""Vaccine scares" have existed ever since the first smallpox vaccine was developed. Religious beliefs and distrust in medicine dissuaded some from inoculations; others believed they violated their personal liberty. Legally mandating vaccines in the mid-19 century galvanized these objectors into anti-vaccine movements, members of which claimed the right to make their own decisions about their children's bodies and their own. The autism variant of these historical conspiracy theories started in 1998 with a report in a prestigious medical journal suggesting that 12 children developed autism shortly after they received the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine. But the findings were plagued with problems: The research of the lead scientist was funded by a lawyer suing a vaccine manufacturer, while the researcher himself held a patent for a new MMR vaccine. He altered the children's medical histories to boot. Since then, scores of medical research findings have invalidated the report, and the researcher's license was revoked."