Brian Deer’s Conflicts of Interest In the Andrew Wakefield Smear Campaign
We at the Vaccine Xchange have previously touched on Brian Deer’s dubious involvement in discrediting Dr. Andrew Wakefield and the MMR/Autism studies. John Stone at Age of Autism has a great overview of conflicts of interest on the part of both Deer and the British Medical Journal concerning the issue and the reasons why many people distrust his conclusions on the matter.
Some of the major points made in the article:
- Deer did not disclose the support he received from MedicoLegal Investigations, which is closely allied with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry in 2003-4.
- The British Medical Journal, which had previously published material critical of such pharmaceutical patronage, acknowledges no such criticism of Deer’s association with MedicoLegal Investigations.
- The funding Deer received from the British Medical Journal has not been disclosed as a competing interest, and information regarding the BMJ’s partnership with Merck is not mentioned in Deer’s articles online despite its obvious relevance.
Click through for the whole article – it is definitely worth a read.
