The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has announced that Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s autism study is fraudulent. The controversial autism study said that the MMR vaccine is somehow linked to autism in children. Parents who heard about the autism study panicked and led to a sharp drop in the number of children who received the MMR vaccine. The MMR vaccine prevents measles, mumps, and rubella.

As a result, the Baltimore Sun reports that while MMR vaccinations dropped, the number of measles cases increased in the United States. In 2008, there were more measles cases reported than any other year since 1996. According to the CDC, more than 90% percent of the infected patients did not receive an MMR vaccine or their vaccination status was not known. In the U.K., vaccination rates fell almost as low as 80%.

As a result of these findings, the BMJ editor Dr. Fiona Godlee is quoted by Reuters as saying that the autism study “was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud.” She and her colleagues at BMJ stated in an editorial that they hope that this declaration will encourage parents to vaccinate their children: “Clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare.”

Related Resources:

  • Autism-Vaccine Hearings in Federal Court (FindLaw’s Common Law Blog)
  • Autism/Vaccine Link: Another Nail In The Coffin (Washington Post)
  • Autism MMR Vaccine Cases Decided: No Link Shown (FindLaw’s Common Law Blog)

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