What Deer’s 2004 TV documentary said
Following the broadcast of Brian Deer’s Dispatches investigation, MMR – What they didn’t tell you, in November 2004, Andrew Wakefield, the programme’s subject, issued a vexatious claim for libel which he duped the Medical Protection Society to fund.
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Wakefield then immediately attempted to stay, or freeze, the action, but Channel 4 and Deer objected, demanding that he put up or shut up. They made application in the High Court that his stay be refused and that he be ordered to proceed to trial. But, on 2 January 2007, he abandoned his claim, and agreed to pay all the defendants’ costs. Subsequently, all of the meanings below were conclusively proven true, and included in Deer’s book, The Doctor Who Fooled the World.
Below is how the parties explained to the court what the programme said.
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| (i) Spread fear that the MMR vaccine might lead to autism, even though he knew that his own laboratory had carried out tests whose results dramatically contradicted his claims in that the measles virus had not been found in a single one of the children concerned in his study and he knew or ought to have known that there was absolutely no basis at all for his belief that the MMR should be broken up into single vaccines. | (i) Had dishonestly and irresponsibly spread fear that the MMR vaccine might cause autism in some children, even though he knew that his own laboratory’s tests dramatically contradicted his claims and he knew or ought to have known that there was absolutely no scientific basis at all for his belief that MMR should be broken up into single vaccines. |
| (ii) In spreading such fear, acted dishonestly and for mercenary motives in that, although he improperly failed to disclose the fact, he planned a rival vaccine and products (such as a diagnostic kit based on his theory) that could have made his fortune. | (ii) In spreading such fear, also acted dishonestly and irresponsibly, by repeatedly failing to disclose conflicts of interest and/or material information, including his association with contemplated litigation against the manufacturers of MMR and his application for a patent for a vaccine for measles which, if effective, and if the MMR vaccine had been undermined and/or withdrawn on safety grounds, would have been commercially very valuable. |
| (iii) Gravely abused the children under his care by unethically carrying out extensive invasive procedures (on occasions requiring three people to hold a child down), thereby driving nurses to leave and causing his medical colleagues serious concern and unhappiness. | (iii) Caused medical colleagues serious unease by carrying out research tests on vulnerable children outside the terms or in breach of the permission given by an ethics committee, in particular by subjecting those children to highly invasive and sometimes distressing clinical procedures and thereby abusing them. |
| (iv) Improperly and/or dishonestly failed to disclose to his colleagues and to the public at large that his research on autistic children had begun with a contract with solicitors which were trying to sue the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine. | (iv) Has been unremittingly evasive and dishonest in an effort to cover up his wrong-doing. |
| (v) Improperly and/or dishonestly lent his reputation to the International Child Development Resource Centre which promoted to very vulnerable parents expensive products for whose efficacy (as he knew or should have known) there was no scientific evidence. | (v) Has improperly lent his reputation to the International Child Development Resource Centre which exploited very vulnerable parents by promoting to them expensive products the efficacy of which (as he knew or should have known) had no scientific basis. |
| These meanings, alleged by the claimaint, are reported by Eady J in a judgment handed down on 4 November 2005 | These meanings, admitted by the defendants, are reported by Eady J in a judgment dated 21 December 2006 |
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