Andrew Wakefield

Updated: Jan. 6, 2011

Andrew Wakefield is a British doctor whose controversial research and public statements have caused widespread alarm that a common childhood vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella could cause autism.

The conclusions of the 1998 paper by Dr. Wakefield and colleagues was renounced by 10 of its 13 authors and later retracted by the medical journal Lancet, where it was published. Still, the suggestion the MMR shot was connected to autism spooked parents worldwide and immunization rates for measles, mumps and rubella have never fully recovered.

In Jan 2011, a British journalist, Brian Deer, published an analysis of the paper that concluded that the study was based on doctored information about the children involved. The examination found, by comparing the reported diagnoses in the paper to hospital records, that Wakefield and colleagues altered facts about patients in their study. It also found that despite the claim in Dr. Wakefield's paper that the 12 children studied were normal until they had the MMR shot, five had previously documented developmental problems. Deer also found that all the cases were somehow misrepresented when he compared data from medical records and the children's parents.

In May 2010, Dr. Wakefield had been banned from practicing medicine in Britain based on what the British General Medical Council deemed "unprofessional conduct."

The council's action came after more than a decade of controversy over the links Dr. Wakefield and associates in Britain, as well as supporters among parents of some autistic children in Britain and the United States, have made between autism and the vaccine. The suggested link caused use of the vaccine in Britain and elsewhere to plummet, a development that critics of Dr. Wakefield said contributed to a sharp rise in measles cases in countries where the vaccine was in use. Most scientific papers do not support Dr. Wakefield's claim, failing to find any links between vaccines and autism.

Dr. Wakefield abandoned his medical practice in Britain in 2004 after questions intensified about his research methods. He moved to the United States and set up a research center in Texas to study childhood developmental disorders, despite not being licensed as a physician there.

In January 2010, after the longest investigation in its history, the council found several instances of what it said was unprofessional conduct by Dr. Wakefield. It cited his taking blood samples for his study from children at his son's birthday party; he paid each child £5, about $7.20 today. Following the release of these findings, Dr. Wakefield resigned from his position as staff researcher from the Texas center. He was banned from practicing in Britain that March.

Dr. Wakefield has called the British decision to strike him off the medical register an effort to ''discredit and silence'' him. Undaunted, Dr. Wakefield said he would continue his research into the link between vaccines and autism.