Dr. Andy Wakefield, MB, BS, was an academic gastroenterologist, who received his medical degree from St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, in 1981. He pursued a career in gastrointestinal surgery with a particular interest in inflammatory bowel disease. He qualified as Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1985 and was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists in 2001. He has published over 140 original scientific articles, book chapters, and invited scientific commentaries. In the pursuit of possible links between childhood vaccines, intestinal inflammation, and neurological injury in children, Dr. Wakefield lost his job, his career, his fellowships, and his medical license. He is the author of the national bestseller Callous Disregard and an award-winning film director and co-founder of the Autism Media Channel, an award-winning documentary and movie production company that brings cutting-edge stories to public attention. He was the director of VAXXED: From Cover-up to Catastrophe, and joined The Ripple Effect Podcast to chat about his new film 1986: THE ACT, which I highly recommend.
War On Whistleblowers: The High Cost of Speaking Truth To Power | Ex-CIA John Kiriakou | Ripple Effect #571
John Kiriakou, from a decorated high-ranking CIA counter-terrorism chief who led the 2002 capture of al-Qaeda’s Abu Zubaydah, to a federal inmate, John Kiriakou’s life is a masterclass in the high cost of speaking truth to power. In 2007, he became the first CIA official to publicly confirm the agency’s use of waterboarding, explicitly calling it torture—an act of whistleblowing that eventually led to him being the only person imprisoned in connection with the torture program. After serving 23 months, he reinvented himself as a sharp-witted author and commentator, hosting the Deep Focus podcast and penning books like The Reluctant Spy, and the gritty survival manual Doing Time Like a Spy, effectively using his intelligence background to critique the very systems he once served.
