Fw: Professor Goldblatt

[Guest guest]

Remember this article?

Isabella

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/9305535?source=Evening

Double standards claim over MMR

By Isabel Oakeshott, Evening Standard, Health Correspondent

24 February 2004

Health chiefs stand charged with hypocrisy today after accusing a leading

MMR scientist of "mixing spin and science". The Government claims Dr

Wakefield had a conflict of interest when he produced a study suggesting a

link between the vaccine and autism, because he was paid £55,000 by lawyers

to investigate whether MMR was safe. Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir

Liam son described the work as "poor science" and Prime Minister Tony

Blair seized on the revelations to call for an end to the debate over the

vaccine's safety.

But autism campaigners today revealed that at least 19 experts on

government-appointed committees, which declared the vaccine safe, also had

conflicts of interest. Some of the doctors and scientists have shares in

drugs firms that make the jabs, and others received research grants from

them.

More than a dozen experts from the Committee on Safety of Medicines and the

Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation - which produced reports

stating that the vaccine was safe - are named by the campaigners.

They include:

Dr Phil Minor, who has been paid to advise MMR vaccine distributor

GlaxoKline on a legal case brought by families who say their children

were damaged by the vaccine.

Professor Henry Dargie, Professor Smyth and Professor Cohen,

who worked as consultants to GlaxoKline.

Dr Goldblatt, who was an "occasional member of expert panels" for

Glaxo-Kline and MMR supplier Aventis Pasteur. Non-personal interests

include "industrial support" from the drugs company.

Dr Colin Forfar and Dr Donaghy, who have shares in GlaxoKline.

Professor Nutt, who has been a consultant for Glaxo-Kline and is

also a shareholder in the company.

Bill Welsh, of the anti-MMR group Action Against Autism, said: "If the

Government wants to start looking for conflicts of interest, they only have

to look at their own house. The number of experts on their so-called

independent panels who have stakes in drugs companies is incredible.

"It is rank hypocrisy for them to criticise Dr Wakefield over the funding he

received."

The row highlights the links between scientists and doctors and

pharmaceutical giants, which fund thousands of research studies each year.

Today politicians described the links as a "major problem" and called for

more independence in medical research. Labour MP Hinchcliffe, chairman

of the Commons health select committee, said: "This whole debate has exposed

the way in which research is compromised by the commercial realities of

funding. I think this is becoming

a great difficulty."