Martin Walker, known for his classical work Dirty Medicine and more recently for Skewed and HRT: Licensed to Kill & Maim as well as a series of other works critical of the current paradigm of organized, pharma-dominated medicine has sent the following appeal to help parents of vaccine-damaged children in the UK in their campaign to protect those honest medical doctors and researchers who have pointed out that there is a connection between vaccines and a condition known as autism.
Walker gives a good overview of the pharma-inspired and government-run campaign against these doctors who dare go against the system and recommend - God forbid - a return to single vaccinations instead of currently used dangerous combinations such as the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine.
Who Will Rid Me of this Troublesome Doctor
In December 1170, a memorable sentence was uttered. England's king, Henry II, angered by the laxness of the religious courts toward monks and priests, had appointed his friend and chancellor, Thomas a Becket, as the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Catholic Church in England. Once he was in that position, however, Becket refused to reform the courts, which led to a serious rift between them. Their quarrel was temporarily mended, but then Becket began to excommunicate Henry's supporters. That led to Henry's saying, in the presence of four knights, “Who will rid me of this troublesome Priest?” The result, of course, was that the knights took this as a royal command and killed Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.
The parents of nine year old Hannah Poling argued in a Federal Vaccine court in North America, last autumn, that the vaccines she had received had created regressive autism. The court oversaw an out of court settlement between the parents and a pharmaceutical company. The case was settled last year, but the parents had not spoken publicly about the settlement, on the instructions of the court until two weeks ago. The single case was one of three test cases representing a grpoup of over 5,000 parent claimants who argue that vaccination created autism spectrum disorder in their child.
The news of the Poling case, landed like a bomb that failed to go off in Britain, flying as it did in the face of all the arguments put forward by the government and the science lobby groups that there could be no possible link between MMR and regressive autism. The cowed British press, with a couple of notable exceptions, now supine in the face of government threats and censorship, simply refused to report the case, arguing as did various statutory authorities and pharmaceutical companies in North America that this was one odd and complicated case. It was complicated they said by the fact that Hannah had a pre-existing condition that the vaccination had excacerbated. While the authorities argued that no general conclusions could be drawn from the case, Hannas parents told the press that they had no knowledge of the supposed pre-existing condition that was supposed to have been exacerbated by the vaccination.
Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in particular arguing that the case was idiosyncratic, within days of its publication, other North American cases were surfacing with parents claiming that they had previously agreed not to make public their settlements. While one cannot blame parents for playing into the government’s hands, in such circumstances, it is clear that the medical establishment and a number of politicians, must have been privy to the fact that as far as the courts were concerned, the pharmaceutical companies had conceded the scientific evidence of a link between vaccination and autism.
A powerful campaign is now under way in North America to force the resignation of Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the CDC who is still insistent that the Poling case is meaningless within the broader picture. The CDC, however, which is riddled with conflict of interests is still arguing against any link between vaccination and autism although it is clear that they must have known of stock-piling court decisions on this matter.
Against this background of revelations that are constantly undermining the British and North American establishment’s position on this issue, in Britain three doctors are preparing to present their defence against the GMC, the government, the medical establishment and the science lobby all of whom accused them in 2004 of spreading alarm and despondency by publishing their well researched claims, in 1998, of a link between MMR and autism spectrum disorder in a number of specific children...
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On March 27th 2008, Dr Andrew Wakefield, Professor Simon Murch and Emeritus Professor John Walker-Smith will appear again before a fitness to practice panel of the General Medical Council (GMC) in London, England. This hearing will give the doctors the opportunity to present their defence against the defamatory and libellous charges brought against them at the behest of the British Government, and lodged with the GMC by Brian Deer a pro MMR journalist.
There seems little point in describing the charges brought against these doctors in legal terms but in light of the recent revelations from North America there is much point in looking at why they were brought.
In the early nineties a then notable academic gastroenterologist, Dr Andrew Wakefield, was riding the crest of a wave, applauded by the scientific community, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical establishment, for his ground breaking work on the biological mechanism that produced Crohn’s disease.
Dr Wakefield’s work was so eagerly acclaimed that in the early nineties, he was given a leading place as a researcher in a centre of excellence in gastroenterology, created within the Royal Free Hospital in Hamstead London. This unit was under the clinical administration of Professor John Walker-Smith one of Britain’s most valued Paediatric gastroenterologists.
In 1988, the MMR (Mumps Measles and Rubella) combined triple vaccine had been introduced by the British Government, the vaccine had already been in use in America for a long period. All the literature published by the NHS and relied upon by the British Government to informing parents about the vaccine told them that it had been used safely and without adverse reaction during its use in North America.
