The MMR Vaccine Causes Autism
Andrew Wakefield published a study in The Lancet in 1998 claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The study was retracted due to fraud and data falsification, Wakefield lost his medical licence, and dozens of studies involving millions of children have found no causal link.
What we know
Andrew Wakefield and twelve co-authors published a 1998 case series study in The Lancet involving twelve children, in which they suggested that the MMR vaccine might be a trigger for autism. The study was methodologically weak from the outset - it had no control group, a very small sample size, and relied on parental recollections of the sequence of symptoms. Despite this, the media ran with the findings, and MMR vaccination rates in the United Kingdom began to fall.
Investigative journalist Brian Deer spent seven years investigating Wakefield's work. He discovered that Wakefield had an undisclosed financial conflict of interest - he was being paid by lawyers who were suing vaccine manufacturers. The children in the study were not 'consecutive cases' as stated, but had been carefully selected on the referral of those same lawyers. Wakefield had altered the children's medical data to fit the desired conclusions. On the basis of that investigation, the British Medical Journal published an editorial analysis in 2011 describing Wakefield's study as an 'elaborate fraud.' The Lancet retracted the paper in full in 2010, and the General Medical Council stripped Wakefield of his medical licence for serious professional misconduct and 'callous disregard' for the children who had been subjected to invasive procedures without ethical approval.
Every epidemiological study conducted since Wakefield's paper - and there are dozens of them, involving tens of thousands to millions of children, in Denmark, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere - has found no causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The American Council on Science and Health has described the tactics used by those who continue to promote that link, including RFK Jr., as the deliberate dismissal of large-scale studies while amplifying weak, unreplicated research.
The apparent correlation between autism diagnosis and receiving the MMR vaccine is partly an artefact of the developmental calendar: children receive the MMR vaccine between their first and second birthdays, which is precisely when signs of autism spectrum disorder typically become visible. That temporal coincidence is not a causal relationship - but it was sufficient to create a lasting misconception despite all the contrary evidence.
Common claims
- Wakefield's study proved a causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism.False - the study was retracted due to fraud
- Wakefield lost his medical licence.Supported
- None of the subsequent large-scale studies confirmed the link.Supported - dozens of studies involving millions of children
- Wakefield had an undisclosed financial conflict of interest.Supported - confirmed by the GMC investigation
Evidence hierarchy
All sources
- Lancet retracts 12-year-old article linking autism to MMR vaccinesCMAJ / PubMed Central · 2010
- Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulentBMJ · 2011
- The MMR vaccine and autism: Sensation, refutation, retraction, and fraudPubMed Central · 2011
- The RFK Jr. PlaybookAmerican Council on Science and Health · 2025