Thursday’s online version of the British Medical Journal has published an article by British journalist Brian Deer which once again refutes the connection between a vaccine and autism. The original study by Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues published in 1998 was later refuted by 10 of its 13 authors and retracted in the Lancet which originally published the article.
Even though Wakefield claimed that the 12 children evaluated in the original study were all normal until they received the MMR vaccine, further analysis revealed that at least 5 of the 12 had already been diagnosed with developmental problems. In interviewing the children’s parents and reviewing medical records it was found that all of the cases were somehow misrepresented. An accompanying editorial called the entire original study a “fraud.”
Wakefield was stripped of his medical license in Britain and has now moved to the United States where he has authored a book once again touting the vaccine-autism connection. This is where celebrity Jenny McCarthy gets the ammunition for her diatribes against vaccines. I fault Oprah and others for giving her a platform to spread information that has been disproved by other medical studies. There has been a large resurgence of measles in the United Kingdom where the original study first gained popularity.
Keep all of this information in mind the next time you hear one of the conspiracy theorists claiming that vaccines cause autism. bjmdjd
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Sign in nowInteresting article. I was surprised to know that the Vaccine Autism link is again called a fraud.