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Lately, a Welsh newspaper has been pinpointed by the Wall Street Journal over a huge rise in measles cases in the Swansea area this year – 15 years after stories about the anti-measles MMR vaccine possibly causing autism were publicized in the paper.

Back in 1997 many parents refused to provide their children the vaccination for measles after British doctor Andrew Wakefield suggested that vaccination might cause autism. Co-incidentally, in 1997, a woman named Ms. Eckton reported that the measles vaccine turned her three-year-old son , Daniel, who had been diagnosed with autism, into a “distant and silent recluse.” She said that she wanted to form “some sort of action group so people can help each other fight this thing and what it does.”

Later an investigation was done. The health department told parents there was nothing wrong with the vaccine. But the number of such stories kept increasing. After fifteen years in November last year – doctors started seeing a marked increase in measles. They found that the outbreak especially hit children from 10 to 18 years old who went unvaccinated during the autism scare. Luckily, most of those infected have recovered. But a 25-year-old man died of pneumonia related to the measles.

After all this, in 2010, U.K.’s General Medical Council came to a decision that Dr. Wakefield’s work was “irresponsible and dishonest.” As a result, the council stripped him of his medical licence, saying in a report that he had engaged in “serious professional misconduct.” But Dr. Wakefield rejects the idea that he helped cause the Welsh outbreak.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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