Peter Flegg misrepresents me when he says, “I first raised the issue
of conspiracies”. He raised that issue; I merely used the word
“conspiracy” in its correct context as a legal term. He incorrectly quotes
me as referring to “the” Health Department sanctioned conspiracy when I
wrote, “what might be” a Health Department sanctioned conspiracy. Contrary
to his assertion, he is not calling a spade a spade; in order to redirect
the debate away from my call for an independent enquiry he tries to
obfuscate the issue with “I wonder if Heptonstall is referring only to
childhood immunisation, or is he perhaps seeking to have an independent
judicial enquiry into his most recent pet theory”. Michael Innis had no
problem accurately quoting me in context when he wrote, “John Heptonstall
says, ‘What is required is an independent judicial enquiry into what might
be a Health Department sanctioned conspiracy to knowingly and
intentionally infect UK citizens with disease causing agents’. Concern
that the Health Departments, not only of Britain, but of America and
Australia too, are engaged in a cover up of the adverse reactions of some
of the vaccines to which children are exposed, is widespread”. Why did
Flegg distort my statement?
In the context of my call for a judicial enquiry into the legality of
intentionally infecting UK citizens with disease-causing agents through
vaccination (eg. SV-40, nvCJD) a precedent exists for intentional
infection by HIV. If a judicial enquiry found it illegal, any individual
who intentionally infects another through vaccination commits an offence
and any group of people that colludes to do so conspires, hence my choice
of “Health Department sanctioned conspiracy”.
Flegg says that my submissions “are not necessarily well referenced
and they often contain inaccuracies” then again inaccurately quotes me as
saying, “medicine is the biggest killer and maimer of mankind”. I wrote
“Recent studies suggest that modern medicine is now the biggest killer and
maimer of mankind” referencing Null G et al whose new data suggests that
the claims of recent studies and articles in the US (1) (2), UK (3) (4)
and Australia (5) that modern medicine is the 3rd or 4th biggest killer
and maimer should be overhauled with new considerations which, due to the
global distribution and dominance of modern medicine, must suggests that
modern medicine is now the world’s biggest killer and maimer.
Flegg says he dismisses 8 of the 9 references I gave him - despite
the facts therein supporting “smallpox vaccine killed tens of thousands in
the Philippines” and “governments are probably testing vaccines on our
unsuspecting populations” - because “they were internet links, most of
which contained anti-vaccination polemics within anti-medicine and anti-
establishment web sites, opinion pieces sandwiched between articles about
scientific ‘hoaxes’ such as the germ theory, HIV and evolution or between
articles on great ‘conspiracies’ such as mind control and
contrail/chemtrail conspiracy”. It is Flegg’s opinion that germ theory,
HIV and evolutionary theory are ‘hoaxes’ and that mind control and
contrail/chemtrails are conspiracy; his opinion is not shared by many
people, and he disagrees with some fine scientific minds that still debate
these issues without conclusion.
Flegg must know that most of what he refers to as “anti-vaccination”,
“anti-medicine” and “anti-establishment” is well-researched and that
little, if any, of it claims to be anti-vaccination, anti-medicine or anti
-establishment (whatever that is) yet he smears it as such, presumably
because the data criticises vaccination and medicine. Despite Flegg,
medical researchers are aware of how difficult it can be to publish data
critical of perceived wisdom or vested interests (6) (7). Noted autism
researchers Vijendra Singh et al produced excellent follow-up (8) to their
work identifying antibodies to measles virus in the brains of autistics
and not controls (9). They had then identified antibodies to MMR vaccine
in the brains of autistics and not controls (8), yet I understand that
paper was constantly refused publication.
If an eminent scientist like Singh (10) (11) finds great difficulty
obtaining publication for results about the presence of vaccine antibodies
in the brains of autistic persons that are so important to society, but
may be damning to the vaccine industry, does Flegg rant against the
protectionist industry or label VK Singh an anti-vaccinist?
