Wakefield Unrepentant

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Discredited autism researcher Dr. Andrew Wakefield said Wednesday at a "vaccination choice" rally in Grant Park that he planned to resume his research in the U.S.

At the rally, held in conjunction with a conference hosted by the organizations Generation Rescue and Autism One, Wakefield said national vaccine policies had failed children and their families and it was time for "science and medicine to stand up for itself."

"In the end, it's about choice," he told a small, cheering crowd. "Medicine has to choose — does it serve the patients or the pharmaceutical industry?"

Wakefield on Monday was barred from practicing medicine in his native Britain, following a ruling from the country's General Medical Council that he had "repeatedly breached fundamental principles of research medicine." The journal Lancet retracted his paper linking autism to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine earlier this year.

But the gastroenterologist still enjoys strong support from many parents of children with autism who believe vaccines cause the disorder. Until recently, he was executive director of an Austin, Texas, clinic that treated children with developmental disorders with unproven alternative therapies.