14 DAY TRIAL // For the past two weeks, you have learned more about the MMR scam – who set it up and why, so now, all that's left to find out is who knew about it and what was done to repair the damage.
In 2004, when concerns about the credibility of the 1998 Lancet paper were raised, the medical establishment closed ranks to protect Wakefield, and published denials and statements claiming an investigation had confirmed the study.
So, for another six years, the public was misled by a series of denials and a failure to formally investigate the allegations of misconduct in Andrew Wakefield’s MMR research.
In his third part of the “Secrets of the MMR scare”, investigative journalist Brian Deer reveals what happened once suspicions of fraud started to appear.
He accused Wakefield of possible research fraud, unethical treatment of vulnerable children, and conflict of interest – due to the researcher's involvement with a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers, and asked, thought the editor Richard Horton, for an investigation.
As a consequence, “within 48 hours, and working with the paper’s three senior authors, the journal (Lancet) was to publish 5000 words of denials, in statements, unretracted to this day,” said the journalist.
These statements said that the Royal Free Hospital conducted an investigation that “cleared Wakefield of wrongdoing.”
But thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, Deer was able to obtain documents, emails, and replies which prove that no formal investigation was done.
“What emerges is merely a scramble to discredit my claims during the 48 hours after I disclosed the information,” he writes.
In other words, “the accused were investigating themselves.”
Six years later, the General Medical Council (GMC) finally proved Deer's allegations, and the Lancet retracted the paper.
Also, the Royal Free Hospital and Medical School have since confirmed that they did not carry out any formal investigation, that no doctor was interviewed and no documents were generated.
The problem is that during all this time, people were alarmed over MMR, which led to measles outbreaks and the death of two UK children.
“Were it not for the GMC case, which cost a rumored £6m (€7m; $9m), the fraud by which Wakefield concocted fear of MMR would forever have been denied and covered up,” said Deer.
Last week, Professor Sir John Tooke, Vice-Provost at University College London, responded in writing to the BMJ:
“UCL takes any allegation of research misconduct very seriously, and we will certainly investigate those raised in the BMJ.
“This process will be subject to external scrutiny, in line with our procedures in this area.
“We are determined to learn from the mistakes made in relation to this case ...
“Our objective is to continue refining a structure and processes which provide all reasonable safeguards whilst also facilitating the highest quality research for population benefit.”
Dr Fiona Godlee, BMJ Editor in Chief, said that “this case reveals major flaws in pre and post-publication peer review.
“Allegations of research misconduct must be independently investigated in the public interest.
“But it's still too easy for institutions to avoid external scrutiny, and editors can fail to adequately distance themselves from work they have published and then defended.”
Seattle researchers wrote an accompanying editorial, saying that Deer’s articles reveal the urgent need “to fix a system that failed to protect human subjects and the public from the consequences of fraudulent science.”
It seems that the UK has systematically failed to take research misconduct seriously, said Dr Godlee, urging the British government to establish mandatory supervision of clinical research integrity within the NHS, just like it is the case for publicly funded research in the US.