Dear Minister,
It appears that your government may withhold Centrelink payments from parents who choose to not vaccinate their children, do so partially, or on a delayed basis.
In light of this can you please answer some questions.
- There is no medical debate that adverse events can occur after vaccination. In some instances they can be extremely serious, even resulting in death.
The World Health Organisation states that such injuries resulting from vaccination can be ‘severe’ and require a life time of care, and that it is an ‘ethical necessity’ that a compensation scheme be in place. (1) If you are injured in an accident in a taxi, you can get attorney help from here!
Australia has no such scheme. What provisions does your government provide for those who have suffered a vaccine injury? Will you foot the bill? - In May last year the French government held an open enquiry into the effects of aluminium adjuvants.
There have been numerous papers published on possible harmful effects. Professor Chris Shaw has raised “plausible concerns” (2) over possible neurological harm, and Professor Yehuda Shoenfeld who recently spoke in Australia, believes they can play a role in autoimmune dysfunction.
Does your government guarantee that the current ‘epidemic’ of neurological disorders in our nation’s children is not being caused by aluminium adjuvants? - One of our nation’s foremost experts in infectious disease, Peter Collignon, has stated that we have an ‘inadequate’ adverse event reporting system.
How can your government quantify the level of risk associated with different vaccines, without agreed upon statistics for adverse events? (3) - In 2002 British medical journal The Lancet revealed that around 90% of clinical guidelines are being written by people with financial links to pharmaceutical companies.
It has also been revealed that articles in medical journals are being ghost written by drug company employees, and that negative data is routinely withheld.
The ‘All Trials’ initiative has shown that the medical evidence base has been massively corrupted by pharmaceutical marketing.
Will your government sign up to ‘All Trials’, and will you guarantee that any research presented in support of vaccination is independently audited?
And further to this are you prepared to categorically guarantee that existing research used to support the current schedule is 100% reliable and free from the influence of pharmaceutical marketing concerns? - Professor Shaw has also stated the following:
“…..in spite of the widespread agreement that vaccines are largely safe and serious adverse complications are extremely rare, a close scrutiny of the scientific literature does not support this view.” (2)
Are you 100% confident this is not the case given the corruption of the medical evidence base as outlined above?
- Australia’s vaccination schedule is far more intense than most other Western nations.
We are also suffering an ‘epidemic’ of neurological and auto immune disorders in our children.
Does your government guarantee that there is no correlation? - Up until very recently there was no declaration of conflicts of interest relating to policy advisers on vaccination.
Does your government guarantee that advisors to policy makers are completely insulated from pharmaceutical marketing concerns, and have been in the past when important decisions were made to add products to the schedule? - Are you aware of the very many legal actions and penalties directed at pharmaceutical companies?
In the last two decades there has been over $30bn in fines for what the independent Cochrane Collaboration has described as a ‘laundry list’ of crimes including withholding adverse data, allowing products that are known to kill people, to remain on the market, bribing medical professionals and much more.
To give just one example, currently the company Merck is being sued by its own scientists for a massive raft of frauds relating to its MMR vaccine.
“Merck, the pharmaceutical giant, is facing a slew of controversies over its Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine following numerous allegations of wrongdoing from different parties in the medical field, including two former Merck scientists-turned-whistleblowers.
A third whistleblower, this one a scientist at the Centers for Disease Control, also promises to bring Merck grief following his confession of misconduct involving the same MMR vaccine.” (4)
If their own scientists feel strongly enough to sue their employer, can you explain why it is that regular Australians should have trust in this product, or in fact any product of pharmaceutical companies – an industry that Forbes magazine states is ‘addicted to fraud’ (5)?
- Each year Australians are said to suffer 1.5 million adverse reactions to pharmaceutical products.
Would you agree that this is unacceptable and the government should be prioritising solving this problem, ahead of coercing people to ingest yet more pharmaceutical products? - If there is a general concern about ‘immunity’ does your government plan to do more to educate parents about the agreed upon benefits of breast feeding and sound nutrition?
- Are you aware of the international conventions against coercive medical procedures and the ethical basis for rejecting ‘greater good’ approaches to medicine given the unique nature of individual physiology, especially when applied to people who are healthy in the first instance?
What is your rationale for breaking such conventions? - It is my understanding that twenty years ago vaccination rates were a little above 50%, and the schedule was considerably less than now. Illnesses such as measles were recognised as having very low morbidity rates in robust individuals, with the sole outcome most usually being a period of discomfort followed by lifelong natural immunity.
