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1.  Merck Paid 3,468 Death Claims To Resolve Vioxx Suits

Merck & Co. paid claims to the families of 3,468 users of its Vioxx painkiller who died of heart attacks or strokes, a claims administrator told a judge today. A $4.85 billion settlement fund made payments to the families of 2,878 Vioxx users who died of heart attacks and 590 who died of strokes, according to Lynn Greer of BrownGreer LLP, a law firm in Richmond, Virginia, that analyzed 59,365 claims. Merck set up the fund, which covers claims of death and lesser injuries, in 2007 after reserving $1.9 billion to fight 26,600 Vioxx suits. U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon in New Orleans has overseen Vioxx lawsuits since February 2005 through a process known as multidistrict litigation. "It's a remarkable achievement," Fallon said at a hearing, describing the MDL as the biggest in U.S. history. "We have really finished the large portion of this litigation."
San Francisco Chronicle
Related Links:
* British Government Abandons Vioxx Victims
Caroline Wilson, Evening Times, Scotland
* Barrister Warns Vioxx Compensation Cases Are Urgent
Katie Hagan, The Sydney Morning Herald

 2. Minister Ignored Advice And Ordered Double Dose Swine Flu Vaccine

Health minister Ab Klink ignored advice from both the Dutch vaccine and public health institutes when he bought 34 million doses of swine flu vaccine last year, RTL news reports. The tv programme says the vaccine institute told Klink that two shots per person would be unnecessary. And the public health institute warned Klink delivery would be too late for a mass vaccination programme. The Netherlands bought 34 million doses of the vaccine for H1N1 at the height of the scare, enough for two shots per person. It emerged last year that the country's chief virologist Ab Osterhaus, who advised the government to buy a double dose of the vaccine, has close links to drugs firms. He denied any conflict of interest.
Dutch News
Related Links:
* WHO And The Pandemic Flu Conspiracies
Deborah Cohen & Philip Carter, British Medical Journal
* Study Launched To Find Harmful Effects Of Swine Flu Vaccine
Jason Ramsey, Top News
* Drug Dealers Response Sparked NHS Swine Flu Chaos
Tom Foot, Camden New Journal
* UK Government Swine Flu Drug Dealers Forgot To Insert Cancel Clause In £200m Contract
Victoria Fletcher, Daily Express
* Pharmaceutical Industry Cried Wolf Over Swine Flu For Profit
Staff Writer, RT

3.   Vaccine Victims Beaten Up And Sent Home

Nine parents seized and allegedly beaten by unidentified men from outside the gates of the Ministry of Health five days ago were forcibly driven back home by officials from their respective towns over the weekend. Ten parents of child vaccine victims had been first seized and then allegedly beaten by a gang of tracksuited thugs on July 19 before being transported to Zhanlanlu Police Station where they were officially arrested and charged with "disturbing public orders."  Police explicitly told Yi Wenlong he would be sent to a labor camp if he came back to Beijing, he said. Almost all parents were advised by their local authorities to "petition according to the law" and not return. "I already tried the legal system and the petition system," Yi said. "Neither worked for me."  Yi in January 2009 filed a lawsuit against the local health bureau for the wrongly stored vaccines that hospitalized h is child, but the court never accepted his case. "Now I don't know what to do," he said.
Li Shuang, Global Times
Related Links:
* Vaccine Protestors Beaten, Bones Broken
China Digital Times

 4. Crazed Psychiatrists Set To Shrink Pool Of Normal To Puddle

Patients may be more likely to be told they have psychological illnesses after experts proposed to modify classifications in a mental health guide used by doctors around the world, it was claimed. The suggested new diagnoses in the manual, written by leading American doctors, "shrinks the pool of normality to a puddle", critics said. It is feared that difficult or eccentric people may be diagnosed as mentally ill, dramatically affecting their life and job prospects.  Professor Til Wykes, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, said: "It shrinks the pool of normality to a puddle, and there are going to be fewer people who won't end up having a diagnosis of mental illness."  Dr Callard from the Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust said: "If this category were to be introduced the people likely to be given this diagnosis are going t o be relatively young. What are the implications of someone receiving a diagnosis that is not a diagnosis of a disorder as such, but a potential disorder?"  The changes are due to appear in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) – the first time guidelines have been altered in 15 years.
Nick Collins, The Daily Telegraph

