Flu Vaccine Caused 3587 US Miscarriages & Stillbirths

Link to this page http://tinyurl.com/3ydy9zh

CDC alleged to have ignored up to 3,587 Miscarriages from H1N1 Vaccine

A shocking report from the National Coalition of Organized Women (NCOW) presented data from two different sources demonstrating that the 2009/10 H1N1 vaccines contributed to an estimated 1,588 miscarriages and stillbirths.  A corrected estimate may be as high as 3,587 cases.  NCOW also highlights the disturbing fact that the CDC failed to inform their vaccine providers of the incoming data of the reports of suspected H1N1 vaccine related fetal demise.

Dr. Marie McCormick, chair of the H1N1 Vaccine Risk and Assessment Working Group, said at the 3rd conference-the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) that there were absolutely no H1N1 vaccine-related adverse events in pregnant women in 2009/10, directly contradicting the publicly available evidence.

This is not the first time McCormick has done this [see  detailed evidence below]. McCormick is hired because, using US tax dollars, she can be relied to do the wrong thing for the American people but the “right thing” for her bosses. McCormick is a tool of those who hire her.

NCOW collected the data from pregnant women (age 17-45 years) that occurred after they were administered a 2009 A-H1N1 flu vaccine. The raw data is available on the website.

Using the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), including updates through July 11, 2010 as a second ascertainment source, capture-recapture statistical methods* were used to estimate the true number of miscarriages and stillbirths following A-H1N1 flu vaccination in the U.S. Typically, even so-called “complete” studies conducted by the CDC have been shown to miss from 10% to 90% of the actual cases because of under-reporting.

The statistical method employed is an expeditious and cost effective method of attempting to ascertain a complete count of all cases when two or more ascertainment sources (VAERS and NCOW survey) have failed to collect all the existing cases. Overall, this approach shows that approximately only 15% of the occurrences of a miscarriage or stillbirth were actually reported.

The corrected estimate for the total number of 2009-A-H1N1-flu-shot-associated miscarriages and stillbirths during the 2009/10-flu season is 1,588 (95% goodness-of-fit confidence interval, 946 to 3587). That is, the lower and upper range-probability of miscarriage and stillbirths due to the H1N1 vaccine was as low as 946 and as high as 3,587.

Eileen Dannemann, Director of NCOW, presented the findings for the second time to Dr. Marie McCormick, chair of the Vaccine Risk and Assessment Working Group, during the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) meeting, Sept 3, 2010. Just prior to Ms. Dannemann’s presentation Dr. McCormick, had pronounced that there were absolutely no H1N1 vaccine-related adverse events in pregnant women in 2009/10, directly contradicting the evidence publicly available.

The very next week at the Sept 14^th National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) meeting Dr. McCormick, (despite having been informed on two previous occasions of the VAERS data) pronounced, once again, that there were no adverse events in pregnant women. At the conclusion of the NVAC meeting, during public comment, Dannemann submitted the data again.

McCormick has done this before.

If a criminal recklessly discharges a firearm in the street that can be an offense of reckless endangerment.  If a Federal Health official recklessly ignores plain evidence putting women and unborn children at risk and also causing miscarriages and stillbirths what should the penalty be?  Are life sentences or death penalties appropriate for McCormick and her bosses? They should all face stiff penalties.

Consider the following evidence from a Texas legal case and then ask yourself: “What is the difference between hiring Dr Marie McCormick to sit on one of these vaccine safety committees and hiring her to discharge indiscriminately an M240 machine  gun into a baseball stadium crowd of pregnant school moms and kids“.

Law firm Waters & Kraus produced in a Texas Court a closed session transcript of a US Institutes of Medicine Committee chaired by McCormick to investigate the link between vaccines and autism [On file in the US District Court of Texas, Eastern District; Case #5:03-CV-141]:

Dr. McCormick stated, “we are not ever going to come down that it is a true side effect,” before the committee had considered any evidence [page 97].

