Closed minds

If staff at the Lancet ever go on bonding weekends, they should avoid rock-climbing, canoeing or any other activity in which they would rely on the trust and loyalty of their colleagues. Last weekend the magazine spectacularly turned against the author of one of the most controversial papers it has ever published. Andrew Wakefield, who in 1998 raised suspicions that the MMR vaccine was responsible for causing autism, was told by the magazine that his study should never have been printed. Editor Richard Horton said that Dr Wakefield’s research was ‘fatally flawed’ because its author had failed to declare a conflict of interest: that he was also conducting work on behalf of lawyers representing families of autistic children.

As we have argued in these pages before, Andrew Wakefield’s theory that autism is caused by the MMR vaccine is wrong. Since 1998, studies from as far afield as Finland and California have investigated a possible link and concluded that there is none.