London Evening Standard 09/05/2007
MMR judge faces probe over brother's link to vaccine firm
The Londoner's Diary, Evening Standard, May 9 2007.
You might have thought that a judge presented with a case regarding MMR vaccines
and the link to autism would declare that his brother was a director of MMR
vaccine manufacturer Glaxo SmithKline Beecham. But you would be wrong.
Sir Nigel Davis was the judge who, three years ago, rejected an appeal by MMR
vaccine litigants against the decision not to award funding for their legal
campaign. But he failed to mention his interests in the subject.
Now, complaints against him are being filed to the Office for Judicial
Complaints, which investigates allegations of any questionable conduct by
judges, coroners and magistrates.
Davis's brother, Sir Crispin Davis, was appointed a non-executive director of
drugs multinational Glaxo Smith Kline in 2003, a year before the appeal came to
court. Asked why Sir Nigel did not declare this, his spokesman said: "The
possibility of any interest arising from his brother's position did not occur to
him."
But Sir Crispin's potential links with MMR vaccines goes back longer than that,
as since 1999 he had been CEO of Reed Elsevier, the publishing company which
owns The Lancet magazine.
Although The Lancet had originally published research into the links between
autism and MMR by Dr Andrew Wakefield in 1998, by 2004 the magazine regretted
ever having done so. The Lancet had announced its change of heart only the week
before Sir Nigel was due to make his decision on the MMR litigants' appeal,
sparking a sudden backlash against the theory in the media, and prompting the
Prime Minister to say "There is absolutely no evidence to support this link
between MMRand autism".
The quashing of the MMR litigants case would have a huge relief to the
government, who could have faced massive pay outs had they successfully sued the
drugs companies over the effects of MMR.
Sir Crispin Davis was knighted by Blair's government in June 2004, only four
after the Lancet article was published (sic).