In this post I would like to analyze how the science community discredited a British study that grouped certain vaccinations with autism. To provide a small bit of exposition, Dr. Andrew Wakefield published work in 1998 claiming a strong connection between the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine and mental development disorders like autism. In the decade that followed, he would be subjected to intense scrutiny.

Scientists would find that his study was not so much a false positive (type 1 error), as it was a conscious decision to publish misleading data; the kind that endangered children across the globe as parents in both the UK and US neglected to vaccinate their children in fear of imagined repercussions. All for 55,000 pounds, which Wakefield was allegedly paid by a special interest group eager to find evidence against vaccine manufacturers.

But how did other researchers come to the conclusion that the not-so-good Doctor’s study was fraudulent? They examined the way he went about collecting data.

To begin with, Wakefield never organized a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial. This would consist of taking two large samples of, hypothetically, 100 newborns in each group, and having doctors vaccinate only half of them with the MMR vaccine (whilst issuing a placebo to the other half unknowingly) – the results would then be recorded. If said results indicated a greater number of autistic children in babies allocated to receive the vaccine, a link could be made (and third/confounding variables and reverse causality ruled out due to the experimental nature of the procedure). It wouldn’t be definitive proof (alas, it could always be due to chance), but cause for further research.

I recognize the moral implications of a double-blind RPCT with the MMR vaccine. It puts a large number of children at risk for several diseases. However, as we talked about in class: if there is doubt as to whether or not MMR harms or helps, equal risk can be attributed to both the control group and the treatment group. Thus, ethical dilemmas can be dismissed on the grounds that neither group is safer to be a part of than the other.

Wakefield’s research involved only 12 anonymous children with preexisting brain disorders. Instead of conducting a relevant investigation, he accepted the parents’ claims that their children suffered autism because of the MMR vaccinations they received. He also never replicated his “findings.” This initial publication prompted a huge scare that could later be profited from for a theorized 28 million pounds a year.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield is a culprit of the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. Essentially, he selected and published data that supported his argument while dismissing the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his support of the controversial syndrome, “autistic enterocolitis,” which he coined before the testing that allegedly discovered it. I can’t think of a more potent example of this logic fallacy.  

Brian Deer (who spearheaded the investigation) and a number of researchers in the science community helped to pin Wakefield for his deceitful allegations and avert catastrophe.

This lapse in science and morality is a prime example of misinformation used for personal gain. Wakefield will forever be remembered as a corrupt, money-motivated villain for his dismissal of the scientific process and irresponsible manipulations.  

Photograph: Peter Macdiamard/Getty Images