Dr. McCormick noted the US CDC “wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a population basis.” [page 33].

McCormick’s IoM committee colleague Dr. Stratton stated “the point of no return, the line we will not cross in public policy is to pull the vaccine, change the schedule. We could say it is time to revisit this but we will never recommend that level. Even recommending research is recommendations for policy.  We wouldn’t say compensate, we wouldn’t say pull the vaccine, we wouldn’t say stop the program.”[page 74]

And do vaccines cause autistic conditions?  If you read nothing else we strongly recommend you read this: PDF Download – Text of May 5th 2008 email from US HRSA to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News].  In it the US Health Resources Services Administration [HRSA] state to CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson

We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.”

Despite all the lies and deceit by health official worldwide, the question “do vaccines cause autism” was answered after the Hannah  Poling story broke in the USA in February 2008 [see CHS article here].  Hannah developed an autistic condition after 9 vaccines administered the same day.  Under the media spotlight numerous US health officials and agencies conceded on broadcast US nationwide TV news from CBS and CNN. Full details with links to the original sources can be found in this CHS article: Vaccination Causes Autism – Say US Government & Merck’s Director of Vaccines. [Blue Text added 10 April 2011]

Excerpts and adaptation from speech delivered by Eileen Dannemann, Director, National Coalition of Organized Women Friday, September 3, 2010 to the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) meeting.

“Initially, at the beginning of the H1N1 pandemic consequence management drill there were allegedly 30 maternal deaths.  It was these deaths that the CDC used as the basis to initiate a strenuous and aggressive campaign to vaccinate the pregnant population with the untested H1N1 vaccine.  The CDC ascertained that there were eventually a total of 56 maternal deaths (assuming the fetuses died with them).  Dr. Alicia Siston’s JAMA study (CDC) acknowledged that most of these deaths were ‘unconfirmed’ H1N1 virus caused deaths despite the fact that the CDC had tests that could have verified, for certain, that these were H1N1 related deaths.

Vaccine-related fetal demise reports from VAERS increased 2,440%–from 7 cases in 2007/8 to 178 in 2009/10. Seventy deaths reported from another source had 7 overlapping cases with VAERS, yielding 241 unique cases.  Simplistically speaking, it would have been 85 to 192 times safer not to vaccinate from the perspective of the in-utero child.

Considering that the total of 56 maternal deaths in Dr. Alicia’s Siston’s study, allegedly due to the H1N1 virus itself, are unverified and in light of the overwhelming adverse events reported, we emphasize that inoculating pregnant women with another untested vaccine containing a combination of components found in the offending 2009 H1N1 vaccine is insupportable. Thus, it must be argued that the CDC was grossly negligent to fail to inform their vaccine providers of the incoming VAERS data, while providers blindly followed the CDC “standard of care” guidelines to vaccinate every pregnant woman in 2009/10.  Furthermore, in the face of these findings and the purposeful withholding of these findings by CDC’s Dr. Marie McCormick and her vaccine risk assessment group, for the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to recommend another iteration of the same vaccine to pregnant women in 2010/11 may be argued as more than gross negligence -but rather- an act of willful misconduct.

We strongly recommend that the CDC withdraws their continued recommendation to pregnant women, instead, strictly adhering to the FDA/manufacturers warning on the insert packages that the flu shot not be given to pregnant women unless clearly needed.  As well, we suggest that the CDC advise all Ob/Gyns, vaccine providers and the public this year, of last season’s VAERS reports on H1N1 vaccine-related fetal deaths” despite the fact that it may be contrary to CDC’s vaccine uptake performance goals”.

*Gary S. Goldman, Ph.D, author of various peer-reviewed medical journal publications, has verified the capture-recapture

(C-R) figures published in the NCOW report.  Dr. Goldman previously worked for 8 years as a Research Analyst for the L.A. County Department of Health Services in an epidemiological study project funded by the CDC.

