This article is also available in French and German

Introduction: I have undertaken this review of the case against Dr. Andrew Wakefield because the issues involved are far more consequential than the vilification of one doctor. The issues, as I see them, involve (a) collusion of public health officials to deceive the public by concealing scientific evidence that confirms empirical evidence of serious harm linked to vaccines – in particular polyvalent vaccines; (b) the “willful blindness” by the medical community as it uncritically fell in line with a government dictated vaccination policy driven by corporate business interests.

Public health officials and the medical profession have abrogated their professional, public, and human responsibility, by failing to honestly examine the iatrogenic harm caused by expansive, indiscriminate, and increasingly aggressive vaccination policies. On a human level, the documented evidence shows a callous disregard for the plight of thousands of children who suffer irreversible harm, as if they were unavoidable “collateral damage”.

All of the documented evidence and testimonies submitted to the General Medical Council, upon which GMC issued its guilty verdicts against Dr. Wakefield and his two co-defendants in 2010, were subsequently forensically assessed by the UK High Court in March 2012, in the appeal of Professor John Walker-Smith, the senior clinician and senior author of the Lancet case series. The High Court determined that the verdicts of professional misconduct and ethics violations were unsupported by the evidence.

Indeed, the adjudicated evidence refutes the case against Dr. Wakefield; the documents and testimonies demonstrate that there is no evidence whatsoever, to support the charges of professional misconduct, much less the accusation of fraud. The accusation of fraud was hurled by the Editor-in-Chief of the BMJ, a medical journal whose corporate ownership is intertwined with the vaccine manufacturing Behemoths, Merck – with whom BMJ signed a partnership agreement in 2008 – and GlaxoSmithKline which provides additional financial support to BMJ. Among their numerous vaccine products, Merck and GSK manufacture the MMR vaccine.

My commentary is buttressed with details from the High Court decision (2012); transcripts of testimony before the General Medical Council (2007- 2010); documents and testimony that have been judicially adjudicated; the sworn deposition of the Deputy Editor of the BMJ with internal BMJ emails(2012); internal correspondence by CDC officials and CDC-commissioned scientists (2000-2009, some uncovered in 2011; new documents obtained in July 2017); the suppressed finding of CDC’s first large-scale epidemiological study (1999) and a transcript of the closed door meeting of the Epidemic Intelligence Service at Simpsonwood (2000); a transcript of the closed meeting of the US Institute of Medicine Committee on Immunization Safety Review (2001); the U.S. Grand Jury criminal indictment of Dr. Poul Thorsen (2011); transcripts of the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (1988); a confidential report Re: Infanrix hexa submitted by GlaxoSmithKline to the European Medicines Agency (2012) documenting sudden infant deaths; Cochrane Collaboration MMR reviews (2003, 2005, 2012); HHS Inspector General investigation report – CDC advisory panel corruption (2009); CDC scientists letter of complaint about “rogue interests” “questionable and unethical practices” (2016).

Background & current climate in the vaccine wars:

In medicine, the most important clue to resolving the cause of a disease is to identify the trigger. In the case of autism, the exponential increase in the epidemic began in the 1990s is readily documented. In California, the autism prevalence rate increased 600% between 1990 –2002. Is it sheer coincidence that beginning in 1991, CDC recommended universal vaccination of newborn infants with thimerosal-laced Hepatitis B vaccine? This was the first in a series of three vaccinations to be administered during the first year of life. The argument that correlation is no proof of causation has been used to prevent meaningful research that could identify the triggers of the autism epidemic. Instead, the focus of vaccine research has been tightly controlled to searching for a genetic cause, or population surveys in epidemiological studies, neither of which have come close to identifying the triggers for autism.

Autistic children’s severe bowel problems were overlooked by doctors until they were highlighted in the Lancet article (1998)

Although earlier studies had reported the presence of severe bowel problems in autistic children as early as early as 1972,[1] clinicians were uninformed about the phenomenon. Thus, all too often, they dismissed parents’ accounts as incongruent with the prevailing medical opinion. As a result, these children were consigned to the ministration of psychiatry, whose treatments – i.e., anti-psychotic drugs – precipitated serious adverse effects, without ameliorating the children’s plight.

The corrupting influence of the pharmaceutical industry on medical research and its published literature, has derailed the medical profession from its humanitarian mission and its professional objectivity. A recent review by the Hastings Center (June 2017)[2] confirms industry’s corrosive influence.

“what we can say for certain is that, in medicine, conflict is generally ubiquitous and penalties absent… in the case of financial conflict of interest in medicine, many well done epidemiological studies have demonstrated a bias—that financial relationships between physicians and pharma consistently cause a distortion of the evidence or its interpretation.”

However, the Hastings report, like all academic reviews, provides an abstract view of the landscape, leaving out the people who are affected by those financial relationships. Although Dr. Wakefield was the lightning rod for an unprecedented vilification campaign that has cast him as a pariah, and has disparaged the Wakefield et al, Lancet paper (1998) as “fraudulent”, the campaign has served a far greater objective than “merely” ending Dr. Wakefield’s career as a doctor and researcher. The Wakefield MMR saga is a case study that encapsulates how various, ubiquitous corrupting financial influences have merged, forming an insurmountable coalition: a coalition capable of terrorizing, and, if need be, annihilating anyone who dares to challenge their enormously profitable, inter-dependent enterprises.

The objective of those who fomented the witch hunt against Dr. Wakefield was to protect their financial stake in the MMR, and to safeguard public policies that ensure high utilization of vaccines. Vaccine stakeholders were (and are) determined to suppress independent vaccine safety research that might reveal inconvenient safety problems that could threaten vaccination rates, resulting in decreased profits.

When Dr. Godlee took principled positions on issues, I admired her. For example, her leading role in the campaign for data sharing; her criticism of the US dietary guidelines which favor Big Agra and its sugar-laden food products; her 2006 editorial Of Measles and Flu , [3]criticized governments for stockpiling of the largely worthless anti-viral drug Tamiflu and for going “to great lengths to promote and provide [the flu] vaccine in the absence of valid evidence that it does any good.”

In the same editorial, Dr. Godlee strongly opposed “plans to pursue Wakefield for misconduct through the General Medical Council,” calling it “doomed and dangerous”, because, she acknowledged, “so much [overall] research is flawed.” She further stated: “Part of the problem is the perception that no one in an official position has taken seriously the concerns of families who believe their children have been damaged by the vaccine.” In 2014, Dr. Godlee lent support for the release of company documents that substantiate the conclusion that “the entire ecosystem of drug evaluation and regulation is deeply flawed.”[4]

Therefore, it strikes me as especially appalling that Dr. Godlee stepped so far beyond her legitimate editorial role, and used the authority of her office as the editor-in-chief of a widely read medical journal to pronounce Dr. Andrew Wakefield guilty of “fraud”, the most noxious accusation ever leveled against a medical scientist. She did so, despite having outlined the limits of a medical journal’s role in 2004: “Journals are ‘in the uncertainty business’: debate rather than pronouncement.’”[5]

In 2010, Dr. Godlee commissioned a series of three articles by Brian Deer, a freelance journalist who had been hired by a Murdoch publication editor (in 2003); the editor stated that he required “something big [about] MMR.” [6] Although Deer is neither a scientist, medical researcher, nor a scholar – and despite the knowledge that a complaint had been lodged against him for using “gutter tactics”[7] – Deer was given the BMJ bully pulpit to fan the flames against Dr. Andrew Wakefield within the broad medical-scientific community.

As will be documented, Dr. Godlee’s repeated assertions that Deer’s BMJ series “has been intensely scrutinized” and that his articles had undergone “external peer review” are contradicted by internal BMJ email correspondence and the sworn testimony of the BMJ Deputy Editor who acknowledged in her deposition (in 2012) that Brian Deer’s series of BMJ articles had not ever been subjected to external peer review – as would be expected of an academic medical journal.

Those sensationalist series of articles[8] were published by the BMJ under the banner “Secrets of the MMR Scare”, and they were accompanied by an equally brazen editorial framed in the same sensational tabloid journalism style, as is characteristic of a Rupert Murdoch publication. The title of this muckraking editorial declared: Wakefield’s Article Linking MMR Vaccine And Autism Was Fraudulent.[9]

The opening sound bite of the editorial was: “Clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare.” Dr. Godlee hurled the accusation of “fraud” 10 times in that editorial. Clearly, the editorial and accompanying articles by Deer were crafted for maximum injurious impact, aimed at destroying Dr. Wakefield’s reputation.

For a medical journal to make such serious accusations against a doctor is unprecedented.

It is both egregious and ominous that the editor-in-chief of the BMJ, an influential medical journal, made those accusations without ever providing any substantiating evidence; the accusations were based on a Murdoch-hired reporter’s say-so. The dissemination of the BMJ editorial was steered by a coordinated public relations blitzkrieg of articles, editorials, press releases and CNN interviews that reverberated around the globe. Television viewers were alerted to the BMJ charge as “breaking news”.

“Breaking news tonight: Just hours ago, The British Medical Journal (BMJ), did something extremely rare for a scientific journal. It accused a researcher, Andrew Wakefield, of outright fraud.”[10] (CNN, Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees, January 5, 2011)

The uncritical feeding frenzy was not limited to the mass media. Every major science and medical journal disseminated the vilifying claims in BMJ’s editorial without questioning the veracity of the “fraud” accusation. As I will document, no evidence has ever been presented to substantiate the charge of fraud against Dr. Wakefield. Dr. Godlee lambasted him on CNN, declaring that “a financial motive was underlying this”.

She accused Dr. Wakefield of financial motives while concealing BMJ’s major financial conflicts of interest ; namely, BMJ’s corporate partnership with Merck, and additional funding from GSK – the two major global vaccine marketers and manufacturers of the MMR[11] vaccine. When those BMJ conflicts were exposed in 2011 [by this author], Dr. Godlee’s response was: “We didn’t declare these competing interests because it didn’t occur to us to do so.”[12] In view of the prominence given, by the BMJ, to conflicts of interest and Dr. Godlee’s numerous public denunciations of others who failed to disclose conflicts of interest, her explanation is disingenuous.