The facts appearing in the references I gave Flegg (12) (13) telling
of damage to tens of thousands of Filipinos through smallpox vaccination
was in accord with “the Philippines suffered disastrously through US
smallpox vaccination campaigns, its peoples dying in their tens of
thousands from a disease that had historically hardly touched that
nation”. The information is easily checked, but unlikely to be sourced
from 'big pharma', so why does Flegg smear the sources I gave which
included an excerpt from the Philippines Health Service and research
physicians who attended the Philippines to investigate?
Flegg says I provide references to scientific publications that are
“not valid and appropriate” and uses my response to GSK “at least 35,517
children may have died within 7 to 9 months due to acellular pertussis
vaccination” as an example. I had posed the question to GSK Dr Bogaerts
“‘successfully administered' means what? If a child dies or is seriously
afflicted by a vaccine, was it successfully administered?”. I used the
reference accurately and it was valid. The paper does not state, as Flegg
insists, that the 3 children died of heroin, pneumonia, or any other
infection but says that undiscovered infections were found in 3 children
who died unexpectedly after vaccination. Unlike Flegg the team concluded
that vaccination, as a cause of their deaths, could not be ruled out.
Hence my quote that “at least 35,517 of 6-11 month old children alone may
have died within 7 to 9 months due to the vaccination” is valid and
accurate.
Flegg ironically evidences his claims with references that are hardly
valid.
His ref. 3. Flegg says, “one of these deaths was actually due to
pneumonia following heroin overdose” yet the researchers did not confirm
that in the study.
4. 5. 7. 8. Flegg says are evidence that “3 child deaths were not due
to vaccination” yet these references are for studies using DPT whole cell
vaccine not acellular which was referred to in the Swedish study; his
references do not compare like with like.
6. Flegg claims this study shows that immunisation protects against
bacterial disease but the researchers say, “Other preventive health care
measures may have been responsible for the apparent immunisation positive
effect”.
9. Flegg refers to the IOM statement 2002. The IOM agrees that
compelling scientific evidence and arguments for damage to biological
mechanisms by vaccination exists, but then appears to have been
unreasonably swayed by epidemiological studies despite the US Federal
Judicial Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence stating that epidemiology
is concerned with incidence of disease in populations and does not address
the question of cause of an individual’s disease. Specific causation is
beyond the domain of the science of epidemiology, it addresses whether an
agent can cause disease not whether it did cause disease. If such studies
cannot determine ‘cause’, they cannot determine ‘non cause’. Flegg should
take note.
The attempt by medical researchers like Flegg to distort and
obfuscate facts that may be of extreme public import is one reason why I
believe that a judicial enquiry into the legality of intentionally
infecting another by vaccination is needed. It is acknowledged that
successive UK governments allowed suspected nvCJD-causing bovine material
to remain in vaccines, and authorised them for millions of vaccinations,
for over a decade (14)
Bovine material-containing polio vaccine was not banned until 2000
despite the risk of nvCJD existing in such vaccines being known since the
late 1980’s. ‘Big pharma’ did not remove potentially lethal material and
in some cases sold its product interests to ‘small pharma’ that continued
to facilitate injections of suspected nvCJD-causing agents into millions
of unsuspecting children (15).
Links between disease and vaccinations, as with autism, are distorted
by many epidemiology studies Government and the DoH parade before the
public despite such studies being incapable of addressing causation while
calls for prospective studies and clinically valid trials are rejected.
Hence I believe an independent judicial enquiry is essential to restore
public confidence, and decisions made by DoH and Government should be
subjected to judicial review.
When the DoH Head of Immunisation can claim on National TV that
children could be administered 1000 vaccines at once without harm (16),
having absolutely no proof for his statement, we have reached a cross-
roads where science (17) (18), politics and public health interests must
be separated and the latter given prime consideration. These issues can
only be resolved by judicial enquiry that must be autonomous of government
and the civil service, and selected with no hint of cronyism. It must work
solely in defence of the public, and public health interests, without
political or commercial agenda.
I leave Flegg with this old quote from Adam Smith (1723-90) the
Scottish Economist who lectured on logic and moral philosophy. “People of
the same trade seldom meet together but the conversation ends in a
conspiracy against the public, or in some diversion to raise prices”.
Regards
John H.
