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Vaccines with a whiff of scandal about them…
[mis à jour le 16 February 2010 à 10h19]
In 1998, The Lancet published a study connecting the vaccine against mumps, measles and rubella (MMR) with the occurrence of autism and hemorrhagic rectocolitis (bowel disease) among British children. It was a scandal that made the headlines. But in fact it was simply an orchestrated operation involving bent lawyers and corrupt researchers. To explain…
The efficacy of the MMR vaccine has been proven by dozens of international studies over the last 25 years. It is administered across the globe without a problem to tens of millions of children. But in February 1998 the publication of this study in The Lancet had a dramatic impact. According to this study, the vaccine was, in certain cases, believed to cause autism or bowel disease.
The person responsible for this scare was Dr Andrew Wakefield of the Royal Free Hospital in the north of London. But how could a vaccine as widely used as MMR possibly have a latent defect that could remain undiscovered for so many years? Thanks to an investigation led by Brian Deer, a journalist working for British press agencies and the Sunday Times, we now know the answer to this unfathomable question: the whole thing arose from the manipulation of data by corrupt researchers and was arranged in an underhand fashion by a firm of solicitors to lend support to a lucrative class action against the manufacturer of the vaccine.
Several children at the heart of Wakefield’s study were in fact taking part simultaneously and in secret in another study aimed at establishing bases for legal action against the manufacturer. Wakefield received over 79,000 euros for this other research. A trifle maybe, but in total the researcher and his team pocketed no less than 664,660 euros through this sleight of hand, with the total remuneration paid to doctors exceeding 5 million euros.
And this is only the tip of the iceberg because, at the end of the day, this affair has cost … over 24 million euros in research and legal costs. Including 12 million for the firm of solicitor Richard Barr. All of it out of the pocket of the British taxpayer as the class action in question came under the Legal Services Commission.
The good Dr Wakefield has since moved to Austin, the capital of Texas. But the scandal has caught up with him and in July of this year he will be called upon to answer for his actions before the British courts…
Meanwhile, in March 2004, The Lancet publicly dissociated itself from the matter by publishing an editorial retraction … or a partial one at least. A discreet editorial – one that did not attract attention. But the harm had already been done. Between 1998 and 2003, and in spite of formal denials by the British government, the number of children vaccinated in the United Kingdom dropped significantly. Vaccine cover fell from 92% to 78.9% – a figure far below what is needed to prevent the spread of the viruses among the population.
With the result that, in March 2006, for the first time in 14 years, a young child died in Britain from measles … and from the persistent health scare.
Rumours can kill…
This particular scare, which surfaces regularly among Britons, is strangely reminiscent of the essentially French controversy over the hepatitis B vaccine which was accused of causing multiple sclerosis – though only in France. And about which nothing can be done. Even the recent findings of the National Pharmacovigilance Commission have failed to put an end to this rumour.
Yet the findings are clear: “ From December 1994 to September 2005, (…) pharmacovigilance data (…) have not been able to confirm the vaccine’s role (in the increase in multiple sclerosis)”. Eleven epidemiological studies have already been carried out, five of them at the request of the French Health Products Safety Agency (the AFSSaPS). “None of these has been able to establish any significant association between vaccination against hepatitis B and the appearance of demyelating conditions, with the exception of one American case control study”.
Nevertheless, French health minister Bernard Kouchner ended the obligation to have children vaccinated against hepatitis B. This decision was severely criticised by the WHO, which did warn indeed its member states against the danger of following the bad example set by France. According to the WHO, buckling under “the enormous pressure exercised by associations hostile to the vaccination”, France is today the only country in the developed world not to protect its children against a cancer that is avoidable – liver cancer.
The scientific community is unanimous in declaring that France is making a mistake. Detailed reports – from both French authorities and the WHO – also denounce the line taken by this single study which, in the face of and against all others, condemns the vaccine. And what if, as in the case of the MMR vaccine in Britain, it wasn’t a mistake but deliberate…?
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