Austin TexasFLICKR, STUSEEGER
Andrew Wakefield, the gastroenterologist who reported a link between a vaccine and autism in a small group of children in 1998—work that has now been discredited and retracted—filed a defamation lawsuit in Austin, Texas, last week against the British Medical Journal (BMJ), and the authors of a series of reported articles questioning his research.
The articles, written by investigative journalist Brian Deer and published in BMJ, accused Wakefield of misrepresenting his research and promoting a hypothesis that proved false and has subsequently put many children at risk of verifiable brain-damaging illness. In 2010, Wakefield was convicted of dishonesty and endangering the lives of children by the British General Council. He lost his license to practice medicine, had to retract several articles, and left his position ...
