A pediatrician traces the rise of the anti-vaccine movement that falsely linked thimerosal with autism and turned parents away from the most lifesaving medicine in history.
Wakefield’s research was secretly bankrolled by a personal injury lawyer whose clients were suing MMR makers. Wakefield himself was given close to a million dollars to prove that the MMR caused autism. He had filed a patent for a new MMR vaccine at the same time he was doing his research. Upon learning this, Lancet retracted his paper, and he was charged with professional misconduct in 2005. If he is found guilty of misconduct, he will never practice medicine in the U.K. again.
The last nail in the coffin came in 2007 … Wakefield’s former research assistant testified that his discovery about the MMR vaccine was, in reality, the result of contaminated lab equipment and that Wakefield knew this about but ignored it. In other words, as Offit writes, “Wakefield had crossed the line from ill-conceived, poorly performed science to fraud.”
Eleven studies now show that the MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism (the most recent just came out). Six have shown that thimerosal doesn’t cause autism; three have shown thimerosal doesn’t cause neurological problems. Studies showing the opposite, like Wakefield’s, use flawed methods, have serious conflicts of interest or have been conducted in animals whose results can’t be extrapolated to humans.