In London, 1998, medical researcher Andrew Wakefield and his associates held a press conference to report their latest findings. They reported that they had studied 12 children, monitoring them after having had the MMR vaccine introduced into their system. These children, he claimed, had experienced serious intestinal inflammation, caused especially by the measles part of the vaccine, roughly a week afterwards. Two weeks after the injection, nine of the 12 children studied had been diagnosed with autism. While the other scientists he worked with noted that they had not nor could they prove that the autism was linked to the vaccine, Wakefield claimed that it was indeed caused by it, as their intestines had been damaged to the extent that toxins had leaked into the bloodstream, reaching the brain and causing neurotic damage which led to autism.
Wakefield's report was published in the Lancet, a well respected medical journal, as well as newspapers throughout Britain and the world and caused hysteria throughout the western world, surrounding not only MMR, but the notion of having ones child vaccinated at all. There was public outcry to ban the MMR all together.
For years, Nicholas Chadwick, a British biochemist, argued the case, as he himself prior to the report, had been studying the effects of the measles vaccine on the gut, and had always turned up nothing. He found it unreasonable that Wakefield should take a very small number of children and have the result in most of them. He attempted to make his doubt heard, through interviews, but to no avail.
Later, it came out that Wakefield had been commissioned in his research by Britain's Legal Aid Board, who fund research used to back up court cases. The parents of the majority of the children tested were recruited by this Board to try win a case(s) of the parents of children with autism v. the MMR manufacturers.
10 of the 12 co-authors on the report withdrew their names from the findings shortly after. In doing so they said:
"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, and 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 upon these findings in the paper, according to precedent."
Wakefield confirmed that he had been paid to provide study evidence by lawyers acting for parents of children with autism, but he said that that had made no influence on his research. Because of this, he was charged in 2005 in the British General Medical Court for professional misconduct.
Later, the truth came out. The children in the study did not have gut issues after the MMR, but already had them. And while the study was already discredited amongst his peers, due to lack of control group, small numbers tested, and no follow-up research, it was officially discredited.
This was due to things such as 5 of the children already having existing developmental issues, the report was that some children showed behavioural problems just days after the vaccine, where as records show it was a number of months afterwards, as well as conflict of interest. Points have been raised that perhaps Wakefield was not dishonest, and just incompetent, but due to the precise nature and presentation of the paper, this too has been discredited.
It is widely now recognised that vaccines of all kinds do not cause autism, as there is no real proof of it. Still, their are tragic stories of children and babies experiencing adverse side-effects and later being diagnosed with autism. It is still commonly believed, that vaccines can and have caused this illness, but as their is no proof what caused it, some parents may find it easier to blame something tangible, however reasonable or unreasonable it may be.
Here, at the Vaccine Risk Awareness Network, you can read personal stories, from the parents of children who have experienced terrible things, they they blame vaccines for, some of which are autism.
I think it should also be noted that The CDC reports that up to 1 in 88 children (in the USA) has been identified as having some form of autism (mild, severe, etc), (with 1 in 54 boys, and 1 in 252 girls), and in the last 13 years it is estimated there has been over a 200% increase in autism diagnosis. That's since 1999, the Wakefield report having been released the year prior. The number of children immunised in Britian dropped from 92% to under 80%, thus less children being immunised, yet the diagnoses rates growing steadily. Basically what I'm trying to say is, that you can perceive the rise in autism as being the fault of medical science but there are many reasons it could be happening. Perhaps, it is becoming like other illnesses, easier to diagnose, or perhaps just over diagnosed? Either way, you cannot blame one thing, when there is absolutely no proof on a grand scale.
Try, though, to remember that the hysteria spread by Dr. Wakefield's false report, may have been responsible for a child or children dying or being crippled by a vaccine preventable disease.
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