Daniel Hagerman, MD Pediatrics Cedar Mills Medical Group

January 10, 2011

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a study that suggested a possible link between the MMR (measles / mumps / rubella) vaccine and autism. This week, in an unprecedented move, the British Medical Journal published data proving that Wakefield’s study was a fraud. They revealed that Wakefield had been paid over $1,000,000 by a group of lawyers to create this data and that the data he presented was fabricated.

Unfortunately, in many ways the damage was already done. In response to Wakefield’s report, millions of parents made the unfortunate decision not to vaccinate their children. Because of this, diseases that had been nearly eradicated have resurged. A number of deaths have even occurred in under-vaccinated children. Additionally, this fraudulent study held both autism and vaccine research hostage for the past 12 years wasting billions of research dollars that could have been used in constructive ways.

This report serves as the final nail in the coffin of this sad episode. No other credible research has shown any link between any vaccines and autism. Dozens of well-designed and executed studies have clearly refuted the link. Good science has also disproved purported links between mercury and aluminum in vaccines or the number of vaccines given with the risk of autism. Parents should no longer waste any energy worrying about any risk of autism associated with vaccines. The science is clear. Vaccines are safe, effective, and critical to the health and well being of our children. Sadly, in spite of clear data about vaccine safety, disinformation continues to abound on the Internet and in the media.

My sincere hope is that with this chapter behind us, parents of children with autism can move forward in positive ways to help their children. They need to reject unproven alternative treatments spawned by Wakefield and the anti-vaccine movement and seek scientifically sound therapies for their children.

The moral of this story is that parents should trust their pediatrician and medical science as the only trustworthy source of vaccine advice, not the Internet and media misinformation from the anti-vaccine movement.