Misplaced Pages

MMR vaccine and autism

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
(Redirected from MMR Scare)

Page version status

This is an accepted version of this page

This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 29 November 2024. "MMR vaccine fraud" redirects here. For more about the The Lancet article that was published in 1998, see Lancet MMR autism fraud.False claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism

Part of a series on
Alternative medicine
General information
Fringe medicine and science
Controversies
Classifications
Traditional medicine
Alternative diagnoses

Claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism have been extensively investigated and found to be false. The link was first suggested in the early 1990s and came to public notice largely as a result of the 1998 Lancet MMR autism fraud, characterised as "perhaps the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years". The fraudulent research paper, authored by Andrew Wakefield and published in The Lancet, falsely claimed the vaccine was linked to colitis and autism spectrum disorders. The paper was retracted in 2010 but is still cited by anti-vaccine activists.

The claims in the paper were widely reported, leading to a sharp drop in vaccination rates in the UK and Ireland. Promotion of the claimed link, which continues in anti-vaccination propaganda despite being refuted, has led to an increase in the incidence of measles and mumps, resulting in deaths and serious permanent injuries. Following the initial claims in 1998, multiple large epidemiological studies were undertaken. Reviews of the evidence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences, the UK National Health Service, and the Cochrane Library all found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Physicians, medical journals, and editors have described Wakefield's actions as fraudulent and tied them to epidemics and deaths.

An investigation by journalist Brian Deer found that Wakefield, the author of the original research paper linking the vaccine to autism, had multiple undeclared conflicts of interest, had manipulated evidence, and had broken other ethical codes. The Lancet paper was partially retracted in 2004 and fully retracted in 2010, when Lancet's editor-in-chief Richard Horton described it as "utterly false" and said that the journal had been deceived. Wakefield was found guilty by the General Medical Council of serious professional misconduct in May 2010 and was struck off the Medical Register, meaning he could no longer practise as a physician in the UK. In January 2011, Deer published a series of reports in the British Medical Journal, which in a signed editorial stated of the journalist, "It has taken the diligent scepticism of one man, standing outside medicine and science, to show that the paper was in fact an elaborate fraud." The scientific consensus is that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism and that the vaccine's benefits greatly outweigh its potential risks.

Background

Further information: MMR vaccine § Safety

Revaccination campaign

In the wake of the measles outbreaks, which occurred in England in 1992, and on the basis of analyses of seroepidemiological data combined with mathematical modeling, British Health authorities predicted a major resurgence of measles in school-age children. Two strategies were then examined: either to target vaccination at all children without a history of prior measles vaccination or to immunize all children irrespective of vaccination history. In November 1994, the latter option was chosen and a national measles and rubella vaccination campaign, described as "one of the most ambitious vaccination initiatives that Britain has undertaken" was commenced: within one month, 92% of the 7.1 million schoolchildren in England aged 5–16 years received measles and rubella (MR) vaccine.

MMR litigation starts

In April 1994, Richard Barr, a solicitor, succeeded in winning legal aid for the pursuit of a class action lawsuit against the manufacturers of MMR vaccines under the UK Consumer Protection Act 1987. The class action case was aimed at Aventis Pasteur, SmithKline Beecham, and Merck, manufacturers respectively of Immravax, Pluserix-MMR and MMR II. This suit, based on a claim that MMR is a defective product and should not have been used, was the first big class action lawsuit funded by the Legal Aid Board (which became the Legal Services Commission, which in turn was replaced by the Legal Aid Agency) after its formation in 1988. Noticing two publications from Andrew Wakefield that explored the role of measles virus in Crohn's disease and inflammatory bowel disease, Barr contacted Wakefield for his expertise. According to Wakefield supporters, the two men first met on 6 January 1996. The Legal Services Commission halted proceedings in September 2003, citing a high probability of failure based on the medical evidence, bringing an end to the first case of research funding by the LSC.

1998 The Lancet paper

Main article: Lancet MMR autism fraud

Wakefield's paper "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children" was published in The Lancet on 28 February 1998. An investigation by journalist Brian Deer found that Wakefield had multiple undeclared conflicts of interest, had manipulated evidence, and had broken other ethical codes. Based on Deer's findings, Peter N. Steinmetz summarizes six fabrications and falsifications in the paper itself and in Wakefield's response in the areas of findings of non-specific colitis; behavioral symptoms; findings of regressive autism; ethics consent statement; conflict of interest statement; and methods of patient referral. The Lancet paper was partially retracted in 2004 and fully retracted in 2010, when The Lancet's editor-in-chief Richard Horton described it as "utterly false" and said that the journal had been deceived. Wakefield was found guilty by the General Medical Council of serious professional misconduct in May 2010 and was struck off the Medical Register, meaning he could no longer practise as a doctor in the UK. In 2011, Deer provided further information on Wakefield's improper research practices to the British Medical Journal, which in a signed editorial described the original paper as fraudulent.

The scientific consensus is that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism and that the vaccine's benefits greatly outweigh its risks. However, by the time that scientists had shown the narrative to be false, it had become part of the lay understanding of autism. The narrative was easy to understand and apparently consistent with anecdotal evidence of children receiving autism diagnoses shortly after having been vaccinated.

By the time it was retracted, all authors other than Wakefield had requested their names be removed from the publication.

Fiona Godlee, editor of The BMJ, said in January 2011:

The original paper has received so much media attention, with such potential to damage public health, that it is hard to find a parallel in the history of medical science. Many other medical frauds have been exposed but usually more quickly after publication and on less important health issues.

