As
Dr Andrew Wakefield and two colleagues heard a complex laundry list of
unprofessional charges read against them at a General Medical Council
disciplinary hearing today, their supporters, gathered on the sunny pavement
outside, saw the case in raw and simple terms.
Each
was the parent or grandparent of an autistic child and many had brought an
offspring to show that what should be the joy of creating new life can so
easily turn to a lottery - and it’s not always God who picks the numbers;
sometimes, say the aggrieved, it’s doctors.
Adam,
aged 13, chewed endlessly on a fancy ribbon and had to be caught by his mother
when he looked like taking a death-defying stroll across the busy Euston Road.
Oliver, aged 20, is an excellent reader, so long as it’s Thomas the Tank
Engine. Their devoted parents are articulate, campaigning, well schooled in
conducting their own research and entirely convinced of a conspiracy between
the medical establishment, politicians and the pharmaceutical industry.
“This
is a show trial that has nothing to do with the truth,” Bill Welsh, a
campaigner from Edinburgh and a grandparent of Luke, aged 12, said. Luke cannot
talk.
David
Thrower from Warrington, whose son was healthy at 15 months but is now mentally
handicapped, has conducted his own intensive survey of all the research
material published in learned journals on the possible MMR-autism connection.
“We are not anti-vaccine campaigners and we admit that much more research is
needed in this area. But we believe that Dr Wakefield is the man who has taken
us nearest the truth. Whatever the GMC may say, this hearing is all about MMR
and it is politically motivated.”
Celia
Forrest, the mother of an autistic teenager from north London, had one word for
the hearing: witchhunt. “No parent has laid a single complaint against any of
these three doctors and none of them has harmed a patient. GMC hearings are
usually the result of a patient’s complaint about a doctor’s incompetence or
misconduct.”
Jackie Fletcher, a founder of the
Lancashire-based Jabs campaign against the triple vaccination, agreed that the
hearing was a witchhunt against Dr Wakefield for daring to suggest that there
could be a connection between
Washington, DC - Parents and advocacy
groups around the globe are asking England’s General Medical Council (GMC) to
cancel the “fitness to practice” inquiry that begins today against Dr. Andy
Wakefield, and Professors Walker-Smith and Murch. Advocates say the GMC should
instead be asking why so many kids are sick, especially in light of an
apparently suppressed analysis showing that autism rates in England are as high
as 1 in 58. The medical establishment is being criticized for doing little to
find the cause, treat the kids, or prevent new cases.
“The list of charges reveal the utter lack of any case against Dr. Wakefield
and his colleagues, who are at risk of losing their licenses,” according to
National Autism Association (NAA) board member and parent Scott Bono. The
charges, only made known last week, relate primarily to a peer-reviewed case
report published in 1998 in the “Early Reports” section of The Lancet, one of
England’s leading medical journals: Ileal-lymphoid-nodular-hyperplasia,
non-specific colitis, and pervasive disability disorder in children. This first
report of a new syndrome, never refuted or retracted, has since been repeatedly
reported and studied by other researchers. Vaccine-strain measles virus has
been found and sequenced from gut biopsies and cerebral spinal fluid in
autistic children.
The
evidence will demonstrate that questioned diagnostic studies used by Dr.
Wakefield, such as colonoscopies and lumbar punctures, were not only approved
by ethics review but were clinically indicated. These have now been accepted as
the standard of care by a group of leading pediatric gastroenterologists in the
United States.
Other charges concern incomplete disclosures of what the advocacy groups
consider irrelevant material that could appear to be a conflict of interest only
to vaccine makers and government agencies shielding vaccines from legitimate
and appropriate criticism. Dr. Wakefield had consulted with lawyers and
families receiving government funding from the Legal Aid Board on an entirely
separate study to determine whether measles virus could be identified in the
diseased gut tissue, providing vital evidence for a possible class action. The
legal aid board subsequently determined that this explanation for autism was
more probable than not, but under government pressure dropped funding for the
suit.
In the first of 5000 cases to be heard in a special vaccine court in the US
last month, evidence presented demonstrated that 12-year old Michelle Cedillo
began regressing into autism just a week after her MMR vaccination at 15
months. The plausible cause was a persistent measles infection which took hold
through an immune system weakened by mercury in vaccines administered prior to
the MMR.
Many have cited the major theme of the Government’s defense in vaccine court
was that those who have the temerity to question vaccine safety must be
censored and their research stopped rather than risk impairing public
confidence in vaccines. According to a growing number of parents, the actual
threats involved are:
* companies making vaccines without appropriate safety considerations because
they no longer need fear accountability through litigation
* government denials of the autism epidemic that allow an avoidance of funding
research into cause and treatment
* a sclerotic medical establishment with its head in the sand as a tsunami of
sick children rages overhead.
“The search for truth in autism must be guided by sound science and not be led
astray by fear, censorship, and the greed of the pharma-government complex,”
commented NAA president Wendy Fournier. “Perhaps the greatest damage done by
this GMC hearing, other than a complete waste of time and resources, is the
chill wind blown over parents and scientists who dare to ask the hard questions
against this and any other medical orthodoxy: why are so many of our kids sick
and what can, indeed what must, we do to help them?”
No parents will testify against Wakefield and his colleagues at the GMC
hearing. Instead, they have organized a protest coinciding with the start of
the hearing. “NAA stands shoulder to shoulder with our British friends in their
search for truth, justice, and treatments for their kids,” said Ms. Fournier.
“We urge the GMC to stop this persecution and take urgent action in view of a
true national health emergency to care for the children afflicted with autism.”
The
CryShame initiative has three themes: the children,
the science and the politics. Our aims reflect these themes:
In the short term the attention of CryShame
will be on the upcoming UK GMC hearing at which three of the very few medical
professionals offering hope to the affected children and families have been
summoned to appear. This hearing is a response to allegations
not from affected families, children or patients but from one investigative
journalist whose relentless attacks on the families, scientists and doctors
involved in this issue are a matter of public record. The GMC hearing is
scheduled for
I told the truth all along,
says doctor at heart of autism row
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2121522,00.html
The truth about
New health fears over big surge in autism; Denis Campbell, health correspondent
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2121521,00.html
One in 58 British children is autistic, new figures reveal,
www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=466966&in_page_id=1774
I wanted
to draw your attention to this important petition that I recently signed:
"The
Nigel Thomas Petition"
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/GMC?e
I really
think this is an important cause, and I'd like to encourage you to
add your
signature, too. It's free and takes less than a minute of your time.
