Autism Rate in the UK is now 1 in 88

... and 1 in 54 boys.

Autism catastrophe
Published Date: 28 November 2008
The Scotsman

...The most recent government study confirmed that the rate of autism in the UK now stands at one child in 88, with the rate for boys, who are most likely to be affected, around one in 58. Make no mistake, this is a public health catastrophe.

As a result of parental demand, Autism Treatment Trust opened a clinic in Edinburgh in 2006 and to date has arranged comprehensive testing and commenced treatments for more than 300 autistic children. The results of the tests have been striking and a remarkable pattern is emerging: gastrointestinal issues are common, particularly inflammation; food intolerances and allergies feature regularly, as do immune abnormalities and heavy metal toxicity. Many of these children are very ill. All are treatable.

The belief that autism is solely genetic in origin is unsustainable; environmental factors must be at play. You do not get genetic epidemics.

BILL WELSH
President, Autism Treatment Trust
Stafford Street
Edinburgh

Round Up: NAA's FOUND, Poling Schools Novella, Too Many Sick Kids, More Outrage at Savage, Kirby on Peet, NZ Angry Over Expensive/Usless Vaccine

• The National Autism Association (NAA) has announced the launch of a new program called Found, aimed at providing families and counties nationwide with safety tools for children with autism which will immediately fund $54,400.00 to provide at least eight counties with Project Lifesaver equipment and tracking watches. The program was made possible by a huge donation from Pixies Train Ride and the half a million visitors to her site.  God Bless you Pixie!
• Dr. Jon Poling reminds Dr. Stephen Novella about the facts in his daughters case and requests that he refrain from attacking autism moms.
• Allison Edwards is outraged over all the sick little boys in the UK.
• Kim Stagliano takes another swing at Michael Savage over at the Huffington Post.
• Also on the Huffington Post, David Kirby with observations and more observations on the Amanda Peet kaffuffle.
• New Zealanders angry that $200 million was spent on a much hyped meningococcal vaccine that only protects 30% of users, for only 7 months, and that they were not given informed consent before taking the shot.
• Mercola on avoiding mercury and other metals.
  

GSK Board Member On UK Education Board as GSK Wins 200 Mil HPV Vaccine Contract

Ugh...


Boss of drug firm behind cervical cancer jabs for schoolgirls is on board of Ofsted


Phamalot: Who’s Minding The Children? In The UK, It’s Glaxo?

A scandal is mushrooming because the Schools Secretary has appointed a Glaxo exec to the board of the government’s official education watchdog agency, known as Ofsted. And the move occurred less than a month before the government awarded a reported $200 million contract to Glaxo for its HPV vaccine for school-age girls 12 years and older, which some parents fear will give a green light to teenage sex, The Daily Mail reports...

HT: Apple Mark

David Kirby to Visit UK

BESTSELLING AMERICAN AUTHOR DAVID KIRBY TO VISIT UK IN JUNE

--Journalist Who Covers the Autism-Vaccine Debate to Speak About Political and Scientific Developments in the US and Updates to His Book “Evidence of Harm”—

David Kirby, the New York based investigative journalist and author of the NY Times Bestseller, “Evidence of Harm, Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic – A Medical Controversy,” will visit the United Kingdom on the 4th - 6th of June to discuss recent developments in the vaccine-autism debate in the United States.

Mr. Kirby, a former contributor to The New York Times and a regular writer for the extremely popular online blog, The Huffington Post, will give a free public lecture on Wednesday 4th June, 6:30-10PM at Regent Hall, 275 Oxford Street, London. He will also attend a book signing and speak with members of the UK media, among other activities, while in the country.

Among the subjects to be addressed by Mr. Kirby are:

1) A recent case in the US Vaccine Court in which the federal government conceded that vaccines induced autism in one little girl – and updates on other cases in the court.

2) Growing evidence of a link between mitochondrial dysfunction and autistic regression, and case studies of several ASD children with mitochondrial issues.

3) State-of-the-art research underway at top universities on the connection between environmental toxins, mitochondrial function, oxidative stress, glutathione depletion, neuro-inflammation and autistic encephalopathy.

4) Declarations by all 3 US Presidential candidates that autism is epidemic and calling for more research into vaccines and mercury as a possible cause.

5) Recent studies linking ASD risk with heavy metals and other contaminants in air pollution.

