Ask the experts: extraordinary Who's Who recruited by lawyers for vaccine attack

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

In December 2006, the UK's Legal Services Commission (formerly the Legal Aid Board), which funds some litigation, released to Brian Deer details of money paid to witnesses retained by a solicitor, Richard Barr, to support a now-abandoned legal attack on MMR, led by Andrew Wakefield. Lots of doctors and scientists act as paid witnesses, and they have an overriding duty to assist the court. But during the anti-MMR campaign, many of those below were portrayed in media as independent experts who endorsed Wakefield

Andrew Wakefield: failed to reveal that MMR attack was UK lawyer's bidding A former gut surgeon who, while working for the British solicitor Richard Barr, launched a worldwide panic over the safety of MMR, alleging a link with autism. Until Brian Deer's investigation, the public had no idea that in 1996, while presenting himself as an independent researcher at the Royal Free medical school, London, Wakefield was hired by Barr, at lucrative rates, to help sue vaccine makers. Two years later, Wakefield published his now-discredited paper in the Lancet, in which he claimed to have found a possible MMR-autism link. Also unknown to the public, at the time of publication, the parents of ten of the 12 children in the paper were litigants, with six holding legal aid certificates applied for in 1996. Amazingly, the parents of all 12 children, whose anonymised details appeared in the Lancet, would eventually blame MMR. Wakefield had also previously filed for extraordinary patents, including for his own single vaccine, remedies for autism, and for diagnostic kits to be sold off the back of the litigation that he'd promoted. He now runs a business in Austin, Texas, called Thoughtful House. After the scandal broke, Wakefield acknowledged in an article that he and Carol Stott [see below] "have acted as experts to the Court in MMR-related litigation". But this wasn't true. Although they had a duty to the court, they were working for Barr and the claimants. It's understood that he billed for some $100,000 more than he got. Responding to questions from Brian Deer, he said he worked nine years on the legal case, often during antisocial hours, charged normal doctors' rates, and gave money to charity. LSC reports fees: £435,643. Plus expenses: £3,910.

Carol Stott: Wakefield aide brags "try me shithead" in barrage of hate emails Chartered psychologist. Credited in 2006 in a fringe magazine as "Hon Senior Research Associate to Dr Wakefield". Carol Stott is increasingly the person in whose name Wakefield's journal and website articles attacking MMR are jointly written. His business, Thoughtful House, in Texas, bestowed upon her the title of "visiting professor". Stott is a former junior research associate at the Cambridge autism research institute, where her temporary post was funded by a trust. She was suspended, and in 2005 censured by the British Psychological Society, for sending obscene, threatening emails. Launched her own consultancy business off the back of the MMR lawsuit, for which she was hired by Barr in September 2002. At the time, she was a local health service information manager. LSC reports fees: £94,916. Plus expenses: £5,198.

Arthur Krigsman: Wakefield employee "on board for the ride", charging $400 an hour Private practice gastroenterologist, mostly based in New York. Works for Wakefield as the medical director of his Thoughtful House business in Texas, performing colonoscopies on autistic children. The business advertises his medical consultation rates as $415 an hour, or $390 an hour to talk with him on the phone. Anti-MMR publicity in some British newspapers claims that Krigsman has confirmed Wakefield's "research", without stating that he works for Wakefield. Krigsman is also retained in US vaccine litigation. At an event organised by Wakefield in April 2005, Krigsman said: "Andy and I met about three years ago, and very soon after we met each other, I told him that I was on board for the ride, and that he can count on me for my participation, my contributions. And initially we wanted to begin this in the state of Florida... We ended up here in Austin." In December 2004, he left Lenox Hill hospital, New York,after a lawsuit, which was followed by an ethics inquiry. In August 2005, he was fined $5,000 by the Texas Medical Board for misconduct. LSC reports fees: £16,986.