By 1992 however, two brands of MMR had been withdrawn by the governments of Canada, Japan and Britain after it was found that the Urabe strain of Mumps vaccine used in the combination, had caused serious adverse reactions and permanent damage to a number of children. Despite this public health crisis, the British Government continued with it’s combined vaccine experiment while denying publicly that the withdrawn brands of MMR had caused anything more than minor adverse reactions. The National Health Service (NHS) continued with their combined vaccine programme now using an MR (Measles and Rubella) vaccination and one remaining brand of MMR which did not use Urabe.
Throughout the early 1990’s parents who had watched a serious adverse reaction in their children to MR and MMR, together with the parents of children affected by the Urabe strain vaccine, reported the adverse reactions from which their children suffered. Few general practitions or consultants, however, listened to them and the signs of bowel disease and regressive autism presented by these children, were put down to toddler diarreha or undiagnosed illness, on the one hand and - if a diagnosis of autism was made at all - genetically induced autism, for which there existed no treatment, on the other.
When these children were almost entirely left isolated and without help or support by the medical profession, their parents inevitably sought help elsewhere. A number found their way to the experimental gastroenterology department at the Royal Free Hospital. At first the team at the Royal Free were concerned about accepting these children as patients because none of the staff were specialists in autism. However, once it was established that the children also suffered from serious bowel disorders, the unit took them in with a view to diagnosing and treating this condition.
As the clinical team worked with the children carrying out tests and comparing their symptoms trying to work out a feasible diagnosis, the number of children being referred grew considerably. Dr Wakefield, charged professionally with carrying out research into gastrointestinal conditions, especially those similar to Crohn’s disease, recorded and analysed the cases, with the clinicians. Within a few years, Dr Wakefield and other members of the team had built a hypothesis, based upon those cases which had been diagnosed and then treated clinically.
Roughly stated, the hypothesis was this; a certain group of children reacted badly to the MR and MMR vaccination, most probably - it appeared - to the measles component of these vaccinations, or to the use of the measles vaccine in combination with other vaccines. Those children who reacted in this adverse manner to the vaccination, very quickly suffered bowel disease, followed by signs of regressive autism, they lost words and language that they had previously learned and increasingly they ‘went into themselves’ sometimes showing extreme behavioural disorders.
As soon as Dr Wakefield considered that his research showed a pattern amongst this growing group of children, he wrote to the department of health, laying out his findings and suggesting that if the country was to avoid a public health crisis it should take the precautionary step – better late than never – of returning to the single vaccines. He asked for a meeting to be organised at which he could present his findings. Months were to pass before he received an acknowledgement of this first letter and almost six years before the meeting he had asked for was convened.
Effectively, though not obviously, from the first time that Dr Wakefield expressed his concern about a public health crisis, his career began to falter. In 1998, along with 12 other doctors associated with the work in the unit at the Royal Free, Dr Wakefield produced a paper reviewing the cases of 12 children that was submitted successfully to the Lancet. In a press briefing, agreed by senior staff at the Royal Free, at the time of the paper’s publication, Dr Wakefield was asked to answer a question from a reporter about the conclusions of the paper. Wakefield responded as had been agreed by the department, that there was a case for returning to the single vaccines, while the work of the department was brought to some conclusion and his research was presented in full.
From this time onwards, Dr Wakefield’s career and those of other authors of the paper, came to be in serious jeopardy. Constant pressure and threat was applied to the paper’s authors to make them retract their names from it. The full power of New Labour’s, overdeveloped spin limb was utilised to crank up the science lobbies and spread base rumours about Dr Wakefield. New Labour began a war to gag Dr Wakefield and anyone else who suggested that the MMR vaccination caused adverse reactions, and more specifically, anyone who hinted that there was a link between MMR and autism, but most alarmingly anyone who advocated a return to the single vaccines. Thousands of pounds were invested in the publication, republication and commission of epidemiological studies that did not replicate in any way the clinical nature of the work carried out at the Royal Free. Meanwhile the number of parents whose children were tragically affected continued to rise.
Dr Wakefield lost his position at the Royal Free and his grants from pharmaceutical companies dried up. He and his family were subjected to a surveillance campaign, such as could only be carried out by either government or private intelligence concerns. Dr Wakefield was not the only person to be harassed in this campaign to keep the public from knowing about adverse reactions to the combined vaccination. The most serious assault upon doctors, professionals and traders, ws rained down on doctors and others who suggested a return to the single vaccine and those who claimed that the combined vaccination could cause regressive autistism. The medical establishment, the government and the science lobby groups responded to these suggestions with ridicule and contempt, as if they were only worthy of those with enfeebled intelligence and no knowledge of science.
In 2004, The Sunday Times published Brian Deer’s exemplary piece of journalsleaze that accused Dr Wakefield of the most singular crimes against patients and his profession. In this article the then Minister of Health virtually ordered that a complaint against Dr Wakefield be laid before the General Medical Council. A couple of days after the appearance of Deer’s article he alone laid the entire complaint against the Royal Free unit and it’s doctors, before the GMC.
