The Contaminated Blood Inquiry. Is the focus of the media response misplaced!

We do not learn from our mistakes. History should teach us that scandals, disasters and fiascos are never recognised at the time, or even soon afterwards, but usually take 30-40, or even 50 years after they happen before they are accepted. We don't seem to understand this, even today, following the publication of the Infected Blood inquiry's final report. This is how the Guardian described the contaminated blood scandal.

            "The scandal has been described as the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS. People treated by the NHS in the UK between the 1970s and 1990s were exposed to tainted blood through transfusions, including during complications in childbirth, or, in the case of haemophiliacs, given contaminated “factor VIII” blood products imported from the US".

I wrote about this scandal here in 2017, in "The Contaminated Blood Scandal. The worst cover-up in NHS history". It certainly has been a cover-up of massive proportions, one that has lasted for over 50 years after the issues were first known.

And now, hiding (as yet unannounced and unrecognised) in the background, is yet another scandal in the making - the Covid-19 vaccine scandal. This has concerned a mass vaccination campaign using a largely untested, and therefore experimental vaccines). And I predict that this scandal might also take another 30, 40 or 50 years before it is fully recognised by the UK's health and political establishments.

This 30+ year gap from 'event' to 'recognition/apology' is not restricted to conventional medicine. The Hillsborough tragedy, the Bloody Sunday massacre, and the Post Office scandal, are all demonstration of this laggardly timescale; and but there are many others. Nor will these scandals be the last; there will no doubt be many others to come!

Yet it is within the confines of the conventional medical establishment that most of these scandals happen. I wrote about several of these medical scandals in Chapter 9, "Medical Errors" in my "The Failure of Conventional Medicine" e-book. And if we are ever going to learn, it is important to understand what is going on, and why these decades-long time-delays are allowed to happen - time and time again.

There are influential people and powerful organisations implicated in each and every one of these scandals. They invariably, inevitably hold control the information about the situation within their sphere; within industry, within the conventional medical establishment, within government, and/or within the mainstream media. They are people with reputations to defend, and personal wealth to protect. And corporations or institutions with profitability at stake. When it is realised that there is a problem, they defend themselves, vigorously, through many tried and tested strategies:

• initially they ignore the situation (on the basis that it is best not to discuss the situation in case it attracts unnecessary or unwanted publicity),
• then they obfuscate (it is best that people are confused, or over-whelmed, rather than certain that something 'bad' has happened),
  
• they go into denial, they cover-up (they play for time, defending themselves with arguments like "there is no evidence", or the "correlation is not causality", et al,
  
• they discount the importance of the situation (there may be a slight problem, but only a few people people were 'involved; it's not a serious issue), and they excuse themselves by saying that the benefits of what happened far outweighed the risks.
  

These factors were all in evidence in previous scandals; Thalidomide, Vioxx, Opioid, Primodos, Sodium Valproate, were all defended using these strategies. The infected blood scandal was no different, just the latest example of a medical scandal that took decades before the truth was recognised, and the cover-up revealed.

I suggest that the Covid-19 vaccine scandal is at the very earliest stage of this process. Literally millions of people, around the world, have reported serious adverse vaccine reactions to national drug regulators, and they have not been recognised, investigated or acted upon. There is growing realisation by doctors and others within the Conventional Medical Establishment that there is a serious problem (stemming from the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration), and when the patient harm issues have been raised in Parliament, by a handful of MP's, they have spoken to an almost empty chamber, and received only an obfuscatory response from a government minister. The voluminous reports of serious patient harm from the Covid-19 vaccines are said to be greater than any other vaccine for the last 70 years. There have been 'excess deaths' each and every month for the last 3 years (since the vaccine roll-out), and questions about  links with the Covid-19 vaccines have usually been ignored, or denied. All these suggestions and allegations meet with institutional ridicule and denial, a refusal to investigate further, and the determination to continue with the Covid vaccination campaign.

Any similarities here with the contaminated blood scandal in the 1970's and 1980's? An industry not prepared to abandon a profitable vaccine? A health system unwilling to admit that it has caused serious patient harm? A government that does not want to compensate and pay damages to damaged patients?

The problem is that we might have to wait 30 years to find out! We are in the early stages during which the victims do not receive recognition, sympathy, support or compensation. They are the 'ordinary' people, with limited resources; they are not 'experts', and they find it difficult to penetrate 'the system' which insists there is no problem; and they certainly don't have the funds to take the issue to a court of law. 

