::::::::I respect Goldacre and find his articles very entertaining. I disagree with him when he defends Wakefield while justifiably blaming the media. By calling it a hoax, I worry he's heading into Simon Singh's "bogus" territory. Fortunately, the media are unlikely to sue for libel. I can't read the article in your second link as it has been "removed" but you should know that newspaper headings are rarely written by the authors of the piece. So I can't really tell if it was Goldacre who claimed Wakefield "started" the "hoax". The difference between a true hoax and this one is that in a true hoax, someone knows damn sure that it is rubbish because they just made it up. There's plenty evidence that Wakefield would benefit from it being true, but to allege he just made the whole thing up is pretty strong. With the media, they callously didn't care whether it was true or not: it made great press and sold papers. °