The anti-vaccine movement lost steam Tuesday after the world’s leading medical journal officially retracted a controversial autism study that has caused millions of parents around the world to fear childhood vaccines.
The study, published in 1998 in the British journal the The Lancet was the first to report a purported link between a vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella and the onset of autism. That reported association, which has since been discredited, formed the crux for the argument that MMR vaccines can cause autism and many in the anti-vaccine movement used the paper as proof of their claims.
Experts say the rare move by the Lancet to pull a published paper should help to correct the public record, though many added that more work is needed to remove the publication’s harmful legacy.
“This sends a very strong signal this research is not to be believed,” said Paul Hebert, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. “For something that is published, taking it out of the public record is effectively saying it never existed.”
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