The Wakefield vilification campaign was spearheaded by Murdoch in collusion with UK government officials. It was intensified by the BMJ, which by then had entered into partnership with Merck, a company noted for its mobster tactics of intimidation against doctors who dared to criticize the company’s products. Among the internal company documents, submitted as evidence in a class action lawsuit against Merck in Australia, was a “Doctor Hit List” instructing Merck employees to “Destroy,” “Neutralize” or “Discredit” Dissenting Doctors”. An email authored by a Merck executive (1999) stated: “We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live.”[13]

The sustained vilification campaign that has been orchestrated by a powerful network of stakeholders, has effectively imposed strict limits on the permissible parameters of vaccine research, and has served as a warning to others not to venture from the approved paradigm of epidemiological vaccine research. Scientists are well aware that epidemiological studies cannot prove that multi-valent (combined viruses) vaccines do not cause autism, because even the most accurate studies, cannot disprove a causal connection in a relatively small number of cases. Yet, epidemiological studies are the preferred paradigm for vaccine research. The governments of US and UK, and the World Health Organization (WHO), sponsor and rely on epidemiological studies.

The same network of stakeholders, control the channels of information, and public discourse regarding vaccine-related issues. They control the gateways to journal publication, ensuring that reports containing negative findings are not published in influential (high impact) journals, and that favorable reports assuring the safety of vaccines are regularly published and widely disseminated. At least 16 epidemiological studies have been published about MMR vaccines, thimerosal and autism. Indeed, vaccine promoters cite the volume of favorable epidemiological studies as conclusive evidence:

“16 studies have shown no causal association between vaccines and autism, and these studies carry weight in the scientific industry.” Dr. Nancy Snyderman, Medical Editor of NBC Today Show “The science is largely complete. Ten epidemiological studies have shown MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism; six have shown thimerosal doesn’t cause autism.” — Dr. Paul Offit[14]

Those statements are in the category of propaganda; epidemiological studies cannot prove a “no causal relationship” . The judgment of medical doctors who broadcast propaganda should be discounted as untrustworthy. In fact, those studies have been severely criticized by independent researchers and reviewers – including the Cochrane Collaboration. The studies have been criticized for serious methodological limitations, design flaws, and financial conflicts of interest.[15] Furthermore, CDC whistleblowers and government officials have charged CDC officials with corruption of science.[16] Conclusive evidence contained in thousands of internal CDC correspondence[17] (that were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act) documents a web of elaborate scientific fraud in pivotal CDC- commissioned, Danish epidemiological studies.

Internal CDC documents (obtained in 2011) and additional CDC documents (obtained in July 2017) – they include emails, memoranda, and transcripts of meetings and conference calls; and evidence gathered in the course of a criminal investigation of Poul Thorsen by the U.S. Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), reveal massive scientific fraud.

The documents reveal Evidence of Misconduct Danish- CDC Collaboration: a series of CDC studies, and CDC – commissioned Danish epidemiological studies that continue to be widely cited, are shown to have been grossly manipulated to achieve the results sought by CDC. The authors, in collusion with CDC officials omitted negative data from the published reports. [See Appendix 9]

These Danish studies were followed by a Japanese epidemiological study co-authored by a UK psychiatrist (who was the principal expert witness against Dr. Wakefield). “No Effect Of MMR Withdrawal On The Incidence Of Autism: A Total Population Study” (2005) by H Honda, Y Shimizu and Professor Sir Michael Rutter, was published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2005):

“The MMR vaccination rate [sic] declined signiﬁcantly in the birth cohorts of years 1988 through 1992, and not a single vaccination was administered in 1993 or thereafter. In contrast, cumulative incidence of ASD up to age seven increased signiﬁcantly in the birth cohorts of years 1988 through 1996 and most notably rose dramatically beginning with the birth cohort of 1993.”

The significance of this finding is that MMR vaccination is most unlikely to be a main cause of Autism Spectrum Disorder, that it cannot explain the rise over time in the incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorder, and that withdrawal of MMR in countries where it is still being used cannot be expected to lead to a reduction in the incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorder.”

The study was touted as the last word: “[It] should put the final nail in the coffin of the claim that the

MMR vaccine is responsible for the apparent rise in autism in recent years.” (New Scientist, 2005)

Independent critics outside of mainstream channels disputed the authors’ claimed findings, and criticized their failure to take into account the following:

Prior to the introduction of the MMR to Japan, the annual incidence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was 25 per 10,000. Following the introduction of the MMR in 1988, the annual incidence rate increased to 85.9 per 10,000. As concerns over the encephalitis spike, attributed to the mumps component of the MMR grew, the vaccination rate plummeted. And the ASD incidence rate decrease to 55.8 per 10,000. In 1992, the MMR was replaced with single M, M & R vaccines that were administered in close proximity. [Dr. Wakefield had recommended a one year interval between vaccines, as a safety precaution, to protect children from exposure to multiple viruses at once.]

The incidence of ASD rose sharply in 1994 to 161 per 10,000. The authors failed to question why? And they failed to mention (or to recognize the significance) of three relevant changes in Japan, that likely accounted of the sharp rise in ASD prevalence: (a) In 1993, a changed diagnostic classification (IC -10) vastly inflated the autism prevalence rates; and (b) there were striking increases in vaccination rates the same year; (c) the Japanese encephalitis vaccine (JE-Vax) was given in three separate vaccinations; each one contained the mercury based neurotoxin thimerosal. JE-Vax coverage increased from 43% to 90%; vaccination against measles increased from 65% to 95%, and vaccination against rubella increased from 65% to almost 100%.

These vaccination increases coincided with the highest peak in autism and ASD in Japan.

“The fact of a dip in autism followed by a large rise, when vaccinations increased over 150% in 1993 in Japan (according to official Japanese government figures), is actually evidence of at least two things: It is strong evidence of a causal association between the combination of vaccines and autism-like and related disorders. It is also evidence of the existence of a dechallenge/rechallenge case series at a population level.” (Clifford Miller, Esq.) [18]

Honda, Shimizu and Rutter conceded that: “Epidemiological data, however, cannot test the very different hypothesis that MMR might involve an increased risk of ASD in a very small number of children who, for some reason, are unusually susceptible to damage from the vaccine.”

If, as these authors acknowledge, epidemiological studies cannot prove or disprove a causal link of an increased risk, then why, asks pediatrician Dr. Edward Yazbak, do public health authorities continue to fund, support, and rely on ill-suited epidemiological studies, to disprove a clinical reaction –i.e., an adverse vaccine reaction?

“Over a dozen epidemiological studies from every corner of the world have failed. Some included thousands of individuals and some whole populations. Some have extended over many years and undoubtedly some are on-going. They too will be useless. If just ONE study had been good enough to prove that Wakefield was wrong, the need for others would not exist. The Study of 12 published by Andrew Wakefield in 1998 still stands.”[19]

Studies that would be suitable to test the safety of children’s vaccination schedules, which now include multiple, multi-virus vaccines, are off-limits – they are verboten – under threat of serious professional and financial repercussion.

The latest case of censorship involves Dr. Anthony Mawson, a professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health, Mississippi. He treaded on a danger zone when he conducted a pilot study, the first ever study that compared the health of 666 vaccinated and unvaccinated children.[20] The paper passed peer review twice: it was accepted for publication in November 2016 by the Journal Frontiers of Public Health, and was posted on its website, garnering 80,000 hits within 4 days. It was then “de-accepted” after “a firestorm erupted on Twitter”. The article was again peer reviewed and accepted for publication by Journal of Translational Science, and was posted on its website in May 2017.

Once again, the vaccine thought police prevailed and the journal “de-published” the report without explanation. [Dr. Mawson’s study was later republished.] This recent example of censorship prompted Dr. Edward Fogarty,[21] Chairman of the Department of Radiology at the University of North Dakota, School of Medicine to comment:

“As an academic and clinical imager whose specialty is grounded in the ethics of transparency, it is terribly disturbing that this manuscript is getting censored. It begs the question as to why. Nowhere else in academia do we see the degree of censorship of inquiry than in this arena. In fact, the economic, professional and political risks of anyone driving safety science in this sphere of U.S public health is so great that it has served to muzzle virtually an entire professional class. Concerned physicians who are surgeons, radiologists, pathologists, primary care physicians, and even pediatricians face whispered threats of loss of licensure for even speaking out from within the profession.”

Academics and journalists have been intimidated into silence on the issue of vaccines.[22] [See Appendix 10] Indeed, the suppression of essential vaccine safety issues from mainstream information channels can now even be felt when using internet search engines such as google. My suspicions were aroused when I was unable to locate articles critical of vaccine policies written by non-mainstream authors; articles I had previously located. My suspicions were validated when I came across a Reuters headline: “GSK and Google Parent Forge $715 Million Bioelectronic Medicines Firm (2016).

Public health officials and healthcare professionals with financial conflicts of interest and/ or political aspirations are pushing our “democracies” backward, in (what I perceive as) a sinister direction, in which government dictates medical decisions, bureaucratically eliminating our right to free choice. In 2008, proposals to enact mandatory vaccination policies were emphatically rebuffed by Dr. Hamish Meldrum, the chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA), who called proposals for compulsory vaccination “a Stalinist approach.” He told BBC that forcing parents to vaccinate their children was “morally and ethically dubious.”[23]

Today, government regulators across Europe and Australia have embarked on an aggressive drive to eliminate parental choice; they seek to dictate mandatory vaccination policies.[24] The Italian Minister of Health, Beatrice Lorenzin, is on record making the outlandish, irresponsible, false claim that in 2013, 270 children in London died of measles.[25] The UK government documented 4 deaths in 25 years due to measles.[26] [See Appendix 2] This June, Farah Jameel, a General Practitioner, filled a motion with the BMA calling for mandatory childhood vaccinations; she accused parents who have reached an informed decision to reject some vaccines for their children, of “displaying negligent behaviours”.[27] The European Centre for Law & Justice filed a case involving compulsory vaccination with the European Court.[28]

This (lengthy) review of the issues involved in the Wakefield saga was prompted by Dr. Godlee’s assertions, misrepresentations, and persistent accusation of fraud hurled against Dr. Wakefield. My purpose is to direct readers’ attention to legally adjudicated evidence, and internal documents that serve as primary evidence refuting those allegations. In accordance with the mission of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, I invite your honest appraisal of the relevant evidence – which I do not believe you have examined before – and urge you not to accept filtered information that has been skewed to promote corporate interests. The search for truth should not be controlled by institutional “authorities” behind closed doors. Those who conceal their overriding corporate/institutional financial stakes in this issue cannot be trusted.

