Claim That Vaccine Causes Autism Retracted
(Undated) -- A dozen years after a doctor claimed the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism the report has been retracted. The claim, that turned some parents against having their children vaccinated for assorted childhood diseases, was made by British doctor Andrew Wakefield and was published in the international medical journal "The Lancet." Now that publication has issued a formal retraction. The move comes just days after a British medical council issued a report claiming Wakefield had provided false information in the report and said he'd acted with "callous disregard" for children involved in his study. The Wakefield study has been widely discredited for years in part because it only involved a dozen children. The claim, and parental reaction to it, has been blamed for an increase in the number of measles cases in the U.S. and elsewhere.
[[ Note Nature ]] |