MMR vaccines

For more than 10 years I worked harder, worried more and suffered more stress over one case than I have in a whole lifetime in the law. I was part of the team trying to help the families of hundreds of children to bring a lawsuit in the UK. The cases represented a huge challenge to all of us who worked on them (we had 27 experts who prepared supportive reports and many more who worked behind the scenes. 8 barristers - including 3 QCs worked almost full time on the cases), but despite all our efforts, funding from the Legal Services Commission was withdrawn in 2003. The knock on effect was that the office we worked from was closed and most of the MMR team (myself included) lost our jobs. Despite what has been said in some quarters this was not an "anti MMR" or an "anti vaccine" effort. We were lawyers working on a case, trying to help children who became severely damaged (many - but not all - with symptoms akin to autism) after receiving the vaccine. It was our job to find out if there was a provable link between the vaccine and the injury, using a team of independent experts and a programme of tests and investigations devised by them.

There were problems with this vaccine. In 1992 two of the three brands of MMR were withdrawn on safety grounds. Many of our cases involved the two withdrawn brands. As with most vaccines there are side effects, some of which are serious. In both the UK and the USA awards of compensation have been made for injury caused by the MMR vaccine - including to clients we represented.

Over the years I have never ceased to be amazed by the strength and determination the parents have shown in both coping with their children's disabilities and tirelessly trying to find out what was the cause. They get little support from the authorities and are vilified by the blogging community. I think there is little doubt that there has been a real increase in the number of children who have autism-like symptoms, yet virtually no active research is being carried out to find the cause. If it was not the vaccine, then what was it, and why has no one carried out an honest comparative investigation into the incidence of the condition among those who have, and those who have not, received the vaccine? I think (in the words of Private Eye) we should be told.

Now, with the legal cases effectively at an end, the parents are still pressing on with their enquiries because, as many have said to me, it is important to get to the truth. Despite the withdrawal of funding, some experts continue to work on the cases, and I have continued to help for many years, pro bono.

Despite the huge demand on our time, the MMR cases have so far only spawned one article while I was working on the cases, one letter in the Lancet and an editorial when they were over. Click the buttons to read them.