Interview: Dr. Wakefield on the children's 'mental health crisis' in the UK

Things are not good in the UK as far as children’s health is concerned, but looking back almost 30 years, everything that’s happening was predictable.

For parents with autistic children who follow the news, all of this takes us back to Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the British gastroenterologist who in 1998 wrote about a connection he was seeing in autistic children with GI problems that developed following MMR vaccination. For merely asking questions, Wakefield lost his medical license and was labeled as a dangerous fraud by the media here in the US and abroad.

Despite Wakefield’s concerns, the childhood vaccine schedule only increased, and the damage continued, resulting in the shocking numbers now coming out of the UK. Finally they’re acknowledging this as a crisis, but perhaps it is too late.

See:

For the first time ever, the government there is seriously worried about the unprecedented number of children who are disabled. And I don’t mean kids who are blind, deaf or have physical problems.

Instead, what they are seeing is an explosion in children with neurological disorders, ADHD and autism the most commonly cited.

They have been calling this a “mental health crisis,” which is actually a misnomer since the conditions are really neurological problems.

What they’re seeing can’t be dismissed as merely better diagnosing, greater awareness like we’ve been told so often in the past. These are children who have more complex needs, and always the demand is increasing. Something in the environment is driving this.

The UK Guardian reported this:

Dr Sam Jones, the research officer for mental health at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), said children in mental health crisis were now often more unwell than in the past.

“Alongside rising levels of poor mental health, the nature of need is changing fast. Problems are more complex and severe, more younger children are affected and rates of self-harm and eating disorders continue to rise,” Jones said.

The Children’s Commissioner for Health in England, Dame Rachel de Souza, released the report.

New analysis shows demand driven in part by children being increasingly referred for suspected autism and neurodevelopmental conditions. . .

The children's commissioner for England says referrals for suspected autism have risen 47% in just one year, as she argues demand for support is outpacing capacity and funding. . .

Dame Rachel de Souza said in her annual report, published on Monday, that she was "in no doubt that we are facing a crisis" in young people's mental health.:. . .

. . . Over 60,000 children were waiting over two years for help, 15,000 more than the year before.

While overall, one in 10 children is affected, among primary school children, it’s one in five.

Nearly one in five primary school children are now experiencing a probable mental health disorder - more than double the rate in 2011 – according to analysis published today by Health Equity North on behalf of the Child of the North All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). . . .

Once again, the people in charge can’t explain what’s happening.

A government review published in March highlighted that there is no "single narrative" explaining the rise in autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses within children’s mental health services. . . .

Still the denials

It also cautioned that increased diagnoses for ADHD and autism do not necessarily equate to a rise in prevalence, but could reflect improved recognition, changes in help-seeking behaviour, and evolving social patterns.

Even more disastrous for the UK is the latest announcement that the welfare system is being overrun by children’s disability claims.

The United Kingdom’s welfare system is barrelling toward an unprecedented fiscal cliff, with stark new government data projecting that 1.2 million children will require specialized disability assistance within the next four years. The explosive growth in pediatric claims, driven overwhelmingly by a surge in neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses, has pushed the annual cost of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and associated benefits to a staggering £26 billion [$35B] forcing urgent structural reviews at the highest levels of government

So, not only are the schools there facing bankrupting costs in order to educate so many disabled children, but the welfare system is also imploding with the surge in children’s claims.

Wakefield warned us

On July 10^th Dr. Andy Wakefield was interviewed about what’s happening in England by autism dad Wayne Rohde in Minnesota.

Andy did not have to guess about the cause. His concerns should have been a wakeup call back in 1998. Instead, he was vilified and his work dismissed.

Now, almost thirty years later, we see the neurological damage that results when children are made the victims of unregulated, unsafe vaccinations.

27:12 VIDEO LINK: Interview with Andy Wakefield on Children’s ‘Mental Health Crisis’ in England

First off, Wayne asked about Andy’s latest book, The Bequest.

Andy said it was now on Amazon’s bestseller list in several categories.

Wayne talked to Andy about my site, Loss of Brain Trust, which is a collection of over 12,000 news reports going back to 2017 that clearly show the relentless and massive decline in children’s health everywhere.

Stories from the UK are a major part of this coverage. Right now, one in every 29 children in England has an autism diagnosis, with thousands on long waitlists just to be assessed for ASD.

In Northern Ireland, one in every 16 children has autism. And in Wales, almost half of schoolchildren are receiving special education services.

Andy agreed that what we’re seeing in the UK is a massive fiscal and social crisis.

