Rescuing Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected Dictatorship
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Spin,
not face-to-face confrontations with the voters, is the Government's
chosen method of communication. Ordinary people are dangerous. Ordinary
people might ask a question which throws a politician 'off message';
the Cabinet member might reveal himself or herself to be a human being
like us, and not a programmed android. Worse still, he or she might
tell the truth.
Ann Leslie - Daily Mail, September 16, 2004
Blair wants to leave his
mark on history - looks more like a stain to me.
Peter Thorndyke, Diss,
Norfolk - Daily Mail, May 23, 2005
I know I'm me - why do I
need an ID card?
"Sorry, officers, I
don't have an ID card. I never applied for one. It seemed a bit steep
at 300 quid. I do have my free passport, my driving licence and my
London freedom travel pass, each with my photograph. I have my NHS
medical card, with its lengthy number, given me at birth, my RAF
service book with my Armed Forces number, and a chit authorising me to
wear a few gongs -including a General Service Medal with Malaya bar,
for fighting communist terrorists on behalf of my country, or so they
told me.
"I've also got various credit
cards and store cards, all with my signature on the back, generally
good for buying the everyday requrements for life as well as the odd
luxury. If you decide to arrest me, I suppose I'll have to be
photographed and given another number, besides my PINs.
"I'm afraid I haven't got a
pension book; it was taken away."
"By thieves, sir?"
"No ... well, not exactly. By the
Government. By the way, may I see your warrant cards please, gentlemen?"
Oh dear, they've disappeared. E.
Harry Gumer, Romford, ESSEX - Daily Mail, June 1, 2005
NO means NO
When does NO mean MAYBE?
When it's not the answer the EU wants.
With the
courageous French NON resounding in their ears, shabby, undemocratic
self-interested leaders of Europe propose ignoring the part of their
precious constitution that requires ratification by all members and
continuing without one of the biggest founder members to prevent
derailing the gravy train.
As in Ireland,
they refuse to accept any NO votes, ignoring the will of the people,
and re-stage votes until they can engineer the 'correct' answer. Sadly,
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw dances to their tune like a puppet on a
string. With tactics such as these, how can anyone really believe the
EU has our interests at heart. Letter from Steve Penny, Kingsnorth, Kent - Daily
Mail, June1, 2005
Surely
the French result makes the £1million the EU recently spent on a
treaty signing ceremony seem a trifle premature and extravagant. Letter from Keith Wiseman, Bury, Lancs. - Daily Mail,
June1, 2005
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May 31, 2005 (761 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,657 US - 89 UK - >6,164?
Iraqi - >17,300 civilians - 25 media
June 17, 2005 (779 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,716 US - 89 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
June 26, 2005 (788 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,737 US - 89 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
July 6, 2005 (798 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,751 US - 90 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
August 24, 2005 (847 days since
war ended)
Death Toll: 1,869 US - 93 UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
September
29, 2005 (883 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,928 US - 96 UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
11, 2005 (895 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,956 US - 96UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
20, 2005 (904 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,986 US - 97UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
25, 2005 (909 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 2,001US - 97UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
Britain has
traditionally been one of the biggest net contributors to the EU
because we do not get as much money back from Brussels in farm and
regional subsidies as our rivals.
According to
Treasury figures, between 1995-2002, Britain's average contribution
taking the rebate into account, was £2.6billion, or £43.55
per head of population.
The French -
the biggest recipient of farm subsidies - contributed £1billion a
year or £16.08 per head of their population.
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MMR
safe? Baloney
This
is one scandal that's getting worse
The
Melanie Phillips Column - Daily Mail, October 31, 2005
Since
Dr Andrew Wakefield first triggered the furore over a possible
link between autism, bowel disease and the measles, mumps and
rubella trip jab in 1998, the controversy has not died away.
Now
a study by respected Cochrane Library has said, on the basis of
31 pieces of research into the possible side-effects of MMR, that
it found no association between MMR and autism. Cue a frenzy of
gloating by Wakefield's enemies, ripe denunciations of those like
this newspaper who took his concerns seriously and demands that
we apologise for creating a scare that left children unvaccinated
and at risk of measles, mumps and rubella.
The
Cochrane Library study, they shrieked, had found MMR to be 'safe',
given it the 'all-clear' and declared all such fears to be 'unfounded'.
This is a load of old baloney. These people should start by reading
the actual study rather than lazily recycling the press release.
For the study did not say anything like this at all.
Evidence
Certainly
lead Cochrane reviewer, Vittorio Demicheli, said in that press
release: "We conclude that all major unintended events, such
as triggering Crohn's disease or autism, were suspected on the
basis of unreliable evidence.'
But
Wakefield never suggested a link between MMR and Crohn's disease,
a disorder of the bowel. Wakefield reported instead the discovery
of an entirely new syndrome, autistic enterocolitis, which produced
distressing bowel symptoms along with a number of developmental
problems resembling autism - but which the Cochrane report did
not even mention.
Moreover,
it did NOT conclude that Wakefield's evidence was unreliable.
On the contrary, it said that no fewer than nine of the most celebrated
studies that have been used against
him were unreliable in the way they were
constructed. As a result, it said, their conclusions that MMR
was 'safe' or 'well-tolerated' need to be 'interpreted with caution'.
Next,
the press release said: "There was no credible evidence behind
claims of harm from the MMR vaccination." But the study did
not say that. It did not even examine those claims of harm, which
arose not from epidemiological studies of patterns of disease
Cochrane investigated, but from clinical investigations of actual
children. What the report did say but was
not mentioned in that extremely odd press release was this: "The
design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies,
both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate." And
just as significant, this: "We found only limited evidence
of the safety of MMR compared to its single component vaccines."
