The medical journal The Lancet has retracted a controversial 1998 paper suggesting that there was a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.

The study led by Dr. Andrew Wakefield has been discredited and the General Medical Council, which oversees doctors in Britain said "there was a biased selection of patients in The Lancet paper" and that his "conduct in this regard was dishonest and irresponsible."

CNN reports that the panel found that Wakefield subjected some children in the study to various invasive medical procedures such as colonoscopies and MRI scans. He also paid children for blood samples for research purposes at his son's birthday party, an act that "showed a callous disregard" for the "distress and pain" of the children, the panel said.

From his studies, Wakefied concluded that the measles vaccine caused gastrointestinal problems, and that those GI problems led to autism. In his view, the virus used in the vaccine grew in the intestinal tract, leading the bowel to become porous because of inflammation. According to his theory, material then seeped from the bowel into the blood, affecting the nervous system and causing autism.

Many parents have chosen not to vaccinate their children based on this study, though later research discredited his theory.

Marchia Angell, a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine said that retractions are rare in medical journals and usually occur as a result of fraud or plagiarism.

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