Hilary's Desk

In the wake of the TV3 documentary "Living Proof",  thoughout New Zealand, families who have members in ICU with H1N1, are being told that their near-death family members cannot be given intravenous vitamin C because it would cause renal failure. The medical literature does not support this statement. Many times we hear about vitamin C and kidney stones, but where did that "information" come from? According to Professor Hemila of Finland, it is an "urban legend". Quite why the medical profession feel it so necessary to create urban legends, is another matter altogether. Professor Hemila details the literature on this on his a page on his website called "Safety of Vitamin C: Urban Legends" (page pdf'd):  Read Full Blog

While the medical profession has finally caught on, that the more "educated" a parent makes themselves on the issues around vaccination, the more likely they are to chose not to vaccinate, they are utterly offended that people can chose not to vaccinate.  Furthermore, their take on the issue of "choice" is off the wall.  Their solution to parents not making the 'right' choice, is to back parents into the wall and take pot shots at them with "Refusal to vaccinate" letters (see bottom), which read like legal documents, but are not.  These "refusal to vaccinate" letters come out of such skewed thinking patterns as can be seen in this statement in May this year, from the biggest vaccine defender of them all, Dr Paul Offit: Read Full Blog

How do we know this? Because on page 40 of the June Issue of North and South, Dr Michael Tatley from CARM tells us, “An awfully large number of people have been exposed to vaccines and if they’re as bad as some of the anti lobby are suggesting, there must be a lot of really sick people out there. And we just don’t see them.” No, CARM doesn’t see them, and most of the time, neither do they receive reports about those children, as I mentioned in this blog. Why? Read Full Blog

As someone who spent some years working in restaurants, I laughed when I read a recent article about how bad New Zealanders are when it comes to complaining about the quality of food in a restaurant. The article talked about how people would whinge in private, complain to their mates, or not go back to the restaurant, but rarely did they have the guts to go to the restaurant and explain what they didn’t like. It’s so true. It was true back in the 70’s and is still true today. Those who do complain are mostly business people who have learned to speak their mind, or overseas people who understand the importance of standing up for themselves. Only a few kiwis have learned that it is right to complain. Read Full Blog

London Time’s headline shrieks: “Leading scientist accuses doctors of increasing fear of vaccines”  When are scientists going to understand that they don’t know everything, and the world doesn’t revolve around their myopic thought patterns? Why is the primary aim of scientists to make everyone conform to their own thinking. Why do they assume that, “For most people it goes back to the primeval: ‘Well my mother had measles, I had measles, so why do I need to take the risk [of vaccinating my child]?’ What they are really saying is, ‘Can I live with myself if something went wrong?’ ” Incorrect, Prof Sir. But because Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, by virtue of his many letters, thinks he’s right, so are his solutions??! Read Full Blog

A few days ago, I talked about GSK smacking the UK Minister of Health's hand, and how GSK been done out of lots of money by the UK Government wanting out of the Swine Flu vaccine contract. Worse news has arrived. GSK, according to the UK telegraph only made £698 million pounds from the Swine Flu vaccine that no-one wanted, which sits in the cupboard while people try to get rid of the white elephant. Okay, I whine, after all the headline said, "GlaxoSmithKline profits climb on health sales of swine flu vaccine." Read Full Blog

Here's how the story goes. In 2005 Glaxo Smith Kline, amongst other vaccine firms, threatened the UK Government, saying - "You've got to increase the use of ordinary annual flu vaccine in UK, or if a pandemic comes, we won't supply pandemic vaccine!  So there."  Fast forward to 2010. The UK Government wanted to back out on the 2009 H1N1 vaccine contract, but GSK refused.  And I bet they reminded them of that wee discussion in 2005. "Not gonna let you cancel", says GSK. "We'll downgrade your order of H1N1 vaccine from 130 million doses down to 34.8 million doses, but here's the deal:" Read Full Blog

Utterly gobsmacking. A doctor, who thinks the Swine flu vaccine programme unnecessary, is more concerned that the anti-vaccine movement is having a field day, because the Australian flu vaccine is causing high fevers and seizures with at least one kiddo in ICU?  Hello?  Wake up mate.  Just WHO is it that parents of children affected by vaccines in any country, usually end up turning to, when your little (uncessary) ideas turn to custard, eh?!!    By and large, unless the medical profession actually has to do something to try to save a child's life, parents whose children suffer vaccine reactions usually have the surgery door slammed on their backsides, as they walk out with the typical comment of denial, ringing in their ears... "It's coincidental!" Read Full Blog

People with any brains, can see, when they are told that ordinary flu kills 400 New Zealanders every year, that 20 deaths from swine flu is chickenfeed. They also wonder why it was only last year, that steps were taken in medical practices to stop people with "influenza like illnesses", from infecting everyone else, while they sit in the waiting room. Some even asked the question as to whether there were ONLY 20 deaths because doctors, for once, applied common sense in waiting rooms! Perhaps the other 280 deaths were caused by medical neglect. Which isn’t too far fetched given the number of medical papers I have which show that doctors waiting rooms and hospitals is where you want to go if you feel the need to pick up something which you didn’t have before, but need, to get sick, so that you can legitimize a few days off work. Read Full Blog

Yesterday, in the Far North, Dr Jonathan Jarman had high blood pressure because he feared that 28 cases of measles in the last two months, in pakeha homeschooling, alternative life stylers in Hokianga, could trigger measles cases and deaths left, right and centre. His advice to health workers was to bail up everyone unvaccinated, born after 1969, and shoot’em up with an MMR vaccine, and to rope in anyone who hadn’t had an MMR, and see to it that they were injected. Not in that kind of language, but given information passed on from Kerikeri, the hard word tactics have already started.  Read Full Blog