Times UK writer Brian Deer recently charged that Andrew Wakefield — coauthor of a 1998 study published in The Lancet that set off the firestorm over whether or not the MMR vaccine contributed to autism — faked the data used in that study. According to Deer’s report,

The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children attending a routine clinic at the hospital had blamed MMR for their autism, and said that problems came on within days of the jab. The team also claimed to have discovered a new inflammatory bowel disease underlying the children’s conditions.

However, our investigation, confirmed by evidence presented to the General Medical Council (GMC), reveals that: In most of the 12 cases, the children’s ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal.

Wakefield is currently the subject of a disciplinary hearing by the UK’s General Medical Council. He stands by his research and in an article for the Times is dismissive of the claim that he is in any way responsible for the drastic drop in vaccinations in some parts of the UK and the United States,

Dr Wakefield denies the charges, but hanging on the wall near his office in Thoughtful House is a poster spelling out the “Wakefield Hypothesis”, which stemmed from the contested research.

“The suggestion that parents should have the option of single vaccines was based on a review of all of the safety studies that were conducted on all of the vaccines from the single vaccine through to the MMR,” he said. “It was not based upon a case report of 12 children with a possible new syndrome. This was made explicit in a communication to my colleagues in advance of the press briefing. Based upon my review of the literature, the safety studies were totally inadequate.”

Dr Wakefield claims no responsiblity for the fact that one in four children still does not receive the recommended two doses of MMR, adding: “The reemergence of measles is not the consequence of a hypothesis. We did not cause a scare. We responded to parents’ legitimate concerns. They were uncertain about the vaccine. We responded to that, as we should have done, and did, in a professional and ethical manner. Not to have done so would have been negligent.”

This from the man still pushing autistic enterocolitis as a legitimate diagnosis.

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