Our mission also is to emphasize the importance of eyewitness accounts by patients and parents about adverse effects or injuries following the ingestion of drugs or following vaccination. These testimonies are not simply “anecdotal” (as scientists tied to vaccine industry – directly or indirectly – would have you believe). Parental observation should be taken seriously; they should not be derided and dismissed by physicians, who (often unwittingly) prescribe treatments whose safety has not been properly tested, or whose serious adverse effects are concealed.

The commentary that follows and the accompanying 11 Appendices [that will be posted on the AHRP website shortly] are substantiated by: legal documents, transcripts of GMC proceedings, transcripts of closed door meetings of public health officials, and confidential internal correspondence and memoranda. [29]

First, and foremost, the irrevocable UK High Court Decision (March 7, 2012)[30] in the case of Professor John Walker-Smith, senior clinician and senior author of the Lancet study, who “had joint overall responsibility for the project”, and was a co-defendant of Andrew Wakefield before the GMC. In rendering the High Court decision, after thorough assessment of all the evidence, testimonies and verdicts by the UK General Medical Council (GMC), Justice John Mitting overturned the verdicts and excoriated the entire GMC proceedings as: “not legitimate,” “perverse,” “unsustainable” and “untenable.”

The 2012 Deposition7 of Jane Smith, BMJ Deputy Editor and accompanying Internal BMJ correspondence submitted in evidence in a libel case brought by Dr. Wakefield against Brian Deer, Dr. Fiona Godlee and the BMJ. Ms. Smith, who co-authored the editorial with Dr. Godlee and Associate BMJ Editor, Dr. Harvey Marcovitch, charging Dr. Wakefield with “fraud”, testified under oath that Brian Deer’s BMJ articles were not peer-reviewed; they were only reviewed by these three BMJ editors (and a lawyer, of course). The deposition and internal correspondence are evidence that Dr. Godlee’s repeated assertions, that Deer’s BMJ series “has been intensely scrutinized, and that the series had undergone “external peer review”, were made in the knowledge that they are false.

The disclosure statements, appended to 9 BMJ articles penned by Deer (2010 — 2012), are farcically misleading. “The author has completed the unified competing interest form…and declares no support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisation that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; BD’s investigation led to the GMC proceedings referred to in this report, including the charges. He made many submissions of information but was not a party or witness in the case, nor involved in its conduct.”

The BMJ editors knew (or should have known) that the statements are false. In fact, Deer’s formal complaint, against Andrew Wakefield, John Walker-Smith, and Simon Murch, was filed with GMC February 25, 2004:

“I write to ask your permission to lay before you an outline of evidence that you may consider worthy of evaluation with respect of the possibility of serious professional misconduct on the part of the above named registered medical practitioners.” [31]

In 2006, his identity as the person who filed the complaint was confirmed by Justice Eady in a High Court Decision regarding an earlier defamation suit by Dr. Wakefield against Brian Deer, the Sunday Times and Channel 4. “Mr. Deer had made a complaint to the GMC: His communications were made on 25 February, 12 March and 1 July 2004.” Indeed, it was Deer’s complaint that initiated the GMC investigation, and served as the blueprint for GMC’s investigation, charges, and verdicts. It also served to buttress his professional career during the next 8 years.

Despite judicial confirmation of Deer’s role, this materially important fact was concealed from readers of both The Sunday Times and the BMJ.

As an academic medical journal, the BMJ editor had a duty (at the very least) to submit Deer’s highly controversial, defamatory articles, for external peer review by unbiased academic reviewers. Not only were the articles not peer reviewed, at least two of Deer’s articles are appended with the BMJ editorial declaration: “externally peer reviewed.”8 Why, if not to deceive the medical community, and other readers of the BMJ, did the BMJ editors make such a patently false declaration?

In September 2011, Dr. Godlee made a video presentation titled, “Lessons from the MMR Scare,” in which she promoted the BMJ- Deer series to American scientists at the Center for Information Technology, National Institutes of Health. She quoted Albert Einstein’s admonition: “The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be the truth.” But then she proceeded to violate that very tenet of an honest search for truth.

BMJ has failed to report the adjudication of the High Court and its significance

The failure by the BMJ to report the decisive High Court decision and the significance of its adjudication of the evidence, demonstrates the biased, unfair, judgmental position that the journal and its editor-in-chief, have adopted regarding Dr. Andrew Wakefield.

BMJ editor Godlee suppressed publication of an independent scientist’s analysis of the Lancet children’s pathology documents; [32] the analysis contradicted her declaration that Dr. Wakefield is guilty of “elaborate fraud.” Her categorical position makes a mockery of BMJ’s public declaration: “Evidence Underpins everything we do – it’s what makes us one of the world’s most trusted knowledge providers.”

Inasmuch as I doubt that many (if any) of you are familiar with either the relevant legal documents, or the internal government documents, I have included extensive excerpts from the High Court Decision [Appendix 1], and documents that pertain directly to Dr. Godlee’s pronouncements that Dr. Wakefield is guilty of fraud, and her assertions that Brian Deer’s BMJ articles were peer-reviewed. However, I encourage everyone who believes in due process to examine the High Court decision (2012) and the BMJ deputy editor’s deposition, and the BMJ email exchanges for yourself.

Furthermore, in 2011, editor Godlee’s claimed: “We are unaware of any peer reviewed paper replicating Andrew Wakefield’s research or confirming his claims to have identified a new syndrome of regressive autism and inflammatory bowel disease.” [33] Her claim is contradicted by a large body of published evidence. Since publication of the case series in the Lancet 1998, the link between gastrointestinal disease and autism, has been confirmed and amplified in hundreds of studies. [See partial bibliography in Appendix 11] But these studies are deliberately ignored by the influential, “high impact” medical journals whose dependence on pharmaceutical industry funding has rendered these gatekeepers of science, purveyors of promotional hype, serving as “useful idiots”, much as Leftist academic publications did when they served as apologists for Stalin’s political purges and murderous reign of terror.

The following points will be covered in my response (with ample excerpts from documented evidence, and Dr. Godlee’s editorials & press releases).

What the Lancet article stated and what the criticism following publication was; A description of the clinical purpose of the study and the single non-clinical scientific component – a blinded re-analysis of the children’s biopsy tissues; How the GMC case against Dr. Andrew Wakefield, Professor John Walker-Smith & Dr. Simon Murch was contrived by powerful vested interests; What the charges and verdicts by the General Medical Council (GMC) were against three doctors who co-authored the Lancet article; How conflicts of interest corrupted the GMC panel & proceedings; the case was built on a pivotal false premise without which there was no case; How the irrevocable decision by the UK High Court (2012) in the appeal of Dr. Wakefield’s co-defendant, Professor John Walker-Smith, overturned all of the crucial GMC professional misconduct charges and verdicts for lack of evidence to support them; thereby shattering the BMJ editor’s allegation of “fraud” against Dr. Wakefield ; What the real “crimes” for which Dr. Wakefield continues to be lynched are, and how they have nothing to do with medicine, ethics, or science; How a class action vaccine-injury lawsuit would pose a serious threat to government and Pharma; How the Wakefield controversy encapsulates erosion of public trust in industry-dominated medicine; it galvanized a major call to arms to combat distrust in vaccines; Two concurrent challenges threatened vaccine orthodoxy galvanizing vaccine stakeholders to mobilize; How the conclusion of three commissioned Cochrane MMR reviews are not supported by the reviewers’ own assessment of the evidence base; the Mayo Clinic reviews dispute MMR effectiveness; How the Wakefield vilification campaign was initiated by a Murdoch editor seeking “something big [on] MMR” and was hatched and launched in Murdoch’s Sunday Times; How high- ranking UK government officials and the editor of the Lancet were actively involved, adding weight and momentum to the slander campaign against Dr. Wakefield; How elementary standards of journalism were abandoned by a journalist who created the story by secretly filing the formal complaint with the GMC thereby providing the grist for his story line over a period of 8 years; How children’s confidentiality was breached with impunity; How Dr. Fiona Godlee argued in an editorial (2006) against the GMC prosecution of Dr. Wakefield, then in 2011, she led the charge in the vilification campaign; How the GMC panel found no evidence to support Deer’s allegation of “scientific fraud”; How Dr. Godlee declared Dr. Wakefield guilty of “scientific fraud” and “falsification” without citing a single instance of fraud or falsification; she apparently relied on a reporter’s say-so; Sworn testimony by BMJ Deputy Editor confirms that Deer’s articles were not peer reviewed contrary to BMJ’s false and deceptive declarations. BMJ provided an academic veneer to Deer’s articles, deliberately misleading the medical community and the public. BMJ also failed to disclose Deer’s role in creating the GMC case against Dr. Wakefield; Why the BMJ imprimatur was needed was needed to divert attention from evidence of far- reaching, scientific fraud in pivotal CDC-sponsored Danish vaccine studies uncovered in internal documents; What the seven objectives were that propelled the malevolent BMJ-led anti- Wakefield inquisition, & why it was far more lethal than the Sunday Times How Dr. Godlee rejected a substantive scientific commentary that refuted the charge of fraud and falsification; How histological grading sheets were distorted and deconstructed into “fake evidence”, and how the editor-in-chief expanded her dragnet accusing all of Wakefield’s co-authors, the Lancet editor, and the Royal Free Hospital, of institutional research misconduct; The GMC verdict was predetermined, driven by a coterie of powerful institutional stakeholders, whose pervasive institutional financial interests colluded to foment an inquisition: (a) the extensive pharma ties of the Murdoch media empire and Murdoch family, including the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Australia; (b) involvement of MedicoLegal Investigations, an arm of the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries; (c) GMC corrupting conflicts of interest; (d) GMC expert witnesses’ conflicts; (e) BMJ’s undisclosed corporate partnership with Merck and its financial ties to GSK: What the GMC conflict of interest charges against Dr. Wakefield are; in light of the indisputable evidence of pervasive conflicts of interest in medicine, in what conceivable way are his conflicts different from the norm and practice? Evidence that refutes the COI charges against Dr. Wakefield; Summary of the facts : BMJ’s defamatory accusations are refuted by judicially adjudicated evidence; beyond BMJ’s overriding conflicts of interest, ethical and professional standards —International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (2008) and the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (2011), which Dr. Godlee is a member of – were violated; BMJ editor-in-chief provided an academic sheen to a public lynching; and she called for an end to the debate about an autism link to vaccines; A concerted push for compulsory childhood vaccination is fueled by a fear mongering campaign.

