Excellent news! Hopefully nature-loving non-vaccinating woo-heads will not still refer to this as “valid evidence”, and start protecting their children against these horrible diseases.
One can dream.
At last!
I thought we’d have to wait for a national crises regarding preventable illnesses before they did something.
Think the chickenpox epidemic thats sweeping through our country currently. Whilst chickenpox is relatively harmless for kids, it kills adults in the blink of an eye. 4000 cases in CT in the last two months? Why? We’ve got the vaccinations available…
Yeah… we can dream… sigh
They didn’t do it because it was the right thing, they were pressured into it by the British Medical Journal. I’ve had my lengthy say elsewhere.
It is good news that the article was recanted, but the damage has already been done.
Whilst chickenpox is relatively harmless for kids,..Yes, it is, but they can get complications and unvacaccinated children get it worse than vaccinated kids. It's just not worth the risk.
Possible complications of chickenpox…
Newborns are at risk for severe infection, if they are exposed and their mothers are not immune. A secondary infection of the blisters may occur. Encephalitis is a serious, but rare complication. Reye's syndrome, pneumonia, myocarditis, and transient arthritis are other possible complications of chickenpox. Cerebellar ataxia may appear during the recovery phase or later. This is characterized by a very unsteady walk.
You have to wonder. In this elecronic age why did it take TWELVE YEARS for the message that Wakefield’s a bribed liar to filter through? A more serious question is whether the popular press will publicize this enough. Somehow I doubt they will 'cos it’s old news, not juicy enough, and it doesn’t have the approval of a high-profile certified brain-free bimbo like Jenny McCarthy.
Some more good news: The US Federal Circuit Appeals Court has affirmed last year’s Federal Claims Court decision wherein it found insufficient evidence establishing a claimed link between childhood vaccines and autism in three test cases. Will Jenny McCarthy change her tune? Nah, probably not.
'Luthon64
Bill Gates now also weighs in…
Gates: Well, Dr. Wakefield has been shown to have used absolutely fraudulent data. He had a financial interest in some lawsuits, he created a fake paper, the journal allowed it to run. All the other studies were done, showed no connection whatsoever again and again and again. So it's an absolute lie that has killed thousands of kids. Because the mothers who heard that lie, many of them didn't have their kids take either pertussis or measles vaccine, and their children are dead today. And so the people who go and engage in those anti-vaccine efforts -- you know, they, they kill children. It's a very sad thing, because these vaccines are important.
Good news! 
Well, this was entirely predictable. “Legacy of the Wakefield scare,” indeed. As usual, it’s mostly innocent victims who are left to bear the brunt of others’ stupidity and charlatanry.
Will Wakefield’s apostles change their tune now or will they merely carry on bleating ignorantly and irrationally about mercury and thiomersal in vaccines?
'Luthon64
At what point would it be considered ethical to string the bastard up?
I wanted to go spread the news around abit, but alas, I get a message that the article has been moved or never existed. And weirdly enough, it is simply impossible to find on their site, even when I do a search for “medical journal recants 1998 study linking autism to vaccine”.
Oh well, plenty similar articles can be found with your friendly neighbourhood Google…
Yeah, sorry, that post was from 3 years ago so… stands to reason the article may have vanished in the meantime.
Hmm, that is itself an interesting ethical question. I don’t think a literal “stringing up” can ever be justified but at the same time considering the great harm that Wakefield provoked, he got off remarkably lightly, merely being stripped of his licence to practise medicine (plus a fine, IIRC).
If it was at all possible, perhaps an appropriate retributive measure would be to divest Wakefield of his own MMR immunity and compel him to do community service as an orderly in a Welsh hospital, preferably in the measles ward.
'Luthon64
Meanwhile, whooping cough is making a come-back due to a switch to safer vaccines.
This one is a bit more tricky, since the old vaccine does actually have serious side-effects.
Here’s a more recent write-up about Wakefield’s fraud in one of the most respected of medical journals, the BMJ. Being a reference article, it’s far less likely to disappear (and, as a bonus, the writing’s a real treat).
'Luthon64