A subjective motive does not invalidate an objective study. There is nothing wrong in following hunches. But even on his own terms Dr Wakefield’s findings did not match up to the hype. The Lancet article does not, as is commonly thought, show that measles in the gut leads to autism. All it shows is that the parents of eight of the 12 children cited in the study associate the MMR vaccine with the onset of brain damage, without any supporting scientific evidence to back up that claim, and that some children with brain damage also had an inflammation of the gut.

The latter finding is almost entirely useless in the MMR debate. Scientists have known about such a link for years. Nobody, least of all Dr Wakefield, has been able to demonstrate that one causes the other. Just as such children have a gut inflammation, so too they have toenails, hair and eyelashes; there is, however, no causal link.

But it is the first supposed finding which has caused most consternation to parents. Our revelation — that of the eight sets of parents who associated the onset of brain damage to their children with the MMR jab, as many as four or five were engaged in legal action against the drug companies and that Dr Wakefield himself had been hired as an expert witness in that lawsuit — renders it void as a foundation for worthwhile discussion. Basing the claims that Dr Wakefield makes on such a distorted sample would be laughable were it not potentially so tragic. As a result of the attention paid to the Lancet article, and to Dr Wakefield’s campaign, there has been a decline in the take-up of the vaccine. In 1995, 92.5% of all children under two had the MMR jab. Today it is less than 79%. We fear that it is almost certainly only a matter of time before a child is blinded, brain-damaged or even killed as a result of infection — all because of a report whose basis, as we show, is fatally flawed.

Dr Wakefield is a brilliant campaigner but his efforts need to be balanced by the weight of informed medical opinion which believes MMR protects our children. An inquiry backed by the authority of the General Medical Council and the government into safeguards for scientific publishing is now needed. Dr Richard Horton, The Lancet’s editor, should look to his journal’s disclosure requirements. What is best for our children should be settled by facts and transparency not by modern-day superstition.

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