Methods used in measles link with autism claim found to lack special sensitivity

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

Andrew Wakefield's theory was that measles virus, especially in MMR, was the ultimate culprit for autism. When other groups, including researchers in his own lab at the Royal Free hospital, failed to find it, using sophisticated molecular techniques, Wakefield claimed that their methods were insufficiently sensitive, compared with those of his key collaborator Professor John O'Leary in Dublin, who used a Taqman PCR machine. Comparisons, such as those reported in the paper below, concluded that this was wrong