BMJ Focuses on Science Fraud, But Is Their Own Exposed by Wakefield Lawsuit?

Such irony! Just as the British Medical Journal (BMJ) focuses on problems in medical science, including outright fraud, their own scruples are placed under the spotlight with Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s lawsuit against the BMJ, their editor Fiona Godlee, and a reporter they’d supported and even lionized, Brian Deer.

The BMJ‘s Accusation

The BMJ accused Dr. Wakefield of great malfeasance and outright fraud in their article series, “Secrets of the MMR Scare”, by Brian Deer published in January 2011. Wakefield has filed a lawsuit in a court of Texas, where he now resides in exile because of Deer’s accusations, resulting in him being stricken from the roles of doctors able to practice in the UK.

The damage done to Dr. Wakefield and his research cannot be underestimated. It shows up in most of the reports on his lawsuit in presumptions that he was guilty of misconduct and research fraud. MedPageToday made false statements

• Referred to his 1998 Lancet paper, “Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children”, as “infamous”. T
• Stated that the Lancet paper claims that “MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccinations had caused autism-like symptoms in 12 children.” This is simply untrue. The paper describes clinical gastroenterological findings in some autistic children, but made no claim of cause.

Dr. Godlee has stated, both in the BMJ and in public speeches and interviews, that Dr. Wakefield committed fraud. There was no softening of the terminology. Now, though, Dr. Wakefield is striking back.

Dr. Wakefield’s Court Filing

The court filing by Dr. Wakefield’s attorneys is remarkably free of legalese and is quite readable. I like to believe that this is indicative of an interest in transparency, rather than the obfuscation so often seen in legal documents. It cites several facts in support of his case, including:

• The obvious fact that statements by Godlee and Deer have been widely disseminated since the publication of Deer’s accusations in January 2011.
• Ongoing statements by Deer have been directed at Wakefield’s current activities in Texas, and that these statements are both false and defamatory. This supports the claim that Deer’s statements:
  

  …were and are false and written and published with actual malice and intended to cause damage to Dr. Wakefield’s reputation and work as a researcher, academic and physician and to permanently impair his reputation and livelihood.

• The so-called “re-analysis” of the medical records was knowingly false:
  

  Purporting to offer a “re-analysis” of the medical records – many of which Defendants knew were not in the possession of or used by Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues at the time of the publication of the Lancet Paper – for the twelve subject children, Defendants knowingly and with actual malice misrepresented information, data and diagnoses for the purpose of  creating the false impression that it was Dr. Wakefield who had manipulated or altered data or diagnoses. Based on Defendants’ purported “reanalysis,” Defendants made and continue to make assertions that Plaintiff Dr. Wakefield committed fraud and is “a fraudster.”

• The 5 January 2011 article written by Brian Deer, “Secrets of the MMR Scare: How the Case Against the MMR Vaccine was Fixed”, contains many false and misleading statements, including:
  

  Dr. Wakefield’s case study was “fixed” and based on “bogus data”; Dr. Wakefield’s findings were “manufacturered” to give “the appearance of a link [to] autism”; Dr. Wakefield’s “undisclosed goal” of the project “was to help sue the vaccine’s manufacturers” and that “Wakefield evidenced his [new] ‘syndrome’ for the lawsuit, and built his platform to launch the vaccine scare”; Dr. Wakefield doctored the underlying subjects’ data to reach his conclusion as “[n]o case was free of misreporting or alteration”; The children who were the subjects of the Lancet Paper “were recruited through anti-MMR campaigners, and the study was commissioned and funded for planned litigation”;

  And, Deer’s insulting description of those who have watched the witch hunt against Dr. Wakefield with an open mind:

  Plaintiff Wakefield, “nevertheless, now apparently self-employed and professionally ruined, remains championed by a sad rump of disciples.”

• The BMJ ran malicious and defamatory editorials by the editor, Fiona Godlee, including the following statement by Godlee that Deer’s article:
  

  …shows the extent of Wakefield’s fraud and how it was perpetrated…and how Wakefield altered numerous facts about the patients’ medical histories in order to support his claim of having identified a new syndrome.

  Godlee went on to state that it was Wakefield alone who perpetrated this so-called “fraud”:

  The BMJ is supposed to be a respected medical journal, focusing on facts and research. Instead, Godlee, Deer and others at the BMJ used the BMJ to launch an unprecedented personal attack on a doctor who was part of a group of well respected physicians that presented a case study that simply suggested that there might be a connection between the combined MMR vaccine, when administered as a combination of live viruses to children, and autism and that suggested further research is warranted.

• The BMJ failed to disclose its “significant revenue from the very vaccine manufacturers whose products need further investigation”. The complaint identifies specifics of this conflict of interest..
• Deer’s allegations are based on intentional misrepresentations of the Lancet paper’s contents, and these fraudulent statements were intended to injure Wakefield.
• Deer, Godlee, and the BMJ, “ironically” used misleading information to give the false impression that Wakefield had altered, manipulated, or misrepresented data in the Lancet paper.
• Deer and Godlee were promoting their stories to the press within 24 hours of the publication of the first installment of Deer’s article maligning Wakefield and his research. On at least one American television show, Deer said that Wakefield is “a determined cheat”, embarked in “a campaign of lies”, and is now trying to make a living at the expense of autistic children. He appeared on several other shows making inflammatory and false statements.
• Deer attempted to multiply the effect in a “self-congratulatory” article in which he made several defamatory statements about Dr. Wakefield. The complaint goes on to list specifics of that article and several other instances of Deer’s and Godlee’s inflammatory and defamatory commentary.

