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Andrew Wakefield has spent years at the center of a debate that changed the course of his life. Near the end of this haircut, Tab asks him a simple question: knowing what he knows now, would he do it all again? Wakefield's answer is immediate. Getting to that answer is the conversation.
Tab first heard Wakefield's name from clients who believed their children had changed after routine vaccinations. He wanted to know how Wakefield himself arrived at the center of that argument. Wakefield traces his work back to 1995, when, as a gastroenterologist researching inflammatory bowel disease, he says parents came to him describing both developmental changes and gastrointestinal symptoms in their children. He explains why he investigated the bowel complaints, how the question of a possible connection to MMR entered his work, and what followed his team's 1998 paper in The Lancet.
Tab also asks about the professional and public consequences: the allegations of research fraud, his dispute with the British Medical Journal, and the way he believes the press told his story. Wakefield shares his account of a deposition and the Texas litigation.
Then the story takes a different turn. Wakefield recalls standing in a field in Bandera, Texas, deciding that instead of fighting the same battle through courts and journals, he would make films. He describes the Chicago family and the death of teenager Alex Spourdalakis behind his first documentary, Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis?, and explains why that experience convinced him of film's power. Tab asks about his later narrative feature Protocol 7 and why he moved from documentaries into scripted stories.
The final part of the conversation is about the question behind Wakefield's novel The Bequest: who will care for a person with profound autism when their parents can no longer do it? He tells Tab about an encounter with a mother that made that question impossible for him to put aside. Before the haircut ends, Tab returns to the choice that changed Wakefield's life: would he make it again?
CHAPTERS
00:00 Why Tab wanted to meet Andrew Wakefield
03:03 The parents who came to his clinic
06:39 Gut symptoms and the questions he investigated
10:55 Asking about MMR—and a warning about his career
19:41 The 1998 Lancet paper
29:18 The British Medical Journal dispute, in Wakefield's account
36:11 Why he became a filmmaker
39:26 The story behind Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis?
45:11 Autism, genetics, and the environment
55:26 Protocol 7 and telling the story through film
1:00:35 Responding to the fraud allegations
1:07:23 The Bequest: who cares for a child when the parents are gone?
1:18:34 Would he do it again?
FIND ANDREW WAKEFIELD
Website: https://wakefieldmediagroup.com/
Book — The Bequest: https://www.thebequest.co/
Instagram: @andrewjwakefield
X: @drandywakefield
FIND SPLITTING HAIRS
Website: https://splittinghairspodcast.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@splittinghairspod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/splittinghairspod/
Tab's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tabcutshair/
What question would you have asked Wakefield in the chair? Leave it in the comments, and subscribe for the next conversation.
Andrew Wakefield's views and claims are his own. This episode is not medical advice.
