Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 1957) is a British former surgeon and medical researcher, known for his fraudulent 1998 research paper in support of the now-
discredited claim that there is a link between the administration of the
measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, and the appearance of
autism and bowel disease.
[1][2][3][4][5]
After the publication of the paper, other researchers were unable to
reproduce Wakefield's findings or confirm his hypothesis of an association between the MMR vaccine and autism
[6] or autism and gastrointestinal disease.
[7] A 2004 investigation by
Sunday Times reporter
Brian Deer identified undisclosed financial
conflicts of interest on Wakefield's part,
[8] and most of his co-authors then
withdrew their support for the study's interpretations.
[9] The British
General Medical Council (GMC) conducted an inquiry into allegations of
misconduct against Wakefield and two former colleagues.
[10] The investigation centred on Deer's numerous findings, including that children with autism were subjected to unnecessary invasive medical procedures,
[11] such as
colonoscopy and
lumbar puncture, and that Wakefield acted without the required ethical approval from an
institutional review board.
On 28 January 2010, a five-member statutory tribunal of the GMC found three dozen charges proved, including four counts of dishonesty and 12 counts involving the abuse of developmentally challenged children.[12] The panel ruled that Wakefield had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant", acted both against the interests of his patients, and "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in his published research.[13][14][15] The Lancet immediately and fully retracted his 1998 publication on the basis of the GMC's findings, noting that elements of the manuscript had been falsified.[16] Wakefield was struck off the Medical Register in May 2010, with a statement identifying deliberate falsification in The Lancet research,[17] and is barred from practising medicine in the UK.[18]
In January 2011, an editorial accompanying an article by Brian Deer in
BMJ identified Wakefield's work as an "elaborate fraud".
[1][19][20] In a follow-up article,
[21] Deer said that Wakefield had planned to launch a venture on the back of an MMR vaccination scare that would profit from new medical tests and "litigation driven testing".
[22] In November 2011, yet another report in
BMJ[23] revealed original raw data indicating that, contrary to Wakefield's claims in
The Lancet, children in his research did not have inflammatory bowel disease.
[24][25]
Wakefield's study and his claim that the MMR vaccine might cause autism led to a decline in vaccination rates in the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland and a corresponding rise in measles and mumps, resulting in serious illness and fatalities, and his continued warnings against the vaccine have contributed to a climate of distrust of all vaccines and the reemergence of other previously controlled diseases.
[26][27][28] Wakefield has continued to defend his research and conclusions, saying there was no fraud, hoax or
profit motive.
[29][30]
