Dr Andy Wakefield - Protocol 7: Four Decades of Vaccine Controversy

Shownotes and Transcript

Dr. Andy Wakefield joins Hearts of Oak to discuss his transition from mainstream physician to medical industry whistle-blower, sharing with us his findings on the MMR vaccine's link to autism. 
He talks about facing backlash, making films like "Vaxxed" and the recently released "Protocol 7" to address vaccine safety and pharmaceutical fraud. 
Despite challenges like losing his license, Andy stresses the importance of revealing the truth to the public. 
He highlights the profit-driven pharmaceutical industry's negligence towards patient safety, legal protections shielding companies from vaccine injury liability, and the need for public involvement in spreading awareness and demanding accountability. 

PROTOCOL 7 - An Andy Wakefield Film  
WEBSITE          protocol7.movie 
X/TWITTER      x.com/P7Movie
INSTAGRAM     instagram.com/protocol7movie

Andy Wakefield has been likened to the Dreyfus of his generation -- a doctor falsely accused of scientific and medical misconduct, whose discoveries opened up entirely new perceptions of childhood autism, the gut-brain link, and vaccine safety. As an ‘insider,' the price for his discoveries and his refusal to walk away from the issues they raised, was swift and brutal, with loss of job, career, reputation, honours, colleagues, and country. And yet he enjoys a huge and growing support from around the world.
Wakefield’s stance made him a trusted place for whistle-blowers -- from government and industry to confess and ‘download.' He has extraordinary stories to share. Wakefield is now an award-winning filmmaker. Despite elaborate attempts at censorship, his documentary VAXXED: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe – the revelations of a vaccine scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention- changed the public mindset on the truth about vaccine safety. Wakefield’s is a story that starts with professional trust in the instincts of mothers, choice and consequences, a quest for truth, and perseverance against overwhelming odds.
Andy has long pursued the scientific link between childhood vaccines, intestinal inflammation, & neurological injury in children.  
Dr. Wakefield is the co-founder of the Autism Media Channel & the founder of 7th Chakra Films.  
He is the director of his first major narrative feature, the recently released #Protocol7, 
co-written with Terry Rossio (Aladdin, Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean, Fast and Furious, Godzilla vs. King Kong).

Connect with Andy...
WEBSITE           7thchakrafilms.com 
INSTAGRAM      instagram.com/andrewjwakefield
X/TWITTER       x.com/DrAndyWakefield

Interview recorded  25.6.24

Connect with Hearts of Oak...
X/TWITTER        x.com/HeartsofOakUK
WEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/
PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/
SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/
SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/

Transcript

(Hearts of Oak)

I am delighted to have Dr. Andrew Wakefield with us today. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today.

(Dr Andy Wakefield)

Peter, my pleasure.

Great to be here.

Great to have you. And your name will be well known, certainly to many Brits. And I live through what you faced just as a Brit consuming news. And we'll get into all of that. People can follow you @DrAndyWakefield on Twitter. And we're going to talk about your latest film, Protocol7.Movie. All the links will be in the description. So we will get to that. But I encourage people to not only look at your Twitter feed, but also look at the website for the film, which is literally just out. But you're the award-winning filmmaker of Vaxxed and many other films. And of course, the latest one just came out. Doctor, if I can bring us back a little bit, because you had a certain time where your name was massively out there and that was simply asking questions. I think a lot of us have woken up to maybe big pharma, have woken up to vaccines and their role over the last four years. And you were much earlier than many people in the public. But that Lancet MMR autism, and I think your Wikipedia probably says fraud more than any other Wikipedia I've ever read.

But you talked about that link between MMR, mumps, measles and rubella vaccine and autism. Maybe you could just go back and let us know your background, your medical background, and then what led up to you putting that out and maybe give us an insight into the chaos that ensued?

Certainly, Peter.

I was an entirely mainstream physician.

I graduated at St. Mary's Hospital in London, part of the University of London, one of six generations of doctors in my family to have graduated there.

