Autism-vaccine link

I've blogged before about the irresponsible efforts by a British physician to link childhood vaccinations to autism, and this latest article in a three-part series by the British Medical Journal sheds further light on the fraudulent efforts that caused a world-wide panic over the MMR vaccine in particular:

BMJ uncovers money trail behind autism study

01/12/2011

The author of the first study linking vaccines and autism conducted secret business deals intended to exploit the public fear created by his work, according to the second article in a three-part British Medical Journal (BMJ) series that scrutinizes the report.

In 1998, Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a study in the Lancet that claimed to identify a link between the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) and autism. However, the study has been widely discredited for the lack of controls, the linking of three common conditions and the reliance on parental recall. The Lancet retracted the article in February 2010, and 10 of the original 13 authors have denounced it.

The series' first article—authored by journalist Brian Deer and published last week—condemned Wakefield's study, which experts said was based on fraudulent data and caused widespread damage to public health (see related coverage in the Feb. 3, 2010 and Jan. 6 Daily Briefing). In the latest BMJ article, Deer suggests the allegedly fraudulent report was part of a profit-making scheme.

For example, the report suggests that Wakefield and certain colleagues launched a business venture that would sell diagnostic tests for vaccine-induced diseases and transfer factor-based vaccines and therapies. Deer found that a prospectus distributed to potential investors said the venture was expected to make more than $40 million within three years, MedPage Today reports. In addition, Wakefield received more than $650,000 from lawyers trying to build a case against vaccine manufacturers, a "serious conflict of interest he failed to disclose," CNN reports.

"The MMR scare was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud," BMJ Editor-in-Chief Fiona Godlee said in a prepared statement, "Such clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare."

BMJ plans to publish the final installment of the series next week (Deer, BMJ, 1/11; Gardner, HealthDay, 1/11; CNN, 1/12; Gever, MedPage Today, 1/11).