UK: Wakefield/MMR - The Vaccine Road To the GMC

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Excellent summary

More info for background and current see

http://www.cryshame.co.uk

http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/news.php?start=1940 & end=1960 & view=yes & id=2309#newspost

The Vaccine Road To the GMC

NEW LABOUR, THE VACCINE SCANDAL

THE CHARACTER ASSASSINATION OF DR ANDREW WAKEFIELD

DEMONSTRATE MARCH 27TH

J

The fitness to practice case being heard at the General Medical

Council (GMC) against Dr Wakefield and Professors Murch and

-, appears to involve an analysis of the scientific research

and clinical practice of these doctors. However, almost all of the case

and the attacks that have taken place against Dr Wakefield since the mid

1990s are politically inspired. They are a part of the government’s drive

to produce a single multiple vaccine containing hundreds of viral strains

and also a key part of the government’s co-ordinated policy for health

care that has been resolved in negotiation with the pharmaceutical

companies since New Labour came to power in 1997. The following analysis

of Dr Wakefield’s ‘road to the GMC’ is divided into two parts, political

and scientific.

The Politics

The Introduction of MMR

In 1988 three brands of MMR were introduced into the UK programme,

two of which contained the Urabe strain mumps virus. The brands

containing the Urabe mumps strain were withdrawn, in Canada, Japan and

eventually Britain after they had been linked with aseptic meningitis and

serious brain damage. In Japan, the affected children and their parents

took their cases to court and were paid compensation.

The two brands of MMR were withdrawn from the UK market in 1992 after the

problem with Urabe was acknowledged. Typically the Government of the time

pretended that the superior vigilance of government agencies had brought

the ‘slight’ problems to light and the government had then acted with

alacrity. In fact not only was the government slow in responding to a

public health crisis but stocks of this withdrawn vaccine were then made

available and sold to less affluent nations, eg Brazil. Since the

withdrawal of the Urabe strain MMR brands in the UK, the British

Government and the pharmaceutical companies have refused to acknowledge

any legal claims for damages from either these or other MMR brands

despite claims from parents whose children showed very similar

presentations to the successful claimants in Japan.

At this time the British Government was left with only one brand of MMR

vaccine. Had they admitted problems with this vaccine there would almost

certainly have been calls for a reversal of their ‘combination’ vaccine

policy and a return to single vaccines.

Dr Wakefield

In the late 80s and the first years of the 1990s, Dr Wakefield

was a well respected academic gastroenterologist researching Crohn’s

disease. He had already won acclaim for proving the mechanism for

Crohn’s. His work was well endowed with pharmaceutical grants.

In the mid-nineties, he began to be contacted by parents who said that

their children’s health problems had been caused by the MMR or MR

(measles, rubella) vaccination who not only had severe gut problems but

also were exhibiting behavioural problems – that later came to be

perceived as ‘regressive autism’.

Dr Wakefield alerted the Department of Health to what he considered to be

a public health crisis, and asked for a meeting with the health minister

and with the Head of Immunology in the NHS. It took months for the DoH to

answer his first letter and almost six years for them to organise the

meeting that was finally held in October 1997.

At this meeting the health minister and the chief medical officer gave an

undertaking that there would be a complete review attended by independent

international experts of Dr Wakefield’s research, the meeting would be

relatively open and all opinions would be considered. When it was

organised by the MRC, one MP who asked to go to this review on behalf of

constituents was told there were not enough chairs and when he said he

would stand he was told this was not allowed!

Between the mid-nineties and 1998 hundreds of children suffering from the

syndrome (vaccination – gastrointestinal problems – regressive autism)

first identified by Dr Wakefield and colleagues approached the Royal Free

Hospital, and many of their parents attributed their child’s illness to

MMR or MR. A number of these parents, had contacted solicitors in order

to make a claim against three vaccine manufacturers. Although the case on

behalf of the parents was almost 10 years in the making, six months

before it was due to go to court in 2004, legal aid was suddenly

withdrawn and this dealt the case a terminal blow.

In 1998, Dr Wakefield and twelve other academics and clinicians, had the

now famous paper published in the Lancet (Ileal-lymphoid-nodular

hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder

in children. Wakefield AJ, Murch SH, A, Linnell J, Casson DM,

Malik M, Berelowitz M, Dhillon AP, Thomson MA, Harvey P, Valentine A,

Davies SE, - JA. Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group,

University Department of Medicine, Royal Free Hospital and School of

Medicine, London, UK The lancet, Mar 6;363(9411):750)

This paper was a case series describing twelve children, 8 of whose

parents said their children had begun to experience serious problems soon

after MMR /MR vaccination. On clinical examination, diagnosis and

treatment at the Royal Free, a majority of these children were found to

have both serious gastrointestinal problems together with behavioural

problems that presented like regressive autism.

