Fraud and The Controversy Over Vaccines

The news that one of the biggest studies in the past 50 years may have been an elaborate fraud not only disturbs me but it angers me. The British medical Journal is saying that a man who conducted the study linking autism with the measles vaccine may have not only made a mistake with his research but actually intentionally made mistakes. This has led hundreds of thousands of people to question the importance of having their children immunized. This has led to an increase in the incidence of measles in the population and ultimately it has led to further illness and even death. I can tell you in my own practice it has led to hundreds of conversations with patients about the importance of vaccines and concerns about them. And in the big picture it makes us question the importance of our scientific research and the validity of it. We can't progress in medicine if we don't continue to have these studies. We need to learn what were doing right and what were doing wrong. Medicine is an art based on science. If the science is wrong the artist is stripped of his or her paint brush.