Study linking vaccine to autism shown to be fraud

[catsittingstill]

The first study to suggest that childhood vaccination caused autism was published in the medical journal Lancet and had 13 authors. By now, 10 of them have renounced its conclusions, and Lancet has retracted it.  This morning I found this interesting article in the New York Times

The analysis, by British journalist Brian Deer, found that despite the claim in Wakefield's paper that the 12 children studied were normal until they had the MMR shot, five had previously documented developmental problems. Deer also found that all the cases were somehow misrepresented when he compared data from medical records and the children's parents.

The analysis was damning enough that apparently the accompanying editorial in the British Medical Journal called the study "an elaborate fraud."

Interesting.
[Later edit  Mdlbear brought to my attention that the original, flawed, study was apparently funded by a law firm intending to sue manufacturers of vaccines--this financial incentive coming to light was apparently what made a bunch of the co-authors withdraw their names from the paper.  CNN mentions it in this piece. as well as here.  I thank Mdlbear for the enlightening information.]

Comments

[bigbumble.livejournal.com]

The worst part of this is that the misinformation that has been spread from that article is so hard to counter even with a full retraction and rebuttal.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I agree.

The rates of measles, mumps, and rubella went up after this study came out and have never come back down to their previous frequency. It definitely had an effect.

And measles and mumps can have very serious complications. I don't know as much about rubella--although I think it can cause miscarriage, which actually, might be showing up in the next few years.

[judifilksign.livejournal.com]

Rubella is the primary cause of deafness in babies at birth.