References
1. “Clinton acts to reduce medical mistakes” Charatan, BMJ march
2000; 320:597
2. “Incidence of ADRs in hospitalised patients; a meta-analysis of
prospective studies” J Lazarou et al, JAMA April 1998; 279:1200-06
3. “Medical errors ‘kill thousands’”, BBC Saturday 18th March 2000,
Dr. Richard Smith, BMJ
4. Sunday Times 19th Dec. 1999 ‘Blunders by doctors kill 40,000 per
year in UK’
5. “The Quality of Australian Health care Study”, RM Wilson et al,
Med J Aust 1995 Nov; 163(9): 458-71
6. The Guardian 14.1.04; a review published in 2003 found 30 studies
compared the results of trials funded by drug companies with those funded
by other sources. The former were four times more likely to have results
favourable to the drugs companies than were the others; 70% of trials
reported in medical journals were funded by drug companies - result is
that information on drugs is distorted.
7. The Guardian 10.9.01; 13 of the world’s main medical journals
mounted an outspoken attack on the rich and powerful drug companies
accusing them of distorting the results of scientific research for the
sake of profits – tying up academic researchers with legal contracts they
are unable to report freely and fairly on the results of drug research.
8. “Positive titre of measles and MMR antibody are related to myelin
basic protein autoantibody in autism” VK Singh, University of Michigan,
College of Pharmacy, Ann Arbor, MI48109; abstract provided to American
Association of Immunologists, 1998.
9. “Serological association of measles virus and HHV-6 with brain
autoantibodies in Autism”, VK Singh et al, Clinical Immunology and
Immunopathology, October 1998; 89(1): ISSN: 0090-1229.
Rapid Response:
Re: Re: Re: Conspiracy theories
Sir
Peter Flegg misrepresents me when he says, “I first raised the issue
of conspiracies”. He raised that issue; I merely used the word
“conspiracy” in its correct context as a legal term. He incorrectly quotes
me as referring to “the” Health Department sanctioned conspiracy when I
wrote, “what might be” a Health Department sanctioned conspiracy. Contrary
to his assertion, he is not calling a spade a spade; in order to redirect
the debate away from my call for an independent enquiry he tries to
obfuscate the issue with “I wonder if Heptonstall is referring only to
childhood immunisation, or is he perhaps seeking to have an independent
judicial enquiry into his most recent pet theory”. Michael Innis had no
problem accurately quoting me in context when he wrote, “John Heptonstall
says, ‘What is required is an independent judicial enquiry into what might
be a Health Department sanctioned conspiracy to knowingly and
intentionally infect UK citizens with disease causing agents’. Concern
that the Health Departments, not only of Britain, but of America and
Australia too, are engaged in a cover up of the adverse reactions of some
of the vaccines to which children are exposed, is widespread”. Why did
Flegg distort my statement?
In the context of my call for a judicial enquiry into the legality of
intentionally infecting UK citizens with disease-causing agents through
vaccination (eg. SV-40, nvCJD) a precedent exists for intentional
infection by HIV. If a judicial enquiry found it illegal, any individual
who intentionally infects another through vaccination commits an offence
and any group of people that colludes to do so conspires, hence my choice
of “Health Department sanctioned conspiracy”.
Flegg says that my submissions “are not necessarily well referenced
and they often contain inaccuracies” then again inaccurately quotes me as
saying, “medicine is the biggest killer and maimer of mankind”. I wrote
“Recent studies suggest that modern medicine is now the biggest killer and
maimer of mankind” referencing Null G et al whose new data suggests that
the claims of recent studies and articles in the US (1) (2), UK (3) (4)
and Australia (5) that modern medicine is the 3rd or 4th biggest killer
and maimer should be overhauled with new considerations which, due to the
global distribution and dominance of modern medicine, must suggests that
modern medicine is now the world’s biggest killer and maimer.
