Vaccine researcher Wakefield to testify in Oregon

Andrew Wakefield, the British researcher who was made famous by his 1998 study that linked autism to a childhood vaccine, is coming to Salem next month to testify before the Legislature, a health care lobbyist confirmed Tuesday.

The Senate Committee on Health Care is exploring a bill, sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton, that would ban parents from claiming nonmedical exemptions from their children's school immunizations.

Wakefield's study — which specifically looked at the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine — was retracted from The Lancet, the United Kingdom medical journal that published the study, and his conclusions were refuted by subsequent studies that said the MMR vaccine has no links to autism.

His medical license was revoked and the BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, found that Wakefield's research was unethically financed and fraudulent.

However, a vocal contingent of parents have strong doubts about vaccines' safety. As expressed in a recent public hearing on Senate Bill 442, their concerns are wide-ranging, from the ingredients in vaccines to the risks of side-effects. The fear that they could cause autism is still very much alive.

Dr. Diane Gudmundsen, a Hillsboro chiropractor, testified Feb. 18 that her son reacted severely to his MMR vaccine and eventually was diagnosed with autism. While she couldn't prove the connection between the two events, she said, "As a mother, I feel that my heart knows."

Dr. Vern Saboe, an Oregon Chiropractic Association lobbyist who testified against the bill, said he is hosting Wakefield at his home.

"Sen. Steiner Hayward took it upon herself to regurgitate the same storyline that the findings of Dr. Wakefield and his coworkers had been disproved from multiple studies and that the author admits he faked all the data," Saboe said, "which is blatantly untrue."

Saboe said he believes Wakefield's findings, which were based on 12 children, were legitimate and that they were retracted due to political reasons.

The bottom line, he said, is that there are still many questions about vaccines' connection to autism and other adverse effects.

"You can't mandate agents such as the MMR vaccine when the question of whether or not they cause autism spectrum disease and other diseases is unanswered," he said. "There's a risk to having them and there's a risk to not having them. That's why you need informed consent."

syoo@StatesmanJournal.com, (503) 399-6673 or follow at Twitter.com/syoo.

Testimony

Andrew Wakefield is planning to testify before the Senate Health Care Committee on March 9. The committee is scheduled to meet at 3 p.m.