Medical school in talks with German drug firm before launching MMR vaccine scare

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

One of Brian Deer's findings was that, months before a press conference in February 1998 which unleashed a global scare over MMR, Andrew Wakefield and his medical school had filed a patent application for a vaccine and anti-MMR products. In fact, it went further: they were already in talks with a small German drug firm, Dr Falk Pharma, which specialises in gastroenterological products, and were waiting on a "business plan" from Prof Hugh Fudenberg's Neuroimmuno Therapeutics Research Foundation