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Eye Witness Report from the UK GMC Wakefield, Walker-Smith, Murch Hearing



 
 
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Old January 31st 10, 10:18 PM posted to misc.health.alternative,misc.kids.health,sci.med
john[_5_]
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Default Eye Witness Report from the UK GMC Wakefield, Walker-Smith, Murch Hearing

http://www.whale.to/vaccine/walker898.html
Eye Witness Report from the UK GMC Wakefield, Walker-Smith, Murch Hearing
By Martin Walker MA

January 31, 2010

ageofautism.com

The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer
of the Survival of the Most Corrupt
is more accurate, and is sometimes
equally convenient.

With apologies to Darwin and Mr Herbert Spencer

And so it came to be that Dr Kumar, the Chairman of the GMC Fitness to
Practice Panel trying Dr Andrew Wakefield, Professor Simon Murch and
Professor Walker-Smith sat without the flicker of a smile on his face,
leaning on the long plastic topped table and read out the verdicts to the
many charges. The Panel found that; most of the children in the Lancet paper
had been experimented upon outside the inclusion dates of research ethical
committee approval 172/96. That a number of the children had been subjected
to aggressive procedures not sanctioned by any research ethics committee.
That in most cases parental approval had not been lodged in the case files
and that Dr Wakefield had "treated children with a 'callous disregard' for
the distress and pain that he knew or ought to have known the children
involved might suffer. This latter aside, although repeated by the media
incessantly throughout Thursday night, actually referred to the taking of a
small quantity of blood by a trained professional from 5 healthy children,
whose parents were friends of the Wakefield's; a control sample for a study.
This had nothing to do with the experimental procedures that were supposedly
carried out by Dr Wakefield on the 12 children reviewed in the Lancet paper.

As the recitation of the crimes of Dr Wakefield came to an end, it appeared
as if Dr Wakefield, had in the mid nineties, been some kind of inhuman Nazi
experimenter practicing on children in the heart of England; an overlooked
human vivisector who stalked a large North London hospital committing
serious crimes with the two other criminals in his firm, invisible to his
colleagues and unseen by the hospital administration.

Kumar didn't have an easy read of the verdict. Feelings ran high. The GMC
were unable to keep order. Muttering began as Kumar's message became clear
while he dodged through the verdict; the microphones working with loud
clarity for the first time in two and a half years. Suddenly one parent
exploded in a clutter of bags and clothing, a scarf and a jacket, she stood
up, twisted round a blur of mustard, shouting as she made her way out of the
hearing room. She evaded the GMC security as they tried to manhandling her.
After a short quiet with Kumar continuing, another parent, dressed
attractively in purples, fury on her face, raged against him, repeating
'the children' over and again. GMC security did catch up with this
diminutive parent and held her bruisingly in the lift on the way to
expelling her from the premises.

The public gallery began to empty. Then after another five minutes of
Kumar's sucrose voice, a freewheeling free-for-all pushed its way to the
door. It was headed by a straighter than straight parent, one who usually
appeared unable to be aggressive, he remonstrated with the Hearing, like a
radical haranguing a rabble, every word in place, beautifully composed. He
informed the panel that they were the only ones who had behaved unethically,
not the doctors who had tried to care for their children.

Outside again, the parents drew together and began chanting their message or
catching up with reporters, trying to squeeze the last juice from the media.
Jim Moody, Dr Wakefield's friend and a lawyer a frequent visitor from the US
during the hearing had that day delivered to the GMC an indictment of the
prosecution's central witnesses in the hearing. I thought as I listened to
him, he was far too articulate for a media able only to understand
cacophony. Nevertheless they pretended to listen intently, pointing 57
varieties of recording technology in his direction. That night I could find
not even rubble of his speech in the broadcast media.

At the end of the afternoon, in the gathering dusk of the Euston Road, a
real treat, the presence of Andy and Carmel, this time completely in
control, without the press snapping at their heals, walking fast like an
escaping Bonny and Clyde but standing calmly saying exactly what needed to
be said but answering no questions. Of course the media had their own way of
portraying even this. Dr Wakefield became 'an unrepentant doctor', a man who
wouldn't take his medicine! I personally was so pleased that neither Dr
Wakefield or Professor Walker-Smith graced the hearing room with their
presence showed proper contempt for the hearing.

* * *

It is 10.30 am on the morning of Thursday 28th January, I'm sitting in the
student canteen inside the University of London on Gower Street. This
University is now and has been for the last hundred years, the hub of
science research. The body of Jeremy Bentham, resides sitting in a glass and
wood exhibition box. The library of the Wellcome Institute is just round the
corner and because of its closeness to the Wellcome Trust, the University
has been the recipient of funds from that body and its original
pharmaceutical counterpart, The Wellcome Foundation, for a century. The
university was used for the filming of Silent Witnesses one of the most
popular forensic science detective programmes on British TV. The University
College London, has centuries of science ground into it's very bricks; it
was here that Francis Crick studied on the way to discovering the double
helix of DNA.

Ten minutes' walk up the Euston Road stands the big glass building of the
GMC where later in the day, the panel in the Wakefield, Murch and
Walker-Smith case will announce its verdicts or 'findings on fact' as they
fancifully call them. Here in the glass panelled hearing room, a different
kind of science has been practiced for the last two and a half years; the
science of deception.

We already know, and some of us have known for a long time, that all the
defendants will be found guilty on almost all the charges. Although the
hearing does not begin until 2.00pm, the cameras are already there in the
early morning, like vultures on rocks. The camera men and reporters, hands
stuffed in windcheaters talking in low voices, with constant nods of the
head and shuffling of the feet, looking determinedly at the pavement. It's
very cold in London and especially so on this part of the Euston Road that
is like a canyon down which the wind whistles.

I was the first of Dr Wakefield's contingent to arrive. I got to the GMC
building early because I always have a need to sink into the situation to
feel that I can get the measure of atmosphere, to mull it over, long before
the proceedings begin. I am here after following Dr Wakefield's case over
five years and attending the hearing at every sitting over the last two and
a half years.

Today I know will be one of those times that signify a dark night of the
soul, for defendants, parents and campaigners alike. This afternoon the
defendants will be knocked from their horses by rib smashing lance blows, on
the ground they will lie dazed and have to figure whether it is right or
even possible to remount and continue the battle. Parents will contemplate
the bleak landscape of their children's illness without any treatment and
with open skepticism from medical practitioners from whom they seek help.
Activists and campaigners like myself will have to face the melancholic
prospect of either continuing the campaign or slipping away to support
apparently more equitable battles.

This particular battle is a post-modern struggle, one in which the most
powerful forces, multinational companies, reshape the world hand in hand
with governments. This is a struggle from which parents and citizens have
been expunged. A blind struggle, in an age where all the ties between
governments and citizens have been severed, where it is no longer possible
for citizens to have any real effect on either the processes of industrial
science or of national politics. At the same time that Dr Kumar is pulling
his verdict out of the hat this afternoon, a quarter of a mile away near
Parliament Square ex-prime minister Tony Blair will be excusing his role in
the killing of 100,000 civilians in Iraq. Huge and the little crimes are
spoken away with 'the people' unable even to dent the facade of apparent
fairness.