Media role

Observers have criticized the involvement of mass media in the controversy, what is known as 'science by press conference', alleging that the media provided Wakefield's study with more credibility than it deserved. A March 2007 paper in BMC Public Health by Shona Hilton, Mark Petticrew, and Kate Hunt postulated that media reports on Wakefield's study had "created the misleading impression that the evidence for the link with autism was as substantial as the evidence against" through an attempt to create "balanced reporting". Earlier papers in Communication in Medicine and British Medical Journal concluded that media reports provided a misleading picture of the level of support for Wakefield's hypothesis.

A 2007 editorial in Australian Doctor complained that some journalists had continued to defend Wakefield's study even after The Lancet had published the retraction by 10 of the study's 12 original authors, but noted that it was an investigative journalist, Brian Deer, who had played a leading role in exposing weaknesses in the study. PRWeek noted that after Wakefield was removed from the general medical register for misconduct in May 2010, 62% of respondents to a poll regarding the MMR controversy stated they did not feel that the media conducted responsible reporting on health issues.

A New England Journal of Medicine article examining the history of anti-vaccine activists said that opposition to vaccines has existed since the 19th century, but "now the antivaccinationists' media of choice are typically television and the Internet, including its social media outlets, which are used to sway public opinion and distract attention from scientific evidence". The editorial characterized anti-vaccine activists as people who "tend toward complete mistrust of government and manufacturers, conspiratorial thinking, denialism, low cognitive complexity in thinking patterns, reasoning flaws, and a habit of substituting emotional anecdotes for data", including people who range from those "unable to understand and incorporate concepts of risk and probability into science-grounded decision making" and those "who use deliberate mistruths, intimidation, falsified data, and threats of violence".

In a January 2011 editorial in The American Spectator, Robert M. Goldberg contended that evidence from the scientific community of issues with Wakefield's research "were undermined because the media allowed Wakefield and his followers to discredit the findings just by saying so".

Seth Mnookin, author of The Panic Virus, also partly blames the media for presenting a false balance between scientific evidence and people's personal experiences: "Reporting fell into this 'on the one hand, on the other hand' fallacy, this notion that if you have two sides that are disagreeing, that means that you should present both of them with equal weight."

Concerns have also been raised over the journal peer review system, which largely relies on trust among researchers, and the role of journalists reporting on scientific theories that they "are hardly in a position to question and comprehend". Neil Cameron, a historian who specializes in the history of science, writing for the Montreal Gazette, labeled the controversy a "failure of journalism" that resulted in unnecessary deaths, saying that: 1) The Lancet should not have published a study based on "statistically meaningless results" from only 12 cases; 2) the anti-vaccination crusade was continued by the satirical Private Eye magazine; and 3) a grapevine of worried parents and "nincompoop" celebrities fueled the widespread fears. The Gazette also reported that:

There is no guarantee that debunking the original study is going to sway all parents. Medical experts are going to have to work hard to try to undo the damage inflicted by what is apparently a rogue medical researcher whose work was inadequately vetted by a top-ranked international journal.

Folk epidemiology

Folk epidemiology of autism refers to the popular beliefs about the origin of autism. Without direct informed knowledge of autism, a complex disorder, members of the public are easily influenced by rumors and misinformation presented in the mass media and repeated on social media and the internet.

These misinformed beliefs persist even when contradicted by scientific evidence. Folk epidemiology persists because people seek, receive, and preferentially believe information that is consistent with their existing views; misjudge the reliability of their sources of information, and are misled by anecdotal evidence; and tend not to revise their opinions even when their original sources of information are shown to be wrong.

A June 2024 report in Ars Technica discusses recent research into popular beliefs about vaccines and autism in the US, finding lack of awareness of the CDC's clear stance against vaccines as a cause of autism. The article cites an April 2024 survey in which, "24 percent of US adults denied or disputed that the CDC ever said that", a result little changed from 2018. It also reports that a small but non-trivial percentage of Americans believe the vaccine definitely or probably causes autism (rising from 9% in 2021 to 10% in 2023). The research mainly comes from surveys by the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Litigation

During the 1980s and 1990s, a number of lawsuits were brought against manufacturers of vaccines, alleging the vaccines had caused physical and mental disorders in children. While these lawsuits were unsuccessful, they did lead to a large jump in the costs of the MMR vaccine, and pharmaceutical companies sought legislative protections. In 1993, Merck KGaA became the only company willing to sell MMR vaccines in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Italy

In June 2012, a local court in Rimini, Italy, ruled that the MMR vaccination had caused autism in a 15-month-old boy. The court relied heavily on the discredited Lancet paper and largely ignored the scientific evidence presented to it. The decision was appealed. On 13 February 2015, the decision was overturned by a Court of Appeals in Bologna.

Japan

The MMR scare caused a low percentage of mumps vaccination (less than 30%), which resulted in outbreaks in Japan. There were up to 2002 measles-caused deaths in Japan while there were none in the UK, but the extra deaths were attributed to Japan's application of the vaccine at a later age. A spokesman for the Ministry of Health said that the discontinuation had no effect in measles, but also mentioning that there were more deaths by measles while MMR was being used. In 1994 the government dropped the vaccination requirement for measles and rubella due to the 1993 MMR scare. It has been called a "measles exporter" by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As another consequence of the scare, in 2003, 7 million schoolchildren had not been vaccinated against rubella.

Autism rates continued to rise in Japan after the discontinuation of the MMR vaccine, which disproves any large-scale effect of vaccination, and means that the withdrawal of MMR in other countries is unlikely to cause a reduction in autism cases. The Japanese government does not recognize any link between MMR and autism. By 2003 it was still trying to find a combined vaccine to replace MMR.

