A DOCTOR who made tens of thousands of pounds by offering anxious parents single vaccinations at the height of the MMR controversy falsified blood test results to convince parents that their children were immunised when they were not, a court was told yesterday.
Dr David Pugh, 55, “conned” worried parents with forged laboratory reports showing that their children were immune to measles, mumps or rubella, St Albans Crown Court was told.
At the height of the debate over the safety of the MMR single vaccine, Dr Pugh, who operated from a prefabricated building on an airfield in Elstree, Hertfordshire, was making up to £17,500 a week, charging patients £70 per injection. But after press reports raised concerns about whether the children were properly immunised, parents besieged the clinic to make sure their children had been vaccinated.
The court was told that Dr Pugh, who had developed a special interest in autism in children, is alleged to have sent the blood tests to a firm in London but then falsified results that said the children, including twins, were not protected from the diseases.
Ian Wade, for the prosecution, said: “None of us can have escaped the public debate about MMR, (which) came to the fore recently concerning the possible link between autism and the administration of combined vaccinations for inoculations against measles, mumps and rubella.
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“This controversy has been wide-ranging. One major player, the NHS, has offered only combined MMR jabs. Many parents determined they would not allow their babies to receive that particular combination so those parents . . . felt obliged to seek an alternative.
“One such service was offered by Dr Pugh. Where the Crown alleges that documents were falsified, and you are looking at the context of a commercial operation where a lot of money is being passed through the clinic, you begin to see there are pressures on Dr Pugh’s position to avoid problems and disquiet, because disquiet there was.”
Mr Wade added: “You can imagine the concern of those parents (who) besieged the clinic by telephone or personally attended because they needed reassurance that their child had received effective inoculations. You can picture the overwhelming burden and stress perhaps placed on Dr Pugh and his team in February 2003 when these reports emerged and all of these concerned parents descended on the clinic looking for answers.”
The parents were offered free blood tests but when the results came back Dr Pugh is alleged to have told his staff to pass any good news to patients, but if the tests showed the children were not immunised to pass them to him.
As well as the original documents revealing that the children were not properly immunised some showed that there was not enough blood to even do a test. Mr Wade said: “This case asserts that in eight cases reports which had shown failures which were diverted to Dr Pugh were tampered with, interfered with, falsified.”
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Susan Baker took her daughter Whitney, then aged one, to the clinic to be immunised and visited Dr Pugh in February last year after television and newspaper reports about the practice. She told the court: “We went up there because we couldn’t get through on the telephone. There were panicked parents there, there were loads of parents there.”
Despite reassurances that her daughter was vaccinated, independent tests proved that she wasn’t, the jury was told.
Dr Pugh, a doctor for more than thirty years, denies eight counts of using a false instrument with intent.
The case continues.