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Abstract
I also wanted to read his personal view of the MMR vaccine controversy and how it was to be at the centre of a maelstrom of media attention. When his group first published their report on autism, bowel inflammation, and measles in this journal (Lancet 1998; 351: 637-41) they could never have guessed at the onslaught that was to ensue. On one day the headlines would proclaim that MMR was the cause of autism and [Crohn]'s disease. On the next day Walker-Smith and his colleagues were blamed for measles-related deaths from decreasing uptake of MMR vaccine. The hospital administration feared damage to the reputation of the medical school, while angry parents demanded more research. Walker-Smith was the recipient of hate mail and the disapproval of his peers, also published in this journal. The Chief Medical Officer wrote to all UK doctors dismissing the work. It is difficult to understand how Walker-Smith kept going. He says that his "worst fears about the media then came true"-he was "deeply shocked" and felt as if it was a "targeting of me personally". His book provides the vehicle to put the record straight. Walker-Smith clearly states that the paediatric gastroentcrologists in his department have never questioned the value and safety of MMR. They have never suggested that MMR caused autism. It remains to be seen whether measles virus is responsible for the gastrointestinal manifestations of a small select group of children with autism, but some work from independent laboratories has lent support to this possibility. Epidemiological studies, some from the department of paediatrics he was once part of, which were commissioned to discredit his research, are unlikely to provide an answer to this possibility.