Today at the GMC we all will have to suffer the slings and arrows of
outrageous and organised fortune, the defendant will have to bend with the
wind like trees on the beach cliffs and smart from the ignorance of the news
media. Parents will have to pretend that they can cope, make themselves
strong and hope that help will come from somewhere for their children; the
prospect of no further clinical help is impossible to contemplate.
Activists, scientists, politicos and campaigners - supporters of truth and
science will have to steel themselves to the phlegm spat from the PCs of
snakes like Brian Deer, stand still and take the belittling mountain of
toxic words that he and his blancmange brained associates will heap
belittlingly upon us.

Before I become too maudlin, however, I have to say that about one thing we
can rest assured, history will prove us right, will turn in our favour. In
fact this is a rule cast in iron, scorned as our truths are now, they will
undoubtedly be recognised in the future; when the science is resurrected,
and when the politics go through sea changes.


* * *


It's now Friday morning and I have just gathered enough strength to begin my
post for Age of Autism. Sometimes it's hard to write in the face of such an
emotional maelstrom. Yesterday, the Chairman of the GMC Fitness to Practice
Panel, Dr Kumar, a man who during the hearing refused to answer questions
about his shareholding in GlaxoSmithKline, pronounced on behalf of the
multinational drug companies and the British government that there was no
such thing as vaccine damage and that any parents who claimed that their
children had suffered such, would be treated with scorn and contempt.

Dr Kumar had been selected as Fitness to Practice Panel Chairman following
the outing by campaigners of the GMC first choice, Professor Dennis McDevitt
who had been a member of the original adverse reactions sub-committee of the
Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunology (JCVI) that had manipulated
and disguised the reported adverse reactions of the unsafe MMR. In 1988,
McDevitt had declared funding for a Research fellowship from Glaxo and Smith
Kline and French (as the present day vaccine manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline
were then named).

Dr Kumar, also, thought obviously not in so many words, proclaimed the
complete confidence of the GMC in the medical authority of Brian Deer, the
only man in the world to make a formal complaint against three of Europe's
leading gastroenterologists. Brian Deer has carried out his campaign against
Dr Wakefield from the pages of the Sunday Times, a paper managed and owned
by James Murdoch a man who sits on the board of GlaxoSmithKline. Deer
researched his case with the help of Medico-Legal Investigations a private
enquiry company funded solely by The Association of the British
Pharmaceutical Industry.

The panel gave their verdict after two and a half years partial scrutiny of
the case, after legal aid for the parents claims to be heard in a real
court, against vaccine manufacturers, was denied by High Court judge Sir
Nigel Davis, whose brother, an executive board member of Elsevier the
publishers, was on the Board of GlaxoSmithKline. During the hearing, some of
the apparently most authoritative evidence, not about science, but about
conflict of interest, was given by Dr Richard Horton the editor of the
Lancet one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world. The Lancet
is owned by Elsevier and Sir Crispin Davis is Dr Horton's line manager.

Since the beginning of this GMC charade, I have though that anyone who even
entertained a verdict other than one of guilty for the three defendants, was
setting themselves up for a fall.


* * *

From 2.00 o'clock onwards, right into the late media evening, the last two
and a half years of conflict over the MMR combined vaccine, was reduced to
simplicity itself. So simple did it all become that I found it almost
impossible to believe that I was hearing about the same hearing in which the
prosecution had produced two and a half years of evidence.

In his announcement of the verdict Kumar, reduced the whole of the panel's
verdict to an assessment on Wakefield's 'care' for the twelve children
written up in the 1998 case review study published in the Lancet. In order
to introduce this paper and the resultant verdict to you in this post, I
have to simplify the hearing and the evidence given during its two and a
half years, I ask your forgiveness for this.

In 2004, six years after the Lancet paper was published and nine years after
the children cited in the paper had been seen by clinicians, Brian Deer, the
British government, the GMC and all their drug industry connected supporters
made this case:

Dr Wakefield and colleagues had applied to the research ethics committee at
the Royal Free Hospital to carry out research programme 172/96, this
programme was to study children who had inflammatory bowel disease. Dr
Wakefield had also agreed to a Legal Aid Board funded study of two groups of
five children. Dr Wakefield had published the results of his research into
12 autistic children, under programme 172/96, in the Lancet in 1998. The
paper showed clearly that Dr Wakefield and his colleagues had included
children in this research for whom they did not have ethical committee
approval. That children were given aggressive procedures for which the
doctors did not have ethical committee approval. That experimental research
had been carried out on these 'autistic' but otherwise healthy children,
that did not have bowel disease, without ethical committee approval, nor
even in some cases parental consent. The prosecution frequently tried to
show that children who attended at the RFH, had been garnered by Dr
Wakefield in an illicit manner. Taken the children to the RFH had, the
prosecution said, been a way of parents hoping to rid themselves of the
guilt at having autistic children. The objective of the 'research' upon
which the paper was based, was to show that the MMR vaccination had created
'regressive' autism and the motive of Dr Wakefield who had engineered the
paper and the involvement of the other 11 authors, was to aid the claim of
the parents against the three pharmaceutical companies being sued.

Finally, the prosecution had said that Dr Wakefield played a part in the
clinical treatment of the children despite the fact that his contract as a
researcher forbade him to do so. Further the prosecution claimed that while
Legal Aid Board money had been used to fund Dr Wakefield's work he had made
no declaration of this conflict of interest in the publication of the study.

It was in light of this prosecution evidence that the panel made its
findings on Thursday. The verdict re-iterated the charges originally framed
by Brian Deer in the Sunday Times as if no defence evidence had been
presented, in fact, as if neither the defendants nor their counsel had never
been involved in the case.

The defence case had been straightforward and unlike the prosecution case,
had seemed more or less unarguable. Around 1994, various parents whose
children suffered from terrible bowel problems, and regressive autism,
sometimes immediately after their MMR vaccination, began to approach the
Royal Free Hospital, wishing the country's gastrointestinal experts to
examine them and give a diagnostic opinion. Throughout 1994 to 2002, such
parents were always passed by Dr Wakefield to Professor Walker-Smith who
involved Dr Simon Murch, in clinically reviewing these cases. Dr Wakefield's
involvement in these cases had deepened when it began to become evident that
many of the children were suffering from a new, or novel bowel illness. Dr
Wakefield was, after all, the head of the Experimental Gastrointestinal Unit
at the Royal Free Hospital.

In 1997, before any formal research trials were begun or carried out, Dr
Wakefield with a number of other colleagues, began to assemble 'a case
review paper', which involved recording the cases of 12 children who had
arrived at the Royal Free consecutively in the preceding few years. Such a
paper serves two purposes, it advertises the work of the department and can
be used to argue for new funding, and it gives an early warning to other
clinicians who might well come across similar cases. The resultant paper,
was not the report of 'a trial' or 'a research project' of any kind, it was
simply an account of the presentation of twelve children. Although Professor
Walker-Smith did have ethical committee approval for the extraction of
histological samples from child patients, research ethical committee
approval is not needed for such a paper unless the children have been
examined with such a paper in mind. No money was used or received from
outside the National Health Service, for either the clinically necessary
evaluation of the children or for the case review study. All twelve children
were examined by clinicians and not Dr Wakefield who had nothing at all to
do with their clinical examination, review, or agreed treatment. Most
importantly, no research of any kind was carried out on the condition of
these children prior to their clinical review by clinicians at the Royal
Free Hospital. All the children were examined on the understanding that it
was the clinicians duty to find a cause and to understand the painful and
exceptional bowel trauma experienced by these children.