US Government In US$20 million Legal Settlement For Vaccine Caused Autism Case

See below – print news stories and news videos – about 9 year old Hannah Poling

See also our story last year on 3 year old Julia – MMR Causes Autism – Another Win In US Federal Court

BREAKING NEWS 14 JAN 2013: US Court Awards Multi-Million Dollar Payouts To Two More US Children With Vaccine Caused Autism

BREAKING NEWS 15 JUNE 2012: Italian Court Finds MMR vaccine causes autism

_____________________________________

Court Awards Over $20 Million for Vaccine-Caused Autism – PR Newswire (press release) – ‎Sep 15, 2010‎

Family to Receive $1.5M+ in First-Ever Vaccine-Autism Court Award – CBS News September 9, 2010

Settlement reached in autism-vaccine case – September 10, 2010 By Carrie Teegardin – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

See also:

Vaccination Causes Autism – Say US Government & Merck’s Director of Vaccines

Japanese & British Data Show Vaccines Cause Autism

And do vaccines cause autistic conditions?  If you read nothing else we strongly recommend you read this: PDF Download – Text of May 5th 2008 email from US HRSA to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News].  In it the US Health Resources Services Administration [HRSA] state to CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson

We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.”

Despite all the lies and deceit by health official worldwide, the question “do vaccines cause autism” was answered after the Hannah  Poling story broke in the USA in February 2008 [see CHS article here].  Hannah developed an autistic condition after 9 vaccines administered the same day.  Under the media spotlight numerous US health officials and agencies conceded on broadcast US nationwide TV news from CBS and CNN. Full details with links to the original sources can be found in this CHS article: Vaccination Causes Autism – Say US Government & Merck’s Director of Vaccines. [Blue Text added 10 April 2011]

Mercury & Autism – Naming and Shaming Dr Gorski & “Science Free Zone” Bloggers

… Who Have it Sooooo Wrong Once More

Almost funny if it was not so serious for childrens’ health and safety worldwide.  The usual same sad characters who are happy for mercury to be pumped into infants [neuro-toxic in parts per billion] crow over the junk science published in Pediatrics journal yesterday.

But the difference today is it is easy to show they are all uniformly wrong.

We name and shame the same “armchair web experts” and their instant science free analyses of “the government funded” study they proclaim is the last word in the issue of vaccines causing autistic conditions and brain damage in infants.

Sadly [for them] the study is palpable junk – “science free” and with it so are they and their analyses it would seem:- Mercury As A Cause of Autism – More Denialist Junk “Science” from Pediatrics Journal Posted September 14, 2010.

This is hardly surprising as this is a study funded by the US Centers for Disease Control [as we have shown before over another CDC funded study into mercury toxicity in vaccines: US Research Fraud, Tax Dollars And Italian Vaccine Mercury Study].

But today’s  example shows these desperate bloggers as incapable of independent analytical or scientific thought  [whether by choice or intellectual deficit we cannot say].

It is known and documented autistic childrens’ brains and other organs retain mercury when other childrens’ bodies do not.  The authors of this Pediatrics study carefully measured what went into all the children but not what did or did not come out of the non autistic compared to autistic.  So we cannot tell how much mercury the autistic children accumulated in their brains compared to the non autistic  children.   End result – another piece of hyped junk science that neither adds to nor takes away anything from what is already known.

For our readers pleasure, you can sample some “science free” ranting writing in these examples, led by the beneficiary of drug industry largesse himself ORAC, aka Dr David Gorski [David Gorski’s Financial Pharma Ties: What He Didn’t Tell You] and the inimitably misleading blog from Kev Leitch [Lies, Damn Lies and Blog Posts]:-

