A DOCTOR who took part in a widely discredited study linking the MMR vaccine with autism acted "irresponsibly" while carrying out his research, the GMC has ruled.

Professor John Walker-Smith, 73, of Monkhams Drive in Woodford Green, conducted a number of painful procedures on children with his colleagues as they worked on their theory that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) was connected with the rising numbers being diagnosed with the behavioural disorder, a tribunal heard.

During the course of their investigations, which were based on just 12 subjects, they carried several invasive 'spinal taps' and colonoscopy procedures on youngsters, but throughout the hearing the men maintained that the children's welfare was their primary concern.

The trio's study, published in medical journal The Lancet in 1998, led to a drop in the number of parents putting their children forward for the vaccine nationwide.

In Redbridge the numbers receiving the MMR jab dropped from 90 per cent in 1998 to a low of 72 per cent in 2005.

However multiple subsequent studies found no evidence of any link.

After nearly two-and-a-half years of hearings at the General Medical Council (GMC), Prof Walker-Smith, along with Prof Simon Murch of Tooting and Dr Andrew Wakefield, who now lives in the USA, were told by the watchdog yesterday that they had broken medical guidelines in the way they conducted their study.

In its ruling, the GMC said that Prof Walker-Smith had carried out unnecessary procedures on a child purely on the basis that it would help the study.

It said he was guilty of “irresponsible conduct” and had not acted in the “best clinical interests” of the child in several instances.

However he must wait until a new session of the GMC, due to start on Wednesday April 7, for a hearing to decide if his behaviour amounts to “serious professional misconduct” and, if so, what punishment he will receive.