Vaccine autism

the way, the Claimant is Andrew Wakefield):
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2. The background to the litigation is the long standing controversy
surrounding the MMR vaccine. The Claimant is a gastroenterologist. The first
Defendant ('Channel 4') is a broadcasting corporation, which broadcast on 18
November 2004 a programme which forms the subject-matter of these
proceedings, and which was produced by the second Defendant and presented by
the third Defendant ('Mr Deer'). Serious criticisms were made of the
Claimant in the course of the programme and these proceedings were commenced
on 31 March 2005. The Defendants are seeking to justify the allegations in
their defence served on 10 October 2005 and have pleaded the following
Lucas-Box meanings, namely that the Claimant:

i) had dishonestly and irresponsibly spread fear that the MMR vaccine
might cause autism in some children, even though he knew that his own
laboratory's tests dramatically contradicted his claims and he knew or ought
to have known that there was absolutely no scientific basis at all for his
belief that MMR should be broken up into single vaccines;

ii) in spreading such fear, also acted dishonestly and irresponsibly, by
repeatedly failing to disclose conflicts of interest and/or material
information, including his association with contemplated litigation against
the manufacturers of MMR and his application for a patent for a vaccine for
measles which, if effective, and if the MMR vaccine had been undermined
and/or withdrawn on safety grounds, would have been commercially very
valuable;

iii) caused medical colleagues serious unease by carrying out research
tests on vulnerable children outside the terms or in breach of the
permission given by an ethics committee, in particular by subjecting those
children to highly invasive and sometimes distressing clinical procedures
and thereby abusing them;

iv) has been unremittingly evasive and dishonest in an effort to cover up
his wrong-doing;

v) has improperly lent his reputation to the International Child
Development Resource Centre which exploited very vulnerable parents by
promoting to them expensive products the efficacy of which (as he knew or
should have known) had no scientific basis.

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