APPENDIX 1: Extracts from the UK High Court Decision in the appeal by Professor John Walker-Smith (March 7, 2012).

APPENDIX 2: Historical record of measles mortality, measles vaccine, & measles outbreaks;

APPENDIX 3: JCVI transcripts (1988 -1992) document deception & cover-up that shielded GSK’s defective MMR vaccine, Pluserix;

APPENDIX 4: Vaccine Damage Payments Act, 1979: Parliament debated government payment responsibility, 2000; 2015; National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program 1988-2017;

APPENDIX 5: Japan curbs vaccination requirements, bans MMR & consistently ranks high in health, life expectancy and low infant mortality;

APPENDIX 6: Reports document doctors committing suicides during stressful GMC FTP Proceedings;

APPENDIX 7: Commentary with original pathologists’ diagnostic evaluation of Lancet children’s biopsy slides submitted for publication by David L. Lewis, Research Microbiologist, National Whistleblowers Center, (September, 2011);

APPENDIX 8: GlaxoSmithKline dubious record of concealing the most harmful risks linked to its drugs and vaccines; confidential report (2012) reveals a litany of severe adverse effects linked to infanrix Hexa – including 36 deaths within days of vaccination;

APPENDIX 9: Corrupted vaccine “science”; evidence of outright fraud; manipulated safety assessments sacrifice children as collateral damage, to protect high utilization of vaccines;

APPENDIX 10: Cyber Propaganda – “weapons of mass deception”;

APPENDIX 11: Partial bibliography: peer-reviewed reports confirm vaccine safety hazards.

What the Lancet 1998 article stated:

The Lancetstudy was published as an “Early Report.” [34] It was presented as an observational case series of twelve children; it suggested a link between the children’s gastrointestinal disorder and developmental regression. The thirteen co-authors of the report were members of the Royal Free Hospital’s Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group. The tentative conclusion stated:

“We identified associated gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression in a group of previously normal children, which was generally associated in time with possible environmental triggers… Onset of behavioural symptoms was associated, by the parents, with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination in eight of the 12 children, with measles infection in one child, and otitis media in another.”

An addendum states: “Up to Jan 28, a further 40 patients have been assessed; 39 with the syndrome.” The Lancet article explicitly stated that the study did not prove a link between the MMR vaccine and autism; it called for further research:

“We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue…We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles, mumps, and rubella immunization. Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine.”

Some have been critical of the study for failing to conform to the scientific standards of a controlled clinical trial. But the authors never claimed it was a randomized clinical trial; it was a case series. “It wasn’t supposed to be “a scientific sample” or a statistical measure of anything.”[35] In December 1996 (fourteen months prior to publication of the Lancet article) Professor Walker-Smith gave a presentation at the Wellcome Trust before an international scientific meeting, titled, “Entero-colitis and Disintegrative Disorder Following MMR – A Review of the First Seven Cases.”[36] He reported the: “preliminary details concerning seven children, all boys, who appear to have entero-colitis and disintegrative disorder, probably autism, following MMR.” These 7 children, the High Court confirmed, were part of the Lancet group.

Others have criticized Dr. Wakefield for “making inductive statements on the basis of 12 cases.”

Viewed from a non-contentious historical perspective, this study is an example of how scientists identify a new condition based on a small number of patients. For example, Dr. Leo Kanner was the first scientist to identify the condition of “early infantile autism” in 1943. The basis for this identification was his case series involving 11 children.[37] And Dr. Hans Asperger’s paper (1944) described 4 cases of “autistic psychopathy” which laid the foundation for the recognition of Asperger’s syndrome.[38] These small studies are considered seminal works. More recently, a paper in a journal published by the BMJ Group (2004)[39] described findings of cerebral changes in 9 infants who underwent diffusion tensor imaging.

If initial (necessarily small) studies were to be disqualified, the door to new discoveries and medical progress would be shut off. Large-scale epidemiological studies reveal broad trends and correlations, but they cannot prove that a specific risk factor causes, or does not cause the disease being studied. Furthermore, the prohibitive cost of large studies limits such studies to those sponsored by government and large healthcare providers.

2. The clinical purpose of the study was to obtain a diagnosis in the hope of finding effective treatment.



The senior clinician and senior author of the case series reported in the Lancet paper was Professor Walker-Smith, a foremost internationally recognized pediatric gastroenterologist, and former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology & Nutrition. Professor Walker-Smith’s responsibilities included: review of available developmental records, assessment of each child’s gastroenterological, neurological and developmental symptoms; determination of which diagnostic tests each child would undergo; establishment of a diagnosis for 11 of the children, and prescription of subsequent treatment. He oversaw a team of 5 expert clinicians including a neurologist and child psychiatrist.

Several letters written by Professor Walker-Smith were submitted in evidence during the GMC proceedings. For example, in a letter[40] to Dr. Pegg, Chairman of the Royal Hospital Ethics Committee (November 11, 1996), he emphasizes the therapeutic aim of the study:

“These children suffer from a disease with a “hopeless prognosis” in relation to their cerebral disintegrative disorder. They have often not had the level of investigation which we would regard as adequate for a child presenting with such a devastating condition. In relation to their gastrointestinal symptoms, which will be present in all the children we investigate, these have often been under-investigated. We have so far investigated five such children on a clinical need basis; all in fact have proved to have evidence of chronic bowel inflammation. One child has already had a significant response to enteral feeding. Certainly there is a measurable benefit to the child.” i) establishing a diagnosis and excluding metabolic and other causes.

ii) commencing on a therapeutic regime. This whole study is parent/patient driven as every case referred has been initiated by the GP by the parents of the child. I can confirm that children would have these investigations even if there were no trial. I must make clear that we would not be investigating children without gastrointestinal symptoms.”30 [High Court Decision, Par. 6, hereafter the decision is cited as HC]

After the study was completed (in October 1997) Professor Walker-Smith wrote to Dr. David Salisbury, Principal Medical Officer and Director of Immunisation at the Department of Health (DoH), to inform him about the important finding of “a whole new syndrome”.

“On the issue of autism, I am completely astounded by the clinical features of these children with autism and bowel inflammation. Very often the gastrointestinal symptoms have been ignored by a succession of the doctors and the findings on ileo-colonoscopy appear to be quite distinctive. This seems to me a whole new syndrome which is in urgent need of clarification.”30 [HC Par. 8]

The judicially adjudicated documents confirm, that Professor Walker-Smith was the senior clinician, who supervised the clinical investigation, and evaluation of the children’s medical condition, and that “he had joint overall responsibility for the project.” [HC Par. 22]

Professor Walker-Smith knew, that scientists who study of biopsy tissues (histopathologists), often differ in their interpretations – especially when there are subtle differences that were previously not studied. To address that problem, he instituted rigorous practices to review the biopsies of the Lancet children. He convened weekly clinical reviews by the entire clinical and scientific team,[41] including the general pathologists who had produced the initial reports. And he added a recognized expert histopathologist in intestinal disease, Dr. Amar P Dhillon (APD), who was assisted by Dr. Andrew Anthony (AA). All intestinal biopsy tissues underwent four rounds of microscopic review.

The final step of the study, entailed a non-clinical component, a blinded re-analysis of the Lancet children’s biopsies, compared to a control group of children, whose biopsy tissue samples were provided by the St. Bartholomew (Royal London Hospital).

The grading sheets, for the endoscopic and histopathological findings by Dr. Dhillon and Dr. Anthony, together with Professor Walker-Smith’s clinical judgment, were the basis for the children’s diagnoses identified in Table 1 of the Lancet. The children’s diagnoses were arrived at, through the collaboration of expert scientists, who contributed to the determination of the children’s subsequent treatment. The Lancet (1998) stated:

“biopsy samples of ileum and colon were assessed and reported by a pathologist (SED). Five ileocolonic biopsy series from age-matched and site-matched controls whose reports showed histologically normal mucosa were obtained for comparison. All tissues were assessed by three other clinical and experimental pathologists (APD, AA, AJW)”

The GMC case against Dr. Andrew Wakefield, Professor John Walker-Smith & Dr. Simon Murch was contrived by powerful stakeholders with vested interests in ensuring high vaccination ratesMost complaints to the GMC, are filed by a patient or relative against a doctor, alleging preventable harm. There were no complaints against any of the three doctors, by a parent of any child. The other source of complaints, that have prompted a GMC investigation, have emanated from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industries (ABPI), whose complaints were crafted by Medico-Legal Investigations (MLI), from 1996 until its demise in January 2013.[42] MLI billed itself as: “a confidential service for the pharmaceutical industry and health sectors”. MLI was funded entirely by ABPI, acting as its “police force”, while working closely with government health authorities.

“The company asserts that it has investigated over eighty research studies in conjunction with the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries, leading to disciplinary proceedings against 27 doctors at the GMC, all but one of whom were found guilty of serious professional misconduct [involving] research related matters.”.”[43] “Liaison with PCT [Primary Care Trust] and LREC [Local Research Ethics Committee]; Preparation of statements of evidence and supporting documentary evidence for submission to GMC in preferred format; Liaison between GMC and complainants during the build-up to the disciplinary hearing; Completion of case and final preparation for hearing under the auspices of the solicitors acting for the prosecution…”

MLI notes that it can “locate patients’ GP records very quickly thanks to having good relationships with many UK PTCs.” [44]

The case against Dr. Wakefield and his two co-defendants, was contrived and filed by Brian Deer, on assignment for Murdoch’s Sunday Times. Deer had been explicitly commissioned to get “something big [on] MMR”.6 As a Murdoch-commissioned reporter, Deer gained access to numerous influential sources. Doors to confidential information that Deer would not otherwise have obtained – including confidential medical records – were opened. Deer was essentially providing the ammunition, while garnering material for his “story”. The case was crafted as a relentless assault, aimed at destroying Dr. Wakefield’s professional career and reputation, for which Deer won kudos, and advanced his own career.

