MMR doctor struck off

Government efforts, including its MMR The Facts website, did little to persuade parents the combined vaccine was safe

The doctor at the centre of a 12-year MMR vaccine debate has been struck off the medical register after being found guilty of serious professional misconduct in his research methods. 

The General Medical Council said that Dr Andrew Wakefield’s now discredited1998 Lancet study, which suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, had been conducted “dishonestly and irresponsibly”.

The two-and-a-half year case – the longest in GMC history - focused on his research methods, which centered on collecting blood samples from children attending his son’s birthday party in exchange for payment.

Earlier this year the GMC found Dr Wakefield to have acted unethically by performing further unnecessary invasive procedures on children, and also failed to declare a conflict of interest.

In total, Dr Wakefield was found guilty of more than 30 charges.

Explaining the verdict the panel's chairman Dr Surendra Kumar said: "The panel concluded that it is the only sanction that is appropriate to protect patients and is in the wider public interest, including the maintenance of public trust and confidence in the profession, and is proportionate to the serious and wide-ranging findings made against him."

The verdict comes three months after the Lancet retracted Wakefield’s 1998 study, which suggested a strong link between the MMR vaccine and rates of autism and bowel disease in children. UK media coverage caused a great storm of controversy over the issue, and researchers and the government could do little to persuade some parents that MMR was safe.

Media coverage of the issue hit a peak in 2001-2, and vaccination levels of the combined vaccine fell dramatically. It is thought this then contributed to outbreaks of measles in some parts of the country.

Now based in the US, Dr Wakefield has 27 days to appeal against the verdict.

Ben Adams