Monday, 16 May 2011

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Lisa Blakemore Brown, Psychologist: this is not a story for children
Fourteen years after New Zealand TV researchers travelled to England to interview Dr David Southall, Dr Paul Johnson, myself and various parents, after contentious allegations of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP), he is again featured in a TV documentary in this country. It is the second in 2 years entitled “A Very Dangerous Doctor”, Channel 4, 12 May 2011. I have just given evidence to a panel at the GMC (General Medical Council) looking at developing new Guidelines for medics in Child Protection, which includes a number of Dr Southall colleagues and members of PACA. I have provided a lot of written evidence and given oral evidence on two days on certain cases and my concerns about methods used in Munchausen Syndrome by proxy (MSBP)/Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) and have raised a number of factors which I hope will help them in the forthcoming development of the new guidelines. One factor concerns being overly dogmatic in one’s views, an other concerns the use of pure speculation and failure to check files and associated with this is omission of crucial information as part of the differential diagnosis. I have never left out the possibility in my mind that a parent may have abused a child – so why do so called Child Abuse experts never mention even the vaguest probability that a vaccine or prescribed medications may have caused damage to a child when we all know that they can? Whilst we go round and round in circles with yet another Dr Southall MSBP Documentary featuring the same denials from both sides, destroyed lives over decades and no sign of a resolution – by these methods - the elephant in the room is completely hidden from view.
Lisa Blakemore Brown, Psychologist
Related Links:
Channel 4
Lisa Blakemore Brown, Psychologist
Family Law Reform

"Proof" of abuse in doubt
Water-filled cysts in the brain of a dead baby should not be taken as proof that the infant has been shaken to death. New findings show that cysts are also found in babies known to have died of innocent causes. The paper is the latest to cast doubt on post-mortem evidence that has till now been taken to show that abuse has taken place. Last year, evidence emerged to challenge the use of the "triad" Movie Camera - the combination of brain swelling, and bleeding on the surface of the brain and at the back of the eyes - as evidence in such cases. In January the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales issued new guidelines stating that the triad would no longer be sufficient to show that a dead infant had suffered "shaken baby syndrome". As well as requiring additional evidence of possible abuse before a prosecution is started, the guidelines also rename "shaken baby syndrome" as "non-accidental head injury".
Andy Coghlan, New Scientist
Related Links:
Medical News Today
Crown Prosecution Service
Angela Levin, Mail on Sunday
Chris Bentley, Attorney General, Government of Ontario
BBC File on 4
NPR
Lisa Blakemore Brown, Psychologist
Andrew Hosken, BBC Radio 4 Today Programme

The national vaccine policy draft, submitted by the government in the Delhi High Court recently, strongly favours inclusion of new vaccines in the Universal Immunisation Programme of the country. According to media reports, a major push for introducing pentavalent vaccines in India comes from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), one of the major donors in the healthcare sector in India. The reason seems obvious. Some of the pharmaceutical companies BMGF has affiliation with manufacture the vaccine. For instance, BMGF has US $0.12 billion shares in Sanofi-Aventis, which owns Shantha Biotech, a pentavalent vaccine manufacturer in Hyderabad. BMGF also has links with Merck, another pentavalent vaccine manufacturer. Several such details of BMGF’s investments in pharma companies and other corporations are revealed in a study by David Stuckler of Harvard University in the US. The study titled “Global Health Philanthropy and Institutional Rel ationships: How should conflicts of Interest be addressed” was published in Public Library of Sciences in April. It is a clear case of conflict of interest because Gates is promoting vaccines manufactured by pharmaceutical companies in which he hold shares, Stuckler says.
Ankur Paliwal, Down To Earth

The Alliance for Human Research Protection is pleased to report that our campaign against the overuse, misuse, and frankly abusive use of antipsychotic drugs has the support of one of the most prominent neurologists in the US. Following our recent Infomail about the Inspector General's report about the pervasive (83%) unapproved use of neuroleptics (a.k.a. antipsychotics) for elderly patients in nursing homes, Dr. Louis Caplan, Professor of Neurology Harvard Medical School and Senior Neurologist Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, alerted us to the fact that "Haldol is the most overused drug among patients hospitalized on medical and surgical services and in intensive care units." At our request, Dr. Caplan wrote a short but powerful essay in which he makes a strong case against administering Haldol to restless patients because the drug causes patients extreme harm.
Vera Hassner Sharav, AHRP

The pharmaceutical industry spends a lot of money marketing their newest psychiatric drugs to Americans. And we take a lot of them. In fact, in 2009 alone, U.S. doctors wrote more psychiatric prescriptions than there are people in this country. This is a look at 2009's most prescribed psychiatric drugs. Don't worry, there's a pill for that.
GOOD

In the latest indication that Pfizer hopes to resolve burgeoning litigation over its Prempro hormone replacement therapy, the drugmaker has now set aside a total of $772 million to cover an estimated 8,000 cases in federal and state courts around the country, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Of course, the reserves could go still higher; Pfizer notes the set asides cover “the minimum expected costs to resolve all of the other outstanding hormone-replacement therapy actions.” A big clump of lawsuits - roughly 2,200 - were recently settled for a reported $330 million For those who may not recall, the litigation stems from charges that Prempro and similar meds caused thousands of women to develop breast cancer. “We are pleased to see Pfizer finally accept responsibility for the injuries this drug caused to women and hope the company will compensate each woman fairly and reasonably,” Zoe Littlepage, a lawyer who serves as lead counsel for Prempro patients whose lawsuits are being heard in Arkansas.
Ed Silverman, Pharmalot

The recent identification of xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) in the blood of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) establishes that a retrovirus may play a role in the pathology in this disease. Knowledge of the immune response might lead to a better understanding of the role XMRV plays in this syndrome. Our objective was to investigate the cytokine and chemokine response in XMRV-associated CFS. The purpose of this study was to evaluate differences in cytokine and chemokine profiles between XMRV-infected CFS patients and healthy control subjects. This study clearly demonstrates XMRV-infected CFS patients display an inflammatory cytokine and chemokine signature that distinguishes them from healthy control subjects. The availability of complete viral genome sequences from many symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals may lead to a greater understanding as to why some individuals manifest symptoms of neuroimmune disease while oth ers do not.
Vincent C Lombardi, Judy A Mikovits et al, in vivo 25: 307-314 (2011)
Related Links:
FDA Press Release
Shyh-Ching Lo, Harvey J. Alter et al PNAS
Judy A. Mikovits et al, 10.1126/science.1179052, Science Express

The co-founder of a group advocating for an Army private accused of leaking classified material to the antisecrecy Web site WikiLeaks is suing the U.S. government for unlawfully seizing his computer and copying its contents to aid a criminal investigation of the site. Computer scientist David House’s laptop was taken in November at an international airport by two Department of Homeland Security agents without a hint that it contained evidence of wrongdoing, but rather because House was a vocal supporter of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the accused leaker, the American Civil Liberties Union alleged in a complaint to be filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Boston. The case, the civil liberties advocates contend, is a troubling instance of how the government’s more aggressive border search policies in the post-Sept. 11 era are being used not to enforce customs or immigration laws, but to advance government investigations of third parties and to collect information about people’s political activities.
Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post

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Posted by Britannia Radio at 17:19