End Of Vaccine-Autism Controversy? February 19, 2010

A highly regarded British medical journal, The Lancet, has issued a rare public retraction of a 1998 paper that sparked a firestorm about potential links between vaccines and autism.

Children in the U.S., Britain and many other Western countries are usually given the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine at age 1. But when researchers, led by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, published a report linking that vaccine to autism in 1998, it unleashed an anti-vaccine movement in the U.S. and in Britain.

After years of investigation, a British medical panel concluded that Dr. Wakefield had been dishonest, violated basic research ethics rules and showed a “callous disregard” for the suffering of children involved in his research. With that decision, Dr. Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet, retracted the 1998 paper. Dr. Horton described the panel’s ruling as, “a damning indictment of Andrew Wakefield and his research.”

The retraction is the result of a thorough reassessment of the scientific methods and financial conflicts of Dr. Andrew Wakefield. The General Medical Council in Britain concluded that Dr. Wakefield had subjected 11 children to invasive tests like lumbar punctures and colonoscopies that they did not need and for which he did not receive ethical approval. Dr. Wakefield was also found to have patented a measles vaccine in 1997 that could prosper if the combined vaccine were withdrawn or discredited.

The paper has been a bane to Dr. Paul Offit, co-inventor of the M.M.R. vaccine. In a recent radio interview, he stated, “It should have never been allowed to be published. I mean, we really shouldn’t be able to publish hypotheses. I could, for example, argue that I think peanut butter sandwiches cause leukemia. I’m sure I can find five children with leukemia who had eaten peanut butter sandwiches in the last month.”

But the retraction has done little to deteriorate Dr. Wakefield’s status among parents’ groups in the United States. Despite numerous scientific studies that have found no link between vaccines and autism, parents continue to believe that vaccinations are related to their children’s mental health problems.

For more information about whether you can sue a vaccine maker for an injury caused by a vaccine, view this Florida child injury lawyer video blog.