On the other side of the fence they face people in positions of great power and influence, backed by powerful institutions. These are rich and powerful people, in extremis, who stick together. They present as a united front to protect themselves, to sing from the same song sheet. Corporate directors, senior government officials, and the mainstream media control the agenda, the information is (and is not) made available to the public.

Indeed, with health scandals in particular, one notable feature of these scandals is that no action is taken to correct the fault. The infected blood products continue to be sold; the opioid drugs are still marketed; Sodium Valproate continues to be prescribed; and even the infamous Thalidomide drug is still being used, today! These sales continue until such time that the scandal becomes bigger, when sales begin to fall, or the hitherto toothless, incompetent drug regulator bans it; or the drug company 'withdraws' it because it has become "uncommercial". One of the Covid-19 vaccines, the AstraZeneca vaccine, has suffered this fate - withdrawn for 'commercial reason' even though  it was never approved in some countries (the USA), was banned in about 12 European countries, and 'withdrawn' from the UK. The 'commercial' reason was that no-one wanted the vaccine because of 'suspicions' that they caused serious patient harm!

Another common thread that runs through most, if not all, these medical scandals is that drug/vaccine/treatment involved usually started life as a "wonder drug", a "game changer" that would transform the treatment of one disease or another. However, each one has moved from being loudly heralded "a miracle cure" to be quietly being dropped as a killer drug.

And then we are led to believe that such a thing has never happened before! 

Even at the very end of medical scandals, as with the 'contaminated blood scandal', the issue is usually discounted as being a 'one-off' issue, a single, isolated and terrible medical 'mistake' that must not be allowed to happen again. Also, they are presented as situations that would not be allowed to happen, not now, because things have changed, medicine has moved on. So, the defective, disease-inducing blood scandal product becomes "the worse disaster in the history of the NHS" - the implication being that something as bad as this has never happened before. And of course the Inquiry will insure that no such thing will never happen again in future!

So usually no-one is ever held to account for the scandal. This is the main purpose of the long drawn out history of obstruction and delay. If resolution can be delayed for 30, 40, or 50 years on, the people involved will either be dead, or too old; their scandal-driven profits already spent, or no longer available. The pharmaceutical industry will have re-organised, the old, often defunct drug companies will no longer be around to question, or prosecute. The politicians and civil servants involved with the scandal will have moved on, or died. Even some of the documentation might have been 'lost'. 

So it is the current government (that is, tax payers) who foots the compensation/damages bill, especially when drug companies have been given immunity from prosecution.

Conventional medicine is inherently secretive. This is because it relies heavily on pharmaceutical drug treatments, all of which are known to have serious side effects that can cause serious patient harm. This is at the heart of what makes the NHS defensive in all its dealing with the public. This is why conventional medicine does not, perhaps cannot, function openly, transparently, or honestly.

So there will be more health scandals, and with all the evidence available at this point it seems safe to predict that the Covid-19 vaccines, which are already suspected to have caused so much serious patient harm (heart conditions, cancer, damage to the immune system, to mental health, et al), will eventually grab our attention. But not, perhaps, for another 30 or 40 years!

So how can we identify a scandal 30 to 40 years earlier? I have a couple of tips.

• Watch for a new 'medical breakthrough', the promotion of a new 'ground beating' medical treatment by both government, and the mainstream media,
  
• Listen to who is speaking, and what they are saying. (i) the voice of the 'common' people who claim they have been harmed, but who remain largely unheard, or beaten back, and (ii) the denials and obfuscations of the medical and political establishments.

If these conditions apply then we just might have another medical scandal to witness - if we live long enough to see it unravel!

 

Note: When it was first published, Blogger removed this post. It was part of the Media's censorship campaign again the idea that pharmaceutical medicine was anything but "safe and effective". It has since been republished!

Elections, Politics and Health Spending?

Health is good; therefore spending on health must be good; therefore democratic politicians at election time, when they want our votes, promise us more health care.

            In Britain, since 1948, the expansion of the NHS has been based on one extraordinary idea - that as health is ‘good’, a vote winner, so spending on health must also be ‘good’. It is this one single idea that has allowed the NHS to grow at such a phenomenal rate!

But what if the additional money is spent on a health care system that does not work; and whose drugs and treatments cause further damage to our health? This is what has been happening in democracies around the world for the last 100 years, or more".

