The MMR Lawsuit

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The MMR Lawsuit

 

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 announced 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 or 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 described 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, 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.

Private Eye magazine

Per JABS, the support group for vaccine damaged children