Mr. Kirby’s visit is being sponsored by Generation Rescue, The Autism Research Institute, National Autism Association, Coalition for SAFE MINDS, and Talk About Curing Autism. All are autism groups formed by US parents of children with neurological disorders. These parents believe that autism and other learning disabilities are environmentally-based illnesses that can be treated through biomedical intervention.

“Evidence of Harm,” debuted on The New York Times bestseller list in 2005, and is still widely read today. It won the 2005 Investigative Reporters and Editors Award in 2005 for Best Book. Kirby has appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press, CNN’s Larry King Live, NBC’s The Today Show, MSNBC’s Imus in the Morning, CNN Headline News, Air America, and hundreds of other radio and television stations around the world. He has been invited to speak at the US Federal Claims Court’s Judicial Conference, this November in Washington, DC.

David Kirby is available for media interviews before and during his visit.

Please contact him directly at dkirby@nyc.rr.com.

A list of other appearances will be issued next week


More information about Evidence of Harm is available at www.evidenceofharm.com

Mr. Kirby’s essays at Huffington Post can be viewed at www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby

Information on Generation Rescue is available at www.generationrescue.com

The British Press Does It's Job

Handley reminds the British Press that they are supposed to cover up vaccine problems, not air them out in the open where any member of the proletariat might see and make a decision for themselves.

A taste...

Doesn't Pharma Advertise in Britain?
Jb By J.B. Handley

Its MMR-Autism mayhem in Britain, while American reporters seem to have misplaced their typewriters.

Don’t British reporters know who pays their bills? It seems if I leave “the Google” for a moment, I return to find another article from a British journalist pouring fuel on the fire of the MMR-Autism controversy.

Don’t you reporters understand American-style journalism, or rather A-Merck-ican journalism, where we take care of those who take care of us? Consider the hatchet job CNN apparently did of Michael Moore’s new film, Sicko, which caused Mr. Moore to post a lengthy rebuttal, including this ditty:

“Clearly, no one is keeping you honest, so I guess I'm going to have to do that job, too. $1.5 billion is spent each year by the drug companies on ads on CNN and the other four networks. I'm sure that has nothing to do with any of this. After all, if someone gave me $1.5 billion, I have to admit, I might say a kind word or two about them. Who wouldn't?”...

Go read the rest.

Wakefield's Hearing Begins

Today began the Wakefield Trial, I don't know if there will be reporting on it, but I will post it if I come across it.

His supporters have two efforts underway:

This Petition

and

CryShame.co.uk

NAA's press release today:

Parents and advocacy groups call inquiry against Dr. Andrew Wakefield a “witch hunt”

National Autism Association Tells England’s GMC to Instead Ask: Why Are So Many Kids Sick?

Washington, DC - Parents and advocacy groups around the globe are asking England’s General Medical Council (GMC) to cancel the “fitness to practice” inquiry that begins today against Dr. Andy Wakefield, and Professors Walker-Smith and Murch. Advocates say the GMC should instead be asking why so many kids are sick, especially in light of an apparently suppressed analysis showing that autism rates in England are as high as 1 in 58. The medical establishment is being criticized for doing little to find the cause, treat the kids, or prevent new cases.

“The list of charges reveal the utter lack of any case against Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues, who are at risk of losing their licenses,” according to National Autism Association (NAA) board member and parent Scott Bono. The charges, only made known last week, relate primarily to a peer-reviewed case report published in 1998 in the “Early Reports” section of The Lancet, one of England’s leading medical journals: Ileal-lymphoid-nodular-hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive disability disorder in children. This first report of a new syndrome, never refuted or retracted, has since been repeatedly reported and studied by other researchers. Vaccine-strain measles virus has been found and sequenced from gut biopsies and cerebral spinal fluid in autistic children.

The charges originated from internet blogger Brian Deer, who many parents have suggested may be linked to the pharmaceutical industry. “This is nothing more than a witch hunt brought against scientists willing to undertake ground-breaking research challenging the assumption that autism is an inherited untreatable psychiatric disorder that cannot be prevented. Implicating the safety of vaccines such as MMR isn’t acceptable to drug companies or government officials who want to protect the vaccine program itself at the cost of the health of children,” said Mr. Bono.