And I ran a research team in gastroenterology at the Royal Free Hospital in North London and our principal interests were Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis inflammatory bowel disease, and in 1995 parents started contacting me and saying my child was perfectly fine they had an MMR vaccine in many cases and they regressed rapidly into autism, had seizures, lost speech, and language interaction with their siblings.

And ultimately they were diagnosed with autism, well I know I knew nothing about autism.

It was so rare when I was at medical school we weren't taught about it and I said you must have got the wrong number,.

They said the reason we're contacting you is my child has intractable bowel problems, failure to thrive, they're in pain, I know they're in pain even though they've lost the ability to communicate.

And the doctors and nurses that I've spoken to about this have said that's just part of autism, get over it, put them in a home, move on have another child.

It's an extraordinary situation and so we investigated these children I put together a very eminent team of physicians.

Who investigated these children and confirmed that the parents were right the children had I had an inflammatory bowel disease, and that's now been confirmed in multiple studies worldwide.

When we treated that bowel disease, then not only did the gastrointestinal symptoms improve, but the autism improved.

We didn't cure it, but the children, for example, started using words they hadn't used for five years.

It was quite extraordinary.

And so as academics, we said that didn't happen, and we did it 183 times, and it happened pretty much every time.

So, we then began to believe that there was something really very, very interesting.

So, when the parents said my child regressed after a vaccine, we had a professional and moral obligation to take that very seriously.

But that really flew in the face of government policy and pharmaceutical industry profiteering. And that was really the beginning of the end of my career.

The dean, Harry Zuckerman, took me aside and said, if you continue this vaccine safety research, it will not be good for your career.

In that, at least he was correct. And when you offend government policymaking and the bottom line for the pharmaceutical industry, really, there's no price you will not pay.

And people are now familiar with that. In the context of COVID, it's happened to many, many eminent doctors and scientists.

But at the time, this was was a novelty, the cancel culture was a novelty, the ability of the system to destroy your career if you stepped out of line was something really quite new.

And...

So, I moved to America, set up a centre there for here in Austin, Texas for autism.

They eventually destroyed my career there.

And so I thought, well, how can I continue to help this population?

And I'd been fascinated by filmmaking for a long time, screenwriting for a long time.

And what had happened, Peter, is that over the years, because of the position I'd taken, And people had come to me from the Department of Health in the UK or from regulatory agencies such as the CDC in the US or the industry, the vaccine manufacturers, and said, we've done a terrible thing.

Here is the evidence. We've committed fraud. And so I became a repository, if you like, for whistle-blowers.

And this story, the latest story, Protocol 7, I mean, my films have been made about these whistle-blowers, some of them.

And the latest story, Protocol 7, is one such whistle-blower, who came to me many years ago and presented to me the compelling story that ultimately we've turned into a major narrative feature film.

Well, we'll get into that, but the role of media, I mean, you had BBC Channel 4 with hit pieces against you and I'm sure many others.

What was that like?

Because you said you were kind of mainstream.

I remember that time as well, whenever I was mainstream, probably six years ago.

So, it was a little bit later due.

And you believe these institutions are positive.

They're about actually reporting the news.

And then you realize, actually, they're not.

What was that like whenever you had all these media outlets suddenly make you a target of their reporting?

Well, I think it really, part of it was Rupert Murdoch, his son, James Murdoch, was put onto the board of GlaxoSmithKline, Europe's biggest manufacturer of MMR, with the objective as a non-executive director of protecting that company's interests in the media, certainly the Murdoch media.

And his target was me and they came after me in the biggest way and in the wake of that you know channel 4 as you say and others followed suit.

It was very tricky. It was very difficult, because you didn't get to put the other side of it everything was heavily edited and it was just a relentless attack they were determined utterly determined that I committed fraud never committed scientific fraud in my life.

But you can destroy the career of a physician or scientist in five minutes, literally five minutes.

All you need is the headline and that's it.

And then you spend the rest of your life trying to.

