MMR judge didn't disclose GSKB relationship

[Guest guest]

This just arrived. Sorry if it has already been posted. Just found 500 messages

in Inbox - guess who's going to switch ton Digest while away next time? There

are errors in the post but I don't have time to correct. The interjected

comments aren't mine.

Maracuja

Subject: MMR JUDGE FAILED TO DISCLOSE HE WAS

BROTHER OF Glaxo line (sic)DIRECTOR & LANCET BOSS

MMR JUDGE FAILED TO DISCLOSE HE WAS BROTHER OF Glaxo Kline DIRECTOR AND

LANCET BOSS

Yes, Mr Justice (aka Sir Nigel Lamert ), who had dismissed

the appeal over the removal of funding of the MMR litigation by the Legal

Services Commission was the brother of Lancet proprietor (CEO Elsevier)

Crispin (Henry Lamert) who at the time had also recently become a

non-executive director of Glaxo Kline. Though this has not been reported

in the media the following press announcement was issued by the judiciary.

" In 2003 Mr Justice 's brother was appointed as a Non-Executive

Director of Glaxo Kline, a company which was formed as a result of a

merger with Kline Beecham. At the date of the hearing before J, the

possibility of any conflict of interest arising from his brother's position did

not occur to him.....

YEAH RIGHT!

Why didn't the judge had said at the time that his brother was a director of

GSK?..... & that he intends to hear the case anyway his decision would have

been regarded with a great deal more scepticism:

People may like to note the sequence of events:

1) July 2003 Lancet proprietor Crispin become a non-executive director of

MMR manufacturer Glaxo Kline

2) February 20, 2004. The Lancet throws Wakefield to the wolves for

tenuous reasons. He is dragged through the mud by the BBC, Sunday Times and the

Government (including the PM) for four days.

3) February 27, 2004. Mr Justice dismisses the litigants appeal for

restitution of funding.

4) June 2004. Crispin knighted by the Blair government.

London Evening

Standard 09/05/2007

MMR judge faces probe over brother's link to vaccine firm

The Londoner's Diary, Evening Standard, May 9 2007.

You might have thought that a judge presented with a case regarding MMR

vaccines and the link to autism would declare that his brother was a director

of MMR vaccine manufacturer Glaxo Kline Beecham. But you would be wrong.

Sir Nigel was the judge who, three years ago, rejected an appeal by MMR

vaccine litigants against the decision not to award funding for their legal

campaign. But he failed to mention his interests in the subject.

Now, complaints against him are being filed to the Office for Judicial

Complaints, which investigates allegations of any questionable conduct by

judges, coroners and magistrates.

's

brother, Sir Crispin , was appointed a non-executive director of drugs

multinational Glaxo Kline in 2003, a year before the appeal came to

court. Asked why Sir Nigel did not declare this, his spokesman said: " The

possibility of any interest arising from his brother's position did not occur

to him. "

But Sir Crispin's potential links with MMR vaccines goes back longer than that,

as since 1999 he had been CEO of Elsevier, the publishing company which

owns The Lancet magazine.

Although The Lancet had originally published research into the links between

autism and MMR by Dr Wakefield in 1998, by 2004 the magazine regretted

ever having done so. The Lancet had announced its change of heart only the week

before Sir Nigel was due to make his decision on the MMR litigants' appeal,

sparking a sudden backlash against the theory in the media, and prompting the

Prime Minister to say " There is absolutely no evidence to support this

link between MMRand autism " .

The quashing of the MMR litigants case would have a huge relief to the

government, who could have faced massive pay outs had they successfully sued the

drugs companies over the effects of MMR.

Sir Crispin was knighted by Blair's government in June 2004, only four

after the Lancet article was published (sic).