Summary of the Case

In summary, the complaint for defamation against Dr. Wakefield specifies both libelous and slanderous commentary on the part of the defendants. It states that they knowingly misrepresented facts with the intention of making false accusations against Dr. Wakefield. These statements were made with malice. The defendants were aware of the falseness of their claims. They intended to cause substantial harm to Dr. Wakefield, to open him up to scorn in his own community, and to damage his livelihood.  As a result, Dr. Wakefield has suffered “injury to character and reputation, humiliation, injury to feelings, and loss of earning capacity”.

If only a single claim in Dr. Wakefield’s lawsuit were true, he would be entitled to a favorable judgement. However, as seen in previous Gaia Health assessments of Deer’s claims against Wakefield, the legitimacy of this lawsuit is simply obvious.

Why File in Texas?

Rather than filing his lawsuit in a British court, where the accusations against him took place, and where the laws are generally considered to be strongly on the side of the accuser, rather than the plaintiff, the venue chosen is his new home state of Texas.

This strange choice of venue is raising eyebrows, even in circles supportive of him. However, a bit of thought shows that the choice of venue may be wise.

There is a great deal of truth in the claim British law strongly favors the accuser. In Great Britain, the burden of proof is on the defendant. That is, the defendant—the one accused—must prove his innocence, rather than the plainiff having to prove his guilt. This is the reverse of generally accepted legal practices, in which the burden of proof is on the accuser.

Nonetheless, there’s a catch. British law favors the well-heeled accuser. It costs money, lots and lots of money, to successfully bring a defamation lawsuit in Great Britain. Dr. Wakefield’s income has been destroyed by the attacks on him. He has been struck off the register and can no longer practice as a doctor, which has prompted his move to the US. It’s hard to imagine that he has bottomless pockets. Therefore, his ability to prosecute a defamation lawsuit in Great Britain is severely diminished.

In Britain, a successful defamation prosecution by Wakefield could stand as a precedent that would harm the government itself, as it knowingly purchased the Urabe MMR vaccine that was in effect in the children Wakefield was studying. (See Andrew Wakefield Speaks to Private US Physicians on the Smear Campaign Against Him.) This vaccine was known to cause severe harm, so the manufacturer, SmithKline  Beecham, refused to sell it without a waiver of indemnity, which the UK government granted. Therefore, the government itself is on the hook if it’s officially found that there’s a connection between the vaccine and autism. When you consider the number of children involved and the degree of harm done to them, it’s so large that the financial stability of the government would likely be at risk.

Bringing the case outside the UK makes good sense.

Finally, there’s the fact that US court settlements, though generally more difficult to obtain, tend to be significantly higher. If Dr. Wakefield’s case is strong—and it seems to me that it’s exceedingly good—then he certainly doesn’t need the ease of the British defamation laws.

Why wouldn’t Dr. Wakefield choose to utilize the American court system? Anyone who has followed this case with an open mind must be aware that Wakefield’s research was excellent and that the claims against him are false. He has suffered hugely, and the autistic children have been left in the dust.

The BMJ‘s Response

At this writing, the BMJ says it hasn’t yet received formal notice of the lawsuit. However, their approach appears to be of the philosophy suggesting that the best defense is offense. They imply that there is something suspect in the location of the lawsuit’s filing. The statement continues with:

Despite the findings of the GMC’s Fitness to Practice Panel and his co-authors having publicly retracted the causation interpretation put forward by the Lancet Paper, it would appear from the Claim filed at court that Mr Wakefield still stands by the accuracy of the Lancet paper and his conclusion therein, thereby compounding his previously found misconduct.

While we await formal service, unsurprisingly the BMJ and Mr Deer stand by the material published in the BMJ and their other statements and confirm that they have instructed lawyers to defend the claim vigorously.

The BMJ clearly intends to fight. Of course, they’ve little choice. But the fact is that there was no need to continue to harass Dr. Wakefield, and that the claims of Brian Deer’s article series of January 2011 are inaccurate, as Dr. Wakefield has publicly proven, and as his co-researcher, Dr. Dhillon, the first pathologist to give analyses of the children’s gastrointestinal condtion, has stated.

As Dr. Wakefield has said, it looks like the BMJ and Godlee are “doubling down”. This may prove to be their undoing.

Further Gaia Health Articles on the Accusations Against Wakefield: 

• Brian Deer’s ‘Wakefield Fraud’ Report Is Full of Misrepresentations
• Another Nail in the Coffin of the Case Against Wakefield: Pathologist Speaks Out
• Brian Deer’s Charges Against Wakefield Are False: Documents Analyzed by Outside Expert
• Andrew Wakefield Speaks to Private US Physicians on the Smear Campaign Against Him
• Wakefield’s Autism Research Is Cited by Researchers Who Say They Can’t Replicate It
• Wakefield Gives Proof: No Fraud. Brian Deer Lied.

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