Get back your reputation if ever.

And I abandoned that idea because it was, the issue wasn't about me.

It was about something far more important.

And as soon as I, you know, I stopped worrying about what the media might say about me and simply got on with the job of doing what I could to help these children, then a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders.

I just didn't worry about that anymore.

Say what they like.

I've got a job to do while I still have time on this planet.

And that was to advocate on behalf of these children and try and move the needle on the real pandemic, which is of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders.

I mean, it's in the media in the UK every day.

We're talking about one in just over 20 children in Northern Ireland, in Scotland, in the UK.

And this is an extraordinary level of a permanent serious neurological condition.

When I was at medical school, it was one in 10,000.

So what has happened?

Just to bring your listeners up to date, your viewers up to date. The CDC performed a study at my behest.

I told them, I said, look, I think that age of exposure is a major factor.

The younger you are when you get the MMR, the greater the risk.

It's not simply you get the MMR, you get autism.

That's not it.

There's got to be a co-factor associated with it.

And age of exposure is one, I believe.

Now, everybody is now familiar that the outcome from a viral infection, for example, COVID, is age-related.

The older you are with COVID, the greater the risk.

So everybody gets that now.

And I said this to them.

I said, I think that younger of age, your exposure is a major risk.

Why?

Because with natural measles, if you get it under one, you're at greater risk of a severe outcome than you are if you're over one.

There is an age-related risk.

So, they went away, they tested that hypothesis, and they confirmed that it was absolutely true.

And they spent the next 14 years covering up, destroying the data, destroying the documents and changing the results to say that MMR vaccine was safe.

And it was only when William Thompson, the senior scientist at the CDC who had designed the study, collected the data and analysed the data, had written the paper, came to me, came to a colleague of mine who came to me and said, we have done this terrible thing.

I can no longer live with it.

Here is the truth.

And that was the basis of the film Vaxxed. And it wasn't my opinion.

It wasn't my producer's opinion.

This was the senior scientist from the CDC responsible for the study confessing to this fraud.

What happened?

Nothing. No one was held accountable.

Absolutely appalling.

These people, these five scientists at the CDC and their superiors had. Committed fraud and put millions of children at risk of serious permanent neurological disease and done so wilfully, knowing that there was a risk.

And so I was appalled. And beyond that, I thought my filmmaking is going to expose people.

It's going to actually hold people accountable for what they've done.

Your study was, it was a small study, wasn't it?

I think it was what like a dozen or 16.

You're simply saying there does seem to be a link and it's surprising it could have been surprised, one time it should have been surprising, that actually a doctor who raises a concern that should surely be looked at and checked over instead of attacking but it wasn't a massive.

You were simply saying these this is the pattern that I'm seeing in the small number of patients that I'm looking at in this study.

That's absolutely right.

The way in which human disease syndromes are described is usually in a handful of patients who present with...

It's such a consistent pattern of signs and symptoms of clinical measures that they merit reporting in their own right.

And that's exactly what this was.

It couldn't test any hypothesis.

It couldn't come to any conclusions other than more research was needed.

It actually said this study does not confirm an association between the vaccine.

It doesn't.

It couldn't do.

It is merely reporting the parent's story.

And it was a very sober paper.

But of course, the media blew it up to claim that I had said MMR vaccine causes autism.

No, I didn't.

However, I would say that now in light of the CDC study, I would most certainly.

And it's their behaviour.

It's their need to commit the fraud and hide the data that is the most compelling evidence that there is this clear link.

They know there's a link, and rather than do something responsible about it they have put the children at continued risk.

In fact they've expanded the vaccine program dramatically, so they've put even more children at risk in my opinion.

No, completely and where many of us maybe may not have been anti-vaxxers five years ago we sure as hell are now so it's changed completely, but can I just ask you; you were up against the UK General Medical Council.

They're the ones that allow you to practice.

They're a judge and jury. It was like a few years investigation.

Then in 2010, they decided that you were no longer acceptable.

They struck you off.

