As pointed out the GMC hearing has nothing to do with the science itself.
So, regardless of the politics of all this, the science of the 1998 Lancet paper, and the subsequent research it has led to, remains unchallenged. Still, 12 years later.
Now my understanding of that science is as follows;
there is a small subgroup of children who are disposed to developing persistent measles infection, bowel disease and neurological symptoms after receiving the triple MMR vaccine.
Unfortunately all the large epidemiological studies in the world are going to struggle to shed much light on this because we are talking about a small subgroup. We seem to be swimming in studies like these all trying to find a way for the MMR to never have a serious side effect ever but there is a curious lack of studies which examine the children thought to be affected.
The only way to figure out what has happened to the children in question is to examine the children in question and perform clinical studies. Clinical studies that have been done implicate MMR and they remain unchallenged. The people who have performed these clinical studies have made themselves very unpopular and are being picked apart by the medical community, the press and the GMC. The science remains untouched though.
So what happens now? Will the government actually acknowledge that these children exist and run some tests, will they commission the much called for study on vaccinated and unvaccinated populations?
Or will they run with the "yeah but Wakefield took some bloods at a party and confused us over what was research and what was clinically required so that means everything he says about everything is wrong always" line that the GMC has handed to them?
In the meantime Dr Wakefield et al are working to help sick children as doctors are supposed to do and Dr Salisbury is hoping the public is stupid enough not to notice that in 12 years no-one has managed to fault the actual science.