Re: MMR doctor given legal aid thousands

[Guest guest]

The usual lies from Deer and all who are out to crucify Wakefield

Hope to have a rebuttal soon.

Evan is always right in there to trash Wakefield along with Deer

Sheri

>Latest from Deer....

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>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2524335,00.html

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>The Sunday Times December 31, 2006

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>MMR doctor given legal aid thousands

> Deer

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>ANDREW WAKEFIELD, the former surgeon whose campaign linking the MMR vaccine

>with autism caused a collapse in immunisation rates, was paid more than

>£400,000 by lawyers trying to prove that the vaccine was unsafe.

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>The payments, unearthed by The Sunday Times, were part of £3.4m distributed

>from the legal aid fund to doctors and scientists who had been recruited to

>support a now failed lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers.

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>Critics this weekend voiced amazement at the sums, which they said created a

>clear conflict of interest and were the “financial engine” behind a

>worldwide alarm over the triple measles, mumps and rubella shot.

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>“These figures are astonishing,” said Dr Evan , Liberal Democrat MP

>for Oxford West and Abingdon.

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>“This lawsuit was an industry, and an industry peddling what turned out to

>be a myth.”

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>According to the figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act,

>Wakefield was paid £435,643 in fees, plus £3,910 expenses.

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>Wakefield’s work for the lawyers began two years before he published his now

>notorious report in The Lancet medical journal in February 1998, proposing a

>link between the vaccine and autism.

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>This suggestion, followed by a campaign led by Wakefield, caused

>immunisation rates to slump from 92% to 78.9%, although they have since

>partly recovered. In March this year the first British child in 14 years

>died from measles.

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>Later The Lancet retracted Wakefield’s claim and apologised after a Sunday

>Times investigation showed that his research had been backed with £55,000

>from lawyers, and that the children in the study used as evidence against

>the vaccine were also claimants in the lawsuit.

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>At the time Wakefield denied any conflict of interest and said that the

>money went to his hospital, not to him personally. No disclosure was made,

>however, of the vastly greater sums that he was receiving directly from the

>lawyers.

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>The bulk of the amount in the new figures, released by the Legal Services

>Commission (LSC), covers an eight to 10-year period. All payments had to be

>approved by the courts.

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>Those who received money include numerous Wakefield associates, business

>partners and employees who had acted as experts in the case.

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>Five of his former colleagues at the Royal Free hospital, north London,

>under whose aegis The Lancet paper was written, received a total of £183,000

>in fees, according to the LSC.

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>Wakefield now runs a business in Austin, Texas, two of whose employees are

>listed as receiving a total of £112,000 in fees, while a Florida physician,

>who appointed the former surgeon as his “director of research”, was paid

>£21,600, the figures show.

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>All have appeared in media reports as apparently confirming Wakefield’s

>claims.

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>It is understood that the payments — for writing reports, attending meetings

>and in some cases carrying out research — were made at hourly rates varying

>between £120 and £200, or £1,000 a day.

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>“There was a huge conflict of interest,” said Dr March, an animal

>vaccine specialist who was among those recruited. “It bothered me quite a

>lot because I thought, well, if I’m getting paid for doing this, then surely

>it’s in my interest to keep it going as long as possible.”

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>March, who the LSC allowed almost £90,000 to research an aspect of Wakefield

>’s theories, broke ranks this weekend to denounce both the science of the

>attack and the amount that the case had cost in lawyers’ and experts’ fees.

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>“The ironic thing is they were always going on about how, you know, how we’

>ve hardly got any money compared with the other side, who are funded by

>large pharmaceutical companies. And I’m thinking, judging by the amounts of

>money you’re paying out, the other side must be living like millionaires,”

>he said.

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>Also among those named as being paid from the legal aid fund was a referee

>for one of Wakefield’s papers, who was allowed £40,000. A private GP who

>runs a single vaccines clinic received £6,000, the LSC says.

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>Following The Sunday Times investigation, immunisation rates have risen and

>the General Medical Council launched an inquiry. This is due to culminate in

>a three-month hearing next summer, where Wakefield faces charges — which he

>denies — of dishonesty over his research.

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>The LSC is also unlikely to escape criticism. Three years ago the

>commission, which administers a £2 billion budget to give poor people access

>to justice, acknowledged that the attempt to make a case against MMR with

>taxpayers’ money was “not effective or appropriate”.

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>The total cost for the attack on the vaccine was £14,053,856, plus Vat.

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>Following media campaigning, lawyers eventually registered 1,600 claimants

>in the lawsuit. None received any money.

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>This weekend Earl Howe, a Conservative party health spokesman, called for a

>parliamentary inquiry. “It’s astonishing,” he said. “This is crying out for

>select committee scrutiny.”

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>Wakefield said in a statement that he had worked on the lawsuit for nine

>years, charged at a recommended rate, and gave money to charity.

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>“This work involved nights, weekends and much of my holidays, such that I

>saw little of my family during this time,” he said. “I believed and still

>believe in the just cause of the matter under investigation.”

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>Document 1 | Document 2

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