July 2011 – The uproar that’s arisen about nefarious goings on by Rupert Murdoch’s News International (NI) newspaper chain brings some satisfaction to those who’ve defended the formerly respected British gastroenterologist, Andrew Wakefield. It was a journalist, Brian Deer, who filed charges against Wakefield with the British Medical Council; Deer had been hired to investigate and write reports about Wakefield in the NI newspaper, the Sunday Times by Rupert Murdoch’s son and CEO of NI, James Murdoch; in 2009 James Murdoch had been made a director of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), one of the makers of MMR vaccine; the safety of MMR vaccine came into question when a 1998 study by Wakefield and co-researchers found chronic bowel disease in twelve children described in the paper as having “a history of normal development followed by loss of acquired skills, including language, together with diarrhoea and abdominal pain…In eight children, the onset of behavioural problems had been linked, either by the parents or by the child’s physician, with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination.”
James Murdoch’s GSK directorship is only part of a far reaching network of conflict of interest which undoubtedly promoted the stripping of Wakefield’s licence to practice medicine in the UK. Deer’s research was assisted by Medico-Legal Investigations, a private eye company whose only source of funding is the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry; judge, Sir Nigel Davis, denied parents whose children Wakefield treated the right to be heard in court about claims against vaccine manufacturers; judge Davis’ brother is an executive board member of Elsevier (publishers of the Lancet which removed Wakefield’s 1998 paper on the discovery of the new bowel disease) and is also on the Board of GSK; the Chairman of the General Medical Council Fitness to Practice Panel who ruled against Wakefield, Dr Kumar, refused to answer questions about his shareholdings in GSK.
As well as the Sunday Times and the London Times which both carried Deer’s malevolent reports, Reuters and the Daily Mirror joined the character assassination; the head of Reuters serves on the Board of Merck, the other manufacturer of MMR; Daily Mirror writer, Miriam Stoppard is wife to Sir Christopher Hogg, 2004 Chairman of GSK.
Further afield, Rupert Murdoch is co-chair of the David Rockefeller-founded Partnership for New York City, which is currently promoting a trust heavily invested in ‘genetopharmaceuticals’ and influenza vaccine genetic engineering.
But not to be outdone by the lay press, on Jan 5, 2011 the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published Deer’s series of attack articles along with editorial endorsement claiming “no financial interest in the submitted work in the previous three years.” After a challenge to that lack of disclosure, on Mar 15, 2011 editor-in-chief, Fiona Godlee, published a “correction” which stated: “The BMJ Group receives advertising and sponsorship revenue from vaccine manufacturers, and specifically from Merck and GSK, which both manufacture MMR vaccines.”
However, Godlee didn’t disclose that in 2008 the BMJ Group signed an agreement with Merck Sharpe & Dohme (MSD), a subsidiary of Merck & Co, to enter into a partnership to provide interactive learning in “over 20 medical therapy areas [including ‘Infectious diseases’, ‘Neurology’ and ‘Paediatrics’]”, a partnership which, MSD crowed, “will change the face of medical education in Europe and beyond”. Similarly, in 2009 the Lancet entered into a partnership with Univadis®, a service from MSD which provides free access to recent journal articles for registered clinical specialists.
On the other side of the coin, we have the April, 2011 indictment of Poul Thorsen who, unlike Wakefield, had received kudos from the vaccine establishment. He was lead researcher of a Danish study which claimed to show proof that vaccines don’t cause autism. The study, and thus its conclusion, were seriously flawed but that’s not why he’s been indicted; charges have been laid because, among other things, he allegedly stole funds provided by the CDC for his research.
As opposed to Thorsen’s ‘research’, U of Wisconsin Senior Chemist, Michael Wagnitz has linked brain inflammation with mercury and associates the mercury containing vaccine ingredient, thimerosal with autism. But, perhaps because he’s not muted by membership in the medical profession and because thimerosal isn’t specific to any one vaccine or any one vaccine manufacturer, Wagnitz and other scientists with this theory haven’t felt the full rage of and dismemberment by the vaccine establishment. With compassion and respect for a fellow researcher who, in good faith, did what real scientists (and real journalists) do, ie search for the truth, Wagnitz zeroes in, “Before I read any more articles on the Murdoch scandal, I would like the U.S. press to issue Wakefield an apology (at the very least).They swallowed Murdoch’s story hook, line and sinker.”
Similarly, VRAN expects apologies to Dr Andrew Wakefield from all the Canadian media who helped tear his career and valuable research to shreds. Either they too, swallowed Murdoch’s story or they felt so pressured by the vaccine establishment that they didn’t dare conduct independent research.