The evidence will demonstrate that questioned diagnostic studies used by Dr. Wakefield, such as colonoscopies and lumbar punctures, were not only approved by ethics review but were clinically indicated. These have now been accepted as the standard of care by a group of leading pediatric gastroenterologists in the United States.

Other charges concern incomplete disclosures of what the advocacy groups consider irrelevant material that could appear to be a conflict of interest only to vaccine makers and government agencies shielding vaccines from legitimate and appropriate criticism. Dr. Wakefield had consulted with lawyers and families receiving government funding from the Legal Aid Board on an entirely separate study to determine whether measles virus could be identified in the diseased gut tissue, providing vital evidence for a possible class action. The legal aid board subsequently determined that this explanation for autism was more probable than not, but under government pressure dropped funding for the suit.

In the first of 5000 cases to be heard in a special vaccine court in the US last month, evidence presented demonstrated that 12-year old Michelle Cedillo began regressing into autism just a week after her MMR vaccination at 15 months. The plausible cause was a persistent measles infection which took hold through an immune system weakened by mercury in vaccines administered prior to the MMR.

Many have cited the major theme of the Government’s defense in vaccine court was that those who have the temerity to question vaccine safety must be censored and their research stopped rather than risk impairing public confidence in vaccines. According to a growing number of parents, the actual threats involved are:

* companies making vaccines without appropriate safety considerations because they no longer need fear accountability through litigation
* government denials of the autism epidemic that allow an avoidance of funding research into cause and treatment
* a sclerotic medical establishment with its head in the sand as a tsunami of sick children rages overhead.

“The search for truth in autism must be guided by sound science and not be led astray by fear, censorship, and the greed of the pharma-government complex,” commented NAA president Wendy Fournier. “Perhaps the greatest damage done by this GMC hearing, other than a complete waste of time and resources, is the chill wind blown over parents and scientists who dare to ask the hard questions against this and any other medical orthodoxy: why are so many of our kids sick and what can, indeed what must, we do to help them?”

No parents will testify against Wakefield and his colleagues at the GMC hearing. Instead, they have organized a protest coinciding with the start of the hearing. “NAA stands shoulder to shoulder with our British friends in their search for truth, justice, and treatments for their kids,” said Ms. Fournier. “We urge the GMC to stop this persecution and take urgent action in view of a true national health emergency to care for the children afflicted with autism.”

For more information on autism, visit www.nationalautism.org.

Bill Welsh of Autism Treatment Trust Shames UK Epedemic Deniers

Give'em Hell, Bill!

Undeniable Fact of Autism
The Scotsman
Wed 11 Jul 2007

It will come as no surprise to parents that one child in 58 in the UK has autism (your report, 9 July). The diagnosis of this devastating childhood condition has increased to such an extent since 1990 that many families are now affected. What is very worrying is that it has taken so many years for the "experts" to even concede that there is an autism epidemic.

Psychiatrists and psychologists and those within the traditional autism support and services organizations must bear the responsibility for this tragic state of affairs, as it is they who have continually denied what we have been witnessing with our own eyes. Foreign epidemiological studies that never survive close scrutiny are paraded as proof that an estimated 100-fold increase in autism is a mirage, or that the controversial MMR vaccine cannot possibly be implicated. The Scotsman article clearly helps illustrate what is a farcical and irrational stance in the face of the latest Cambridge University revelations.

By sustaining their standpoint, these interest groups have hampered clinical examination, and therefore medical treatments.

Autism Treatment Trust opened a consultation and treatment centre in Edinburgh in April 2006 and to date has comprehensively tested almost 200 autistic children. The results are very revealing. For example, heavy-metal toxicity is a common feature, with significantly high levels of lead, aluminium, tin and antimony present.

Inflammation, particularly of the bowel, is often identified. Immune dysfunction is a recurring theme. Food allergies and intolerances regularly emerge.

These abnormalities are all treatable. The simple fact is, autistic children are ill and have been failed at every turn.

This is a shameful episode.

BILL WELSH
President, Autism Treatment Trust
Great King Street
Edinburgh

Telegraph: ASD in the UK now 1 in 58

New fears over MMR link to autism
Telegraph
By Stephen Adams
Last Updated: 3:11pm BST 08/07/2007

Fresh fears over a possible link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism have been raised after a new study found that almost double the number of children could have the condition than previously thought.

Researchers at Cambridge University’s Autism Research Centre (ARC) have estimated that one in 58 children suffer from some form of the disorder, compared to previous estimates of about one in 100.

