A DOCTOR accused of carrying out unnecessarily painful tests on children during research into the MMR jab has admitted he had little knowledge of the ethical guidelines surrounding their treatment.
Dr Andrew Wakefield, 51, who now lives in Texas, America, made the admission at a medical hearing at the General Medical Council last week.
Dr Wakefield, alongside Prof John Walker-Smith, of Monkhams Drive, Woodford Green, and Prof Murch, of Tooting, all deny serious professional misconduct.
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The doctors' research, based on just 12 child subjects, sparked a worldwide health scare back in 1998 after it linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine with autism.
Their influential claims 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, coinciding with a steep rise in cases of measles and mumps.
The men's findings have since been emphatically rejected by bodies such as the British Medical Journal, the Medical Research Council and the Department for Health.
At the hearing, Dr Wakefield admitted he was unfamiliar with ethical guidelines on children's treatment, and had little experience of conducting research on them.
Despite this, he claimed he did receive permission to go ahead with his research from the Royal Free Hospital's ethics committee through a letter in 1996.
However the men are accused of conducting their "invasive" investigations, which included procedures such as spinal taps on autistic children, without any ethical permission at all.
Earlier in the hearing, Woodford doctor Prof Walker-Smith had defended their research, saying: "none of the tests would have been conducted if they were not considered necessary."
The doctors face being struck off the medical register in the UK if found guilty.
The hearing continues, but is likely to be adjourned in May.
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