Here's what happens when doctors do the right thing and anger the establishment

[Guest guest]

(Many of you have said " why didn't anyone warn us? " Well, this is what

happens when a good doctor goes against the establishment and follows his

instincts with documentation and research. I found this on the Autism Mold

Fungal Research Support Group on . I've been reading thru the old

posts since joining this group. It could also add ADD/ADHD to the list.

Perhaps, one answer to what has changed the past 40 years that leads to so

many people being sick are vaccines and antibiotics. Another post

correlated heavy metals with fungal problems. Dr Wakefield ought to start a

clinic with Dr. Costantini ( " Fungalbionics " ) We have to take a stand and

demand appropriate medical treatment that CURES the problems, not treats the

symptoms. We have to rally around the doctors who take their oath seriously

and are healing people or the insurance whores will put them on a black list

and try to force them out like they did to Dr. Sinako a few years ago. I

particularly like Dr. Wakefield's statement - " I realise now that everything

that has happened

to me was inevitable from the beginning. If you offend the system, then the

system will take its revenge. "

Autism Parents Left Stunned as Wakefield Is Forced Out

The specialist who linked autism and bowel disease with the combined vaccine

has been treated shabbily, say his supporters. Lorraine Fraser reports

http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/

The departure from the Royal Free Hospital in London of

Wakefield, the doctor who first raised doubts about the safety of the

childhood MMR vaccination, will delight his opponents in the Department of

Health, but it has devastated the parents of the 200 children he has

studied.

Rosemary Kessick, whose 13-year-old autistic son, , was one of the

first Dr Wakefield examined in his research into the links between autism,

bowel disease and MMR, said: " What people fail to realise is that

Wakefield did not go looking for us. We parents went looking for him

because we were convinced, and we

were right, that our children had bowel problems and these were somehow

related

to their autism. He has stood by us and as a result he has been treated very

shabbily. "

There are hundreds of children with symptoms of the new combined

syndrome, such as severe abdominal pain, loss of language and extreme

behaviour. In addition to the 200 being cared for by staff at the hospital's

department of paediatric gastroenterology, another 150 are currently on a

waiting list that stretches to 2003. The service is so overwhelmed that some

of the worried parents met officials from Tony Blair's office two months ago

to beg him to intervene. Dr Wakefield was at that meeting, supporting the

parents' plea, but last week he had finally to acknowledge that the

hostility towards him inside the hospital and its medical school had made

his position

there untenable. He said: " I realise now that everything that has happened

to me was inevitable from the beginning. If you offend the system, then the

system will take its revenge. "

Last night those who had heard the news were desperate for reassurance

that their children would continue to be cared for by the unit, which was

headed by Britain's most respected specialist in children's bowel disease,

Prof -, until his retirement last year. It has an

international reputation for excellence. In many cases the children's

behavioural problems and learning difficulties have improved in consequence.

The parents fear that without Dr Wakefield, there will be pressure on his

former colleagues to stop this work. Mrs. Kessick, from borough,

Cambridgeshire, one of 250 parents taking legal action against the

manufacturers of MMR vaccines, said: " In the end, I think, felt he

had no choice but to fall on his sword to relieve the political pressure on

his

colleagues. I just hope he is correct in assuming that his absence will

make it

easier for the Royal Free to continue to care for all the children. My view

is that there are some in positions of power there who do not want this to

be the case.

Miles, from west London, said that his 13-year-old son

's condition had improved greatly with the hospital's help. Mr. Miles

said: " The

bottom line is that I think some of these children will die if the Royal

Free stops looking after them. The team has done an absolutely tremendous

job.

Ann Hewitt, from north London, whose son , eight, is severely

affected and needs frequent hospital attention, said: " Irrespective of the

causes of their problems these children are entitled to the best treatment

and to the care and respect they deserve.

â?oThey can shoot the messenger but these children are going to keep

coming and it is essential that they continue to be looked after.â?

When he started work at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School in 1987

Dr Wakefield was the man everyone wanted to know. The doctor, who studied at

St 's Hospital in west London and trained in bowel transplantation at

the University of Toronto, arrived with plans to investigate the cause of

two

devastating inflammatory bowel diseases: Crohn's disease and ulcerative

colitis. Throughout the early 1990s his research was supported by grants

worth millions from pharmaceutical companies and charities. These began to

fall away when, in 1995, he published a study suggesting that measles

vaccination could be a risk factor for the bowel illnesses, the first

warning that his research produced unpopular results.