• David Gorski, MD at Science-Based Medicine:  The Final Nail in the Mercury-Vaccine Hypothesis
• Sullivan (PhD) at LeftBrain/RightBrain: Thimerosal in Vaccines Did Not Cause An Autism Epidemic
• Orac, MD at Respectful Insolence The big pharma conspiracy once again crushes the idea that mercury in vaccines causes autism
• Steven Novella  MD at Neurologica  The Long Awaited CDC Trial on Thimerosal and Autism
• John Gever, Senior Editor at MedPage Today: Insurance Claims Data Fail to Support Thimerosal-Autism Link
• Prometheus at Photon in the Darkness They DID a Study   http://photoninthedarkness.com/?p=198
• Frederik Joelving, Reuters No Link found between vaccine mercury and autism http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE68C1CZ20100913
• Shaun Heasley at Disability Scoop  Autism not linked to vaccine preservative thimerosal, study indicates
• Autism Science Foundation Blog: Another study shows no link between autism and thimerosal
• Kev Leitch at LeftBrain/RightBrain Signal vs. noise
• Martin at Pathophilia Study: Postnatal Exposure to Thimerosal Reduces Autism Risk
• Scott Gavura at Science-Based Pharmacy More Evidence that mercury in vaccines doesn’t cause autism
• Jennifer Goodwin, Health Day News More Evidence That Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism: Children exposed to high, low levels of thimerosal had similar odds for the disorder, study found
• Katie Drummond, AOL news New CDC study debunks link between vaccines, autism
• Sullivan at LeftBrain/RightBrain Questions and Answers with the thimerosal-autism study author
• Emily Willingham at A Life Less Ordinary?  Pediatrics study finds no link between thimerosal exposure via vaccines and autism
• The Autistic Journalist Vaccine Plot Thickens With New Government Study
• Michael Unger MD at DrSuess Blog Vaccine Autism Debate– Part 2, the follow up
• Amanda Jacques at Rochester Holistic Health (Examiner.com) Study on the effect of mercury in vaccines supports earlier research showing no link to autism
• Kristina Chew at Care2.com Yet Another Study Refutes Vaccine-Autism Link

Mercury As A Cause of Autism – More Denialist Junk “Science” from Pediatrics Journal

The journal Pediatrics published yesterday amid media hype a paper claiming to show that mercury in vaccines cannot be associated with causing autistic conditions in children: Prenatal and Infant Exposure to Thimerosal From Vaccines and Immunoglobulins and Risk of Autism.

The paper in fact provides no such evidence. The study compared cases of autistic children to control cases of children who did not have autistic conditions.  The problem is that both groups were from the same highly vaccinated population of US children.  Here are some examples of what this means:-

If cases of lung cancer are compared to a control population of only smokers without lung cancer, the authors of this study would conclude smoking does not cause lung cancer.

If cases of heart disease were compared to a control population of only obese people without heart disease the authors of this study would conclude that obesity and heart disease have no association.

If cases of flu are compared to a control population of all people who were exposed to flu virus but did not contract flu the authors of this study would conclude that flu virus does not cause flu.

US child health and vaccine safety advocacy organisation SafeMinds says on Age of Autism:-

Planning for this study began in 2001. Over the nine year study period, the large external panel of consultants providing input to the investigators was reduced to a small subset by study end. The original large panel recommended against the study design ultimately employed, as insufficient to answer the question of early thimerosal exposure and autism rates. The CDC and AHIP overruled the external consultants.

The study was meant to look for differences in exposure to vaccines to see if there was any association between having a different exposure and developing an autistic condition.  As both groups of children were highly likely to have similar exposure to vaccines from the outset, no difference in risk could have been detected. And the authors were told at the outset this was the wrong way to go about it but they went ahead.  Their results simply served to confirm what could have been predicted had no study been carried out:-

On average, case-children and control children had similar cumulative ethyl-mercury exposures at the end of each exposure period (Table 2).”

End of page 660-661 – “Prenatal and Infant Exposure to Thimerosal From Vaccines and Immunoglobulins and Risk of Autism”

And the US CDC under Julie Gerberding did exactly the same thing over the previous CDC funded genius study on exactly the same issue: “US Research Fraud, Tax Dollars And Italian Vaccine Mercury Study”.

