"A prestigious British medical journal has retracted a controversial 12-year-old article that first linked autism to childhood vaccines and set off global fears about immunization and the causes of the developmental disorder that persist today.
Medical experts and some advocates for people with autism said the move was long overdue, but few expected the retraction to change the minds of vaccine skeptics.
In the years since the Lancet published Dr. Andrew Wakefield's study, numerous review articles have rebutted his claims that the combination measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism. Nevertheless, a vocal minority of parents and their supporters have clung to the notion that the vaccine is unsafe. Recent studies have shown an increase in parents who are opting out of some routine childhood vaccinations, alarming public health experts who fear that diseases once nearly eradicated could return."
Medical experts and some advocates for people with autism said the move was long overdue, but few expected the retraction to change the minds of vaccine skeptics.
In the years since the Lancet published Dr. Andrew Wakefield's study, numerous review articles have rebutted his claims that the combination measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism. Nevertheless, a vocal minority of parents and their supporters have clung to the notion that the vaccine is unsafe. Recent studies have shown an increase in parents who are opting out of some routine childhood vaccinations, alarming public health experts who fear that diseases once nearly eradicated could return."