An MLI newsletter (2004) confirmed that Deer was assisted by MLI “in strictest confidence”.[45]

Among MLI’s services to its pharma clients was crafting complaints to initiate GMC investigations.

The GMC hearings were calculated to: (1) end the line of research into the relationship between the MMR and autism; (2) prevent parents from filing legal action; and (3) to destroy the professional standing of the senior doctors in order to achieve 1 and 2. [GMC proceedings are noted for being high pressured, prejudicial, & extremely stressful. Defendants in GMC proceedings are presumed “guilty unless proven innocent.” Reports have documented a startling number of doctors who have committed suicide during GMC proceedings. [See Appendix 6]

The UK government had indemnified GSK from MMR injury following the Pluserix debacle. [See Appendix 3] The government, therefore, had a vested interest in protecting the vaccine and the vaccination program. Martin J. Walker, a British author whose 30 year career has focused on investigating corporate lobby groups, involved in pharmaceutical marketing, and the cover-up of adverse reactions, attended the entire GMC Wakefield, et al hearings. His characterization of those hearings: “The GMC hearing could be part of a law school learning module on abuse of process, nowhere more so than in its origins. How could it be possible for a single pro-vaccine journalist to have such command of the medical-legal process that he can initiate one of the biggest prosecutions in GMC history against three doctors whose research casts doubt on the safety of MMR? [46]

The GMC prosecutor tried, but failed, to establish that, although the twelve Lancet children had behavioral problems associated with autism, they were not medically ill. Therefore, she argued, the invasive diagnostic medical interventions, the children were subjected to, were not medically justified. Her allegations were forcefully refuted, by the testimony of Dr. Murch, who stressed the empirical reality of the children’s intestinal symptoms, and defended the diagnostic interventions.

“Ours was a thoughtful approach to complex cases. We were no more interventionist than the centres in Italy or France or other centres in Britain… A diagnosis of autism is not a signal to stop looking for the cause”.

Dr. Murch also noted that research on mitochondrial dysfunction, measles virus, and inflammatory bowel disease, had been under way at the Royal Free well before 1996.[47] Dr. Wakefield was the Director of Research of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group at the Royal Free School of Medicine.

He published more than 130 scientific reports, including three related articles in the Lancet[48] prior to the 1998 article. In 1994, Dr. Wakefield sent a letter to Dr. David Salisbury: “to express his fear that the programme of re-vaccination [with the MMR] of children might cause “a potential catastrophe” in the form of an epidemic of Crohn’s disease.”30

Dr. Wakefield’s 1995 Lancet article (co-authored by the chairman of his department) was a retrospective study involving 3,545 adults, who had received the live measles vaccine in 1964, and their unvaccinated partners (2,541) who served as a comparison group. The findings suggested that the measles virus – whether contracted naturally or the result of a vaccine – “may play a part in the development not only of Crohn’s disease but also of ulcerative colitis.” Upon discovering those publications, parents of autistic children who also suffered from severe bowel problems, contacted Dr. Wakefield, seeking his help. In May 1997, he was promoted to Reader in Experimental Gastroenterology. [49] His research into infectious causes of bowel disease, had led him to discern a correlation between Crohn’s disease and the measles virus.

The charges against Dr. Wakefield and his two co-defendants: subjecting vulnerable children to research under the guise of clinical care. The key charges & verdicts were as follows:

(1) “The children described in the Lancet paper were admitted for research purposes under Project 172-96; the purpose of the project was to investigate the postulated new syndrome following vaccination. The Lancet paper failed to state that this was the case, and the Panel concluded that this was dishonest, intentional and irresponsible.” [quoted in High Court Decision, Par. 149]

(2) Children were subjected to invasive tests “that were not clinically indicated” – e.g., spinal taps and endoscopic procedures such as colonoscopies and biopsies – for research purposes under 172-96;

(3) The study lacked ethics committee approval;

(4) “Some of the children were not routine referrals to the gastroenterology department, in that they lacked a history of reported gastrointestinal symptoms and had been referred for investigation of the role played by the measles vaccination or the MMR vaccination in their developmental disorders.”

(5) The description of the children’s diagnosis in the Lancet paper [Table 1] and the description of the referral process as “consecutively referred” was “inaccurate,” and “irresponsible”.

(6) The GMC justification for its verdicts: “The Panel has heard that ethical approval had been sought and granted for other trials and it has been specifically suggested that Project 172-96 was never undertaken and that in fact, the Lancet 12 children’s investigations were clinically indicated and the research parts of those clinically justified investigations were covered by Project 162-95. In the light of all the available evidence, the Panel rejected this proposition.”

The pivotal allegations against Dr. Wakefield, from which all the others stemmed, was that the study described in the Lancet paper was commissioned by the Legal Aid Board; that the children were subjected to medically unjustifiable, therefore unethical, invasive diagnostic tests, to substantiate a diagnosis made-up for legal purposes.

When the case was subjected to genuine judicial review, the allegations collapsed. After a thorough assessment of all the evidence and testimonies, the High Court determined that there was no evidence to support any of these allegations. The six GMC verdicts were overturned. The deliberative judgment of the High Court was unconditional.

Additionally, the GMC panel found Dr. Wakefield guilty of “dishonesty in regard to his writing of a scientific paper that had major implications for public health”, and failure to disclose a conflict of interest, involving funding from the Legal Aid Board (LAB), a government agency which holds the purse strings that enable ordinary citizens to obtain legal assistance for a judicial determination. And he was charged with “callous disregard”, for having caused:

“blood to be taken from a group of children for research purposes at a birthday party, which the Panel found to be an inappropriate social setting. He behaved unethically in failing to seek Ethics Committee approval; he showed callous disregard for any distress or pain the children might suffer, and he paid the children £5 reward for giving their blood. He then described the episode in humorous terms at a public presentation.”

One blood sample was taken from these developmentally normal, healthy children for research purposes, to serve as controls, for comparison with autistic children with bowel disease. Each of the parents had been contacted prior to the party; they were fully informed, and each gave permission (some of the parents were medical doctors). The children had agreed to give blood – including two of Dr. Wakefield’s own children.[50] For the children the setting, a private side room within a familiar sports center, was not strange or intimidating.

The blood was taken by a qualified, experienced medical professional, not Dr. Wakefield; the equipment used was appropriate, sterile and the type commonly used. The children were not put in harm’s way, nor were they exploited. According to testimony, they did not suffer any pain, nor did any child become distressed. The children were likely proud to be contributing to medical science. At the end of the party the children were surprised to receive £5 as a thank you gesture.[51] [Of note: most healthy research volunteers receive monetary compensation for their participation.]

As for Dr. Wakefield’s failure to obtain approval from the Research Ethics Committee (REC) for the taking of blood from these children: first, according to the National Research Ethics Service, “Not all research conducted within the UK requires approval from an NHS REC”.[52] Dr. Wakefield testified that it was his “understanding at that time was that such approval was not necessary unless the subjects of the research were National Health Service patients. Accordingly, as he put it, the question of Ethics Committee approval never crossed his mind”.51 The issue was confounded, however, by Dr. Wakefield’s videotaped satiric presentation at a conference of parents and professionals. The GMC panel took his fictional parody to be an accurate description of the actual event. Had anything like his simulated portrayal occurred, parents would surely have complained; none complained.

Whereas the GMC panel placed much credence to this trivial incident, the GMC avoided touching upon the issues of paramount importance; namely, the scientific merit of the study, and whether the MMR might have contributed to autism.

[Conflict of interest charges against Dr. Wakefield are discussed in section 25.]

On Day 197, GMC issued this statement: “The Panel wish to make it clear that this case is not concerned with whether there is or might be any link between the MMR vaccination and autism.”[GMC Transcript]

Conflicts of interest corrupted the GMC panel & proceedings; the case was built on a pivotal false premise, without which there was no case

The GMC first appointed Professor Dennis McDevitt, a clinical pharmacologist, to chair the fitness to practice (FTP) panel that would judge Dr. Wakefield and his co-defendants, notwithstanding his copious financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, including the manufacturer of the MMR, and his membership on the sub-committee of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) panel, ARVI (Adverse Reactions to Vaccines). Both ARVI and JCVI had approved the Urabe containing MMR vaccine Pluserix – despite evidence of it causing meningitis.[53] Prof. McDevitt was forced to step down, following the exposure of his copious conflicts of interest, by the news magazine, Private Eye.[54]

Following the exposé, GMC appointed Dr. Surendra Kumar, again disregarding his conflicts of interest.

Kumar was a GMC council member. Since the GMC had a vested interest in the case, how could one of its own members serve as the chair of a panel empowered as judge and jury?

Furthermore, Dr. Kumar had long ties to numerous government committees, including the Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA); and he owned shares in GSK, manufacturer of the MMR. After the GMC verdicts were issued, Dr. Kumar advocated overturning UK’s voluntary vaccination policy. He recommended mandatory pre-school vaccination.

The principal expert witness for the GMC was Sir Michael Rutter , a Professor of developmental psychopathology, at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College and the Maudsley Hospital.[55] Professor Rutter testified that Dr. Wakefield had a duty to disclose his role as expert witness in MMR litigation. However, Prof. Rutter concealed from the panel his own role on behalf of GlaxoSmithKline as a highly paid expert, who had prepared a draft report, in preparation for the MMR litigation in the UK.

