Retraction
Authors of 1998 study that linked MMR vaccine with autism say they errred
PARIS
 Ten doctors who co-authored a controversial study that suggested a possible link between autism and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine issued a retraction on March 3, admitting they did not have enough evidence to make this interpretation and they had underestimated the storm it would cause.
"No causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient," they said in their retraction in The Lancet, which published the study in 1998. The study titled "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children" sparked a major health scare in Britain
"However, the possibility of such a link was raised and consequent events have had major implications for public health. "In view of this, we consider now is the appropriate time that we should together formally retract the interpretation placed upon these findings in the paper," they said.
The retraction was signed by 10 of the 13 authors: Simon Murch, Andrew Anthony, David Casson, Mohsin Malik, Mark Berelowitz, Amar Dhillon, Michael Thomson, Alan Valentine, Susan Davies, and John Walker-Smith.
One author could not be reached, and two others, including the lead author, Andrew Wakefield, did not join the retraction, a spokesman said.
Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Wakefield said: "I stand by the findings reported in The Lancet. We have identified important illness in children and raised important questions about child health."
In an editorial accompanying the retraction, The Lancet made a mea culpa.
It admitted that editors of medical journals "must take greater care to appreciate that their responsibility extends to all aspects of the public dissemination of the work they print."
It also suggested that the UK Government create an independent Council of Research Integrity to act as a referral center for serious allegations of research misconduct.
The study had the effect of a bombshell in Britain, prompting many parents not to vaccinate their child, thus placing the infant at risk from those diseases.
Even though several studies since then have failed to find any proof of a link and the government has appealed to parents to have their children vaccinated, popular suspicions against the three-in-one jab remained.
The phenomenon is mainly confined to Britain, however.
Liam Donaldson, England's chief medical officer, branded the study "poor science" and Britain's General Medical Council said it may carry out an investigation into how the research was conducted.
On February 21, The Lancet distanced itself from the 1998 research, saying it had not been aware of a possible conflict of interest. The Lancet chief editor Richard Horton told the British Broadcasting Corporation that Wakefiled failed to inform the journal that he had at the same time conducted research on behalf of parents of children who had fallen ill following MMR vaccination.
The parents were trying to find out whether they could take legal action. Some of the children were involved in the two parallel studies.
"If we knew then what we know now, we certainly would not have published the part of the paper that related to MMR. My belief is that that aspect of his work is entirely flawed and this conflict of interest shows how it was flawed," Horton said.
A statement by The Lancet also said this aspect of the study "should have been disclosed, irrespective of the number of children overlapping between the pilot project funded by the Legal Aid Board and the paper [published in] The Lancet." It said such disclosure would have provided important information to editors and peer reviewers about the context in which the work was taking place-"a context that would have been vital in making a final decision about publication."
"We believe that our conflict of interest guidelines at the time should have triggered such a disclosure, including the fact that a significant minority of the children described in the paper were also part of the Legal Aid Board funded pilot project," it added.
The statement noted that the ethics committee approval was given for data collection from clinically indicated investigations in the children with an initially undiagnosed illness and who were described in the 1998 paper. The illness was at first believed to be enteritis combined with a disintegrative disorder. But subsequent clinical investigations eventually showed this condition to be the syndrome reported in The Lancet in 1998.
Added the statement: "This course of events was not described in full in the paper, although the similarity of the behavioral changes with those of a disintegrative psychosis (Heller's disease) were commented on in the discussion section of the 1998 paper. In summary, the evidence does not support this allegation."
AFP with inputs from The Lancet Press Office
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