Andrew Wakefield retracts vital anti-MMR paper in court, but doesn't tell public

This page is research from an investigation by Brian Deer for the UK's Channel 4 Television and The Sunday Times of London into a campaign linking the MMR children's vaccine with autism. | Go to part I: The Lancet scandal | Go to part II: The Wakefield factor

Even as Andrew Wakefield claimed that measles virus in the vaccine caused bowel disease and then autism, his own lab had rebutted this theory, under a protocol he designed, finding no trace of measles virus in children he presented as evidence of vaccine damage. Wakefield then sought test results more to his liking, from Tokyo physician Dr Hisashi Kawashima. Kawashima appeared to get positive results, and published a paper with Wakefield claiming to have found vaccine-strain virus in autistic children

But, after suggestions of contamination in Kawashima's lab, Wakefield retracted his reliance on the paper, without telling the public. Anti-MMR campaigners, especially some parents of autistic children, continue to believe that this research, widely publicised on the web, has shown a link between "vaccine strain" measles virus and autism. Below is part 1.1 of Wakefield's report for a UK lawsuit, in which he abandons one of the most important publications that have led parents to believe that autism imight be due to to MMR

This report is dated July 3 2003, and followed a statement submitted by former Wakefield research assistant Nick Chadwick