Andrew Wakefield - General Medical Council Hearings

General Medical Council Hearings

Between July 2007 and May 2010, a 217-day "fitness to practise" hearing of the UK General Medical Council examined charges of professional misconduct against Wakefield and two colleagues involved in the Lancet paper. The charges included that he:

• "Was being paid to conduct the study by solicitors representing parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR".
• Ordered investigations "without the requisite paediatric qualifications" including colonoscopies, colon biopsies and lumbar punctures ("spinal taps") on his research subjects without the approval of his department's ethics board and contrary to the children's clinical interests, when these diagnostic tests were not indicated by the children's symptoms or medical history.
• "Act 'dishonestly and irresponsibly' in failing to disclose ... how patients were recruited for the study".
• "Conduct the study on a basis which was not approved by the hospital's ethics committee."
• Purchased blood samples – for £5 each – from children present at his son's birthday party, which Wakefield joked about in a later presentation.

Wakefield denied the charges; on 28 January 2010, the GMC ruled against Wakefield on all issues, stating that he had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant", acted against the interests of his patients, and "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in his controversial research. On 24 May 2010 he was struck off the United Kingdom medical register. It was the harshest sanction that the GMC could impose, and effectively ended his career as a doctor. In announcing the ruling, the GMC said that Wakefield had "brought the medical profession into disrepute," and no sanction short of erasing his name from the register was appropriate for the "serious and wide-ranging findings" of misconduct. On the same day, Wakefield's autobiography, Callous Disregard was published. It argued that he had been unfairly treated by the medical and scientific establishment.