Andy:

The United Kingdom’s welfare system is barreling toward an unprecedented fiscal cliff, with stark new government data projecting that 1.2 million children will require specialized disability assistance within the next four years. The explosive growth in pediatric claims, driven overwhelmingly by a surge in neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnoses, has pushed the annual cost of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and associated benefits to a staggering £26 billion [$35B] forcing urgent structural reviews at the highest levels of government.

Andy went on to talk about the impact of vaccines. While vaccines are not mandatory for school in the UK, there is coercive pressure put on parents by doctors to have their children vaccinated.

Wayne brought up the exploding costs of having so many disabled children in his state of Minnesota.

Get this, 2015. We were spending 2.039 billion dollars in Minnesota on special education, with 128,000 students enrolled. 10 years later, we're at 3.24 billion dollars and 167,000 students enrolled in special education. That's just a growth in 10 years.

Wayne talked about other states that have had the same massive increases in disabled children. He noted that the general student population in US is declining at the same time the number of students with special needs is increasing and those needs are more complex and costlier.

Being forced to admit the truth

Andy:

I think one of the other problems that goes with this, and this comes back to that acknowledgement when the time comes that they are forced to acknowledge that what they have done in terms of vaccination policy has been instrumental in driving this dramatic increase.

Compensation

Then there is going to be the issue of compensation, and this is something that you know a great deal about. So you not only have the cost of funding the education, the special educational needs and beyond.

You've got the issue of liability on the part of the government, which the pharmaceutical industry does not have, that is going to have to acknowledge and compensate in some way those who've been damaged, and that this is why I think they had to introduce not only introduce the liability protection, but to corrupt the data.

And this is a story that was told in the movie 1986, The Act, and you've told us how they corrupted the system in order to prevent that guilty verdict coming down on them and them having to pay compensation.

So you have these two hugely, hugely expensive elements: the cost of special educational needs and beyond, and the compensation for the damage done.

And it's going to fall on the taxpayer. And you're quite right. It's these are sums that are going to effectively bankrupt the system.

The workforce

Moreover, it's taking more and more and more people out of the workforce. People who are no longer going to be productive, not just those affected, but those who have to look after them, the siblings who are forced to look after them because nothing, nothing. The healthy siblings are now going to be pulled from the general workforce to care for their injured or affected siblings, and so the costs across the board of this crisis are even too big for them to contemplate.

They're just hoping they finish up their term in office before this lands on their desk and they have to deal with it, whether they're politician or bureaucrat. And so it's going to be left to the taxpayer.

Wayne talked specifically about his son, Nick, who’s 28 and how he’s been affected by the Somali autism fraud scandal.

Every specifically for my son, every year that we have an assessment done by the county, Ramsey County here in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and it basically outlines everything of his needs for the upcoming year, and it pay that we have a waiver that helps pay for care for in-home care to keep him in the home for our son. That assessment was then this past year that was cut in half. The appeal you go to a hearing with a judge, administrative law judge, and you're not going to win the appeal because they're looking at the letter of the statute.

. . .But there's a lot of folks, a lot of people, a lot of individuals that need services, and they're getting trapped in this ugly battle.

Wayne talked about the impact of the Somali Medicaid fraud.

We noticed that there's several of us with the Autism Council that we put together back in 2017, we had service providers there as members of the council, and we were talking in between sessions and things like this.

We noticed that there was a lot of pop-up centers being established without appropriate people that have accreditation to provide those services, and we warned.

We sent letters to the governor. We sent letters and emails to the attorney general back in 2018 and 2019. Nothing crickets. It was just nothing. We saw it happening in the autism centers.

We questioned it. Now look at it. They say 9 billion. It's 18 billion. It's going to be who knows by then. But we're not going to get that money back.

The future is dark

We've been saying this is a problem coming, coming, you know, for 15, 20 years. But no one is listening or wants to listen. I should say they're ignoring and trying to kick the can down the road. So it's just a mess.

Andy summarized things as they stand

There will be at some stage soon an acknowledgement of what's happening in terms of what's driving this as a cause.

The science is unstoppable. We've reached the tipping point in that. It's particularly with COVID. COVID changed the mindset of so many people.

People understand that the system is corrupt. They've been lied to. They've been deceived, and their children have been put in harm's way.

When that becomes established when politicians have got the courage to take that issue on. Then we're going to see an acknowledgement of responsibility, and therefore, who's responsible for putting it right?

Who's responsible for correcting this? It's going to be very expensive. It's going to take a long time, but we need to stem the flow of affected individuals, and we need to provide for those who have been injured, and that's what needs to happen. And I do believe it will happen.

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Luke 8:17: “For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light“