The Study That Originated this Movement Was Exposed as a Fraud and Withdrawn
Dr. Wakefield did not mention some important things when he submitted his study to The Lancet. He not only concealed just how much he was paid to make those claims, but how much he stood to make down the road from his fraud. The British physician stood to earn up to U$ 43 million per year from the sale of test kits linked to his bogus study on the supposed connection between vaccines and autism. On top of that, several of the parents used in his “study” were litigants engaged in lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies.
With egg on The Lancet’s face, its editor in chief wrote: “It seems obvious now that had we appreciated the full context in which the work reported in the 1998 Lancet paper by Wakefield and colleagues was done, publication would not have taken place“. After the vaccine study was revealed as a fraud, it was retracted by The Lancet. As to Dr. Wakefield, he was found guilty by British medical authorities of serious professional misconduct and fraud, and had his medical license revoked.