Flegg says he dismisses 8 of the 9 references I gave him - despite
the facts therein supporting “smallpox vaccine killed tens of thousands in
the Philippines” and “governments are probably testing vaccines on our
unsuspecting populations” - because “they were internet links, most of
which contained anti-vaccination polemics within anti-medicine and anti-
establishment web sites, opinion pieces sandwiched between articles about
scientific ‘hoaxes’ such as the germ theory, HIV and evolution or between
articles on great ‘conspiracies’ such as mind control and
contrail/chemtrail conspiracy”. It is Flegg’s opinion that germ theory,
HIV and evolutionary theory are ‘hoaxes’ and that mind control and
contrail/chemtrails are conspiracy; his opinion is not shared by many
people, and he disagrees with some fine scientific minds that still debate
these issues without conclusion.
Flegg must know that most of what he refers to as “anti-vaccination”,
“anti-medicine” and “anti-establishment” is well-researched and that
little, if any, of it claims to be anti-vaccination, anti-medicine or anti
-establishment (whatever that is) yet he smears it as such, presumably
because the data criticises vaccination and medicine. Despite Flegg,
medical researchers are aware of how difficult it can be to publish data
critical of perceived wisdom or vested interests (6) (7). Noted autism
researchers Vijendra Singh et al produced excellent follow-up (8) to their
work identifying antibodies to measles virus in the brains of autistics
and not controls (9). They had then identified antibodies to MMR vaccine
in the brains of autistics and not controls (8), yet I understand that
paper was constantly refused publication.
If an eminent scientist like Singh (10) (11) finds great difficulty
obtaining publication for results about the presence of vaccine antibodies
in the brains of autistic persons that are so important to society, but
may be damning to the vaccine industry, does Flegg rant against the
protectionist industry or label VK Singh an anti-vaccinist?
The facts appearing in the references I gave Flegg (12) (13) telling
of damage to tens of thousands of Filipinos through smallpox vaccination
was in accord with “the Philippines suffered disastrously through US
smallpox vaccination campaigns, its peoples dying in their tens of
thousands from a disease that had historically hardly touched that
nation”. The information is easily checked, but unlikely to be sourced
from 'big pharma', so why does Flegg smear the sources I gave which
included an excerpt from the Philippines Health Service and research
physicians who attended the Philippines to investigate?
Flegg says I provide references to scientific publications that are
“not valid and appropriate” and uses my response to GSK “at least 35,517
children may have died within 7 to 9 months due to acellular pertussis
vaccination” as an example. I had posed the question to GSK Dr Bogaerts
“‘successfully administered' means what? If a child dies or is seriously
afflicted by a vaccine, was it successfully administered?”. I used the
reference accurately and it was valid. The paper does not state, as Flegg
insists, that the 3 children died of heroin, pneumonia, or any other
infection but says that undiscovered infections were found in 3 children
who died unexpectedly after vaccination. Unlike Flegg the team concluded
that vaccination, as a cause of their deaths, could not be ruled out.
Hence my quote that “at least 35,517 of 6-11 month old children alone may
have died within 7 to 9 months due to the vaccination” is valid and
accurate.
Flegg ironically evidences his claims with references that are hardly
valid.
His ref. 3. Flegg says, “one of these deaths was actually due to
pneumonia following heroin overdose” yet the researchers did not confirm
that in the study.
4. 5. 7. 8. Flegg says are evidence that “3 child deaths were not due
to vaccination” yet these references are for studies using DPT whole cell
vaccine not acellular which was referred to in the Swedish study; his
references do not compare like with like.
6. Flegg claims this study shows that immunisation protects against
bacterial disease but the researchers say, “Other preventive health care
measures may have been responsible for the apparent immunisation positive
effect”.
9. Flegg refers to the IOM statement 2002. The IOM agrees that
compelling scientific evidence and arguments for damage to biological
mechanisms by vaccination exists, but then appears to have been
unreasonably swayed by epidemiological studies despite the US Federal
Judicial Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence stating that epidemiology
is concerned with incidence of disease in populations and does not address
the question of cause of an individual’s disease. Specific causation is
beyond the domain of the science of epidemiology, it addresses whether an
agent can cause disease not whether it did cause disease. If such studies
cannot determine ‘cause’, they cannot determine ‘non cause’. Flegg should
take note.
