The study is not a lie

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor, Reuters:

Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the-now disgraced British doctor who published studies linking vaccines with autism, committed an "elaborate fraud" by faking data, the British Medical Journal said on Wednesday.

The journal's editors said it was not possible that Wakefield made a mistake but must have falsified the data for his study.

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Wakefield denied the allegations.

"The study is not a lie. The findings that we have made have been replicated in five countries around the world," Wakefield told CNN television on Wednesday.

A disciplinary panel of Britain's General Medical Council said last February that Wakefield had presented his research in an "irresponsible and dishonest" way and had brought the medical profession into disrepute.

Godlee and colleagues said the work "was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud".

"Clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare," they added.

Many experts have tried to show that vaccines might cause autism. Newer suspicions have focused on thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative once used in many vaccines and since removed from childhood vaccines. Read more>>