CNN 2010-02-10

To vaccinate 1 or not to vaccinate? It's a debate that raged among parents and one that's divided the autism community. Now one journal that put out a paper showing an autism vaccine 2 link is retracting 4 it.

CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen here with all the details on this.

Wow, it's like what do you believe?

Right, well, I got to tell you. This isn't just "a" paper that seemed to show a link. This is kind of "the" paper. This is the paper that started off the entire debate and got people like Jenny McCarthy and others to say, wait a minute, we don't want to vaccinate our children.

So let's take a look. This gets a little complicated so I want to make sure that we all get this.

What happened was that in 1998, a journal-- a study rather was published in "The Lancet," which is a British medical journal, that showed or it sort of indicated a link between autism and childhood vaccines 5. And then in 2010, "The Lancet" editors said, whoa, hold on a minute, we're retracting that study.

They said that the study wasn't done right, that there were certain issues with it and they say that they want to retract 3 it from the public record.

Well, what has been the word from Dr. Wakefield?

Right. Of course, Dr. Wakefield, I'm sure it was sort of surprised to hear that the person who published the study is now retracting it. So we got a statement from him. And what he said is, "The allegations against me and my colleagues," meaning his co- authors, "are both unfounded and unjust. Research into that possible connection between autism and vaccines is still going on."

Now it's interesting that he names his colleagues. His co- authors actually disowned the paper -- almost all of them, disowned the paper years ago.

All right. So bottom line, does this change the debate?

You know, I think for parents who were kind of on the fence and weren't sure quite which side to believe, now I think they might see, well, wait a minute, the people who published that original paper showing a link now are retracting it.

I think, though, for people who truly believe that there is a link between autism and vaccines, I think this won't change anything for them. They still believe there is a link. For example, we got this statement from actress and activist 6 Jenny McCarthy. She says, "This is nothing more than a witch hunt. The evidence finding a connection between vaccines and autism continues to grow unabated."

Now, Kyra, we should add here that pretty much every single pediatrician you could ever ask will tell you get your children vaccinated 7. The Centers for Disease Control, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Institute of Medicine -- I could go on and on -- all say no link between autism and vaccines. Get your kids vaccinated.

The heartbreak over the human toll 8 of these failures is starting to surface. In Houston, a grieving husband is suing Toyota now, alleging 9 that a faulty gas pedal led to his wife's death.

We don't have closure. We don't have a closure,  we don't have answers as to why. Nothing else makes sense.

You know, they built a death trap. They need to stop it. They're aware of it. They know it. They knew it. They need to put a stop to it.

The lawsuit 10 names Toyota, the manufacturer of the suspect gas pedals, and the local Toyota dealer 11 who sold the car. Michael Harris says his wife's 2009 Corolla took off and crashed into a wall that killed her on impact. The model is one of those now being recalled.