Independent reports that:
The doctor who sparked an international scare over the safety of MMR vaccine is to be charged with serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council in an attempt by the medical establishment finally to lay the controversy to rest.
Andrew Wakefield, who published a research paper in 1998 purporting to show a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, is accused in preliminary charges of publishing “inadequately founded” research, failing to obtain ethical committee approval, obtaining funding “improperly” and of subjecting children to “unnecessary and invasive investigations”, The Independent has learnt. The research is said to have caused immunisation rates to slump and cases of measles, mumps and rubella to soar. The research, which appeared in The Lancet, is said to have done more damage than anything published in a scientific journal in living memory.