After a three year investigation the United Kingdom has stuck Dr. Andrew Wakefield from the UK medical register, in Canadian terms Wakefield has had his medical licence revoked.
Who is Andrew Wakefield? He is no other than the man behind the myth that the MMR vacination was causally connected to autism. Fear is easily transferred by rumour and the world-over some parents have chosen to not immunize their children due to the findings of Wakefield’s now discredited research.,
In January Britain’s General Medical Council had found Wakefield guilty of serious misconduct with respect to the research he had conducted. This week his licence was removed.
This story is important in that the myth of the danger of the MMR . This is a classic case of taking correlation and transferring that concept to causality when there is no connection. Worse still is the rumour mill that continues to churn with parents opting out of the MMR vacination for their children due to fears tied to Wakefield.
Dr. Wakefield’s 1998 study of 12 children triggered worry among parents world-wide that the MMR vaccine caused autism. Many decided not to immunize their children, leading to outbreaks of measles in some Western countries. As many as 2.1% of children in the U.S. weren’t immunized with the MMR vaccine in 2000, up from 0.77% in 1995, according to a 2008 study published in Pediatrics.
A 2004 statistical review of existing epidemiological studies by the Institute of Medicine, a respected nonprofit organization in the U.S., concluded that there was no causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Some autism activist groups, however, continue to advocate against vaccinations for children, despite the lack of scientific evidence for such a link.
Fear of a possible link to autism led to substantial drops in MMR take-up and deaths in 2006 and 2008, but Dr David Elliman, consultant in community child health at Great Ormond Street hospital for children, and Dr Helen Bedford, senior lecturer in children’s health at the centre for epidemiology and biostatistics at UCL, said in a statement that parents appeared to be regaining confidence. “The alleged link between autism and MMR vaccine had been disproved long before the GMC hearings even began. Hopefully the whole episode can now be laid to rest,” they said.
Adam Finn, professor of paediatrics at University of Bristol medical school, said society tended to admire those who stick to their opinions. But in science, “the real heroes are those who acknowledge the supremacy of evidence and retain an open mind and those who admit, with good grace, when they are wrong … I remain disappointed that Dr Wakefield still does not acknowledge all the evidence that now exists that shows MMR is safe and supports its use.”
Michael Fitzpatrick, GP and author of MMR and Autism: What Parents Need To Know, said: “My thoughts are with the families of autistic children who were dragged into futile litigation (more than 1,000 in the UK, more than 5,000 in the US) on the basis of Wakefield’s speculative link between MMR and autism.
“Wakefield’s greatest offence was his failure – over 12 years – either to substantiate a hypothesis with major consequences for child health or to withdraw it.” U.K. Bans Doctor Who Linked Autism to Vaccine. Guardian.co.uk May 24, 2010
