Martin Walker MA quotes
[back] Martin J Walker

In all he recent controversy about the BBC, and the controversies which came before, and before that, it is never mentioned that the the Corporation has for decades pursued policies of strict censorship in line with corporate and governmental ideology. In my work, in relation to alternative medicine, I personally have become aware of this practice in relation to the subject of cancer treatments and more recently with respect to the controversy over the MMR vaccination and the case of Dr Andrew Wakefield.
    The most blatant censorship engineered by the BBC was in two episodes — One Angry Man and Heart of Darkness — of the BBC drama series Judge John Deed which were banned internationally by the BBC after one showing. Exactly how the corporate pharmaceutical pressure was exerted within the BBC, is difficult to discern. The two episodes which were banned were about MMR vaccination.
    However, the two episodes are now available on You Tube at: http://www.youtube.com/JJDfan
    The series was devised, written and produced by one of Britain's most notable dramatists Gordon Newman who came under immense pressure to take any mention of MMR or even vaccination out of his scripts. I was one of the two script advisors for the series. Many of the British parents wanted themselves to see the episodes a second time and pass on the reference to other parents and were shocked and angry when the episodes were banned and taken out of the box set on retail sale. Now everyone, internationally, has the opportunity to see them.

Interestingly, this way of covering up the reality of deaths and damage caused by pharmaceutical corporations is becoming more common — In the UK, the case against Dr Andrew Wakefield, the whistleblower in the case of MMR (manufactured in part by GSK), was presented to the public as one of ethics, while the real issue of a damaging vaccine which harmed thousands of children was completely sidelined. If Witty and GKS did learn anything from this case, it was how to get away with culling the population of thousands, this part of their operation went very well but next time they might hope to dodge the fine for undeclared safety data. It makes me sick to my stomach, that while every high school shooting, every soldier killed in a foreign country, every notorious murder is religiously reported by the US media, GSK gets away with killing thousands without a single adverse word. And where are our gallant reporters in all this, whose going to sue them for fraudulent reporting, nothing could be a clearer sign that the media and it’s feather bedded journalists have crossed to the other side of the corporate tracks.
    Getting away with murder II.(in two parts) Because of clever media manipulation, most people don’t understand what this ‘fine’ involved in the GSK mass murder case. It has been presented to the public as a case of fraud. Every news item makes clear that GSK failed to disclose certain safety data for three drugs which they produced. The penalty for this fraud, however, was only a portion of the overall ‘settlement’, the great majority of it was a straightforward claims settlement for deaths and injury caused to people who took the drugs after they had been licensed on fraudulent safety data (I know only about Avandia, for one of the other drugs see Fiona Hackman’s question below).It’s a little like an automobile company knowingly producing cars with faulty brakes, which ultimately kill thousands of people, being fined for failing to alert industry regulators to an apparent production fault. The reason why all media have reported this settlement as one of fraud is clear, had it been reported as a claims settlement even the most docile of the public would have raised eyebrows, asking the question, ‘How can a company falsify safety data, obtain a license for a drug and watch it kill and maim thousands of people?’ Mr ‘witty’ Witty, the Chief executive of GSK was able to brush off the whole settlement with the aside ‘We’ve learned from our mistakes’, when the sad fact is that it was thousands of others who learned by GSK’s criminality.---Martin Walker

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. [2010 Jan] Eye Witness Report from the UK GMC Wakefield, Walker-Smith, Murch Hearing By Martin

[2010 Jan] The Launch of Silenced Witnesses Volume II: The UK GMC Hearings by Martin Walker  "Anyone could see clearly that if they had a genuine case, to show that the children were not ill and that they were subjected to aggressive procedures without ethical approval and without parental consent, they were bound to call the parents to give evidence. They didn't because the parents would have told the hearing that most of the children suffered the most terrible bowel disease followed by regressive autism. So had the prosecution called the parents from day one the GMC case would have collapsed." 
....Dr Wakefield, attending the launch with his wife Carmel, gave an impromptu and modest speech in which he repeated a number of times, the fact that whatever the verdict of the GMC, this battle was not about him but about science and the terrible plight of the parents and their children. Everyone was, however, aware that this is only half true, without Andrew Wakefield, the science, the data, the information about MMR, Inflammatory Bowel Disease and regressive autism, would have been buried by governments and drug companies, perhaps for ever.