Tell us about that, because I've talked to doctors recently during the COVID chaos who have fought for their right to continue to practice as doctors and they've struggled. You were doing this 14 years ago.

What was that experience at the General Medical Council?

It was difficult.

It was really difficult because there needn't have been a hearing.

They'd made up their minds before we even walked through the door.

The General Medical Council were under threat from the government of having their powers taken away and the government dictating policy such as right to practice and medical sort of ethics.

And they therefore were under scrutiny from the government.

They had to deliver on a decision, and they did.

Now, the reason I can say that is that their decision was contrived and indeed made up their minds before they even come to the hearing is that when it came for the first time before a proper judiciary, before the UK's sort of senior courts, if you like.

The judge was appalled by the GMC's behaviour.

He said, and this is in the trial of John Walker Smith, my colleague's appeal against the decision to strike him off, he said, this must never happen again.

It was really a political tool to destroy dissent.

Now, I appealed as well as John Walker Smith, but I was told by my lawyers that it would cost me half a million pounds to pursue that appeal.

I didn't have half a million pounds.

I didn't have anything.

So, the law belongs to those who can afford it.

And that's a fact, whether you live in America or whether you live in the UK.

Justice belongs to those who can pay for it.

And so there was no opportunity for me to have my case heard on its merits it was simply thrown out.

What we did do though when Brian Dear a journalist published in the British medical journal now claiming that I had committed fraud which is absolute nonsense.

We sought to sue him and the British Medical Journal in the state of Texas.

Now, that's where I lived.

That's where my reputation was damaged.

And that's where there was legal precedent that allowed us to sue them.

Because the BMJ is a journal, sells its wares, its journal, to Texas medical schools.

It profits from Texas medical schools.

And there is a long-arm statute in Texas that allows us to sue them for defamation.

Why would you, it costs about $3 million to sue someone for defamation.

Why would you even think of doing that in a situation where all of the evidence is going to be laid bare for the public to scrutinize?

Why would you do that if you committed fraud?

You wouldn't do it.

There was no fraud and therefore we had an extremely strong case and they knew it.

They absolutely knew it and and they did everything they could to get out of it.

Ultimately, the judge, the appeal court judges here ruled that we did not have jurisdiction.

That went in the face of all of the legal precedent.

We did not have jurisdiction. Indeed, the BMJ lawyers invoked Texas law in an attack on us.

I mean, it was extraordinary that we weren't allowed to sue them here in Texas.

This was a political decision from the highest level.

They did not want this case to go forward.

They They knew we were going to prevail, we were going to win, and that would have undermined their entire sort of years and years and years attacking me and others for suggesting that MMR vaccine might not be safe.

And so we were denied the opportunity to have the case heard on its merits, and that's where it remains.

Tell us about Vaxxed in 2016 from cover-up to catastrophe.

And that talks about the CDC and others destroying evidence to show that there could be a link between MMR and autism.

That's something which I think many of us over the last four years would probably accept that sounds plausible, definitely that makes sense, because of what we've seen with big pharma and the collusion with media and governments.

But this, you put this out prior to that happening probably in a world where maybe people may not accept that as much because there was more were trusting institutions.

But tell us about that film and the authorities wanting to destroy any evidence which would show there was a link.

Yes, that was a fascinating film because, as I say, it was an insider from the CDC who was intimately involved in the study that looked at age of exposure to MMR and autism.

And it clearly showed that the younger you were when when you've got the vaccine, the greater the risk of autism.

And that was in...

All children, boys in particular, and black boys above all.

For some reason, black children seem to be highly susceptible to this adverse vaccine reaction.

Now, we don't know the reason for that.

Further follow-up studies should have been done.

Now, when the CDC found this association, they had some clear options that would have been there available to them in the interests of the the American public.

They could have said, right, we can delay.

Let's suggest delaying this vaccine until it's safer.

And we have done a bigger, better study to confirm it or refute it.

That's what they should have done, to give parents the information, to give them the option.

