Journal Retracts 1998 Paper Linking Autism to Vaccines: Who Cares?

From The New York Times: Journal Retracts 1998 Paper Linking Autism to Vaccines

The article discusses some of the background on the original research led by Andrew Wakefield that was published in The Lancet, additional research efforts to confirm a potential link between the MMR vaccine and autism, and potential ethical concerns with the original research.

I found this particular sequence in the article to be particularly interesting:

Jim Moody, a director of SafeMinds, a parents’ group that advances the notion the vaccines cause autism, said the retraction would strengthen Dr. Wakefield’s credibility with many parents.

“Attacking scientists and attacking doctors is dangerous,” he said. “This is about suppressing research, and it will fuel the controversy by bringing it all up again.

I was talking about this in the office a couple days ago, and the conversation was about whether or not this retraction will matter. My initial reaction is that it won't - the people who believe there is a link between the MMR vaccine and autism aren't likely to be swayed by the retraction of this article. Indeed, it may strengthen their conviction that the government/academia/big pharma are trying to bury the truth.

This article reminds me of a NPR Science Friday that was on probably a couple months ago. They had a vaccine expert on talking about this, and a parent called in who believed there was a MMR vaccine-autism link. The vaccine expert explained his view of the science and facts. The parent said he wasn't right. At some point (because he's a good host) Ira Flatow asked the caller if there was anything the vaccine expert could say that would change her mind. The caller thought for a moment, then replied (IMHO) honestly: "Probably not."

I don't know that this is something I'm going to dig into myself, but there's an interesting study here - particularly if you have pre-data on people's opinions of the MMR vaccine-autism link or we can assume that plenty of people never heard about the retraction (probably a safe bet) to do a pre/post survey to see what impact it has on people's opinions.