Dr. Wakefield to Join ICDRC in Florida
(This was featured in the January 6, 2002 Sunday Times)

Press Release:
Controversy over the vaccine-autism connection hasn’t scared off the medical group at the International Child Development Resource Centre, (ICDRC), a children’s research and treatment centre in Florida, from inviting Dr Andrew J. Wakefield, MB, BS., FRCS., FRCPath, and his team to join their faculty. ICDRC currently treats over 1700 children with autism spectrum disorders, and the children come from every continent to be evaluated. On this past Wednesday, Dr. Wakefield agreed to join the ICDRC team as its Director of Research and continue his efforts to solve the possible autism-vaccine link, the role of the intestine in childhood developmental disorders and the cause of inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Wakefield is expected to continue his collaborations with colleagues in the UK, Ireland, Japan and Sweden, making ICDRC truly international.

The cost of developing and initiating research at the new centre is estimated at $25,000,000 over three years. Robert Sawyer, Chief Executive of Visceral, the UK based charity that supports much of the research conducted by Dr Wakefield and colleagues states. "The cost of lifetime care for a single child with autism was estimated by independent US and UK assessments as being between $2m and $4m per child. The US Department of Education recorded 65,000 diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders in 1999-2000, up from 12,000 in 1992-93. Seen in that context the cost of developing the proposed facilities at ICDRC is a drop in the ocean".

And the news for the autism world got another boost when ICDRC announced that it had received the initial investments to start building a new campus in South Florida. Dr. Jeff Bradstreet, Director of ICDRC, also stated this past Thursday that negotiations are underway with The Centre for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), to develop a collaboration for sharing resources and furthering the research efforts of ICDRC. The FAU centre is one of America’s top brain imaging facilities, so Dr Wakefield’s new found freedom from The Royal Free Hospital winds up being a windfall for the ICDRC and FAU efforts to help children.

Dr Wakefield stated "the autism world is in crisis with the numbers of affected children skyrocketing. Not only does the medical establishment have no answers it appears that it doesn’t even want to ask the right questions. ICDRC breaks this mould. It holds tremendous potential and it will be an honour for my team and I to help realise that potential.

"The creation of a truly independent centre, combining research with clinical facilities for investigation, treatment and evaluation of potential therapies offers a unique opportunity to increase our understanding and develop new service models. The overall aim is to deliver the benefits that we see as increasingly possible for affected children and young people everywhere."

This means that Wakefield will spend the greater part of his time in the United States over the coming months, in order to seize this opportunity to expedite the research by bringing the power and energy of the American people to help resolve this issue as soon as possible.

For more information go to their website at: http://www.gnd.org