Prof. Rutter also concealed those conflicts of interest in his published articles, in which he denied an association between MMR and autism.[56] And in 2007, Dr. Rutter testified on behalf of the US government, in the Omnibus Autism Proceeding, against efforts to obtain compensation for more than 5,500 autistic children.[57] Dr. Rutter also testified that the dramatic increase in the prevalence of autism, was not real. [Extensive, overriding financial conflicts of interest are discussed in section 24]

The GMC case was built on a central false premise ; namely, that the Lancet clinical observation study, was commissioned by the Dawbarns law firm, paid for by the Legal Aid Board (LAB),[58] and conducted under Project 172-96, to support a lawsuit. The GMC panel conflated two different studies. The study that Dr. Wakefield, Dr. Murch, and Professor Walker-Smith were accused of performing had been approved, and was slated to be conducted AFTER the Lancet pilot study. However, as was adjudicated by the High Court, the Lancet observational case series was NOT Project 172-96:

“None of the children fitted the hypothesis to be tested under Project 172-96, in that none of them had both received a single or double vaccine. Project 172-96 was never undertaken.” [HC 19; 138]

Throughout the 3 years of its investigation, and another 3 years of hearing testimony, the GMC panel disregarded the testimonies and evidence, refuting the premise that the Lancet case series was commissioned by LAB. The panel continued to conflate two studies, because all the other significant charges were constructed on the basis of that central false assumption. Indeed, all the other charges about the nature and purpose of Dr. Wakefield’s research, and the case against him collapses, hang on this false premise.

The High Court determined that GMC’s guilty verdict “stands or falls with the overall finding that the investigations of the Lancet children were undertaken under Project 172-96.” [HC Par. 22]

The gastroenterological unit of the Royal Free Hospital had a large number of medical specialists, who were involved in the diagnostic assessment of the Lancet children. The battery of diagnostic tests and tissue analyses involved expert pediatric gastroenterologists and pathologists. Dr. Susan Davies, the Consultant Histopathologist at the Royal Free (1992 – 2002) was responsible for preparing and presenting all tissue samples of the Lancet children (and tissue samples of many others who were treated at the Royal Free gastroenterologist unit). She testified that the determination of each child’s diagnosis was made on the basis of expert clinical judgment and evaluation by a collaborative team of physicians.149

Only three of the senior doctors, who co-authored the Lancet study, were tried by the GMC, in accordance with the complaint filed by Brian Deer, in which he accused the three doctors. GMC found all three guilty: Dr. Wakefield and Professor Walker-Smith were erased from the medical registry, losing their license to practice, whereas Dr. Murch kept his license, having accepted the panel’s “insight.” [“Insight”, referred to Dr. Murch having stated that he “very strongly, indeed, vigorously” supported the continued use of MMR.]

At least two eyewitnesses to the lengthy GMC FTP hearings (from July 2007 to January 28, 2010) described it as, “a political show trial for the vaccine industry.”[59] No parent of any of the Lancet children, who the GMC alleged were victimized by the accused doctors, had made any complaint. In fact, they expressed support for the doctors. Defense lawyers, however, decided to call no parent as a witness fearing that a particularly hostile prosecution would deal harshly with any parents who testified. An open letter in support of the 3 accused doctors, signed by parents of 8 of the 12 Lancet children states:

“Many of us had been to several other doctors in our quest to get help for our children but not until we saw Professor Walker-Smith and his colleagues were full investigations undertaken. Throughout our children’s care at the Royal Free Hospital we were kept fully informed about the investigations recommended and the treatment plans which evolved. All of the investigations were carried out without distress to our children, many of whom made great improvements on treatment so that for the first time in years they were finally pain free.” (2010) Following the GMC guilty verdict[60] the Lancet retracted the paper based on two GMC “findings”: “the claims in the original paper that children were “consecutively referred, and that the investigations were “approved” by the local ethics committee.”

Professor Walker-Smith appealed the GMC verdict to the High Court; the cost of the appeal was paid by the Medical Protection Society (MPS). MPS, however, refused to cover the fees for Dr. Wakefield who, at the time was unable to meet the prohibitive cost of mounting such an appeal as an individual.

– When the GMC verdicts were subjected to a genuine forensic judicial review (2012), the fatal flaws and lack of substantiating evidence were exposed, and the verdicts were overturned.

A commentary by Sir Iain Chalmers titled “Skilled Forensic Capacity Needed To Investigate Allegations Of Research Fraud” (2011) provides a cautionary tale about another case of false allegations of research fraud and an unfounded guilty verdict by the GMC.[61] Had Dr. Godlee, or her fact-checkers, bothered to honestly examine both sides of the evidence, and testimonies in the GMC transcripts – before making the outrageous, unsubstantiated charge of fraud – she would have likely stopped short. GMC’s failure to build an evidence-based case, even after a protracted 6 years of investigation and hearings, suggests that the guilty verdicts were likely predetermined .[62] This is further suggested by the fact that:

Three months before any sentences were issued the BMJ published a commentary by Brian Deer, in which he predicted: “the panel will undoubtedly decide that serious professional misconduct occurred”. Deer further predicted : “Wakefield should be struck off.” 6

“the panel will undoubtedly decide that serious professional misconduct occurred”. : “Wakefield should be struck off.” BMJ editor Godlee dispensed with every precept of academic due process, and staked her reputation, by declaring Dr. Wakefield guilty of fraud, apparently relying solely on a reporter’s say-so.

The 2012 High Court decision demolished the BMJ editor’s entire case of “elaborate fraud”:



The High Court decision in the appeal of Professor Walker-Smith covered all of the most serious medical ethics charges that were brought against Professor Walker-Smith, Dr. Wakefield and Dr. Murch – and they were utterly repudiated. Justice Mitting applied forensic methodology to ascertain the credibility, relevance, and truthfulness of the testimonies and the documented evidence. He evaluated ALL the evidence, the testimonies of both sides, and he considered the “broad spectrum of medical opinion” to reach an impartial, reasoned decision.

The High Court determined that, the GMC panel’s reasoning that led to the guilty verdicts was, upon examination, shown to be so poor, that the verdicts bore no relation to the evidence. Justice Mitting dismantled, invalidated, and overturned all of the serious GMC charges and verdicts against Professor Walker-Smith for lack of evidence. Those charges and absence of substantiating evidence apply equally to Dr. Wakefield. Indeed, Dr. Wakefield’s name is cited 141 times in this definitive decision; the decision, therefore, has direct relevance to his case.

Justice Mitting determined that the entire GMC process was fatally flawed, and the panel was guilty of:

“fundamental errors… distortion of evidence, inadequate analysis, inadequate and superficial reasoning and explanation, inappropriate rejection of evidence, ‘flawed’ and ‘wrong’ reasoning, and ‘numerous and significant universal inadequacies’….”

The following High Court determinations had relevance for the entire team involved in the research led by Dr. Wakefield and Professor Walker-Smith:

The clinical observation “Early Report” published in the Lancet was NOT the study commissioned by attorneys paid by the Legal Aid Board under Project 172-96; that project was never carried out; The Lancet study was NOT performed in accordance with the Project 172-96 protocol; The responsibility for evaluating the children’s medical history, medical condition, and the determination of the diagnoses of 11 of the 12 children rested with Professor Walker-Smith, the senior clinician and senior author who “had joint overall responsibility for the project”; The case series study was clinically motivated; the diagnostic tests were appropriate ; and the children received proper clinical care; Children were NOT subjected to invasive tests “that were not clinically indicated”;

“Professor Walker-Smith’s evidence was that [a child’s] condition could not just be explained by constipation – a symptom of an underlying disease rather than a disease. Rectal bleeding and anaemia, of sufficient severity to require his general practitioner to give iron, was untypical of constipation. A colonoscopy would offer the opportunity to demonstrate whether or not there was ongoing “infection” (i.e. inflammation) in the gastrointestinal tract.” [Par. 69]

There was nothing unethical, much less fraudulent , about the clinical diagnostic procedures the children underwent in an effort to determine the diagnosis and appropriate treatment;

“Professor Walker-Smith and Dr. Murch gave detailed evidence about the results of the investigation which, in their view, confirmed the presence of bowel inflammation, suggestive of Crohn’s disease. Their evidence was unequivocally supported by Dr. Victor Miller who said that he was “absolutely certain that this child had active disease that required clinical management”.[43]

The Lancet study had implicit ethics approval under Professor Walker-Smith’s broad research authority (162-95) which extended to everyone involved in the project:

“the Lancet twelve children’s investigations were clinically indicated and the research parts of those clinically justified investigations were covered by Project 162-95 [the general permission given to Professor Walker-Smith in September 1995]”; [Par. 20] “because it was a clinically driven investigation which did not require Ethics Committee approval.”[Par. 153]

The diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) identified in Table 1 of the Lancet article correctly represented the expert diagnostic evaluation by Professor Walker-Smith, who considered all of the diagnostic tests — including Dr. Dhillon’s pathology findings.

The High Court affirmed the integrity of the “appropriately amended” diagnosis of each child following the clinical investigations of the study:

“In every case investigations were followed by a discharge letter [ ] which set out a diagnosis of the child’s condition and by a recommendation for treatment. [The discharge notes were appropriately amended. [Par. 68] In some cases, the treatment produced an apparent marked improvement in gastrointestinal symptoms and behavior.” [Par. 19]

The term “ consecutively referred ” in the Lancet article was appropriate ; it did not have the misconstrued meaning imputed to it by the GMC panel;

“This [Lancet] paper does not bear the meaning put upon it by the panel. The phrase “consecutively referred” means no more than that the children were referred successively [to the Department of Paediatric Gastroenterology], rather than as a single batch. The words did not imply routine referral.”[par. 157]

The GMC panel’s finding that the children were subjected to research in accordance with 172-96 was based on medical records, according to the panel’s own statement: “the panel has concluded, on the basis of the medical records, that the programme of investigations that child 2 underwent was for research purposes.” [Par. 47]

Justice Mitting assessed the evidence which the GMC panel had rejected without a valid explanation .

He concluded that medical records written by doctors, who have no expertise in diagnosing a complex newly identified syndrome, are “of no significance”; [such] medical records provide [only] an equivocal answer.”