The figures mean up to 210,000 children under 16 across the UK could have some form of autism, the unpublished research by the ARC found.
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Two of the seven experts who took part in the study have now privately voiced concerns that the controversial MMR vaccine may be a factor in the emergence of autism among some children.

Dr Fiona Scott and Dr Carol Stott have reportedly said they think the jab, given to children between 12 and 15 months, could be responsible for growing numbers of children apparently exhibiting symptoms of the disorder. However, the other five, including team leader Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, rejected their view.

Autism is the term given to a wide range of development disorders that affects an individual’s ability to understand the world and communicate with others. It covers a "spectrum" ranging from severe cases of "classic" autism - which often renders a child unable to speak - to much milder Asperger’s syndrome, which can affect a person’s ability to socialise.

Until the early 1990s experts believed that only four or five people in 10,000 suffered from the condition. Since then studies have shown autism is much more common, with experts generally agreeing on the one in 100 figure.

Academics agree much of the apparent increase can be explained by the fact that more people are now aware of what autism is. But there is still a heated debate about whether or not autism is actually becoming more common in children.

Last year a study reported in the medical journal The Lancet put forward an estimate that one in 86 children suffered from some form of autism. The ARC’s paper, based on a study of 12,000 primary school children in Cambridgeshire between 2001 and 2004, raises the estimate significantly.

The results of the study, which was purely statistical and did not examine the possible medical causes of autism, so worried Professor Baron-Cohen that he contacted health officials in Cambridgeshire.

However, the professor - who is a first cousin of the comedian Sasha Baron-Cohen - stressed he did not believe the MMR vaccine was behind the apparent increase.

Professor Baron-Cohen said: "As for MMR, at this point one can conclude that evidence does not support the idea that the MMR causes autism."

He said he believed a better understanding of autism and environmental factors such as exposure to chemicals and hormones were more likely to be behind the recorded increase. Nonetheless, the research is bound to spark renewed doubts among concerned parents about the safety of the triple vaccine.

The percentage of children being given the jab fell dramatically after doubts were raised over its safety by Dr Andrew Wakefield, a gastroenterologist at the Royal Free Hospital in London. Vaccination rates have only just started to recover.

In 1998 Dr Wakefield co-authored a paper published in The Lancet which looked at bowel disease in 12 children with autism, and suggested a possible link with the MMR vaccine. Later he gave a press conference calling the safety of the vaccine into question and recommending children should be given the three inoculations separately.

Ten of the 13 academics who contributed towards the paper soon retracted its conclusions, but Dr Wakefield and two others have stuck by the 'interpretation’. Dr Wakefield is due before a General Medical Council hearing next week to answer a number of charges in relation to the 1998 study.

The new report has also triggered calls for the Government to do more to further the understanding of autism and help those with it.

Benet Middleton (OK), director of communications at the National Autistic Society, said: "There is an urgent need for a clear Government strategy for responding to autism.

"We need to have an accurate picture of how many people have autism, we need adequate services in place to support people with autism and we need those working with people with autism to have the right training.

"Current provision for those with the disability is deeply inadequate given the scale of the need. Autism is a lifelong disability and when an individual’s needs are not met the long term consequences both financially and for the individual’s well being are profound."

Ivan Corea, head of the Autism Awareness Campaign UK, said many autistic people were at the mercy of a "postcode lottery".

She said: "We are urging Gordon Brown to provide a world class education for all children with autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, to provide new specialist autism schools, even Special Needs Academies and autism units equipped with sensory rooms in mainstream primary and secondary schools."

A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency (HPA) today stressed the MMR vaccine was safe.

She said: "We have not seen this report, which has not been published yet and has not been peer reviewed, so we cannot comment on it. Every test that has tried to find a link between MMR and autism has not found one. MMR is a safe vaccine."

UK Observer: Wakefield Interviewed

I told the truth all along, says doctor at heart of autism row

In his only interview before he appears in front of the General Medical Council to face serious charges of malpractice, the campaigner against the MMR vaccine tells Denis Campbell that he has no regrets

Sunday July 8, 2007

The Observer

Flicking through some paperwork in an Italian restaurant in central London, Andrew Wakefield cuts an anonymous figure. Tall, wearing a deep green polo shirt, chinos and outdoor jacket against the rain, he could be an accountant checking figures. It is unlikely that the other mid-afternoon diners recognize a man who sparked one of the great public health controversies.