In that same year, the ten year preparation for the legal case in which a large group of parents were claiming against three pharmaceutical companies for the damage caused by MMR, was halted by the withdrawl of legal aid. After ten years of preparation, the case was ditched, only 6 months from its first court date.
There can be no doubt at all that the GMC is working in collusion with the New labour government, powerful pharmaceutical companies and spinning science lobby groups. The case against the three doctors has been drawn out considerably, so allowing maximum derogatory comment about Dr Wakefield and massive propaganda about the MMR vaccination to continue in public unabated. However, in order to maintain this destructive and censorious gag on Dr Wakefield, Professor Murch and Professor Walker-Smith, the government and the science lobby groups have had to muzzle the press and maintain the fiction that there are no damaged children and no campaigning parents.
Drs Wakefield, Murch and Walker-Smith are charged with almost 100 charges, dating back to events that are supposed to have occurred around 13 years ago. From the time that Brian Deer wrote his accusatory piece in the Sunday Times, it took the GMC almost four years to frame the charges. When the hearing began in 2007, it was scheduled to last a few months. It now looks as if this quasi judicial hearing will be the longest in British history, not concluding until some time in 2009. On March 27th the GMC hearing begins again.
It used to be said that what America does today, Britain does tomorrow. In this case however, it is fairly clear that in order to protect the interests of multinational pharmaceutical companies the North American and British Governments have acted acted out a common policy to deny vaccine damage resulting in autistic spectrum disorders and even to deny the very existence of both the parents and the children.
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Cry Shame a campaign of parents (of vaccine damaged children) and professionals, has worked hard to organise an effective presence in front of the GMC on the 27th March. For one of the only times in history, hundreds of parents will be demonstrating in support of doctors who they believe are ethical, hard working and committed to the welfare of their children.
These parents are, however, not only lacking in organisational experience, but are people who have already had to suffer the financial burden of caring for their damaged children without medical recognition. For their campaign to be effective, it needs some serious funding.
This really is a David and Goliath battle. While the government, the GMC and the pharmaceutical corporations have almost limitless amounts of money to burn in the cause of vaccine chicanery, the parents already cash-strapped by caring for damaged children have no funding at all – there is no anti-vaccine conspiracy paid for by foreign gold.
Please dig deep into your pocket to help the demonstration on March 27th. Don’t think that if you can only give a couple of pounds, it isn’t worth contributing. If everyone gave a little, the campaign would have a lot in a short time. If no one gives anything, then the long held and hard won organisation of the demonstration and the parents’ cause, will be in jeopardy.
Whether or not you are able to give physical support by being at the demonstration, please give money - however little - to CryShame. You can pay money by going to their web site at www.cryshame.com and following the “donate now” link.
The battle for justice, for the children damaged by vaccination and their parents, together with the battle to prove that Dr Wakefield, Professor Murch and Professor Walker-Smith have been immorally fitted-up, is really a cause worth fighting for and upon its outcome may well rest the future of independent medical research in Britain.
See also:
NEW LABOUR, THE VACCINE SCANDAL AND THE CHARACTER ASSASSINATION OF DR ANDREW WAKEFIELD (PDF)
by Martin J Walker
The fitness to practice case before the General Medical Council (GMC) against Dr Andrew Wakefield and Professors Murch and Walker-Smith, which is to be heard on 27 March in London, appears to involve an analysis of the scientific research and clinical practice of these doctors.
However, almost all of the case and the attacks that have taken place against Dr Wakefield since the mid 1990s are politically inspired. They are a part of the government’s drive to produce a single multiple vaccine containing hundreds of viral strains and also a key part of the government’s co-ordinated policy for health care that has been resolved in negotiation with the pharmaceutical companies since New Labour came to power in 1997.
The analysis of Dr Wakefield’s ‘road to the GMC’ by Martin Walker is divided into two parts, the political background and the scientific side of the debate.
For an excellent article on the conspiracy of Big Pharma and governments against vaccine-adverse effect litigation, please see Robert F. Kennedy's report on his website entitled "Deadly Immunity" which was originally published on Salon.com, June 16, 2005.
(http://www.robertfkennedyjr.com/#)
An excerpt:
"In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Ga. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session -- only private invitations to 52 attendees. There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva, and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly "embargoed." There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left.
The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.
Even for scientists and doctors accustomed to confronting issues of life and death, the findings were frightening. "You can play with this all you want," Dr. Bill Weil, a consultant for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the group. The results "are statistically significant." Dr. Richard Johnston, an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado whose grandson had been born early on the morning of the meeting's first day, was even more alarmed. "My gut feeling?" he said. "Forgive this personal comment -- I do not want my grandson to get a thimerosal-containing vaccine until we know better what is going on.""