The doctor who linked childhood autism to a vaccine and has been branded a fraud by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) said he was the victim of a smear campaign by drug manufacturers.
Andrew Wakefield was barred from medical practice last year after the General Medical Council in London found him guilty of "unethical" research that sparked unfounded fears about the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
But in an interview with CNN, Mr Wakefield denied inventing data and blasted a reporter who apparently uncovered the falsifications as a "hit man" doing the bidding of a powerful pharmaceutical industry.
"It's a ruthless, pragmatic attempt to crush any investigation into valid vaccine safety concerns," Mr Wakefield said. "He is a hit man," Mr Wakefield said of journalist Brian Deer. "He's been brought in to take me down because they are very, very concerned about the adverse reactions to vaccines that are occurring in children."
When asked who he meant by "they", he said Deer "was supported in his investigation by the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries, which is funded directly and exclusively by the pharmaceutical industry".
In stunning charges Wednesday, the BMJ said the 1998 study that unleashed a major health scare by linking childhood autism to the MMR vaccine was an "elaborate fraud", and said the paper was a crafted attempt to deceive, among the gravest of charges in medical research.
The study unleashed a widespread parental boycott of the vaccine in Britain and unease reverberated in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
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