Wakefield is a hugely divisive figure. Nine years ago he claimed that the measles mumps rubella vaccine, or MMR, given to every baby in the country at 12-15 months, may cause autism. To many in the medical and political establishment he is a misguided, dangerous propagandist whose claims have caused unnecessary alarm among millions of parents and risked outbreaks of three diseases that remain potential killers. Some critics describe him as a crank, a publicity-lover, a peddler of spin, hype and pseudo-science. He has been attacked by the Chief Medical Officer, the then Health Secretary and Tony Blair.

Forced to leave Britain to practice in America because of the furor, Wakefield is now back. And unrepentant. Time, and the condemnation he faced, have deepened his suspicions about MMR. For the last few weeks he has spent long hours every day with his lawyers finalizing evidence he will give when he appears next week before the General Medical Council, the body which investigates alleged malpractice by doctors. He is facing a long list of serious charges relating to research he co-authored in 1998 that triggered the huge public uncertainty about MMR that endures today.

To supporters, Wakefield is a hero, a lone crusader for truth and a principled, caring doctor challenging a policy that is harming significant numbers of children. Some scientists, a handful of doctors and parents of sons and daughters they claim have been damaged by the triple vaccine see him as the victim of a Department of Health-led plot to discredit him, and the GMC hearing as a show trial designed to suppress an uncomfortable truth. Wakefield, talking to The Observer in his only interview before the hearing, says he plans to defend himself vigorously against allegations he sees as ill-conceived and malicious. 'I've done what I've done because my motivation is the suffering of children I've seen and the determination of devoted, articulate, rational parents to find out why part of them has been destroyed, why their child has been ruined. Why would I go through this process of professional isolation if it was simply to do with egomania? My alleged egomania doesn't explain things very well. There's been no upside for me in having pursued this issue. It's been very difficult.

'As Vaclav Havel once said: "Follow the man who seeks the truth; run from the man who has found it." I can't tell you that we know that the MMR vaccine causes autism. But the Department of Health can tell you with 100 per cent certainty that it doesn't, and they believe that, and that concerns me greatly.'

The MMR controversy began on 26 February, 1998 when a group of doctors at the Royal Free Hospital in north London, including Wakefield, held a press conference to publicise a research paper they had just published in the medical journal The Lancet.

Journalists asked about the authors' main claim to have discovered, in a study of 12 children, a new form of inflammatory bowel disease, which they linked to the MMR vaccine. The doctors outlined their theory that in some children the combination vaccine damaged the immune system because they could not cope with simultaneously receiving a tiny dose of three separate diseases, leaving them susceptible to illness.

The five doctors were asked if, given the findings, parents should continue having their children vaccinated with the three-in-one jab. Roy Pounder, professor of medicine at the Royal Free, passed the question to Wakefield. The gastro-enterologist replied that the potential link between gut disorders, autism and MMR vaccination could no longer be ignored. 'It's a moral issue, and I can't support the continued use of these three vaccines given in combination until this issue has been resolved,' he said.

Several co-authors disagreed, as did the Department of Health, which was furious. But, fuelled by huge publicity, Wakefield's remarks led to large numbers of parents then, since and today enduring anxious hours wondering what to do: follow the NHS advice and get their babies the MMR jab or opt for single vaccines - argued by some to be safer - privately instead.

MMR safety will be back in the news on 16 July when the GMC Fitness to Practice Panel begins disciplinary proceedings against Wakefield and two of his Lancet co-authors, Professor John Walker-Smith and Professor Simon Murch. The charges of serious professional misconduct in the way they conducted the disputed study are very grave. If upheld, all face being struck off.

They include allegations that the three undertook research with the 12 children without proper approval from the Royal Free's ethics committee, failed to conduct their study along the lines they had sought ethical approval for, and did not treat their young patients in accordance with the ethical approval given. The trio are accused of carrying out procedures on children in the study, such as lumbar punctures and colonoscopies, that were not in the best interests of the health of some seriously ill young people.

According to the charge papers, the GMC will also hear claims that Wakefield and Walker-Smith 'acted dishonestly and irresponsibly' in failing to tell The Lancet how they had recruited the patients, and that the pair also acted irresponsibly when they gave one child 'a purportedly therapeutic substance for experimental reasons prior to obtaining information about the safety of the substance'.

