Measles- how a spurious health MMR scare brought an old killer back
As health chiefs last week reported the worst outbreaks of measles across Britain in 20 years, slow progress was being made in bringing to justice the doctor who sparked the MMR scare. At the high court in London, lawyers for the General Medical Council (GMC) gave the first public hearing to disciplinary charges against Andrew Wakefield, whose scientific paper published eight years ago caused millions to shun the vaccination for fear that their children might contract autism.
The charges against Wakefield, 50, are some of the most extensive seen. Timothy Dutton QC told Mr Justice Silberman that the GMC, the body that regulates doctors, was considering 10 counts of serious professional misconduct.
They include publishing “inadequately founded” research, obtaining funding “improperly” and subjecting children to “unnecessary and invasive investigations” without proper ethical approval.
Early next year these and other charges will be heard by the GMC’s fitness to practise panel. Empowered to strike Wakefield off the medical register, the hearing is expected to last two months and will be one of the most high-profile adjudications seen.
Wakefield was not in court last week. Having been shunned by colleagues in Britain, he runs a business in Austin, Texas, selling surgical tests for autistic children.
Among the cramped pews and gothic ornamentation of court 10, however, his presence hung over the proceedings.
The hearing had been called at the GMC’s request in an effort to obtain the court’s help in gathering documents. Wakefield has said he has lost vital documents and destroyed a key paper.
After more than two years of trying, the GMC’s frustrated lawyers were getting tough.
In February 2004, after a Sunday Times investigation, Wakefield declared that he would welcome an inquiry as an opportunity to clear his name.
“It has been proposed that my role in this matter be investigated by the General Medical Council,” he said in a statement. “I not only welcome this, I insist on it.”
He may have insisted, but he did not cooperate. His lawyers, financed by the Medical Protection Society, have fought trench warfare against the GMC.
The GMC’s work has been made harder by the legislation that governs disciplinary proceedings against doctors.
According to the Medical Act of 1983, the council can demand that any person disclose any document “except the practitioner in respect of whom the information or document is sought”.
In other words, Wakefield cannot be made to hand over his papers.
Field Fisher Waterhouse, the GMC’s lawyers, have been driven close to despair. Unable to secure the facts from Wakefield, they last week took the course of acting against the solicitors who — as The Sunday Times discovered — hired him to make the case against the vaccine before he triggered the MMR scare.
In the event the solicitors agreed to the request after the judge ordered the hearing into secret session. Dates and documents would be handed over within a month, they agreed, bringing the hearing of Wakefield’s case a step closer.
It’s a case in which, Wakefield’s critics say, closure is desperately needed.
“We need to get this over with,” said a close observer last week. “We’ve got to stop the endless re-running of a story that isn’t a story. Every time there is something like the GMC mentioned, journalists keep talking about the link between MMR and autism, and there isn’t one.”
As health chiefs revealed last week, Britain is now in the grip of what has every sign of becoming a measles epidemic. In March the first child in 14 years was killed by the virus. Clusters of infections, such as in Surrey and Yorkshire, have propelled the number of confirmed cases this year to 449, the largest number since the MMR jab was introduced in 1988.
“People think measles is a trivial disease, but it is not,” said a spokesman for the Health Protection Agency. “Our message to parents is to get their children vaccinated to reduce the risk.”
The return of what was once a common disease is almost entirely the result of the MMR scare, say Wakefield’s critics.
As Dutton told the court last week, a paper published by the former gut surgeon in The Lancet medical journal in February 1998 was the trigger for all that followed. In its outward appearance the paper was scientific. It claimed that Wakefield and his team had happened upon a link between the MMR jab — the combined inoculation against measles, mumps and rubella — and the onset of autism in 12 children who had passed through the hospital.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2230936.html
Like many we at Health Direct have been unsure of the merits of the case for and against the MMR jabs.
