A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.What would be the personal gain from a fraud like that?
An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.
Update: lest the thought cross anyone's mind that Andrew Wakefield's being persecuted by The Man, read the details of the findings against him. In order to show a link between autism and vaccines, the twelve kids he studied would have had to be "regressive autism" cases --meaning kids who were normal until after they received MMR vaccine. At best only one of the children in his study fits that standard. And in a grant he applied for, he'd already described the syndrome supposedly "discovered" by independent research.
More details, too, on how much Wakefield earned from the legal firm that hired him to fish for victims.
Claiming an undisclosed £150 (€180, $230) an hour through a Norfolk solicitor named Richard Barr, he had been confidentially put on the payroll two years before the paper was published, eventually grossing him £435 643, plus expenses.
