Andrew Wakefield Loses British Medical License
The British General Medical Council (GMC), which registers doctors in the United Kingdom, has decided that Dr. Andrew Wakefield should be struck from the medical register for “serious unprofessional conduct.” In January 2010, the GMC Fitness to Practice Panel concluded that Wakefield had acted dishonestly and irresponsibly in connection with a research project and its subsequent publication. The fitness-to-practice hearing, which started in July 2007, centered on a study of children by Wakefield and twelve others that linked the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine with autism and bowel problems. Subsequent studies found no connections, but sensational publicity caused immunization rates in the UK to drop more than 10%. Ten of the study’s authors have since renounced its conclusions; and Lancet’s editor said he should not have published …
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