gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield was beaten almost every round in a legal battle over his claims about autism, but returned for a other. An article published in 1998 Wakefield linking the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism and bowel disease was immediately challenged and discredited. Wakefield, formerly based in a hospital U.K., was sentenced in 2010 by the British General Medical Council of dishonesty four counts and 12 counts of endangering children of accusation; he lost his license to practice medicine, retracted several articles, and lost his job at his company Texas Thoughtful House. But on 3 January, he filed a defamation lawsuit in Austin, Texas, against the authors of a series of articles in the British Medical Journal ( BMJ ) exactly 1 year that accused him of fraud.
The brief names three defendants: investigative journalist Brian Deer, who analyzed the data Wakefield in an article BMJ and accused of fraud, BMJ editor Fiona Godlee, who threw support behind the fraud accusation in an editorial, and review BMJ as a whole. The lawsuit claims that the magazine, supported by a series of subsequent media appearances by Deer, "acted with malice" and damaged the character, Wakefield's reputation and earnings potential by accusing him of "false statements and [data] change "and" deliberate fraud. "He also cited as evidence of a conflict of interest that BMJ receives money from GlaxoSmithKline and Merck vaccine manufacturers. The memory does not specify how much money Wakefield wants to damage. As bloggers have noted, this case will be one of the first tests of a new Texas law to discourage prosecutions capricious defamation by placing the burden on the applicant (Wakefield in this case) to show that the speech of the accused caused damage before the suit can move forward.
This is not the first time Wakefield continued Cerf for defamation. He did it in 05 on a Deer documentary created for the station TV Channel 4 in the UK that the accused Wakefield of fraud. After 2 years, the judge in the case denied a stay requested by Wakefield and wrote a notice Wakefield team, they had to provide more evidence suggesting that Wakefield "wants to use the existence of defamation proceedings for the purpose of public relations." the judge said that because of the imminent GMC investigation, "the trial run on fundamentally serious issues that go heart honesty of the applicant and the professional integrity. "the team of Wakefield soon dropped the suit and paid the legal costs of the defendants.
A joint statement of BMJ and Deer, who has not been formally served with legal papers, says, "unsurprisingly the BMJ and Mr. Deer stand by material published in the BMJ and their other statements and confirm that they have instructed lawyers to defend the claim vigorously. "as to why the proceedings were filed in Texas rather than in the libel suit-friendly UK they said that "any action brought against the BMJ and Mr. Deer in London would be immediately vulnerable to being hit for abuse of process." Science Insider left messages with Wakefield's lawyer, but received no response.
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