Brian Deer’s 2004 TV film on Andrew Wakefield
Broadcast in the UK on 18 November 2004, 9pm
Brian Deer’s investigation into claims made at a London medical school that the three-in-one measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) caused autism and bowel disease in children evolved into the most extensive media inquiry into medicine in a generation. The TV film was based on Deer’s reporting for The Sunday Times.
Get Deer’s book: The Doctor Who Fooled the World
This spin-off programme from Deer’s investigation was broadcast in peak time in the UK on 18 November 2004, and excerpts were later shown on NBC’s Dateline programme. Reviews were outstanding.
"Detective of the week… Deer went for Wakefield like a bull pup with a taste for trousers," said Nancy Banks-Smith in The Guardian. "If this was hounding, and it was, Dr Wakefield had only himself to blame for running away."
"If you didn’t see this programme, find someone who taped it," wrote Dr Abi Berger in the BMJ. "Not only will you learn something about the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) health scare, but it will also give you the opportunity to watch one of the most exciting examples of investigative television journalism you will ever see."
"Needless to say, Fudenberg’s claim that children could be cured of autism by taking supplements containing his own bone-marrow didn’t inspire confidence, nor did Deer’s eventual confrontation with Wakefield at an autism conference in Indianapolis," wrote Kathryn Flett in The Observer.
Deer’s TV reporting was based on his award-winning Sunday Times investigation, which, in May 2010 saw Wakefield banned from medical practice and his fraudulent research retracted by The Lancet, which had published it in February 1998.
Get Deer’s book: The Doctor Who Fooled the World
In 2005, Wakefield vexatiously sued Deer, the TV network, and the film’s producers Twenty Twenty Television. Separately, he also sued Deer personally over this website and his Sunday Times reporting. But after two years of immensely costly proceedings, which a High Court judge described as having been brought by Wakefield for “public relations purposes”, the charlatan doctor abandoned all of his legal actions within days of Deer revealing enormous secret payments behind the attack on MMR.
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