“In his decision to publish in the Lancet in February 1998 the paper in which Andrew Wakefield suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, the editor Richard Horton played an important role in launching one of the great health scares of recent years. No doubt, as Dr Horton argues in his apologia for his role, the subsequent furore reflects many of the problems of contemporary society. But it raises a much more specific question: how did Dr Wakefield persuade a leading journal of medical science to publish a paper that was both bad science and damaging to public health?” (spiked)