If these sorts of formerly ‘routine’ illnesses are now being marketed as being vaccine preventable, would you not agree that any vaccine used for this purpose must be unequivocally safe and effective?
Given Merck’s own scientists do not believe this about MMR, why are we replacing a health issue with extremely low morbidity, with what may be a potentially far worse set of health outcomes? - Australia has a massive problem with obesity and related illness.
We also still have a significant portion of the population that smoke.
Although the CDC in America claimed in 1958 that smoking was perfectly healthy, we now accept it causes a range of disease, and that smoking in front of children causes significant harm.
Given you want to link Centrelink payments to parental decisions regarding the health of their children, can we look forward to Centrelink payments being withheld from people who smoke?
How about people who eat fatty and sugar laden junk foods?
Given that heart disease is our number one killer, can you understand that many people would see this as being a far more significant threat to the nation’s health than illnesses that were until very recently regarded as entirely routine? - Given you are seemingly setting a precedent do you have plans to link Centrelink payments to the use of psychiatric drugs on children with behavioural issues, given such children also have the potential to impact others?
- If parents have already experienced an adverse reaction to vaccination in their children, and currently rely upon Centrelink payments, it seems their choice will be to either risk re injuring their child / exacerbating an existing problem, or possibly going without adequate food, clothing and so forth. Do you think that any reasonable person would find this acceptable?
- Finally…..according to the Huffington Post, about half of medical professionals including doctors and nurses in Western nations refuse routine vaccinations.
A Canadian Nurses’ Union representative stated that this was because they had seen how many adverse reactions can occur.
National Nurses United (Canada) president Karen Higgins said last year, “nurses, joined by many physician organizations and researchers, reject the notion that vaccination is a fail-safe solution ……. there are health reasons why some elect not to be vaccinated.
Some vaccine products have been withdrawn, as when Bell’s palsy developed for many recipients.
It has just been reported that 800 European children contracted narcolepsy, an incurable sleep disorder, after receiving the swine flu vaccine.” (6)
Given the misgivings of medical professionals all around the world, can you truly expect Australian consumers to unquestioningly accept a procedure and products that are clearly dividing the medical community?
I appreciate that the vaccination issue superficially seems like a ‘no brainer’ as the Americans like to say, but it is my hope that the elected government of Australia will strive for global best practice and insulate itself from pharmaceutical marketing in its many different guises, including corrupted medical literature, front groups, and a complicit media.
Pro vaccination lobby group SAVN (Stop the Australian Vaccination Network) has issued a statement saying they do not support this policy; that they respect choice, and an issue such as this requires a ‘nuanced’ approach.
I applaud their stance on this, and wonder who actually does support this policy, other than pharmaceutical company shareholders, and segments of the community hystericised by irresponsible and inflammatory elements of the media.
The ‘pro/anti’ dualism on this issue is an artificial construct according to the many medical professionals I have interviewed for my contributions to I2P – their viewpoints range from being supportive of vaccination in principle, to criticising certain products or ingredients, through to being less enthusiastic about it overall and suggesting it may not be the best approach to some diseases.
In short there is a huge diversity of opinion, and this issue must take account of this.
There is no argument that vaccination can lead to adverse reactions, and in some instances injury, or even death.
As The Lancet, Forbes and many other publications have shown the pharmaceutical industry is ‘addicted to fraud’ on every conceivable level, from bribing medical professionals and policy advisers, to withholding data on products which are dangerous.
In this context the decision to take coercive measures relating to the use of any pharmaceutical product must be questioned. This is a very slippery slope and Australians of all backgrounds are starting to register their shock at what is beginning to look like corporate totalitarianism.
As with many other Australians I will look forward to your responses.
Respectfully,
Baz Bardoe.
(1) WHO statement re vaccination injury programs.
Here: http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/5/10-081901/en/
(2) Shaw, Chris and Tomijanovic, Lucija (2012) Mechanisms of aluminum adjuvant toxicity and autoimmunity in pediatric populations. Lupus.
Here: http://lup.sagepub.com/content/21/2/223
(3) Family sues over flu vaccine reaction. ABC News.
