Wakefield Anti-Vaxxer Accomplice appeals ruling
One of the doctors struck off over the MMR jab controversy has asked the high court to rule that his treatment was “unfair and unjust”.
Prof John Walker-Smith is appealing against the General Medical Council’s (GMC) determination that he was guilty of serious professional misconduct.
He is being supported by the parents of many children with autism and bowel disease seen by him at the Royal Free hospital, north London, up to his retirement in 2001.
In a hearing expected to take 10 days, his lawyers are asking Mr Justice Mitting, sitting at London’s high court, to rule that he was denied a fair trial.
In May 2010, Walker-Smith lost his licence to practise along with Dr Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who triggered a global scare about the MMR vaccine.
A GMC fitness-to-practise panel found both guilty of misconduct over the way the research was conducted.
The panel’s verdict followed 217 days of deliberation, making it the longest disciplinary case in the GMC’s 152-year history.
It came 12 years after a 1998 paper in the Lancet suggested a link between the vaccine, bowel disease and autism - resulting in a plunge in the number of children having the vaccination.
In 2004, the Lancet announced a partial retraction, and 10 of the 13 authors disowned it.
Wakefield was the paper’s chief author and Walker-Smith the then head of the department of paediatric gastroenterology at the Royal Free hospital in north London, where the research was carried out.
Walker-Smith’s clinical role focused on treatment related to sick children, while his academic work included collaborating in research with Wakefield.
Aged 73 when struck off, Walker-Smith had by then been retired for a decade.