"I can’t stress enough that one is sitting in the midst of something which is bubbling away like some witch’s cauldron in central London. You inevitably become embroiled in this false and rather evil world of chicanery, corruption and distortion.   Sitting there, listening to it, you get completely denuded of any better self, better feelings, any kind of spirituality you might have had when you arrived in the morning.  It is a very stultifying and morally dangerous thing to have to participate in day after day."---[Interview of Martin Walker Sept 2008]

Another question that loomed large in my mind over the last week was, why is it that when the GMC can spend millions of pounds on this hearing, Miss Smith the senior prosecutor cannot be heard in the public gallery. [2008 Nov] A Brief stopover in another reality by Martin J Walker MA

"Journalists increasingly behave like lackeys would have acted in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany or other repressed societies.  These people who call themselves reporters seem unable to investigate or broadcast anything which goes against the grain in our society.  It’s pitiful to watch."---[Interview of Martin Walker Sept 2008] ANDREW WAKEFIELD IN THE DOCK

It is also my hope that one day when we all escape from beneath this pharma-dominated society that has killed and damaged so many thousands, that the denial of adverse reactions to drugs and most specifically the denial of vaccine damage will become a criminal offense for which it's perpetrators receive long prison sentences. In my mind, the denial of MMR vaccine damage in children who are suffering the most terrible torment is a crime more severe than the most serious assault. [2008 Oct] An Open Letter to Brian Deer Rebutting His Article 'Families duped by a sad smearmaster of MMR fabrication and hatred' by Martin J Walker MA

the government in concert with the pharmaceutical companies, have decided to deny all vaccine damage from MMR. In order to do this, they have had to wipe out, disappear, make invisible, the agony and the tragedy that some thousands of parents have suffered and are suffering. It does stand to reason doesn't it, were the government or the industry to admit to even one serious case of adverse reaction, that began with IBD and was followed by regressive autism, that the floodgates would be opened. Denial knows no intermediary stages it has to be complete. [2008 Oct] An Open Letter to Brian Deer Rebutting His Article 'Families duped by a sad smearmaster of MMR fabrication and hatred' by Martin J Walker MA

As for the assertion that Dr Wakefield tried to make a personal profit from manufacturing a vaccine in competition to the multinational drug companies, it became clear during Mr Tahan’s evidence - and that of previous witnesses - that firstly, this was not a vaccine against measles, but a therapy that might ameliorate the adverse effects caused by measles vaccine; that Dr Wakefield had actually sought partnership with pharmaceutical companies to develop the therapy and finally that all profits from the patent, had it become a viable product, would actually have gone to the Royal Free Medical School. Dealers in Second Hand Words by Martin J Walker

The pharmaceutical companies are very powerful. Just look for a moment at the discrepancies in the law, between orthodox and alternative medicine in relation to adverse reactions. If an alternative practitioner is treating a patient with a diagnosed terminal illness  and the patient dies while being treated with herbs or homeopathy, even if these treatments are not actually the cause of death, the practitioner can be investigated by the police and tried under criminal law, for manslaughter. The prosecution would be organised by the MHRA a government department completely funded by the pharmaceutical industry and the case would not be reviewed by the crown prosecution service; the therapist could go to prison. If on the other hand a pharmaceutical company kills or maims thousands - say, as with Vioxx over 50,000 deaths - with a particular drug, the victims or relatives of victims have only the civil law to resort to, and without legal aid or a rich benefactor, in Britain, this is not a viable course of action.  [2008 Oct] An Open Letter to Brian Deer Rebutting His Article 'Families duped by a sad smearmaster of MMR fabrication and hatred' by Martin J Walker MA

in my view the cover-up of vaccine damage that has entailed the denigration of thousands of parents and the complete, almost Romanian-style lack of medical care of hundreds of damaged children, encouraged by the government, the medical establishment and the multinational pharmaceutical industry together with a number of journalists, is one of the most disgraceful incidents in British medical politics over the last century.
     To my mind it ranks in a degree of obscenity with the cover up over the advancing number of environmentally induced cases of cancer in our society and the decades-long attempts by industry to conceal the health damage caused by asbestos.
           In the case of MMR, there is a government still in power that indemnified the world's biggest pharmaceutical company, GSK, against all claims made by the parents or relatives of vaccine damaged children. When the adverse reactions occurred in their thousands, in the form of inflammatory bowel disease and regressive autism, seizures and brain damage, the government battened down the hatches and began one of the biggest propaganda campaigns ever mounted in Britain. [2008 Oct] An Open Letter to Brian Deer Rebutting His Article 'Families duped by a sad smearmaster of MMR fabrication and hatred' by Martin J Walker MA

"Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of the majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion." -----S. Kierkegaard (1813-55), Danish philosopher. The quotation is from The Diary of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. by Peter Rohde, 1960, pt. 5, sct. 3, no. 128, entry from 1850. There could not be a more exact analysis of contemporary views on MMR and the sub-set of children who have suffered serious adverse reactions. While the 'majority' is made up of those who simply receive their opinions from the media, together with those in positions of authority who simply make up ideological opinions, the parents and a handful of concerned professionals know their case from personal experience and a rigorous reading of the science. Uncomfortable Science and Enemies of the People by Martin Walker

Hospitals which opt out of the National Health Service could well consider making a proportion of their money by using their facilities and patients for drugs trials. In 1988, it was estimated that individual doctors and hospitals in Britain were paid sums 'ranging up to £100,000 to test new drugs on human volunteers'

 Not one parent has complained about the treatment that their child received under the care of the clinical team at the Royal Free. Indeed, because the parents of vaccine damaged children, entirely support the work of Wakefield, Murch and Walker-Smith, the GMC clearly could not call any of them as complainants against the doctors. Because they didn’t want Brian Deer’s motives disclosed under cross examination, they have not called him either. So it would appear that there is no real complainant behind the GMC hearings. More importantly perhaps the voices of the children and the parents have been stifled in this whole process while both the government and the GMC have tried hard to convince the public that there are no vaccine damaged children. [Feb 2008] NEW LABOUR, THE VACCINE SCANDAL AND THE CHARACTER ASSASINATION OF DR ANDREW WAKEFIELD by Martin Walker

The refusal to cross examine might appear risky, in that it seemed to let Salisbury off the hook with respect to important and simple questions such as: ‘Why did it take you two years to respond to Dr Wakefield’s first communication with you, which warned the DoH of a public health crisis over MMR?’ and ‘Why did it take six years for you to organise a meeting with Dr Wakefield to discuss his ground breaking research?’ and finally, ‘Did you intend to suggest in your evidence that Dr Wakefield was trying to blackmail the Department, by suggesting he would precipitate a public health crisis unless you gave him money for research?’
    All the facts relevant to the charges against Dr Wakefield, Professor Murch and Professor Walker Smith will of course be given in evidence by the defendants themselves. If they remain accused. Dr Wakefield, in particular, will be able to inform the panel about the considerable evasion indulged in by Professor Salisbury and the Department of Health from the time that they were first informed of the epidemic of adverse reaction to MMR. The Utter Irrelevance of Professor Salisbury by Martin Walker

The other considerable matter which Salisbury onanistically droned on about was his department’s determination to understand public perception of the various vaccinations. He introduced this matter by suggesting that no one else (no other government) in the world was able to track the take-up and public perception of vaccines in the way that the British government could. The data on public perception of vaccine was massive, he said. The survey methods were infinitely sensitive, the government even knew what newspapers respondents read. In all, Salisbury and his colleagues had carried out 30 surveys into the public outlook on vaccination, costing millions of pounds.
    Listening only lethargically to this ‘evidence’, one might be moved by it. ‘The government really is interested in the public experience of vaccination’, an observer might think. Of course nothing could be further from the truth. All this data, all these surveys, all these millions of pounds have been spent in order to advance the marketing of vaccines and to plan public relations strategies which will ensure that the public accept the vaccine programme without question. This is nothing to do with science, this is jury rigging. The Utter Irrelevance of Professor Salisbury by Martin Walker

In cross examination, the defence had previously put it to Professor Zuckerman that he had co-operated with the media committee, and with Dr Wakefield, in their plan to make clear their view of MMR and regressive autism. Professor Zuckerman, who had chaired the media committee which organised the press briefing had, it turned out, been appraised of the intention to propose a return to the single vaccine.
    In evidence, Zuckerman had denied this. A letter from him to Dr Wakefield produced in evidence, however, twice stated that in the event of a question being asked, he hoped that Wakefield would push the use of monovalent (single) vaccine. When asked about this letter in cross examination, Zuckerman had said that the twice used word ‘monovalent’ was on both occasions a typing error, and it should, of course, have read that they should push the ‘polyvalent’ (triple) vaccine. This was almost plausible, but if it was not true it hinted at a much deeper conspiracy on the part of the establishment than even I had imagined.
    As Miss Smith, heroine of the defence, led Salisbury through his evidence, she presented him with a letter written by Roy Pounder head of Wakefield’s department, to the Department of Health. A letter which Salisbury had seen. The letter, according to the twisted narrative of the prosecution, was supposed to be an example of how the Royal Free research team had constantly tried to blackmail the DoH. In the letter, Pounder had notified the Department of their intention to recommend at the press conference that parents ask for the ‘monovalent’ vaccine. He wrote, Pounder said, making this clear because he did not want the NHS to be caught short when requests for the single vaccine were made. ‘Did they have sufficient stocks?’ he asked. Now, unless monovalent was also a typing error in this letter, a nightmare picture of conspiracy and deceit is beginning to unravel in the GMC hearing.  The Utter Irrelevance of Professor Salisbury by Martin Walker

