Science Media Centre

Scientists publishing in the journal The Lancet today have detailed how they used patients’ own cells to grow urinary tubes in the lab and use them successfully to replace damaged tissue in five young boys. The researchers found: “Tubularised urethras can be engineered and remain functional in a clinical setting for up to 6 years. [...]

Lancet kills MMR paper 10 years on The move by London-based medical journal The Lancet to retract a ten year old paper that suggested a potential link between the MMR vaccine and autism in children effectively ends one of the longest running medical controversies of recent decades. The retraction from The Lancet editor Richard Horton [...]

3 News covers the formal retraction by prestigious journal The Lancet of Andrew Wakefield’s controversial paper claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. There are still concerns, however, that even this step will not convince parents that the vaccine is safe. (See video here)

Prestigious medical journal The Lancet has formally retracted the paper in which Andrew Wakefield, the doctor behind claims that the MMR vaccine can be linked to autism, first claimed such effects. The MMR, or measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, came under scrutiny in the late 1990s when Andrew Wakefield, a British doctor, wrote a paper [...]

So what happens to the traditional cycle of publishing scientific research in journals when a major player like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology decides to go open access for its research papers? Perhaps very little, but if the trend continues it could mean a sea change for the way new scientific discoveries are communicated, a [...]

An audio briefing for journalists undertaken at 2pm today (September 19, 2008) hosted by the Australian Science Media Centre. The briefing features Dr Richard Beasley, director of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, explaining the findings published in Lancet of a major study looking at the association between paracetamol use in infancy and childhood [...]

ONLINE MEDIA BRIEFING – Friday 19 September at 2pm (NZT) – online (in collaboration with the Australian Science Media Centre) Giving children paracetamol during their first year of life can increase their risk of developing asthma according to New Zealand-led research to be published in Lancet. Currently over 600,000 New Zealanders have asthma and incidence [...]