This myth originated in a 1997 study by Andrew Wakefield
published in the Lancet. Wakefield suggested that the increase in autism
in the UK was caused by the MMR vaccine. Wakefield’s study involved only twelve
patients, he also had serious conflicts of interest, both ethical and
financial., including being retained by lawyers suing a vaccine manufacturer
(3). Wakefield also proposed that the bundled MMR vaccine be replaced by
singe-antigen vaccines. He had, that same year, applied for a patent for a
single-antigen measles vaccine. By 2010, with a wave of studies showing that
Wakefield’s paper was “fatally flawed”, the Lancet retracted the paper
and Wakefield lost his license to practice in the UK. Finally, in a 2011 paper,
Brian Deer showed conclusively that Wakefield had falsified the data in his
original paper. Although the study has been extensively debunked, including by
studies showing that symptoms of autism are present as early as in utero, the
myth persists (1).
(2)
1Do Vaccines Cause Autism
(25 January 2018), retrieved 2 May 2020, https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/do-vaccines-cause-autism
2Lancet Retracts Wakefield Paper. (n.d.). Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://quackwatch.org/autism/news/lancet/
3Vaccines Myths Debunked
(2020), retrieved 2 May 2020, https://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/understanding-vaccines/vaccine-myths-debunked/
