Dear Mr Deer
I refer to our exchange
of emails on 12th February
last and felt it would be mutually
beneficial if I gave you some further
detail in relation to the issue which
I understand you are investigating. I
begin by categorically stating that
as far as our research group is
concerned and to the best of our
knowledge, the Legal Services
Commission (LSC) has never funded us.
For the record, Unigenetics Limited
has undertaken a testing service on
behalf of the LSC, which was a very
separate piece of work, commissioned
in early 2000 towards the latter end
of our Molecular Pathology paper
research work. To avoid any conflict
between research and this testing
service, we established a hospital
based campus company Unigenetics
Limited. At the time of writing I
cannot confirm the fees paid for this
testing, but will consult with our
accountants and endeavour to do so. I
should also emphasise that I
personally have not been paid
anything directly by either the Legal
Aid Board or by the LSC, although I
did receive fees from Unigenetics
Limited for the testing services I
provided to that company and for
reports.
For clarity and for the
record, I think it is relevant to
detail the chronology of events that
led to our research and the
publication of our Molecular
Pathology paper and separately to
explain the testing I refer to.
Before I do so, I wish to also state
that we were shocked by the
revelations in the Sunday Times. We
were not made aware, nor were we
aware, of any liaison between Dr.
Wakefield and Mr. Richard Barr of
Alexander Harris Solicitors that
apparently existed since 1996. In
addition, we had never been informed
that the LSC had funded Dr.
Wakefield.
At no time have I set
out to prove that MMR causes autism.
Instead, I have sought to investigate
a novel bowel pathology in children
with autism. In our Molecular
Pathology paper we have described an
association between the presence of
measles virus and new variant
inflammatory bowel disease. We have
never claimed that this is causal and
indeed I have been forthright in
transmitting this information to the
public at large in the form of press
statements. I have and continue to
urge people to vaccinate their
children. My advices and findings
were consistently and persistently to
vaccinate children and to use MMR.
The chronology of events
concerning my research that led to
the publication of our Molecular
Pathology paper is as follows: -
Dr Andrew Wakefield
visited me in Cornell University
early in 1998.
At that time, he
showed a series of gut biopsy
slides from patients he was
researching and who had autism.
He asked me whether
I had seen anything like this
before and I had not.
I returned to
Ireland in July 1998, and we
began a research collaboration
with Andrew Wakefield’s
group based at the Royal Free
Hospital in February 1999.
The funding agencies
contributing to that research
were, to the best of our
knowledge, those detailed in our
publication which appeared in
Molecular Pathology in April
2002, as advised to us by Dr
Wakefield. We were not informed
that he was in receipt of funding
from the LSC or Alexander Harris
since 1996, nor did our enquiries
reveal that.
The body of research
continued until we submitted the
manuscript to Molecular Pathology
in 2001.
I was not paid by
the LSC or the Legal Aid Board to
perform this research or to
publish this paper. I have always
acted as an independent
researcher.
The paper was
accepted by Molecular Pathology
in November 2001 and it was
published in hard copy in April
2002.
After publication of
this paper and the subsequent
media interest in it, I issued a
press statement stating that
children must be vaccinated with
MMR. In addition, I stated that I
never suggested a link between
MMR and autism, and indeed MMR is
not mentioned in the paper. I
also requested the media to
accurately report the research
and to allow the debate to be
carried out in the scientific
press.
Dr Simon Murch, a
co-author on the original 1998 Lancet
paper states in his most recent
communication to the Lancet (February
14th 2004) “ John
O’ Leary has spoken in support
of MMR and has been scrupulous not to
overstate these early findings.”
I wish to state
categorically that as far as our
research group was concerned and to
the best of our knowledge, the LSC
did not fund the research reported in
Molecular Pathology and in that
regard no conflict of interest
existed.
However, revelations in
the Sunday Times (February 22nd
2004) suggest that Dr Wakefield was
in receipt of LSC funding since 1996.
If these allegations are
substantiated, then I believe that
this source of funding/conflict of
interest should have been declared in
the Molecular Pathology paper.
Clearly, since I did not know of the
LSC funding to Dr Wakefield since
1996, in spite of having made the
appropriate inquiries about funding,
de-facto there could not have been a
conflict of interest on my part.
Indeed, my advice given in press
statements was/is contrary to the
hypothesis that MMR causes autism.
In any presentations
since the publication of the
Molecular Pathology paper (April
2002) we have made it clear that some
of the patients who were part of the
Research programme, which led to the
said paper, were also potential
litigants.
The chronology of events
concerning the testing carried out by
Unigenetics Limited of which I am a
Director and Shareholder is as
follows: -
As an acknowledged
laboratory for low copy gene
detection, we were approached in
early 2000 by Alexander Harris to
perform tests on peripheral blood
samples and gut biopsies from
children with autism.
To avoid any
conflict of interest between
research and this testing
service, we established a
hospital based campus company
(Unigenetics Limited). I was not
under instruction from Richard
Barr, Alexander Harris or the LSC
in relation to the research being
performed.
The testing
continued until late 2003 and
reports were provided to
Alexander Harris and to the UK
Court on our findings. These did
not support the MMR/autism
hypothesis.
I trust that this
demonstrates that there was no
conflict of interest on my part and
anything written or published to the
contrary would be libellous and
untrue.
Yours sincerely,
________________
John
O’Leary