- MMR
SCARE DOCTOR PLANNED
RIVAL VACCINE
The
Sunday Times (London) November 14 2004
Brian
Deer
THE doctor
whose work provoked a worldwide scare over MMR failed
to reveal that he was developing his own commercial
rival to the vaccine.
It has emerged
that a patent was filed on behalf of Dr Andrew
Wakefield for a measles vaccine and other products
that would have stood a better chance of success if
public confidence in MMR’s safety was
undermined.
Wakefield now
faces criticism that he should have declared the
conflict of interest when he announced a possible
link between MMR and childhood autism.
Since then
there has been a decline in the number of children
inoculated with the vaccine for mumps, measles and
rubella.
An
investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel
4’s Dispatches programme has found that
Wakefield and the medical school of the Royal Free
hospital, London, where he worked, made a series of
applications to patent measles-related products. The
first was filed at the Patent Office nine months
before Wakefield’s press conference in February
1998.
Three months
after the conference, Wakefield was named as the
inventor on a follow-up document trying to patent a
“measles virus vaccine”. Although he never
produced a vaccine, the fact that he was planning a
rival to MMR while casting doubt on its safety has
raised concern.
“I think
a lot of parents will be very angry,” said Dr
Michael Fitzpatrick, a north London GP and pro-MMR
campaigner who has an autistic son.
Discovery of
the plans follows revelations by this newspaper in
February that Wakefield’s research on MMR had
begun with a commission from solicitors attempting to
sue vaccine manufacturers.
The patent
application papers detail products aimed at
preventing, even curing, diseases allegedly caused by
MMR, the vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella.
They included
a rival vaccine for measles. At the time the products
appeared to have little chance of commercial success
in Britain given the dominance of MMR and the
confidence in its safety.
The first
application was lodged by the Royal Free on June 5,
1997 and two were filed on June 4, 1998 — after
the press conference at which Wakefield, a mid-rank
academic and surgeon, unleashed the scare.
According to
the paper by Wakefield and 12 other researchers, the
Royal Free had seen 12 children in a few months. In
eight cases their parents claimed the children had
developed autism within days of an MMR shot.
However, the
paper failed to make it clear that the children were
not a random sample. Instead, Wakefield’s MMR
research had first been commissioned by solicitors
suing the vaccine manufacturers.
Nor did
Wakefield or the study disclose another conflict of
interest: the Royal Free’s plans for its
MMR-related products, in which Wakefield was a
participant.
One
application was for a “pharmaceutical
composition for treatment of MMR virus mediated
disease” and which “may be used as a
measles virus vaccine”.
Wakefield also
failed to disclose plans for such a rival product
when he questioned whether it was safe for MMR to
combine three vaccines. In a publicity video
distributed by the Royal Free, he says: “My
feeling is that the risk of this syndrome (autism)
developing . . . is related to the combined vaccine,
the MMR, rather than the single vaccines.”
While
Wakefield was under no legal or professional
obligation to disclose the patent, campaigners
believe his attack on MMR may have been viewed
differently had it been known.
Professor Ian
Bruce, a molecular biologist who once worked with
Wakefield, said: “It’s something that
should have almost certainly been made public before
now.”
Wakefield and
the medical school also tried to patent treatments
for inflammatory bowel disease and what they called
“regressive behavioural disease”, or
autism. Wakefield claimed that the MMR injection
caused an inflammatory bowel disease and could lead
to brain damage.
One of the
applications dated June 1998 claims that it is
“not only most probably safer to administer to
children by way of vaccination/immunisation, but
which also can be used to treat regressive
behavioural disease, whether as a complete cure or to
alleviate symptoms.”
The product
was to be made by a process involving the measles
virus, the white blood cells of mice and goats’
milk.
Professor Tom
MacDonald of Southampton University, Britain’s
pre-eminent gut immunologist, described the recipe as
“total bollocks” when he was shown it last
week. None of Wakefield’s products appears to
have progressed much beyond the concept stage.
Last week the
Royal Free denied any conflict of interest. It said
it had never attacked MMR and had dissociated itself
from Wakefield’s comments on the vaccine.
Wakefield
declined to comment because of the investigation into
his research by the General Medical Council and the
possibility that he may take legal action.
“Mr
Wakefield has been in the past and will hopefully
again be happy to discuss these important
issues,” his lawyers said.
Brian
Deer’s investigation is on Dispatches, Channel
4, Thursday, 9pm.
Copyright,
Brian Deer. All rights reserved. No portion of this
article on MMR, Andrew Wakefield and his alternative
vaccine may be copied, retransmitted, reposted,
duplicated or otherwise used without the express
written approval of the author. Responses,
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