The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has reportedly published a series of articles that state that the retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an 'elaborate fraud' based on the 'falsification of data'. An investigation published by the journal concludes that the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, manipulated or falsified the medical histories of all 12 patients whose cases formed the basis of a 1998 study.
The study, published in medical journal Lancet in 1998, was retracted in February 2010. In 2004, the Lancet issued a partial retraction of the study, citing Wakefield's 'fatal conflict of interest'.
In an editorial, BMJ editor Dr. Fiona Godlee, deputy editor Jane Smith and associate editor Harvey Marcovitch point out that in the decade after the study was first published, other research has failed to find a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
The BMJ articles examining Wakefield's research are written by investigative journalist Brian Deer, based on years of research into Wakefield's study. His first article questioning the research in 2004 spurred Britain's General Medical Council (GMC), which licenses doctors, to launch its own investigation into Wakefield and his work.
The BMJ editors are now calling for investigations into Wakefield's other studies in order to decide whether any others should be retracted.
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