Ron Law: Open Letter To Annette King

Wednesday, 1 December 2004, 9:18 am
Press Release: Ron Law

Open Letter to Minister of Health: Serious MeNZB(tm) Adverse Effects Covered Up

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Ron Law
Independent Risk and Policy Analyst

Dear Minister

I have been in an interesting position of late... rolling around roadside grass verges in the severest of pain due to renal stones... apparently, according to the medics, I've been through the equivalent of four childbirths, such was the pain.

Why am I telling you and the world this?

Well, effectively it has meant that I have been as client of yours via the St John's Ambulance service, North Shore Hospital Emergency Department, another ambulance trip, Auckland City Hospital Emergency Department, the Urology Ward, Greenlane Day Surgery and more to come.

Firstly, I'd like to commend all staff to you... their service, with the resources they had, has been superb.

There were, however, some major efficiency issues very evident. I waited in the Auckland City Hospital Emergency Holding Pen for the best part of a day for a bed in the ward, then waited quite some time for emergency surgery, then was kept in the ward for the best part of a day waiting for a one minute Xray so that I could go home. Staff told me that it was OK to complain about the gross under funding and under resourcing of various bottlenecks in the new Auckland City Hospital as they feel impotent at effecting change.

I suspect your denial that medical injury is a major health care problem doesn't help when prioritizing funding, although as both the CEO of the ADHB, and Treasury said, it never did make sense to waste $200 million on the experimental MeNZB(tm) vaccine. I note from Hansard that the Hon Jim Anderton said in the House recently that the sum was now $250 million, which you have recently denied. It seems that even Ministers have problems getting accurate figures from the Ministry.

I suspect also that your bizarre denial that Ministry of Health officials have systematically stripped medical injury from policy documents doesn't help you understand that another Cave Creek is in the wind... Well, denial of 1,500 preventable medical injury deaths in our health system suggests that something like a hundred Cave Creeks are occurring in the health system every year without any dedicated funding as has occurred with the ill advised experimental MeNZB(tm) vaccine!

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Imagine if the $250 million spent trying to save at best 1 or 2 lives a year was spent reducing the carnage in the health system?

Imagine if the 1,500 preventable deaths were taken seriously by the Ministry of Health and the $250 million being spent on the ill advised experimental MeNZB(tm) vaccine trying to save at most 1 or 2 lives was diverted to try to systematically prevent the fully laden Boeing 737 that crashes in our public health system every month at a cost of some $4 billion every year!

 

So why am I writing an open letter to you about my personal sojourns and our previously interactions?

Well, the hook looks something like this.

While in hospital, I communicated... I'm good at that. Nurses, doctors and other staff asked what a risk & policy analyst did, so I told them. I mentioned [without any arm twisting] my personal mission on seeing a royal commission of inquiry into the dysfunctional ministry of health in general, and the MeNZB(tm) scam in particular, and the Ministry of Health's falsification by omission and commission of the meningococcal stats to justify what even Treasury decided was unjustifiable.

But several folk... totally independently and in different locations in the health system... and spontaneously... and crossing several health professional groups ... made comment that there have been "many admissions to hospital of children with adverse effects due to the MeNZB(tm) vaccine which have not been reported."

One case in particular was mentioned more than once. Let me enlighten you.

It involved a 16 year old boy who was admitted soon after being vaccinated with the MeNZB(tm). He had all the symptoms of neurological manifestations of meningococcal disease including aversion to light, neck arching, and the like.

Interestingly, staff said that they were told that the lad did not have meningococcal disease, but that they were to treat him as if he did and keep him under close observation.

Even more interestingly, staff informed me that, not for the first time, they were told to 'keep quiet.'

I find this a fascinating anecdote, don't you?

Now bear in mind that this is hearsay... but I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the anecdote... having worked in the health system for several decades myself I know full well that health professionals who speak out against the system expose themselves to reduced career path options.

I suspect that what they told me, knowing the fact that I was publicly exposing what I believe to be an ideologically driven scam, was an attempt to blow the whistle. As mentioned, I heard this from several sources, and several health professions, so I don't think any witch hunt would discover anything to impugn staff members... other than perhaps denial so that they don't jeopardise their jobs.

You might like to make enquiries as to whether a 16 year old was admitted to Auckland City Hospital Emergency Department following MeNZB(tm) vaccination, because if this is true, then your officials are guilty of conspiracy to cover up what is by any definition a serious adverse reaction to the experimental MeNZB(tm) vaccine.

It also suggests that despite denials by the Ministry of Health, the MeNZB(tm) vaccine may be able to cause all of the symptoms of meningococcal disease itself.

As an aside, I note that neither you nor your officials have denied the two reported deaths during the vaccine trials. Again, if this has been covered up then it suggests serious problems with your Ministry of Health.

I note also in the Cabinet papers you released to me this week under the Official Information Act that Ministry Officials stated to Cabinet that the vaccine manufacturer, having received the first contract, made their continued involvement conditional that they managed both the manufacture of the vaccine and the vaccine trials. This is not healthy...

 

I look forward to your early reply which will be made public.

Regards

Ron Law
Risk & Policy Analyst