Gerberding’s CDC funded a study of mercury exposure in Italian children knowing from the outset that the Italian children had received insufficient mercury for there to be detectable brain injury using current methods of investigation.  Internal CDC emails obtained under US Freedom of Information laws shows that the CDC knew that a dose of 75 ug mercury or less given to children by the age of four months was insufficient to cause an effect which could be detected.  The Italian children received by 3 months two thirds of the minimum [no more 37.5 ug].  By 4 months they had only three quarters of that minimum.

It was also Gerberding who walked straight in to the job of Director of Merck’s Vaccine Division last December – another job of vaccine sales person in chief for the drug industry.  And it was Gerberding also who confirmed in a US national TV interview one of the mechanism by which vaccines can cause autistic conditions:-

“… if you’re predisposed with the mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism.“

HOUSE CALL WITH DR. SANJAY GUPTA – Unraveling the Mystery of Autism; Talking With the CDC Director; Stories of Children with Autism; Aging with Autism – Aired March 29, 2008 – 08:30 ET

That concerned the case of Hannah Poling [who had mitochondrial dysfunction – not mitochondrial disorder] – see also: Vaccination Causes Autism – Say US Government & Merck’s Director of Vaccines

The medical establishment and the drug industry continue to bury their heads – not in sand, but junk science, to cover over what they have been doing and continue to do to millions of children worldwide. Yet again, despite being documented in formally published papers, the authors failed to look in the right places.

See also today’s companion story:

Mercury & Autism – Naming and Shaming Dr Gorski & “Science Free Zone” Bloggers

It is known that children with autistic conditions have difficulty excreting mercury [some references below]. The mercury accumulates in their body tissues including the brain, unlike their non autistic counterparts.  Mercury is highly neurotoxic – in parts per billion.  Only infinitesimally tiny amounts can do significant damage to a developing infant brain.

Despite this being known and documented, the authors of this Pediatrics paper simply measured how much mercury went into all the children but not what did or did not come out.  No information was obtained about how much mercury the autistic children accumulated in their brains compared to the amounts excreted by the non autistic comparison group of children.   End result – another piece of hyped junk science.

The cases of autistic children were not matched with a comparable group of non autistic “control” children to enable a proper comparison to be made.  Yet the study was  supposedly a “case-control” study.  For the cases to be matched to controls it would be necessary to check the controls retained mercury in the same manner as the autistic cases.

The authors of the pediatrics paper not only did not address the issue of mercury accumulation in autistic children, they neither cited any published literature on the point nor did they attempt to discount this aspect of causation.  A complete and abject failure to pay lip service to “science” which wholly invalidates their paper.

This is typical of the quality of “science” to be expected from papers Pediatrics publish. We can now add yet another invalid study to the existing invalid studies purporting to be evidence vaccines and mercury containing vaccines do not cause autistic conditions in children.

If this Pediatrics study were on lung cancer, the famous epidemiologists Sir Richard Doll and Sir Austin Bradford Hill would laugh at it.  They first established the link between smoking and lung cancer.

It is fundamental in epidemiology to compare an exposed group to a properly selected control group to see if there is any difference between the groups. This Pediatrics study fails on all counts.

This study is the equivalent of taking all smokers and separating them into two groups – those who develop lung cancer and those who do not – and then claiming that as both groups have similar exposures to smoking, that smoking cannot cause lung cancer.

Some people smoke and develop lung cancer.  Some do not.

Some children have vaccines and develop autistic conditions.  Some do not.

A study like this one from Pediatrics would never show anything either way.

The study was funded via organisations with interests in disproving a causal association between vaccines and autism.  The funding was by grants from the US Centers for Disease Control to America’s Health Insurance Plans.  US insurers are not eager to meet the exceptionally high lifetime costs of care for autistic children.

Mercury accumulates in infant bodies as this study comparing the mercury content of milk teeth of autistic children to non autistic controls shows: Mercury, Lead, and Zinc in Baby Teeth of Children with Autism Versus Controls Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, Volume 70, Issue 12 January 2007 , pages 1046 – 1051.

