No, just like the scientists, bureaucrats and journalists who spread the man-made global warming mania (or who yet deny the oh-too-real medical risks posed by abortion and contraceptive use), the persons who scared the world about a link between autism and childhood vaccines were motivated by the basest of reasons: career advancement, intellectual laziness, money, ideological obfuscation and a desire for political power.
We once trusted scientists and doctors. For that matter, we used to trust government officials and even reporters. We cannot, in good sense or conscience, do so any longer. Not unless they honestly put everything aside except the hard science and carefully, clearly "show their work."
Here's the autism story from CNN:
A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.
An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.
"It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors," Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief, told CNN. "But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data."
Britain stripped Wakefield of his medical license in May. "Meanwhile, the damage to public health continues, fueled by unbalanced media reporting and an ineffective response from government, researchers, journals and the medical profession," BMJ states in an editorial accompanying the work...
