LONDON (AP) - Britain's top medical group has ruled that a doctor who claimed autism was linked to a childhood vaccine no longer has the right to practice in the U.K.

The General Medical Council also found Dr. Andrew Wakefield guilty of "serious professional misconduct" as it struck him from Britain's medical register.

Wakefield moved to the U.S. in 2004 and set up an autism center in Texas, where he gained a wide following despite not being licensed as a doctor there. He quit earlier this year.

Wakefield and colleagues published a study in 1998 alleging a link between autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. Most of the study authors renounced its conclusions and it was retracted in February.

No other studies have ever found a connection between autism and vaccines.

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