In comparison the excretion of mercury as tested in hair samples from infants showed that autistic children had lower levels of mercury excreted in hair than non autistic controls: Reduced Levels of Mercury in First Baby Haircuts of Autistic Children International Journal of Toxicology, July/August 2003; vol. 22, 4: pp. 277-285.

Infant monkeys exposed to the mercury compound thiomersal displayed a five times higher percentage of the total inorganic [metallic] mercury in the brain than monkeys exposed to methyl mercury (34% vs. 7%) and a slightly higher average brain-to-blood concentration ratio (3.5 +/- 0.5 vs. 2.5 +/- 0.3) Comparison of blood and brain mercury levels in infant monkeys exposed to methylmercury or vaccines containing thimerosal.  Environ Health Perspect. 2005 Aug;113(8):1015-21.

A detailed summary of over 70 other papers documenting the association published by SafeMinds can be found here: Summary of Science Demonstrating the Harmful Nature of Mercury in Vaccines – 2009 SCIENCE SUMMARY UPDATE.

The association between mercury containing vaccines and the development of autistic symptoms in infant monkeys was also demonstrated in a peer reviewed paper accepted for publication and then withdrawn by the publisher following the UK General Medical Council decision on Dr Andew Wakefield and Professor Walker-Smith.  This was solely because Dr Wakefield was one of several named authors and not because of any criticism of the science.  Had his name not appeared, the paper would be in print in the identical journal today: Delayed acquisition of neonatal reflexes in newborn primates receiving a thimerosal-containing Hepatitis B vaccine: Influence of gestational age and birth weight. Neurotoxicology. 2009 Oct 2. [Epub ahead of print].

About Case Control Studies

There was no possibility from the outset of this Pediatrics study ever identifying an association between vaccination and autism. This is because all the controls and the cases had the same exposure.

A case-control study starts with an outcome or effect (lung cancer, heart disease) and a number of potential causative factors.

Cases are selected who have the outcome.

Risk factors are identified plus non-risk.

Controls are chosen who do not have the outcome and should match the cases closely on non-risk factors [eg. age, sex, race, income bracket, geographic area of residence].

The case and control groups are then compared to estimate the strength of association of each risk factor.

When studying heart disease, if all the cases were found to be overweight but none of the controls, that might result in an estimate of a high degree of association of being overweight with heart disease.

That requires a control group of mixed exposure to the risk – in other words a representative sample of the population ranging from the very thin to the clinically obese.

In this Pediatrics study all the controls were exposed to the same putative risk factor – organo mercury containing vaccines.

The end result could have been predicted from the outset without anyone carrying the study out.  The same result would be obtained for any study carried out in such a manner regardless of there being a causal association between the outcome and the potential risk factor.

Nutters And Journalists Who Support Ben Goldacre

Journalist Jim Edwards blogging on the CBS network Bnet issued a warning to Dr Ben Goldacre to respond to the claims that he [Goldacre] had failed to disclose that his father Michael J. Goldacre is a researcher responsible for the publication of medical papers claiming a lack of a causal association between vaccines and autistic conditions in children: Attack on Autism Critic’s “Secret” Father Doesn’t Stand Up to Scrutiny.

Goldacre is notorious for his defence of the MMR vaccine against claims it causes autism and for his public attacks as a national newspaper column writer on those he does not agree with.

Edwards’ warning should be the least of Ben Goldacre’s concerns.  Goldacre encourages a “posse” on his Badscience.net blog including some notorious nutters and bullies who roam the internet ridiculing, abusing and bullying those whom Goldacre and his acolytes choose not to agree with. Targets include parents of vaccine damaged children and those concerned for the health and safety of children threatened by serious adverse vaccine reactions.  Now we see journalists running to Ben’s defence, like Jim Edwards, [albeit seemingly obscure in the UK] as if Goldacre did not have the means to defend himself.

