War of the vaccines as journalists go head to head in HPV vaccine battle.
Christina England
October 18, 2009
In her article she wrote 'The cervical cancer vaccine may be riskier and more deadly than the cancer it is designed to prevent, a leading expert who developed the drug has warned' she preceeded to give the views of expert Diane Harper, who had been ,she wrote,'involved in the clinical trials of the controversial drug Cervarix', Dr Harper had said according the Express, 'the jab was being "over-marketed" and parents should be properly warned about the potential side effects.
A few days later Ben Goldacre, a GP and journalist for the Guardian attacked her well written piece on his blog Bad Science and in a Guardian article.
In his blog he not only criticised the piece heavily but made a cutting and rather unnecessary comment, in my opinion,concerning Ms Johnston's previous work, which I felt undermined her journalistic capabilities and also her professionalism.
Lucy Johnston is an excellent and well liked journalist in the UK. She is currently the health editor of the Sunday Express, having previously worked for the Observer and The Big Issue which she helped to launch. She has won an impressive array of awards for her humanistic and sensitive approach to journalism and her honest but frank journalism skills and yet Ben Goldacre, took it upon himself to publicly humiliate her.
Sadly, her piece has been removed from the Sunday Express site and the Sunday Express was forced to make an apology Diane Harper has since stated, that the journalist misinterpreted her comments. Maybe it was simply that Dr Harper never expected her to report fully on what she had said, after all Dr Harper has been reported to say similar elsewhere. It has been said that Ms Johnston still stands by what she wrote.
If this had been the first time that Goldacre had done this to an outstanding and talented journalist he may have been forgiven, after all everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, back in 2005 he did the same to another outstanding British journalist, Melanie Phillips. This time he heavily criticised an article she wrote in the Daily Mail, on the MMR and Dr Andrew Wakefield.
In her piece Smear and Evasion Melanie Phillips wrote the following, in reply to his attack. First however,she explains what she had written in a very clear and concise manner, then she followed by writing:-
"When I pointed this out in the Daily Mail last week, I was attacked in these pages by Dr Ben Goldacre, who said I did not understand how science worked. On the contrary, it is Goldacre who is ignoring the evidence, and his errors go to the essence of the MMR controversy. Like the government, Goldacre believes clinical findings are trumped by epidemiology, which he says is "evidence-based" medicine. But the attempt to refute Wakefield by epidemiology is a category confusion. Epidemiology looks at patterns of disease in a population. It cannot prove or disprove cause and effect in individual patients. A paper published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons says epidemiology "cannot establish a causal association unless other biological evidence backs it up", and does not meet a scientific standard of proof since it is prone to bias - the very criticism that the Cochrane report made of the epidemiological studies of MMR and autism.
Having accused me of misunderstanding "real" science, Goldacre then claims that I have fallen for pseudoscience by believing evidence that has never been peer-reviewed. Bizarrely, he asserts that I have relied upon research that has been published only in the "in-house magazine of a rightwing US pressure group well known for polemics on homosexuality, abortion and vaccines" What on earth is he talking about? The devastating finding of measles virus in the cerebro-spinal fluid of some autistic children who had been given the MMR vaccine has been peer-reviewed in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
He claims that Wakefield's term "autistic enterocolitis" has appeared in no other studies that have endorsed it. But Wakefield's core finding of a unique gut-brain disease has been replicated in peer-reviewed papers in the Journal of Paediatric Neurology, Neuropsychobiology, the Journal of Paediatrics, the Journal of Clinical Immunology and the American Journal of Gastroenterology."
She continues:-
"Goldacre's case boils down to evasiveness, ignorance, misrepresentation and smear. Are these really the attributes of a scientific vocabulary? Is this really "evidence-based medicine"? Of course, it is important to vaccinate children against dangerous diseases. But if even a small subsection of children is badly affected - which is all that is being claimed over MMR - the balance of risk dramatically changes."
Another British journalist who likes to attack those who have views on vaccines is Jonathan Gornall. Lisa Blakemore-Brown is a professional with very strong views and opinions on vaccines, Autism and the links she has seen to false allegations of child abuse. She to, has been known to write in professional journals, on the subject. She is not a journalist but is the author of the book 'Reweaving the Autistic Tapestry'.She is a renowned and highly respected professional and expert in Autism. Her book made references to Autism being linked to the vaccine preservative Thimerosal and once was a best seller before strangely disappearing in 2001, a year after it's launch. Lisa tells the story of the missing book in Interesting Story About a Vaccine/Autism Book in 2001
She has been attacked frequently by Jonathan Gornall ever since.
No names, No proof, No Consensus and
Alarmist and Misleading shows a few of these attacks.