The attempt by medical researchers like Flegg to distort and
obfuscate facts that may be of extreme public import is one reason why I
believe that a judicial enquiry into the legality of intentionally
infecting another by vaccination is needed. It is acknowledged that
successive UK governments allowed suspected nvCJD-causing bovine material
to remain in vaccines, and authorised them for millions of vaccinations,
for over a decade (14)
Bovine material-containing polio vaccine was not banned until 2000
despite the risk of nvCJD existing in such vaccines being known since the
late 1980’s. ‘Big pharma’ did not remove potentially lethal material and
in some cases sold its product interests to ‘small pharma’ that continued
to facilitate injections of suspected nvCJD-causing agents into millions
of unsuspecting children (15).
Links between disease and vaccinations, as with autism, are distorted
by many epidemiology studies Government and the DoH parade before the
public despite such studies being incapable of addressing causation while
calls for prospective studies and clinically valid trials are rejected.
Hence I believe an independent judicial enquiry is essential to restore
public confidence, and decisions made by DoH and Government should be
subjected to judicial review.
When the DoH Head of Immunisation can claim on National TV that
children could be administered 1000 vaccines at once without harm (16),
having absolutely no proof for his statement, we have reached a cross-
roads where science (17) (18), politics and public health interests must
be separated and the latter given prime consideration. These issues can
only be resolved by judicial enquiry that must be autonomous of government
and the civil service, and selected with no hint of cronyism. It must work
solely in defence of the public, and public health interests, without
political or commercial agenda.
I leave Flegg with this old quote from Adam Smith (1723-90) the
Scottish Economist who lectured on logic and moral philosophy. “People of
the same trade seldom meet together but the conversation ends in a
conspiracy against the public, or in some diversion to raise prices”.
Regards
John H.
References
1. “Clinton acts to reduce medical mistakes” Charatan, BMJ march
2000; 320:597
2. “Incidence of ADRs in hospitalised patients; a meta-analysis of
prospective studies” J Lazarou et al, JAMA April 1998; 279:1200-06
3. “Medical errors ‘kill thousands’”, BBC Saturday 18th March 2000,
Dr. Richard Smith, BMJ
4. Sunday Times 19th Dec. 1999 ‘Blunders by doctors kill 40,000 per
year in UK’
5. “The Quality of Australian Health care Study”, RM Wilson et al,
Med J Aust 1995 Nov; 163(9): 458-71
6. The Guardian 14.1.04; a review published in 2003 found 30 studies
compared the results of trials funded by drug companies with those funded
by other sources. The former were four times more likely to have results
favourable to the drugs companies than were the others; 70% of trials
reported in medical journals were funded by drug companies - result is
that information on drugs is distorted.
7. The Guardian 10.9.01; 13 of the world’s main medical journals
mounted an outspoken attack on the rich and powerful drug companies
accusing them of distorting the results of scientific research for the
sake of profits – tying up academic researchers with legal contracts they
are unable to report freely and fairly on the results of drug research.
8. “Positive titre of measles and MMR antibody are related to myelin
basic protein autoantibody in autism” VK Singh, University of Michigan,
College of Pharmacy, Ann Arbor, MI48109; abstract provided to American
Association of Immunologists, 1998.
9. “Serological association of measles virus and HHV-6 with brain
autoantibodies in Autism”, VK Singh et al, Clinical Immunology and
Immunopathology, October 1998; 89(1): ISSN: 0090-1229.
10. http://64.41.99.118/vran/vaccines/autism/aut_singh.htm
11. http://www.autism-arch.org/june2003-2.htm
12. Facts derived as extract from Philippines Health Service document
13. Facts derived from “Second Thoughts on Disease” by Kalokerios and
Dellman
14 http://www.mad-cow.org/00/Oct00_inquiry.html
15 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,386177.00.html
16 www.telegraph.co.uk/.../news/2004/08/
15/ndrug215.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/08/15/ixnewstop.html
17 The Independent 28.2.04; drug companies knew HRT risks 5 years
before the public, experts who tried to raise concerns about HRT were
ridiculed.
18 Heptonstall, Vaccination Mythology; www.
bmj.com/cgi/eletters/320/7229/ 240#6390
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests