Wakefield hires a libel lawyer to demand an apology from The Lancet
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LONDON, UK: Dr Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who first raised fears of a
link between autism and the MMR vaccine, has hired a libel lawyer to demand
an apology from The Lancet after claiming that the medical journal had cast
doubt on his honesty.
Dr Wakefield's decision to enlist the support of Carter-Ruck, the London
law firm that specialises in defamation suits, follows the denunciation of
his work last week by The Lancet.
Dr Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet, who published Dr Wakefield's
findings in February 1998, said that he would not have printed the research
if he had known that Dr Wakefield was being paid �55,000 as part of a legal
action against the MMR vaccine's manufacturers. Dr Horton said that, as a
result of this "conflict of interest," Dr Wakefield's research was "fatally
flawed."
In a letter sent on February 27 to Dr Horton, Dr Wakefield's lawyers have,
however, rejected the claims against him and demanded a full apology. It
said: "Our client entirely rejects your assertion that his work for the
Legal Aid Board gave rise to a conflict of interest in relation to the
paper published in The Lancet. The plain implication of the statements you
have made is that our client, for nearly six years, withheld not only from
The Lancet but also his colleagues the fact that he had also been engaged
by the Legal Aid Board to conduct research. This, as you know, is not true.
There was no secret and our client made no secret of his work for the Legal
Aid Board."
The lawyers also claimed that a letter from Dr Wakefield, published in The
Lancet in May 1998, made "crystal clear" that details of his other research
were publicly available on the internet. In that letter, three months after
the initial MMR research was printed, Dr Wakefield dismissed the claim of a
conflict of interest.
"It is a matter of grave concern that, six years after all the relevant
facts were within your knowledge, you choose not only to dismiss our
client's work but also to cast doubt on his honesty," the letter from
Carter-Ruck claims.
The criticism of Dr Wakefield was prompted by the revelation last week that
he had failed to disclose the �55,000 payment from the Legal Aid Board,
which was intended to fund research on behalf of parents seeking to sue the
manufacturers of the MMR vaccine. There were also allegations that Dr
Wakefield "cherry-picked" some of the 12 children who took part in his
research for The Lancet, undermining the validity of the study.
Families of the children suffering from autism said that the doctor was the
subject of a "witch-hunt."
Dr Horton responded, however, by accusing Dr Wakefield of failing to
disclose a conflict of interest. He said that The Lancet had been unaware
at the time of publication that Dr Wakefield was being funded to carry out
research on behalf of the parents.
Dr Wakefield refused to comment, but a friend of the doctor said: "Dr
Wakefield has been so maligned and yet has done nothing wrong."
(Source: Sunday Telegraph, February 29, 2004)
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