Fact check
Is it true: MMR Vaccine-Autism Link?
No — this has been debunked.
Wakefield's original 1998 Lancet paper had its data investigated and found to be manipulated: 8 of 12 cases reported autism symptoms days after MMR, but medical records showed symptoms preceded vaccination in 5 of them. Wakefield received £435,643 from lawyers planning lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers — an undisclosed conflict. The UK General Medical Council struck him off in 2010. Subsequent large-scale studies (Madsen et al. 2002, n=537,303; Jain et al. 2015, n=95,727; Hviid et al. 2019, n=657,461) found no MMR-autism link. Multiple systematic reviews confirm this conclusion.
The claim
The false claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism, originating in a fraudulent 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield published in The Lancet, which the journal formally retracted in 2010 after investigation
Key evidence
Wakefield's 1998 Lancet paper claimed link
Lancet retracted Wakefield paper in 2010
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