In "The Doctor Who Fooled the World", journalist Brian Deer recounts his investigation of former doctor Andrew Wakefield—the man largely responsible for the "vaccines cause autism" myth, and, in turn, for a good chunk of the modern anti-vax movement. Wakefield, in short, once published a "study" (now redacted) showing a link between the MMR vaccine and autism that turned out to be almost a complete fabrication, built on terrible science and a lot of outright lies. Deer exposes all of that in this book.

I've wanted to read this ever since watching hbomberguy's video on the subject, and it didn't disappoint. Deer recounts the story as a gripping narrative that had me actually shaking my head in disbelief at the utter depths Wakefield was willing to sink to in order to further his interests—including not only a litany of lies and fraud, but also medical abuse of children for his own profit. Deer summarizes complicated medical terminology and concepts into simple explanations that laymen can easily follow. If this is a subject that interests you at all, I highly recommend giving this a read.

Andrew Wakefield should be in prison

I thought I knew how bad the situation was but it is Worse. A case study in how a charlatan can damage a century's worth of progress.