He was unprepared, however, for the opprobrium that ensued when in

1998 he published a medical paper in The Lancet, reporting that he and his

colleagues had identified a previously unknown combination of bowel disease

and autism in 12 children. Bowel symptoms are common in autistic children

but had until then been regarded as simply a manifestation of their

behavioural

problems. The finding that these children had real and severe bowel disease

was a groundbreaking discovery. Had the paper stuck to these facts alone Dr

Wakefield might still be in a job. Against the advice of others in the team,

however, he insisted that their joint paper record that eight parents said

their previously normal child had fallen ill after receiving the MMR

inoculation - a mixture of weakened but live measles, mumps and rubella

virus given to a 1.5 million children a year.

The result was uproar and with each piece of research the doctor has

announced since - including evidence of measles virus infection in damaged

bowel tissue from some of the children - the louder the medical

establishment's condemnation of him has grown. When Dr Wakefield said in

January that he had now seen 170 children with the bowel effects and autism,

and that a majority of the parents involved had said their children fell ill

after being given the MMR vaccine, the Department of Health's response was

to

launch a £3 million publicity campaign to reassure parents that it is safe.

The Department of Health said parents often first noticed signs of autism in

their children around the time MMR is usually given but that did not mean

the

two were connected. A spokesman said: " Our view is that the triple vaccine

is

the safest way to protect children against three potentially serious

diseases.â?

Yesterday Dr Wakefield said he still did not regret his decision to

get

involved in the MMR controversy. " Losing a London hospital teaching job

doesn't do much for my CV but there are bigger issues at stake, " he said.

â?oWhat matters now most of all is what happens to these children.â?

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2001

* * *

Anti-MMR Doctor Is Forced Out

The specialist who first raised concerns about the safety of MMR

vaccinations

has been forced out of his job, The Telegraph can reveal.

[Another treatment of the same news. By Lorraine Fraser, Medical

Correspondent.]

http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/12/02/nmmr02.xm

l &

sSheet=/portal/2001/12/02/ixport.html < - - address ends here

Wakefield, a consultant gastroenterologist whose research has

linked the vaccine to autism and bowel disease in children, said last night

that he had been asked to resign because of his work.

" I have been asked to go because my research results are unpopular, " s

aid Dr Wakefield, an academic at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School in

London whose research into the triple measles, mumps and rubella vaccination

has caused controversy.

" I did not wish to leave but I have agreed to stand down in the hope

that my going will take the political pressure off my colleagues and allow

them to get on with the job of looking after the many sick children we have

seen.

" They have not sacked me. They cannot; I have not done anything wrong.

I have no intention of stopping my investigations.â?

He has been testing the theory that measles virus from MMR vaccine can

colonise the bowel of susceptible children, producing inflammatory bowel

disease, which then, via a disruption of the chemical balance in the body

and

the brain, leads to autism.

Although the specialist admits he has not published proof, he has

infuriated ministers by suggesting that the three component vaccines should

be given separately.

Dr Wakefield's departure comes a month after he was made a Fellow of

the Royal College of Pathologists in recognition of his research work.

He left his £50,000 job on Friday after 14 years having been told that

his ideas were " unwelcome " at University College London, which controls the

Royal Free.

The news will please vaccination programme officials in the Public

Health Laboratory Service. They have ridiculed his research and still insist

that MMR, recommended officially for every child at around 13 months and

again at four years, is safe.

He added last night: " I am very concerned that I have been unable to

gain any guarantee from the hospital that the children we have already seen,

and who need to be seen, will be looked after " .

Parents of autistic children involved in his research expressed their

anger last night. Some demanded reassurances that the Royal Free Hospital

will continue treating their children.

Dr Wakefield's research has made him a pariah of the medical

establishment.

As a result, the World Health Organisation felt obliged to announce

its support of the MMR vaccine.

The Government has played down concerns since he published a paper in

The Lancet in 1998, reporting that he and colleagues had identified a

hitherto unknown combination of bowel damage and autism in children whose

parents said their previously normal children fell ill after MMR.

The row became a crisis last January when Dr Wakefield told The

Telegraph that he had seen almost 170 children with a similar story and

claimed that the Department of Health's contention that MMR had been proven

to be safe did not " hold up " .

That number, has now reached almost 200. Pressure on the children's

gastroenterology unit is so great that it's waiting list risks breaking the

NHS's 18-month limit. Parents have appealed to Tony Blair to give it more

funds.

The Royal Free Hospital Medical School was unavailable for comment

last night.