Edwards reworks the criticism of Goldacre, saying that Goldacre’s father, Michael, authored a study claiming that the MMR vaccine containing the Urabe mumps strain had a higher risk for meningitis than other MMR vaccines.  However, Edwards goes on to say that:-

“the offending vaccine was removed from the market based in part on such studies, and thus counts as a contribution to vaccine safety and not ….. as evidence that proves Goldacre’s dad is in league with Big Pharma’s vaccine makers.“

And at this point Edwards loses journalistic credibility. [And not just for citing Wikipedia as a reliable source.  It is not, and Edwards ought to know that (as is indicated by his boasts of being a former managing editor of Adweek, of spending 4 years at Brandweek and being a “former Knight-Bagehot fellow” at Columbia University’s business and journalism schools.)]

Edwards has no clue what he is writing about.

And there is also a problem with the story that this was simply to do with mumps viral meningitis (which Ben Goldacre’s father Michael J Goldacre wrote about in 1993, after the event).

Urabe mumps virus containing Pluserix MMR was not withdrawn from the UK because of Michael J Goldacre’s work.  It was a known dangerous vaccine introduced irresponsibly into the UK by UK health officials. The Canadians withdrew Pluserix in November 1987 because it was dangerous. Pluserix MMR vaccine should never have been introduced into the UK but it was in October 1988, a year after withdrawal in Canada. It was 1) the identical vaccine as, 2) with identical constituents to, 3) manufactured in the identical SmithKline factory in Belgium as, and 4) was supplied to Canada as: “Trivirix” MMR vaccine.

The UK authorities must have had full disclosure of the problems with the vaccine from the suppliers Smith Kline & French Laboratories Ltd (a Glaxo company) so it beggars belief they unleashed it on the children of their own country.

Jack Ashley MP, now Lord Ashley, had obtained information that Pluserix MMR vaccine was dangerous, caused high levels of serious adverse reactions and that this was known by the UK DoH in 1990 and not two years later in September 1992.  Lord Ashley also discovered that there was no surveillance being carried out, only spontaneous adverse reaction reports under the UK’s “Yellow Card” system.

The vaccine was withdrawn from the market worldwide by Smith Kline Beecham on one week’s notice to the UK Department of Health on 11th September 1992 leaving the UK DoH publicly embarrassed as they were intending continuing  putting further British children at risk of the vaccine until they had got their story straight for an announcement to the medical professions.

Lord Ashley found that during 1990 there were 748 adverse vaccine reactions reports to the UK’s Committee on Safety of Medicines, as Ministerial correspondence showed. On a conservative scale these represented 7,480 adverse reactions. Adverse reactions to any drug are under reported by a minimum of 9 of every 10 cases.  Formally published papers show serious adverse reactions can be under reported by 99 in every 100 cases.

Of these reactions 199 were classified by the CSM as “serious” – 45 involving MMR vaccines and 74 DTP.  There were 7 deaths.

Including unreported serious reactions, conservatively, this represented in just one year 1,990 serious reactions, 450 involving MMR and 70 deaths.  On a less conservative assessment there could have been up to 19,900 serious reactions, 4,500 involving MMR and 700 deaths.

The question is therefore, if Ben Goldacre’s father, Michael J Goldacre, as an Oxford University expert in health-care epidemiology was writing up papers about a relatively mild condition of mumps viral meningitis, why was he not also writing up papers about these other serious adverse vaccine reactions?

Was he wholly unaware of them?  What was and is the position?  Was he hired by the UK Department of Health and kept in ignorance of the other more serious problems?  And if so why?

One thing is certain and documented, there were many many more reasons for the withdrawal of the Pluserix MMR vaccine from the market than the relatively innocuous issue of mumps viral meningitis.  Bacterial meningitis is of serious concern, not viral meningitis, from which the majority of children would have recovered rapidly without permanent harm.  And why, therefore, did Ben Goldacre’s father and co-authors make such a meal of viral meningitis.  These are among many questions which deserve answers.