While we’re on the subject of statistics, perhaps someone could explain the meaning of the figures in the table for Measles Notification: England and Wales, By Age Groups, 1989-2006, that appears on the Health Protection Agency web-site. This table shows the number of measles cases notified (excluding ones at Port Authorities, to exclude the bias of people bringing measles into the country from abroad) for 2006 as 3,739. Why is this figure almost 3,000 more than the figure quoted by the HPA and repeated in the articles of Fitzpartick and others? Dealers in Second Hand Words by Martin J Walker

 The position of Professor Walker-Smith is testimony to the lengths that politicians and the medical establishment will go to keep faith with the pharmaceutical industry; to break an exceptional physician on the rack of cynicism and profitability...................[Sept 2007] GP in MMR row cleared by GMC

Professor Candy said that he was upset and surprised when the Lancet published the first paper without the second, and even more surprised when the publication of the first paper was accompanied by an editorial which suggested that there was no evidence presented for the strength of the measles virus in the gut of the children cited. This information was in the second paper, he said, and it was his opinion that both papers should have been published together; that the first paper was supported by the second. In Candy’s opinion the two papers were ‘indivisible’.  [Sept 2007] GP in MMR row cleared by GMC

Transcripts were freely available through week one, when allegations were being read out without rebuttal. After cross examination began it was decided not to make them available any more.[ 17 to 20 July and 23 to 26 July]  The Hearing Trundles On by Martin J Walker

I have been interested to hear the Chairman of the panel refer to the proceedings on a number of occasions as an ‘enquiry’. By no stretch of the legal imagination could this be the case. The proceedings are adversarial and at their heart is a hard brought and fought prosecution.
    The prosecuting authority is the General Medical Council, which is acting in concert with government public health policy and pharmaceutical company marketing strategies. The ultimate point of the prosecution is, from the prosecutor’s perspective, to defend the regulatory tenets of industrial scientific and medical research, isolate Dr Andrew Wakefield, and cast him out beyond the pale of informed medical opinion.
    Were this an ‘enquiry’, an independent GMC would, from the beginning, have produced evidence of process, which would cast light on the motives of the sole complainant in the case, Brian Deer. Had it been an enquiry, many hours would have been spent recording the evidence of all the parents who had cajoled, fought and pushed their way to the Royal Free in order to get their children the best medical attention available in Britain.
    This hearing is to all intents and purposes, a ‘trial’. As such, it is remarkable in contemporary society for not questioning, in any degree whatsoever, issues arising from the power of the pharmaceutical companies, their vested interests and their marketing strategies. The word ‘kangaroo’ became associated with the word ‘court’ presumably on account of that animal’s capacity to jump over great swathes of ground. [July 30th to August 6th] Prosecuting For The Defence by Martin J Walker

Dr Berelowitz would, he said, have nothing to do with Wakefield after the press conference. So vehement was he on this matter, that it occurred to me for a second that he was going to say that Wakefield had forged his signature on the protocol form for subsequent research in which he had clearly been involved. In the event, however, Berelowitz claimed that he was tentatively involved in the research in name only and after a time had not gone through with any involvement...................In many ways Dr Berolovitz was hoist by the same petard as all the other prosecution witnesses. He had willingly taken part in the research for a period of time, and he, as those before him, now had to somehow cast that involvement in an innocent light, while appearing happy to endorse the prosecution against Wakefield.
......Take the matter of Dr Berelowitz and lumbar punctures. The GMC prosecution have presented these as highly invasive, risky procedures which should on no account be used on children; they were portrayed as arcane and evil experimental methods. But how could Dr Berelowitz agree with the prosecution on this matter? If he did, he too would surely be admitting guilty involvement. So, on this, as on a number of other matters, Berelowitz, witness for the prosecution, essentially gave evidence for the defence.
.....Dr Berelowitz had to make a similar defence on the issue of ethical approval, another of the main planks of the prosecution case. On this he maintained very clearly, as others have done before him, and as others will no doubt do after him, that the writing up of a case-series does not require ethical approval.  [July 30th to August 6th] Prosecuting For The Defence by Martin J Walker

