Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced doctor who claimed a link between MMR and autism, planned secret businesses intended to make huge sums of
money, in Britain and America, from his now-discredited allegations.
The Wakefield
scheme is exposed today in the second part of a BMJ series of special reports,
“Secrets of the MMR scare”, by investigative journalist Brian Deer. Last week
we revealed the scientific fraud behind the appearance of a link between the
vaccine and autism. Now Deer follows the money.
Drawing on investigations and documents obtained under the
Freedom of Information Act, the report shows how Wakefield's
institution, the Royal Free Medical
School in London, supported him as he sought to exploit
the MMR scare for financial gain.
It reveals how Wakefield met with medical school managers to
discuss a joint business even while the first child to be fully investigated in
his research was still in the hospital, and how just days after publication of
that research, which triggered the health crisis in 1998, he brought business
associates to the Royal Free to continue negotiations.
One business, named after Wakefield’s
wife, intended to develop Wakefield’s
own “replacement” vaccines, diagnostic testing kits and other products which
only stood any real chance of success if public confidence in MMR was damaged.
Documents reveal the planned shareholdings of Wakefield and his collaborators, and how much Wakefield expected to
receive personally. Financial forecasts made available for the first time today
show Wakefield and his associates predicting they could make up to £28 million
($43,367,082; €33,290,350) a year from the diagnostic kits alone.