But they didn't.

They trashed all of the documents.

They trashed the data.

They altered the results.

And they, for 14 years deceived the public, doctors, the government, everybody, and so it was a very powerful story and we made the documentary it got into the Tribeca film festival which for us was one of the sort of preeminent film festivals and then it was withdrawn, it was censored.

And I think that occurred because one of the sponsors of the film was involved in money management on Wall Street involving the pharmaceutical companies and also perhaps a sponsor of the Tribeca Film Festival.

And so, you know, this is what I hear, whether it's true or not, that remains to be seen.

But we were censored.

This is the first time this had ever happened at Tribeca Film Festival.

And it was a bad few days.

And then De Niro went on the television on the what's called Good Morning America and the Today Show, the big national shows and said, we should never have done that.

We should have played this film, everybody should have seen it and made up their own minds.

And suddenly there was an explosion of interest in this film that people had been banned from seeing.

And every attempt by the media to cover it up or De Niro's partner, Jane Rosenthal, to shut him down during interviews failed.

He was very angry, very angry. And it had the impact of spreading the news of this film worldwide.

And so what we saw at that point, which should have pre-empted COVID, was a major shift in people's perception.

They came to the movie theatre, they watched the movie, and they said, wow.

There is something, there's a problem here.

And then, of course, we had the COVID experience and the extraordinary mishandling and misconduct and lies and deception, about the disease, its origins, and the vaccines, so-called vaccine.

And public trust in the public health authorities has never been at such a low.

And it will never recover and the point peter is this is that they only have themselves to blame.

That is the truth.

It's no good then coming after me, or after you, or people who bring them the message or come from the clinic and saying this is what I see in these children.

They only have themselves to blame for their arrogance and their stupidity.

Now, 2016 it was about that specific link MMR and autism 2019 you widened it in vax 2and to look at actually side effects, vaccine harms, across a range.

And certainly the issue does not seem to just be one vaccine, there seems to be a range and we've seen that, and I know any parent will have had this conversation thought, any parent that actually is aware of conversations happening, and they will maybe have questioned the rush to jab children.

I will touch on the amount of jabs children now get, which is quite concerning, the rise of jabs.

But 2019, yeah, you widen it away from just MMR and concerns of side effects to this seems to be in many vaccinations.

Was that received differently or do you still have the the same uphill struggle.

Now, that film was not mine.

It was made by Brian Burrows and Polly Tommy.

And I was interviewed for that film, but it wasn't my movie.

But what happened, it was based upon a series of interviews. After Vaxxed, we went off across the country, principally Polly Tommy, interviewing thousands of parents about their experience.

And it emerged that other vaccines were involved as well.

And I'd come to this via a different route.

I came over to America to testify before Congress on the vaccine autism issue.

And there I became aware that the mercury in vaccines was a problem.

I wasn't aware of it before, that aluminium in vaccines was a problem.

And so it became clear that it is very likely that it's the actual toxic load that a child is presented with at a very early stage, rather than just being one vaccine or another.

Now, we'll never be able to discern the truth of that.

We know which vaccines are involved, which are more important or less important.

And this comes to a point you've made, is that they have so many vaccines now that how do you even begin to untangle the complexity, the permutations of how was it this vaccine or this one and this one together or these three or these 15?

We just don't know.

And I think there's almost been a deliberate attempt to expand the program without doing the appropriate safety research in order to make it virtually impossible possible to target any specific vaccine.

So, I think that my sort of current thinking on it, and had we been allowed to conclude our research without it being sabotaged, is that it is related to the toxic load.

And there is a study that has literally just come out from Brian Hooker.

Scientist with an affected child, that shows that there is an exponential increase in severe adverse reactions like autism with increasing load of vaccines.

The more you're given at one time, the greater the risk of an adverse reaction.

This dose response effect is very plausible and is very strong evidence of causation. So, the field is highly complex.

I'm quite certain that the sheer volume of vaccines that are given to children is way in excess of being safe.

