MMR-row doctor to appeal decision to strike him off

The doctor who claimed the MMR vaccine could cause autism in children is planning to appeal against his ban from practicing in the UK.

Andrew Wakefield has been found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council (GMC) and has been struck off the medical register. He insisted that everything he did was above board.

Dr Wakefield said he would appeal against the GMC’s decision.

The GMC described how Dr Wakefield took blood from his son's friends at a birthday party, paying the youngsters £5 each, before joking about it during a US presentation in March 1999.

Panel chairman Dr Surendra Kumar said: “In causing blood samples to be taken from children at a birthday party, he callously disregarded the pain and distress young children might suffer and behaved in a way which brought the profession into disrepute.”

Dr Wakefield, 53, who is currently in New York, caused controversy when he published a study suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine, bowel disease and autism.

The research, which appeared in The Lancet medical journal in 1998, sparked a massive drop in the number of children given the triple jab.

The GMC said Dr Wakefield went against the interests of children in his care in conducting his research.

He ordered some youngsters to undergo unnecessary colonoscopies, lumbar punctures (spinal taps), barium meals, blood and urine tests and brain scans.

Yet most of the children did not meet the criteria for inclusion in the research, the GMC ruled.

Furthermore, Dr Wakefield and two other doctors involved in the research - professors John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch – did not have ethical approval to investigate them.

Speaking on Sky News, Dr Wakefield said: “I will be appealing and I hope Professor Walker-Smith will be appealing.”

He defended his actions, adding: “I think it’s a very sad day for British medicine when government pressure and grossly distorted journalism can have such a profound effect on the conduct of healthcare for very sick children in the UK.”

He insisted there had been fully-informed consent for the children in the Lancet study.

And he said there was parental consent for extracting blood from a group of children at his son’s birthday party.

Dr Wakefield also defended acting as a consultant to lawyers representing children whose parents believed their autism was caused by the MMR jab and who wanted to sue the manufacturers.

The GMC ruled he had not revealed this to The Lancet, which then retracted part of the paper.

Dr Wakefield said there had been no conflict of interest regarding the Lancet paper and he had abided by its rules at the time.