Autism from vaccines article retracted by the Lancet

[holly_evolving]

If no one can replicate your findings by performing the same experiment, it's not science. And you're probably lying.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/02/lancet.retraction.autism/index.html?hpt=T2

From the report: "The story became credible because it was published in The Lancet," Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, said Tuesday. "It was in The Lancet, and we really rely on these medical journals."

Singer, the mother of a child with autism, added, "That study did a lot of harm. People became afraid of vaccinations -- this is the Wakefield legacy -- this unscientifically grounded fear of vaccinations that result in children dying from vaccine preventable diseases."

Comments

[holly-evolving.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is that the Lancet is (was?) a respected medical publication. Parents trusted them and didn't get their kids the MMR...and some of those kids died as a result.

How they could have published it before establishing that proper peer review had been done is beyond me.

[brilligspoons.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there wasn't an element of sensationalism involved in rushing the initial publication. It's possible that the editors saw the potential for a larger area of distribution and breezed past protocol. Doesn't excuse them, but it does provide a plausible explanation.