(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.”
via Retracted autism study an ‘elaborate fraud,’ British journal finds – CNN.com.
I’m guessing First Do No Harm isn’t in his lexicon…
This was an excellent job done by Mr. Deer exposing this fraud. Wakefield needs to be prosecuted for any preventable deaths for manslaughter at least.
This issue has caused great harm to physician-parent/patient relationships, it has spilled over into debate on other immunizations, and has fed the rise of CAM(Crap Alleged [to be] Medicine).
Thanks for posting about this, GD! Here are the links…it’s worth the reads to see what a scumbag Wakefield is.
article: http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full
commentary: http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452.full
People are dead because of this man’s lies… yet the anti-vaccine folks will view the pursuit of the “heroic” Dr. Wakefield as evidence of the medical system’s corruption.
I can hear it now…
“You’re just trying to silence him!!11”
And there is more, turns out the good doc had major support from a trial lawyer firm seeking published ‘evidence’
to support some of their cases. If other blogs are correct he received upwards of $700k for his work in publishing
the article, and continued support since judging from his activities in the past few years.