Dr. Wakefield Harrassment Continues: UK Charges "Professional Misconduct"

by Heidi Stevenson

28 January 2010

The cost of doing honest research that runs against the medical-pharmaceutical complex is your career. Dr. Andrew Wakefield's harrassment for researching and publishing his findings that show a potential connection between autism and the MMR (measles mumps rubella) vaccination continues with the UK's General Medical Council (GMC) claiming he "showed a callous disregard" for children's suffering.

The scene of this crime was his own child's birthday party, where he took blood samples from each child, with the agreement and approval of the parents. Horror of horrors! Dr. Surendra Kumar,chairman of the GMC panel tasked with destroying Wakefield's career, stated:

It also found that you caused blood to be taken in an inappropriate social setting and you showed a callous disregard for the distress and pain you knew or ought to have known the children involved might suffer.

You abused your position of trust as a medical practitioner.

No child or parent has ever complained about the incident, where Dr. Wakefield took the blood for his research on the MMR vaccination. Dr. Wakefield had obtained informed consent. As he stated:

I had fully informed parent and child consent. The ethics committee is there to protect NHS patients, and these weren’t NHS patients.

Obviously, even in this great stretch to find misconduct, the GMC involved itself in affairs that it has no charge to police.

The GMC panel further claims that Dr. Wakefield was not authorized to do certain testing on his patients. This is simply untrue. He had received a letter from Professor Walker-Smith, the head of gastroenterology at Royal Free Hospital, granting approval for the biopsies and making arrangements for further approvals of other procedures. The GMC has apparently refused to acknowledge the existence of that letter. Dr. Wakefield says:

For some bizarre reason the GMC do not seem to have had this document. My barristers didn't have a copy because their job is to respond to the documents presented to them.

He is also charged with using money given by the authors of a legal action against the MMR vaccine. This is true. However, none of the children he studied were involved in that action at the time he took the money, did the study, and wrote the report publishing in The Lancet.

Dr. Wakefield will likely be struck off the register (lose his license to practice) in the UK, as a result of these trumped-up claims.

Dr. Wakefield stated:

I still had a naive belief in justice, I didn't believe it could be quite like this. I feel so sorry for the children and their parents, it's desperate for them. But the struggle goes on. The chap who discovered thalidomide said this always happens and fifty years later he received an apology.

Will the people rendered autistic and the families supporting them ever receive an apology?