He is an antivax icon, he married Elle McPherson, he does podcasts and documentaries, speaking engagements, etc. he is paid far more than many doctors with none of the stress and liability.

Similarly the Monsanto and Coca Cola ghost writing research, everything involved in tobacco, Purdue and OxyContin addiction, etc. the last one was treated as a civil matter but are these not criminal? Countless lives were destroyed.

Attention is all you need.

Philosophical questions of liability don't matter anymore; optics do. Wakefield didn't just win that game; he blew it away. Monsanto, big tobacco, even Purdue drug their public sentiment battles on long enough not to win, but not to lose.

I mean no offense, but I keep seeing scientists ask "why is all this happening?" on Twitter, as they presumably pass mobs of folks glued to algorithms and influencers gaming them on thier phones, and politicians now emulating thier behavior.

Hence I hate to sound so cynical, but I think your question:

What’s a viable consequence for these people? Life in prison?

Is pointless.

Science and journalism aren't front-and-center anymore. Frames of reference are intimately manipulated. To quote AOC, "everything feels increasingly like a scam." And pondering what these massively wealthy entities deserve is a waste of energy until that festering problem is addressed.