MMR Scandal
In 1998 Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues produced a study which proposed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism in children. In the same year, a fourteen year study investigating the MMR vaccine was also published in the Lancet; it found no issues with the vaccination. In 2004, ten of the authors on the 1998 Wakefield paper requested retraction. In 2010, the paper is completely retracted and Andrew Wakefield is struck off the GMC register.
Issues with the study
Small sample size of twelve. The sample chosen was selective.
The design of the experiment was uncontrolled and, therefore, non-replicable.
The conclusion was speculative (based on opinion rather than facts and evidence).
Retraction of Andrew Wakefield’s Paper
The Lancet completely retracted his paper in February 2010 after several elements were found to be incorrect. Wakefield et al were held guilty of:
Ethical violation: Conducted invasive investigations on children without the necessary clearances.
Scientific Misrepresentation: They reported their sampling technique was consecutive (sampling all available people who meet the selection criteria) when it was, in fact, selective (picking specific people from a group - introduces a much greater bias).
He failed to disclose financial interests (his study was funded by lawyers who were enacting lawsuits against vaccine-producing companies).
Deliberate fraud: they picked and chose data retrospectively and falsified facts.
Effects of the Paper
Even though numerous studies concluded otherwise and the paper was fully retracted in 2010, the damage had been done. In 1995 the herd immunity threshold for MMR (vaccinating 95% of the population) was reached. In 2005 uptake fell to 84%, well below this threshold. It discouraged many parents from vaccinating their children, leading to measles outbreaks in 2008 and 2009 in the UK, USA, and Canada. More recent measles outbreaks in university students have also been attributed to non-vaccinated children due to the scandal.
Duty of Scientists
In a time where society is beginning to blindly trust sciences, it is in the duty of the scientist and the publisher to ensure that their experiment is valid and repeatable. Experiments should be pre-registered (where the methodology, data collection plan and analytical strategy are verified before the experiment) to ensure that there is no bias when in selecting data for a conclusion. Financial incentives should be known and scrutinised, and all major conclusions should be replicated by other organisations to ensure the conclusion is reproducible.
As we can see from the scandal above, through their scientific misrepresentation, Wakefield and his colleagues harmed and killed numerous people.