Here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-24/family-sues-over-flu-vaccine-reaction/2770126
(4) Here: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/merck-whistleblowers_b_5881914.html
(5) Here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikakelton/2013/07/29/is-big-pharma-addicted-to-fraud/
(6) Here: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/canada-vaccinations_b_4593168.html
21 responses to “Some questions for Scott Morrison on the ‘no jabs/no pay’ policy”
Thank you Baz for writing this very informative article. The issue DEFINATELY is about our human rights and the Australian Government is sliding down a slippery slope.
i would like more proof that vaccinations are ok
Great letter, precise and too the point. you are a gem. Unfortunately the Government think they are God and will just ignore it, but it is good to know we are not alone in our fight for our rights, and most of the population are aware of the human rights issue here.
This article is embarrassing. A hodge-podge of Big Pharma conspiracy theory and reliance on debunked ‘research’ conducted by discredited authors. You even rely on the RETRACTED Hooker allegations for goodness sake. Stop dumpster diving. Start paying attention to reputable sources. I’m embarrassed for you, Baz.
Hi, loved your article. My question is, based on what you’ve said, can a parent take the government to court to demand these child welfare benefits based on constitutional or human rights rights?
Marie
I suggest that you do your research further. This article is well researched and logical. These questions do need to be answered. Also, where are the proofs that the vaccines work? There is no proof. There are only juggled statistics, false statements about when polio reduced and what enabled that reduction and changing the diagnosis of polio to further assist the juggling of figures on polio to make the vaccination programs look effective. The damage to the populations remain largely unreported and diminished in public statements. This is not good enough. There is considerable doubt about their safety. As such, this coerced policy should not go ahead. The potential outcomes are too dangerous for the public to risk.
This article does not really offer “questions” for Scott Morrison but rather repeats on faith, some common anti-vaccine postulations that are already well answered in official Australian Immunisation material. The questions – when offered – thus take on the tone of a challenge to globally accepted immunisation standards.
I find it interesting that the WHO citation pertaining to no-fault compensation does not itself cite a death rate from vaccination, but does note 2.5 million deaths averted in 2008 because of the life saving impact of vaccines. Regrettably the author has cited the case of Saba Button – a tragic severe injury. The subject of a Senate Inquiry and the cause of scrutiny of CSL compliance to strict GCP*, including a visit from the USA’s FDA, it must be stressed the cause of this tragedy has been firmly elucidated.
More so, the absence of fatalities in Australia from vaccines is a powerful statement in itself. The Encephalitis Society observes that MMR causes zero deaths, whilst measles results in 1 – 2 per 5,000 “depending on age”. SSPE kills 1 in 8,000 measles sufferers under 2 years old.
http://www.encephalitis.info/
The claims of so-called “whistleblowers” requires a mention that William Thompson’s claim of suppressed information on MMR earned a place on the rumour-busting site snopes.com and has been utterly dismantled by others. Thompson himself has refuted the claim made using his name releasing a statement that can be found here:
http://www.morganverkamp.com/august-27-2014-press-release-statement-of-william-w-thompson-ph-d-regarding-the-2004-article-examining-the-possibility-of-a-relationship-between-mmr-vaccine-and-autism/
I see a mention of the anti-vaccine social media troll Solomon. The same “whistleblower” who claims that the Vatican, UNICEF and WHO are using vaccines to “sterilise girls”. Certainly a refreshing change to conspiracies of global control.
Exclusively, examination of the whistleblower/fraud stories reveals them to be manufactured or misrepresentations of the truth.
I agree that Australia needs a no-fault compensation scheme specific to AEFI (Adverse Event Following Immunisation). This has been suggested and justified in an article in the MJA – Med J Aust 2011; 195 (1): 4-5.
Ultimately it is very disappointing to read misleading and ultimately harmful articles such as this.
* Good Clinical Practice
https://www.tga.gov.au/publication/note-guidance-good-clinical-practice
http://www.ich.org/products/guidelines/efficacy/efficacy-single/article/good-clinical-practice.html
this is without a doubt media fueled political ” bullying ” – statistics show lower vaccination rates in areas of higher education and income , that will no doubt continue to make their own choices based on that education . Unfortunately the many that Actualy need the Govt financial assistance are being forced to choose between the health of their children , or providing necessities ! It doesn’t even make allowances for parents that are indeed willing to vaccinate , but at a more realistic pase as apposed to the rediculous amount of vaccinations before their second birthday. This is really about a slow erosion of our rights as intellegant members of our australian population . Where is this going to end , once the slop starts with this erosion of our rights where does it end 🙁
This is an excellent article. Thank you for the great references. I hope that this government answer these serious questions and stop being so blindsided by the pharma and media giants only.
