Last updated on November 30th, 2016 at 01:31 pm
Just when you thought that Andrew Wakefield could not annoy us any more with his delusional bromance with Donald Trump and pushing a discredited movie on the public, he comes back with a new Andrew Wakefield paper published in Ecology and Evolution, which has revealed that domestic LED lights are much less attractive to nuisance insects such as biting midges than traditional filament lamps. It was first authored by British researcher, Dr. Andrew Wakefield
Excuse me, what? LED lights and midges? What’s that got to do with vaccines?
Oh wait, this is a completely different Andrew Wakefield. This Wakefield calls himself “Andy Wakefield,” a newly minted PhD from the University of Bristol (UK) School of Biological Sciences. He’s also a teaching associate at the University of Bristol.
Actually, Andy Wakefield’s research is fairly interesting. The research showed that environmentally appropriate LED lights attracted four times fewer insects compared with the traditional incandescent lamps, and half as many as were attracted to a compact fluorescent lamp. So you can reduce energy use and not attract annoying insects. Sounds like a win-win to me.
So, Dr. Andy Wakefield is a real scientist, teaching real biology to students, and doing real research that might have applicability to reducing contact with biting bugs which may carry some nasty diseases. He seems to be an expert on how street lights affect wildlife. Unfortunately, Mr. Andrew Wakefield is a defrocked doctor who pushes a fake belief that vaccines cause autism. Which they don’t.
Dr. Brian Deer (yes, he’s now got a doctorate) has never written about Dr. Andy Wakefield. But he certainly has written a bunch of articles about the “research cheat” Andrew Wakefield in BMJ, you can read about it here, here, and here.
Dr. Andy Wakefield’s research has never been retracted. On the other hand, Mr. Andrew Wakefield’s main article that tried to link the MMR vaccine to autism was retracted.
Dr. Andy Wakefield’s research might actually help mankind. That cannot be said of Mr. Andrew Wakefield’s lies.
I do feel bad for Andy Wakefield (the LED light researcher), since any time his name is Googled, about 300 articles and posts about the vile Andrew Wakefield will show up. But you can help out. Read and share this article as much as you can. So when someone searches for Andy Wakefield when he’s doing a job search or meeting someone for the first time, they find that there is an evil Andrew Wakefield who has nothing to do with the good Andrew Wakefield. Keep sharing everywhere.
Let’s share and discuss the new Andrew Wakefield paper. OK?
Citations:
- Wakefield A, Broyles M, Stone EL, Jones G, Harris S. Experimentally comparing the attractiveness of domestic lights to insects: Do LEDs attract fewer insects than conventional light types? Ecology and Evolution 2016 Nov;6(22):8028–8036. DOI: 10.1002/ece3.2527
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