“The findings [sic] that the referrals of four children were not routine because the referring doctors did not mention intestinal symptoms in their referral letters was factually accurate as to the contents of the referral letters, but of no significance . In each case, Professor Walker-Smith elicited gastrointestinal symptoms at his outpatients clinic. The finding [sic] that all four children “lacked a history of gastrointestinal symptoms” is wrong unless the panel intended only to refer to the contents of the referral letters. [Par.158] [Extensive excerpts of the decision in APPENDIX 1]

The children had been referred to the pediatric GI department of the Royal Free Hospital by their GP . The children must have had bowel symptoms that perplexed the GP who sought help from GI specialists. Justice Mitting’s determination that medical records of doctors who lack expertise to diagnose a complex newly identified syndrome, are “of no significance,” was validated by a Wake Forest study report:[63]

“Prospective controlled studies suggest that as many as 70% of autistic children exhibit chronic GI-related symptoms, including diarrhea, constipation, abdominal distension, failure to thrive, weight loss, feeding problems, and abdominal pain related to extreme irritability, aggression, and self-injury…[However] retrospective chart review studies have shown no increase in GI symptoms in ASD children. In ASD children who undergo endoscopic and histologic examinations, inflammatory pathology is reported with high frequency.” (SJ Walker, PLoS One, 2013)

Of note : The GMC had the opportunity, but chose not to appeal the severe censure by the High Court. The attorney representing the GMC acknowledged that GMC had no additional evidence to substantiate its guilty verdicts. The High Court decision, therefore, became irrevocable.

– The High Court decision ruled out the very plausibility of a charge of “fraud”

Justice Mitting dissected all the evidence, and found GMC’s verdict of professional misconduct unsustainable, inasmuch as no evidence supported the verdicts. Given the lack of evidence to substantiate misconduct, the charge of “fraud” is rendered preposterous. The High Court decision demolished every aspect of the BMJ editor-in-chief’s case against Dr. Wakefield. Her accusation of “elaborate fraud” and “falsification of records” were fabricated – there was not a shred of evidence to substantiate her accusations.

Dr. Godlee’s unsubstantiated pronouncements of fraud were themselves fraudulent. Her case against Dr. Wakefield rested entirely on Brian Deer’s allegations; the same allegations that were the sole basis for the 2004-2010 GMC proceedings and verdicts that the High Court utterly discredited. Following his exoneration by the High Court, Professor Walker-Smith described the Kafkaesque GMC prosecution in his memoir Enduring Memories (2012), in which he poignantly reflects:

“The central issue for me over all the years from the time the first complaint had been made to the GMC by the journalist, was the following. Who or what was behind the decision ab initio to take his complaint against me so very, very seriously? I pondered the central mystery of the Hearing for me. Was there another influence behind the GMC, an invisible Deus ex machina?”

The Deus ex machina lurking in the shadows

As will be demonstrated, a sinister coalition lurking in the shadows (or behind a smokescreen) had indeed framed and orchestrated the Wakefield persecution.

Long before Dr. Wakefield stepped into the public arena, many people in the UK had grown to distrust NHS officials’ assurances about the safety of the MMR vaccine. The seeds of public distrust had been sown by UK public health officials ten years before Dr. Wakefield’ Lancet article.

The UK Department of Health (DOH) approved the MMR Pluserix vaccine manufactured by (then) SKFrenchBeckman in 1988; the year that Canada had withdrawn the vaccine after six months use, due to signals of a meningitis risk posed by the Urabe component in the vaccine.[64] In March 1997, John Horam of the Department of Health assured Parliament :

“Before the introduction of MMR vaccine [in 1988], the JCVI gave careful consideration to available information from Finland, Sweden and the USA on the safety, efficacy and efficiency of the vaccine and from trials conducted by the public health laboratory service communicable disease surveillance centre in about 10,000 immunised UK children.”[65]

The statement was false : neither Finland, nor Sweden, nor the U.S. used the Urabe MMR vaccine that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) selected for children in the UK. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) chose Merck’s version of the MMR, which did not contain the Urabe strain.[66] The JCVI approved the vaccine containing the Urabe component despite knowledge that it posed the risk for meningitis. JCVI and officials of DoH deceived the British public with reassurances of the MMR safety, while actively concealing the risk.53 Furthermore, the UK government secretly indemnified SKB [GSK] from all liability.[67] [For details uncovered in the JCVI meeting transcripts, see Appendix 2]

The “crimes” for which Dr. Wakefield continues to be publicly lynched have nothing to do with medicine, ethics or science: his “crimes” posed a financial threat to stakeholders in vaccines

(a) Dr. Wakefield’s public statements at a public press conference arranged by the director of the Royal Free Medical School, following the publication of the Lancet article, Dr. Wakefield expressed his concerns about the safety of the MMR vaccine, and its possible link to autism, which was increasingly recognized as a public health crisis.[68] He recommended that the 3-in-1 MMR be separated into three single antigen vaccines – a policy already in effect since 1992, in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Japan.[69] This option was available at the time, through the UK National Health Service (NHS). His statement propelled him and the Lancet report into the spotlight, enraging UK government officials and MMR manufacturers.

The issue was further polarized the by UK government when NHS eliminated the option of a single measles vaccine and the DOH withdrew its UK license. SmithKline Beecham (SKB)[70] launched a replacement MMR vaccine in 1998, and stopped selling the single antigen vaccine in the UK.

It was a marketing decision in collusion with UK government health officials.

Dr. Salisbury, who was the UK chief MMR strategist, warned against the single measles vaccine, with specious claims about “major problems” with the quality and storage of the single vaccine. UK parents with means sought a private clinic, or crossed the channel to France, to purchase the single vaccine.

(b) Dr. Wakefield agreed to serve as an expert witness, in a class action lawsuit, on behalf of parents of autistic children, against the MMR manufacturer. Such an unprecedented legal action in the UK was facilitated by a confluence of four factors between 1988 and 1994:

The Consumer Protection Law (1987) enabled class action suits to go forward within a time limit;

The Legal Aid Act (1988) provided sufficient government funding to support class action suits;

The UK MMR Pluserix debacle of 1988 -1992;[71] [See Appendix 2]

Controversy over a UK Measles Rubella re-vaccination campaign in 1994, which resulted in a significant drop in MMR vaccination rates well before Dr. Wakefield’s public statements.[72]

Indeed, contrary to the assertions of vaccine stakeholders, who blamed Dr. Wakefield for fueling a decline in “herd immunity and resurgence in morbidity”, the High Court Decision in Professor Walker-Smith’s successful appeal of the GMC verdicts viewed the issue impartially, noting that:

“Dr. Wakefield’s research coincided with the growth of increased public concern about a possible link between the triple vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) and the occurrence of developmental disorders in young children, often diagnosed as autism. Some parents had begun to investigate the possibility of litigation against the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine.”30 [Par. 2]

A class action vaccine-injury lawsuit, would pose a serious financial and political threat

The discovery process of such a lawsuit, would undoubtedly uncover documents in company and government files; documents that would likely reveal safety hazards concealed from the public; they might, possibly, reveal the risk of autism for some children. In fact, GSK, whose MMR vaccine was selected by the UK government, has a long record of deceptive practices. [See Appendix 8] Indeed, GSK‘s internal documents have confirmed that company officials had concealed most severe risks of GSK products. For example, GSK concealed the increased suicide risk of its antidepressant, Seroxat (Paxil). More recently, GSK concealed the risk of sudden infant death following vaccination with Infanrix Hexa vaccine.[73]

A class action lawsuit, thus posed a serious threat to vaccine stakeholders; the evidence that would be uncovered would likely undermine public trust in vaccines, and in government officials, who denied the risks, while colluding with pharmaceutical executives to conceal the evidence of harm from the public. Any suggestion that casts doubt about the safety of a vaccine could result in a reduction in the number of children vaccinated; thereby decreasing profits and threatening the government policy built on the “herd immunity” model.

In a 2000 editorial,[74] Dr. Tom Jefferson articulated the concern of vaccine stakeholders who feared the prospect of a legal action:

“The impact on parents of a perceived causal link with a chronic disease that could threaten the life and wellbeing of their children is understandably great. Inevitably, in a proportion of cases the worry and emotion spills over into a threat of legal action against governments, manufacturers or individuals. This has the effect of taking the matter outside the scientific and healthcare arena and into the realm of the judiciary.”

The real issue that generated such hostility to the Wakefield study was the financial threat that it posed:

The pharmaceutical industry exerts inordinate control over both scientific journals and mass channels of communication. Scientists and investigative reporters have been intimidated into silence on the issue of vaccines.[75],[76] When Dr. Wakefield suggested that it might be safer to split the triple MMR vaccine into separate vaccines, he stepped on the Third Rail of medicine. That suggestion posed a financial threat to vaccine manufacturers’ future marketing plan that could not be ignored. His suggestion threatened not only the MMR[77] but other combined multi-valent vaccines — i.e., pentavalent, hexavalent, heptavalent – in the pipeline.

The pharmaceutical industry’s interest in promoting multi-valent vaccine products has numerous financial benefits such as, increased profits for higher priced multi-vaccine products, the means for limiting – actually denying – the ability to choose one vaccine over another; multi-valent vaccines facilitate mandatory vaccination policies. A consortium of vaccine stakeholders launched an orchestrated, sensationalized, and unrelenting campaign to demonize Andrew Wakefield, in order to protect their financial interests. [See details in Appendix 9]

The Wakefield controversy intensified the debate about vaccine safety on both sides of the Atlantic, in Australia and New Zealand. Legitimate questions were raised about the validity of the scientific evidence cited by public health officials and academics, who defend vaccination policies, assuring doctors and the public that the MMR vaccine – indeed, all vaccines in the childhood vaccination schedules – have been tested and proven safe.

