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