Claims by the prosecution that the clinical care of the children had been in
the hands of Dr Wakefield, proved to be so 'off the wall', that the
prosecution had to change the wording of some charges to read, 'Dr Wakefield
caused procedures to take place'. How one causes a colonoscopy, as if it
were an act of God, remains a mystery to me.

This case review paper, made absolutely no attempt to prove that vaccination
caused autism. MMR vaccination was mentioned at one point in the paper, when
the authors made it clear that some parents had drawn attention to the
coincidence of MMR and their child's illness. The authors suggested that
more research might be useful in this area. Nor was there any mention that
MMR or any other vaccination caused autism, rather the paper described a
possible link between Inflammatory Bowel Disease possibly affected by an
unidentified environmental trigger and regressive autism in some children.

It became clear part way through the hearing that the prosecution had got
everything wrong. They had rested their case entirely upon a study, for
which ethical approval had been sought but which by the time of the
publication of the Lancet case review study, had not actually taken place.
Clearly, the GMC prosecution and the panel did not want to hear or admit to
this huge error, contained originally in Brian Deer's toxic writing for the
Sunday Times. Unable to concede to clarity of the defence case, the
prosecution continued head-banging as if it were a national sport. The false
description of a research trial paid for by the Legal Aid Board that proved
MMR created autism continued to be used to stir up great clouds of dust,
misapprehension and confusion.


* * *


It is perhaps important that we understand what really happened on Thursday,
that we understand the language that was used and it's meaning. Following
the verdict, most of the lay public will be thinking that the professional
behaviour of the three doctors had been seriously scrutinised at great
length and considerable cost, using significant analytical, intellectual
energy.

However, this is not true description of what had happened. A truthful
reflection on yesterday would go as follows. Towards the middle of the 1990s
Dr Andrew Wakefield wrote to the Senior Medical functionaries in the
National Health Service, warning that a public health crisis might occur if
the government continued with it's MMR triple vaccine programme. This
communication came roughly two years after the UK Chief Medical officer had
withdrawn two MMR vaccines which contained Urabe mumps strain. Over the
previous decade, in various countries this vaccine had been found to create
serious adverse reactions in children. With the British government left
holding only one brand of 'safe' MMR and having caused already perhaps
thousands of diverse adverse reactions in the children who had received the
vaccine, the government and the pharmaceutical industry was not about to
listen to Dr Wakefield or anyone else who mentioned the words adverse
reaction.

In 1998, Dr Wakefield along with eleven other authors published 'a case
review' paper in the Lancet. The paper charted the details of 12 children
who had sequentially arrived at the Royal Free Hospital in search of
clinical treatment for serious bowel conditions. Dr Richard Horton of the
Lancet, even today, maintains that the science of this paper was beyond
reproach, although he gave evidence to the hearing that Dr Wakefield's
non-declaration a conflict of interest in the journal of which he is editor
was unforgivable.

From 1998 onwards, the government and the pharmaceutical companies organised
a merciless campaign against Dr Wakefield. Brian Deer wrote a number of
stories in the Sunday Times with the intention of discrediting expert
witnesses in previous vaccine damage cases in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2003,
legal aid was withdrawn from the claim being prepared by parents against
three vaccine manufacturers. In 2004 the appeal on behalf of the parents was
turned down. Immediately after this, Brian Deer published in the Sunday
Times his first major attack on Dr Wakefield, a complete character
assassination written with the help of the private enquiry agency
Medico-legal Investigations, solely funded by The Association of British
Pharmaceutical Industries. With the help of various people including the
then Secretary of State for Health John Reid, Deer tendered his paperwork
upon which he had based his skittish article, to the GMC and from then on it
formed the basis of the developing Fitness to Practice Hearing against Dr
Wakefield, Professor Murch and Professor Walker-Smith.

In 2007, the GMC began their trial of the three doctors that has continued
over two and a half years and is yet to finish with the sentencing of the
doctor in the period between April and July of this year. In the time
between Brian Deer lodging his complaint with the GMC in 2004 and the
verdict on fact on Thursday, a period of six years, the government has
continued to introduce new and unsafe vaccinations damaging hundreds if not
thousands of young people and children. This programme has culminated with
the International fraud over swine flue vaccination, with which major
pharmaceutical companies conned governments out of billions of pounds.

So, yesterday's verdict was not what it might appear, a reasonable judgement
of a wise and considered tribunal. Rather the verdict was what the
pharmaceutical companies hope would be a death blow, an end to the battle
with a troublesome doctor. When Big Pharma and the corrupt New Labour
government asked the question 'Who will rid me of this troublesome doctor',
the GMC was the first to put its hand in the air.


* * *



It's11.30 pm on Thursday night, I have watched a number of news broadcasts,
I think in the believe that sense would prevail on one channel and the truth
would break through the screen. It didn't happen. Watching the news was a
little like taking a bath in Walt Disney animations. Relentlessly, Wakefield
was portrayed as a scaremonger, and worse as a criminal, a man who carried
out damaging experiments on autistic children.

Even the parents tended to come across in news extracts as a confused entity
because the media does not have time to explain that these people are
parents of vaccine damaged children who have supported Dr Wakefield and his
colleagues in their attempt to find a diagnosis for their children's
illness. The media simplifies and distorts everything making it eminently
clear who are the good guys and who are the bad guys yet brings you no
evidence as to how they arrived at these opinions.

There is a peculiar sense in which all messages are broken, or twisted;
nothing is continuous, deep or simply expressed; all statements are based on
false premises.


* * *


It seems important to say something about the media in Britain - at least as
far as medicine is concerned, though it could easily be stretched to the
invasion of Iraq - in the throws of corporate totalitarianism.

Having sat through the two and a half years of the hearing, I know that the
media generally have only been ghosts in the machine, never present, never
making a clear or analytical record of the proceedings. Turning up as they
did like cattle on the day of the verdict what could they report apart from
the panel's corrupt verdict? But, inevitably the situation is far worse than
this lapse in concentration as the headlines last night and this mornings
papers testified.

Yesterday, early outside the GMC, I watched Brian Deer being interviewed by
Sky News, he said things about the hearing which seemed to me to be a
product of his own fevered imagination, things that bore not the slightest
relation to any reality I had observed. After the interview was over, I
approached the Sky journalist who had carried out the interview and asked
him politely whether or not, when the interview was run that evening, an
announcement would be made of the place of James Murdoch, one of the family
owners of Sky, on the board of GlaxoSmith Kline the vaccine manufacturer.

'No', the journalist said, already turning away from me. 'We give a balanced
account and there is no need for that kind of declaration'.

Obviously I had expected nothing more than this, but even so, I couldn't
help but be astounded again, at how crooked the contemporary world is and at
what shysters these people who call themselves journalists are.

I think that it is time that we turned 'secret ties to industry', from
conflict of interest into corporate crime and made it a clearly defined
criminal offence for any person to hold a position of authority or to be
quoted on any material matter without citing either personal or
organisational, contemporary or historical, links with corporations involved
in the area under discussion.

I will end this report with a clear example of the criminal misinformation
indulged in by the British press. Not having lived in the US, I have no idea
of how the media deals with the matter of vaccines, but I fear that most
North Americans can have no understanding of the unmitigated rottenness of
the British Media, and without such an understanding they might find it hard
to grasp how this tidal wave has crashed down upon Dr Wakefield.

