This is incorrect.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9500320/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9500320/)

The conclusion of the study was that the MMR vaccine may predispose to behavioral regression and pervasive developmental disorder in children. He 100% did directly try to link MMR to autism.

Wakefield was working on a lawsuit, for which he sought a bowel-brain “syndrome” as its centrepiece. Claiming an undisclosed £150 ($230) an hour through a Norfolk lawyer named Richard Barr, he had been confidentially put on the payroll two years before the paper was published, eventually grossing him £435 643, plus expenses.  That means Wakefield had already started working on a lawsuit for a syndrome before the study that discovered it.  It was a scam from the start.  Richard Barr was putting together a class action lawsuit against drug companies which manufactured the triple shot and planned on using Wakefields "study" as proof.

The split theory you're talking about, is that MMR contains three different components it somehow "overloads" or weakens the child's immune system, making them more susceptible to developing ASD, was more made up BS.   While Wakefield was discrediting the triple shot MMR vaccine (specifically, only the measles component), he was filing patents for his own measles vaccine.  The entire reason he was pushing for individual vaccines, was because it would help the patent he was submitting.

Every single aspect of the study was manipulated from the beginning to make money.