I mean, way in excess.

And it has never been subjected to any formal clinical trial.

You know, is it safe to give multiple vaccines at the same time?

Hasn't been done.

Well, yeah let me poke, because the issue is supposedly we have had a vaccine that's tested over a 10-year period or whatever and then it's decided safe, but the amount of vaccines that children are given; there is absolutely no way you could do any long-term study on that number of combinations of vaccines.

So, it's completely into the unknown.

It is.

Now and here's the dilemma lemma is that when you take a pharmaceutical agent in the United States, for example.

Then it goes through years, literally sort of 10, 15 years of clinical trials, randomized control clinical trials using a placebo, an inert placebo, before it's deemed to be safe.

And yet with vaccines, that doesn't apply.

They're classified as biologics, and the bar is set very much lower for safety.

And so for the childhood vaccines, there has never been a proper long-term placebo-controlled randomized trial of safety.

And therefore, it is deceptive, entirely deceptive to say that these vaccines are safe.

They're not because they've never been subjected to the appropriate safety studies. And people need to know that.

People need to realize that.

It just has not been done. And it's now, you know, it's too late to close the gate.

The horse has bolted.

The vaccine safety studies are very difficult to do now, certainly prospectively.

Well, one thing I just, before I get into Protocol 7, one thing I realized traveling the States so much over the last couple of years is that you turn on a TV, so different from Britain, and you see an advert for medication and it tells you how wonderful this medication is.

And then half the advert is telling you the possible side effects and usually ends up with death. And you're thinking, that's the last thing I want to have.

But that's a world away, and that's just kind of pushed through and accepted that actually the side effect could be much worse than the disease or the issue that it's trying to address.

And you think, I sit and watch some of those adverts when I'm over in the States and think, how do we get to this situation where death is seemingly better than a headache?

It is bizarre and this direct consumer advertising that happens in America and the other the only other place it happens is New Zealand.

We don't, you know it doesn't happen in the UK, but it it's it's there's something more insidious about it, and that is the fact that the nightly news networks here way in excess of 70% of their income comes from the pharmaceutical industry advertising.

They could not sustain their operation, a news operation, in the absence of that pharmaceutical industry sponsorship.

And so, the industry controls the narrative the industry controls the editorial the headline they're not going to publish something and this happened to me I was interviewing with a girl called Cheryl Ackerson outstanding journalist who was at the the time at CBS.

And she said, Andy, when we have finished editing this sequence about vaccines and autism, I will get a call within, you know, in 15 minutes, I'll get a call from the money men on the top story, a top floor saying, you will not play this segment because our sponsors have said they'll pull their money.

Well, she was wrong.

It was five minutes later. It came five minutes later.

And that's the way they operate, I'm afraid.

So there is, over and above advertising their drugs, there is something far more sinister about the control, the influence that these drug companies have over American mainstream media. Fortunately, in the UK, that direct-to-consumer advertising does not exist.

So I want to jump on, which fits perfectly into Protocol 7, which seems to be about someone, a lawyer, small town, sees issues with Big Pharma, with the industry and wants to challenge.

And it is a David and Goliath, something I guess, as you alluded to, we're all up against with Big Pharma.

But tell us about this film, which is a story about a whistle-blower, but also going up against Big Pharma.

This is based on a true story whistle-blower who came to me many years ago at a meeting in Chicago and revealed this fraud within Merck in respect of its mumps vaccine.

And it's really a story more about the behaviour, how the industry behaves when confronted with a threat to its profiteering and its monopolistic sort of control of a vaccine in a country like America.

And it's against sort of set against the love and devotion the um intuition of a mother who happens to be a lawyer who fights who battles against the power of the industry.

And I'm not going to spoil the end for anyone but I urge people to see this film.

It is it's now won 27 film awards it's only just really come out.

It's got some wonderful reviews.

Very, very high scores on rotten tomatoes and IMDb, so the key to the success of this film is its dissemination is people watching it and we're planning our UK release our European release as well right now So when it comes, please support it.