This paper submitted to the Lancet was actually accompanied by another

paper giving details of biological findings relating to the twelve

children. The intention was that the two papers should have been

published together. However, while the first simple case series was

published, two out of the three peer reviewers turned down the second

paper. So it happened that the Lancet case series appeared without any

scientific explanation of how the authors suggested these conditions had

occurred in children.

The Consequences of Dr Wakefield’s research

Since the mid-nineties through to the present date there has been

constant character assassination carried out against Dr Wakefield; this

began to get worse after he tried, on a number of occasions, to organise

a meeting with the Department of Health.

After the 1998 paper, harassment and denial grew massively, funding

grants from pharmaceutical companies were withdrawn, articles began to

appear in the press and other media about his lack of science and the

general daftness of his ideas and finally in 2001 his contract at the

Royal Free was ended.

Dr Wakefield was essentially forced out of the country and went to work

in the USA where, with others, he set up the Thoughtful House project to

continue his research into environmental triggers, gastrointestinal

problems and autism.

By 2003/2004, the British Government needed to deal a death blow to

Wakefield’s work. This was probably another strategy related to the court

case for which legal aid was withdrawn in 2004, and the need to discredit

Wakefield as a possible expert witness in any proceedings.

In February 2004, Deer, a Sunday Times journalist who had

written a number of pro vaccine articles uncritical of vaccine

manufacturers, wrote a long exposé in The Sunday Times that

claimed to be an investigation into Dr Wakefield and the work of the

gastrointestinal team at the Royal Free. This article made Wakefield out

to be a money grabbing crook and a useless scientist. Embedded in the

article was a quote from the then Minister of Health, Reid who

stated clearly that Dr Wakefield should be reported to the General

Medical Council. Within two days of the article appearing, Deer had

lodged the sole complaint against Dr Wakefield and his co authors with

the General Medical Council.

Apparently it took the GMC, almost four years to introduce any sense into

the charges against the doctors and in July 2007 they were arraigned

before a GMC fitness-to-practice panel. Although there were almost 100

charges against the three doctors, it was clear from the beginning that

the main purpose of the hearing was to ensure that Dr Wakefield was kept

out of circulation and unable to comment again on the vaccine and autism

issue.

The hearing which was initially scheduled to last for a number of months,

has been dragged out by the GMC in such a way that though it started in

July 2007, it is now not due to finish before the end of the first

quarter of 2009.

There has been no press coverage of the prosecution case at the GMC

except on the first day when all the main charges were advertised by

newspapers and television. In fact, the Science Media Centre and Sense

About Science and the activists linked to these two pharmaceutically

funded lobby groups have been running a campaign since the early 2000’s

to censure from the media all criticisms of science corporations and

scientific processes. Following the last major article in the Observer

that appeared just before the GMC hearings began (see M. J.

Guardian of What?) the editor at the Observer resigned after being

put under heavy pressure amongst other things, about this article. And in

2007, the BBC banned, world wide, one already shown episode of the Judge

Deed drama series that dealt with MMR, written and produced by

Gordon Newman.

The science?

Science and politics

Although the case against Dr Wakefield, Professor Murch and Professor

- appears to be one of scientific misconduct and the GMC are

suggesting that they have committed a number of ethical and other

misdemeanours, in reality the case against the Royal Free doctors and the

whole campaign against Wakefield has parameters beyond science.

A wider interpretation of what has happened to Dr Wakefield can be put

down to the denial of vaccine damage by the government, but an even wider

one involves the increase in cases of autism in Britain and the US and

the possibility that these are triggered by environmental

factors.

The science lobby groups and the New Labour government are insistent that

high technology and new medical processes cannot cause adverse reactions.

Nowhere do they argue this with more force than in the case of

vaccination. In fact their determination appears to be in more or less

exact relationship to the damage that MMR and MR have done to children –

the more damaged children there are, the more aggressive the government

cover-up becomes. The government, the science lobby groups and the

medical establishment argue vociferously that autism is a genetic

condition not caused by environmental exposures, for which there is no

treatment. As is the case with a number of other ‘undiagnosed’ illnesses

the medical establishment cannot afford to ‘find’ an environmental cause

of autism.

