"Clinical and scientific study" protocol names investigators Chadwick and Bruce

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

Here is a formal protocol document submitted by Andrew Wakefield to the Royal Free's ethics committee in 1996, and subsequently supplied to Brian Deer by the strategic health authority responsible for the hospital. Critically important are the investigators: which include Nicholas Chadwick, Wakefield's research assistant, and Professor Ian Bruce, of Greenwich University. They reported that no measles virus was found in autistic children in the Lancet study. But a subsequent protocol from Wakefield reports different findings

In 2004, Brian Deer supplied this document to the UK's Legal Services Commission, which had ordered research from Dr Wakefield, based on this proposal, the reported results of which led to an £800,000 contract with a Wakefield associate. In a written statement, dated June 17 2004, a commission official said: "It appears that the proposed clinical and scientific study you faxed me isn't the same as was submitted to us. However, your version does appear to be based on the one sent to us."

An identical document, along with a protocol pro-forma, was released to Brian Deer by the Royal Free medical school in March 2005. A third copy, apparently disclosed to defendants in UK MMR litigation, was found to have the pages missing which named the investigators.