From the UK: The Betrayal of a Nation's Children By Martin Walker

By Martin Walker MA
http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/03/from-the-uk-the-betrayal-of-a-nations-children.html#more
Two weeks ago, the Director of vaccine policy at the UK Department of Health, Professor David Salisbury, moved to stifle all criticism of himself and the Department's policies by letters warning of writs for defamation, against a number of vaccine damage campaign websites. These legal letters asked that websites take down Martin Walker's last essay, To Encourage the Others. In the writ Salisbury tried to distance himself from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

In two weeks time, in April of this year, vaccination policy in Britain will change radically when it is handed over to a committee appointed by a quango that consists almost entirely of drug company insiders. In this new statute, it will become compulsory for the government to enact the wishes of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). From April onwards the New Labour government will abdicate all responsibility for vaccine policy, mass vaccination programmes, licensing, deaths and adverse reactions to the pharmaceutical industry.

To understand this massive gift to Big Pharma, US observers in particular should bear in mind that in Britain, conditions have never been so favourable nor citizens' criticisms of the pharmaceutical companies so acute as they are at the moment. So powerful is Big Pharma in little Britain, that there has never been a single successful court action against a pharmaceutical company; that all British Vioxx and MMR claimants were denied legal aid; for two years now, Dr Andrew Wakefield and two other doctors have been on trial before the General Medical Council, for suggesting that MMR might cause inflammatory bowel disease and Autistic Spectrum Disorders; and as 1,340 adverse reactions are announced following the Cervarix mass vaccination, ongoing for six months, the drug company-funded regulators have told the British people, that they can live with these minor events.

Between 1988 and 1992 the British government, in fear of putting off parents from having their children vaccinated and endangering pharmaceutical profits, neither acted upon, nor made public, information about deaths and adverse reactions that affected thousands of children given the mumps, measles and rubella (MMR) vaccination. The Urabe Farrago, Martin Walker's latest essay, takes the expose of vaccine politics in Britain further than ever before, describing a state of near regulatory anarchy in the licensing and administration by the government of MMR vaccination.

Read The Urabe Farrago

The efforts to silence critics of vaccine policy through legal intimidation is much worse in Britain than America because of laws that hamper free expression and free press (there's a reason we fought a revolution -- to get away from the kind of statist mindset that comes with a king and queen and house of lords). I believe that's one reason Andy Wakefield has said the vaccine/autism link will finally see the light of day in the U.S. and not Great Britain. It's also why, as much as I think Brian Deer is a complete reckless idiot, I've opposed efforts to haul him before the Press Commission or whatever the outfit is called in Britain that undercuts the right to investigate and report freely. We need more freedom of expression, not less, because ultimately it is what allows the truth to prevail. Meanwhile we have to put up with bad reporting and bad reporters, but their impact will wane and they will be left with a permanent written record of their arrogance and incompetence. Keep writing, Brian, the more you do and say the more obvious your bias and belligerence toward autism families becomes self-evident. And more power to Martin Walker.

Posted by: dan olmsted | March 12, 2009 at 08:34 AM