Double standards claim over MMR

Health chiefs stand charged with hypocrisy today after accusing a leading MMR scientist of "mixing spin and science".

The Government claims Dr Andrew Wakefield had a conflict of interest when he produced a study suggesting a link between the vaccine and autism, because he was paid £55,000 by lawyers to investigate whether MMR was safe.

Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Liam Donaldson described the work as "poor science" and Prime Minister Tony Blair seized on the revelations to call for an end to the debate over the vaccine's safety.

But autism campaigners today revealed that at least 19 experts on government-appointed committees, which declared the vaccine safe, also had conflicts of interest.

Some of the doctors and scientists have shares in drugs firms that make the jabs, and others received research grants from them.

More than a dozen experts from the Committee on Safety of Medicines and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation - which produced reports stating that the vaccine was safe - are named by the campaigners.

They include:

Bill Welsh, of the anti-MMR group Action Against Autism, said: "If the Government wants to start looking for conflicts of interest, they only have to look at their own house. The number of experts on their so-called independent panels who have stakes in drugs companies is incredible.

"It is rank hypocrisy for them to criticise Dr Wakefield over the funding he received."

The row highlights the links between scientists and doctors and pharmaceutical giants, which fund thousands of research studies each year.

Today politicians described the links as a "major problem" and called for more independence in medical research.

Labour MP David Hinchcliffe, chairman of the Commons health select committee, said: "This whole debate has exposed the way in which research is compromised by the commercial realities of funding. I think this is becoming a great difficulty."