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Secret British MMR Vaccine Files Forced Open By Legal Action

Posted on January 13, 2009 by childhealthsafety

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/secret-british-mmr-vaccine-files-forced-open-by-legal-action/

The UK’s Daily Mail newspaper reports today that the British government was desperately trying to prevent secret files on the proven dangerous Pluserix MMR vaccine from being released publicly under the UK’s Freedom Of Information laws. In a recent case they have been forced to open the files up to scrutiny:-

Confidential MMR vaccine files should be opened in the public interest, watchdog rules - The Daily Mail - By Jenny Hope - 13th January 2009

And here is some of what will be discovered.

British Government’s Reckless Disregard for Child Health Safety

The UK’s Department of Health and others appear to have been reckless as to the safety of British children over the manner in which Glaxo company, Smith Kline & French Laboratories Ltd’s Pluserix MMR was introduced and used on British Children in 1988

• the problems with Pluserix MMR were known to the supplier, Glaxo company Smith Kline & French Laboratories Ltd from the experience of its introduction to Canada, in 1986, where Pluserix was marketed under the name “Trivirix”

• Trivirix (Pluserix) was withdrawn from use in Canada in 1988 because it was dangerous, causing high levels of adverse reactions in children

• the high levels of British adverse reactions to the vaccine were apparent and known about at British Ministerial level in 1990, as shown by ministerial correspondence

• Pluserix/Trivirx are the identical vaccine manufactured in the identical Smith Kline factory in Belgium and with the exact same component parts and constituents

• despite the Canadian position and contemporaneously with the final withdrawal of Pluserix/Trivirix in Canada the UK signed the contract to purchase Pluserix MMR from Glaxo company, Smith Kline & French Laboratories Limited in July 1988, even though it was known by then to be too dangerous for use on our children

• SK&F was provided with a blanket indemnity in that contract by the NHS Procurement Directorate

• the contract was signed up by the backdoor through the North East Thames Regional Health Authority as agent for the NHS Procurement Directorate rather than being a contract directly entered into with the NHS Procurement Directorate which negotiated the contract or the NHS Executive of the time

• there was no Parliamentary scrutiny of this and it seems to have been effected in a manner Ministerially deniable

• similar problems were experienced in Japan with the Japanese MMR vaccine which, in common with Pluserxi/Trivirix, contained the Urabe strain of mumps virus

• the Japanese MMR was also withdrawn by 1992 on safety grounds having caused high levels of adverse reactions

• the British government continued the licence for Pluserix MMR after 1992, which enabled it to be supplied overseas

• even today, because it is cheaper than safer alternatives, organisations like UNICEF continue supplying urabe strain containing MMR vaccine to the more adverse reaction vulnerable and less well nourished third world children

• since 1998, statistical paper after paper has been published in a blaze of publicity, claiming no evidence of an association between the MMR vaccine and autism, but when all the noise has died down, on subsequent careful examination, each one has been found to be flawed

• other than the Royal Free’s paper, no clinical studies of the MMR child litigants were undertaken or published

• after being put under financial pressure by the British Government, in 2005 the Oxford based Cochrane Collaboration published a systematic review of all prior papers and its authors claimed to conclude the MMR vaccine was safe:-

• it was shown the authors had violated the standards of evidence-based medicine and
• their conclusions were not supported by the body of the review
• and it later was discovered that the British Department of Health had increased the funding for Cochrane’s Oxford administration by £1 million per annum and extended the contracts of its British groups

British Government & Establishment’s Efforts to Deny Compensation to MMR Vaccine Child Victims

Legal Aid funded claims by children started as early as 1991 and well before Dr Andrew Wakefield warned the British public about the vaccine. His efforts were met with the full force of the British establishment to discredit him and proceedings before the General Medical Council resumed only yesterday, which have been going on for three years.

The main false accusation levied was that Wakefield made his disclosures in a paper published in The Lancet medical journal because he wanted to make money being an expert witness in Court. But few people know the following [and there is naturally full documentation on this].

The CEO of the owners of Richard Horton’s “The Lancet”, Crispin Davis, was appointed to the MMR litigation Defendants’ parent company GlaxoSmithKline’s board of directors in July 2003.

Brian Deer, a freelance journalist was commissioned by The Sunday Times two months later in September 2003 to write the stories attacking Wakefield.

This was about two weeks before the Legal Services Commission final decision was due on withdrawal of Legal Aid from the MMR children’s UK litigation and which did withdraw legal aid.

The person who commissioned Deer was Paul Nuki, Sunday Times’ sometime Head of Newsroom investigations and “Focus” editor. Paul Nuki is son of Professor George Nuki. Professor George Nuki in 1987 sat on the Committee on Safety of Medicines when the CSM was considering Glaxo company Smith Kline & French Laboratories’ Pluserix MMR vaccine for safety approval. The CSM approved Pluserix MMR but it caused very high levels of adverse reactions and was withdrawn by the manufacturers on very little notice in late 1992 leaving the Department of Health in an embarrassing position.

Large numbers of British children were injured and legal aid claims had already started from as early as 1990, six years before Wakefield became involved and contrary to The Sunday Times’ false claims that this was all a scam set up by Wakefield and solicitor Richard Barr.