Please get your friends and family to it.

Merck realized in the 90s that the Mumps vaccine wasn't working and they took, many, many steps to cover that up and to essentially defraud the American public, the medical profession and others.

And that's what the story is about.

And it's based upon documents, actual documents obtained from that company that confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt what happened.

It's important in the context of safety.

And you may say, why is it?

The film really is about, or Merck's fraud, was about the efficacy, the protectiveness of the vaccine.

It wasn't working as well as they said it was working.

And that made it dangerous.

Why?

Because mumps in children is a trivial condition.

That's acknowledged by the CDC.

Mumps in post-pubertal adults is not trivial.

You risk suffering testicular inflammation and sterility or or ovarian inflammation, brain inflammation.

And so a vaccine that doesn't work or only works for a limited amount of time will make you susceptible to mumps again when you're past puberty, when you're in that at-risk period. And so a vaccine that doesn't work makes it a dangerous vaccine.

It makes mumps a more dangerous disease.

And this is a very important thing to understand within the context of mumps.

Merck certainly knew about it and continued to defraud the public despite that.

So yeah, it's a very, very important film over and above the issue of mumps.

It's about how the industry responds to threats that really sort of compromise its ability to earn revenue, make profits, and maintain a monopoly.

Because I think people often forget, and maybe have woken up during the COVID tyranny, that these institutions, they exist to make money for their shareholders.

They don't really exist to make a product which makes you better.

Their primary aim is the share price for shareholders, just like any company.

And if they make a product that actually helps you, then to me, that's a bonus.

Is that too cynical a view of the industry?

No, it's absolutely true.

And they wouldn't deny that.

They would say, we're here as a business to make money.

We're here as a business to serve our shareholders, our stockholders, first and foremost.

That's not ambiguous at all.

They would admit to that.

The problem comes when everything's fine and they're making good drugs and they're benefiting people.

That's fine.

It's how the industry responds when something goes wrong.

And for example, with Merck and Vioxx, the drug that, you know, was notoriously unsafe.

But, you know, they knew at the time of licensing that there were problems. It was causing strokes and heart attacks.

It was estimated, I think, that many hundreds or thousands of people suffered as a consequence of that drug.

In the litigation in Australia, where Merck were, really, their heads were on the block about this.

They uncovered some, in discovery, they uncovered documents which were an exchange between Merck employees about what to do about doctors who criticized their drug.

And they said, we may have to seek them out and destroy them where they live.

This is not conspiracy theory.

This is company policy.

There you have these guys saying, we may have to seek them out and destroy them where they live.

Okay, so these are the kind of people with whom you're dealing.

Tell us, because we hear that these companies are beyond the legal sphere.

They have protections and safeguards within countries, and it doesn't matter what side effects that the drug causes, they have this legal protection.

I mean, is that the case, or is there a way of actually using the legal system to actually go after these companies?

Or is it a slap on the wrist?

Sometimes they pay out money to different governments and they say: oops

Well there there is and it's interesting the national childhood vaccine injury act in this country in America in 1986 took away liability financial liability from the drug companies for death and injury caused by childhood vaccines on the recommended schedule.

Now, that was a gold mine for the industry because they had mandatory markets.

Kids had effectively to get vaccinated to go to school and no liability.

All they could do was make a profit. But the legal system does work sometimes.

And in the context of COVID and the so-called COVID vaccine.

There's just been a ruling, I think, by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that has said COVID vaccine is not a vaccine.

It doesn't protect against disease and it doesn't stop transmission.

Ergo, it is not a vaccine.

Now, once it's not a vaccine, by ruling of the court, it's not covered by the indemnity.

It's not covered by the government protecting the industry.

Suddenly, they're on their own.

And that really raises some very interesting legal possibilities that is for litigation in this country.

So, we'll see what happens.

But there will be every effort by the government to side with the pharmaceutical industry to prevent them being sued, I'm quite sure, because that's what happened.

But let's hope that the judges see it differently.

