Researcher "paid through legal contract" had already been financed by Royal Free

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 revelation was that the Lancet research had been funded by the UK's Legal Aid Board. In statements, both the hospital and Andrew Wakefield claimed that legal money had been used to pay the salary of Ros Sim, a technician. Wakefield said her work was "quite separate". However, this letter suggests (a) that the hospital had already agreed to pay Sim's salary from its own funds more than seven months before Wakefield approached it with the legal money; and (b) that her work wasn't "separate" at all

This letter, dated four weeks after Professor Roy Pounder signed a pro-forma seeking ethical approval for the project, appears to have been drafted by Andrew Stevens, the Royal Free's business planning manager, and a member of its ethics committee. A month later, he again raised the ethics of invasive tests on autistic kids. The committee was assured that all tests were clinically indicated