581.pdf)
- [Health Protection Agency, "Measles once again endemic in the United Kingdom", *Eurosurveillance* 13(27), 2008](https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/ese.13.27.18919-en)
- [Public Health Wales, measles surveillance and epidemiology](https://phw.nhs.wales/topics/immunisation-and-vaccines/immunisation-surveillance/measles-surveillance-and-epidemiology/)
- [Welsh Government written statement on the measles outbreak, 23 May 2013](https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-measles-outbreak-0)
- [Mason BW, Donnelly PD, "Impact of a local newspaper campaign on the uptake of the measles mumps and rubella vaccine", *J Epidemiol Community Health* 54 (2000)](https://jech.bmj.com/content/54/6/473)
- [Lewis J, Speers T, "Misleading media reporting? The MMR story", *Nature Reviews Immunology* 3 (2003)](https://www.nature.com/articles/nri1228)
- [CNN, "Blair defends child vaccine policy", 23 December 2001](https://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/12/23/britain.blair/index.html)
- [Cambridge Core, "The impact of the media on the decision of parents in South Wales to accept measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) immunization", *Epidemiology & Infection* (2015)](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/impact-of-the-media-on-the-decision-of-parents-in-south-wales-to-accept-measlesmumpsrubella-mmr-immunization/DC68953197515D2CB4D7BC1E373F786A)
- [Open University, *The MMR vaccine: public health, private fears* (press conference and Leo Blair sections)](https://www.open.edu/openlearn/health-sports-psychology/health/the-mmr-vaccine-public-health-private-fears/content-section-5.2)
- [*Mother Jones*, "How Oprah helped spread anti-vaccine pseudoscience", 2018](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/01/how-oprah-helped-spread-anti-vaccine-pseudoscience/)
- [ABC News, "Celeb couple to lead 'Green Vaccine' rally", 2008](https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=4987758)
- [PBS *Frontline*, "Jenny McCarthy: 'We're not an anti-vaccine movement ... we're pro-safe vaccine'"](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/jenny-mccarthy-were-not-an-anti-vaccine-movement-were-pro-safe-vaccine/)
- [*Time*, "Jenny McCarthy on autism and vaccines", 2009](https://time.com/archive/6933347/jenny-mccarthy-on-autism-and-vaccines/)
- [UPI, "Jenny McCarthy: 'I am not anti-vaccine'", 13 April 2014](https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2014/04/13/Jenny-McCarthy-I-am-not-anti-vaccine/4261397433431/)
- [*Time*, Kluger J, "No, Jenny McCarthy, you can't duck your anti-vaccine nonsense now", 2014](https://time.com/60416/jenny-mccarthy-anti-vaccine-whitewash/)
- [STAT, "Controversial anti-vaccination documentary pulled from Tribeca Film Festival", 26 March 2016](https://www.statnews.com/2016/03/26/vaccination-wakefield-tribeca/)
- [Deadline, De Niro statement on *Vaxxed*, March 2016](https://deadline.com/2016/03/robert-de-niro-vaxxed-tribeca-film-festival-statement-1201726799/)
- [ABC (Australia), "Samoan nurses jailed for infant vaccination deaths", 2 August 2019](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-02/samoa-nurses-sentenced-manslaughter-infant-vaccination-deaths/11378494)
- [UN News, Samoa measles outbreak, December 2019](https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/12/1053131)
- ["Curbing the 2019 Samoa measles outbreak", *The Lancet Infectious Diseases* (2020)](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30044-X/fulltext)
- [CBS News, "As RFK Jr. faces U.S. Senate, questions linger about a measles outbreak in Samoa", 2025](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-samoa-measles-outbreak/)
- [STAT / AP, "RFK Jr. said a Samoa trip had nothing to do with vaccines. New documents refute that", 27 August 2026](https://www.statnews.com/2026/08/27/kennedy-samoa-trip-mmr-vaccine-new-documents/)
- [ABC News, "Samoa arrests anti-vaccine activist", December 2019](https://abcnews.com/News/samoa-arrests-anti-vaccine-activist-combats-deadly-measles/story?id=67539326)
- [CIVICUS Monitor, "Anti-vaxxer case dismissed", 2021](https://monitor.civicus.org/explore/anti-vaxxer-case-dismissed-while-controversial-bills-passed-samoan-parliament/)
- [Ford G, "Remarks announcing the National Swine Flu Immunization Program", 24 March 1976, American Presidency Project](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-announcing-the-national-swine-flu-immunization-program)
- [Sencer DJ, Millar JD, "Reflections on the 1976 swine flu vaccination program", *Emerging Infectious Diseases* 12(1), 2006](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/05-1007_article)
- [World Health Organization, smallpox (eradication declared 1980)](https://www.who.int/health-topics/smallpox)
- [Library of Congress, Gillray, *The cow-pock*, LCCN 94509853](https://lccn.loc.gov/94509853)
- [*Lapham's Quarterly*, "Our medical liberties" (Leicester 1885 and the Vaccination Acts)](https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/freedom/our-medical-liberties)