Hilary's Desk

In the wake of the TV3 documentary "Living Proof",  thoughout New Zealand, families who have members in ICU with H1N1, are being told that their near-death family members cannot be given intravenous vitamin C because it would cause renal failure. The medical literature does not support this statement. Many times we hear about vitamin C and kidney stones, but where did that "information" come from? According to Professor Hemila of Finland, it is an "urban legend". Quite why the medical profession feel it so necessary to create urban legends, is another matter altogether. Professor Hemila details the literature on this on his a page on his website called "Safety of Vitamin C: Urban Legends" (page pdf'd):  Read Full Blog

Amonst all the whining ricochetting around the hallowed halls of pharmaceutically driven medicine in New Zealand, a couple of points should be logged into the system's hard drive. The first is that the medical profession should stop going on about how irresponsible and dangerous vitamin C is. The second is, by extension, stop the ludicrous, continual attempts via suitably brainwashed report-ersss in the newsmedia, to demonise herbs and supplements.  It seems to me that Medsafe et al, have forgotten that in 2006, at the request of the then Minister of Health, Annette King, the coronial system did a thorough investigation into deaths from alternative medicine, which found just about zilch.  Instead, the finger came right back pointing at the medical system, not the alternative medical system, supplements or herbs.  Read Full Blog

In a previous blog, mention was made of North and South’s rabidly nose-in-the-air provaccine article called “The case for vaccination”. The editor, Virginia Larson stuck her personal stake in the ground, with a scathing editorial, saying, “We did not seek out the extreme anti-immunisation campaigners for “balance” because their arguments aren’t balanced.” and ..... “they’ve already done enough damage by spreading hysteria over the MMR triple jab and are now set on painting the HPV vaccine Gardasil as part of some greater plot to poison or sterilise us.” The article’s author, North and South’s deputy editor Joanna Wane, didn’t mention the questions raised over the efficacy or value of the MeNZB. You would have thought that was deserving enough to be added to the mix of bile? Or perhaps those concerns were well founded? Not according to Perry Bisman.  Read Full Blog

While the medical profession has finally caught on, that the more "educated" a parent makes themselves on the issues around vaccination, the more likely they are to chose not to vaccinate, they are utterly offended that people can chose not to vaccinate.  Furthermore, their take on the issue of "choice" is off the wall.  Their solution to parents not making the 'right' choice, is to back parents into the wall and take pot shots at them with "Refusal to vaccinate" letters (see bottom), which read like legal documents, but are not.  These "refusal to vaccinate" letters come out of such skewed thinking patterns as can be seen in this statement in May this year, from the biggest vaccine defender of them all, Dr Paul Offit: Read Full Blog

How do we know this? Because on page 40 of the June Issue of North and South, Dr Michael Tatley from CARM tells us, “An awfully large number of people have been exposed to vaccines and if they’re as bad as some of the anti lobby are suggesting, there must be a lot of really sick people out there. And we just don’t see them.” No, CARM doesn’t see them, and most of the time, neither do they receive reports about those children, as I mentioned in this blog. Why? Read Full Blog

As someone who spent some years working in restaurants, I laughed when I read a recent article about how bad New Zealanders are when it comes to complaining about the quality of food in a restaurant. The article talked about how people would whinge in private, complain to their mates, or not go back to the restaurant, but rarely did they have the guts to go to the restaurant and explain what they didn’t like. It’s so true. It was true back in the 70’s and is still true today. Those who do complain are mostly business people who have learned to speak their mind, or overseas people who understand the importance of standing up for themselves. Only a few kiwis have learned that it is right to complain. Read Full Blog

London Time’s headline shrieks: “Leading scientist accuses doctors of increasing fear of vaccines”  When are scientists going to understand that they don’t know everything, and the world doesn’t revolve around their myopic thought patterns? Why is the primary aim of scientists to make everyone conform to their own thinking. Why do they assume that, “For most people it goes back to the primeval: ‘Well my mother had measles, I had measles, so why do I need to take the risk [of vaccinating my child]?’ What they are really saying is, ‘Can I live with myself if something went wrong?’ ” Incorrect, Prof Sir. But because Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, by virtue of his many letters, thinks he’s right, so are his solutions??! Read Full Blog

Why doesn't the World Health Organisation stop making fools of themselves? As reported in the Washington Post two European reports have been very critical of the WHO's handling of the swine flu pandemic. WHO's reply? "The idea that we declared a pandemic when there wasn't a pandemic is both historically inaccurate and downright irresponsible," said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl in a telephone interview. "There is no doubt that this was a pandemic. To insinuate that this was not a pandemic is very disrespectful to the people who died from it."  Read Full Blog

What other explanation is there for a comment in Truth About Gardasil's latest press release which stated: A medical source close to TAG (Truth about Gardasil) has stated: “I find it disturbing that Merck’s agreement with the FDA is based on an agreement that no adverse events will be labeled as such unless there is a TWO fold increase seen of diseases that occur at least as frequently as 1/10,000. This takes away all of the rare autoimmune demyelinating syndromes that cause blindness, paralysis and death.” ?  Maybe they are lying? Nope. I managed to obtain documentation as to the whats and why's and I'm satisfied that the comment is an accurate report. Read Full Blog

FDA has introduced changes designed “to return to science” with policies to “make things more pure and clean.”  You mean, FDA wasn't talking science before? Shock horror.  Don't the Ministry of Health, IMAC and others say that the opinion of FDA and CDC, is already the paragon of purity and cleanliness? What's that washing powder slogan?, ...   "Whiter than white"  Read Full Blog