It was later discovered that some of the vaccines were administered after their expiry date and that the MMR compulsory vaccination was only retracted after the death of three children and more than 2000 reports of adverse effects. By 1993 the Japanese government had paid $160,000 in compensation to the families of each of the three dead children. Other parents received no compensation because the government said that it was unproven that the MMR vaccine had been the cause; they decided to sue the manufacturer instead of the government. The Osaka district court ruled on 13 March 2003 that the death of two children (among numerous other serious conditions) had been indeed caused by Japan's strain of Urabe MMR. In 2006, the Osaka High Court stated in another ruling that the state was responsible for failing to properly supervise a manufacturer of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, which caused severe side effects in children.

United Kingdom

Commenced before the Civil Procedure Rules were promulgated, the MMR Litigation had its status as group litigation achieved by the then Lord Chief Justice's practice direction of 8 July 1999. On 8 June 2007, the High Court judge, Justice Keith, put an end to the group litigation because the withdrawal of legal aid by the legal services commission had made the pursuit of most of the claimants impossible. He ruled that all but two claims against pharmaceutical companies must be discontinued. The judge stressed that his ruling did not amount to a rejection of any of the claims that MMR had seriously damaged the children concerned.

A pressure group, JABS (Justice, Awareness and Basic Support), was established to represent families with children who, their parents said, were "vaccine-damaged". £15 million in public legal aid funding was spent on the litigation, of which £9.7 million went to solicitors and barristers, and £4.3 million to expert witnesses.

United States

Main articles: Vaccine court and Omnibus Autism Proceeding

The omnibus autism proceeding (OAP) is a coordinated proceeding before the Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims—commonly called the vaccine court. It is structured to facilitate the handling of nearly 5000 vaccine petitions involving claims that children who have received certain vaccinations have developed autism. The Petitioners' Steering Committee have claimed that MMR vaccines can cause autism, possibly in combination with thiomersal-containing vaccines. In 2007 three test cases were presented to test the claims about the combination; these cases failed. The vaccine court ruled against the plaintiffs in all three cases, stating that the evidence presented did not validate their claims that vaccinations caused autism in these specific patients or in general.

In some cases, the plaintiffs' attorneys opted out of the Omnibus Autism Proceedings, which were concerned solely with autism, and issues concerned with bowel disorders; they argued their cases in the regular vaccine court.

On 30 July 2007, the family of Bailey Banks, a child with pervasive developmental delay, won its case versus the Department of Health and Human Services. In a case listed as relating to "non-autistic developmental delay", Special Master Richard B. Abell ruled that the Banks had successfully demonstrated, "the MMR vaccine at issue actually caused the conditions from which Bailey suffered and continues to suffer." In his conclusion, he ruled that he was satisfied that MMR had caused a brain inflammation called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). He reached this conclusion because of two vaccine cases in 1994 and 2001, which had concluded, "ADEM can be caused by natural measles, mumps, and rubella infections, as well as by measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines."

In other cases, attorneys did not claim that vaccines caused autism; they sought compensation for encephalopathy, encephalitis, or seizure disorders.

Research

The number of reported cases of autism increased dramatically in the 1990s and early 2000s. This increase is largely attributable to changes in diagnostic practices; it is not known how much, if any, growth came from real changes in autism's prevalence, and no causal connection to the MMR vaccine has been demonstrated.

In 2004, a meta review financed by the European Union assessed the evidence given in 120 other studies and considered unintended effects of the MMR vaccine, concluding that although the vaccine is associated with positive and negative side effects, a connection between MMR and autism was "unlikely". Also in 2004, a review article was published that concluded, "The evidence now is convincing that the measles–mumps–rubella vaccine does not cause autism or any particular subtypes of autistic spectrum disorder." A 2006 review of the literature regarding vaccines and autism found "he bulk of the evidence suggests no causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism." A 2007 case study used the figure in Wakefield's 1999 letter to The Lancet alleging a temporal association between MMR vaccination and autism to illustrate how a graph can misrepresent its data, and gave advice to authors and publishers to avoid similar misrepresentations in the future. A 2007 review of independent studies performed after the publication of Wakefield et al.'s original report found that the studies provided compelling evidence against the hypothesis that MMR is associated with autism. A review of the work conducted in 2004 for UK court proceedings but not revealed until 2007 found that the polymerase chain reaction analysis essential to the Wakefield et al. results was fatally flawed due to contamination, and that it could not have possibly detected the measles that it was supposed to have detected. A 2009 review of studies on links between vaccines and autism discussed the MMR vaccine controversy as one of three main hypotheses that epidemiological and biological studies failed to support.

In 2012, the Cochrane Library published a review of dozens of scientific studies involving about 14,700,000 children, which found no credible evidence of an involvement of MMR with either autism or Crohn's disease. The article was updated in 2020 and again in 2021, with the authors stating, "We have observed an improvement in the quality of the design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR and MMRV in recent years both pre- and post-marketing." A June 2014 meta-analysis involving more than 1.25 million children found "vaccinations are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder. Furthermore, the components of the vaccines (thimerosal or mercury) or multiple vaccines (MMR) are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder." In July 2014, a systematic review found "strong evidence that MMR vaccine is not associated with autism", and in March 2019, a large-scale study conducted by Statens Serum Institut following over 650,000 children for over 10 years found no link between the vaccine and autism, even among children with autistic siblings.

Disease outbreaks

Further information: Measles outbreaks in the 21st century and Mumps outbreaks in the 2000s

After the controversy began, the MMR vaccination compliance dropped sharply in the United Kingdom, from 92% in 1996 to 84% in 2002. In some parts of London, it was as low as 61% in 2003, far below the rate needed to avoid an epidemic of measles. By 2006 coverage for MMR in the UK at 24 months was 85%, lower than the about 94% coverage for other vaccines.

