A U.K. medical regulator revoked the license of the doctor who first suggested a link between vaccines and autism and spurred a long-running, heated debate over the safety of vaccines.

Ending a nearly three-year hearing, Britain's General Medical Council found Andrew Wakefield guilty of "serious professional misconduct" in the way he carried out his research in the late 1990s. The council struck his name from the U.K.'s medical register.

The...