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Julie Smith, researcher and founder of a NZ website set up specifically to give information about the HPV vaccine, Gardasil, www.offtheradar.co.nz says concerned parents have been contacting her wanting to know how they can help to have the vaccine withdrawn from New Zealand. After last night's Close Up on TV 1 Ms Smith says "Many more parents are making the connection to their child's sudden onset of deteriorating health since receiving the Gardasil vaccine. What is now happening to our girls here in New Zealand is replicating what has already happened overseas. It was only a matter of time before girls here were going to die from this vaccine."
Julie Smith, SCOOP! Independent News, New Zealand
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Daily Mail Reporter, Daily Mail
This New Zealand website was born out of the frustration of a parent who wished to make an "informed" decision about Gardasil for their daughter, and the difficulty they incurred at not being told the complete story about the vaccine by "The Ministry of Health and medical establishment". To have a "one stop shop" of information for parents concerning what is being put into their children, whether by vaccine or food, this website endeavours to tell "what they didn't want you to hear".
Information Release, Off The Radar
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Susan Brinkmann, The Bulletin, Philadelphia
Dr Nicholas Spicer was cleared by a General Medical Council
disciplinary hearing after downloading child-sex stories
Dr Nicholas Spicer, 55, was hauled before a General Medical Council disciplinary hearing, where he was described as 'an abhorrent sexual deviant with an interest in children' while working with children as a GP. But he was cleared of misconduct by the GMC and banned from practising for just six months 'on grounds of health'. Child safety groups yesterday condemned the GMC's decision not to strike him off the medical register. Spicer's disgusted wife Patricia has started divorce proceedings. She said: "People and professionals that I have spoken to are mystified about the decision. The GMC's mission statement is 'protecting doctors, protecting people', but they are not living up to it."
Daily Mail Reporter, Daily Mail
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BBC News / The One Click Group
The Press Association
Following a ruling last week by the General Medical Council that Dr Andrew Wakefield had breached his professional duties, the Lancet said in a statement on its website that he had made false claims in his 1998 paper and concluded: “We fully retract this paper from the published record.” The original Lancet paper made only the cautious link that parents “associated” behavioural symptoms of their children with MMR, balanced by a critical editorial comment at the time and a subsequent series of letters, as well as a partial retraction of the original paper by some of Dr Wakefield’s co-authors. Dr Wakefield’s subsequent calls for separate vaccines for the different infections – including an experimental product under development by a company in which he had an interest came under sharp scrutiny.
Andrew Jack, The Financial Times
Related Links:
A J Wakefield, S H Murch, J A Walker-Smith et al, The Lancet (paper retracted)
General Medical Council
General Medical Council
Ian Logan
Amid such horror it is hard to salvage even the smallest fragment of hope but Kay Gilderdale's ordeal may at least help tear down the rotten edifice of lies, myths and prejudices which still dog the ME/CFS illness once dismissed as yuppie flu but which experts in the US now postulate is connected to a rare retrovirus, XMRV. Ian Logan, 62, chairman of Worcestershire ME Support Group and previously an engineer in a job he loved has battled ME/CFS for the last 20 years. He said: “Even thinking makes the brain hurt. It fogs over. You don’t know where to lie in bed. Your arms ache. Your head aches. An overcoat feels too heavy to wear, like a hundredweight. Your shoes feel like leaden boots. It’s like walking in mud, like trying to walk across a ploughed field or writing left-handed when you’re right-handed. The psychologists have held sway for many years and with the millions they have had, have not yet come up with any answers at all. It’s ti me they stepped aside and let the physicians have the money.”
James Connell, Worcester News
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Jeremy Vine, BBC Panorama
Neil Tweedie, The Independent
Dr. William C. Reeves [Ed. Note: much detested] will be leaving his post as head of the CFS program at CDC as of Feb. 14th to accept assignment as Senior Advisor for Mental Health Surveillance in the Public Health Surveillance Program Office. Dr. Elizabeth Unger will serve as Acting Chief, Chronic Viral Diseases Branch, which includes the CFS program. I believe that the leadership change effort of the IACFS/ME over the past several months was critical to this successful outcome. In particular, strong and compelling testimony from a number of high profile CFS professionals.
Fred Friedberg, PhD, President, IACFS/ME
This has hardly been a vintage session for the dignity of parliament, with politicians of all major parties bundled into the stocks for claiming expenses for duck houses and the like. However, the Public Accounts Committee’s damning report on Legal Aid procurement does at least suggest that our elected representatives are capable of redemption. In highlighting the incompetent performance of the Legal Services Commission (LSC), MPs have performed a valuable public service and substantiated what solicitors have been saying for months. No wonder leading practitioners such as Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, have suggested the LSC should simply be scrapped.
Opinion, Law Society Gazette
In this edition we have an update on the four page DLA renewal form - and we are definitely advising people to treat it with enormous caution, given the feedback we've had from members. The Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) are taking advantage of the backlog in administering ESA wherever they can, however. We have a copy of guidance issued to decision makers this week to ensure that, where there has been a delay in medical assessments, the DWP pockets cash that should be being paid to claimants. From April 6th 2010 GPs will no longer issue sick notes to their patients. Instead, they will issue a 'statement of fitness for work' or 'fit note' as it will generally be known.
Steve Donnison, Benefits & Work
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