Brian Deer: the Wakefield factor
 | Andrew Wakefield investigated: part 2 of 3MMR: What they didn't tell you, an investigation by Brian Deer (pictured left in the production office), was broadcast in the UK at 9pm 18 November 2004, after a four-month production period. It was followed by two years of "gagging writ" litigation by Andrew Wakefield, condemned by a High Court judge, and later abandoned
The producer/director was Tim Carter; associate producer, Hugo Godwin; executive producer, Claudia Milne.
The programme was filmed mostly by David Barker, with Greg Bailey, sound. Iki Ahmed filmed Deer confronting Wakefield at an Indianapolis conference |
Exposed: Wakefield lab tests found no measlesLab results revealed: Even as Andrew Wakefield launched the scare in 1998, he knew that his own lab had rebutted his core theory: that measles virus caused bowel disease and autism. The undisclosed work was carried out by Nick Chadwick (right), who used PCR technology, and spoke for the first time in Deer's programme
Paper retracted: After his lab rebutted his theory, Wakefield sent samples to a physician in Tokyo, with whom he published a paper claiming to have found vaccine-strain measles virus. But Chadwick found contamination, as would be alleged in John O'Leary's work |  |
 | Nutty professor Fudenberg behind MMR claimsHugh Fudenberg: This grandfather (left) of the scare sold bone marrow autism "cures" which he said he rolled out in a sheet, three molecules deep, on his kitchen table in Spartanburg, South Carolina
Recipe for madness: Wakefield claimed his own single vaccine and treatments, based on Fudenberg's ideas. The technology involved so-called "transfer factors", a fringe conjecture that special substances can be harvested from blood cells. Wakefield advised injecting mice with measles, extracting cells, injecting the result into pregnant goats, milking them and turning the product into capsules |
Critic's choice: Reviews of the 2004 TV programme were led by Nancy Banks-Smith of The Guardian, who dubbed Deer "Detective of the week... like a bull pup with a taste for trousers." The BMJ said: "One of the most exciting examples of investigative television journalism you will ever see." The Observer said we "made mincemeat" of Wakefield's claims
Ex-business partner John O'Leary jumps shipO'Leary repudiates: For years, Wakefield's major ally was said to be John O'Leary (right) of Dublin, who, at huge cost to the British taxpayer, said he found measles virus infection in samples supplied by Wakefield, with whom he started a company. But as clouds gathered over O'Leary's work, he denounced his old partner
MMR doctor's "no comment": Wakefield responded through solicitors, launching a bitter attack on Deer. In a letter to Channel 4 Television, Wakefield's lawyers claimed that Deer's reports were "in most cases demonstrably false". They were all proven true |
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Judge: Wakefield lawsuit was for PR purposesGagging writ: Following the programme, Wakefield brought baseless lawsuits against Deer, The Sunday Times and Channel 4. These were slammed in the high court, London, by Mr Justice Eady (left), who said he thought Wakefield was using litigation "for public relations purposes" while trying to avoid "having to answer a substantial defence of justification". Eady refused all Wakefield's pleas
Lawsuit withdrawn: Two years, and more than a million pounds in legal bills later, Wakefield dropped his sham claim, after secret payments were revealed, and paid Deer compensation |
Sense: The UK charity for deaf-blind children affected by maternal rubella issued a statement of support for the Dispatches programme. Visitors' feedback also overwhelmingly supported it. Comments, however, were laced with a hard-core of opposition. Items here include new scientific info, and feature a discourteous countess with her knickers in a twist
Matt Lauer interviews Deer for NBC's DatelineA dose of controversy: In August 2009, almost five years after Deer's film, NBC News anchor Matt Lauer presented a Dateline investigation of the Wakefield affair (clip, right). It would be the start of a great unravelling for Wakefield in America, where he had moved after becoming unemployable in Britain
Wakefield would also feature in online clips, revealing more of his extraordinary conduct. In what become known as the callous disregard incident, over which he would be found guilty of professional misconduct, he quips about buying blood from children, who he says vomit and faint, while in another he threatens a vaccine safety whistleblower who had confided in him |
Brian Deer wins a second British Press AwardPress award 2011: Brian Deer receives his second Pulitzer-style British Press Award (video left), and is named specialist journalist of the year by the Society of Editors. The presentation was made by Sky News anchor Anna Botting at London's Savoy hotel in April 2011, with the judge's citation praising "a tremendous righting of a wrong". Deer later won the 2011 HealthWatch award, presented at the Medical Society of London by journalist Nick Ross
Secrets of the MMR scare: In January 2011, BMJ, the British Medical Journal, published a three-part series by Deer bringing together much of the extraordinary Wakefield story. The journal's editors denounced the Lancet research as "an elaborate fraud" |
Carol Stott, was the first, but not the last, of a string of extraordinary Wakefield "crank magnet" associates who emerged as the investigation went forward. Her approach was to threaten: goading "try me shit head". Another was Martin J Walker, the "liar for hire", and, years later, David L Lewis, a retired environmental scientist who had lost a string of court cases
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