WyBlog

The Lancet acknowledges there is no autism - vaccine link

A controversial 1998 study published in The Lancet which linked the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine to increased instances of autism has been officially retracted.

"It has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al. are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation. In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were 'consecutively referred' and that investigations were 'approved' by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record."

It's about time. Wakefield's "study" has always been suspect, but because it was published in a respected medical journal many people believed it's veracity, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I hope this retraction finally discredits the anti-vaccine movement. Withholding vaccinations from our children exposes them to real, documented, provable dangers. The fear of contracting autism has led to untold numbers of children being afflicted with preventable diseases.

It is extremely rare for a medical journal to issue a retraction. We should all be grateful that The Lancet took this step in order to set the record straight. Vaccines do not cause autism!

Posted at 14:32 by Chris Wysocki   [/odds_n_ends]   Comments | Archived | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: Lancet autism vaccine MMR   |   Tweet