A report appeared this morning in the Mirror newspaper, a vaguely Labour
leading tabloid, quoting Dr Miriam Stoppard who is a septuagenarian
columnist in the paper. Stoppard has campaigned against alternative
medicine, in favour of Hormone Replacement Therapy and in favour of MMR, in
everything from the most immature teen girl's magazines to the Mirror
newspaper.

On Friday morning, previous writing of hers was repeated in the Mirror
newspaper. Stoppard is just one of the many medical hacks that keep the
wheels of vested interest turning inside the UK pharma-soaked media, but I
think for reader world wide a brief look at the inanity on the morrow of the
verdict against Andrew Wakefield, Professor Murch and Professor Walker-Smith
might help readers outside the UK understand how the GMC is presently
getting away with its lamentable corruption.

Miriam Stoppard writes an agony aunt column for the Daily Mirror Newspaper.
She has a company, Miriam Stoppard Lifetime through which she sells her
books and health products. After training as a doctor she began working for
the drug company Syntex and eventually becoming one of the companies a
managing directors. In 1997, she married Sir Christopher Hogg, who until
2004 had been Chairman of GlaxoSmith Kline, the vaccine manufacturer.

Here are Miriam Stoppard's remarks on Dr Wakefield's work, read on Friday
morning by thousands of Mirror readers.

Knowing the MMR was probably one of the most highly tested vaccinations
ever, I was shocked by Andrew Wakefield's words in 1998. I looked at his
paper and I found it was very badly researched with lots of holes. It
certainly didn't constitute any kind of cause or relationship between the
MMR vaccine and the appearance of autism. I was astonished it was even
published. Shortly after, I wrote a big piece for the Mirror about how it
was flawed and irresponsible. I tried to reassure parents it didn't show a
connection between MMR and autism, the jab was safe and they should
vaccinate their kids. However, a lot of the media came out and emphasised
the autism connection and my attempts at reassurance were ineffective.
Parents were driven towards single vaccines. But single vaccinations aren't
licensed in this country so we don't even know if they're safe or effective.
And while you're giving children single vaccinations, they're not protected
against the other illnesses. So there is absolutely no reason, science or
logic in using them. And the argument that the MMR overloads a baby's immune
system is rubbish. It can take more than 10,000 doses of the MMR vaccination
and not turn a hair. Wakefield and his bad research have an awful lot to
answer for'.

Although it is hardly necessary, here is a brief rebuttal

MMR was probably one of the most highly tested vaccinations ever - not true.
I was shocked by Andrew Wakefield's words in 1998 - which words?

I looked at his paper and I found it was very badly researched with lots of
holes - evidence?

It certainly didn't constitute any kind of cause or relationship between the
MMR vaccine and the appearance of autism - the paper didn't claim to show
any causal link between MMR and autism - how did you read it and miss this?

I was astonished it was even published - Thank God you're not the editor of
a medical journal.

Shortly after, I wrote a big piece for the Mirror about how it was flawed
and irresponsible - How much were you paid for this article. Did you declare
any conflict of interest?

I tried to reassure parents it didn't show a connection between MMR and
autism, the jab was safe and they should vaccinate their kids - The paper
didn't claim to show any connection between MMR and autism, however to
assure parents without any evidence to the contrary is a disgusting
abdication of medical responsibility, do you still have your doctors
practice certificate?

Single vaccinations aren't licensed in this country, so we don't even know
if they're safe or effective. And while you're giving children single
vaccinations, they're not protected against the other illnesses. So there is
absolutely no reason, science or logic in using them - How is possible to
pack so many mistakes into 3 sentences? Single vaccines were licensed at the
time of the publication of the Lancet paper. We do know that they are safe
and effective because in the case of measles they were used from 1976
onwards. In the case of mumps, the NHS advised against vaccination and in
the case of Rubella, vaccination was suggested only for women likely to
become pregnant. Interesting that you say that we shouldn't be using single
vaccines. Is this the case for say, malaria, I mean if it doesn't also
protect people against measles I think you must clearly be right!

* * *


At the end of the day, we have to keep the parents at the forefront of our
mind and we have to consider that everything that can be done, should be
done to find some kind of safe haven for them. All our battles, whether they
be political, scientific or cultural have to be directed towards getting
diagnosis and treatment for the children, while at the same time mercilessly
pursuing the criminals within the pharmaceutical industry and the government
who now profess the new creed of vaccine damage denial.


Martin J Walker is an investigative writer who has written several books
about aspects of the medical industrial complex. He started focusing on
conflict of interest, intervention by pharmaceutical companies in government
and patient groups in 1993. Over the last three years, he has been a
campaign writer for the parents of MMR vaccine damaged children covering
every day of the now two year hearing of the General Medical Council that
has tried Dr Wakefield and two other doctors. His GMC accounts can be found
at www.cryshame.com , and his own website is, www.slingshotpublications.com


  #2  
Old January 31st 10, 11:04 PM posted to misc.health.alternative,misc.kids.health,sci.med
Peter B[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 35
Default Eye Witness Report from the UK GMC Wakefield, Walker-Smith, Murch Hearing


"john" wrote in message
...
http://www.whale.to/vaccine/walker898.html
Eye Witness Report from the UK GMC Wakefield, Walker-Smith, Murch
Hearing
By Martin Walker MA

January 31, 2010

ageofautism.com

The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer
of the Survival of the Most Corrupt
is more accurate, and is sometimes
equally convenient.

With apologies to Darwin and Mr Herbert Spencer

And so it came to be that Dr Kumar, the Chairman of the GMC Fitness to
Practice Panel trying Dr Andrew Wakefield, Professor Simon Murch and
Professor Walker-Smith sat without the flicker of a smile on his face,
leaning on the long plastic topped table and read out the verdicts to
the many charges. The Panel found that; most of the children in the
Lancet paper had been experimented upon outside the inclusion dates of
research ethical committee approval 172/96. That a number of the
children had been subjected to aggressive procedures not sanctioned by
any research ethics committee. That in most cases parental approval
had not been lodged in the case files and that Dr Wakefield had
"treated children with a 'callous disregard' for the distress and pain
that he knew or ought to have known the children involved might
suffer. This latter aside, although repeated by the media incessantly
throughout Thursday night, actually referred to the taking of a small
quantity of blood by a trained professional from 5 healthy children,
whose parents were friends of the Wakefield's; a control sample for a
study. This had nothing to do with the experimental procedures that
were supposedly carried out by Dr Wakefield on the 12 children
reviewed in the Lancet paper.

As the recitation of the crimes of Dr Wakefield came to an end, it
appeared as if Dr Wakefield, had in the mid nineties, been some kind
of inhuman Nazi experimenter practicing on children in the heart of
England; an overlooked human vivisector who stalked a large North
London hospital committing serious crimes with the two other criminals
in his firm, invisible to his colleagues and unseen by the hospital
administration.

Kumar didn't have an easy read of the verdict. Feelings ran high. The
GMC were unable to keep order. Muttering began as Kumar's message
became clear while he dodged through the verdict; the microphones
working with loud clarity for the first time in two and a half years.
Suddenly one parent exploded in a clutter of bags and clothing, a
scarf and a jacket, she stood up, twisted round a blur of mustard,
shouting as she made her way out of the hearing room. She evaded the
GMC security as they tried to manhandling her. After a short quiet
with Kumar continuing, another parent, dressed attractively in
purples, fury on her face, raged against him, repeating 'the children'
over and again. GMC security did catch up with this diminutive parent
and held her bruisingly in the lift on the way to expelling her from
the premises.