Jeffrey Bradstreet: snapped up Wakefield as Good News Doc's "director of research" Family doctor. Founder of what he has named the International Child Development Resource Center Good News Doctor Foundation in Melbourne, Florida. Appointed Wakefield as his "director of research" when Wakefield was ejected from the Royal Free medical school in 2001. Bradstreet's business sells "genetic testing kits", quack remedies and a range of unproven treatments, including Secretin, as well as expensive products of his own devising, such as Sea Buddies. Bradstreet became embroiled in controversy in 2002 when US marshals, acting for the Food and Drug Administration, seized stocks of a "dietary supplement" containing Taurine, being sold by an Oregon company, with Bradstreet's recommendation. Writes articles with Wakefield for fringe journals such as the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, published by a far-right doctor's group. Wakefield and Bradstreet also attend numerous meetings together, and sit on various committees. Bradstreet says he blames MMR for his own child's autism. LSC reports fees: £21,600.

John O'Leary: former Wakefield partner facing calls to disclose test gene sequences Microbiologist. Former business partner of Wakefield's in two enterprises. Unigenetics Ltd, to which the figures below refer (and may include other staff), was set up to attempt to prove that measles virus in MMR persisted in children's guts, and went on to cause autism. They failed. Immunospecifics Ltd, or Carmel Healthcare (named after Wakefield's wife), was established to sell diagnostic kits to the parents of autistic kids, off the back of the litigation. It failed. O'Leary appeared in a February 2002 BBC Panorama programme, reported by the chair of Wakefield's organisation Visceral's sister-in-law, which damaged confidence in MMR. The reliability and substance of O'Leary's work was challenged in pre-trial hearings for the aborted lawsuit. In scientific circles, controversy surrounds O'Leary's failure to make available the gene sequences of samples he says tested positive in his lab for measles virus. He denies misconduct, and now appears to distance himself from Wakefield. Based at the Coombe Women's hospital, Dublin. LSC reports fees [to Unigenetics]: £165,403. Plus expenses: £773,317.

Paul Shattock: Wakefield warm-up and purveyor of unverified tests on children's urine Retired pharmacology lecturer. Mr Shattock is not a doctor, and recently appeared uncertain as to his veterinary qualifications. Described by the LSC as "Professor Shattock", he frequently appears at conferences in the United States and Britain as a warm-up act for Wakefield, with whom he has collaborated for many years. Claims to find evidence of possible vaccine damage in urine samples, but, according to London GP and MMR author Mike FitzPatrick in the online political magazine Spiked: "It is impossible to evaluate Mr Shattock's findings because they have not been published in any form." Fitzpatrick adds: "There is now a flourishing network of private laboratories offering urine and blood tests of the sort carried out by Mr Shattock - all of no recognised diagnostic value. There is a substantial business sector selling dietary supplements, vitamins, minerals, enzymes and all manner of special dietary products - all of no proven therapeutic value. The common feature of both tests and supplements is their exorbitant cost." LSC reports fees: £8,218.

Mark Geier: career court witness and US champion of "thimerosal-autism" allegations Qualified as a geneticist. After campaigning in the 1980s over the DTP vaccine - where he made a reputation for an extraordinary error in evidence - Geier pounced on the issue of the mercury preservative thimerosal, which federal agencies resolved to remove from vaccines. Had research retracted, following an investigation by Kathleen Seidel into apparent plagiarism of a paper written by a US public health service doctor; of setting up his own ethics committee; and of making unsubstantiated claims about benefits of a potentially dangerous drug, Lupron, the use of which he'd applied to patent. In October 2003, he was severly criticised by a judge in the US court of federal claims regarding his qualifications to give expert testimony, as well as the quality of that testimony, and his record of accumulating criticism from judges. One criticised him in the following terms: "His testimony is merely subjective belief and unsupported speculation". Mark Geier is based in Maryland, and works in partnership with his son David Geier, who has no relevant qualifications. LSC reports fees: £7,052.