January 28, 2010

experts comment on Wakefield GMC case

Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who falsely claimed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, today faced judgement from the General Medical Council on his professional conduct and the ethical basis of his research.

Dr Shona Hilton of the Medical Research Council Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, who has studied the impact of the MMR vaccine scare on parents, said:

“It is clear that this health scare had a huge impact on parents across the UK in undermining their trust in MMR vaccination. Thankfully confidence is returning and the uptake of MMR vaccine is increasing. We need to continue rebuilding trust with parents that MMR vaccination is safe and ensure that those parents caring for children with autism do not blame themselves.”

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 UCL, said:

“On Monday 16th July 2007, the General Medical Council started a hearing against Dr Andrew Wakefield, Professors Simon Murch and John Walker-Smith. The grounds for the hearing were centred around the ethical conduct of their research and some alleged financial irregularities (http://www.gmc-uk.org/news/4129.asp). It is important to emphasize that the hearing has not examined evidence as to whether there is a link between autism and bowel problems and MMR vaccine. The outcome of the hearing will have no bearing on this.

“A review of the evidence, published in 2007, concluded that there was evidence of no association between MMR vaccine and autism or bowel problems (Elliman D., Bedford H. 2007). This review included many papers describing studies conducted in different countries using different research methods. Since then, further research has been published, coming to the same conclusion.

“It is important to realise that this remains unchanged and that MMR is, by far and away, the best way to protect children against measles, mumps and rubella.”

Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, author of two books on autism and the MMR scare, said:

“Andrew Wakefield cannot be solely held to blame for the MMR-autism debacle. His research was supervised by the senior (adult) gastroenterologist at the Royal Free; the press conference at which he launched the demand for separate vaccines was staged by the Royal Free medical school; the transparently flawed study was published by the Lancet. Further studies published jointly with the Dublin pathologist John O’Leary, claiming to show measles virus in bowel and other specimens have been exposed as invalid, if not fraudulent. The media too has played a lamentable role in this affair, its reputation only salvaged by Brian Deer’s courageous investigative journalism which resulted in Wakefield belatedly being called to account at the GMC.”

On the eve of the start of the GMC Hearing on Wakefield et al the Science Media Centre co-ordinated a joint statement on MMR from the UK’s major medical and scientific institutions. In recent days we have contacted these bodies who have agreed to re-issue the statement and re-affirm their commitment to it. The statement reads: “The undersigned believe that the MMR triple vaccine protects the health of children. A large body of scientific evidence shows no link between the vaccine and autism.” Medical Research Council Wellcome Trust Royal College of Physicians of London Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Royal College of Pathologists Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health British Medical Association Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust Royal Society of Medicine – Section of Paediatrics and Child Health UCL Institute of Child Health Royal College of Nursing Faculty of Public Health