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 |  Subject: Andrew Wakefield's Co-author Exonerated of Professional Misconduct in MMR Paper  Wed 04 Jul 2012, 18:19 | |
| Andrew Wakefield's Co-author Exonerated of Professional Misconduct in MMR Paper
The Canary Party is happy to bring you the news of an honest doctor who served the
interests of children and fought a corrupt system, being vindicated in court! The senior
author of the MMR paper has been cleared of all charges and had his license to practice
medicine restored. Please forward this press release to all your contacts, especially in
the media.
Dr.
Andrew Wakefield’s co-author on controversial Lancet “MMR paper”
completely exonerated of all charges of professional misconduct.
World
renowned pediatric gastroenterologist Prof. John Walker-Smith won his
appeal today against the United Kingdom’s General Medical Council
regulatory board that had ruled against both him and Andrew Wakefield
for their roles in the 1998 Lancet MMR paper, which raised questions
about a link to autism. The complete victory means that Walker-Smith
has been returned to the status of a fully licensed physician in the
UK, although he had already retired in 2001 — six years before the GMC
trial even began.
Justice
John Mitting ruled on the appeal by Walker-Smith, saying that the GMC
“panel’s determination cannot stand. I therefore quash it.” He said
that its conclusions were based on “inadequate and superficial
reasoning and, in a number of instances, a wrong conclusion.” The
verdict restores Walker-Smith’s name to the medical register and his
reputation to the medical community. This conclusion is not surprising,
as the GMC trial had no actual complainants, no harm came to the
children who were studied, and parents supported Walker-Smith and
Wakefield through the trial, reporting that their children had medically
benefited from the treatment they received at the Royal Free Hospital.
While
John Walker-Smith received funding to appeal the GMC decision from his
insurance carrier, his co-author Andrew Wakefield did not — and was
therefore unable to mount an appeal in the high court. This year,
however, Dr. Wakefield, who now conducts his research in the US, has
filed a defamation lawsuit against Brian Deer, Fiona Godlee and the
British Medical Journal for falsely accusing him of “fraud.” The suit is
currently underway in Texas, where Wakefield now lives. The ruling
today bodes well for Dr. Wakefield’s suit against Deer, on whose
reporting the entire GMC hearing was based.
In
1998 the Lancet published a case series on twelve children receiving
treatment for bowel dysfunction at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
The paper called for further study of a possible association between
bowel disease and developmental delay, including cases of autism. It
also noted that eight of the children’s gastrointestinal and autistic
symptoms began shortly after they received the MMR vaccination. The
verdict today raises questions about whether or not the Lancet should
have retracted the paper after the GMC decision, as the reasons for its
retraction have now been contradicted by the judge’s decision.
The
thirteen original co-authors of the 1998 Lancet case series were
members of the Royal Free’s Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group. In
2004, under pressure from the British medical establishment, ten of the
co-authors signed a letter retracting an interpretation of the paper
that it proved that vaccines caused autism, which the paper never
actually claimed in the first place. John Walker-Smith, Andrew Wakefield
and Dr. Simon Murch were subsequently brought up on misconduct charges
before the GMC. The proceedings resulted in Walker-Smith and Wakefield
being found guilty and being “struck off” the medical register, while
Dr. Murch retained his status as a physician. Wakefield was then
vilified by corporate media and by bloggers eager to repeat scandal and
engage in industry protectionism, rather than investigate the
complicated facts of the story.
Today,
almost 14 years after the paper was published, the high court
determined that John Walker-Smith was innocent of the wrongdoing alleged
by the GMC. Judge Mitting reported that the GMC, “on the basis of
sensible instructions, does not invite me to remit it to a fresh Fitness
to Practice panel for redetermination. The end result is that the
finding of serious professional misconduct and the sanction of erasure
are both quashed.”
British
parents from the group CryShame, which includes parents of the Lancet
12, issued a statement saying that they “welcome with immense relief
the end of the eight year ordeal of Prof John Walker-Smith and the
quashing of all substantive charges against him in the High Court, and
wish him their heartfelt congratulations at finally clearing his name.”
“Though
justice has finally prevailed for Prof. Walker-Smith, the damage done
to him and his colleagues has been incalculable,” said Mark Blaxill,
chairman of the Canary Party. “The UK government must investigate the
corruption in theGMC, which has severely damaged the reputations of
good, honest doctors. Most of all, it’s outrageous that Dr. Andrew
Wakefield has been vilified by government officials, vaccine
manufacturers and physician organizations, and that the media has
accepted these unfounded accusations uncritically.”
“It’s
time that we started treating responsible parents as reliable
witnesses to serious adverse reactions to medical procedures such as
vaccination,” said Jennifer Larson, president of the Canary Party. “The
work that Walker-Smith and his colleagues at the Royal Free Hospital
did with the Lancet 12 was medically necessary and above reproach. No
patient complained, and the charges against the Royal Free team came
only from a freelance journalist writing for a Rupert Murdoch newspaper.
Meanwhile, the findings reported in the Lancet paper have been
replicated in numerous scientific publications and reported by thousands
of parents all over the world.”
“It
is quite obvious to me that James Murdoch, Brian Deer and
GlaxoSmithKline orchestrated the smear attack on Dr. Andrew Wakefield,”
said Ginger Taylor, executive director of the Canary Party. “A judge
has now ruled that the GMC hearings were a farce. Parents are waiting
for journalists to find their spine and start some honest reporting on
the character assassination of doctors that is blocking medical
treatments for vaccine injured children, and the role that GSK and
Merck may be playing to protect their profits on the MMR vaccine. The
Canary Party honors and stands by doctors of integrity like Prof.
Walker-Smith, who continue to fight and defend their hard-won
reputations for going the extra mile to investigate and improve the
chronic, difficult-to-treat cases that now permeate our society.”
Source:-
http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=b62698a50aececa2aded9f56b&id=125b16ce57&e=7dbff94567
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