Both GPs refused to fall in line behind the prosecution supposition that in referring the children to the Royal Free the doctors had given up their patients to the devil. Both declared with ringing common sense that they had done what was best for their patients and their parents. What is more, both felt that their actions had been thoroughly vindicated when they received the discharge summary from the Royal Free and when later it became apparent that the two patients had been offered a believable diagnosis and treatment which had in differing degrees helped their condition.
    The second of the GPs was an ebullient man who despite being called for the prosecution, determinedly spoke for the defence. .....The fact that these worthy doctors had been brought to London in order to give evidence against three other doctors and, in a sense, against their patients and their parents made one wonder at the GMC's political turpitude. [July 30th to August 6th] Prosecuting For The Defence by Martin J Walker

A mother had approached her Consultant Paediatrician, with her son’s case. The consultant appears to have taken a jaundiced view of both the mother and the child. Despite having no real idea himself of how a diagnosis might be reached, he had bridled at the suggestion that the child be referred to the Royal Free, saying that he could not see how the child might benefit.
    To get support for this decision, based upon ignorance, he communicated the details of the case to Dr Kirrage. Kirrage in turn had immediately sought advice from a friend in high places, Dr Elizabeth Miller. Miller had told him that Andrew Wakefield’s theories and research were now discredited and that there was no link between MMR and autism. In her opinion it was best not to refer the child to the Royal Free.
    Using a pro-vaccine propaganda leaflet sent him by Miller, that he copied into an apparently personal letter, Kirrage wrote back to his consultant friend. He suggested that the consultant send a copy of this letter to the parents, at the same time informing the child’s mother he could not see that either the child or the family would gain anything from travelling to the Royal Free in London.
    What made this apparently ideologically motivated decision even more hurtful was the fact that neither the consultant nor Kirrage appeared to have the faintest notion of how they might get a proper diagnosis or specialised treatment for the child in their own Health Authority area. They were, as the mother wrote in a heart wringing letter to the consultant, dooming her son to incarceration in an institution where he would be drugged to keep him manageable. [July 30th to August 6th] Prosecuting For The Defence by Martin J Walker

Professor Zuckerman made the point on a number of occasions that in 45 years, he had never come across funding for research which entailed 'lawyers directing the research'. He didn’t have to explain this in any depth and defence council never put to him the endless evidence that in much research into workplace illness, in for example, the chemical industry, not only is the funding supplied by associate industrial interests but the work is carried out in industry funded establishments with data provided entirely by the industry in question.
.......Zuckerman clearly detested Wakefield. He poured sugary flattery on both Professor Murch and Professor Walker-Smith. Answering cross examination from Dr Wakefield’s counsel, he was completely defensive. Obviously feeling trapped and threatened, he was always on the brink of leaving his chair and the hearing.
    .....But the most intriguing question of all related to the press briefing shortly before the publication of the Lancet paper. Zuckerman had helped organise the ‘conference’ and he seemed happy to chair it. He had a preview of its structure and the questions it would address. However, when a journalist at the end of the briefing, asked what approach parents should now have to the MMR combination vaccine, Zuckerman directed the question to Dr Wakefield. This was despite the fact that he knew Wakefield to have had concerns about the polyvalent vaccine for many years. Despite the fact Zuckerman was at that time in receipt of a letter from Dr Wakefield in which it was explicitly stated that, if asked at the press briefing, Wakefield would make clear those concerns.
    As soon as Dr Wakefield had made the statement which apparently ended his career at the Royal Free, suggesting that it might be better to suspend use of MMR until research had proved its safety or otherwise, Zuckerman re-directed the question to Professor Murch. Murch quickly expressed his complete support for the vaccine. Why, one might ask, had Zuckerman directed the question to Wakefield?  
    Slowly with steady articulation, Mr Koonan put it to Professor Zuckerman that he had alleged Dr Wakefield was implacably opposed to any attempts at replication of his work, although, in fact, replication did take place. 'It’s as simple as that', Mr Koonan blandly ended the statement. There were signs, then, that Zuckerman was about to lose it.
    Koonan’s next set of questions dealt with the press briefing. He suggested to Professor Zuckerman that Zuckerman was not displeased to have the paper published by Dr Wakefield and other researchers from the Royal Free. That he thought the work reflected well on the medical school. He was even, Mr Koonan suggested, pleased to chair the briefing.
    At this, Professor Zuckerman lost his footing and began to slide down the cliff face, his terse venomous responses coming almost automatically. 'I absolutely reject this. I absolutely reject this. I absolutely reject this' he said in triplicate at one point.
    At the end of Zuckerman’s evidence one was left with the impression that he had performed cleverly, expressing his personal detestation of Dr Wakefield, defending his professional interests and managing to avoid answering the most damaging exchanges with Mr Koonan by utilising a display of histrionics. [July 30th to August 6th] Prosecuting For The Defence by Martin J Walker