The prestigious British medical journal The Lancet on Tuesday Feb. 2, 2010 formally retracted a highly controversial study that had linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism and gastrointestinal problems.

The original article, published on Feb. 28, 1998, set off a worldwide furor, with many researchers condemning it as shoddy science. But parents of children with autism rallied around the main researcher, Dr. Andrew Wakefield of Great Britain, to condemn vaccines. The result: vaccination rates in both the United States and Britain plummeted while new cases of measles rose.

Ten of Wakefield's 13 co-authors renounced the study's conclusions several years ago, and The Lancet had previously said it should never have published the research.

Read more at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_94823.html