Lancet retracts MMR research conclusions
pharmafile | February 3, 2010 | News story | Research and Development | MMR, Sanofi, vaccines
The Lancet, the journal which originally published the controversial research linking the MMR vaccine to autism has issued a full retraction of its support for the work.
The retraction follows last week’s ruling by the GMC that principal author, Dr Andrew Wakefield had broken research rules in collecting his data.
The GMC ruled that Dr Wakefield had shown a “callous disregard” for children and acted “dishonestly” in the conduct of his research, which centered on collecting blood samples from children attending his son’s birthday party in exchange for payment.
The GMC’s panel found Dr Wakefield to have acted unethically by performing further unnecessary invasive procedures on children, and also failed to declare a conflict of interest.
The panel did not pass judgement on the research findings, but these had already been discredited.
Dr Wakefield’s case report research was published in February 1998 and suggested a strong link between the MMR vaccine and rates of autism and bowel disease in children. UK media coverage caused a great storm of controversy over the issue, and researchers and the government could do little to persuade some parents that MMR was safe.
Media coverage of the issue hit a peak in 2001-2, and vaccination levels of the combined vaccine fell dramatically, and is thought to have contributed to outbreaks of measles in some parts of the country.
Dr Wakefield had claimed he had evidence that children’s behaviour changed drastically shortly after they received the MMR jab. He theorised that the combination of the three virus strains contained in MMR may overload the body’s immune system and cause the bowel disorder to develop. The research, however, was carried out on only 12 children.
In March of 1998, the completion of a 14-year study by Finnish scientists failed to find any such links with the MMR vaccine. Out of the three million children given the MMR jab, only 31 developed gastrointestinal side effects lasting 24 hours or more.
None of the 31 children developed any signs of autism or any similar syndrome. The researchers concluded that after a decade’s effort to detect all severe adverse effects associated with the MMR vaccine they could find “no data supporting the hypothesis that it would cause pervasive developmental disorder or inflammatory bowel disease.”
The MMR vaccine was introduced in the mid-1980s and was the first of its kind to vaccinate against all three major childhood diseases in one injectable. Sanofi-Pasteur was the first European pharma company to develop the vaccine in 1986. It is currently marketed and developed by both GlaxoSmithKline and Merck.
Talking to the BBC, Professor Adam Finn, a leading paediatrician based at the University of Bristol Medical School, said: “This is not before time. Let’s hope this will do something to re-establish the good reputation of this excellent vaccine.
“And I hope the country can now draw a line under this particular health scare and move onto new opportunities for vaccination.”
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