Autistic enterocolitis is a proposed medical condition by controversial British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield suggesting a link between a number of common clinical symptoms and signs which he contends are distinctive to autism. The existence of such an enterocolitis has been dismissed by experts as having "not been established", and Wakefield's fraudulent studies used inadequate controls and suppressed negative findings in the now-retracted reports. Multiple attempts to replicate his results have been unsuccessful.
Reviews in the medical literature have found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism or with bowel disease.
Most of Wakefield's coauthors later retracted the conclusions of the original paper proposing the hypothesis, and Wakefield has been found guilty of manipulating patient data and misreporting results in the paper by the General Medical Council. His work was later identified to be falsified and described as an "elaborate fraud".
Read more about Autistic Enterocolitis: Background, Lancet Study, Discredited Link To MMR Vaccinations, "Retraction of An Interpretation", U.S. Court of Federal Claims