I just want to end off on people's response to you because you were maligned, attacked.

The media tried to discredit you.

You then moved to the US. You lost your medical license.

But these films you're putting out, they tell a compelling story.

Tell us about how you feel these films have woken people up, maybe in a way that back whenever this happened to you 25 years ago, the opening was not there for the same ability to win people over.

The opening does seem to be here now, maybe because of COVID, maybe people are more aware, maybe because of alternative media.

But tell us about the message you're putting out in these films and kind of the response you're getting.

Thing well really the films are made in a way that they're entirely up to the protocol seven, these were entirely factual documentary films and so vax for example if there'd been any word of a lie, if we'd got something wrong, we would have we've accused these scientists at the CDC of the worst sort of humanitarian crime.

Their job was to protect these children they did completely the opposite.

The hypocrisy goes way beyond what we've seen before and so if there had been a problem.

We would have been sued to the moon and back again and there wasn't and they why because they know that it's true.

And that's a very powerful thing and the same comes now with protocol 7 even though it's a narrative feature film.

If there was something in that film that was defamatory of Merck, then they would come after us.

They may well do because they're big and rich and powerful, certainly far more powerful than we are.

But that's not a reason. Not to get the story out.

My commitment is, my duty is to the public, not to Merck or to the government or indeed to the whistle-blower, but to the public who are being harmed.

And so never make a decision based in fear.

This is something I've learned over the years.

If the story has merit, if it's honest, if it's true, if it has integrity, then you get it out there and, you know, let the cards fall where they may.

Yeah completely.

I want to ask you about funding, because it's everything costs money.

It is actually, it takes a lot of work not only finance but expertise and research to put anything like this out and you know you're going up against an industry that will attack you in any opening any any chink in your armour.

Was it difficult to actually raise funding to put these films together?

Initially, it was.

You know, this is my fifth film, and initially it was difficult, because people said, well, you're a physician.

You know, what are you doing making films?

Now they say, they're much more inclined to say, you've proven you can do it.

Get on and make the next one.

It's not easy, particularly in the current climate, I mean, Hollywood itself is in the doldrums; filmmaking, but the people still want meaningful films they want films that count films like Sound of Freedom and others that they really mean something that are worth going to the movie theatres to watch.

And so that's the kind of film that we're making and hopefully we'll be able to continue to do it.

I just can ask you about the last last thing about those who want to be part of what's happening, supporting the film as it comes out. I mean, how do they play a part?

They can go, obviously, to the website, protocol7.movie, make sure and follow that, and they can follow your Twitter.

But if they want to say, actually, I believe this message, it's so true, I have friends, family, actually suffering side effects, not only MMR, but across the board, and I want to make sure this message gets out. How can they play a part in doing that?

One thing they can do, I mean, if they're immensely rich, they can fund the next film.

If they're not, then they can help.

People can help by going to the website and clicking on Pay It Forward.

And this is a way of, we saw it with Sound of Freedom.

It was very successful, a way of providing tickets for people who might not otherwise be able to afford a ticket to go and watch the movie, or for people who might not be inclined otherwise to go.

In other words if there if there is an incentive to get a free ticket they may go and then be persuaded.

And so it's a way of helping other people to access the film.

When they might not otherwise be able to or be inclined to do that so pay it forward is a very useful device.

And of course on the website you can pass on the trailer and make sure people watch that and get ready for it.

Please do.

Now, the success of the film comes down to the public.

And that means, you know, your listeners, your viewers.

So, we're very, very grateful for any help in that respect.

And Sound of Freedom did that to a degree we hadn't seen before.

And I encourage the viewers and listeners to do the same for Protocol 7. Dr. Andrew Wakefield, it is an honour to have you on and someone who I read all the stuff. In the late 90s and probably believed a lot of it that uh how times change and it's great to have you on and thank you for what you're doing on getting the message out on the link between the pharmaceutical industry and side effects.

Well thank you so much.

My pleasure thank you for having me on.