UK Government Hands Drug Industry Control of Childhood Vaccination - [SZ]

[Guest guest]

1 - Child Health Safety's story -

UK Government Hands Drug Industry Control of Childhood

Vaccination

2 - OFFICIAL JABS NEWS RELEASE ALSO BELOW

Contact JABS ORGANISATION Jackie Fletcher 01942

713565 - 01952 677180 Mob: 07788

502154 - 0121 722

3004 Mob: 07841 470908

______________________________________________________________________________

CHS Story -

UK Government Hands Drug Industry Control of Childhood Vaccination

March 8, 2009 by childhealthsafety

UK press reports today show UK’s New Labour Government appears to have

placed control of UK vaccination programmes from 1 April 2009 in

the hands of the drug industry and introduced what is potentially a

compulsory vaccination law without Parliamentary debate under

The Health Protection (Vaccination) Regulations 2009.

[see: Jab

makers linked to vaccine programme - Sunday Express By Lucy ston

HEALTH EDITOR and

Scientists to be given power to decide on vaccinations Sunday

Telegraph - By Donnelly, Health Correspondent 07 Mar 2009]

The new law, introduced in a manner which raises doubts as to its legal

and constitutional validity, will mean that when the drug industry

produces a vaccine for adults or children, the Secretary of State is

obliged to implement whatever recommendation the Joint Committee on

Vaccination and Immunisation makes.

GPs, practice and clinic nurses could be in a difficult position

ethically and legally, in their relationships with parents and

particularly in relation to those vaccinations which are recognised not

to be clinically necessary, whilst exposing young children to risks of

adverse vaccine reactions which are also not being properly monitored by

health officials. Mumps, rubella, chickenpox, ‘flu and Hepatitis B

vaccines are examples of vaccinations recognised not to be clinically

necessary for children whilst recommended by the JCVI.

The JCVI is drawn from the British Medical professions and includes

members with drug industry financial conflicts of interest

[

Declarations of Interests] and an historically poor record to the

present day on vaccination and child health safety [revealed in Freedom

of Information documentation - more below].

This new law puts the unpaid JCVI members in a powerful financial

position for the drug industry, with the power to decide adult and

childhood vaccinations. And if the JCVI decides unvaccinated

children should not attend school, as is the position in the USA, that

could see compulsory UK childhood vaccination by the “backdoor”.

Contradicting Department of Health claims the JCVI is independently

appointed, the JCVI is appointed by an appointments commission under DoH

control [more below].

The approach of several JCVI members and other health officials has been

shown to be inappropriate and over-zealous, as demonstrated in UK legal

proceedings seeking to have children vaccinated against parents’ wishes

and when not in the children and family’s best interests [more

below] .........

............ Read on for detailed story, analysis and

information:-

UK Government Hands Drug Industry Control of Childhood

Vaccination

______________________________________________________________________________

2 - OFFICIAL JABS NEWS RELEASE

Contact JABS ORGANISATION Jackie Fletcher 01942

713565 - 01952 677180 Mob: 07788

502154 - 0121 722

3004 Mob: 07841 470908

ABS

1 Gawsworth Road

Golborne

Warrington

Cheshire

WA3 3RF

Press contacts:

Jackie Fletcher 01942 713565

01952 677180 Mob: 07788 502154

0 Mob: 07841 470908

JABS PRESS RELEASE

Sunday 8th March 2009

UK Government hands control of vaccination to the JCVI

JABS has become concerned that the Labour Government is introducing

compulsory vaccination under The Health Protection (Vaccination)

Regulations 2009 (1) without Parliamentary debate. It

is evident from a reading of the legislation that all vaccination

decisions for the UK childhood vaccination programme

as from 1st April 2009

will be handed from the Secretary of State to the Joint Committee

on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), currently an advisory body whose

members have direct and indirect financial ties to the pharmaceutical

industry.

JABS has become concerned about the following points:

The Secretary of State is answerable to

Parliament. The JCVI

is not.

It is a voluntary advisory body and

is made up of medical professionals which includes members with potential

conflicts of interest because of direct and

indirect links with vaccine manufacturers

[

Declarations of Interests].