Well, there 2 vaccines that i would absolutely not have my children get- hepB at birth, and gardasil. Why? Do I really have to spell it out? Or does common sense play any part in this issue. The general public is so aggressive about enforcing what they believe in that they don’t realize that they prob don’t even know what’s in each of the jabs. If my child is exposed to hepB via a shared needle or sexual abuse then I have failed them as a parent. Yes they can step on a needle, but they can do a lot of things and this should be an informed parents choice. I remember learning at school that A) viruses change and mutate, same as the flu, and B) the immune system has many layers of defense which get bypassed when it’s injected. That’s just a common sense, unscientific parents view. Make the vaccines safer and don’t inject a baby who is just beginning to use its organs for the first time. How can anyone seriously think that is ever ok??? ESP for a S.T.D!!!!!!!! Vaccines should be oral. I think this legislation is great bc I have seen less fight for it from ppl who were once very vocally pro vax and more people questioning it, concerned about what other meds will end up being mandatory and will natural or dietary alternatives be something a parent can’t chose for their child? Let me just say that this would lead to people avoiding drs. If there is a chance that a dr or docs can overrule your rights as a parent then will people just stay away entirely? This can go both ways. It can put a wedge into communities and divide people, or they can accept each others differences. Is not the purpose of a vaccine to minimize symptoms rather than prevent transmission anyway? The whooping cough is used to scare ppl but there are many strains for one, an if a baby didn’t have hepB to deal with then it would stand a better chance to fight of virus? Doesn’t anyone else think that? Are we that brainwashed?
Thankyou for such insightful questions , including the evidence based links to the required background information.
Let me tell you now, as a mother of a vaccine injured child, there is no way in hell any amount of financial bribery will make me change my mind to vaccinate my younger child. What kind of zealot would force a parent into this kind of ‘choice’? This proposal by the Abbott govt is of concern to all, not just those who conscientiously object to vaccination. This issue is not as black and white as the mainstream media portray. There is an urgent need for open discussion and transparency regarding vaccine safety, best practice, and ( as in so many other political areas) conflicts of interest within government, organisations and corporations. Baz’s letter effectively highlights the fact that there is currently no room being made in the media or political arena for such discussion and questioning of these important issues. I have heard such blanket statements in the media as, ‘ There is no debate. The science is settled.’ regarding the safety of vaccines. Surely logic would argue that science stands up to scrutiny. And, isn’t it the very nature of science to question in the first place???
Read all about Whooping Cough vaccines failure and how it has actually be the cause of a resurgence of the disease here:
http://crazzfiles.com/turnbull-pushes-mandatory-vaccination-rollout-but-has-lucrative-shares-in-big-pharma/
If a child is immunised against disease, then why are they concerned about children who are not. Or do they not trust the vaccine ? If so, why expose your child to all the risks associated with the vaccine and the toxic concoction that goes with them in the first place. Logic does not prevail.
How has WHO measured the 2.5 million in averted deaths due to vaccines?
Unfortunately reporting of vaccine adverse effects in Australia is not efficient, and as seen with the recent case of Brooklyn from Rockhampton, despite the baby having seizures for the first time immediately after his second vaccine injection, we are advised the vaccine had nothing to do with his seizures (they knew this despite not yet knowing the cause of the severe seizures…)
Vaccines aside, this is a matter of human rights, and living in a ‘free’ country.
Thank you Baz. Despite what Paul and Reasonable Hank say, these questions have not been answered. These types of questions have been largely buried, and hidden from the public, under a mudslide of filthy attacks on those who dare to question the safety of vaccines.
William Thompson the Whistleblower’s statement (which Paul has kindly shared a link for) appears to make it fairly clear that Mr Thompson has regrets over supressing information:
“I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.”
Make no mistake about it, Dr. Thompson is a whistleblower. Here is what his attorney’s website states:
Named “Whistleblower Lawyers of the Year” for 2010 by Taxpayers Against Fraud, we are experienced litigators who bring qui tam cases under the False Claims Act, the IRS whistleblower law, and other federal and state laws for people who report fraud or abuse of the taxpayers by government contractors. Our lawyers have been deeply involved in these cases for 15 years, with extensive trial and appellate experience. We practice nationwide representing clients knowledgeable about fraud in the health care, military procurement, and pharmaceutical sectors, among others.