The public gallery began to empty. Then after another five minutes of
Kumar's sucrose voice, a freewheeling free-for-all pushed its way to
the door. It was headed by a straighter than straight parent, one who
usually appeared unable to be aggressive, he remonstrated with the
Hearing, like a radical haranguing a rabble, every word in place,
beautifully composed. He informed the panel that they were the only
ones who had behaved unethically, not the doctors who had tried to
care for their children.

Outside again, the parents drew together and began chanting their
message or catching up with reporters, trying to squeeze the last
juice from the media. Jim Moody, Dr Wakefield's friend and a lawyer a
frequent visitor from the US during the hearing had that day delivered
to the GMC an indictment of the prosecution's central witnesses in the
hearing. I thought as I listened to him, he was far too articulate for
a media able only to understand cacophony. Nevertheless they pretended
to listen intently, pointing 57 varieties of recording technology in
his direction. That night I could find not even rubble of his speech
in the broadcast media.

At the end of the afternoon, in the gathering dusk of the Euston Road,
a real treat, the presence of Andy and Carmel, this time completely in
control, without the press snapping at their heals, walking fast like
an escaping Bonny and Clyde but standing calmly saying exactly what
needed to be said but answering no questions. Of course the media had
their own way of portraying even this. Dr Wakefield became 'an
unrepentant doctor', a man who wouldn't take his medicine! I
personally was so pleased that neither Dr Wakefield or Professor
Walker-Smith graced the hearing room with their presence showed proper
contempt for the hearing.

* * *

It is 10.30 am on the morning of Thursday 28th January, I'm sitting in
the student canteen inside the University of London on Gower Street.
This University is now and has been for the last hundred years, the
hub of science research. The body of Jeremy Bentham, resides sitting
in a glass and wood exhibition box. The library of the Wellcome
Institute is just round the corner and because of its closeness to the
Wellcome Trust, the University has been the recipient of funds from
that body and its original pharmaceutical counterpart, The Wellcome
Foundation, for a century. The university was used for the filming of
Silent Witnesses one of the most popular forensic science detective
programmes on British TV. The University College London, has centuries
of science ground into it's very bricks; it was here that Francis
Crick studied on the way to discovering the double helix of DNA.

Ten minutes' walk up the Euston Road stands the big glass building of
the GMC where later in the day, the panel in the Wakefield, Murch and
Walker-Smith case will announce its verdicts or 'findings on fact' as
they fancifully call them. Here in the glass panelled hearing room, a
different kind of science has been practiced for the last two and a
half years; the science of deception.

We already know, and some of us have known for a long time, that all
the defendants will be found guilty on almost all the charges.
Although the hearing does not begin until 2.00pm, the cameras are
already there in the early morning, like vultures on rocks. The camera
men and reporters, hands stuffed in windcheaters talking in low
voices, with constant nods of the head and shuffling of the feet,
looking determinedly at the pavement. It's very cold in London and
especially so on this part of the Euston Road that is like a canyon
down which the wind whistles.

I was the first of Dr Wakefield's contingent to arrive. I got to the
GMC building early because I always have a need to sink into the
situation to feel that I can get the measure of atmosphere, to mull it
over, long before the proceedings begin. I am here after following Dr
Wakefield's case over five years and attending the hearing at every
sitting over the last two and a half years.

Today I know will be one of those times that signify a dark night of
the soul, for defendants, parents and campaigners alike. This
afternoon the defendants will be knocked from their horses by rib
smashing lance blows, on the ground they will lie dazed and have to
figure whether it is right or even possible to remount and continue
the battle. Parents will contemplate the bleak landscape of their
children's illness without any treatment and with open skepticism from
medical practitioners from whom they seek help. Activists and
campaigners like myself will have to face the melancholic prospect of
either continuing the campaign or slipping away to support apparently
more equitable battles.

This particular battle is a post-modern struggle, one in which the
most powerful forces, multinational companies, reshape the world hand
in hand with governments. This is a struggle from which parents and
citizens have been expunged. A blind struggle, in an age where all the
ties between governments and citizens have been severed, where it is
no longer possible for citizens to have any real effect on either the
processes of industrial science or of national politics. At the same
time that Dr Kumar is pulling his verdict out of the hat this
afternoon, a quarter of a mile away near Parliament Square ex-prime
minister Tony Blair will be excusing his role in the killing of
100,000 civilians in Iraq. Huge and the little crimes are spoken away
with 'the people' unable even to dent the facade of apparent fairness.

Today at the GMC we all will have to suffer the slings and arrows of
outrageous and organised fortune, the defendant will have to bend with
the wind like trees on the beach cliffs and smart from the ignorance
of the news media. Parents will have to pretend that they can cope,
make themselves strong and hope that help will come from somewhere for
their children; the prospect of no further clinical help is impossible
to contemplate. Activists, scientists, politicos and campaigners -
supporters of truth and science will have to steel themselves to the
phlegm spat from the PCs of snakes like Brian Deer, stand still and
take the belittling mountain of toxic words that he and his blancmange
brained associates will heap belittlingly upon us.

Before I become too maudlin, however, I have to say that about one
thing we can rest assured, history will prove us right, will turn in
our favour. In fact this is a rule cast in iron, scorned as our truths
are now, they will undoubtedly be recognised in the future; when the
science is resurrected, and when the politics go through sea changes.


* * *


It's now Friday morning and I have just gathered enough strength to
begin my post for Age of Autism. Sometimes it's hard to write in the
face of such an emotional maelstrom. Yesterday, the Chairman of the
GMC Fitness to Practice Panel, Dr Kumar, a man who during the hearing
refused to answer questions about his shareholding in GlaxoSmithKline,
pronounced on behalf of the multinational drug companies and the
British government that there was no such thing as vaccine damage and
that any parents who claimed that their children had suffered such,
would be treated with scorn and contempt.

Dr Kumar had been selected as Fitness to Practice Panel Chairman
following the outing by campaigners of the GMC first choice, Professor
Dennis McDevitt who had been a member of the original adverse
reactions sub-committee of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and
Immunology (JCVI) that had manipulated and disguised the reported
adverse reactions of the unsafe MMR. In 1988, McDevitt had declared
funding for a Research fellowship from Glaxo and Smith Kline and
French (as the present day vaccine manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline were
then named).

Dr Kumar, also, thought obviously not in so many words, proclaimed the
complete confidence of the GMC in the medical authority of Brian Deer,
the only man in the world to make a formal complaint against three of
Europe's leading gastroenterologists. Brian Deer has carried out his
campaign against Dr Wakefield from the pages of the Sunday Times, a
paper managed and owned by James Murdoch a man who sits on the board
of GlaxoSmithKline. Deer researched his case with the help of
Medico-Legal Investigations a private enquiry company funded solely by
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.

The panel gave their verdict after two and a half years partial
scrutiny of the case, after legal aid for the parents claims to be
heard in a real court, against vaccine manufacturers, was denied by
High Court judge Sir Nigel Davis, whose brother, an executive board
member of Elsevier the publishers, was on the Board of
GlaxoSmithKline. During the hearing, some of the apparently most
authoritative evidence, not about science, but about conflict of
interest, was given by Dr Richard Horton the editor of the Lancet one
of the most prestigious medical journals in the world. The Lancet is
owned by Elsevier and Sir Crispin Davis is Dr Horton's line manager.