In
other words, far from saying MMR was safe, the study said explicitly
that the evidence for its safety was not good enough. Yes, it
also said the evidence it looked at didn't support association
between MMR and autism, but that does not mean it said the vaccine
was safe. It was rather that it didn't find anything to suggest
that it was not.
And
that was because the epidemiological studies that it examined
are intrinsically unlikely to reveal the truth about the effects
of MMR. For a start, they rely on medical recorded. But the parents
complained that their children's doctors dismissed all their concerns
about autistic symptoms or bowel disease. So they never entered
anything out of the ordinary on their medical records.
Furthermore,
for the vast majority of children, the vaccine poses no problem
at all. Only a very small proportion are said to have been badly
affected, possibly through a combination of environmental or genetic
factors. But population-wide studies are considered too large
and insensitive to pick up small numbers such as this.
It
is the evidence that Cochrane did not examine that is the only
material worth studying. This is the clinical evidence obtained
not just by Wakefield and his associates but by others, which
has posed alarming questions that have never been answered.
Virus
Wakefield's
discovery of autistic enterocolitis as a completely new syndrome
has now been replicated in studies around the world as a new and
so far unexplained disease in patients with autism. It has also
been discovered that autistic symptoms have got far worse in a
number of children after they received booster jabs - and such
booster-jab evidence has been accepted by the American Institute
of Medicine, at least, as an indication of cause and effect.
Most
explosively of all, vaccine-strain measles virus has been found
in cerebro-spinal fluid of some autistic children - suggesting
that in those cases the vaccine may have had a catastrophic effect
on the brain.
None
of this proves that MMR has caused autism in some children. But
it does raise questions which need to be resolved as a matter
of urgency. The only way to do so is to conduct large-scale clinical
trials, which the Government has consistently refused to do.
Hopes
of examining the existing clinical evidence were pinned on the
legal case being brought by parents claiming compensation on behalf
of children said to have been damaged by the MMR vaccine. But
this case foundered when the parents' legal aid was abruptly withdrawn.
Now
Wakefield himself is being arraigned before the General Medical
Council charged with 11 counts of professional misconduct, including
alleged conflict of interest over receiving funding from the parent's
lawyers, which he has strenuously denied.
Compare
this with the Cochrane paper, where under the rubric 'potential
conflict of interest', Dr Tom Jefferson, who is listed as the
study's second author, acknowledges that in 1999 he acted as a
consultant for a legal team advising the MMR vaccine manufacturers.
Another researcher who helped with the Cochrane paper was one
of the authors of a prominent study which rubbished Wakefield's
research - a study which the Cochrane report itself then investigated.
Hounding
And
a number of epidemiological studies which the Government has used
to state that MMR is safe have been written by researchers with
links to drug companies or to governmental bodies with an interest
in disproving Wakefield's concerns. Are these not real conflicts
of interest which should be investigated rather than hounding
the doctor whose discoveries have raised concerns over public
health which have never been addressed.
One
of Cochrane's findings should give even those jeering from the
sidelines pause. This was that the 'Urabe' strain of the mumps
component of the triple vaccine causes aseptic meningitis.
Although
the current vaccine does not contain this Urabe strain, the first
batch of MMR vaccine introduced in 1989 did - even though the
Health Department knew at the time that Canada had already withdrawn
it because it was unsafe. The British vaccine was only replaced
years later after researchers discovered to their horror an association
with aseptic meningitis in Britain. So the idea that MMR was always
safe is demonstrable nonsense.
The
MMR scandal is getting worse. Urgent questions about the vaccine's
safety remain unanswered. The doctor who raised those questions
is being subjected to what appears to be a witchhunt. The parents'
recourse through the courts has been blocked. Now they have to
put up with being told yet again that the evidence of their own
eyes is fraudulent.
Every
responsible person wants to see children vaccinated against dangerous
diseases. Public anxiety could have been allayed overnight had
the Government permitted single vaccine jabs. Instead, we have
clouds of obfuscation, an ignorant cacophony of catcalls - and
an unresolvedpublic
health problem.
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Has the MMR link to
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autism
been disproved? |
YES
says
Mrs. Mary Wood, Rossett, Clwyd
It's
a great shame that Melanie Phillips, in accusing the Cochrane
Library of a biased interpretation of evidence surrounding
the proposed link between the MMR vaccine and autism (MAIL),
failed to mention the most important finding on this issue
this year.
A
study carried out in Japan showed that the incidence of
autism in young children in that country continued to
rise after 1993, even though the vaccine was withdrawn
in spring 1993. After such evidence, it's very difficult
to see how the MMR can still be thought to be the cause
of autism.
We
should be extremely careful what we say on this subject.
It would be a tragedy if more parents decided not to have
their children vaccinated against dangerous childhood
diseases because of ill-considered words suggesting a
link with autism.
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NO
says
Hugh Bostock, Maybole, Ayrshire
Melanie
Phillips's 'unanswered questions' about the MMR jab (MAIL)
exposed the latest 'official' propaganda as untruths and
innuendo. Autistic people are condemned to a life of unrelieved
yet potentially treatable illness. This is a disgrace,
for which both the Government and medical establishment
are to blame.
Refusal
to listen to parents' concerns or to investigate physiological
disorders among autistic people can be explained only
by assuming the medical establishment is frightened by
the potential findings of such investigations. The claim
that Dr Andrew Wakefield's findings have not been replicated
is a lie. Other researchers have confirmed the existence
of a new form of inflammatory bowel disease.
As
grandfather of severely autistic Hamish, aged 10, I experienced
the NHS refusal to consider physiological intervention.
I'm trying to get the Scottish Parliament and anyone in
the NHS to see the reality of the biomedical aspects of
autism.
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