Wakefield

The vaccine wars continue. Associated Press reports:

A British doctor who claimed links between a common children's vaccine and autism failed in his duties and acted against the interest of the children in his care, a medical panel ruled Thursday.

The General Medical Council ruling against Dr. Andrew Wakefield regarded research that he and other doctors conducted in the late 1990s, purporting to show that the combined measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) injection could put children at risk of autism or bowel disease.

That research, published in The Lancet medical journal in 1998, and media coverage of it that followed, led many parents in the U.K. to refuse to vaccinate their children with the injection, which is administered around the world.

Ten of the study's 13 authors have since renounced its conclusions. The Lancet said it should not have published the study and that Wakefield's links to litigation against the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine were a ''fatal conflict of interest.''

In its ruling, the disciplinary panel concluded that Wakefield acted dishonestly and was misleading in the way he described the study. It said he should have disclosed that he was paid to advise lawyers acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by the vaccine.

The UK Guardian has a timeline of the case.

The General Medical Council's Offical Finding of Facts is here.