Since the beginning of this GMC charade, I have though that anyone who
even entertained a verdict other than one of guilty for the three
defendants, was setting themselves up for a fall.


* * *

From 2.00 o'clock onwards, right into the late media evening, the last
two and a half years of conflict over the MMR combined vaccine, was
reduced to simplicity itself. So simple did it all become that I found
it almost impossible to believe that I was hearing about the same
hearing in which the prosecution had produced two and a half years of
evidence.

In his announcement of the verdict Kumar, reduced the whole of the
panel's verdict to an assessment on Wakefield's 'care' for the twelve
children written up in the 1998 case review study published in the
Lancet. In order to introduce this paper and the resultant verdict to
you in this post, I have to simplify the hearing and the evidence
given during its two and a half years, I ask your forgiveness for
this.

In 2004, six years after the Lancet paper was published and nine years
after the children cited in the paper had been seen by clinicians,
Brian Deer, the British government, the GMC and all their drug
industry connected supporters made this case:

Dr Wakefield and colleagues had applied to the research ethics
committee at the Royal Free Hospital to carry out research programme
172/96, this programme was to study children who had inflammatory
bowel disease. Dr Wakefield had also agreed to a Legal Aid Board
funded study of two groups of five children. Dr Wakefield had
published the results of his research into 12 autistic children, under
programme 172/96, in the Lancet in 1998. The paper showed clearly that
Dr Wakefield and his colleagues had included children in this research
for whom they did not have ethical committee approval. That children
were given aggressive procedures for which the doctors did not have
ethical committee approval. That experimental research had been
carried out on these 'autistic' but otherwise healthy children, that
did not have bowel disease, without ethical committee approval, nor
even in some cases parental consent. The prosecution frequently tried
to show that children who attended at the RFH, had been garnered by Dr
Wakefield in an illicit manner. Taken the children to the RFH had, the
prosecution said, been a way of parents hoping to rid themselves of
the guilt at having autistic children. The objective of the 'research'
upon which the paper was based, was to show that the MMR vaccination
had created 'regressive' autism and the motive of Dr Wakefield who had
engineered the paper and the involvement of the other 11 authors, was
to aid the claim of the parents against the three pharmaceutical
companies being sued.

Finally, the prosecution had said that Dr Wakefield played a part in
the clinical treatment of the children despite the fact that his
contract as a researcher forbade him to do so. Further the prosecution
claimed that while Legal Aid Board money had been used to fund Dr
Wakefield's work he had made no declaration of this conflict of
interest in the publication of the study.

It was in light of this prosecution evidence that the panel made its
findings on Thursday. The verdict re-iterated the charges originally
framed by Brian Deer in the Sunday Times as if no defence evidence had
been presented, in fact, as if neither the defendants nor their
counsel had never been involved in the case.

The defence case had been straightforward and unlike the prosecution
case, had seemed more or less unarguable. Around 1994, various parents
whose children suffered from terrible bowel problems, and regressive
autism, sometimes immediately after their MMR vaccination, began to
approach the Royal Free Hospital, wishing the country's
gastrointestinal experts to examine them and give a diagnostic
opinion. Throughout 1994 to 2002, such parents were always passed by
Dr Wakefield to Professor Walker-Smith who involved Dr Simon Murch, in
clinically reviewing these cases. Dr Wakefield's involvement in these
cases had deepened when it began to become evident that many of the
children were suffering from a new, or novel bowel illness. Dr
Wakefield was, after all, the head of the Experimental
Gastrointestinal Unit at the Royal Free Hospital.

In 1997, before any formal research trials were begun or carried out,
Dr Wakefield with a number of other colleagues, began to assemble 'a
case review paper', which involved recording the cases of 12 children
who had arrived at the Royal Free consecutively in the preceding few
years. Such a paper serves two purposes, it advertises the work of the
department and can be used to argue for new funding, and it gives an
early warning to other clinicians who might well come across similar
cases. The resultant paper, was not the report of 'a trial' or 'a
research project' of any kind, it was simply an account of the
presentation of twelve children. Although Professor Walker-Smith did
have ethical committee approval for the extraction of histological
samples from child patients, research ethical committee approval is
not needed for such a paper unless the children have been examined
with such a paper in mind. No money was used or received from outside
the National Health Service, for either the clinically necessary
evaluation of the children or for the case review study. All twelve
children were examined by clinicians and not Dr Wakefield who had
nothing at all to do with their clinical examination, review, or
agreed treatment. Most importantly, no research of any kind was
carried out on the condition of these children prior to their clinical
review by clinicians at the Royal Free Hospital. All the children were
examined on the understanding that it was the clinicians duty to find
a cause and to understand the painful and exceptional bowel trauma
experienced by these children.

Claims by the prosecution that the clinical care of the children had
been in the hands of Dr Wakefield, proved to be so 'off the wall',
that the prosecution had to change the wording of some charges to
read, 'Dr Wakefield caused procedures to take place'. How one causes a
colonoscopy, as if it were an act of God, remains a mystery to me.

This case review paper, made absolutely no attempt to prove that
vaccination caused autism. MMR vaccination was mentioned at one point
in the paper, when the authors made it clear that some parents had
drawn attention to the coincidence of MMR and their child's illness.
The authors suggested that more research might be useful in this area.
Nor was there any mention that MMR or any other vaccination caused
autism, rather the paper described a possible link between
Inflammatory Bowel Disease possibly affected by an unidentified
environmental trigger and regressive autism in some children.

It became clear part way through the hearing that the prosecution had
got everything wrong. They had rested their case entirely upon a
study, for which ethical approval had been sought but which by the
time of the publication of the Lancet case review study, had not
actually taken place. Clearly, the GMC prosecution and the panel did
not want to hear or admit to this huge error, contained originally in
Brian Deer's toxic writing for the Sunday Times. Unable to concede to
clarity of the defence case, the prosecution continued head-banging as
if it were a national sport. The false description of a research trial
paid for by the Legal Aid Board that proved MMR created autism
continued to be used to stir up great clouds of dust, misapprehension
and confusion.


* * *


It is perhaps important that we understand what really happened on
Thursday, that we understand the language that was used and it's
meaning. Following the verdict, most of the lay public will be
thinking that the professional behaviour of the three doctors had been
seriously scrutinised at great length and considerable cost, using
significant analytical, intellectual energy.

However, this is not true description of what had happened. A truthful
reflection on yesterday would go as follows. Towards the middle of the
1990s Dr Andrew Wakefield wrote to the Senior Medical functionaries in
the National Health Service, warning that a public health crisis might
occur if the government continued with it's MMR triple vaccine
programme. This communication came roughly two years after the UK
Chief Medical officer had withdrawn two MMR vaccines which contained
Urabe mumps strain. Over the previous decade, in various countries
this vaccine had been found to create serious adverse reactions in
children. With the British government left holding only one brand of
'safe' MMR and having caused already perhaps thousands of diverse
adverse reactions in the children who had received the vaccine, the
government and the pharmaceutical industry was not about to listen to
Dr Wakefield or anyone else who mentioned the words adverse reaction.

In 1998, Dr Wakefield along with eleven other authors published 'a
case review' paper in the Lancet. The paper charted the details of 12
children who had sequentially arrived at the Royal Free Hospital in
search of clinical treatment for serious bowel conditions. Dr Richard
Horton of the Lancet, even today, maintains that the science of this
paper was beyond reproach, although he gave evidence to the hearing
that Dr Wakefield's non-declaration a conflict of interest in the
journal of which he is editor was unforgivable.

