GMC investigate MMR doctor
In an interesting twist in the ongoing MMR debate, the BBC report that Dr Wakefield, the physician who first linked autism to the MMR jab, is currently appearing before the GMC.
Allegations against him centre around 1996-1998, the period during which he was researching for his paper on the MMR vaccine. The allegations are:
“that the three practitioners undertook research… without proper ethical approval, failed to conduct the research in accordance with the application submitted to the ethics committee, and failed to treat the children admitted into the study in accordance with the terms of the approval given by the ethics committee.”
They include children being subjected to procedures that were ‘contrary to [their] clinical interests‘ and ‘dishonestly and irresponsibly’ reporting of how patients were recruited for the trial. It is also alleged that he failed to disclose funding from the Legal Aid Board to the supervisory Ethics Committee.
Dr Wakefield has already accepted wrongdoing in at least one of the claims. If other claims are found to be true then this may well draw to an end the discussion on the dangers of the vaccine as numerous studies since have failed to find the same link that Dr Wakefield did.
The Fitness to Practice hearing, which began on 25th March and is scheduled to continue until the 15th May before taking a break until 14th July and finally finishing on the 29th August, will not be addressing the findings of the Doctor’s report on MMR specifically.
Full text of the allegations may be found here.
Posted in News, medical law
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April 14th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Hi
From what I have read the prosecution has been pretty poor in this case.
http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/news.php?start=2060&end=2080&view=yes&id=2467#newspost
This will definetly NOT put an end to Vaccine damage claims , the Hannah Poling case in the US (it has been conceded that Vaccines contributed to “Autistic like symtoms”) will eventually be reported over here.
Its a very interesting case please have a look at the unreported side of it , and expect some fireworks at the end.
Checkout my blog too.
I have a child with gut and bowel problems (with autism) who is recovering using Diet. We were outside the GMC trying to bring some media attention onto the children with autism and Bowel problem who now find it impossible to get treatment in the UK because of the prejudice this case has caused.
April 14th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Thanks for the link. I think I’ll do some research on this and perhaps write a follow-up post over the weekend. Do you know of any UK or US cases where this research has been investigated? I’ll definitely take a look at the Hannah Poling case you mentioned - do you know the case reference?