Wakefield himself is further accused of being 'dishonest and misleading' when he obtained research funds from the Legal Aid Board, of ordering investigations to be carried out on some children even though he did not have the pediatric qualifications to do so, and that he took blood from children at a birthday party to use for research purposes after offering them money.

Wakefield explains that legal advice and his desire not to turn the GMC panel against him, mean he is unable to respond directly to the allegations. But friends say that he views the GMC hearing as part of a long-running 'Stalinist' campaign to ruin his reputation. He and his co-accused deny all the claims.

Wakefield told The Observer that he has no regrets for saying what he did in 1998 nor for continuing to seek to prove his view of MMR as the likeliest explanation for the rise in cases of autism in Britain. Almost every child health expert, though, regards the jab as hugely beneficial to public health and rules out any connection between it and autism.

'My concern is that it's biologically plausible that the MMR vaccine causes or contributes to the disease in many children, and that nothing in the science so far dissuades me from the continued need to pursue that question', Wakefield said. 'The trend in autism has gone up sharply in many countries. It's interesting that that increase coincides in many places with the introduction of the MMR vaccine. That doesn't make it the cause. But it's an observation that needs to be explained, because there was clearly some environmental change at that time that led to growing numbers of children becoming autistic. It's a legitimate question if MMR is one of those factors. I fear that it may be.'

His notoriety means he is effectively an exile in America, where he is now the executive director of research at Thoughtful House, a non-profit-making school and clinic in Austin, Texas, which treats children with autism from all over the world.

'The hypothesis that we have been pursuing for some years is that the vaccines in some way may interact to increase the risk of the measles element in the MMR jab damaging the intestine, and possibly the brain directly, or alternatively that the intestinal disease leads to secondary immune injury to the developing brain.'

As the Havel quote suggests, Wakefield sees himself as a dogged seeker after a disturbing truth. He compares himself to the small band of doctors who, soon after Aids emerged in the Eighties, pinpointed a previously unknown virus (HIV) as the cause, only for their theory to take years to become established.

'In the Thatcher-Reagan era, Aids was originally seen as something politically unacceptable, as an act of God or a gay plague - as anything but our problem. People were stigmatized,' he said. 'We are looking at something with autism which is similarly politically unacceptable. That is, how could one of medicine's modern miracles possibly be associated with damage to children? Because if it's shown to be linked, then it becomes less of a miracle and more of a potential scandal.' He believes that the Department of Health introduced MMR into the UK in 1988 to save money and that he has been persecuted for daring to take on powerful political and drug industry interests.

Professor David Elliman, of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London, is one of Wakefield's chief critics. In his view a growing public distrust of health professionals, caused by a series of medical scandals, has helped create a climate in which Wakefield is seen by some as a David taking on the Goliath of a medical establishment.

'Some people are susceptible to conspiracy theories,' he said. 'Media coverage of the MMR row, which gave both sides equal say, gave the public the misleading impression that Wakefield represented a significant body of opinion. Yet there isn't a 50-50 split on this. It's 99.9 per cent to point one [of a per cent].'

The science author and broadcaster Vivienne Parry, a member of the government's independent advisory panel, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, speaks for the large majority of scientific and medical opinion when she says: 'I think Wakefield is wrong about MMR. He has caused great alarm and distress. But the demonization of him has made some people think he's being hounded by a vengeful establishment, which has given him a certain amount of credibility with those who believe that all mavericks are right.'

Autism baffles science. Unlike diseases - and autism is a neurological condition, not a disease - few experts would claim to know exactly what causes it, much less treat it. Some blame genetic factors, others put the increase in those classed as being autistic down to better diagnosis, and others believe MMR is responsible.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, co-director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, is the UK's leading expert on the lifelong, so far incurable, condition, which is estimated to affect 588,000 people, about one in 100 Britons. But even he is not precise: 'The main causes of autism are likely to be genetic, though interacting with some as yet unknown environmental factors.'

The National Autistic Society is similarly vague. 'The causes of autism are still being investigated. Many experts believe that the pattern of behavior from which autism is diagnosed may not result from a single cause,' it has said in a statement. Sufferers have trouble forming relationships, encounter difficulties in communicating in verbal or written form, and often develop obsessional interests.