According to the new legislation: '...The Secretary of State

must make arrangements to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable,

that the recommendation of the JCVI is implemented...' This new

legislation appears to make the Secretary of State junior to an advisory

body. The advisory body was itself previously junior to the

Secretary of State. Why is there a need to change positions

when the Secretary of State tended to implement the

recommendations of the JCVI previously in any event?

Why has there been no parliamentary debate about the handing over of

power? The use of a statutory instrument to transfer power from the

Secretary of State in this manner, appears unconstitutional and a major

change in practice. Is this change lawful?

Given the ambiguous wording of the regulation it appears to pave the

way for compulsory vaccinations: '...Those conditions are that the

recommendation must - (a) relate to new provision for vaccination under a

national vaccination programme or to changes to existing provision under

such a programme...'. Is the UK Government planning to introduce

compulsory vaccination for children by the back door? Ostensibly allowing

it to be a JCVI decision that the Secretary of State is newly obliged to

implement?

The JCVI has a chequered history. The committee was involved in the

approval process for MMR vaccines in 1988. Two out of the three MMR

brands introduced contained urabe mumps strain and were withdrawn four

years later because of a risk of neurological complications. Recent

evidence from the USA shows that US judges have ruled that a number of

children have suffered long term neurological damage following

combinations of vaccines. When the JCVI considered the ground breaking US

Hannah Poling vaccine damage case in which she was found to have a

mitochondrial dysfunction they proposed to vaccinate all children

irrespective of the risk of developing this condition

(2).

If the Secretary of State is obliged to implement any recommendation

of the JCVI, what safeguards are in place to ensure undue pressure is not

placed on the JCVI members from vaccine manufacturers to introduce

greater numbers of vaccines into childhood programmes or the wider

population? Could this be a licence to print money for the vaccine

manufacturers?

It has been proposed recently by Labour MP Creagh that children

who have not received all their vaccinations should not be allowed to

start school. She said primary schools should be compelled to demand

proof that children had been given the full range of routine jabs -

including MMR - before they could register. She also said the proposed

move would increase the uptake of the controversial MMR vaccine. Sir

Sandy Macara, ex-chairman of the British Medical Association, suggested

linking child benefits to vaccinations (3). As public

confidence in vaccination, and in the MMR vaccine particularly, has

fallen over the last fifteen years is this new legislation designed to

remove parental choice - the 'make 'em have it' approach as in the USA?

What happens if the JCVI recommends that children should not attend

school/nursery without being vaccinated? How will this be enforced? How far has the Government consulted on this issue? Is the British

Medical Association aware of this new law? The current chairman, Dr

Hamish Meldrum described Creagh's proposals as 'Stalinist' and said

forcing parents to have their children inoculated was " morally and

ethically dubious " (2).

A large public consultation was undertaken by the Nuffield Council on

Bioethics and concluded in November 2007 that there was no reason to

change the voluntary system. At the same time as this was published in

the UK there was a huge furore in the US as American parents were

threatened with hefty fines and jail unless they vaccinated their

children before entry into school - is this really the direction we want

to go in?

JABS is concerned that the sole purpose of this new legislation is to

transfer power to the JCVI in order to introduce the compulsory

vaccination of children. The government has said it has no plans to

introduce compulsory vaccinations but has kept this power-shift quiet.

Why?

(1) The Health Protection (Vaccination) Regulations 2009 (No38)

http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation & title=The+Health+Protection+(Vaccination)+Regulations+2009 & searchEnacted=0 & extentMatchOnly=0 & confersPower=0 & blanketAmendment=0 & sortAlpha=0 & TYPE=QS & PageNumber=1 & NavFrom=0 & parentActiveTextDocId=3547025 & ActiveTextDocId=3547032 & filesize=2114

http://tinyurl.com/ckhw4d

(2) The JCVI meeting dated 17 June 2008 decided that all children will be

vaccinated regardless of risk. The JCVI claimed " UK data provide no

evidence that vaccination is harmful to children with mitochondrial

disorders " .

Minutes

17 June 2008, and as

amended:

Draft minutes for main JCVI meeting 15 October

2008:

(3) No jabs, no school says Labour MP

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7392510.stm

JABS is a self-help group for parents who believe their children have

been damaged by vaccines. We neither recommend nor advise against

vaccinations. We aim to promote understanding about immunisations and

offer basic support to any parent whose child has a health problem after

vaccination.