Mother accuses GMC of ‘witch hunt’ on doctors

Jul 17 2007 by Alan Weston, Liverpool Daily Post

THE mother of a severely brain-damaged 15-year-old boy travelled from Warrington to offer her support to three doctors accused of conducting dishonest and unethical research into the MMR vaccine.

Dr Andrew Wakefield caused a world-wide scare when he was the first to link the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism after conducting a study on just 12 youngsters between 1996 and 1998.

Prof Wakefield is accused of taking blood samples from the children at a birthday party in return for cash during research into the vaccine.

He is attending the hearing with Professors John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch, who helped him with the research.

The campaign group, Jabs, which believes MMR has damaged children, mounted a demonstration in support of Dr Wakefield outside the GMC.

Speaking before the hearing started yesterday, (mon) Jackie Fletcher, a member of the lobby group, accused the GMC of carrying out a "witch hunt" on the three doctors.

"What’s going on today is just a witch hunt against the wrong doctors.

"This is something the GMC have decided to bring themselves, after deliberating for three years.

"These doctors have been here doing what the vaccine officers should have actually done which is examine children believed to have been damaged by vaccinations."

Mrs Fletcher, of Golborne, Warrington, said her third son, Robert, was injected with the vaccine in January, 1994, when he was 14 months old.

Now a 15-year-old boy, he is severely brain damaged and behaves like a baby, she said.

"He was a perfectly happy, bubbly happy boy, doing everything he should have been doing.

"We’ve had NHS doctors say that off the record that the measles part of the vaccine probably did do damage.

"But it’s taken 14 years to have a neurosurgeon actually put it in writing."

Robert had seizures days after receiving the jab.

"He needs 24 hour care, he has multiple seizures.

"He’s in a wheelchair, he can’t walk now. He can’t talk, we have to anticipate his every whim, he can’t even ask for a glass of water."

Mrs Fletcher said that Jabs were not against the vaccine but wanted a safer system in place to have parents better informed.

"We're talking here about a generation of children. With some tweaking of the system the vaccine could be safer."

Dr Wakefield, Prof Walker- Smith and Prof Murch, were at the time of the research all employed at the Royal Free Hospital’s medical school in London. All three have all denied serious professional misconduct, in a hearing set to last up to three months. The study claimed that the MMR jab damaged the immune system in children, and was responsible for gut disorders and rising autism rates.

Following publication of the research paper in the medical journal, The Lancet, in February 1998 many parents became anxious over the safety of the MMR vaccine.

Immunisation levels fell dramatically causing fears of an outbreak of measles and even deaths.

Former prime minister Tony Blair and Cherie Blair’s refusal to say whether their son Leo, who was born on May 20, 2000, had the jab fuelled the controversy surrounding the doctors’ research.

alanweston@dailypost.co.uk