The doctor who caused a worldwide drop in childhood immunisation nearly ten years ago by suggesting there was a link between the measles, mumps rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism is facing a disciplinary hearing with his two fellow researchers. Dr Andrew Wakefield, Professors Simon Murch and John Walker Smith, are accused of serious professional misconduct in relation to ethical aspects of their research.
The charges relate to the time when Wakefield and his two colleagues were employed by the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine with Honorary Clinical contracts at the Royal Free Hospital, in the years leading up to the publication of their research in the Lancet in 1998. Dr Wakefield has since left the UK and lives in Texas, in the US. Murch and Walker Smith still work at the Royal Free, an NHS hospital based in northwest London.
The three doctors have been summoned before the General Medical Council’s fitness to practise panel in London to answer over 40 charges of serious professional misconduct in relation to vaccine research.
When the hearing opened yesterday it was made clear that it was the doctors’ conduct that was under scrutiny, and not the link between autism and MMR.
Wakefield, a 50-year old former surgeon who became a gastroenterologist, was accused of taking blood samples from children at his son’s fifth birthday party and paying them 5 pounds.
The allegation centres on the fact that he chose an inappropriate social setting in which to collect the samples, and showed “callous disregard for the distress and pain” he may have caused to the children, while offering them a financial inducement.
The blood samples were used in the research that led to the paper published in the Lancet in February 1998 claiming a link between the MMR vaccine, childhood autism and inflammatory bowel disease. The title of the paper was “Ileal-Lymphoid-Nodular Hyperplasia, Non-Specific Colitis and Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Children”.
The allegations state that “the three practitioners inaccurately stated in the Lancet paper that the investigations reported in it were approved by the ethics committee”.
Many of the charges against Wakefield, Murch and Walker Smith involve giving children medical interventions they did not need, including colonoscopies, lumbar punctures and barium meal tests. The panel was told they did not have the requisite pediatric qualification to do this and that the procedures were not “clinically indicated, when the Ethics Committee had been assured that they were all clinically indicated”.
Outside the hearing, campaigners and parents of children with autism waved placards and chanted in support of Wakefield and his colleagues. One large banner read “We’re with Wakefield – crucified for helping sick kids”. Flowers lining the pavement were sent by supporters from the US.
Another allegation mentions that Wakefield gave one of the 12 children at the centre of the research paper, child number 10, an experimental drug being tested as a measles vaccine when he was not qualified to administer it and did not have the requisite ethical approval. The father of the boy, a colleague of Wakefield, was going to set up a company, with Wakefield, to make and sell the vaccine, it was alleged.
Wakefield admitted that there was a plan to set up a joint company with the child’s father and other parties, but he denied giving the child the drug as an experiment and failing to get approval, not being qualified to administer it, not informing the child’s GP, and not recording the dose.
Another allegation against Wakefield involves a donation of 50,000 pounds from the Legal Aid Board to support claims by parents who were trying to get compensation. The money was paid into an account used by the hospital to pay for Wakefield’s research, but the allegation is that he applied for it to pay for five children to stay in the hospital during tests when those costs would have been met by the NHS. Wakefield was accused of dishonesty and misleading conduct, because he used the money “for purposes other than those for which he said it was needed”.
All three doctors deny the charges. If found guilty, they could be struck off the medical register. The hearing is due to take 15 weeks.
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Written by: Catharine Paddock
Writer: Medical News Today