MMR vaccine critics under the spotlight
Monday, 16 Jul 2007 12:28
95% of the population need to be immune to measles
Three doctors are facing an inquiry today into whether research they conducted which suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism was carried out unethically.
In 1998 Dr Andrew Wakefield, Professor Walker-Smith and Professor Simon Murch published a study in the Lancet medical journal which investigated the effects of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
The ensuing controversy over the triple vaccine led to a fall in the number of parents electing to have their child vaccinated.
The General Medical Council (GMC) is investigating allegations of serious professional misconduct by the three doctors, including whether the research was conducted with proper ethical approval.
It has been claimed that some of the children who took part in the study did not qualify for the research on the basis of their behavioural symptoms.
If the allegations are upheld following the three-month inquiry the GMC could remove or restrict the doctors' registration.
Allegations levelled at the three medics also claim that they failed to treat the children involved in the study in accordance with the terms of the ethics committee.
Professor Walker-Smith and Dr Wakefield are accused of acting dishonestly and irresponsibly in failing to disclose how they recruited patients for research, resulting in a misleading description of the patient population in the Lancet paper.
Dr Wakefield also faces allegations of acting unethically by taking blood from children at a birthday party to use for research purposes without ethics committee approval in an inappropriate setting while offering a financial incentive.
It will also be claimed at the inquiry that he failed to disclose his connection with litigation for people alleged to have suffered harm from the MMR vaccine as well as his involvement in a patent relating to a new vaccine.
All three doctors deny they acted unethically.
Dr David Elliman, a consultant in community child health at Great Ormond Street hospital, warned today the uptake of the MMR vaccine is still too low to ensure the population is adequately protected against a possible measles outbreak.
Speaking on the Today programme he said that about 85 per cent of two-year-olds had received their first dose of MMR.
"Children should have two doses and the uptake for that is somewhat lower. Measles is highly infectious so you need something like 95 per cent of the population immune," he said.
"It's very worrying and in fact last year we had over the whole of the country more cases confirmed of measles than we had had for the last ten years and unfortunately we saw a death from measles last year."