LONDON — The British doctor whose suggestion of a link between the MMR shot and autism caused vaccination rates to plunge conducted his now- discredited research in a dishonest and irresponsible manner, medical authorities here concluded Thursday.
It was the latest development in a long-running health controversy that has seen measles make a comeback among British children after being all but wiped out.
The General Medical Council, Britain’s medical regulator, found that Andrew Wakefield acted unethically in the way he collected blood samples from children and in his failure to disclose payments from lawyers representing parents who believed the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella had hurt their kids.
The regulator also concluded that Wakefield acted with “callous disregard” by conducting invasive tests on children that were not in their best medical interests.
Wakefield, who now lives and works in the United States, called the allegations “unfounded and unjust” and expressed deep disappointment with the council’s finding.
In 1998, Wakefield caused a national — and, later, international — stir with a study published in the prestigious British medical journal Lancet that suggested a possible link between the MMR vaccine and child autism.
His subsequent, widely publicized comments that he could no longer in good conscience recommend the vaccine caused a dramatic drop in vaccination rates across Britain. An anti-vaccination movement also sprang up in the U.S. after Wakefield appeared on “60 Minutes.”
His study, however, was based on just 12 children. Lancet later declared that it never should have published the report, and further studies have not been able to replicate Wakefield’s results.
Although MMR vaccination rates have begun to recover, Britain has seen a surge in measles among children — more than 1,000 cases in 2008, an increase from several dozen annually a decade earlier.
