Parents everywhere have been trying to get a handle on this report since it first showed up this week. It finds that a study to link a childhood vaccine to Autism was based on doctored information about the kids involved.

So do vaccines cause Autism? The scientific community has proven that there is no evidence to that. There are some people who believe the vaccines cause the condition, it stems from a 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues.

Now a prominent British Medical Journal, BMJ, is saying he faked his data. "What we're seeing now is that a 10 year old study has really been debunked based on scientific evidence. We have to make sure research is replicated. This study was never able to be replicated, but what we have found is a continued non-link, there's been no link from a developmental disorder to a vaccine. It's evidence that the CDC and the National Institutes of Health have been investigating for well over a decade. Science has shown time and time again that vaccines are generally safe and they're life-saving in preventing diseases in kids," said Matt Richardson, the Director of Public Health for the City of Amarillo.

The conclusions of Wakefield's data had already been widely discredited, he has even had his license stripped in Britain. Still, the suggestion that the MMR shot was connected to Autism spooked parents worldwide and immunization rates for measles, mumps and rubella have never fully recovered.

"What were the consequences for that? We saw an epidemic of measles in California, 30.4 million children has measles. It's not just in the United States and Great Britain, Australia, they are still dealing with this," said Vinod K. Sethi, M.D., F.A.A.P. a Texas Tech Physician and associate clinical professor.

Now, the new study found, by comparing the reported diagnoses in the paper to hospital records, Wakefield and colleagues altered facts about patients in their study.

But will it make a difference when it comes to parents giving their children the vaccine? Some are hopeful that the latest news will finally destroy the anti-vaccine movement. 

"I think the important development from the last week and revelations from the United Kingdom have been that even a poorly designed and even a fraudulent study can do a lot of damage and what we want to do is protect against that. We want people to have the information, have the best science and that they vaccinate their children to protect them from life-threatening disease," said Richardson

"There is no scientific evidence of any harm being done of MMR vaccination causing Autism," said Sethi.

We do know that the views in this story aren't the only ones. Advocates argue that the criticisms of Wakefield and the study are actually attempts to close off research into the safety of vaccines. However, we did have trouble getting those who think children should not have the vaccine to talk to us.

What are your thoughts? Do you think vaccines are generally safe or that research needs to continue into the safety of vaccines? Weigh in with our webpoll and leave your comments below.

Article by the Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) - This week more shame was heaped upon the discredited British researcher whose work gave rise to the childhood-vaccines-cause-autism movement, as a prominent medical journal published a report that the man had faked his data.

But will it make a difference? Some believe the latest news will finally destroy the reputation of researcher Andrew Wakefield and put an end to the claim of scientific underpinnings for the anti-vaccine movement. "We hope that declaring the paper a fraud will close that door for good," wrote the journal BMJ this week, in an editorial accompanying the report.

Yet at least some advocacy groups continue to take Wakefield's side. And though the latest report may ease the doubts of some parents, experts said they'd be surprised if the latest news changes views overall.

"This scared people and it's hard to unscare them," said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

"Until medicine can step up and say, 'We understand the cause of autism,' they may never be assured," said Offit, who has written books criticizing the anti-vaccine movement.

Wakefield made international waves following the publication in 1998 in the Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, that he and his colleagues had linked measles-mumps-rubella vaccine with autism in most of a dozen children they had studied.

It was a small series of observations, wrapped in a hypothesis - not even a full medical study. But it exploded in the media, prompting a wave of parental concerns in England as well as the United States.

Immunization rates in Britain dropped from 92 percent to 73 percent, and were as low as 50 percent in some parts of London. The effect was not nearly as dramatic in the United States, but researchers have estimated that as many as 125,000 U.S. children born in the late 1990s did not get the MMR vaccine because of the Wakefield splash.

It's not clear how many U.S. parents knew details of the Wakefield paper, or how many even knew his name, vaccine experts say. But the research coincided with growing apprehension about autism in this country, and seemed to finally assign a likely reason for it. The idea that vaccines could cause autism took hold.

"Clearly, the results of this (Wakefield) study have had repercussions," said Dr. Michael Smith, a University of Louisville infectious diseases expert who has studied the autism controversy's effect on immunization rates.

Gradually, Wakefield's hypothesis was checked by other researchers who failed to confirm a link between vaccines and autism. It was dissected by experts, and 10 of the article's 13 authors renounced the work.

The first claims that Wakefield had doctored data came in a 2009 story in the Sunday Times of London by British journalist Brian Deer. That report said Wakefield made it seem some of the children did not experience symptoms until after they'd received their shots. Those findings were repeated in this week's report in BMJ.

Then, last year, the Lancet retracted the Wakefield paper - 12 years after it was published. Wakefield was also stripped of his right to practice medicine in Britain; he has no medical license in the U.S.

This week, Wakefield continued to defend himself, calling the journalist "a hit man" during an interview with CNN. And some parents of autistic children and other advocates argue that the criticisms of Wakefield are actually attempts to close off research into the safety of vaccines.

"A character assassination initiative against those who look for answers only serves to stunt medical progress for our children and perpetuate unnecessary public health risks," said Wendy Fournier, president of the National Autism Association, in a prepared statement.

But health officials counter that the science is settled and prolonging the debate is dangerous. Although U.S. vaccination rates have held steady through the last decade, health officials say vaccine fears led to outbreaks of measles and the virus Hib in 2008 in unvaccinated children in states like California and Minnesota. The Hib outbreak included at least one reported death.

In a country where the name Andrew Wakefield doesn't register with most people, it's not clear that this week's report will make much difference. But perhaps it might have impact if it sways celebrities who have lent their voice to the anti-vaccine movement, like Jenny McCarthy, who has voiced her views repeatedly on television shows like "Oprah."

"It will be interesting to see what Jenny McCarthy and others say" about the latest news, said Smith, the Louisville researcher.

A spokesman for McCarthy on Thursday said she was not available for comment.