Dr. Andrew Wakefield isn't taking the allegations against him lightly.
The ‘gloves’ are on with Dr. Andrew Wakefield in one corner, and Brian Deer, the British Medical Journal (BMJ), and Dr. Fiona Godley in the other corner!
Andrew Wakefield, as plaintiff is not about to take the destruction of his reputation lying down.
Quoting from petition to the court in Travis County, Texas we find “charges made by the defendants that Dr. Wakefield fraudulently and intentionally manipulated or falsified data or diagnoses in the Lancet paper are false.” “…Defendants [Deer, BMJ et al] knowingly and with actual malice, misrepresented information, data and diagnoses, for the purpose of creating the false impression that it was Dr. Wakefield who had manipulated or altered data and diagnoses.”
Further, the Petition states, “On a January 5, 2011 the Defendants published their article entitled Secrets of the MMR Scare: How the Case Against the MMR Vaccine was Fixed, authored by Brian Deer (Exhibit A). This article contains numerous false and misleading statements concerning Plaintiff, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, which constitute libel per se and per quod. Examples of the defamatory statements in this article include the following: “ The petition to the court goes on enumerating details of the case.
I have followed this situation from inception and personally am convinced that Dr. Wakefield is a hero embroiled in a current–life David and Goliath story. Dr. Wakefield is up against the most powerful (and I believe, evil) forces of our time in the form of the pharmaceutical/medical industry. I pray for him to prevail. But win or lose, I personally wish to thank him for the gift of light and truth he is bringing forward in service of us all, and especially for the many damaged children of our time that I personally know to be wrought by vaccines.
You can read in the PDF petition in its entirety as follows:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/01/04/BritMedJ.pdf
Photo Credit: Generation Bass