Two and a half years of controversy and recrimination peaked at the end of January when Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who claimed to have discovered a link between measles virus, bowel diseases and autism and thereby sparked widespread fear of the combined MMR jab, was severely censured by Britain’s General Medical Council. It said that he was “dishonest, irresponsible and showed callous disregard for the distress and pain of children”.

The sad story began in 1998 when Dr Wakefield published a paper in The Lancet claiming that it was unsafe for children to receive a combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccination. The paper was based only on data gathered from 8 children, but there was enough evidence to suggest, he told a press conference, that single doses should be given a year apart. Many parents panicked and immunization rates dropped significantly. Subsequently there were outbreaks of measles in the UK amongst children whose parents refused to give them… click here to read whole article and make comments