Study Linking Vaccine to Autism Was Fraud, Journal ReportsBy THE ASSOCIATED PRES

January 7, 2011

Study Linking Vaccine to Autism Was Fraud, Journal ReportsBy THE ASSOCIATED

PRESS

Filed at 12:15 a.m. EST on January 06, 2011

LONDON (AP) — The first study to link a childhood vaccine to autism was based on

doctored information about the children involved, according to a new report on

the widely discredited research.

The conclusions of the 1998 paper by Wakefield and colleagues was

renounced by 10 of its 13 authors and later retracted by the medical journal

Lancet, where it was published. Still, the suggestion the MMR shot was connected

to autism spooked parents worldwide and immunization rates for measles, mumps

and rubella have never fully recovered.

A new examination found, by comparing the reported diagnoses in the paper to

hospital records, that Wakefield and colleagues altered facts about patients in

their study.

The analysis, by British journalist Deer, found that despite the claim in

Wakefield's paper that the 12 children studied were normal until they had the

MMR shot, five had previously documented developmental problems. Deer also found

that all the cases were somehow misrepresented when he compared data from

medical records and the children's parents.

Wakefield could not be reached for comment despite repeated calls and requests

to the publisher of his recent book, which claims there is a connection between

vaccines and autism that has been ignored by the medical establishment.

Wakefield now lives in the U.S. where he enjoys a vocal following including

celebrity supporters like McCarthy.

Deer's article was paid for by the Sunday Times of London and Britain's Channel

4 television network. It was published online Thursday in the medical journal,

BMJ.

In an accompanying editorial, BMJ editor Fiona Godlee and colleagues called

Wakefield's study " an elaborate fraud. " They said Wakefield's work in other

journals should be examined to see if it should be retracted.

Last May, Wakefield was stripped of his right to practice medicine in Britain.

Many other published studies have shown no connection between the MMR

vaccination and autism.

But measles has surged since Wakefield's paper was published and there are

sporadic outbreaks in Europe and the U.S. In 2008, measles was deemed endemic in

England and Wales.

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