This page is material from the award-winning investigation by Brian Deer for The Sunday Times of London, with spin-offs for a UK TV network and a top medical journal, which exposed vaccine research cheat Andrew Wakefield | Summary | Read the book

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Medical editor denounced

The Sunday Times, January 23 2011

The editor of the journal that sparked a decade-long scare over the MMR vaccine is facing pressure to resign, as leading medical researchers call for a new regime to investigate scientific fraud, writes Brian Deer.

The British Medical Journal yesterday denounced Dr Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, and doctors at University College London (UCL), accusing them of trying to “bury” a Sunday Times investigation into the research behind the crisis.

The controversy began in an article in The Lancet in 1998. Seven years ago, the first findings of this paper’s investigation were put to Horton, showing that the architect of the scare, Andrew Wakefield, had rigged his research.

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Horton and Humphrey Hodgson, a senior UCL professor, did not carry out inquiries but instead issued statements with Wakefield denying serious wrongdoing.

“This represents institutional and editorial misconduct and its impact has been substantial,” said Fiona Godlee, BMJ editor.

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