Hilary's Desk

Did everyone listening to the Insight immunisation documentary (podcast URL) on Sunday 19th June, put on their "thinking" cap?  How many listeners do you think, just "believed" all the comments made by the paediatricians or doctors?  After all, they went to medical school, so they must know everything?

I've decided to upload the podcast, in case it mysteriously disappears:  MP3 streaming file.

Where I have something to say, I will mentioned the "time" on the podcast in this format: 1.52 (Tim Blackmore) To me, this documentary was astonishing.  Firstly, because Phillipa Tolley's background research was palpably absent.  But then, to know that she plainly didn't know much..., a person would have to "know" a long term history of vaccination, and immunable diseases in New Zealand.  A real investigative journalist would have asked much more searching questions.

There were comments by an Infectious Diseases Specialist, Tim Blackmore, that measles is a terrible disease (1.52) which caused chronic lung disease, blindness and deafness.  In all the NZ literature for decades, such emotive language has not been used before.  Perhaps if Tim Blackmore had seen measles in the days when parents actually knew how to look after their children, he'd have a different picture of it.  His description, "measles is breathtakingly contagious" is ... breathtaking. He said, "You only have to walk past the room of somebody with measles in it, so it can spread literally like wildfire.... the only thing that protects us from infections like measles is people vaccinated under the age of 40 or so." Read Full Blog

(Anonymous)  Just recently our daughter had her B4 school check. I was told that this was a comprehensive check where I would be able to discuss my concerns. Not that I had any, but we still went. On that day, our daughter wasn’t feeling great at all. She was running a temperature which later that day went up to 39.8 and she also had quite a nasty cough. As we had stopped vaccinating her after her second shot four years ago I wasn’t concerned because I knew that she wouldn’t be receiving any vaccines. In the waiting room we filled in the forms and were soon called into the nurse’s office. On entering I told the nurse that our daughter was quite sick, she just replied “that’s ok”. She talked to her for about 30 seconds, weighed and measured her and told us that she had beautiful teeth. Well… I knew that already.  Read Full Blog

This morning, on Nine to Noon, Kathryn Ryan listened while Professor Peter Collignon carefully detailed his concerns about the lack of data on flu vaccine side effects; the short comings of the current reporting systems world wide; the inadequate reasoning behind the use of the H1N1 vaccine. Everything Professor Collignon stated this morning, underlines everything I said to the Health Select Committee on vaccination rates, on April 15th, 2010.  So let's see how my suggestions to expand the use of the National Immunisation Register to include other health data might pan out in the current situation of serious Fluvax reactions in Australasian children. Read Full Blog

Dear Paul,  Read Full Blog

The Lancet has retracted the 1998 paper (1). Now, all the pillorying and slandering of Andrew Wakefield will start in earnest. The question is, "How does Richard Horton manage to go to sleep each night?". And here's why.  In 2004, the Lancet "partially" retracted the paper, on the basis that Andrew Wakefield never declared to the Lancet, financial conflicts of interest. When confronted in front of the GMC, with 1997 faxes , and proof of receipt, showing that that required information had indeed been received by the Lancet, Richard Horton said that he had never seen it. Read Full Blog

Thanks to an observant reader of the blog, who sent me this link, a fourth "mysterious" death has come to light. There is a new term for these deaths. They are being called Sudden Adult Death Syndrome". So there you go. What this means is you shouldn't be surprised when a "child" of any age, dies in their sleep Read Full Blog