Government money granted to the MRC to look into bio-medical and

environmental causes of autism has been given-over solely to genetic

research. This is a repeat of what happened with ME. In the case of ME,

money for research into bio-medical and environmental causes of the

condition was given to researchers who believe in a psychiatric aetiology

of the illness and who refused to look at environmental

triggers.

One of the ways that the division between science and politics can be

illustrated in the Wakefield case is through the case of Arpad Pusztai.

In 2001, Pusztai who was a well established and highly qualified research

worker at the Rowett Institute, came to the conclusion through his

research that genetically modified potatoes (GM), caused illnesses in the

rats that he was experimenting on. Within a matter of months of his

publicly announcing his research results, Pusztai had lost his job and

been vilified in the press. The reason for this was that the immensely

powerful GM lobby, of which the science lobby groups are a centre aspect,

were not willing to tolerate any public criticism of GM produce. (See

www.gmwatch.com)

We can see how in the Pusztai case, the normal course of science was

diverted. The normal course of science is quite clear. The only

thing that can assess or rebut the conclusions of a scientific study is a

new research project, carried out by independent scientists, that

replicates the research results after carrying out research under similar

conditions, using similarly defined subjects in order for comparisons to

be made.

If good scientific procedure is followed, there is no way round this. For

instance you cannot just carry out a review of all the research papers

which mention GM potatoes and health in their title and conclude that

none of them mention serious illness. This is not scientifically credible

because although these previous papers might have GM potatoes in their

title they might be focused on ways of germinating GM potatoes or ways of

cooking them or any number of things other than the specific clinical

effect in rats which have been fed certain quantities. The research has

to be replicated exactly.

Wakefield’s Hypothesis

Dr Wakefield’s paper in the Lancet was a case series describing

twelve children most of whom had been said by their parents to have

reacted adversely to the MMR vaccine with gastrointestinal difficulties

and then behavioural problems that have been labelled as regressive

autism. Wakefield’s hypothesis can be put as follows.

--There exists a subset of children who are vulnerable, for immunological

reasons, to developing a particular form of developmental regression

following previously normal development, in combination with a novel form

of inflammatory bowel disease. Onset, which may be acute or insidious,

may be triggered by exposure to a measles containing vaccine,

predominantly the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR). Exposure leads to

long-term infection with measles virus within key sites, including the

intestine, where it is associated with lymphoid hyperplasia and acute and

chronic mucosal inflammation.--

Neither the Medical Research Council nor any government agency has sought

to replicate the clinically based research of Dr Wakefield. It is,

however, important to understand what replication would mean. The

clinical research would have to begin with children who reported

gastrointestinal problems combined with loss of previously acquired

skills. A large proportion of the parents of these children would have

made some connection between vaccination and their children’s

gastrointestinal difficulties. In other words, any test of Wakefield’s

hypothesis would need to investigate children with a similar presentation

to the clinical cohort of 12 children who had initially reported to

doctors with serious gastrointestinal problems.

Instead of entering into a scientific debate, the government, the MRC and

the science lobby groups funded by the pharmaceutical industry, did a

number of things in addition to vilifying Dr Wakefield. They published,

re-published or drew attention to a number of epidemiological studies

that had looked at large numbers of cases of children who had received

MMR. They suggested that these studies proved that MMR did not cause

autism, however most of these studies did not look at autism and its

links to MMR, most of the studies did not look at children who had bowel

disease and none of the studies were of children whose parents had

reported an adverse reaction to MMR or any other vaccine.

Large scale epidemiological studies are not the right instrument for

tracking the clinical cause of an illness. While a properly designed

epidemiological study might show a variety of correlations between

different factors, further clinical work would always be necessary to

trace the exact cause, course and reason for any illness. Of course, if

epidemiological studies are improperly designed, or designed for another

purpose, they will not even show the correlation between various

important factors. In this case, Dr Wakefield is one of the only people

whose research has been based on the clinical findings in children and

has established the novel course of the illness. Consequently, the many

epidemiological studies that have been carried out both before and after

this work, since they do not look at children with the same combinations

of illness as those studied by Dr Wakefield are fundamentally flawed and

are simply used to suggest that there is no validity to the Wakefield

hypothesis.

