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comment feed for this post.A question for the electors of Oxford West and Abingdon – are your patient
records safe with Evan Harris MP?
By John Stone
April 14, 2010
As the British government motors ahead to put all NHS patient records on-line
the issue of patient confidentiality has become highly sensitive. Indeed, the
question is only made more sensitive by the possibility that patient
confidentiality could be broken for political ends.
These issues are now coming to a head in what has become known as the Wakefield
affair, although they reach back more than six years to the original allegations
against the three Royal Free doctors - who not only include Andrew Wakefield,
but his colleagues Profs John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch – made by
Liberal-Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris and Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer.
Even now Deer states on his website:
"For reference, with regard to Brian Deer's MMR investigation, almost all of the
key facts and documents are not public domain, and, such is the culture of
plagiarism, he will act against authors who represent his writing, interviews,
documents, or other research, as the fruit of their own inquiries, whether
referenced or not." (HERE)
But the problem should have been all too apparent from the beginning when Deer
and Harris made allegations about patients in Wakefield’s Lancet ‘early report’
also being enrolled in the group litigation against the MMR manufacturers.
While it is not possible for many of us to agree with the construction placed on
events by Deer and Harris it remains a question how the claims about the overlap
could have been made without reference to confidential patient records. Indeed,
disturbingly Deer stated in a recent letter to on-line British Medical Journal:
“I know the names and family backgrounds of all 12 of the children enrolled in
the study, including the child enrolled from the United States.”
(HERE)
In his original Sunday Times report Deer wrote:
“Of the eight children whose parents were eventually reported in The Lancet as
having associated the jab with the onset of their child’s autism, “four, perhaps
five” were covered by the legal aid contract.”
(HERE)
Harris had accompanied Deer to the Lancet offices four days earlier to ambush
Wakefield and the other doctors with the allegations. Lancet editor, Richard
Horton, later recalled in his book about the MMR affair:
“The tension had been heightened ...by the shadowy presence of Evan Harris, a
Liberal-Democrat MP.”
And goes on a little further down:
"A whirlwind of innuendo ensued which caught us all in its wake. Evan Harris,
the MP who had mysteriously joined Brian Deer at the Lancet's offices, called
for an independent inquiry into Wakefield's research. Put on the backfoot by the
sudden escalation in media interest and by Harris's calls for a public inquiry,
Britain's Health Secretary, John Reid, urged the General Medical Council...to
investigate Wakefield as "a matter of urgency".
(HERE)
Whether or not Reid was really “on the back foot” (a cricketing expression)
Deer and Harris’s allegation were rapidly supported by the then Prime Minister,
Tony Blair, and the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson (HERE)
while the National Health Service website ‘MMR the Facts’ had a page linking to
Deer’s personal site (HERE).
Within three days Deer had lodged the first of at least three complaints to the
UK’s General Medical Council against the doctors, although the GMC’s lawyers
chose not to publicly acknowledge his role (HERE).
The relationship between Deer and the GMC hearing remains troubling as the
prosecution has been constructed on documents described by the journalist as
“not public domain”, and without any public explanation of how they were
originally obtained. Harris accompanied Deer to the first day of the proceedings
in July 2007 and was also present at “the findings on fact” in January (HERE).
These “facts” closely resemble the early allegations of Deer and Harris (HERE
and
HERE).
There are many questions here. When last year a radio journalist, Jeni Barnett,
dared to criticise the defensive culture surrounding MMR vaccine she was
censured by a large group of MP’s of which Harris was inevitably one of the
leaders (HERE).
This was an offensive episode in which a journalist who dared to open her mouth
about the authoritarian nature of public health policy was bullied into silence,
and it could not really have proved her point better. It really is time that
Harris explained his role in the MMR business altogether. But it is also
absolutely essential that all politicians understand that leaking our private
documents for politically expedient ends is simply disgusting and unacceptable.
John Stone is UK Contributing Editor for Age of Autism.
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I doubt whether Harris was responsible for leaking the documents to Deer - he wasn't a practicing doctor, or connected with the case. However, he was happy to exploit the leaking of the documents. There is quite a lot about his role in the affair we do not fully understand, but however he came to be part of it, it looks like he was there to add authority to Deer's investigation as a Member of Parliament, member of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, medical doctor and member of the British Medical Association Ethical Committee. Presumably, without Harris hovering Horton would have dismissed Deer out of hand - told him to put the documents back.
It is interesting to look at another feature of Harris's reporting of the matter in February 2004 (an article I couldn't find for many years on the web) he states:
"Its (The Lancet's) statement also fails to mention a letter from Wakefield published on May 2, 1998, in response to criticism in its letters page alleging conflict of interest. “There was no conflict of interest,” it said."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1027825.ece
This would have been completely misleading to Sunday Times readers. What Andy was denying was that there was any "litigation bias" in the paper, but he did acknowledge in the letter that he had been engaged by the Legal Aid Board - but this wasn't ever mentioned at the time by Deer, Harris or Richard Horton. For people acting in this way to claim that Andy was being deliberately misleading is surely a sick joke.
John
Posted by: John Stone | April 14, 2010 at 04:20 PM
So it was Evan Harris who leaked the personal medical documents to Brian Deer? If this is so, how did Harris get his hands on them? And can either or both of them be sued for it?
I keep thinking of Evan Harris's psychotic sneering and gabbling behavior during Jim Moody's press statement outside the GMC after the verdicts.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/01/attorney-jim-moody-describes-false-testimony-at-gmc-hearing-video-here.html
You'd think he'd be more confident that the industry machinery behind the censure was stronger, so that he wouldn't feel compelled to show up on his own to try to bully down Moody's disclosures. But it was as if Harris was the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, personally trying to stop the truth from coming out.
Very strange. What else did he feel compelled to do personally, with his own hands?
Posted by: Gatogorra | April 14, 2010 at 01:45 PM
To do him justice Clegg was one of the Lib-Dems not to sign the Jeni Barnett EDM - nor did our own local Lib-Dem MP, Lynne Featherstone (whom I hold in high regard) or that great fighter against corruption, Norman Baker. Politics is a messy business and you have in my opinion to vote on the basis of individuals.
John
Posted by: John Stone | April 14, 2010 at 11:40 AM
Posted by: dave roberts | April 14, 2010 at 05:11 AM
Posted by: Jake Crosby | April 14, 2010 at 02:04 AM