select search filters
briefings
roundups & rapid reactions
before the headlines
Fiona fox's blog
Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who proposed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism which has since been comprehensively discredited, has been struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council, which ruled that he was guilty of serious professional misconduct.
Prof Adam Finn, Professor of Paediatrics at University of Bristol Medical School, said:
“Society has a tendency to admire and reward those who find a cause and adhere to it against all odds while those who change their minds are seen as weak. In science and medicine the opposite is true. The real heroes are those who acknowledge the supremacy of evidence and retain an open mind; and those who admit, with good grace, when they are wrong. No matter how exciting and important our ideas seem, more often than not they turn out to be unfounded.
“But this verdict is not about MMR. We all now know that the vaccine is remarkably safe and enormously effective. The GMC’s verdict on his professional conduct is right but I remain disappointed that Dr Wakefield still does not acknowledge all the evidence that now exists that shows MMR is safe and supports its use. The UK remains one of the countries with the worst measles control in Europe and we badly need to put this right for the sake of our own children and children worldwide.””
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, GP and author of MMR and Autism: What Parents Need To Know, said:
“My thoughts are with the families of autistic children who were dragged into futile litigation (more than 1000 in the UK, more than 5000 in the USA) on the basis of Wakefield’s speculative link between MMR and autism. Wakefield’s greatest offence was his failure – over 12 years – either to substantiate a hypothesis with major consequences for child health or to withdraw it.
“The damaging impact of the MMR-autism theory was the result of a comprehensive failure of quality control, a failure involving his superiors at the Royal Free, the Lancet, the wider scientific community and the media.””
Dr David Elliman, Consultant in Community Child Health, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and Dr Helen Bedford, Senior Lecturer in Children’s Health, Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics at University College London, said:
“Today’s GMC ruling relates to financial and ethical irregularities, not primarily to the quality of the science. In the hearing, however, it emerged that contrary to what was said in the original Lancet paper, the children included in the study were not random cases. Partly because of this, the paper has been formally retracted.
“The alleged link between autism and MMR vaccine had been disproved long before the GMC hearings even began. Hopefully the whole episode can now be laid to rest. In the last two years, there was a large increase in cases of measles with deaths in 2006 and 2008. However it is reassuring that parents are regaining their confidence in the safety of this vaccine. Take-up rates are steadily improving and measles cases falling. Hopefully this trend will continue.””
Dr Evan Harris, the former MP who originally urged the GMC to investigate the case, said:
“Today’s decision, while welcome, does not close this matter because it is about more than one man. There needs to be an enquiry as to how these unacceptable invasive tests came to be done on so many vulnerable children despite the existence of ethics committees designed to prevent this sort of abuse, and the medical establishment needs to ask itself whether there are any other published papers, based on the same flawed research, that need to be retracted as the Lancet paper eventually was.
“It took a determined journalist to expose what happened to these children and to public funding and I am not satisfied that something similar could not happen again. Medical journals need to review their systems of checks and hospitals must ensure their ethical oversight is fit for purpose.””
Prof Terence Stephenson, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), said:
“Measles, mumps and rubella vaccines have all been shown to be safe and UK families are fortunate to have free access to these which is not true of many parts of the world. The false suggestion of a link between autism and the MMR vaccine has done untold damage to the UK vaccination programme.
“We cannot stress too strongly that all children and young people should have the MMR vaccine. Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that it is safe.””
Dr Shona Hilton, MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, said:
“Health professionals and parents across the UK can trust the MMR vaccine to protect children against measles, mumps and rubella.
“It is encouraging to see that uptake of the vaccine continues to improve. We now hope parents caring for children with autism can feel reassured that they are not to blame.””
Dr Jennifer M Best, Emeritus Reader in Virology at King’s College London, said:
“I hope that this ruling will finally persuade the public and some misguided journalists that Dr Wakefield behaved irresponsibly in suggesting that there might be a link between the MMR vaccine and gastrointestinal disease and autism. Many studies have shown that MMR is a safe vaccine. It is important that the uptake of MMR is improved, to ensure that measles and rubella do not recur in the UK.””