SECRETS OF THE MMR SCARE
HOW THE VACCINE CRISIS WAS MEANT TO MAKE MONEY In the second part of a special BMJ series, Brian Deer reveals a secret scheme to raise huge sums from a campaign, launched at a London medical school, that claimed links between MMR, autism, and bowel disease
ohn Walker-Smith, professor of paediat- to have received information she expected, and one. Previously the hospital had no children’s ric gastroenterology, hurried to Malcolm made it sound as if Walker-Smith was glad too. bowel service, but with him, it had a chance of ward on the sixth fl oor of the Royal Free “He skipped into that room like a " year old,” the best. Hospital, London, with what any doctor she told me. She remembered he said: “[Mrs "], The initiative to recruit him, however, had J would think was bad news. An ! year old you were right.” not come from management. It came from an boy, admitted for fi ve days of investiga- Brightly painted with murals, Malcolm ward academic researcher in the gastroenterology tions, had been provisionally diagnosed with was Walker-Smith’s. It came with his employ- department: a former trainee surgeon, Andrew Crohn’s disease. But when the child’s mother— ment contract. Exactly one year previously, Wakefield. # He wanted Walker-Smith, who here anonymised as “Mrs "”—years afterwards in September #$$%, he had been lured to the would bring access to children’s gastrointestinal recounted what happened, she seemed pleased Royal Free with many perks, of which this was tracts, to help him prove a personal theory. This