[updated 03.11.08]
Families duped by
sad smearmaster
of MMR fabrication and hatred
Brian
Deer responds to a sick campaign of denigration
7 September 2008
With the collapse of
the anti-MMR vaccine crusade in the UK, leaving its
champion Andrew Wakefield facing charges of serious
professional misconduct before the General Medical
Council, there's not much left, apart from continuing
public fear and a rump of embittered individuals.
Some of the latter,
in their pain, have now turned nasty: with me as a
target for their hatreds. Although almost literally a
handful of people, and some with no link to MMR or
autism at all, they've insinuated themselves among
affected British families and are causing distress
with false allegations. Among these is a claim that
my Sunday Times and Channel 4 investigation - which nailed
the scare and helped to restore public confidence -
was covertly supported by the drug industry.
A string of recent
outings for this sickening falsehood are authored by
a 61-year-old graphic artist called Martin Walker,
who apparently lives in Spain, but last year surfaced
at the mammoth hearings of the GMC in London. He
claims to be a "health activist", and,
although generally of little consequence, is a
relentless peddler of smear and denigration, with a
track record of latching onto the vulnerable. These
he beguiles - like he's their new best friend - and
then, if past form is a predictor for the future,
attempts to sell them self-published books.
His recent attacks on
me are pretty much to be expected from this man. He
has a well-worn modus operandi. First, in an
ill-written 60-page online diatribe, which affects
the tone of discovered facts, he suggests - entirely
falsely - that I've been supported by the Association
of the British Pharmaceutical Industry [ABPI], with
the implication that I'm concealing this misconduct.
Among other things, he says:
"In
neither his Sunday Times article nor the
Dispatches programme nor on his web site does
Brian Deer make reference to a company called
MedicoLegal Investigations Ltd (MLI). MLI is a
private company, controlled and almost completely
funded by the ABPI that has an agreed
representation on its board. The company played a
leading part in Deer's investigation, and helped
prepare the case against Wakefield to go before
the GMC."
Second, in a further,
22-page, attack - primarily trying to smear Dr
Surendra Kumar, chair of the five-member GMC panel
which is hearing the case against Wakefield - Walker
goes further. Here he accuses me of a conspiracy with
MLI to mislead readers of The Sunday Times:
"As
anyone who has been following the GMC hearing
will know, the prosecution that is the GMC, fell
hook, line and Murdoch owned Sunday Times sinker
for Deer's story that had been concocted with the
help of Medico-Legal Investigations."
Here's more, in a
third of his vile attacks, where the plain meaning of
his words is that I'm not competent to carry out my
work, and that I covertly connived with the drug
industry in the preparartion of charges against
Wakefield:
"As we
know, despite the GMC's reluctance to state
clearly with whom the complaint originated, it
was first prepared and lodged by the
medically-ignorant, down-at-heel pro-MMR hack
Brian Deer, with the help of the Association of
the British Pharmaceutical Industry private
inquiry company Medico-Legal
Investigations."
These false,
defamatory [and badly-written] allegations are
obviously serious for a professional journalist such
as myself, and are extensively developed and
embellished by Walker with invention and snide
innuendo. The truth is that, other than to be
interviewed by me, MLI played no role at all in my
investigation, let alone a "leading part",
as Walker alleges. It wasn't involved in any way in
the preparation of my stories. And, to my knowledge,
MLI played no role whatsoever in preparing the GMC
case against Wakefield.
But truth isn't
enough for the smearmaster Walker. He has conspiracy
on his mind. This drives him. He desperately needs to
place me in a worldview of intrigue, using a grubby
witch-hunt style of implication:
"Brian
Deer disclosed in his main Sunday Times article
about Dr Wakefield after he had presumably spoken
to him, that the then Minister for Health, John
Reed [Walker means I had presumably
spoken with the then-secretary of state for
health, John Reid] had called for the case of Dr
Wakefield to be referred to the GMC... Reed's
shunting of Dr Wakefield's case into the GMC
represents the most serious conflict of interest
and manifest corruption."
By chance, I've never
met or spoken with Reid. But, for Walker, we're in
it together. It's a disgusting, gutter, style of
character assassination. It's what you'd do if you
were a malicious fool with no facts.
The truth is rather
different, and rather awkward for Walker, if he's
seeking to soak families hit by autism. As would be
the duty of any responsible investigative journalist,
tackling a serious, complex issue such as MMR, my
inquiries involved interviews with hundreds of
sources, drawn from many relevant backgrounds and
viewpoints. The first of these interviews was with Jackie Fletcher of the campaign group JABS.
The second was with a mother, Rosemary Kessick. And another of these
hundreds of interviews was with a doctor-lawyer
called Jane Barrett, who works with MLI.
Why MLI? Well, it's a
respectable business, with a track record of
evaluating conduct. Usually it's that of doctors
faking medical research while employed by drug firms
or health bodies. You'd think that Walker, if he
cared about the integrity of medicine, would welcome
the company's objectives and achievements. MLI's
sometime chairman, Dr Frank Wells, for example, is
co-editor of a highly regarded book called "Fraud and Misconduct". It's published by the
BMJ.
In my interview with
Barrett, we discussed the role of ethics committees,
and the EU clinical trials directive. This is routine
research for journalists: a staple of professional
reporting. We do this kind of stuff every day.
Moreover, it wasn't hidden, as Walker
implies, but has been declared by me - for example in
legal papers served on Wakefield in 2005:
"3.87.
