What year did Andrew Wakefield say MMR Vaccine caused autism?

Answer 1

To be clear - Dr Wakefield has never actually said MMR causes autism - just that there was evidence that would merit investigating it and that the type of MMR vaccine being used should be changed to a different kind. In 1998 he and 12 other doctors/researchers reported on the care of 12 children at The Royal Free Hospital in England.

In that report they expressed the idea that clinical studies on the relationship between MMR, a new form of enterocolitis and autism needed to be done, to ensure there was no relationship between them. They said the medical history of the children and their findings while caring for them showed there MAY be a connection, and further studies were needed to ensure vaccinating with 3 live virus (as in the MMR) was safe.

Dr Wakefield recommended separate vaccines instead of the triple-virus MMR vaccine. At the time single shots were available.

As word of Dr Wakefield's recommendations spread, the British government stopped the procurement of single valent vaccines and the General Medical Council investigated and hounded physicians who procured and administered single valent vaccines, instead of the Glaxo Smith Kline MMR triple-jab.

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After the publication of Wakefield's paper in The Lancet- the prestigious British medical journal, other researchers were unable to reproduce Wakefield's findings or confirm his hypothesis of an association between the MMR vaccine and autism, or autism and gastrointestinal disease. After a British Journalist uncovered and published undisclosed financial conflict of interest information (Wakefield was getting money from people suing the vaccine company claiming the vaccine caused autism in their children), the British Governing Medical Council (GMC) - the governing body for physicians in Britain - opened an investigation against Wakefield and two former colleagues. Most of his co-authors withdrew their support for the study's interpretations

On 28 January 2010, a five-member statutory tribunal of the GMC found three dozen charges proved, including four counts of dishonesty and 12 counts involving the abuse of developmentally challenged children. The panel ruled that Wakefield had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant", acted both against the interests of his patients, and "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in his published research.

Wakefield's study that was used to link MMR to autism was retracted by The Lancet and was subsequently labeled an "elaborate fraud" in an investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ. The investigation concluded the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.

Three months following The Lancet's retraction, Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register, with a statement identifying deliberate falsification in the research published in The Lancet and was barred from practicing medicine in the UK.

Wakefield's utter failure to conduct valid research does not disprove any possible links between vaccines and autism, but it is pretty obvious his "study" suggesting a possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism was worthless for that purpose.