After vaccination rates dropped, the incidence of two of the three diseases increased greatly in the UK. In 1998 there were 56 confirmed cases of measles in the UK; in 2006 there were 449 in the first five months of the year, with the first death since 1992; cases occurred in inadequately vaccinated children. Mumps cases began rising in 1999 after years of very few cases, and by 2005 the United Kingdom was in a mumps epidemic with almost 5000 notifications in the first month of 2005 alone. The age group affected was too old to have received the routine MMR immunisations around the time the paper by Wakefield et al. was published, and too young to have contracted natural mumps as a child, and thus to achieve a herd immunity effect. With the decline in mumps that followed the introduction of the MMR vaccine, these individuals had not been exposed to the disease, but still had no immunity, either natural or vaccine induced. Therefore, as immunisation rates declined following the controversy and the disease re-emerged, they were susceptible to infection. Measles and mumps cases continued in 2006, at incidence rates 13 and 37 times greater than respective 1998 levels. Two children who underwent kidney transplantation in London were severely and permanently injured by measles encephalitis.

Disease outbreaks also caused casualties in nearby countries. Three deaths and 1,500 cases were reported in the Irish outbreak of 2000, which occurred as a direct result of decreased vaccination rates following the MMR scare.

In 2008, for the first time in 14 years, measles was declared endemic in the UK, meaning that the disease was sustained within the population; this was caused by the preceding decade's low MMR vaccination rates, which created a population of susceptible children who could spread the disease. MMR vaccination rates for English children were unchanged in 2007–08 from the year before, at too low a level to prevent serious measles outbreaks. In May 2008, a British 17-year-old with an underlying immunodeficiency died of measles. In 2008 Europe also faced a measles epidemic, including large outbreaks in Austria, Italy, and Switzerland.

Following the January 2011 BMJ statements about Wakefield's fraud, Paul Offit, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a "long-time critic of the dangers of the anti-vaccine movement", said, "that paper killed children", and Michael Smith of the University of Louisville, an "infectious diseases expert who has studied the autism controversy's effect on immunization rates", said "clearly, the results of this (Wakefield) study have had repercussions." In 2014, Laurie Garrett, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, blamed "Wakefieldism" for an increase in the number of unvaccinated children in countries such as Australia and New Zealand, saying, "Our data suggests that where Wakefield's message has caught on, measles follows."

Impact on society

The New England Journal of Medicine said that antivaccinationist activities resulted in a high cost to society, "including damage to individual and community well-being from outbreaks of previously controlled diseases, withdrawal of vaccine manufacturers from the market, compromising of national security (in the case of anthrax and smallpox vaccines), and lost productivity".

Costs to society from declining vaccination rates (in US dollars) were estimated by AOL's DailyFinance in 2011:

  • A 2002–2003 outbreak of measles in Italy, "which led to the hospitalizations of more than 5,000 people, had a combined estimated cost between 17.6 million euros and 22.0 million euros".
  • A 2004 outbreak of measles from "an unvaccinated student return from India in 2004 to Iowa was $142,452".
  • A 2006 outbreak of mumps in Chicago, "caused by poorly immunized employees, cost the institution $262,788, or $29,199 per mumps case".
  • A 2007 outbreak of mumps in Nova Scotia cost $3,511 per case.
  • A 2008 outbreak of measles in San Diego, California cost $177,000, or $10,376 per case.

In the United States, Jenny McCarthy blamed vaccinations for her son Evan's disorders and leveraged her celebrity status to warn parents of a link between vaccines and autism. Evan's disorder began with seizures and his improvement occurred after the seizures were treated, symptoms experts have noted are more consistent with Landau–Kleffner syndrome, often misdiagnosed as autism. After the Lancet article was discredited, McCarthy continued to defend Wakefield. An article in Salon.com called McCarthy "a menace" for her continued position that vaccines are dangerous.

Bill Gates has reacted strongly to Wakefield and the work of anti-vaccination groups:

Dr. Wakefield has been shown to have used absolutely fraudulent data. He had a financial interest in some lawsuits, he created a fake paper, the journal allowed it to run. All the other studies were done, showed no connection whatsoever again and again and again. So it's an absolute lie that has killed thousands of kids. Because the mothers who heard that lie, many of them didn't have their kids take either pertussis or measles vaccine, and their children are dead today. And so the people who go and engage in those anti-vaccine efforts—you know, they, they kill children. It's a very sad thing, because these vaccines are important.

The proportion of children in England receiving the vaccine by the age of two fell to 91.2% in 2017–18, from 91.6% the year before. Only 87.2% of five-year-olds had received both MMR vaccines.

With the onset of a large number of measles outbreaks in the United States in 2019, there is fear that parents who have not had their children vaccinated will help to spread infectious diseases in schools and universities where there are already other outbreaks.

