MMR and a Doctor Only Doing His Duty
Editorial Comment

Nobody has complained to the General Medical Council about Dr Andrew Wakefield. Nobody has suggested that he said or wrote anything dishonest when he believed he had discovered a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Yet the GMC has taken it upon itself to charge him with serious professional misconduct, threatening to strike him off, and, in doing so, destroy his livelihood.

His research was 'inadequately founded', say the charges. He failed to obtain ethical committee approval before publishing, acquired funding improperly and subjected children to 'unnecessary and invasive investigations'.

In short, the council is throwing the book at him. Why?

The case has the whiff about it of a medieval inquisition, called to defend the orthodoxy of the establishment against the heresy of an independent mind.

Dr Wakefield's 'crime' was to open an important debate that remains unresolved. Eight years on, he is by no means alone among doctors in believing that he may have been on to something. The trouble is we just don't know.

Even Tony Blair, though publicly committed to the triple vaccine, seems to have private doubts. What else would explain why he has refused to tell MPs if his son Leo has been given it?

After all, he has never been above dragging his family into the spotlight, when it suits his political purposes.

The GMC's real beef against Dr Wakefield is that immunisation rates fell - and cases of measles, mumps and rubella rose - after his article appeared. But that is hardly his fault. It is the fault of a Government that refused to heed parents' fears, and failed to offer separate vaccines on the NHS, even though the cost implications were marginal.

Think what an uproar there would be today if it was discovered that Dr Wakefield had kept his suspicions to himself and a link had subsequently been proven. He had a duty to speak out - and now he is being made to suffer for it.

His treatment by the GMC is utterly unjust. If this preposterous body had existed 200 years ago, defending the prevailing wisdom against new ideas, doctors would still be treating illnesses by slitting their patients' veins.
The Daily Mail, 13th June 2006

PHILLIP DAY'S COMMENT: Andrew Wakefield is precisely what the drug industry doesn't want, someone with the serious conviction to highlight irregularities and demand further investigation. Steve Ransom has done an excellent book, Wake up to Health in the 21st Century, which covers this and many other vaccine scandals. You'll be pleased to hear there is a sensible alternative to injecting yourself with toxic material. Eat right, live right and allow the immune system to build itself the way it was designed to do. And yes, you could get measles. For your information, it is rarely fatal unless you are malnourished or have an impaired immune system. By the way, what's seldom discussed is the number of people getting the disease even after having the jab - Steve Ransom discusses this too.

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