MMR row doctor 'paid £5 for blood'

Dr Andrew Wakefield showed "callous disregard for the distress and pain" he knew or ought to have known the children might suffer as a result of his actions, it was alleged.

The Legal Aid Board provided him with £50,000 for research to support legal action by parents who believed their children were harmed by MMR, it was claimed.

The 50-year-old appeared before the General Medical Council (GMC) Fitness to Practise Panel in central London to hear the catalogue of damning disciplinary charges against him.

His wife Carmel accompanied him on the first day of the hearing, which is expected to last several months, while a core of supporters spent the day protesting outside. Dr Wakefield, who now lives and works in Texas in the US, is charged alongside professors John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch.

The trio, who deny serious professional misconduct, published a paper in The Lancet medical journal in February 1998 suggesting there could be a link between the triple jab, bowel disease and autism. It led to falling numbers of parents immunising their children and a row over whether the then prime minister Tony Blair had vaccinated his son Leo.

The central allegations against the doctors relate to investigations for their study on 12 youngsters with bowel disorders carried out between 1996 and 1998. At the time, all three were employed at the Royal Free Hospital's medical school in London, with honorary clinical contracts at the Royal Free Hospital.

Dr Wakefield's behaviour at his son's birthday party allegedly took place at some point before March 20 1999. It was claimed he took the blood and then joked about it while giving a presentation at the Mind Institute in California, adding that he intended to do it again. Among the 46 allegations, Dr Wakefield was accused of allowing one patient - known as Child 10 - to be given an experimental drug, known as "Transfer Factor", with the view to it becoming a measles vaccine.

He admitted being involved in proposals in 1998 to set up a company - Immunospecifics Biotechnologies Ltd - to manufacture the drug, with the intention that the father of Child 10 become its managing director. He also admitted proposing that the equity in the company would be split between himself, as its research director, the father and other parties. But he denied administering the drug for experimental reasons, failing to get ethics committee approval from the Royal Free, not having the right qualifications, and failing to record the dose or inform Child 10's GP.

One of the key claims is that Dr Wakefield accepted £50,000 for research to support parents' attempts to fight for compensation. The Legal Aid Board paid the cash into an account held by trustees at the Royal Free for the purposes of Dr Wakefield's research, the charge sheet said. It was alleged Dr Wakefield applied for the cash so that five children and their families could stay in hospital during tests and for MRI scans for each child. But, the charge sheet said, those costs would have been met by the NHS. He was accused of using the money "for purposes other than those for which he said it was needed", which was condemned as "dishonest" and "misleading" during the hearing.