Britain bans doctor who linked vaccines, autism

LONDON - The doctor whose research tying autism to the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella influenced millions of parents to refuse the shot for their children was banned yesterday from practicing medicine in his native Britain.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield's 1998 study was discredited - but vaccination rates have never fully recovered and he continues to enjoy a vocal following, helped in the United States by endorsements from celebrities like Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy.

Wakefield was the first researcher to publish a peer-reviewed study suggesting a connection between autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. Legions of parents abandoned the vaccine, leading to a resurgence of measles in Western countries where it had been mostly stamped out.

"That is Andrew Wakefield's legacy," said Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Pennsylvania. "The hospitalizations and deaths of children from measles who could have easily avoided the disease." Wakefield's discredited theories had a tremendous impact in the U.S., Offit said, adding: "He gave heft to the notion that vaccines in general cause autism."

In Britain, Wakefield's research led to a huge decline in the number of children receiving the MMR vaccine: from 95 percent in 1995 - enough to prevent measles outbreaks - to 50 percent in parts of London in the early 2000s. Rates have begun to recover, though not enough to prevent outbreaks.

Yesterday, Britain's General Medical Council, which licenses and oversees doctors, found Wakefield guilty of serious professional misconduct and stripped him of the right to practice medicine in the U.K.

The council was acting on a finding in January that Wakefield and two other doctors showed a "callous disregard" for the children in their study, published in 1998 in the medical journal Lancet.

Wakefield blasted the decision. "None of this alters the fact that vaccines can cause autism," he said. "These parents are not going away; the children are not going to go away and I most certainly am not going away," he said on NBC's "Today Show."