On Mon, 5 Apr 2010 14:58:50 +0100, "john" <nospam@bt.com>
wrote:
>Doctors' regulators have found the three of us - Professor John
>Walker-Smith, Professor Simon Murch and me - guilty of undertaking research
>on children with autism without approval from an ethics committee.
>We can prove, with extensive documentary evidence, that this conclusion is
>false.
Well they had ample opportunity to prove the conclusion was false and
failed.
Also Wakefield is being far too modest,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25983372/FACTS-WWSM-280110-Final-Complete-Corrected
He wasn't just found to have operated without approval from an ethics
committee but also (amongst more concerning his treatment of the
children) that he :-
Failed to cause the Legal Aid Board to be informed that
investigations represented by the clinicians as being clinically
indicated would be covered by NHS funding,
Caused or permitted the money supplied by the Legal Aid
Board to be used for purposes other than those for which he
said it was needed and for which it had been granted,
That by doing so his conduct was dishonest [and] misleading,
That his involvement in the MMR litigation and receipt of funding for
part of Project 172-96 from the Legal Aid Board; constituted a
disclosable interest which included matters which could legitimately
give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to his
involvement in Project 172-96 which he did not disclose to the Ethics
Committee,
That he failed to state in the Lancet paper that the children whose
referral and histories he described were part of a project, the
purpose of which was to investigate a postulated new syndrome
comprising gastrointestinal symptoms and disintegrative
disorder following vaccination. That in doing so his behaviour was
dishonest, irresponsible, and resulted in a misleading description
of the patient population in the Lancet paper. The description of
the referral process in the Lancet paper was irresponsible misleading,
contrary to his duty to ensure that the information in the paper was
accurate.
In a letter to the Lancet volume 351 dated 2 May 1998, in
response to the suggestion of previous correspondents that there was
biased selection of patients in the Lancet article, he stated that the
children had all been referred through the normal channels (e.g. from
general practitioner, child psychiatrist or community paediatrician)
on the merits of their symptoms. In the circumstances set out
this statement was dishonest, irresponsible and contrary to your duty
to ensure that the information provided by you was accurate.
"The Panel is satisfied that the statement you made would be
considered by ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people to be
dishonest. Additionally, you knew that this statement omitted
necessary and relevant information, such as the active role you played
in the referral process, and the fact that the referral letters in
four cases made no mention of any gastrointestinal symptoms and the
fact that the investigations had been carried out under Project 172-96
for research purposes.
Therefore, the Panel is satisfied that your conduct in this
regard was dishonest and irresponsible. "
"On 23 March 1998 at a scientific meeting at the Medical
Research Council convened to examine the evidence relating to
measles or measles vaccine and chronic intestinal inflammation, you
were asked about the issue of bias in generating the series of cases
including the twelve children in the Lancet paper and you stated that
all patients reviewed so far had come through General Practitioners or
paediatricians by "the standard route", ...In the circumstances ...
this statement was, dishonest...irresponsible, [and]... contrary to
your duty to ensure that the information provided by you was
accurate."
" the Panel is satisfied that your conduct in failing to disclose your
involvement in the MMR litigation, your receipt of funding for part
of Project 172-96 from the Legal Aid Board and your involvement
in the Patent, constituted disclosable interests. Your failure to
disclose these to the Editor of The Lancet was contrary to your
duties as a senior author of the Lancet paper. "
"At or around the same time as the events set out ...you were involved
in a proposal to set up a company called Immunospecifics
Biotechnologies Ltd to specialise in the production, formulation and
sale of Transfer Factor, "
The Panel concluded that these findings, which include
those of dishonesty and misleading conduct, would be sufficient to
support a finding of serious professional misconduct.
>Let me make it absolutely clear that, at its heart, the GMC hearing has been
>about the protection of MMR vaccination policy.
Only in his overheated imagination. As has subsequently become clear
he did not detect measles virus in any of these children so his
hypothesis failed.
>The case has been driven by an agenda to crush dissent
To crush dishonesty and opportunism would be more accurate.
>My colleagues, Professors Walker-Smith and Murch, are outstanding
>pediatricians and pediatric gastroenterologists.
They were. There is also no doubt at all that they are in a different
league to Wakefield.
>They have led the field of pediatric gastroenterology for decades, devoting
their lives to caring for
>sick children. Our only "crime"
Now that is rather crude. It wasn't "our crime" but separate crimes
for three different people. Wakefield was found to have been
dishonest irresponsible and misleading.
His two co-accused were found to have been irresponsible and of not
acting in the children's best clinical interests but they were not
found guilty of dishonesty or of being misleading.
> It is unthinkable that at the end of an unimpeachable career,
> Professor Walker-Smith would even consider unethical experimentation on
children under his care.
In a sense this is so, there is little doubt that Walker-Smith was
unduly influenced by Wakefield and accepted much of what he said
without checking it.
>In the course of our work, we discovered and treated a new intestinal
>disease syndrome in children with autism,
No new syndrome was discovered as was pointed out by many at the time.
>The loss of my own medical license is, unfortunately, the cost of doing
>business.
At last the truth. It was all about business. Of the three two
largely competent doctors have suffered and the only one to come out
of the affair with vastly increased wealth and a new career is the one
who was dishonest - Wakefield.