This page is material from the award-winning investigation by Brian Deer for The Sunday Times of London, with spin-offs for a UK TV network and a top medical journal, which exposed vaccine research cheat Andrew Wakefield | Summary | Read the book

Wakefield in Bradstreet business

Before launching the MMR scare from London, Andrew Wakefield had filed the first in a string of patent applications for a competitor vaccine, and a remedy for autism. These didn’t work, and instead, after losing his job in December 2001, he became “research director” of the “International Child Development Resource Center”, based in Melbourne, Florida, run by a Dr Jeff Bradstreet, who claimed 80% “success” rates with autism “treatments”.

The following are excerpts from an ICDRC presentation to parents, showing a selection of expensive products, such as Sea Buddies, for autistic disorders, sold by the operation. Many are promoted with artfully-phrased, but unsubstantiated, claims, such as that they are “formulated by leading physicians in child neurological development”.

Despite his prominently displayed position as its research director, in February 2005 Wakefield said through lawyers that he had “never derived income” and “has no contractual relationship” with ICDRC. In December 2005, he said in a statement that “he at no time authorised Dr Bradstreet to put his name on the ICDRC website,” and that “as a result” of Brian Deer’s November 2004 UK television programme, MMR – What they didn’t tell you, “he has subsequently requested Dr Bradstreet to remove his name”.

Checked in March 2007, it was still there.