In July 1997, Wakefield and Professor John Walker-Smith, a leading pediatric gastroenterologist at the Royal Free Hospital, complete their examination and write-up of twelve patients known as the “Lancet Twelve.”  These twelve children were the first to be investigated at the Royal Free Hospital who had been experiencing chronic, gastrointestinal symptoms and developmental regression following MMR vaccine

In October 1997, litigation-related studies begin. Some of the pediatric patients from The Lancet study end up filing as plaintiffs in Barr’s litigation case, but only after their role in the case series is completed.   The inclusion of some of the pediatric patients in Barr’s case causes quite a controversial stir for which, later, Wakefield is falsely accused of receiving undisclosed funding from the Legal Aid Board to conduct the work reported in The Lancet.

“It was alleged the study was done for the purpose of litigation, indeed that it was funded by lawyers for litigation. That is absolutely untrue. It simply was not. I agreed to be a medical expert, and I feel obliged to act as a medical expert on [the damaged children’s] behalf, because there were any number of doctors lining up on the other side, to be paid as experts, to act on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry.”

- Dr. Andrew Wakefield