Dr. Wakefield: Unethical, Unscientific, Discredited

Excerpt from Time Magazine
Full Article Here

“In 1998, Andrew Wakefield, a gastroenterologist at London’s Royal Free Hospital, published a study in the prestigious medical journal Lancet that linked the triple Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine with autism and bowel disorders in children. The study — and Wakefield’s subsequent public statements that parents should refuse the vaccines — sparked a public health panic that led vaccination rates in Britain to plunge.

Wakefield’s study has since been discredited, and the MMR vaccine deemed to be safe. But now medical authorities in the U.K. have also ruled that the manner in which Wakefield carried out his research was unethical. In a ruling on Jan. 28, The General Medical Council, which registers and regulates doctors in the U.K., ruled that Wakefield acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly” during his research and with “callous disregard” for the children involved in his study.”

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“The panel also criticized Wakefield for failing to disclose that, while carrying out the research, he was being paid by lawyers acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by the MMR jab.

The panel’s ruling follows a refutation of Wakefield’s research from the scientific community. Ten of 13 authors in the Lancet study have since renounced the study’s conclusions. The Lancet has said it should not have published the study in the first place, and various other studies have failed to corroborate Wakefield’s hypothesis.”