• we are unwell,
• we accept ineffective pharmaceutical drugs,
• they make us sicker,
• so we demand more health care,
• and we get more ineffective, sickening health care, which compounds our sickness,
• ..... so we demand even more to be spent on health care!

Eventually, an ineffective and iatrogenic health care system dominates not only our health, but the national economy; and is now even threatening to effectively 'bankrupt' governments. There is no more money to spend.

I am not going to defend these statements here. I really don't need to - the evidence is happening right now. In the UK and India we are already in the midst of election campaigns in which health spending is dominating the political debate. European and USA elections will follow later in the year. So the proof of the statements made here will be clear for all to observe.

• We are sick (unasked question: why are we sicker now than we ever have been before?)
• We want more health care (unasked question: what sort of health care do you actually want/need?)
• Okay, Okay - we are listening (we want your vote), so we will give you yet more of the health care that is not making you better, and making you sicker).
• Then we can watch as politicians out-bid each other with spending commitments on moving more resources into pharmaceutical medicine.
• Listen, very carefully, you might be able to hear the gleeful response of the drug companies as they vie with each other to get hold of more of the new money. Later, we will be able to see that their profits have escalated, again).
  
• Ultimately, we will be able to watch how chronic diseases (allergy, arthritis, asthma, autism, autoimmune diseases, cancer, dementia, diabetes, epilepsy, heart/kidney/liver/lung disease, mental health, et al) have continue on their inexorable, epidemic rise to new unprecedented levels.
  

If that does not happen, please let me know!

 

Informed Consent to Pharmaceutical Medical Treatment. What information do patients' require?

Informed consent is important in medicine. It is especially important in Conventional (Pharmaceutical) medicine which has a long history of causing patient harm. (Click here for a list of withdrawn and banned medical drugs prescribed by doctors, especially over the last 70 years). Conventional medicine has always emphasised the importance of informed consent. For example, the UK's National Health Service (NHS) states that: 

            "For consent to be valid, it must be voluntary and informed, and the person consenting must have the capacity to make the decision. The meaning of these terms are:
    * voluntary – the decision to either consent or not to consent to treatment must be made by the person, and must not be influenced by pressure from medical staff, friends or family;
    * informed – the person must be given all of the information about what the treatment involves, including the benefits and risks, whether there are reasonable alternative treatments, and what will happen if treatment does not go ahead;
    * capacity – the person must be capable of giving consent, which means they understand the information given to them and can use it to make an informed decision.”

Yet conventional medicine has a poor record in assuring that the patients have given their "voluntary informed consent" when it comes to the prescription of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. Conventional medicine is adept at informing us of the 'benefits' of drugs/vaccines; but they have been less ready to admit to the serious adverse reactions they can cause.

Indeed, in many during the recent Covid-19 pandemic it was clear that conventional medicine was prepared to mandate (force) patients to be vaccinated, without their consent, with vaccines that were (are) by its own admission 'experimental'. Even by the rather 'carefree' standards of pharmaceutical drug testing, were not fully or properly tested.

In December 2023 the USA drug regulator, the FDA, appears to have ditched the concept of voluntary informed consent entirely when it issued a 'final rule' providing an exception from the requirement to obtain informed consent when a clinical investigation poses no more than minimal risk to the human subject, and includes appropriate safeguards to protect the rights, safety and welfare of human subjects. This is, perhaps, thin edge of a very hefty wedge? Or perhaps, for a fundamentally dishonest industry, it is now trying to find reasons to ignore this principle altogether. Remember, at the time conventional medicine told us that Thalidomide, Vioxx, Avandia, Acomplia, Opioid painkillers, Sodium Valproate, and many others, came with "appropriate safeguards to protect the rights, safety and welfare of human subjects"! And they killed patients!

Conventional medicine has always been highly secretive about its treatments. Electro-Convulsive Treatment continues to be used on mental health patients (perhaps less now than before) quite regardless of the lack of evidence for its efficacy. But it is the prescription of pharmaceutical drugs/vaccines, and their adverse effects on patients, that most secrecy exists. Remember, "the person must be given all of the information about what the treatment involves, including the benefits and risks, whether there are reasonable alternative treatments, and what will happen if treatment does not go ahead" (my emphasis). The reverse is usually true.

• Often the patient will not be told about 'side effects' at all.
• Or they are told only of minor 'side effects'.
• Or the serious 'side effects' are minimised, discounted, described as "uncommon" or "rare".
• Or, when the patient suffers a side effect, the doctor assures the patient the drug was not the cause.
• Or a patient suffers serious harm, and conventional medicine completely denies any link.

