Revealed: the first Wakefield MMR patent claim describes "safer measles vaccine"

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

A key finding of Brian Deer's Channel 4 investigation was that, even as the MMR scare that they had started gathered pace, Andrew Wakefield and the Royal Free medical school had filed documents claiming to have discovered their own, allegedly safer, measles vaccine. Following the programme, Wakefield published on a website a statement denying this claim. The 1997 document below was obtained exclusively by Deer, and was never in the public domain prior to this investigation. The 1998 published application is here

A letter from his lawyers dated Jan 31 2005 said: "Dr Wakefield did not plan a rival vaccine."