High Court judge criticises Andrew Wakefield for trying to silence his critics

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7525.1104-a

BMJ 2005;331:1104 (12 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7525.1104-a

News extra

High Court judge criticises Andrew Wakefield for trying to silence his critics

BMJ, legal correspondent Clare Dyer

Andrew Wakefield, the doctor at the centre of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine controversy, was criticised by a high court judge last week for trying to silence critics by warning them that he was suing for libel while at the same time failing to progress the case.

Mr Justice Eady said that he was quite satisfied that Dr Wakefield, who now works in Austin, Texas, �wished to extract whatever advantage he could from the existence of the proceedings while not wishing to progress them or to give the defendants an opportunity of meeting the claims.�

The judge refused Dr Wakefield�s application to stay—put on hold—the libel claim against Channel 4; 20-20 Productions; and a journalist, Brian Deer, over the November 2004 Dispatches programme �MMR: What They Didn�t Tell You.�

Dr Wakefield�s lawyers had wanted this to be done, pending the final outcome of . . . [Full text of this article]

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?