From 1998 onwards, the government and the pharmaceutical companies
organised a merciless campaign against Dr Wakefield. Brian Deer wrote
a number of stories in the Sunday Times with the intention of
discrediting expert witnesses in previous vaccine damage cases in the
1970s and 1980s. In 2003, legal aid was withdrawn from the claim being
prepared by parents against three vaccine manufacturers. In 2004 the
appeal on behalf of the parents was turned down. Immediately after
this, Brian Deer published in the Sunday Times his first major attack
on Dr Wakefield, a complete character assassination written with the
help of the private enquiry agency Medico-legal Investigations, solely
funded by The Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries. With
the help of various people including the then Secretary of State for
Health John Reid, Deer tendered his paperwork upon which he had based
his skittish article, to the GMC and from then on it formed the basis
of the developing Fitness to Practice Hearing against Dr Wakefield,
Professor Murch and Professor Walker-Smith.

In 2007, the GMC began their trial of the three doctors that has
continued over two and a half years and is yet to finish with the
sentencing of the doctor in the period between April and July of this
year. In the time between Brian Deer lodging his complaint with the
GMC in 2004 and the verdict on fact on Thursday, a period of six
years, the government has continued to introduce new and unsafe
vaccinations damaging hundreds if not thousands of young people and
children. This programme has culminated with the International fraud
over swine flue vaccination, with which major pharmaceutical companies
conned governments out of billions of pounds.

So, yesterday's verdict was not what it might appear, a reasonable
judgement of a wise and considered tribunal. Rather the verdict was
what the pharmaceutical companies hope would be a death blow, an end
to the battle with a troublesome doctor. When Big Pharma and the
corrupt New Labour government asked the question 'Who will rid me of
this troublesome doctor', the GMC was the first to put its hand in the
air.


* * *



It's11.30 pm on Thursday night, I have watched a number of news
broadcasts, I think in the believe that sense would prevail on one
channel and the truth would break through the screen. It didn't
happen. Watching the news was a little like taking a bath in Walt
Disney animations. Relentlessly, Wakefield was portrayed as a
scaremonger, and worse as a criminal, a man who carried out damaging
experiments on autistic children.

Even the parents tended to come across in news extracts as a confused
entity because the media does not have time to explain that these
people are parents of vaccine damaged children who have supported Dr
Wakefield and his colleagues in their attempt to find a diagnosis for
their children's illness. The media simplifies and distorts everything
making it eminently clear who are the good guys and who are the bad
guys yet brings you no evidence as to how they arrived at these
opinions.

There is a peculiar sense in which all messages are broken, or
twisted; nothing is continuous, deep or simply expressed; all
statements are based on false premises.


* * *


It seems important to say something about the media in Britain - at
least as far as medicine is concerned, though it could easily be
stretched to the invasion of Iraq - in the throws of corporate
totalitarianism.

Having sat through the two and a half years of the hearing, I know
that the media generally have only been ghosts in the machine, never
present, never making a clear or analytical record of the proceedings.
Turning up as they did like cattle on the day of the verdict what
could they report apart from the panel's corrupt verdict? But,
inevitably the situation is far worse than this lapse in concentration
as the headlines last night and this mornings papers testified.

Yesterday, early outside the GMC, I watched Brian Deer being
interviewed by Sky News, he said things about the hearing which seemed
to me to be a product of his own fevered imagination, things that bore
not the slightest relation to any reality I had observed. After the
interview was over, I approached the Sky journalist who had carried
out the interview and asked him politely whether or not, when the
interview was run that evening, an announcement would be made of the
place of James Murdoch, one of the family owners of Sky, on the board
of GlaxoSmith Kline the vaccine manufacturer.

'No', the journalist said, already turning away from me. 'We give a
balanced account and there is no need for that kind of declaration'.

Obviously I had expected nothing more than this, but even so, I
couldn't help but be astounded again, at how crooked the contemporary
world is and at what shysters these people who call themselves
journalists are.

I think that it is time that we turned 'secret ties to industry', from
conflict of interest into corporate crime and made it a clearly
defined criminal offence for any person to hold a position of
authority or to be quoted on any material matter without citing either
personal or organisational, contemporary or historical, links with
corporations involved in the area under discussion.

I will end this report with a clear example of the criminal
misinformation indulged in by the British press. Not having lived in
the US, I have no idea of how the media deals with the matter of
vaccines, but I fear that most North Americans can have no
understanding of the unmitigated rottenness of the British Media, and
without such an understanding they might find it hard to grasp how
this tidal wave has crashed down upon Dr Wakefield.

A report appeared this morning in the Mirror newspaper, a vaguely
Labour leading tabloid, quoting Dr Miriam Stoppard who is a
septuagenarian columnist in the paper. Stoppard has campaigned against
alternative medicine, in favour of Hormone Replacement Therapy and in
favour of MMR, in everything from the most immature teen girl's
magazines to the Mirror newspaper.

On Friday morning, previous writing of hers was repeated in the Mirror
newspaper. Stoppard is just one of the many medical hacks that keep
the wheels of vested interest turning inside the UK pharma-soaked
media, but I think for reader world wide a brief look at the inanity
on the morrow of the verdict against Andrew Wakefield, Professor Murch
and Professor Walker-Smith might help readers outside the UK
understand how the GMC is presently getting away with its lamentable
corruption.

Miriam Stoppard writes an agony aunt column for the Daily Mirror
Newspaper. She has a company, Miriam Stoppard Lifetime through which
she sells her books and health products. After training as a doctor
she began working for the drug company Syntex and eventually becoming
one of the companies a managing directors. In 1997, she married Sir
Christopher Hogg, who until 2004 had been Chairman of GlaxoSmith
Kline, the vaccine manufacturer.

Here are Miriam Stoppard's remarks on Dr Wakefield's work, read on
Friday morning by thousands of Mirror readers.

Knowing the MMR was probably one of the most highly tested
vaccinations ever, I was shocked by Andrew Wakefield's words in 1998.
I looked at his paper and I found it was very badly researched with
lots of holes. It certainly didn't constitute any kind of cause or
relationship between the MMR vaccine and the appearance of autism. I
was astonished it was even published. Shortly after, I wrote a big
piece for the Mirror about how it was flawed and irresponsible. I
tried to reassure parents it didn't show a connection between MMR and
autism, the jab was safe and they should vaccinate their kids.
However, a lot of the media came out and emphasised the autism
connection and my attempts at reassurance were ineffective. Parents
were driven towards single vaccines. But single vaccinations aren't
licensed in this country so we don't even know if they're safe or
effective. And while you're giving children single vaccinations,
they're not protected against the other illnesses. So there is
absolutely no reason, science or logic in using them. And the argument
that the MMR overloads a baby's immune system is rubbish. It can take
more than 10,000 doses of the MMR vaccination and not turn a hair.
Wakefield and his bad research have an awful lot to answer for'.

Although it is hardly necessary, here is a brief rebuttal

MMR was probably one of the most highly tested vaccinations ever - not
true.
I was shocked by Andrew Wakefield's words in 1998 - which words?

I looked at his paper and I found it was very badly researched with
lots of holes - evidence?

It certainly didn't constitute any kind of cause or relationship
between the MMR vaccine and the appearance of autism - the paper
didn't claim to show any causal link between MMR and autism - how did
you read it and miss this?

