Earlier this year, he was forced to resign from the US-located autism clinic Thoughtful House, which he established after leaving the UK in 2005. In the longest investigation in the history of the General Medical Council, surrounding his behaviour during research for his notorious “Lancet” paper he was found to be unethical, callous and irresponsible.

Following this, The Lancet made a complete retraction of the paper, six years after the majority of the authors had already disassociated themselves from it in 2004. Another paper, accepted and due to be published in NeuroToxicology, showing that thimerosal caused impaired neurological development in baby macaques, was withdrawn.

These days he can be seen hanging out with the likes of Dr. Joseph Mercola, the anti-vaxer, anti-pharmaceuticals and lover of all things woo.

Yet, because of the publicity at the time (and subsequently) surrounding the Lancet paper, it is often forgotten that what Wakefield and colleagues actually claimed was not MMR causes autism, but that autism was linked to a new form of gut pathology, dubbed “autistic enterocolitis” (essentially ulceritive colitis in autistic children).

But like much of the data in the now retracted paper, it appears the pathology results purporting to demonstrate this are under suspicion. According to a recent feature in the British Medical Journal from investigative journalist, Brian Deer;

“Two years before the paper was published he (Wakefield) was hired by a solicitor to help launch a speculative lawsuit against drug companies that manufactured MMR vaccine. And the instrument of their attack was to find what he called at the time “a new syndrome” of bowel and brain disease caused by vaccines.”

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Notably, Wakefield was also paid in excess of four hundred thousand pounds of legal aid money by the lawyers to find this link. Some pretty hefty vested interests involved there.

But, despite Wakefield being completely disgraced, his believers have clung on even tighter to his findings in the face of consistently damning evidence.

The comments on the piece from Brian Deer already contain claims that other papers have “vindicated” Wakefield’s 1998 study. What they mean is that the findings of ulceritive colitis in autistic children has since been repeated.

(Interestingly, one piece of supporting evidence they are citing is an abstract which was presented at a conference as a poster on Sunday, May 2, 2010. It’s not indicated if it has been published in the conference proceedings).

I haven’t read the studies cited in the comments, which apparently prove Wakefield was right after all, as there are many. But I have no immediate reason to doubt their validity. As a body of work, they may indeed support the hypothesis that ulceritive colitis exists in autistic children.

But why bring in the discredited and retracted (= scratched from the scientific record) Wakefield study into the mix? Why not let the new work stand on it’s own? Particularly when the pathology slides from the Wakefield study are now lost and the conclusions under suspicion.

From Brian Deer:

“The biopsy slides are no longer available, according to one of the paper’s authors, Professor Amar Dhillon, but the GMC obtained all but one of the hospital pathology reports, and for the missing case I obtained the discharge summary. I passed the summary and reports to specialists for their reaction. They concluded that most of the 11 children reported as having non-specific colitis in the Lancet paper had been reported by the Royal Free as having normal pathology.”

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So how was the diagnosis of non-specific colitis obtained in the paper if the pathology slides were normal? Well it’s not entirely clear but it is known that Wakefield apparently wrote them into the paper.

And recall;

“Two years before the paper was published he (Wakefield) was hired by a solicitor to help launch a speculative lawsuit against drug companies that manufactured MMR vaccine. And the instrument of their attack was to find what he called at the time “a new syndrome” of bowel and brain disease caused by vaccines.”

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Even the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, who withdrew the paper, was circumspect about the condition;

“I do believe there was, and remains, validity to the connection between bowel disease and autism, which does need further investigation,” Richard Horton told the BBC in February 2004.

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Wakefield has fallen, hoisted by his own petard. He will not be published in scientific journals again. His latest work is “Callous Disregard“, an account of the GMC enquiry in his own words, with a forward by the poster child of anti-vax, Jenny McCarthy. Any one not wanting to tarnish their reputation or their science, would be advised to stay well away.

Considering the recent resurgence of this debate, sparked by the ramblings of LBCs 97.3FM’s Jeni Barnett last week, I thought it appropriate to make you aware of the “retraction of interpretation” published in the Lancet in 2004 and written by 10 of the 12 authors of the original paper. This includes Murch and Walker-Smith who, along with Wakefield, are currently being investigated by the General Medical Council of the UK for serious professional misconduct relating to the Lancet publication. Conspicuous by his absence from this retraction is Dr Wakefield. The authors explain that they

“wish to make it clear, that in this paper no causal link was established between the MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient”

The entire retraction is reproduced below, please click on the image to see it in high resolution.

Lancet, 2004 Mar 6;363(9411):750.

I want to emphasise this was published in 2004. Almost FIVE years ago. Yet the anti-vaccers, including the likes of the toxic Jeni Barnett still insist there is a link between MMR and autism. Just to make sure I didn’t get it wrong, here is the important part, enlarged.

This seems pretty clear to me.

So why is this debate still on-going? If the authors have admitted they may have got the interpretation of their own data wrong, why is it the anti-vacc crowd think they know better?
And when will they realise the Wakefield paper was never a definitive finding on MMR and autism?
Especially when you look at the conflict of interest issues also clouding this publication which constitutes part of the reason why Wakefield is currently being investigated for serious professional misconduct.

For the anti-vacc crowd it seems like this might be a case of Saunders’* law in action;

The more bizzare the premise, the more entrenched the belief.

*Richard E. Saunders

You can read the entire 1998 Lancet paper, for free reproduced here on Brian Deer’s blog.

The 1998 paper which was published in the Lancet signalled the beginning of the anti-vacc movement and is considered responsible for a 12% decrease in the vaccination rate in the UK. Wakefield is being investigated for serious professional misconduct along with John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch, two professors who contributed to the research. All three have denied any wrongdoing.

Andrew Wakefield attends the hearing in 2008, flanked by his wife and supporters displaying placards.

An investigation, begun in July 2008 by the General Medical Council in the UK accused the three of acting dishonestly and unethically in compiling the research, which suggested there could be a link between the triple jab, bowel disease and autism. However, it has since been revealed that Dr Wakefield allegedly paid children £5 to take their blood at his son’s fifth birthday party.

One of the key claims is that Dr Wakefield accepted £50,000 for research to support parents’ attempts to fight for compensation. Among the 46 allegations, Dr Wakefield was accused of allowing one patient – Child 10 – to be given an experimental drug, “Transfer Factor”, with a view to it becoming a measles vaccine. Further, he admitted being involved in proposals in 1998 to set up a company – Immunospecifics Biotechnologies Ltd – to manufacture the drug, with the intention that the father of Child 10 become its managing director.

He also admitted proposing that the equity in the company would be split between himself, as its research director, the father and other parties.

The Sunday Times investigation by Brian Deer, claims to have confirmed evidence presented to the General Medical Council (GMC), which states that:

“In most of the 12 cases, the children’s ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal”.

Even if it is revealed that Wakefield faked the data, it is unlikely to end the anti-vacc movement. THe case continues. We wait with baited breath to see the outcome.