An investigative reporter confronts Andrew Wakefield as he arrives at the General Medical Council in London, Jan. 28.

Dr. Robert Adler, a veteran Boro Park pediatrician who has long decried the practice of parents refusing vaccinations, is skeptical that the retraction will get the numbers back to where they were.

“For people who have the hashkafah not to vaccinate, it won’t help,” he told Hamodia yesterday. “But for those who just don’t know if they should get the shot or not, maybe.”

Dr. Adler said that Wakefield, the doctor accused of falsifying the data, is already the subject of a suit by a parent whose child died from the measles. She had not had her child vaccinated due to Wakefield’s study.

Vaccination rates for measles have never recovered and there are outbreaks of the disease every year. Dr. Adler notes that New York City had 800 cases of mumps as of two months ago, “a number I believe has now doubled,” he said.

Data released last February for England and Wales showed a rise in measles cases of more than 70 percent in 2008 from the previous year, mostly due to unvaccinated children. That has traveled to Israel, and from there, to Boro Park and Monsey.

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

Last week, Britain’s General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield had shown a “callous disregard” for the children used in his study and acted unethically. Wakefield and the two colleagues who have not renounced the study face being stripped of their right to practice medicine in Britain.

In its ruling, the disciplinary panel concluded that Wakefield acted dishonestly and was misleading in the way he described the study. It said he should have disclosed that he was paid to advise lawyers acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by the vaccine.

For the study, Wakefield took blood samples from children at his son’s birthday party, paying them 5 pounds each ($8) for their contributions and later joking about the incident.

Adam Finn, professor of pediatrics at Bristol University, welcomed The Lancet’s move but said it had been too long coming.

“Let’s hope this will do something to re-establish the good reputation of this excellent vaccine,” he said in a statement to reporters.

Vaccination rates are now recovering and Wakefield’s research has been discredited worldwide. The Lancet said that following the GMC ruling, it was now clear that certain parts of Wakefield’s paper were wrong.

Wakefield, who now lives and works in the United States, has always defended his work and accused those who argued against him of making “unfounded and unjust” allegations. 

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