The other tactic that the government, the medical establishment and the

science lobby groups have used is to suggest that Wakefield and his

supporters have actually said: ‘Autism is caused by vaccination’. By

turning the finally balanced clinically-based observations of Dr

Wakefield, that refer to a definite sub-group of children into a crude

suggestion like this, Wakefield and his followers can not only be made to

appear ridiculous but also the ‘theory’ can be simply discredited by

looking at children who are autistic but have not been vaccinated or

conversely the thousands of children who have been vaccinated without

developing any kind of autism.

Finally the ‘opposition’ has insisted from the first publication of the

Lancet paper, that a group of 12 children demonstrate nothing, especially

without a ‘control group’. The truth is of course that the paper was not

the report of a random double blind clinical trial, but a simple case

review of 12 cases that had been given clinical assessment and then

treatment at the Royal Free. Indeed at the time of publication the paper

carried a foot note that indicated that 40 children had been investigated

and 39 of these had been found to have the same bowel findings and within

a year of the publication of this paper Dr Wakefield and the team at the

Royal Free had announced that they had dealt with many more children who

presented with similar symptoms.

However, despite the unscientific propaganda of the lobbies, the

government and the vaccine industry, scientific evidence is gradually

being presented that adds weight to each part of Dr Wakefield’s

proposition, amongst the many papers are ones such as these

three:

Poling, JS, Frye RE, Shoffner J, Zimmerman AW. Developmental regression

and mitochondrial dysfunction in a child with autism. Journal of Child

Neurology. 2006;21:170-172.

, L., et al., Endoscopic and Histological Characteristics of the

Digestive Mucosa in Autistic Children with gastro-Intestinal Symptoms: A

Preliminary Report. GEN Suplemento Especial de Pediatria 2005. 1:

p.41-47.

Welch, M.G., et al., Brain effects of chronic IBD in areas abnormal in

autism and treatment by single neuropeptides secretin and oxytocin. JMol

Neurosci, 2005. 25(3): p. 259-74.

A major bibliography of the published links between regressive autism,

bowel disease and MMR can be found at the end of Thrower’s useful

paper,

‘Regressive Autism, Ileal-Lymphoid Nodular Hyperplasia, Measles Virus and

MMR Vaccine: Summary of Published Studies Offering Evidence for

Linkages’. This can be downloaded in Pdf form.

In Britain all court cases on behalf of vaccine damaged claimants have

been stopped. However, in America, last November, a judge in a Federal

Vaccine Court awarded an out of court settlement of a life-time care

compensation package, to one of three test cases, representing 4,900

children who it was agreed was damaged by multiple vaccines and is now

autistic. Pharmaceutical companies agree out of court settlements for

only two reasons: first they see that they are facing defeat on the

science at trial and second, faced with defeat they prefer not to have a

Judge make a legal ruling that will act as a precedent in future

cases.

This out of court settlement, the first to acknowledge the link between

vaccinations and autism, is bound to have a considerable effect upon the

way in which Wakefield’s work is now considered. This decision, made in

concert with the pharmaceutical companies, gives the lie to all the lobby

group’s previous propaganda.

The Campaign in Support of Dr Wakefield and Others

Not one parent has complained about the treatment that their child

received under the care of the clinical team at the Royal Free. Indeed,

because the parents of vaccine damaged children entirely support the work

of Wakefield, Murch and -, the GMC clearly could not call any

of them as complainants against the doctors. Because they didn’t want

Deer’s motives disclosed under cross examination, they have not

called him either. So it would appear that there is no real complainant

behind the GMC hearings. More importantly perhaps the voices of the

children and the parents have been stifled in this whole process while

both the government and the GMC have tried hard to convince the public

that there are no vaccine damaged children.

For all the above reasons the CryShame group of parents and professionals

are about to publish a book written by the parents, that discusses how

they have coped with and cared for their vaccine damaged children and the

denial of their circumstances by the government, the pharmaceutical

companies and the science lobby groups. The book will be available after

March 23 from www.cryshame.com and

via

www.slingshotpublications.com. Also available on the Cry Shame web

site is a short film shot at the opening of the GMC case that includes

interviews with parents of vaccine damaged children who support Dr

Wakefield.

And it is principally for this reason, as well as to give support to the

doctors that there is a Demonstration outside the GMC, on the Euston

Road, on the morning of March 27th 2008 beginning at 8.30 so that

parents and their vaccine damaged children can make public their

opposition to the GMC, corporate lobby groups, the paediatric

establishment and Deer.

J

7 March 2008

* * *

Reminder of link to send a message of support to Wakefield

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