The Wakefield controversy encapsulates the erosion of public trust in industry- dominated medicine

Public assurances about the safety of drugs ingested by pregnant women, was based on a long held “scientific axiom”; namely, that drugs cannot cross the placenta to cause harm to a developing fetus. This “scientific dogma” was overturned by the reality of thousands of babies born with birth defects caused by thalidomide. [Read, “From the Holocaust to Thalidomide: A Nazi Legacy”]

“Vaccines were once thought of as an axiomatic good, a longed-for salvation in the form of a syringe, banishing crippling and deadly infections like polio, smallpox and tetanus.”[78]

Public trust in the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) was undermined by the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment (1932 to 1972), followed by the “1976 swine flu fiasco”, when the PHS and CDC declared the H1N1 swine flu an “epidemic”, and declared the strain to be “genetically related to the 1918 flu pandemic, that killed more than 100 million people”. The basis for that flu scare mongering campaign was the detection of H1N1 in one military base (Fort Dix) for less than three weeks, during which 13 soldiers were hospitalized, and one death was attributed to the “swine flu epidemic”.

The government launched the National Influenza Immunization Program, and aggressively promoted the H1N1 flu vaccine. The epidemic never materialized; but the vaccine caused Guillain Barré syndrome in 500 people, and resulted in 25 deaths.[79]

In the UK, the government launched a National Pandemic Flu Service hotline, as the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson led a frenzied fearmongering campaign, warning the public that “Swine flu could kill 65,000 in the UK”,[80] and that half of UK’s children might fall ill. In fact, there were 138 deaths attributed to the Swine flu. What is unclear is whether the hastily approved vaccines against swine flu prevented any deaths at all. What is certain is that GSK’s Pandemrix which was given to 30 million Europeans, caused narcolepsy.[81]

“This government-led campaign was widely viewed as a debacle and put an irreparable dent in future public health initiative, as well as negatively influenced the public’s perception of both the flu and the flu shot in this country.”(Public Health Legacy of the1976 Swine Flu Outbreak, 2013)

Public awareness of the corrupting influence of industry on public health policy

Growing public awareness of the corrupting influence of industry on medical practice and public health policy has further fomented skepticism and distrust. In his article, “Postmodern Medicine,” in The Lancet (1999) JA Gray acknowledged that when science became a branch office of politics and business, it squandered its historic reputation for scientific objectivity and rationality.

“ In postmodern medicine, risks and adverse effects will receive a much higher priority…postmodern society has different priorities – concern over values as well as evidence, preoccupation with risk rather than benefit, and the rise of the well-informed patient.”

The failure of the academic and public health medical establishment, to address the mounting empirical evidence, of a spiraling number of children, who each year become afflicted with serious neurodevelopmental disorders – including autism and ADHD – many occur in close proximity to being vaccinated – demonstrates an utter lack of concern for children’s wellbeing. This failure constitutes unprecedented medical negligence.[82] By disregarding empirical evidence of serious harm, public health officials have provided legitimacy, to those who distrust their assurances about the “proven” safety of childhood vaccines, vaccination schedules, and their timing. And that all the vaccines in the schedule are essential, and effective in warding off deadly disease.

Two challenges threatened vaccine orthodoxy, galvanizing vaccine stakeholders to mobilize

Wakefield lent validity to that distrust in government assurances that all childhood vaccines and vaccination schedules are proven safe.

CDC’s first large-scale scientifically sound CDC epidemiological study, analyzed the medical records of 400,000 infants born between 1991 and 1997, and assessed the relative risk of autism for the children at different ages. The evidence documented an increased 7.6 relative risk of autism[83] from exposure to thimerosal. “Increased Risk Of Developmental Neurologic Impairment After High Exposure To Thimerosal-Containing Vaccine In First Month Of Life, Abstract, 1999

This CDC study finding had the potential of blowing the lid off the entire CDC children’s vaccination schedule.

From this case forward, studies that could document scientifically valid evidence of a vaccine safety hazard are avoided. In June 2000, CDC epidemiologist, Dr. Frank DeStefano (a co-author of the concealed 1999 CDC study findings) expressed enthusiasm for the initial proposal of CDC’s Danish study project, which he thought, provided “a good opportunity” to conduct research using clinical data, to examine whether there is an autism MMR relationship.

“The availability of data from pregnancy, as well as blood specimens, is particularly attractive. The blood spot component would be very valuable just by itself to try to confirm the exciting findings from the small NIH study. If these are true biomarkers for autism, it would be great to see if they identify high risk groups of kids for a vaccine-autism association. In addition to MMR, the study should include all infant and childhood vaccines to look at issues of multiple antigens, vaccine additives, etc. Serologies for measles and rubella in the maternal and cord blood might also be worth considering.” (June 1, 2000 email)[84]

However, CDC never funded the kind of clinical study that Dr. DeStefano anticipated “would be very valuable”. CDC has not funded such a clinically valuable study, precisely because such a study could “identify high risk groups of kids for a vaccine-autism association”—thereby undermining vaccine orthodoxy and CDC’s industry-influenced Childhood Vaccination Schedule. Thus, clinical studies focused on detailed, biological examinations that could identify vaccine risk factors, are not approved or funded, neither by UK nor US government research funding sources. [ Appendix 9 provides details of how those disturbing CDC findings were concealed, and the data underwent four years of manipulation until the risk vanished.]

Andrew Wakefield continues to be crucified for having conducted a clinical investigation of the intestine whose results (a) identified the presence of inflammation in the intestine unique to children with autism; and (b) finding measles virus RNA in biopsies of the small intestine (ileum) of these children.

The most recent corroboration of Dr. Wakefield’s finding (a) was published October 2017 in PLoS One:

“As many as 91% of children with ASD may be affected by debilitating GI symptoms such as constipation, diarrhea, or food allergy and/or intolerance [13, 14]. Developmental delays associated with ASD do not account for these symptoms, as GI symptoms are significantly more common in children with ASD as compared to children with developmental delays without ASD [15]. Many GI abnormalities reported may be unique to individuals with ASD. For example, dysfunction in enterocytes carbohydrate transportation [16], inflammation that is not fully consistent with a classic GI disorder [13, 14] and imbalances in the enteric microbiome [17–19] have all been reported.”[85]

In 2000, the Brighton Collaboration , an international network of public health officials, vaccine manufacturers, and a coterie of academics funded by them – was launched to provide authoritative, uniform definition standards[86] for the determination of what adverse events following vaccination are defined as AEFIs. In 2005, the Brighton Collaboration acknowledged:

“With the increase in vaccine coverage in both developed and developing countries, the reduction in target vaccine-preventable diseases, has also come a growing concern for the safety of immunizations. This is due to an increase in the absolute number of adverse events following immunizations (AEFIs).” “Unfortunately, unlike efficacy, the “safety” of a vaccine cannot be measured directly. Safety can only be inferred indirectly from the relative absence of multiple, likely adverse events following immunization. To then best address concerns about real or perceived risks of immunization in a scientific manner, several components need to be in place. For example, regulatory agencies need to ensure that adequate trials for safety and efficacy are conducted prior to licensure of new vaccines (and that good manufacturing practices are in place and maintained). However, due to practical limitations of prelicensure trials, such as limited sample size and study duration, the principal focuses for collection of data on rare events are postlicensure studies by various stakeholders (e.g., the public health and clinical care communities, regulators, and manufacturers).”[87]

Post-licensure studies avoid scientifically recognized methods for detecting drug/vaccine safety hazards

Challenge/Dechallenge/Rechallenge is scientifically recognized as providing scientific proof of causality of adverse events following exposure to a pharmaceutical product. [88]

The literature about drug development refers to positive re-challenges as one of the most effective, most persuasive, most cost-effective means, for determining rare but serious adverse side effects of drugs. It is an especially powerful tool, for detecting rare adverse effects that go undetected in epidemiological studies.

“In pharmacology, the most powerful proof of causation is a single well-documented challenge-dechallenge-rechallenge case report that shows event A caused adverse event B. Unlike evidence from RCTs [randomized clinical trials] and systematic reviews, the evidence from a single well documented spontaneous report of a Challenge-Dechallenge-Rechallenge (CDR) case is often the strongest form of proof of causation if not irrefutable.[89] “A major omission in all of the papers published as purported evidence of no link between MMR, autism and other ailments is the absence of any attention at all on rechallenges as a drug research and development tool. If this were to be applied to the MMR children, then each and every one of them could well be recognised as the conclusive living scientific proof of a causal connection between their ailments and the MMR vaccine.” [90]

Vaccine stakeholders also avoid studies that compare the health of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children .

CDC official Coleen Boyle testified before a Congressional hearing (Rising Autism Rates, 2012) at which she acknowledged: “We have not studied vaccinated versus unvaccinated [children]”. At the same hearing Dr. Alan Guttmacher, Director of the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) refused to answer.

If studies are not designed to investigate adverse effects following vaccination (challenge), and do not document the effects following revaccination (rechallenge) – in accordance with childhood vaccination schedules – those rare but serious hazards will not be detected.

Furthermore, if no studies are designed to document the difference in the rate of neurological disorders, including autism, between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, it ensures that no evidence will be detected linking MMR or thimerosal to autism.

However, the failure to document the risk – by avoiding studies designed to reveal the risk – does not mean that no evidence exists. It means that more children will be put in harm’s way, while the evidence connecting harm to vaccines remains undetected.

[ Appendix 9 details how vaccine safety assessments are controlled, manipulated, and redefined by an international consortium of vaccine stakeholders who control the channels of information in both scientific journals and the media to ensure high utilization of vaccines.]

Recently, Dr. John Ioannidis, the foremost proponent of evidence-based medicine, raised a provocative question in his article, “Does Evidence-Based Hearsay Determine the Use of Medical Treatments?” (2017) If the question is applied to vaccines, the answer is a resounding, yes, because there is no authentic evidence base, to support the widely publicized claims made about vaccine safety, merely conjecture. Therefore, the basis for those safety claims can be characterized as hearsay.

Commissioned Cochrane Collaboration MMR reviews: 2003, 2005, 2012:

Both the UK and US governments played a pivotal role in the effort to discredit the Wakefield Lancet study. One approach was to commission MMR reviews, by the reputable Cochrane Collaboration, whose policy on financial conflicts of interest, concentrates on direct funding from industry, not government (as if governments that set public health policies, don’t have a conflict of interest in protecting those policies). This heavy dependence on government support leaves the Cochrane open to undue political influence. [91]

In reality, the Cochrane is not wholly independent of either commercial or government funding. In addition to funds obtained from the UK government, for each of the three commis