Controversial Study Linking Autism to MMR Vaccine Claimed a Fraud

A 1998 paper published in the Lancet, and authored by Andrew Wakefield, MD, and 12 others that implied a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and a "new syndrome” of autism and bowel disease has been shown to be fraudulent.

A series of articles published in BMJ shows the extent of Wakefield's fraud, and how it was perpetrated. Drawing on interviews, documents, and data made public, BMJ journalist Brian Deer shows how Wakefield altered numerous facts about the patients' medical histories in order to support his claim to have identified a new syndrome; how his institution, the Royal Free Hospital and Medical School (London, United Kingdom) supported him as he sought to exploit the ensuing MMR scare for financial gain; and how key players failed to investigate thoroughly in the public interest when Deer first raised his concerns in 2004.

That report resulted in an eventual hearing by the General Medical Council (GMC; London, United Kingdom), which found Wakefield guilty of dishonesty concerning the study's admissions criteria, its funding by the Legal Aid Board, and his statements about it afterwards. Although given ample opportunity, Wakefield declined to replicate the paper's findings, or to say he was mistaken. He also refused to join 10 of his coauthors in retracting the papers interpretation in 2004, and has repeatedly denied doing anything wrong at all. Instead, although now disgraced and stripped of his clinical and academic credentials, he continues to push his views.

The original Lancet paper was retracted, but for far narrower misconduct than is now apparent. The retraction statement cited the GMC's findings that the patients were not consecutively referred and that the study did not have ethical approval, leaving the door open for those who want to continue to believe that the science--flawed though it always was--still stands. The authors of the BMJ article series expressed hope that their findings that the paper is a fraud will close that door for good.

"The MMR scare was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud. Such clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare,” said BMJ editor Jane Smith Godlee, MD, and associate BMJ editor Harvey Marcovitch, MD. "A great deal of thought and effort must have gone into drafting the paper to achieve the results he wanted: the discrepancies all led in one direction; misreporting was gross.”

The main concern raised by the BMJ editors is the damage to public health, fuelled by a combination of unbalanced media reporting and an ineffective response from government, researchers, journals, and the medical profession. Although vaccination rates in the United Kingdom have recovered slightly from their 80% low in 2003-4, they are still below the 95% level recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to ensure herd immunity. In 2008, for the first time in 14 years, measles was declared endemic in England and Wales. Hundreds of thousands of children in the UK are currently unprotected as a result of the scare, and the effort to restore parents' trust in the vaccine is ongoing.

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General Medical Council