The charges against Wakefield, 50, are some of the most extensive seen. Timothy Dutton QC told Mr Justice Silberman that the GMC, the body that regulates doctors, was considering 10 counts of serious professional misconduct.
They include publishing “inadequately founded” research, obtaining funding “improperly” and subjecting children to “unnecessary and invasive investigations” without proper ethical approval.
Early next year these and other charges will be heard by the GMC’s fitness to practise panel. Empowered to strike Wakefield off the medical register, the hearing is expected to last two months and will be one of the most high-profile adjudications seen.
Wakefield was not in court last week. Having been shunned by colleagues in Britain, he runs a business in Austin, Texas, selling surgical tests for autistic children.
Among the cramped pews and gothic ornamentation of court 10, however, his presence hung over the proceedings.
The hearing had been called at the GMC’s request in an effort to obtain the court’s help in gathering documents. Wakefield has said he has lost vital documents and destroyed a key paper.
After more than two years of trying, the GMC’s frustrated lawyers were getting tough.
In February 2004, after a Sunday Times investigation, Wakefield declared that he would welcome an inquiry as an opportunity to clear his name.
“It has been proposed that my role in this matter be investigated by the General Medical Council,” he said in a statement. “I not only welcome this, I insist on it.”
He may have insisted, but he did not cooperate. His lawyers, financed by the Medical Protection Society, have fought trench warfare against the GMC.
The GMC’s work has been made harder by the legislation that governs disciplinary proceedings against doctors.
According to the Medical Act of 1983, the council can demand that any person disclose any document “except the practitioner in respect of whom the information or document is sought”.
In other words, Wakefield cannot be made to hand over his papers.
Field Fisher Waterhouse, the GMC’s lawyers, have been driven close to despair. Unable to secure the facts from Wakefield, they last week took the course of acting against the solicitors who — as The Sunday Times discovered — hired him to make the case against the vaccine before he triggered the MMR scare.
In the event the solicitors agreed to the request after the judge ordered the hearing into secret session. Dates and documents would be handed over within a month, they agreed, bringing the hearing of Wakefield’s case a step closer.
It’s a case in which, Wakefield’s critics say, closure is desperately needed.
“We need to get this over with,” said a close observer last week. “We’ve got to stop the endless re-running of a story that isn’t a story. Every time there is something like the GMC mentioned, journalists keep talking about the link between MMR and autism, and there isn’t one.”
As health chiefs revealed last week, Britain is now in the grip of what has every sign of becoming a measles epidemic. In March the first child in 14 years was killed by the virus. Clusters of infections, such as in Surrey and Yorkshire, have propelled the number of confirmed cases this year to 449, the largest number since the MMR jab was introduced in 1988.
“People think measles is a trivial disease, but it is not,” said a spokesman for the Health Protection Agency. “Our message to parents is to get their children vaccinated to reduce the risk.”
The return of what was once a common disease is almost entirely the result of the MMR scare, say Wakefield’s critics.
As Dutton told the court last week, a paper published by the former gut surgeon in The Lancet medical journal in February 1998 was the trigger for all that followed. In its outward appearance the paper was scientific. It claimed that Wakefield and his team had happened upon a link between the MMR jab — the combined inoculation against measles, mumps and rubella — and the onset of autism in 12 children who had passed through the hospital.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2230936.html
Like many we at Health Direct have been unsure of the merits of the case for and against the MMR jabs.
The politicians have been extremely quiet on the subject of MMR and measles with the usual lack of leadership from the top.
However, if key research documents have been destroyed by Dr Andrew Wakefield it would appear that not has his own credibility been greatly reduced- but the foundation for the MMR scare would appear to be nullified.
With the immunisation rates falling to around 50 per cent in Westminster and other parts of London Scare over MMR vaccine safety causes cases of Mumps to soar as immunisation postcode lottery grows one would think that the GMC would be moving faster than it is to clear up this sorry mess.
posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic at
8:39 AM
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