Monday, January 10, 2011

Study That Linked Autism and Vaccines Now Determined to be Fraud

Back in September, Science News & Views discussed the retraction of the original 1998 article by Wakefield et al. that linked autism to the MMR vaccine and how despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, this article managed over the next decade to instill a fear in parents causing them to turn away from standard vaccinations. After the article was retracted and the medical license of Andrew Wakefield, the main researcher behind the study, was revoked, a United Kingdom journalist, Brian Deer, continued the investigation. His analysis was published in the British Medical Journal and provided details on the deliberate falsification of data used in the study for the purpose of suing the vaccine manufacturer.

Deer’s investigation showed that the errors in the Wakefield study were not the result of incorrect statistics, faulty analysis, or poor design. No, this study was a clear case of fraud. It is unsettling that one fraudulent study could have such an impact on the scientific world. When the study was published, the results were circulated by the media and parents understandably became alarmed. The number of children being vaccinated declined, resulting in resurgence in cases of measles and mumps. Despite Wakefield and his study being discredited, the belief that there is a link between the MMR vaccine and autism is so strong that the controversy has continued. The strength of this erroneous conviction is in part due to the media coverage of the issue.

It is the media’s job to report on new science, and they cannot be faulted for reporting Wakefield’s results when they were released in 1998. However, when the weight-of-evidence backed by numerous studies strongly began to favor the lack of an association between vaccines and autism, many of the media still reported on the supposed link citing Wakefield’s results and quoting activists with no scientific background who still claimed to be authorities on the subject and declared that there was ‘proof’ of the link. This is undoubtedly due to the reporters trying to provide a balanced story with viewpoints from both sides. While the media cannot have known that Wakefield falsified his data, the fact that this vaccine scare has lasted over a decade and negatively impacted the health of children proves that scientific news reporting should consider employing a weight-of-evidence approach and not allow another publicity-seeking fraud to cause an unnecessary and harmful health scare.

1 comment:

Liz Ditz said...

I'm keeping a list of positive responses to the BMJ (Yes Wakefield is a fraud, and here are the implications...) and negative responses (Wakefield's research IS TOO valid and vaccines cause autism anyway) at A roundup of responses to the BJM & Wakefield's research was motivated by fraud.

I've added your post.

Some observations
1. The positive responses come from a broad range of sites -- politically left and right; people who are skeptics/ people who have heretofore (to my knowledge) never commented on vaccines or autism before, and so on. The negative responses are from a predictable set of sites and people.
2. The news coverage in the US has (perhaps inadvertently) perpetrated the idea that all parents of children with autism believe in the vaccine causation myth. It is a complete falsehood. Many parents of children with autism and adults with autism robustly reject the myth.
3. Kev Leitch, whose daughter has intense autism, has a moving post on how Wakefield's actions have damaged everyone affected by autism