Doctors (Dr Andrew Wakefield) face GMC on misconduct allegations

Doctors face GMC on misconduct allegations
By Andrew Jack

Published: July 16 2007 04:35 | Last updated: July 16 2007 04:35

The British medical watchdog will begin on Monday discussions on whether to de-register for unethical conduct three doctors, one of whose sharply disputed claims of a possible link to autism undermined the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccination programme.


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The General Medical Council will hear allegations of serious professional misconduct against Dr Andrew Wakefield, Professor John Walker-Smith and Professor Simon Murch, in a case expected to last until mid-October.


The GMC’s fitness to practise panel will examine a series of alleged breaches in the way the men conducted research on children in 1996-98 at the Royal Free Hospital in London and failed to disclose conflicts of interest.

While the findings of the doctors’ research published in the Lancet failed to demonstrate any link, comments by Dr Wakefield at a press conference sparked a debate about the connection between autism and the combined MMR vaccine introduced in the UK in 1998.

Allegations made against the three men include unethical collection of blood samples for payment, use of lumbar punctures in children enrolled in the study who did not have the indications approved by the ethics committee, and administration of a therapeutic product prior to verifying its safety.

Dr Wakefield is also alleged to have failed to disclose funding he had received from the Legal Aid Board in relation to litigation around MMR, and his interest in a patent.

MMR vaccination rates following the controversy fell from 91 per cent to a low of 80 per cent and stood at 84 per cent in 2005-06, according to the Health Protection Agency. The World Health Organisation, which said 345,000 people died as a result of 20m cases of measles globally in 2005, estimated that 95 per cent coverage was required to offer “herd immunity”.

There were 86,000 cases and 16 deaths in the UK’s last measles epidemic in 1987, but health officials fear the full impact of falling immunisation rates over the past decade will only be felt in the next few years.

The GMC stressed that it did not get involved in scientific disputes, but was responding to concerns raised by the Lancet over alleged inaccurate conflict of interest and ethical approval statements accompanying the original article.

Evan Harris, a doctor and Liberal Democrat MP, said he had broader concerns about the conduct of the Royal Free ethics committee raised by the case, and reiterated his calls for the Department of Health to launch an independent inquiry. He said there was a need to review systems of quality control for ethics conduct.

The GMC decision, which is subject to appeal, can remove the men from the register but cannot impose fines.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007


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