Thread: Autism Study linking to Childhood Vaccines an "Elaborate Hoax"

(CNN) -- A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.
An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.
"It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors," Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief, told CNN. "But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data."

As a parent of a "high functioning" autistic child, I never did follow this belief. I could just never get behind the conclusion.

The rest of the article is here:

Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds - CNN.com

I wonder what would motivate someone to do that ? I have a HFHA kid too and there was a definite distinction in his speech patterns soon after he was vaccinated.

This might be a good reason to lie and distort...


Wakefield has been unable to reproduce his results in the face of criticism, and other researchers have been unable to match them. Most of his co-authors withdrew their names from the study in 2004after learning he had had been paid by a law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers -- a serious conflict of interest he failed to disclose. After years on controversy, the Lancet, the prestigious journal that originally published the research, retracted Wakefield's paper last February.

A good friend has a daughter with autism. I asked her once how old her daughter was when she was diagnosed. She said about 3 years old but she added that she noticed signs during the first few months of life, long before she received the MMR Vaccine. She never bought into the vaccination link.

Sure some would. The expectation is that you wont get caught. And had this fraudulent study not been found out, who knows how much he stood to get if these lawsuits went forward.

I wonder.....why is it that he cant reproduce his own results when under scrutiny ? WHy are no other researchers able to match them ?

As far as ruining his own career, maybe its a club that both he and that naval captain who ruined his career producing raunchy videos belong too.