I wrote about informed consent in May 2012. This blog was in response to a report that described, in some detail, the problem of medical paternalism (I am a medical professional - I know best - you should/must take this drug - it is "safe and effective" - and I don't expect to be questioned). The report said that:

            "Doctors are deliberately withholding information about the dangers of some routine screening and clinical procedures - often because they fear patients would then refuse treatment".

In other words, doctors were refusing to give patients information which might help them make an "informed choice", that is, a choice different to the decision of the doctor! The report suggested that patients should ask the following questions before agreeing to take any prescription drugs:

1. How long has the drug been on the market (if less than 2 years ask for an 'older generation' drug)?
2. Can you confirm I am not taking part in a drug trial?
3. Is the drug suitable for my age/gender/condition?
4. Are you using this drug 'off-label' or for the condition for which it was originally licensed?
5. Are there any special warning or 'black-box' alerts for this drug?
6. Can you explain to me the known side-effects and the likelihood of me suffering them?
7. Has the drug been tested among people similar to my own age/gender?
8. Do you know if the drug has been banned from use in other countries? (Note, many drugs which are banned in one country are still sold and prescribed in others).
9. Have you given this drug to other patients? If so, have they reported any adverse reactions?
10. Is the dose you are recommending within the guidelines of the manufacturer for my age/ gender/ condition?
11. Do you know if the new drug will react with other drugs I am currently taking?
12. If I start to suffer from health problems when I take the drug, I shall stop immediately, and come to see you again. Do you agree this is the best course of action?

However, the report went on to question whether the average doctor would be able to answer many of these questions. In other words, it questions how well informed doctors are about the drugs they prescribe, and how reliant they are on inadequate, and partial information from the pharmaceutical industry, and the medical 'science' that it controls.

And then there is the question about whether medical staff are allowed to provide patients with 'negative' information about conventional medical treatment. The Telegraph has recently published a series of articles entitled "The four-step 'playbook' the NHS uses to break whistleblowers" which discuses how  doctors, who raise patient safety concerns, are confronted with systemic bullying and harassment from their managers and colleagues. 

This raises the important question - can doctors who wish to tell patients the whole truth about medical treatment actually allowed to do so?

The Telegraph articles outline how NHS whistleblowers have had their careers ruined whilc trying to raise concern about patient safety. It outlines how over 50 doctors and nurses have raised concerns about patient death, and poor patient care, and how rather than dealing with the problems raised NHS executives seek to undermine them using 4 specific tactics.

1. Investigating the whistleblowers rather than investigating the issues raised.
2. Bullying and Intimidatory tactics against the whistleblowers.
3. Weaponising General Medical Council referrals to silence whistleblowers.
4. Demotion, Disciplinary Action, and Dismissal.
   

Few medical professionals would want to g through this type of persecution? So the assumption must be that most do not go public with the information? So the information that the NHS does not want patient to hear about does not reach the public. And the patient has to make his/her "voluntary informed choice" without this important information.

Does this sound like an open, honest, transparent medical system to you?

Are you undertaking conventional medical treatment, or taking pharmaceutical drugs or vaccines?

Are you being denied information that would help you make an informed choice?

Even patients who were determined to obtain information about the treatment recommended to them. This link describes one woman's battle for medical information. The response she received to her questions show how careful patients must be to protect themselves from pharmaceutical harm; and the extent to which conventional medical authorities will go to ignore, discount and deny important information required by patients who seek to know the full picture about proposed medical treatment.

So 'voluntary informed consent' is not an easy, perhaps closer to impossible for the sceptical patients to elicit - which is perhaps why so many patients are seriously harmed by drugs which were given to make them well. The patient instead suffers serious iatrogenic harm which is then denied or discounted. 

No government, no mainstream news media, will assist you, as they invariably appear to follow the pharmaceutical line. An internet search might provide important information that doctors will otherwise keep secret. But even this is often difficult to find for ordinary, non-medical people to find.

One piece of advice I received when learning to drive a car, many years ago, was to assume that everyone else on the road was an idiot. It was good advice! It has kept me safe.

Similarly, I would advice any patient to assume that any doctor, if not an idiot, will not be prepared, or will not able, or willing, to tell the truth about the medical treatment you are being offered. So scepticism might just help keep you safe from iatrogenic harm!

Post Script

If you agree that informed choice is important in medicine, please have a look at the 'Free Speech for Health' website, and sign their petition.