Interestingly, the charity does not adhere to the medical consensus which categorically rejects any link between MMR and autism. 'The NAS is keenly aware of the understandable concerns of parents surrounding suggested links between autism and the MMR vaccine,' says a spokeswoman.

Experts disagree on whether reported increases in the number of children with autism in the UK and elsewhere represent 'real' rises or better diagnosis. Wakefield is now a key figure in a growing world network of organizations, medical professionals, treatment centers, activist groups and campaigning parents which insists the rise is real and that the triple jab is the reason.

Pressure is building for fresh studies of possible links and in-depth examination of children apparently adversely affected by vaccines. The US Court of Federal Claims recently began hearing a case which could lead to compensation being paid to 4,800 families who have filed lawsuits claiming that their children ended up suffering from autism, inflammatory bowel disease, glaucoma and epilepsy after receiving the MMR jab and other childhood vaccinations.

Critics point out that the US court case is not about the MMR vaccine itself but centers on the use of a preservative called thimerosal, which contains 50 per cent mercury and until a few years ago was added to routine vaccinations given to children in the US under one. Crucially, it has never been an element of the MMR vaccine here.

In Japan the MMR jab became mandatory in 1989, but was withdrawn in 1993 after doctors warned of side-effects. There were more than 2,000 claims that it triggered reactions such as meningitis and encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, and even caused deaths. Families of children who had died received £80,000 each in damages.

'America is like the UK in that many children are affected by autism, but over there there's a powerful drive to get to the truth, an inherent mistrust of the healthcare bureaucracy, and a can-do attitude among intelligent and articulate parents,' says Wakefield. He predicts that 'the truth' about MMR will eventually come from America, not the UK.

Before Wakefield's warning, 91.5 per cent of children in England had the MMR jab by the time they turned two. After he hit the headlines immunization rates fell to 87.4 per cent. Public distrust in the vaccine was enhanced when Tony Blair refused to say whether his son Leo had had the jab and rumors swirled that the Blairs had traveled to France to have the single jabs privately. The vaccination rate subsequently fell to 79.9 per cent. The World Health Organization says 95 per cent is necessary to ensure what medical experts call 'herd immunity' - that enough children have had MMR to ensure that they neither get the three illnesses nor pass them on to others.

Dr Natasha Crowcroft, a childhood immunization expert at the Health Protection Agency, said: 'There have been outbreaks of measles in places like nurseries. The fear is that children who weren't vaccinated following Wakefield's comments are now approaching secondary school age and may well get measles, for example on holiday in Thailand or even in Italy, where it's common.'

MMR's defenders admit that significant numbers of parents are still apprehensive. 'Confidence was shaken,' concedes Crowcroft. But parental fear seems to be gradually subsiding. MMR uptake has been increasing since 2003; by last year 84.1 per cent of two year olds in England had had it. Gordon Brown last year said that his son, John, two had the triple jab and made clear he saw it as a matter of parents' responsibility to ensure their child was covered.

Although Wakefield will be on trial at the GMC, the hearing could prove uncomfortable for those that make decisions about health. An editorial in the New Scientist magazine has expressed alarm over the implications of the GMC's action for health professionals' freedom to raise questions about possible safety flaws. 'The notion that he should have kept quiet is ludicrous: there are too many cases where doctors' concerns have proved correct, such as their fears over the impact of antidepressant drugs on children.'

MMR's defenders do not pretend it is always 100 per cent safe. JCVI member Vivienne Parry admits: 'There's a risk with all vaccines. It's a very small risk. No one has ever said that the MMR vaccine, or any vaccine, is completely without side-effects. But as a society we have to decide whether the benefits outweigh the risks. If we had measles, it would kill lots of children. If you have a vaccine, it will damage some children, but a very small number.' Parry believes the near-disappearance of measles, mumps and rubella in recent times means they no longer hold any horror for most people, and that helps explain the questioning attitude to MMR.

In the Italian restaurant, Wakefield fires a parting shot before another meeting with his lawyers. 'I'm determined to continue to do this work, regardless of the personal cost. It has to be done. Because the parents of these children deserve an answer, and their children deserve help and they can be helped', he says. 'My colleagues and I won't be deflected by the interests of public health policymakers and pharmaceuticals. I want to help children with autism; they are my motivation. If the work ultimately exonerates the vaccines, that's fine. If not, we need to think again.'