Why has Dr. Thompson hired this particular law firm to represent him? He obviously is not primarily concerned about the parents of vaccine-damaged children and what legal action they may take, he is concerned about the CDC and the federal government and what actions they may take against him for coming forward and revealing data that was withheld for over 10 years linking the MMR vaccine to autism.
Dr. Thompson has stated verbally in his recorded messages with Dr. Hooker, as well as in his prepared statement, that he regrets participating in this cover-up at the CDC, and that he is fully participating with Congressman Posey and his investigation into this cover-up. Here are some of his quotes from a recorded interview with Dr. Brian Hooker that are not being reported in the MSM:
“Oh my God, I cannot believe we did what we did. But we did.”
“It’s the lowest point of my career, when I went along with that paper. I went along with this, and we didn’t report significant findings.”
“I am completely ashamed of what I did. I have great shame now. I was complicit, and I went along with this.”
“I have great shame now, when I meet families with kids with autism, because I have been part of the problem.”
Watch the video yourself, and listen to Dr. Thompson’s voice, this senior CDC vaccine researcher, say these things:
– See more at: http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/cdc-director-of-immunization-safety-admits-bias-and-withholding-data-linking-vaccines-to-austim/#sthash.NnIu9NNK.dpuf
I find it confusing that the whole premise of punishing people with welfare withdrawal is based on the hypothesis that these people are reducing the “herd immunity”. However if you read the science you will see that this is not the case. It is the inadequate vaccines that are causing the problem. We need better and safer vaccines.
UNSW have found that 80% of cases of whooping cough are strains that do not respond to the vaccine – so why blame the unvaccinated?
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/5608/20140415/whooping-cough-bacterium-evolves-mutation-makes-existing-vaccine-less-effective.htm#ixzz3J7XlXGPH
“So far, it has been bad news as experts have found out the bacteria causing whooping cough have evolved.
The most likely culprit in the mutation of the Bordertella pertussis, the bacterium causing whooping cough, is the vaccine used to protect humans against it. The vaccine has been effective by zeroing in on pertactin, a protein that plays a major role in the development of the illness.
“It’s like a game of hide and seek. It is harder for the antibodies made by the body’s immune system in response to vaccination to ‘search and destroy’ the whooping cough bacteria which lack pertactin. This could mean that these pertactin-free strains have gained a selective advantage over bacterial strains with the pertactin protein,” said Ruiting Lan, senior author of the latest study on whooping cough and associate professor at School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of New South Wales.”
he team of experts, led by UNSW PhD candidate Connie Lam, have looked into cases of whooping cough from across Australia and have found out that roughly 80 percent of the cases in 2012 were due to strains of the bacterium that do not have pertactin.
“The fact that they have arisen independently in different countries suggests this is in response to the vaccine.
Also people who have been vaccinated against pertussis can still cary the disease.
The FDA published a study they had conducted on the pertussis vaccine, admitting that cases of whooping cough were increasing among a highly vaccinated public. They studied the effect of the vaccine on baboons, and found out that vaccinated baboons still carried around whooping cough in their throats, spreading it to others. The N.Y. Times actually reported on this in their “Health Section”.
a report was published by the Financial Post titled Vaccines Cannot Prevent Measles Outbreaks. Its author, Lawrence Solomon, reported on a paper written by Professor of Medicine and founder and leader of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, Professor Gregory A. Poland, titled The Re-emergence of Measles in Developed Countries, which was published two years ago.
“Thus, while an excellent vaccine, a dilemma remains. As previously mentioned, measles is extraordinarily transmissible. At the same time, measles vaccine has a failure rate measured in a variety of studies at 2 –10%, and modeling studies suggest that herd immunity to measles requires approximately 95% or better of the population to be immune.”
Therefore blaming unvaccinated people for not creating herd immunity is a myth – both vaccinated and unvaccinated spread the disease and will continue to do so. The best defence is a health immune system, high vitamin d levels, good diet, avoiding stress.
“Even Dr. Thompson’s co-author in the study published in 2004, Dr. Frank DeStefano, the CDC Director of Immunization Safety, has stately publicly in an interview with investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson that the CDC did indeed exclude certain data showing a link between vaccines and autism, as they did not consider it significant.” – See more at: http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/can-snopes-be-trusted-on-health-issues/#sthash.rqMB3Hle.dpuf
“In this interview, Dr. DeStefano admitted that the CDC omitted a large group of African American children based on the absence of birth certificates. When Sharyl asked him about Dr. Thompson’s concerns about the data showing a stronger link between vaccines and autism he replied:
yeah, I mean at the time he did these analyses he did, you know, he did point out that in one group, you know in that larger group the the the measures of association [between MMR vaccine and autism] were higher than in the, uh, birth certificate group and, you know, we discussed that and for the reasons I mentioned, uh, we came to consensus that the, uh, birth certificate uh results were more valid.
