Andrew Wakefield, the Autism-Vaccine Link and ‘Deliberate Fraud’

As though Dr. Andrew Wakefield didn’t have enough problems. After his study of 12 (count ‘em — a whole 12!) children was thrown out of The Lancet when its original claim of a link between autism and MMR vaccines didn’t really hold water, now he’s got the BMJ on his case.The problem with the original study came when nobody — and I mean, nobody — could replicate the research. Not Wakefield. Not other researchers. Science demonstrates a strong finding when data is replicable. When nobody can replicate your research, it’s considered an unreliable or extremely weak finding.
And in this case, it’s not even that. The BMJ today claimed that Dr. Andrew Wakefield allegedly engaged in deliberate fraud in his original study.
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