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By Jenna Chandler

Moms who turned out last week to hear vaccine critic Andrew Wakefield speak in Dana Point said the debate over whether to inoculate their children has become so divisive it’s severing friendships.

“The ‘V’ word, man, it’s a hot topic,” said Dotty “Sunshine” Hagmier, founder of local moms group Moms In Charge.

The vaccination debate was fueled by the recent measles outbreak at Disneyland Resort and has intensified the past few weeks as Senate Bill 277, a controversial bill to tighten vaccine requirements for schoolchildren, moves through the state Senate.

Wakefield, a former doctor, is on a crusade to prove vaccines are linked to autism – a theory denounced by public health officials and the vast majority of mainstream medicine. His medical license was revoked in the U.K. after he published a paper on the topic that later was retracted.

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