Hilary's Desk

Further to yesterday’s blog, the latest Lancet once again, misses the point. Something inevitable with Mr Fog-Optics in his Ivory Tower. In his latest contribution to the debate, called The Vaccine Paradox,  a two pronged attack-approach is taken. First, those who dare criticise or question vaccines are vilified by implication. Second, Bill Gates’ Foundation is fingered for silence about what Horton considers is really important.

In order to define what is "important", Horton quotes the “2010 Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health”, saying;

“Ban Ki-moon’s 2010 Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health sets out a comprehensive approach to reaching Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5 for the world’s poorest countries. The strategy is broad, inclusive, and ambitious.”

Have a read of the 2010 Global Strategy. Frankly, it’s not broad enough - and certainly doesn’t include the really important political and social needs for a stable, healthy society.

But Horton goes further. He says;

“While civil-society movements demand access to new interventions—from antiretrovirals to emergency obstetric care—there is not the same fervour about access to vaccines. The notion, expressed elsewhere in global health, of the right to the highest attainable standard of health is rarely expressed in the field of vaccines. For these attitudes to change, the vaccine community, together with its partners, has an opportunity to rewrite the terms of engagement between vaccines (as part of a larger package of services) and communities threatened with vaccine-preventable diseases. While the past has much to teach us, it is the future of vaccines that must command our priority today.”

This has to be the biggest load of blinded drivel I’ve ever seen written on paper, but it’s what you expect from medical journals whose editors walk in lockstep with, and who are joined at the hip to vaccine manufacturers. Vaccine manufacturers can never “get enough”. It’s not enough, that vaccines are rammed down all parents “throats” from the moment a doctor opens his mouth. It's not enough that families in Africa have no choice about vaccines, and they are administered pretty much at gun point.  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