See also

References

  1. ^ Di Pietrantonj, C; Rivetti, A; Marchione, P; Debalini, MG; Demicheli, V (22 November 2021). "Vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella in children". Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2021 (11): CD004407. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD004407.pub5. PMC 8607336. PMID 34806766.
  2. Flaherty, Dennis K. (October 2011). "The vaccine-autism connection: a public health crisis caused by unethical medical practices and fraudulent science". The Annals of Pharmacotherapy. 45 (10): 1302–1304. doi:10.1345/aph.1Q318. ISSN 1542-6270. PMID 21917556. S2CID 39479569.
  3. Dyer, Clare (2 February 2010). "Lancet retracts Wakefield's MMR paper". BMJ. 340: c696. doi:10.1136/bmj.c696. ISSN 0959-8138. PMID 20124366. S2CID 43465004.
  4. "Public Health Education". KYRA SCHWARTZ TECHNICAL WRITING SAMPLES. Archived from the original on 13 May 2021. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
  5. Goldacre, B. (30 August 2008). "The MMR hoax". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 6 February 2015. Retrieved 30 August 2008. Alt URL
  6. Hussain, Azhar; Ali, Syed; Ahmed, Madiha; Hussain, Sheharyar (2018). "The Anti-vaccination Movement: A Regression in Modern Medicine". Cureus. 10 (7): e2919. doi:10.7759/cureus.2919. ISSN 2168-8184. PMC 6122668. PMID 30186724.
  7. Gross, Liza (26 May 2009). "A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine–Autism Wars". PLOS Biology. 7 (5): e1000114. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000114. ISSN 1544-9173. PMC 2682483. PMID 19478850.
  8. ^ McIntyre, P; Leask, J (2008). "Improving uptake of MMR vaccine". The BMJ. 336 (7647): 729–30. doi:10.1136/bmj.39503.508484.80. PMC 2287215. PMID 18309963.
  9. ^ Pepys MB (December 2007). "Science and serendipity". Clinical Medicine. 7 (6): 562–78. doi:10.7861/clinmedicine.7-6-562. PMC 4954362. PMID 18193704.
  10. "Measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 22 August 2008. Archived from the original on 7 April 2008. Retrieved 21 December 2008.
  11. Institute of Medicine (US) Immunization Safety Review Committee (17 May 2004). Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism. Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. doi:10.17226/10997. ISBN 978-0-309-09237-1. PMID 20669467. Archived from the original on 26 October 2009. Retrieved 13 June 2007.
  12. "MMR The facts". NHS Immunisation Information. 2004. Archived from the original on 7 January 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2007.
  13. ^ Di Pietrantonj, Carlo; Rivetti, Alessandro; Marchione, Pasquale; Debalini, Maria Grazia; Demicheli, Vittorio (20 April 2020). "Vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella in children". The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 4 (4): CD004407. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD004407.pub4. ISSN 1469-493X. PMC 7169657. PMID 32309885.
  14. Flaherty, Dennis K (October 2011). "The vaccine-autism connection: a public health crisis caused by unethical medical practices and fraudulent science". Annals of Pharmacotherapy. 45 (10): 1302–4. doi:10.1345/aph.1Q318. PMID 21917556. S2CID 39479569.
  15. ^ Gever, John (5 January 2011). "BMJ Lifts Curtain on MMR-Autism Fraud". MedPage Today. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  16. ^ Godlee, F (January 2011). "The fraud behind the MMR scare". The BMJ. 342 (jan06 1): d22. doi:10.1136/bmj.d22. S2CID 73020733.
  17. Deer, Brian (6 January 2011). "Brian Deer: Piltdown medicine: The missing link between MMR and autism". BMJ Group Blogs. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  18. ^ "Link between MMR Vaccines and Autism conclusively broken". IB Times. 7 January 2011. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  19. Broyd, Nicky (6 January 2011). "BMJ Declares Vaccine-Autism Study 'an Elaborate Fraud', 1998 Lancet Study Not Bad Science but Deliberate Fraud, Claims Journal". WebMD Health News. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  20. ^ Poland GA, Jacobson RM (13 January 2011). "The age-old struggle against the antivaccinationists". The New England Journal of Medicine. 364 (2): 97–99. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1010594. PMID 21226573. S2CID 39229852.
  21. Jasek, Marissa (6 January 2011). "Healthwatch: Disputed autism study sparks debate about vaccines". WWAY Newschannel 3. Archived from the original on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 7 January 2011.
  22. ^ The Sunday Times 2004:
  23. ^ 2004 BBC documentary:
  24. ^ Deer, Brian (8 February 2009). "MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism". The Sunday Times. London. Archived from the original on 27 February 2014. Retrieved 9 February 2009.
  25. ^ Boseley, Sarah (2 February 2010). "Lancet retracts 'utterly false' MMR paper". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
  26. ^ Triggle, Nick (24 May 2010). "MMR doctor struck off register". BBC News. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
  27. Deer B (2011). "How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed". The BMJ. 342 (jan05 1): c5347. doi:10.1136/bmj.c5347. PMID 21209059.
  28. Deer B (11 January 2011). "How the vaccine crisis was meant to make money". The BMJ. 342 (jan11 4): c5258. doi:10.1136/bmj.c5258. PMID 21224310. S2CID 37724643.
  29. Deer B (18 January 2011). "The Lancet's two days to bury bad news". The BMJ). Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  30. ^ Godlee F, Smith J, Marcovitch H (2011). "Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent". The BMJ. 342: c7452. doi:10.1136/bmj.c7452. PMID 21209060. S2CID 43640126.
  31. ^ Deer, Brian (2011). "Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent". The BMJ. 342: c5347. doi:10.1136/bmj.c5347. PMID 21209059.
  32. Calvert N, Cutts F, Irving R, Brown D, Marsh J, Miller E (February 1996). "Measles immunity and response to revaccination among secondary school children in Cumbria". Epidemiology & Infection. 116 (1): 65–70. doi:10.1017/S0950268800058969. PMC 2271248. PMID 8626005.
  33. Miller, E (October 1994). "The new measles campaign". The BMJ. 309 (6962): 1102–3. doi:10.1136/bmj.309.6962.1102. PMC 2541903. PMID 7987096.
  34. Cutts, FT (March 1996). "Revaccination against measles and rubella". The BMJ. 312 (7031): 589–90. doi:10.1136/bmj.312.7031.589. PMC 2350416. PMID 8595319.
  35. "Richard Barr original writing site". www.richardbarr.org. Archived from the original on 7 July 2018. Retrieved 27 May 2010.
  36. Fitzpatrick, Michael. "spiked-health | Medicine on trial". Spiked-online.com. Archived from the original on 25 June 2016. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  37. Kennedy, Mari-Rose (22 September 2017). "Case study: Wakefield and MMR" (PDF). Promoting Integrity as an Integral Dimension of Excellence in Research (D III.3.2).
  38. Wakefield AJ, Pittilo RM, Sim R, et al. (1993). "Evidence of Persistent Measles Virus in Crohn's Disease". Journal of Medical Virology. 39 (4): 345–53. doi:10.1002/jmv.1890390415. PMID 8492105. S2CID 29899812.
