The Lancet has retracted that 1998 paper in which Dr. Andrew Wakefield put forth the idea that the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine could have links to autism. The Lancet's move is nothing less than earthshaking in a field in which peer review is the standard for accepting scientific publications. Meanwhile, a panel investigated Dr. Wakefield's fitness to go on practicing medicine.
Will those who have believed the MMR vaccine is linked to the condition stop believing that? Probably not. One cannot unring a bell. Nor can one fail to feel for families with loved ones who have such a condition. But the answer isn't to find something, anything, on which to pin the blame, if that something isn't truly the cause. Such a path only means that treatment or cure moves farther away. The answer is to find the cause or causes, or failing that, to find effective treatments.
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