PRIVATE EYE - MMR MEAN TESTING
MMR Number crunching
£10m Extra needed to see the parents' legal case through to conclusion
£10m Cost of lifetime care for three or four severely autistic or brain-damaged children
£20m Public cost of maintaining the empty Greenwich dome
£137m Cost so far of the Bloody Sunday inquiry
PRIVATE EYE 17 October - 30 October 2003 MMR MEAN TESTING
The decision to withdraw legal aid for the 1,000-plus families who believe their children were
damaged by MMR came just as the lawyers for the families obtained what they believe is their most
striking evidence of a link between the triple jab and the autism and brain damage suffered by
the children.
Measles virus has been found in the spinal fluid - and therefore the brain
- in three of the six children at the centre of the huge high court battle over the safety of the
vaccine. It has also been found in 18 children in the United States who developed autism after
receiving MMR.
By contrast the virus was found in only one of more than 20 control samples
- taken mainly from spinal taps on children with leukaemia.
Just as the results came in, however, the legal services commission announed its decision - after
four and a half years and only six months before trial - to withdraw funding ''because medical
research has yet to prove a conclusive link''.
Jeremy Stuart-Smith, QC for the families, told the high court last week that the legal aid decision
was ''flawed'' and likely to be judicially reviewed. Clearly frustrated by this setback, he
described to Mr Justice Keith, who was due to hear the case next April, how the families had got
this far ''against all odds''. He accused the defendant drug companies, with their ''huge''
resources, of laying down obstacles and ''a trail of litigation treacle'' through which families
were forced to wade.
Not least, the drug companies' lawyers had even tried to stop the spinal tests by seeking an
injunction banning them as ''invasive and unethical''. As it was, the families were forced to go to
the US for the spinal taps because every hospital they approached in Britain, whether private of
NHS, refused. The reasons for rejection were, said Mr Stuart-Smith, ''from the perfectly reasonable
to the near incredible''. One hospital which had provisionally agreed to do the work suddenly
withdrew at the 11th hour.
The QC descibed how ''with a determination that could only be admired'' Alexander Harris, the firm
of solicitors acting for the families, had found a hospital in the US that was prepared to help. At
very short notice - and with extreme difficulty - the severely disabled children and their parents
and carers flew to the US where ''every conceivable obstacle'' was put in their way.
As the parents have since revealed, within hours of landing in Michigan the hospital which had
agreed to test the children suddenly announced it was no longer prepared to. Using contacts involved
in US drug litigation, the families found a private clinic and sympathetic anaesthetist willing to
carry out the tests , just two hours away. But they were nearly thwarted again when the defendant
drug companies made an emergency application to the high court in London for an injunction.
The high court judge declined to grant an injunction; but the tests were delayed a couple of hours
so the pharmaceutical companies could send a doctor. In the event they sent a lawyer instead.
Relieved but exhausted, the parents and children then went to the airport to catch their flight back
to the UK armed with their precious samples, carefully stored in a special container. It was then
that US customs stepped in and quizzed the party about their cargo. One parent told the Eye they
were even asked about the ethics of invasive tests on their children, suggesting the officials were
well briefed. On their stopover in Amsterdam they were questioned again by Dutch officials.
Coincidence? The parents don't think so.
The families believe their efforts have been vital. As Mr Stuart-Smith said last week: ''The
contrast between three positive results for measles from the six lead cases, the real candidates for
proving that MMR causation exists, and one positive of the leukemic patients, is striking.''
The results of course need more investigation. For a start, the drug companies contest the
''positive'' findings (although they are using different testing techniques, and sensitivity to
measles virus is very variable). But neither that crucial investigation - nor any other work to
settle the case one way or another - is going to go ahead without legal aid. The drug companies and
government are clearly not going to do it. The case has cost £15m so far and could be concluded for
another £10m (see panel).
Mr Justice Keith, who was due to hear the case in April, has said on several occasions that the case
is important not only for the children involved but the wider public. For it to continue, the
families are now in the ludicrous position of having to go cap in hand to the legal services
commission to get funding for more lawyers to fight a costly judicial review of the commission's
decision to withdraw legal aid in the first place.