  39. Thompson, N.P; Pounder, R.E; Wakefield, A.J; Montgomery, S.M (1995). "Is Measles Vaccine a Risk for Inflammatory Bowel Disease?". The Lancet. 345 (8957): 1071–74. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(95)90816-1. PMID 7715338. S2CID 30683685.
  40. "On Second Looking Into the Case of Dr. Andrew J. Wakefield" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 May 2010. Retrieved 19 May 2010.
  41. Fitzpatrick, M (2004). MMR and Autism: What Parents Need to Know. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-32179-2. Retrieved 2 February 2011.
  42. Steinmetz, Peter N. (November–December 2020). "The Scientific Frauds Underlying the False MMR Vaccine–Autism Link". Skeptical Inquirer. Amherst, New York: Center for Inquiry. Archived from the original on 8 August 2021. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  43. ^ Moore, Alfred; Stilgoe, Jack (2009). "Experts and Anecdotes". Science, Technology, & Human Values. 34 (5): 654–677. doi:10.1177/0162243908329382. ISSN 0162-2439. S2CID 142993062.
  44. Taylor, B. (2006). "Vaccines and the changing epidemiology of autism". Child: Care, Health and Development. 32 (5): 511–519. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2214.2006.00655.x. ISSN 0305-1862. PMID 16919130. S2CID 26423046.
  45. "Doctors issue plea over MMR jab". BBC News. 26 June 2006. Retrieved 4 February 2009.
  46. "The Lancet retracts Andrew Wakefield's article". Science-Based Medicine. 3 February 2010. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
  47. Moore, Andrew (2006). "Bad science in the headlines: Who takes responsibility when science is distorted in the mass media?". EMBO Reports. 7 (12): 1193–1196. doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400862. PMC 1794697. PMID 17139292.
  48. Hilton, S; Petticrew, M; Hunt, K (2007). "Parents' champions vs. vested interests: Who do parents believe about MMR? A qualitative study". BMC Public Health. 7: 42. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-7-42. PMC 1851707. PMID 17391507.
  49. Speers, T; Justin, L (September 2004). "Journalists and jabs: media coverage of the MMR vaccine". Communication and Medicine. 1 (2): 171–181. doi:10.1515/come.2004.1.2.171. PMID 16808699. S2CID 29969819.
  50. Jackson, T (2003). "MMR: more scrutiny, please". The BMJ. 326 (7401): 1272. doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7401.1272. PMC 1126154.
  51. Dobson, Roger (May 2003). "Media misled the public over the MMR vaccine, study says". The BMJ. 326 (7399): 1107. doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7399.1107-a. PMC 1150987. PMID 12763972.
  52. Katelaris, A (17 August 2007). "Wakefield saga a study in integrity". Australian Doctor: 20. Archived from the original on 8 September 2007.
  53. "Reputation Survey: MMR panic subsides". PR Week, 2 June 2010: 24.
  54. Goldberg, Robert M., "Andrew Wakefield's Lethal Legacy" Archived 10 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine, The American Spectator, 7 January 2011. Retrieved 11 January 2011.
  55. "Vaccines: An Unhealthy Skepticism". Retro Report. 1 February 2015. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  56. Cameron, Neil (12 January 2011). "Autism 'study' represents a failure of journalism". The Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 12 January 2011.
  57. "False autism study has done untold harm". The Montreal Gazette. 10 January 2011. Retrieved 12 January 2011.
  58. ^ Lewandowsky, Stephan; Ecker, Ullrich K. H.; Seifert, Colleen M.; Schwarz, Norbert; Cook, John (2012). "Misinformation and Its Correction". Psychological Science in the Public Interest. 13 (3): 106–131. doi:10.1177/1529100612451018. ISSN 1529-1006. PMID 26173286. S2CID 42633.
  59. ^ Sharts-Hopko, Nancy C. (2009). "Issues in Pediatric Immunization". MCN: The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing. 34 (2): 80–88. doi:10.1097/01.NMC.0000347300.39714.19. ISSN 0361-929X. PMID 19262260. S2CID 22635524.
  60. Mole, Beth (5 June 2024). "Vaccines don't cause autism, but the lie won't die—in fact, it's getting worse". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 9 June 2024. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  61. "False Belief in MMR Vaccine-Autism Link Endures as Measles Threat Persists". Annenberg Public Policy Center. University of Pennsylvania. 3 June 2024. Archived from the original on 18 June 2024. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  62. Willingham, E (8 August 2013). "Court Rulings Don't Confirm Autism-Vaccine Link". Forbes. Retrieved 13 August 2013.
  63. Bocci, Michele (1 March 2015). "Autismo, i giudici assolvono il vaccino ("Autism, the judges acquit the vaccine")". La Repubblica (in Italian). Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  64. Yoshida N, Fujino M, Ota Y, et al. (26 January 2007). "Simple differentiation method of mumps Hoshino vaccine strain from wild strains by reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP)". Vaccine. 25 (7): 1281–1286. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2006.09.093. PMID 17097200.
  65. ^ "Why Japan stopped using MMR". BBC News. 8 February 2002.
  66. ^ Norrie, Justin (27 May 2007). "Japanese measles epidemic brings campuses to standstill". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  67. ^ Kakuchi, Suvendrini (25 February 2003). "Health-Japan: Vaccine Manufacturer Sued over deaths". Consumercide.com. New York. Global Information Network. Archived from the original on 12 November 2011.
  68. Coghlan, Andy (3 March 2005). "Autism rises despite MMR ban in Japan". New Scientist.
  69. Honda, Hideo; Shimizu, Yasuo; Rutter, Michael (18 February 2005). "No effect of MMR withdrawal on the incidence of autism: a total population study". Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 46 (6): 572–579. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01425.x. PMID 15877763.
  70. Chou, I-han (2003). "Japanese scientists plan MMR alternative". Nature Medicine. 9 (11): 1337. doi:10.1038/nm1103-1337b. PMID 14595415. S2CID 45255392.
  71. "comments on MMR vaccine". FOIA Centre. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  72. "Families win lawsuit over MMR vaccine". The Japan Times. 14 March 2003. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  73. "High court rules state responsible for vaccine side effects". Kyodo: TMCnet News. Japan Economic Newswire. 20 April 2006. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  74. "Approved Judgment". briandeer.com. 23 May 2007. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  75. "FOIA Centre news: MMR group legal claim collapses in high court". FOIA Centre. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  76. ^ Fitzpatrick, M (4 July 2007). "'The MMR–autism theory? There's nothing in it'". spiked. Retrieved 22 January 2008.
  77. "Omnibus Autism Proceeding | US Court of Federal Claims". Uscfc.uscourts.gov. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  78. "Editorial: Vaccines Exonerated on Autism". The New York Times. 12 February 2009. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
  79. Cedillo v. HHS (PDF), U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Office of Special Masters, No. 98-916V (12 February 2009). Retrieved 25 March 2009.