 5. Doctors Set To Sabotage Detested NHS Database

GPs are set to sabotage the uploading of Summary Care Records after Department of Health IT chiefs decided against suspending the rollout, despite the revelation that up to 200,000 patients have been put at risk by inaccuracies. The former chair of the GPC's IT subcommittee today urged practices across the country to block the uploading of care records en masse, by automatically opting out all of their patients unless they have specifically said they want a record created. GPs are furious that the DH is pushing ahead with the rollout, despite a report by UCL finding that Summary Care Records had led to inaccurate data about patients being uploaded and that staff were routinely abusing rules that patients should be asked every time their record is accessed. Pulse exclusively revealed earlier this month that up to 200,000 patient records in England could contain inaccuracies, after GPs at a pilot site in Birmingham were told that one in 10 records contained potentially life-threatening error.
Ian Quinn, PULSE
Related Links:
* UK Coalition Government U-Turns On Own Medical Database Policy
Ian Quinn, PULSE
* Opt Out Form
NHS Patient Database
* Doctors Say NHS Database Raises Privacy Fears
James Sturcke & Denis Campbell, The Guardian

 6. UK ISP TalkTalk Spies On Customers

UK internet service provider TalkTalk has been caught spying on its users only a couple of weeks after it joined other ISPs in challenging the Digital Economy Act over privacy concerns. The discovery was made by some TalkTalk customers, who noticed that IP addresses from Opal Telecom, a subsidiary of TalkTalk, were following every website they visited. Other users were then able to replicate the procedure and discover the stalking tactics in their logs. After a series of complaints to TalkTalk, it revealed  that it is developing “some really exciting new security and parental control services”, which it said would provide “greater protection” for its customers. Only, it doesn't protect it from snooping ISPs.  TalkTalk doesn't want outsiders asking it to monitor its users, but it has no problem doing it anyway without consent or knowledge. Trust is important for any brand. We've a sneaking suspicion that customers will now also have sneaking suspicions. What other things could it be doing behind customers' backs? It is not clear why TalkTalk decided to begin this testing phase with such a hush-hush attitude, but it is clear that its customers aren't impressed, regardless of what it claims it's doing it for.
Dean Wilson, TechEYE

 7. Spanish Patient With Chronic Mercury Intoxication Goes On Hunger Strike

URGENT - As of  July 26, 2010, Professor Servando Perez, President of Mercuriados Spain (people affected by chronic mercury intoxication), has began a hunger strike. Prof Perez was diagnosed two years ago as having Chronic Mercury Intoxication and Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS). His case went to the highest court in Spain and a judged ruled that Prof Perez had chronic mercury intoxication due to dental fillings and that the Spanish public health care system (Social Security) should treat his condition with chelation or refer him to a private clinic to do so and pay the costs. This was an incredible legal precedent.  Needless to say that Professor Perez has not been treated yet and the Social Security has been doing everything possible to make sure that him, as with other MCS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalitis and Fibromyalgia patients in Spain, do not receive proper medical services from the public health care system. Professo r Perez' health has deteriorated and a month ago he went to emergency at the Santiago de Compostela University Hospital. They refused to attend him and he said he would not leave the hospital until the judge's order for a chelation was carried out. We, the Spanish MCS, CFS/ME and FMS associations have mounted a campaign to support Prof Perez with emails, phone calls to the hospital, press, etc. And now, the latest harassing strategy by the hospital is to refuse to give him food without additives. Faced with all of this, Servando Perez has started a hunger strike. Servando Perez has opted for the brave and hard road to try to change the desperate situation we live with in Spain, those of us with these illnesses. And we are proud of Servando's action. We write you to inform you and to ask you for your support. Pressure point contact details are published.
Clara Valverde, President, Liga SFC (CFS/ME League, Spain)

 8. Courage Is Contagious - How To Whistleblow Safely

WikiLeaks Editor Julian Assange -
The internet whistleblower era has arrived
(Caption & Pic Courtesy of One Click)
WikiLeaks editor, Julian Assange, provides guidelines to whistleblowers in this video after speaking at the Centre for Investigative Journalism’s Summer School 2010. Julian is the main architect of the remarkably successful public interest project WikiLeaks. This is a web-based platform for whistleblowers that for offers a secure place to publish internal and often secret documents that disclose injustice, corruption and murder, in the public interest. WikiLeaks provides something entirely new. It provides a secure, military grade protection programme for whistleblowers which has enabled the safe transmission of important evidence to the public. So far, not one amongst the thousands of submissions in the public interest has been compromised or its author disclosed. Watch the video and learn how to safely whistleblow your information for the greater good.
Information Release, Centre For Investigative Journalism
Related Links:
* WikiLeaks Changes Course Of Afghan War - Multiple Atrocities Exposed
Afghan War Diary, WikiLeaks
* Why The World Needs Free Speech WikiLeaks
Chris Anderson, TED / Julian Assange, WikiLeaks
* Collateral Murder
US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff
WikiLeaks

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