20 years ago, a doctor published a study. It was completely made up, and it made us all sicker.
The entire study was fabricated.
Once upon a time, a scientist named Dr. Andrew Wakefield published in the medical journal The Lancet that he had discovered a link between autism and vaccines.
After years of controversy and making parents mistrust vaccines, along with collecting $674,000 from lawyers who would benefit from suing vaccine makers, it was discovered he had made the whole thing up. The Lancet publicly apologized and reported that further investigation led to the discovery that he had fabricated everything.
In the intervening years, millions have been spent on studying this further to see if there was anything that could connect autism and vaccines. This is what they found.
If you think science is a real thing, you could share this. I'll owe you one.
This story was originally published on Upworthy June 27, 2014.
Infographic produced by NowSourcing with an assist from Adam Mordecai. You can read the news story on how the whole thing collapsed over at CNN. Adam and his team did a thorough fact-checking of their research. You can find links to all the sources here. Thumbnail image by o5com/Flickr.