The CDC’s response, which Dr. DeStefano also repeated in this interview, is that the absence of birth certificates among some children meant that key data, such as race, birth weight, the mother’s age, and the mother’s education was missing, but present among those with birth certificates, and therefore they were not included in the study.
Sharyl stated that she had a copy of a birth certificate with her as she was talking to him on the phone, and she asked:
Um, I was looking at one of the birth certificates and it doesn’t have – maybe you could find one that has birth weight, mother’s education, the one I’m looking at doesn’t have any of that on there.
Dr. DeStefano’s reply, or the lack of a reply from him and the CDC explaining exactly how they obtained this data, has opened up a lot of questions as to just how this data could have been available simply on the basis of a birth certificate.
Ah, I mean I don’t know what, which one you’re looking at, I mean we get to these data were, uh, you know, right from the birth, birth, uh, the Georgia birth certificate files that contained those data.
Sharyl then asked him why the excluded data would not be important enough to investigate further since it contained such a higher rate of autism. Dr. DeStefano’s reply was very typical of the bias that currently exists among CDC scientists when it comes to autism:
you know, autism, as you probably are aware, is a condition that really probably has its start while the child is still in the womb. And, you now, it doesn’t, some of the behaviors and such don’t come apparent, become apparent until maybe the child is one, two, three years old.
In other words, autism is completely due to genetic factors, and not environmental. Of course, this flies in the face of both scientific evidence, as well as the experience of many tens of thousands of parents who saw their completely normal child rapidly digress shortly after receiving vaccines. Even the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out damages to children with autism as a result of vaccines.
So Sharyl asked if this bias towards their view of the causative factors regarding autism in general skewed their view of the data related to vaccines:
Let me just, let me just interrupt what, before I lose that thought. So you already made up your mind regardless of what the stats show that if it, certain things show that it didn’t make sense, you wouldn’t, you would try to find out a way to…
to which Dr. DeStefano replied:
No, that’s not we said, I’m just saying, you know, you interpret, you interpret findings, also, you know, there’s the statistics, then you have to also interpret, bring in things like biological plausibility, how do you interpret these results?”
– See more at: http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/cdc-director-of-immunization-safety-admits-bias-and-withholding-data-linking-vaccines-to-austim/#sthash.NnIu9NNK.dpuf
We really do have to question the pharmaceutical influence in this decision which will greatly enhance the share price and profits of these huge industries. Reading the the TGA which is responsible for approval of vaccines is heavily funded by the pharmaceutical industry does not give me confidence that is is purely for our “good health”.
Health Consumers’ Council submission to The Senate Select Committee on Health had this to say about the
unholy alliance between government and pharmaceutical industry:
The Committee concluded that:
‘Our over-riding concerns are about the volume, extent and intensity of the industry’s influence, not only on clinical medicine and research but also on patients, regulators, the media, civil servants and politicians… The regulatory system, the medical profession and Government have all failed to ensure that industry’s activities are more clearly allied to the interests of patients and the National Health Service.
The influence of the pharmaceutical industry is such that it dominates clinical practice, to an extent that deprives it of independent and constructively critical feedback; this is a discipline it needs and which can help it to improve.
The traditional secrecy in the drug regulatory process has insulated regulators from the feedback that would otherwise check, test and stimulate their policies and performance.
The closeness that has developed between regulators and companies has deprived the industry of rigorous quality control and audit.
Other bodies are in a position to provide feedback and quality control. They include academic, research, clinical and professional institutions, as well as the media and patient groups. However, representatives of these interests have had only limited success in containing excessive industry influence. This can be partly attributed to lack of transparency, limited resources, significant dependency on industry funding, and some conflicts of interest.’75
http://www.hconc.org.au/couch/uploads/file/hcc-senate-submission-on-pbs-tga-tranparency-reform-september-2014.pdf
What’s up, this weekend is nice designed for me, since this moment i am reading this great
informative piece of writing here at my residence.
Very good article. Thank you for publishing this. Similar to the views expressed by Dr Suzanne Humphries in her excellent YouTube video series,”Vaccines-Honesty vs Policy.”