  80. "Entitlement Ruling" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 May 2009. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
  81. Vaccines and Autism: The Unending Story Archived 21 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine, thedailybeast.com
  82. "Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and David Kirby: Vaccine Court: Autism Debate Continues". HuffPost. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  83. Rutter, M (2005). "Incidence of autism spectrum disorders: changes over time and their meaning". Acta Paediatrica. 94 (1): 2–15. doi:10.1111/j.1651-2227.2005.tb01779.x. PMID 15858952. S2CID 79259285.
  84. Jefferson T, Price D, Demicheli V, Bianco E (2003). "Unintended events following immunization with MMR: a systematic review". Vaccine. 21 (25–26): 3954–60. doi:10.1016/S0264-410X(03)00271-8. PMID 12922131.
  85. DeStefano, F; Thompson, WW (February 2004). "MMR vaccine and autism: an update of the scientific evidence". Expert Review of Vaccines. 3 (1): 19–22. doi:10.1586/14760584.3.1.19. PMID 14761240. S2CID 36898414.
  86. Doja, A; Roberts, W (November 2006). "Immunizations and autism: a review of the literature". Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences. 33 (4): 341–6. doi:10.1017/s031716710000528x. PMID 17168158.
  87. Wakefield, Andrew Jeremy (1999). "MMR vaccination and autism". The Lancet. 354 (9182): 949–50. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)75696-8. PMC 56739. PMID 10489978.
  88. Cox, AR; Kirkham, H (2007). "A case study of a graphical misrepresentation: drawing the wrong conclusions about the measles, mumps and rubella virus vaccine". Drug Safety. 30 (10): 831–6. doi:10.2165/00002018-200730100-00002. PMID 17867721. S2CID 24702919.
  89. DeStefano, F (2007). "Vaccines and autism: evidence does not support a causal association". Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics. 82 (6): 756–9. doi:10.1038/sj.clpt.6100407. PMID 17928818. S2CID 12872702.
  90. Gerber, JS; Offit, PA (2009). "Vaccines and autism: a tale of shifting hypotheses". Clinical Infectious Diseases. 48 (4): 456–61. doi:10.1086/596476. PMC 2908388. PMID 19128068. See IDSA lay summary Archived 12 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine, 2009-01-30.
  91. Taylor LE, Swerdfeger AL, Eslick GD (June 2014). "Vaccines are not associated with autism: an evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies". Vaccine. 32 (29): 3623–9. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.04.085. PMID 24814559.
  92. Maglione MA, Das L, Raaen L, et al. (August 2014). "Safety of vaccines used for routine immunization of U.S. children: a systematic review" (PDF). Pediatrics. 134 (2): 325–37. doi:10.1542/peds.2014-1079. PMID 25086160. S2CID 514220.
  93. "No Association between MMR Vaccine and Autism". 4 March 2019.
  94. Hviid, Anders; Hansen, Jørgen Vinsløv; Frisch, Morten; Melbye, Mads (5 March 2019). "Measles, Mumps, Rubella Vaccination and Autism". Annals of Internal Medicine. 170 (8). Annals of Internal Medicine / American College of Physicians: 513–520. doi:10.7326/M18-2101. PMID 30831578. S2CID 73474920. Retrieved 7 March 2019. The study strongly supports that MMR vaccination does not increase the risk for autism, does not trigger autism in susceptible children, and is not associated with clustering of autism cases after vaccination
  95. Murch, S (2003). "Separating inflammation from speculation in autism". The Lancet. 362 (9394): 1498–9. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(03)14699-5. PMID 14602448. S2CID 40071957.
  96. Asaria, P; MacMahon, E (2006). "Measles in the United Kingdom: can we eradicate it by 2010?". The BMJ. 333 (7574): 890–5. doi:10.1136/bmj.38989.445845.7C. PMC 1626346. PMID 17068034.
  97. Gupta RK, Best J, MacMahon E (2005). "Mumps and the UK epidemic 2005". The BMJ. 330 (7500): 1132–5. doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7500.1132. PMC 557899. PMID 15891229.
  98. "England and Wales in grip of mumps epidemic". N Z Herald. 13 May 2005. Archived from the original on 10 April 2005. Retrieved 10 July 2008.
  99. "Mumps". Health Protection Agency. Archived from the original on 2 May 2007. Retrieved 10 July 2008.
  100. "Confirmed cases of measles, mumps & rubella". Health Protection Agency. 22 March 2007. Retrieved 5 September 2007.
  101. ^ European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) – Surveillance and Communication Unit (2008). "Measles once again endemic in the United Kingdom". Eurosurveillance. 13 (27): 18919. PMID 18761933.
  102. "MMR vaccine uptake rise 'stalls'". BBC News. 24 September 2008. Retrieved 24 September 2008.
  103. "Study linking vaccines to autism is 'fraudulent'". Time. 6 January 2011. Retrieved 7 January 2011.
  104. Gupta, Sanjay (6 January 2011). "Dr. Sanjay Gupta Confronts Autism Study Doctor". CBS Evening News. Retrieved 8 January 2011. 'Four children died from measles,' says Offit. 'Three died in Ireland, one died in England, died from a disease that was perfectly and safely prevented by a vaccine, died because of that paper. That paper killed four children.'
  105. McBrien J, Murphy J, Gill D, Cronin M, O'Donovan C, Cafferkey MT (July 2003). "Measles outbreak in Dublin, 2000". The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. 22 (7): 580–4. doi:10.1097/00006454-200307000-00002. PMID 12867830.
  106. "Will autism fraud report be a vaccine booster?". Associated Press. 7 January 2011. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  107. Smith MJ, Ellenberg SS, Bell LM, Rubin DM (April 2008). "Media coverage of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism controversy and its relationship to MMR immunization rates in the United States". Pediatrics. 121 (4): e836–43. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.317.3211. doi:10.1542/peds.2007-1760. PMID 18381512. S2CID 1448617.
  108. Harlow, John (17 February 2014). "Measles map exposes global fallout of an autism scare campaign". The Australian. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  109. Alazraki, Molly (12 January 2011). "The Autism Vaccine Fraud: Dr. Wakefield's Costly Lie to Society". AOL Money and Finance: DailyFinance. Archived from the original on 15 January 2011. Retrieved 13 January 2011 – via Wayback Machine.
  110. Greenfeld, KT (25 February 2010). "The autism debate: who's afraid of Jenny McCarthy?". Time. Archived from the original on 5 August 2011.
  111. McCarthy, Jenny (10 January 2011). "Jenny McCarthy: In the Vaccine-Autism Debate, What Can Parents Believe?". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 22 September 2013.
  112. Williams, Mary Elizabeth (6 January 2011). "Jenny McCarthy's autism fight grows more misguided". Salon. Retrieved 22 September 2013.
  113. Finnegan, Gary (18 March 2011). "Bill Gates: Anti-vaccine myths 'kill children'". VaccinesToday. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
  114. "Take-up of MMR vaccine falls for fourth year in a row in England". The Guardian. 18 September 2018. Retrieved 31 October 2018.
  115. Karlamangla, Soumya (23 April 2019). "Measles' next target in Los Angeles: Unvaccinated college students". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 24 April 2019.

