Vaccine-Autism Study Retracted - 3 of 13 authors face stripping right to practice

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Dan mag ie dus geen medisch onderzoek meer doen bij de mensen die de
verjaardag van zijn zoon komen vieren.

Groet / Cees

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/02/health/AP-EU-Britain-Medical-Journal.html
February 2, 2010
Vaccine-Autism Study Is Retracted
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 11:01 a.m. ET

LONDON (AP) -- A major British medical journal on Tuesday retracted a
flawed study linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism
and bowel disease.

The retraction by The Lancet comes a day after a competing medical
journal, BMJ, issued an embargoed commentary calling for The Lancet to
formally retract the study. The commentary was to have been published on
Wednesday.

The BMJ commentary said once the study by British surgeon and medical
researcher Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues appeared in 1998 in The
Lancet, ''the arguments were considered by many to be proven and the
ghastly social drama of the demon vaccine took on a life of its own.''

Since the controversial paper was published, British parents abandoned
the vaccine in droves, leading to a resurgence of measles. Subsequent
studies have found no proof that the vaccine is connected to autism,
though some parents are still wary of the shot.

In Britain, vaccination rates for measles have never recovered and there
are outbreaks of the disease every year.

Ten of Wakefield's 13 co-authors renounced the study's conclusions
several years ago and The Lancet has previously said it should never
have published the research.

''We fully retract this paper from the published record,'' Lancet
editors said in a statement Tuesday.

Last week, Britain's General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield had
shown a ''callous disregard'' for the children used in his study and
acted unethically. Wakefield and the two colleagues who have not
renounced the study face being stripped of their right to practice
medicine in Britain.

For the study, Wakefield took blood samples from children at his son's
birthday party, paying them 5 pounds each ($8) for their contributions
and later joking about the incident.

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