Scientists Retract Vaccine-Autism Link

This will cause some real consternation amongst those who claim that
anything like this that comes from EOM cannot be trusted.

Jan Drew will do flips!

Scientists Retract Vaccine-Autism Link
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By EMMA ROSS, AP Medical Writer

LONDON - Most of the scientists involved in a widely discredited 1998 study
that suggested a link between childhood vaccinations and autism have
renounced the conclusion.

A formal retraction is to be published this week in The Lancet medical
journal by 10 of the 13 authors of the paper, which raised the possibility
that the measles, mumps and rubella triple vaccine could be linked to
autism.


The text was released Wednesday by The Lancet.


The study, which was conducted on 12 children, was done about eight years
after the children had been vaccinated and involved parents remembering
whether the autism symptoms occurred around the same time as the
vaccination.


The suggestion triggered a collapse in public confidence in the vaccine. The
possibility of such a link has since been discredited on scientific grounds
by several rigorous subsequent studies, but some parents have clung to the
findings and health officials say that vaccination rates have fallen
dangerously low since its publication.


Immunization rates also fell in other European countries after the research
was published.


"We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established
between (the) vaccine and autism, as the data were insufficient. However,
the possibility of such a link was raised," the scientists said in the
retraction.


"Consequent events have had major implications for public health. In view of
this, we consider now is the appropriate time that we should together
formally retract the interpretation placed on these findings in the paper,"
the group wrote.


The scientists, led by Dr. Simon Murch, a pediatric gastroenterologist at
the Royal Free Hospital in London, work for institutions ranging from the
Institute of Child Health in Liverpool, England, to Cambridge University.


The retraction has not been signed by the main author of the original paper,
Dr. Andrew Wakefield, nor by one other author, Peter Harvey.


The group writing the retraction said it could not contact a third scientist
involved with the original work, John Linnell.


Wakefield and Harvey could not be reached immediately for comment. Wakefield
has maintained that the suggestion of a link between the vaccine and autism
is valid, despite the findings of authoritative groups such as the World
Health Organization (news - web sites) and the U.S. Institute of Medicine
(news - web sites).


The retraction comes after the revelation last month that, at the time of
the original publication, Wakefield had neglected to mention to his
co-authors or the journal that he was also being paid by a legal aid service
looking for evidence as to whether families could sue over the
immunizations. Some of the children in the lawsuit were also in the Lancet
study.


Last month, the journal called the situation a "fatal conflict of interest"
and said it would not have published the research if the connection had been
revealed.