Revealed:
undisclosed payments to Andrew Wakefield
at the heart of vaccine alarm
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
The
engine of the international MMR scare was
an English lawsuit, later acknowledged to be meritless,
funded with taxpayer's money by the UK's Legal
Services Commission (formerly
the Legal Aid Board). From 1996,
substantial sums were paid to Andrew Wakefield, his supporters
and associates [be amazed by a Who's Who at this site],
hired by a lawyer, Richard Barr, to support the
attack on the vaccine. The following
table was released to Brian Deer in
December 2006, under the Freedom of
Information Act
Notes:
In the above letter to Brian
Deer, the Legal Services
Commission refers to sums being
allowed by a court. This means
the costs assessment process,
carried out in this case by a
specialist judge, after all
claims in the litigation were
known. This court reduced
numerous payments from even
higher figures than those
reported above, but did not
determine whether work was
carried out effectively, whether
the calibre of the individuals
named above was appropriate to
the task, or whether the enormous
scale of this activity was
warranted. Now the figures are
published, all of these questions
are up for debate.
In an email to Brian Deer, Andrew
Wakefield said: "The costs
judge has revised the sum
payable, by nearly £100,000 and
I am happy to abide by this
ruling." This suggests that
his original bill, for generic
work, may have been more than half
a million pounds. He
said he gave money to charities,
and that fees reflected nine
years involvement in the lawsuit.
"I worked extremely hard on
this very onerous litigation
because I believed and still
believe in the just cause of the
matter under investigation,"
he said. "This work involved
nights, weekends and much of my
holidays such that I saw little
of my family during this
time".
The Legal Services Commission
letter to Brian Deer makes it
clear that the sums stated are
for the generic case -
common work, it explains, carried
out for all claiments. This
implies that substantial further
payments may have been made for
individual reports on children
alleged to have been injured by
MMR. |
|