Sitting on the CSM with Professor George Nuki was Professor Sir Roy Meadow and Professor Sir David Hull. Professor Sir Roy Meadow is now notorious for his evidence falsely condemning mothers around the world for killing their children. This includes the Sally Clark case where vaccines are directly implicated in the cause of death, as revealed by Neville Hodgkinson in The Spectator, (What killed Sally Clark’s child? | The Spectator 16 May 2007 ) but which were specifically discounted by Professor Meadow in his evidence, despite sitting on the joint CSM/JCVI vaccine safety sub-committee with Professor David Salisbury and others to approve the MMR vaccine.

It was Professor Sir David Hull in 1998 who, as chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, started the attacks on Wakefield’s work. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advises the Department of Health on vaccination issues and the childhood vaccination programme. As Chairman of the JCVI, Professor Sir David Hull could have taken action to deal with the issues over the MMR and protect British children. Despite his attacks on Wakefield’s work, allleging unethical research on children for no clinical benefit, two years later in 2000, it was Professor Sir David Hull who rewrote the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health ethical guidelines to permit research on children where there was no clinical benefit (albeit in The Royal Free’s case all the investigations were clinically justified).

The Sunday Times’ freelancer was assisted in his efforts with free advice and assistance from the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry funded and controlled company Medico Legal Investigations Limited. Medico Legal Investigations Limited speciality was in getting medical doctors on charges before the General Medical Council. So we know that before a single word was published by The Sunday Times, it was already being planned with the involvement of interested parties that Wakefield and colleagues were to be taken before the GMC.
Another free of charge helper to Sunday Times journalist Deer was Glaxo Wellcome funded Fellow and active British Medical Association member, Dr Evan Harris MP. Harris has advised and assisted Deer up to the present, including attending the Wakefield GMC hearings with Deer.

The Sunday Times journalist, Deer, was also assisted by The Royal Free’s Strategic Health Authority which passed Deer confidential documents ‘in the spirit of openness’ and including documents relating to the confidential medical treatment of the MMR child litigants. The SHA at first denied providing documents until it was pointed out the fact was disclosed by Dr Evan Harris MP, in Parliament on 15th March 2004.

On Saturday 21 February 2004, Lancet Editor Richard Horton pre-empted the Sunday Times stories. Horton was reported in The Times claiming he would not have published the MMR part of The Royal Free’s Lancet paper had Wakefield’s paid involvement in the MMR litigation been disclosed. The Sunday Times had waited until Sunday 22 February 2004, 5 days before judgment in the MMR child litigants’ High Court challenge to the withdrawal of legal aid, to publish its stories attacking Wakefield. Prime Minister Blair was reported in the press on the issue as was Health Secretary Reid.

Legal aid was withdrawn on 27th February 2004 in a secret judgment by High Court Judge Nigel Davis. The reasons remain unpublished today. Evidence given in open court at a different hearing included the allegation from a parent that an official admitted to her that legal aid was withdrawn after government pressure.

It was discovered in 2007 that Judge Sir Nigel Davis is the brother of Lancet owner’s CEO and main Glaxo board member Sir Crispin Davis. When challenged a statement was issued on Judge Davis behalf to The Telegraph newspaper’s legal correspondent Joshua Rosenberg and stated “The possibility of any conflict of interest arising from his brother’s position did not occur to him.“

On 15th March 2004 Dr Evan Harris launched an unprecedented and defamatory Parliamentary attack on Wakefield and his Royal Free colleagues and to which not one of Harris’ Liberal Democrat colleagues contributed. This was based on material in documents Sunday Times freelancer Deer had obtained and passed to Harris. Harris used the opportunity to raise allegations The Sunday Times chose not to publish.

Crispin Davis was awarded a knighthood June 2004.

Sunday Times freelance journalist Brian Deer confirmed it was he who had made the submissions to the GMC which led to the present GMC proceedings against Wakefield. Wakefield’s lawyers had reported in November 2004 that Deer had made a statutory complaint to the GMC and freelancer Deer reported in the Sunday Times in December 2004 that the General Medical Council was investigating the complaints against Wakefield.

Contrary to Lancet Editor Dr Richard Horton’s evidence to the GMC was that he did not know of Wakefield’s paid involvement in the MMR litigation, Horton had detailed correspondence in 1997 disclosing that involvement The correspondence was with Richard Barr, the solicitor who was working on the MMR litigation with Wakefield to help all those seriously injured British children.. This correspondence was considerably in advance of Horton’s February 1998 publication in The Lancet of the Royal Free’s paper containing the interpretation that MMR vaccine is associated with autism cases involving inflammatory bowel disease.

Notwithstanding this, the alleged non disclosure of the legal aid funding to Lancet Editor, Dr Richard Horton and the publication of the 1998 Royal Free paper was the nub of Deer’s The Sunday Times’ February 2004 attacks on Wakefield where it was claimed:-

“The investigation has found that when [Wakefield] warned parents to avoid MMR, and published research claiming a link with autism, he did not disclose he was being funded through solicitors seeking evidence to use against vaccine manufacturers. “

Now we know from this that Horton’s claims do not stand up and with them, those of The Sunday Times fall as well. But of course, not a word in the UK media.

Horton has not returned to the GMC Wakefield hearing this week to clarify his evidence and face cross-examination. It seems only his statement will be read out.