"Concerned" Royal Free dean asks whether children's investigations were approved

This page is research from an investigation by Brian Deer for The Sunday Times of London and the UK's Channel 4 Television into a campaign linking the MMR children's vaccine with autism. | Go to part I: The Lancet scandal | Go to part II: The Wakefield factor

Shortly after a press conference at the Royal Free hospital effectively launched a worldwide scare over the vaccine's safety, in February 1998, Professor Sir David Hull, then chairman of the British government's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, wrote to the hospital's medical school asking about a statement contained in a paper published in the Lancet of February 28 by Andrew Wakefield and others claiming that investigations into autistic children had been approved by the hospital's ethics committee

Three days after the letter was received, Professor Arie Zuckerman, then the medical school's dean, wrote to Brent Taylor, professor of child health, seeking comments on Hull's approach, and noting: "I have voiced concerns in the past on aspects of these studies"