Journal: Embattled Doc Hoped to Profit Off of MMR-Autism Link - AOL Health
http://www.aolhealth.com/2011/01/12/doc-profit-mmr-autism-link/
The doctor accused of falsifying a link between childhood vaccines and autism is also alleged to have orchestrated a scheme to make more than $43 million, according to an investigation by the British Medical Journal.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield is accused of plotting to form hush-hush businesses that would profit from the scare over the MMR vaccine -- the one for mumps, measles and rubella given to children -- in both the U.K. and the U.S.
His claims that the shots carry the risk of autism have been discredited by two U.K.-based medical journals, including BMJ, which released a report last week calling Wakefield's research "an elaborate fraud."
The latest BMJ report says that Wakefield and officials from his Royal Free Medical School in London held high-level meetings about creating a joint venture to make products including a replacement vaccine for MMR and testing kits, even while the children he was studying for his research were still hospitalized.
Only days after the findings were published in 1998, which set off widespread alarm in the health-care industry, Wakefield brought the officials he hoped to do business with to his school to carry on the talks, the BMJ investigation shows. One of his partners was the father of a child he'd included in his study.
Wakefield's enterprise "was to be launched off the back of the vaccine scare, diagnosing a purported -- and still unsubstantiated -- 'new syndrome,'" the journal reported. Wakefield named the syndrome he claimed to have identified "autistic enterocolitis."
Wakefield called the latest BMJ investigation "utter nonsense" in an internet radio interview Wednesday.
"The children were not exploited," he said, according to CNN. "They were seen because they were sick. They had clinical referrals. They came to us. We responded to a crisis."
He said his patent wasn't for a diagnostic test for autism or a replacement for the MMR vaccine but for a "nutritional supplement."
Wakefield accused the BMJ reporter, Brian Deer, of being paid by the pharmaceutical industry to launch an attack against him. Deer has denied those allegations.
Wakefield hoped to make about $43.4 million just from the sale of the diagnostic tests alone, according to Deer's report.
He was also offered money to try to reproduce his findings, which he arrived at by studying 12 children, in a larger trial involving 150 patients. Wakefield declined on the grounds that he would lose his academic freedom.
Despite the controversy, some parents of autistic children, including actress/activist Jenny McCarthy, continue to support him.
In a column written this week for the Huffington Post, McCarthy said the safety of vaccines should continue to be studied.
"This debate won't end because of one dubious reporter's allegations," she wrote, referring to BMJ's Deer. "I have never met stronger women than the moms of children with autism. Last week, this hoopla made us a little stronger, and even more determined to fight for the truth about what's happening to our kids."
Wakefield's medical license was revoked in Britain in 2010 after an extensive investigation. The journal that published the study, the Lancet, retracted it.
(See original article for hyperlinks to more information on the subject)
The doctor accused of falsifying a link between childhood vaccines and autism is also alleged to have orchestrated a scheme to make more than $43 million, according to an investigation by the British Medical Journal.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield is accused of plotting to form hush-hush businesses that would profit from the scare over the MMR vaccine -- the one for mumps, measles and rubella given to children -- in both the U.K. and the U.S.
His claims that the shots carry the risk of autism have been discredited by two U.K.-based medical journals, including BMJ, which released a report last week calling Wakefield's research "an elaborate fraud."
The latest BMJ report says that Wakefield and officials from his Royal Free Medical School in London held high-level meetings about creating a joint venture to make products including a replacement vaccine for MMR and testing kits, even while the children he was studying for his research were still hospitalized.
Only days after the findings were published in 1998, which set off widespread alarm in the health-care industry, Wakefield brought the officials he hoped to do business with to his school to carry on the talks, the BMJ investigation shows. One of his partners was the father of a child he'd included in his study.
Wakefield's enterprise "was to be launched off the back of the vaccine scare, diagnosing a purported -- and still unsubstantiated -- 'new syndrome,'" the journal reported. Wakefield named the syndrome he claimed to have identified "autistic enterocolitis."
Wakefield called the latest BMJ investigation "utter nonsense" in an internet radio interview Wednesday.
"The children were not exploited," he said, according to CNN. "They were seen because they were sick. They had clinical referrals. They came to us. We responded to a crisis."
He said his patent wasn't for a diagnostic test for autism or a replacement for the MMR vaccine but for a "nutritional supplement."
Wakefield accused the BMJ reporter, Brian Deer, of being paid by the pharmaceutical industry to launch an attack against him. Deer has denied those allegations.
Wakefield hoped to make about $43.4 million just from the sale of the diagnostic tests alone, according to Deer's report.
He was also offered money to try to reproduce his findings, which he arrived at by studying 12 children, in a larger trial involving 150 patients. Wakefield declined on the grounds that he would lose his academic freedom.
Despite the controversy, some parents of autistic children, including actress/activist Jenny McCarthy, continue to support him.
In a column written this week for the Huffington Post, McCarthy said the safety of vaccines should continue to be studied.
"This debate won't end because of one dubious reporter's allegations," she wrote, referring to BMJ's Deer. "I have never met stronger women than the moms of children with autism. Last week, this hoopla made us a little stronger, and even more determined to fight for the truth about what's happening to our kids."
Wakefield's medical license was revoked in Britain in 2010 after an extensive investigation. The journal that published the study, the Lancet, retracted it.
(See original article for hyperlinks to more information on the subject)