Molecular
testing in Wakefield's own lab rebutted
the basis for his attack on MMR
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 Andrew Wakefield launched his
attack on MMR in 1998, at a press
conference and in a video, coinciding
with a Lancet paper, he knew that his
own laboratory had tested his theory:
that the ultimate culprit for the
children's autism was measles virus in
the vaccine. Royal Free researcher Nick
Chadwick, carrying out sophisticated
molecular analysis of samples from the
children, using methods agreed by
Wakefield, found no trace of
measles virus. Wakefield has
since claimed that these were "false
negatives"
Below is
the abstract from Dr Chadwick's Ph.D
thesis, dated February 1998, and a table
of results on 22 autistic children -
including children reported in the Lancet
and announced to the world to be evidence
of a link between the MMR vaccine and
autism - revealing findings only finally
released to the public on November 18
2004 with the Channel 4 documentary, MMR:
What they didn't tell you
ABSTRACT
Hypothesis.
i) Atypical exposure to measles
virus is a factor in the
aetiology of inflammatory bowel
disease (IBD). ii) Measles,
mumps and rubella (MMR)
vaccination is a factor in the
aetiology of autistic
enteropathy.
Aims. i) To
compare a range of molecular
techniques for measles RNA
amplification. ii) To
develop a sensitive and robust
method for the detection of
measles RNA. iii) To
analyse clinical samples from IBD
patients for the presence of
measles RNA. iv) To analyse
clinical samples from autistic
enteropathy patients for the
presence of measles, mumps and
rubella RNA.
Methods
development. Three RNA
amplification methods were
compared in terms of their
sensitivity and fidelity for the
detection of measles RNA and
nucleic acid sequence-based
amplification (NASBA) was found
to be the most sensitive.
In a preliminary study, NASBA did
not detect any measles RNA in a
coded series of IBD and control
intestinal tissues.
In order to improve
the detection sensitivity, the
use of hybrid capture, using
measles-specific oglionucleotides
linked to paramagnetic solid
phase supports, was
investigated. Hybrid
capture was found to increase the
measles RNA detection sensitivity
100-fold when followed by
RT-PCR. An internal
modified transcript was developed
which could be co-amplified with
measles RNA as an internal
positive control.
IBD samples.
Resection samples from 20 IBD and
control patients were used for
measles hybrid capture followed
by RT-PCR, in addition to
peripheral blood mononuclear
cells (PBMCs) from 13 IBD and
control patients.
Autistic
enteropathy samples.
Biopsies, PBMCs and Vero/PBMC
cocultures were analysed from 22
patients with autistic
enteropathy and 6 controls.
Results.
Hybrid capture and RT-PCR could
detect 104 molecules
of a measles RNA transcript added
to control tissue
homogenates. The fidelity
of NASBA, in terms of its nucleic
acid error rates, was found to be
comparable with that of
RT-PCR. All samples were
found to be positive for a
housekeeping RNA species and
internal modified positive
control RNA. None of the
samples tested positive for
measles, mumps or rubella RNA,
although viral RNA was
successfully amplified in
positive control samples.
Conclusion.
The results do not support
previous data implicating
persistent measles virus
infection with the aetiology of
IBD or autistic enteropathy.
Table:
RT-PCR results on samples from autistic
children, carried out in Andrew
Wakefield's lab by Nick Chadwick, under
Wakefield's supervision and using a
methodology agreed by Wakefield. These
results were in before Wakefield and the
Royal Free launched the MMR scare in
February 1998. All samples tested were
negative for measles virus [N and H
genes], as well as for rubella and mumps:
From:
Molecular Strategies for the Detection of
Measles Virus in Inflammatory Bowel
Disease, a thesis submitted for the
degree of doctor of philosophy, by
Nicholas Charles Chadwick, Royal Free
Hospital School of Medicine, Faculty of
Medicine, University of London
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