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.

Science

Space-loving botanist wondered if Martian soil is fertile, so he recreated it and planted seeds

Science

33-year-old former child prodigy is working on problems Hawking and Einstein never cracked

Moms

Man’s 2-minute rant on why we should ‘fear,’ not pity, single moms is hysterically spot on

Culture

‘Home Alone’ star Daniel Stern unveils lifelike bronze ‘Marv’ sculpture for film’s fully restored house