BMJ  2008;336:850 (19 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.39553.506597.DB (published 17 April 2008)

News

Wakefield admits fabricating events when he took children’s blood samples

Owen Dyer

1 London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The doctor whose study triggered a collapse in public confidence in the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine told a disciplinary panel last week that he made up details of his son’s birthday party—at which he took blood samples from several children—when giving a speech in California.

Andrew Wakefield was one of the authors of the 1998 Lancet paper on inflammatory bowel disease and autism. He is now facing a General Medical Council fitness to practise panel, accused of serious professional misconduct, alongside two other authors of the study, Simon Murch and John Walker-Smith.

Dr Wakefield’s comments at a press conference announcing the paper, where he linked the MMR vaccine to a risk of autism, led to a public health scare that saw uptake of the vaccine dip below 80%. The Lancet later repudiated the paper, after it emerged that Dr Wakefield had extensive financial ties to lawyers and . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Patients and the public deserve big changes in evaluation of drugs
Silvio Garattini and Iain Chalmers
BMJ 2009 338: b1025. [Extract] [Full Text]

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Garattini, S., Chalmers, I. (2009). Patients and the public deserve big changes in evaluation of drugs. BMJ 338: b1025-b1025 [Full text]  
Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