Ethics
query over Royal Free child study asks how
investigations help the patient
This page is
research from an investigation by Brian Deer for the UK's Channel 4 Television
and The Sunday Times of London 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
Even as research on autistic children admitted to the Royal Free
hospital had already started for a legal contract awarded to Andrew
Wakefield, the hospital's ethics committee was
concerned about the extensive nature of the tests
- including colonoscopies, lumbar punctures and
MRI scans - planned to be performed on children
with developmental disorders. The issue even
reached the hospital's chief executive. Here is a form returned
to the committee by one member - Andrew Stevens -
then a senior manager at the hospital
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