Going up against Big Pharma

Darren Smith interviews doctor turned film-maker Andy Wakefield

- DARREN SMITH

For those who may not know you, can you tell us a little about your story and background?

Andy W: My journey started in 1991 when I graduated from St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, one of six generations to graduate from that medical school; medicine ran in our veins.

I was entirely mainstream: I became a physician and became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Pathologists. I ran a research team at the Royal Free Hospital in London - I was a gastroenterologist.

In 1995, I got a call from a mother saying her child was developing fine, and then it all went wrong after the MMR vaccines. Within a few days, they lost eye contact, verbal communication, ability to interact with their siblings, and they were diagnosed with childhood autism. I knew nothing about that - it was very rare when I was at medical school so how could I help?

She told me he had intractable gastrointestinal symptoms - 'I think what's going on in his intestine is related to what's going on in his brain, and vice-versa. Certain foods seem to make it worse.'

I heard this credible story so many times from so many parents who followed up after that lady, and I thought 'we've got to look at this.' The first rule of medicine is to listen to the patient. Other doctors and nurses had told them it's to be expected with autism.

We investigated these children and found the parents were right while the medical profession was 100 per cent wrong. They also said there was no epidemic of autism; they had just become better at diagnosing it!

The numbers in the UK now approach 1 in 20. When I was a junior doctor, it was 1 in 10,000.