Autism Blog - BMJ press release: there is “no doubt” that it was Wakefield who perpetrated this fraud

06 Jan 2011

Author: Sullivan
Comments: 10

BMJ press release: there is “no doubt” that it was Wakefield who perpetrated this fraud

Here is the press release for the series in the BMJ on Andrew Wakefield.

Today, the BMJ declares the 1998 Lancet paper that implied a link between the MMR vaccine and autism “an elaborate fraud.”

Dr Fiona Godlee, BMJ Editor in Chief says “the MMR scare was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud” and that such “clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare.”

She is struck by a comparison between researcher Andrew Wakefield’s fraud and Piltdown man, that great paleontological hoax that led people to believe for 40 years that the missing link between man and ape had been found.

She also questions the veracity of Wakefield’s other publications and calls for an investigation “to decide whether any others should be retracted.”

A series of three articles starting this week reveal the true extent of the scam behind the scare. The series is based on interviews, documents and data, collected during seven years of inquiries by award-winning investigative journalist Brian Deer.

Thanks to the recent publication of the General Medical Council’s six million word transcript, the BMJ was able to peer-review and check Deer’s findings and confirm extensive falsification in the Lancet paper.

In an editorial, Dr Godlee, together with deputy BMJ editor Jane Smith, and leading paediatrician and associate BMJ editor Harvey Marcovitch, conclude that there is “no doubt” that it was Wakefield who perpetrated this fraud. They say: “A great deal of thought and effort must have gone into drafting the paper to achieve the results he wanted: the discrepancies all led in one direction; misreporting was gross.”

Yet he has repeatedly denied doing anything wrong at all, they add. “Instead, although now disgraced and stripped of his clinical and academic credentials, he continues to push his views. Meanwhile the damage to public health continues.”

“Science is based on trust,” concludes Dr Godlee. “Such a breach of trust is deeply shocking. And even though almost certainly rare on this scale, it raises important questions about how this could happen, what could have been done to uncover it earlier, what further inquiry is now needed, and what can be done to prevent something like this happening again.”

The BMJ will explore these and other questions over the next two weeks.

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Comments

10 Responses to “BMJ press release: there is “no doubt” that it was Wakefield who perpetrated this fraud”

Series casts more doubt on autism-vaccine link « Asperger Ascent
January 6th, 2011
00:42:30

[...] debate over the safety of the MMR vaccine won’t likely be quieted by this latest news. The British medical journal BMJ today is calling the 1998 Lancet paper that implied a link [...]
Tweets that mention Autism Blog - BMJ press release: there is “no doubt” that it was Wakefield who perpetrated this fraud « Left Brain/Right Brain -- Topsy.com
January 6th, 2011
01:23:04

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Alltop Autism and Patrick Guldan, Megan McArdle. Megan McArdle said: Wakefield study on autism & vaccines not just bad science, but "elaborate fraud" according to British Medical Journal http://bit.ly/gCduEr [...]
ReEmerging
January 7th, 2011
04:45:07

Don’t stop reading….
http://articles.mercola.com/si.....rview.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....8;index=55
Chris
January 7th, 2011
04:56:56

Don’t stop reading

Why? If Wakefield liked in 1998, why wouldn’t have lied in an interview with Mercola?
Chris
January 7th, 2011
07:43:32

ReEmerging, when you have a medical crisis in your family is first call you make to a lawyer? Robert Kennedy, Jr’s take on this issue was torn down years ago. Ignore him, he is an idiot. We have known that for over five years.
Andrew Wakefield an even bigger liar than I thought | autismjungle
January 7th, 2011
21:22:03

[...] realise I’m late to the party, and that Orac and Sullivan have already beaten me to it, but the only reasons that would stop me blogging about this would be [...]
sheldon101
January 9th, 2011
03:08:39

You state that the GMC had published the transcripts of the Wakefield hearing. Are they on the internet?
MI Dawn
January 6th, 2012
16:40:02

@Sullivan: do you have a link to the press release? Orac has the release in a comment, but no one seems to have the original and I can’t find it (but readily admit my google-fu is not the best…)
Sullivan
January 6th, 2012
18:11:49

The press release was sent out last year when the BMJ articles were released. The BMJ press release posted to RI is real. I’ve confirmed it. It isn’t posted and it wasn’t broadcast, but it is real.
MI Dawn
January 6th, 2012
18:17:04

Thanks! I would say I’m looking forward to the hilarity of this going to court except that I feel sorry for Dr Godlee and Brian Deer in having to deal with this bother, and the unnecessary work for the US court system. It’s not like our courts have nothing better to do…