---
title: "Lancet MMR vaccine-autism report"
chunk: 4/6
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:18:00.602839+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Manipulation of data ===
The Sunday Times continued the investigation, and on 8 February 2009, Brian Deer reported that Wakefield had "fixed" results and "manipulated" patient data in the Lancet, creating the appearance of a link with autism. Wakefield falsely denied these allegations, and even filed a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) over this article on 13 March 2009. The complaint was expanded by a 20 March 2009 addendum by Wakefield's publicist. In July 2009, the PCC stated that it was staying any investigation regarding the Sunday Times article, pending the conclusion of the GMC investigation. Wakefield did not pursue his complaint, which Deer then published along with a statement saying he and The Sunday Times rejected the complaint as "false and disingenuous in all material respects", and that the action had been suspended by the PCC in February 2010.

=== UK General Medical Council inquiry ===
Responding to the first Sunday Times reports, the General Medical Council (GMC), which is responsible for licensing doctors and supervising medical ethics in the UK, launched an investigation into the affair. The GMC brought the case itself, not citing any specific complaints, claiming that an investigation was in the public interest. The then-secretary of state for health, John Reid, called for a GMC investigation, which Wakefield himself welcomed. During a debate in the House of Commons, on 15 March 2004, Dr. Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat MP, called for a judicial inquiry into the ethical aspects of the case, even suggesting it might be conducted by the CPS. In June 2006 the GMC confirmed that they would hold a disciplinary hearing of Wakefield.
The GMC's Fitness to Practise Panel first met on 16 July 2007 to consider the cases of Wakefield, Professor John Angus Walker-Smith, and Professor Simon Harry Murch. All faced charges of serious professional misconduct. The GMC examined, among other ethical points, whether Wakefield and his colleagues obtained the required approvals for the tests they performed on the children; the data-manipulation charges reported in the Sunday Times, which surfaced after the case was prepared, were not at question in the hearings. The GMC stressed that it would not be assessing the validity of competing scientific theories on MMR and autism. The GMC alleged that the trio acted unethically and dishonestly in preparing the research into the MMR vaccine. They denied the allegations. The case proceeded in front of a GMC Fitness to Practise panel of three medical and two lay members.
On 28 January 2010, the GMC panel delivered its decision on the facts of the case, finding four counts of dishonesty and 12 involving the abuse of developmentally disabled children. Wakefield was found to have acted "dishonestly and irresponsibly" and to have acted with "callous disregard" for the children involved in his study, conducting unnecessary and invasive tests. The panel found that the trial was improperly conducted without the approval of an independent ethics committee, and that Wakefield had multiple undeclared conflicts of interest.
On 24 May 2010, the GMC panel ordered that he be struck off the medical register. John Walker-Smith was also found guilty of serious professional misconduct and struck off the medical register, but that decision was reversed on appeal to the High Court in 2012, because the GMC panel had failed to decide whether Walker-Smith actually thought he was doing research in the guise of clinical investigation and treatment. The High Court criticised "a number of" wrong conclusions by the disciplinary panel and its "inadequate and superficial reasoning". Simon Murch was found not guilty.
In response to the GMC investigation and findings, the editors of the Lancet announced on 2 February 2010 that they "fully retract this paper from the published record". The Lancet's editor-in-chief Richard Horton described it as "utterly false" and said that the journal had been deceived.
The Hansard text for 16 March 2010 reported Lord McColl asking the Government whether it had plans to recover legal aid money paid to the experts in connection with the measles, mumps and rubella/measles and rubella vaccine litigation. Lord Bach, Ministry of Justice dismissed this possibility.