The Third Defendant additionally carried out
numerous interviews and studied various
publications concerned with the ethics of
research, including discussions with the editors
of The Lancet and the British Medical Journal,
Department of Health sources, the chair of the
RFH ethics committee, Dr Evan Harris, MP for
Oxford West and Abingdon, who maintains a special
interest in medical ethics, Dr Jane Barrett, a
doctor and lawyer with Medico-Legal
Investigations, RFH doctors, and others."
No doubt, MLI hoped
for a Sunday Times name-check, as this might be good
for its business. But, as it turned out, no interview
material was used, or even relied upon in anything
published. However, in much the same way that the
Lancet's editor, Richard Horton, issued a press notice
following a meeting with me in 2004, MLI was
evidently so excited to be interviewed at all that it
trumpeted the fact on its website. Nowhere, in a
far-from-conspiratorial online reference, does it
claim to have investigated anything, or to have
collaborated with me.
The truth is, it
didn't. Hard luck.
Underlying Walker's
thesis is the veiled implication that, somehow, I
must be on the take. On this point, his smearing
snidery came to the fore early on. More than a year
ago, he peddled this filth:
"One
unanswered question remains writ large, 'Does
anyone other than the Sunday Times newspaper,
fund Brian Deer to carry out this work?'"
Alas, my
investigations have been supported solely by The
Sunday Times, Channel 4 Television, and the
generosity of Wakefield himself. My dealings with the
GMC, meanwhile, have been confined to the proper: the
entirely professional supply of journalistic findings
to a statutory regulator. My public duty - and at the
GMC's prior request. I'm not the complainant in the
case - as Walker, in his reference to Reid, is
clearly aware. And I'd no knowledge of the detailed
charges until they were read to Wakefield in July
2007. The GMC's investigation followed a call for
such an inquiry by Wakefield himself, and was carried out by the
council's lawyers, Field Fisher Waterhouse and
specialist counsel, who never notified me of the
charges, or at any time discussed them with me.
And, just to finish
this off, here's Walker's tone, when, in his bid to
stir families with autism to greater misery, he wants
his abusive libels to sound high-flown:
"Brian
remains isolated, a social pariah, who will
undoubtedly be cast aside like a used condom when
his benefit to the Department of Health and ABPI
comes to an end."
It's little surprise
that cranks and opportunists, such as this man, have
attached themselves to the MMR issue. Nor is it
surprising that they should run dirty tricks
campaigns in bids to damage the reputations of honest
people. Walker's barn-door libels appear to be backed
with no assets, but he's stupid enough to have
circulated letters promoting what he calls a
"campaign against" me, for which he
solicits help and money. This must ring alarm bells
for prejudice and malice: meaning that those who
unwisely publish his deceits must be wary of the
catastrophic risk.
Walker isn't the
first to try to poison my name. It's him
who's conspiring with others. For examples, two
individuals - a Mr John Stone, and a Mr Clifford
Miller - have long festered over attempts to damage
my reputation and livelihood. Last year, they sought
help from national newspaper journalists: who checked
the facts, realized the allegations were false, and
have had little to do with the peddlers ever since.
I've sent both of these men warnings about their
behaviour. One of Walker's recent attacks
acknowledges Stone.
To be fair to Walker,
it isn't just me who's the target of his nasty
activities. Take this slug of his garbage about
people I've no links with - including a former MP and
a judge called Davis - who, like me, are smeared
without evidence of fact. They are plainly fitted-up,
in terms credible only to a dribbling idiot, to make
the alleged dark conspiracy feel complete:
"The
science lobby groups funded by the drug companies
and especially Lord Dick Taverne the founder of
Sense About Science and previously a major PR
handmaiden for the pharmaceutical industry had
campaigned heavily to get legal aid taken from
the parents. After John Stone publicised the
conflict of interest, Brian Deer accused him of
being 'cruel' to the scions of the Davis
family."
Pure invention.
The real tragedy, of
course, is the plight of the vulnerable: the true
victims of the MMR scandal. It goes without saying
that Walker spews forth falsehood - extending to what
he represents as "reports" of the GMC's
hearings - with a view to inflaming beliefs that the
doctors' regulator is corrupt, capricious, and
incompetent. Then, his line goes, I'm hovering in the
wings, with the drug industry, the government, and
whoever else. Only a clown would believe this. Walker
does. And no doubt he'll believe it until it refills
his bank account: when, as he hopes, those he dupes
with such miserable fantasies purchase his
self-published book.
So what's new? Not a
lot. It's a mirroring behaviour. Walker looks at
others, but sees only himself. For more than a
decade, countless parents of autistic children have
been misled and exploited, often by characters like
him, who've hoped to profit while spreading confusion
among the griefstruck. Wakefield himself pocketed
more than £435,000 - just through one British
lawyer - as my lengthy inquiries revealed. At a time
when such parents need to find healing and closure,
after the traumas that many have experienced,
Walker's promotion of hatred and bitterness is a sad
footnote to this saga, which seems to go on without
end.
POSTSCRIPT:
On 3 November 2008, counsel for
Wakefield and his co-defendants joined with the GMC
in condemning the attempt by Walker to smear the
hearing's chairman, Dr Surendra Kumar.
"Unfortunately this is not a court of law and
does not have the benefit of contempt jurisdiction,
otherwise I might be giving a lot further advice to
the panel," Nigel Seed QC, the hearing's
independent legal assessor, said.