So, it looks like Dr Andrew Wakefield is finally going to be brought to book.
The man who first suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism acted unethically, the GMC found this week. Wakefield’s 1998 study in The Lancet, which was later discredited, caused vaccination rates to plummet and a significant rise in measles.
The GMC ruled that he had acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in conducting his research. It found that he had carried out invasive tests on children which were against their best clinical interests, and had even paid children £5 each for blood samples at his son’s birthday party.
The GMC now has to decide whether Wakefield’s behaviour amounted to serious professional misconduct and, if so, what sanctions should be imposed. He could be struck off the register. But, with Wakefield now being based in America, who knows how far any sanctions will reach in reality.
Wakefield’s legacy in the UK will be a sad one - a lot of children suffering from measles unnecessarily. But, he was aided by the media in spreading fear about the MMR jab.
His research message was spread by The Lancet and many of the nationals. Have they faced sanctions for their complicity? Of course not.
The other issue that surprises me is the amount of time it’s taken to get to this decision. The hearings have been going on for two-and-a-half years - one of the longest cases in the regulator’s history.
Why should it take so long? How many parents still shun the MMR without realising that both the research and the researcher have now been discredited?
Maybe certain regulators, national papers and academic journals should foot the bill for a public health campaign on the issue…
Tags: GMC
One of my blogging habits is to collate pro and con posts on a particular issue. One reason to do is that each blog has its own set of commenters and often the comments reveal aspects of the issue previously not considered elsewhere.
Today’s issue is the UK’s General Medical Council’s ruling on Andrew Wakefield.
I’ve included this post in the list.
The list can be found at
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2010/01/andrew-wakefield-dishonesty-misleading-conduct-and-serious-professional-misconduct.html
I suspect some of the answers to “How do we repair the damage of the MMR debacle?” can be found by studying the comments on blog posts that still support Wakefield, despite the evidence.
In other words, by closely examining what the anti-vaccine folks really believe, which are often revealed in their comments.
I think the MMR refuseniks are probably beyond the reach of any reasonable argument. The leaders of the very vocal, and frankly scary, opposition groups presumably, like Wakefield, have their own agendas, although what they might be escapes me. Many of the members of the public who allow themselves to be swayed by their arguments seem to be incapable of understanding simple evidence, and are wedded to the idea of a conspiracy on the part of the medical establishment. Why they think we would want to be part of such a conspiracy also escapes me - the only person with any dishonourable vested interest in this whole business seems to be Wakefield himself.
And as Mike says (and as I said in a letter to the Times that they didn’t publish!) the media have a lot to answer for. I understand that even this very day, Jeremy Vine was giving air time to the parents of ‘vaccine damaged’ children, thereby compounding the problem.
I suspect that there’s more than an element of the learned illlness behaviour that bedevils sensible debate on CFS going on here. But of course, these (MMR & CFS) are two issues on which sensible debate is now impossible, due to the entrenched positions of special interest groups.