Lisa Blakemore-Brown replies to the above;-
"Jonathan Gornall claims myself and others have no evidence that deaths (and other reactions) have followed vaccines. In my response I referred to VAERS, to the Brighton Collaboration,the Yellow Card scheme and to the commercial meetings of the ARVI - Adverse Reactions to Vaccinations and Immunisations which Mr Gornall appears to have ignored.
I quote from the July 1987 ARVI meeting, as just one example: " The paper on anaphylaxis including Yellow Card reports to the CSM, protocols for treatment of anaphylaxis, dosage regimens and training, was prescribed. It was felt that reassurance could be derived from the small number of deaths (3) from 212 reports of anaphylaxis, anaphylactoid reactions and allergy. The Chairman suggested that an advisory group should convene to provide advice on anaphylaxis with Professor Hull as Chairman and Professor Breckenridge, Dr McGuinness and Dr Salisbury as members"
(1)
Neville Hodgkinson referred to the Sally Clark case and to the evidence that one of the infants had received vaccines hours before they died. This cannot be ignored.
1)Adverse Reactions to Vaccinations and Immunisations (ARVI) meeting Minutes 6th July 1987 10.30 am . Room 1611/12 Market Towers .
So bad are Mr Gornall's attacks on those speaking out against vaccines and their links to false accusations of child abuse, that the famous John Stone, a father of an Autistic son, who was adversely affected by vaccines and who is a regular contributor to the website JABS and the Age of Autism dedicated a thread on the JABS website to Mr Gornall personally.
Sleaze and Recititude
Today new papers were released on Cervarix and an update on the Safety Analysis was announced. Of course as usual the vaccine is never to blame and every adverse event can be easily explained, as events that were likely to occur. Part of the paper states:-
"Such events can be associated with a wide range of temporary signs and symptoms, including: loss of consciousness; vision disturbance; injury; limb jerking (often misinterpreted as a seizure or convulsion); limb numbness or tingling; and difficulty in breathing or hyperventilation. These are due to fear or anticipation of the needle injection and are not side effects of Cervarix vaccine as such."
So come on how many people do you know that have such a fear of a needle, that they have limb jerking so badly, it can be misinterpreted as an epileptic seizure, AFTER a vaccine? We must not forget that this was seen after Gardasil, in so many cases that Merck decided to cover themselves and add it to their packaging. Merck admits the vaccine Gardasil, can cause faints and seizures
The problem is, all the adverse events that are beginning to be seen after Cervarix, mirror those that have been seen after Gardasil. With reports growing daily, stating that perfectly healthy girls are suddenly becoming paralysed or dying after having the Gardasil shot, one has to wonder what it is, that is really being covered up. Are the drug companies infiltrating the media? After all, this is what is written in Jonathan Gornall's own blog
"Jonathan Gornall is a British journalist who has written about child-protection issues for publications including The Times, the British Medical Journal, the Guardian and Hospital Doctor. This site serves as a repository for his articles."
In the above Gornall admits to have written for The Times and The Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who, according to the website Child Health Safety has strong links to Glaxo Smith Kline. Ben Goldacre also nicknamed,'Dr Glaxacre' also appears to have links to Glaxo Smith Kline. In an article entitled Dr Ben Glaxacre's 'Bad Science' gets it wrong again – Child Health Safety says:-
"The Guardian newspaper´s "BadScience" columnist, psychiatrist Dr Ben Goldacre, today provides an opportunity to poke at him the kind of fun he publicly revels in making of others with his openly admitted and undisguised schoolboy humour. Goldacre [nicknamed "Glaxacre" over links to pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline] has for many years attacked other newspapers to discredit their reporting of "science" generally and has admonished parents of autistic and other vaccine damaged children not to complain about Glaxo´s MMR vaccine."
It seems more than a coincidence, in my opinion, that both Goldacre and Gornall have indirect links to Glaxo Smith Kline, who just happen to be the manufactures of the MMR and Cervarix .
In fact Goldacre has won awards from Glaxo Smith Kline for his article 'Never mind the facts'.
Quotes re Goldacre
"We can all benefit from Ben Goldacre's wisdom. For instance, in 2004 Goldacre received the Association of British Science Writer's (ABSW) award for "the best feature on a science subject in a national or regional newspaper (2003) for an article on MMR: 'Never mind the facts' . The major sponsor of the award of £2000 was MMR manufacturer and defendant Glaxo SmithKline . This has not been disclosed in many Guardian articles mentioning MMR, nor was it recently Goldacre's BMJ piece 'MMR, the scare stories are back' John Stone Letter BMJ by John Stone Sept 2007 Re: Restrictions on hospitality apply to journalists and doctors.
So are we to believe Lucy Johnston's excellent article and was she right to write what she did? Or do we believe the journalists hitting out at some of the finest journalists and professionals in Britain today? With Headlines like Cape Teens: HPV vaccine made them sick released only today - for me the choice is easy.
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