Further reading

Artificial induction of immunity / Immunization: Vaccines, Vaccination, Infection, Inoculation (J07)
Development
Classes
Administration
Vaccines
Bacterial
Viral
Protozoan
Helminthiasis
Other
Inventors/
researchers
Controversy
Related
Conspiracy theories
List of conspiracy theories
Overview
Core topics
Psychology
Astronomy and outer space
UFOs
Hoaxes
Deaths and disappearances
Assassination /
suicide theories
Accidents / disasters
Other cases
Body double hoax
Energy, environment

California drought manipulation

False flag allegations
Gender and sexuality
Health
Race, religion and/or ethnicity
Antisemitic
Christian / Anti-Christian
Islamophobic
Genocide denial /
Denial of mass killings
Regional
Asia
Americas
(outside the United States)
Middle East / North Africa
Russia
Turkey
Other European
United States
2020 election
Other
Pseudolaw
Satirical
See also
Vaccine safety
Vaccine hesitancy
Disease resurgence
Before 2019
2019
2019–2020 measles outbreaks
>10,000 confirmed cases
1,000 to 10,000 confirmed cases
<1,000 confirmed cases
Related: Measles resurgence in the United States
Others
Legal
Vaccine safety procedures
Anti-vaxxer media
Controversies
Organizations
Scientists
Anti-vaxxer personalities
Anti-vaxxer organizations
United States of America
United Kingdom
Australia
France
Others
Epidemiology and surveillance
Others
Autism
Main
Diagnoses
Associated conditions
and phenomena
Comorbid conditions
Associated syndromes
Related issues
Controversies
Diagnostic scales
Screening scales
Lists
Accommodations
Autism resources
Awareness
Culture
Accommodations
Therapies
Psychotropic medication (antipsychotics)
Behavioral
Developmental
Controversial
Related
Centers
Research
United States
United Kingdom
Therapy
United States
Schools
Organizations
International
Americas
United States
Asia
Caribbean
Europe
UK
Oceania
Literature
Non-fiction
Fiction
For younger people
Journals
Categories: