Andrew Wakefield resigns from Thoughtful House!

Rumours had been going around since the early morning that Andrew Wakefield had resigned from his post as Director of Research at Thoughtful House. I have just had confirmation by email that he has indeed resigned. Note that this link www.thoughtfulhouse.org/staff/andrew-wakefield.php now leads to their home page and the statement of support recently posted after the GMC ruling has disappeared from their landing page. They issued the following statement today:

The needs of the children we serve must always come first. All of us at Thoughtful House are grateful to Dr. Wakefield for the valuable work he has done here. We fully support his decision to leave Thoughtful House in order to make sure that the controversy surrounding the recent findings of the General Medical Council does not interfere with the important work that our dedicated team of clinicians and researchers is doing on behalf of children with autism and their families. All of us at Thoughtful House continue to fight every day for the recovery of children with developmental disorders. We will continue to do our very best to accomplish our mission by combining the most up-to-date treatments and important clinical research that will help to shape the understanding of these conditions which are affecting an ever-increasing number of children worldwide.

Call me Cassandra - I had indeed foreseen that this would happen on this blog.

Further commentary on Respectful Insolence here and here, and on LeftBrainRightBrain - this was Strike 4 (after the GMC ruling, the retraction by The Lancet, and the retraction of the NeuroToxicology paper). Can I predict there is more to come (this may cause some fallout for Wakefield for example)?