I was astonished it was even published - Thank God you're not the
editor of a medical journal.

Shortly after, I wrote a big piece for the Mirror about how it was
flawed and irresponsible - How much were you paid for this article.
Did you declare any conflict of interest?

I tried to reassure parents it didn't show a connection between MMR
and autism, the jab was safe and they should vaccinate their kids -
The paper didn't claim to show any connection between MMR and autism,
however to assure parents without any evidence to the contrary is a
disgusting abdication of medical responsibility, do you still have
your doctors practice certificate?

Single vaccinations aren't licensed in this country, so we don't even
know if they're safe or effective. And while you're giving children
single vaccinations, they're not protected against the other
illnesses. So there is absolutely no reason, science or logic in using
them - How is possible to pack so many mistakes into 3 sentences?
Single vaccines were licensed at the time of the publication of the
Lancet paper. We do know that they are safe and effective because in
the case of measles they were used from 1976 onwards. In the case of
mumps, the NHS advised against vaccination and in the case of Rubella,
vaccination was suggested only for women likely to become pregnant.
Interesting that you say that we shouldn't be using single vaccines.
Is this the case for say, malaria, I mean if it doesn't also protect
people against measles I think you must clearly be right!

* * *


At the end of the day, we have to keep the parents at the forefront of
our mind and we have to consider that everything that can be done,
should be done to find some kind of safe haven for them. All our
battles, whether they be political, scientific or cultural have to be
directed towards getting diagnosis and treatment for the children,
while at the same time mercilessly pursuing the criminals within the
pharmaceutical industry and the government who now profess the new
creed of vaccine damage denial.


Martin J Walker is an investigative writer who has written several
books about aspects of the medical industrial complex. He started
focusing on conflict of interest, intervention by pharmaceutical
companies in government and patient groups in 1993. Over the last
three years, he has been a campaign writer for the parents of MMR
vaccine damaged children covering every day of the now two year
hearing of the General Medical Council that has tried Dr Wakefield and
two other doctors. His GMC accounts can be found


Cry me a river.

Everyone hates me, I'm going to eat some worms.

Poor fool started up reporting that parents at the hearing were very
angry at the Doc. Parents mind you that cared for the kids, with hatred
against the doc for what he did in the "name of science".

You see these people for what they are. Agenda over all, agenda rules,
it is the perceived outcome that is all important, not facts, not how
they arrived at what they did, true anarchy.

Yet the blind will continue on in their blind rage just like some of the
freaks in these ng's.


  #3  
Old January 31st 10, 11:20 PM posted to misc.health.alternative,misc.kids.health,sci.med
Peter Parry
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 176
Default Eye Witness Report from the UK GMC Wakefield, Walker-Smith, Murch Hearing

On Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:18:56 -0000, "john" wrote:


And so it came to be


Anyone interested in facts rather than the ramblings of a failed hack
can find the GMC verdict at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25983372/F...lete-Corrected

Dr Wakefield and colleagues had applied to the research ethics committee at
the Royal Free Hospital to carry out research programme 172/96, this
programme was to study children who had inflammatory bowel disease.


Not quite, 172/96 covered research funded by the Legal Aid Board via
the solicitors Wakefield was working for. (Page 10/11 of the
findings).

The defence case had been straightforward and unlike the prosecution case,
had seemed more or less unarguable. Around 1994, various parents whose
children suffered from terrible bowel problems, and regressive autism,
sometimes immediately after their MMR vaccination, began to approach the
Royal Free Hospital, wishing the country's gastrointestinal experts to
examine them and give a diagnostic opinion.


You forgot the bit about them arriving via the solicitors Wakefield
was working for.

Dr Wakefield's
involvement in these cases had deepened when it began to become evident that
many of the children were suffering from a new, or novel bowel illness. Dr
Wakefield was, after all, the head of the Experimental Gastrointestinal Unit
at the Royal Free Hospital.


and paid specialist for the claimants solicitor.

In 1997, before any formal research trials were begun or carried out, Dr
Wakefield with a number of other colleagues, began to assemble 'a case
review paper', which involved recording the cases of 12 children who had
arrived at the Royal Free consecutively in the preceding few years.


"Consecutively"? Almost all of these children [through their parents]
were actually clients and contacts of a UK solicitor, Richard Barr. In
February and June 1996, Barr wrote to numerous clients and contacts,
mainly people who'd got in touch following publicity and advised them
that those whose children had any of a list of possible symptoms of
Crohn's disease [such as bouts of diaorrhea, gut pain or even mouth
ulcers] should contact him for possible referral to Wakefield.

" the Panel is satisfied that these referrals did not constitute
routine referrals to the gastroenterology department. "

(Findings P45/46)

"c. The description of the referral process in the Lancet paper was
therefore,
i. irresponsible,
Found proved
ii. misleading,
Found proved
iii. contrary to your duty to ensure that the information in the
paper was accurate;
Found proved

In reaching its decision, the Panel concluded that your description
of the referral process as “routine”, when it was not, was
irresponsible and misleading and contrary to your duty as a senior
author. "

‘35. a. In a letter to the Lancet volume 351 dated 2 May 1998, in
response to the suggestion of previous correspondents that there was
biased selection of patients in the Lancet article, you stated that
the children had all been referred through the normal channels (e.g.
from general practitioner, child psychiatrist or community
paediatrician) on the merits of their symptoms,
Admitted and found proved

b. In the circumstances set out in paragraphs 32.a., 34.a. and 34.b.
this statement was,
i. dishonest,
Found proved.
ii. irresponsible,
Found proved
iii. contrary to your duty to ensure that the information
provided by you was accurate;
Found proved "

No money was used or received from
outside the National Health Service, for either the clinically necessary
evaluation of the children or for the case review study.


Not quite :-

"f. On 6 June 1996 Mr Barr submitted copies of the Costing
Proposal and the Legal Aid Board Protocol to the Legal Aid Board,
Found proved

g. On 22 August 1996 the Legal Aid Board agreed to provide a
maximum cost of £55,000 to fund the items in the Costing Proposal as
proposed by you and as set out at paragraph 3.d.,
(amended) Found proved

h. The Legal Aid Board provided funding in two installments of
£25,000, in late 1996 and in 1999 respectively, which was paid into an
account which was held by the Special Trustees of the
Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust for the purposes of your research
generally,
Admitted and found proved

i. The money provided by the Legal Aid Board was not needed for
the items listed at paragraphs 3.d.i. and ii. above, which were funded
by the NHS;
Admitted and found proved "

In 1998, Dr Wakefield along with eleven other authors published 'a case
review' paper in the Lancet. The paper charted the details of 12 children
who had sequentially arrived at the Royal Free Hospital in search of
clinical treatment for serious bowel conditions.


Nope, it charted the details of a group of children sent by a
solicitor Wakefield worked for.

In 2003,
legal aid was withdrawn from the claim being prepared by parents against
three vaccine manufacturers.


Because the _claimants_ received the report by Dr Bustin on the
failures in Unigenetics upon which they relied. It was the
_claimants_ lawyers who told the court they no longer had a
sustainable case.

"The actions proceeded and expert evidence was exchanged. At this
stage, three leading counsel for the claimants in the group action
produced a lengthy advice. They advised that, as the evidence stood,
there was no reasonable prospect of establishing that the MMR vaccine
could cause ASD"

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2006/155.html


 




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