Reprint
News: GMC must disclose files on Wakefield to documentary makers
BMJ 2007; 334: 12 (6 January 2007)
Clare Dyer, legal correspondent
The General Medical Council has lost a High Court battle to stop confidential documents, provided to it for the purpose of disciplinary proceedings, being released to the makers of a television programme.
The papers refer to the role of the gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield in the controversy over the mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
Mr Justice Eady ruled just before Christmas that the Channel 4 television company, 20-20 Productions, and Brian Deer are entitled to see the documents in defending themselves against a libel action by Dr Wakefield over the November 2004 Dispatches programme “MMR: What They Didn’t Tell You,” which Mr Deer presented.
Dr Wakefield faces GMC proceedings over his part in the controversy over the triple vaccine, which led to a dramatic drop in coverage of the vaccine. He led a study published in the Lancet in 1998 (351:637-41) on associations between the measles virus, autism, and bowel disease. At a press conference to publicise the research he called for single vaccines to be given rather than the combined MMR vaccine.
His study focused on tests carried out on 12 children with gastrointestinal problems referred to the Royal Free Hospital in London, where Dr Wakefield then worked. Some of the children were in a second study, funded by legal aid, to investigate whether parents who claimed that their children were damaged by the MMR vaccine had grounds for a High Court compensation claim. The Lancet later said it would have rejected the paper had it known of the undisclosed conflict of interest.
Among the documents ordered to be disclosed are 11 files of papers released to the GMC by University College London, Dr Wakefield’s former employer. The other documents are witness statements and exhibits provided for the disciplinary proceedings and papers disclosed to the GMC by the Legal Services Commission, the body that grants legal aid.
The GMC has not yet laid formal charges against Dr Wakefield, but his case is expected to be heard over several weeks starting in July 2007. The libel case is not likely to come to trial much before the end of 2007.
Timothy Dutton QC, for the GMC, told Mr Justice Eady that it would be against the public interest if documents that the GMC had promised to those providing them that they would be used only for the disciplinary proceedings were to be disclosed for another purpose. It could discourage complainants and others from cooperating.
The mother of a child involved in the research also appeared before the judge to urge that the medical records of her child and of other children be kept confidential.
The GMC’s standard consent forms provide an undertaking from solicitors that disclosure will be used only for the purposes of investigating a doctor’s fitness to practise and any disciplinary hearing that may follow. This might be “somewhat misleading (albeit unintentionally),” the judge said, because the GMC could not pre-empt what a court might decide.
He said it was undesirable that the libel defendants should be precluded from access to relevant information-not only for protecting their own interests and reputations but also in “seeking to protect the public interest in ensuring, so far as possible, that claimants in defamation actions do not obtain misleading or false vindication of their reputations.”
He added that it was always open to the GMC to use its statutory powers of compulsion to obtain documents and information if individuals and institutions refused to cooperate.
There was no danger that individuals’ confidentiality would be breached, because the defendants accepted that provisions must be put in place to ensure that individuals were not identified.
The GMC said, “We note the decision handed down by the High Court and are deciding what action is necessary.”
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