's Story - PART 2

[Guest guest]

CONCLUSION

While Grant Close was trying to play it down, Nikki was trying to play

it up. The Wairarapa Times-Age:

“New Zealand is open to huge risks of infectious diseases due to selfish

parents protecting their individual rights not to immunise their children, a

health specialist says. “The health of the nation is in real danger when rare

diseases such as diphtheria are again a threat…Nikki said.

“Individual rights saw a staunch core of parents not vaccinating their

children, but such decisions were being made at the expense of safeguarding

society, Dr said.

“Dr …said the unvaccinated Auckland toddler at the centre of a

diphtheria scare this week was likely to have got the acute infection from

his parents after they holidayed last month in Indonesia. If the parents can

bring diphtheria back and give it to their child, they can easily give it to

their neighbours…â€

And so she carried on – and the flames were fanned to become a bonfire.

And this is the woman who spoke with such authority on television, a story

which the rrecords proved was pure supposition without one shred of clinical

accuracy with regard to that case.

Then the parents came to see me, and it turned out that the rumours about

antibiotic reactions and enforced revaccinations were true. But that everyone

had been told to shut up. I explained to them that the childcare centre

children should not have been re- immunised, because international protocols

for a clinical case require only people not having had a diphtheria

vaccination within 5 years to be vaccinated. All those kids had had shots –

some within a few weeks of ’s test showing bacteria, and did not need

any more. So much for international protocol.

Over the next few months, the stories rolled on. I collected them, read them

all, ran out of highlighter, and the pile grew. And by the time the parents

had got the proof they needed, and wanted the truth published, it was too

late. The parents, having become distressed at the lies being told, had rung

Holmes, wanting to put their viewpoint, but he wasn’t interested. They

started to write letters to newspapers, detailing the facts, but would anyone

publish them? No. After all, the newspapers had been bitten by the ‘Fallacy

of Authority’, and weren’t interested in mere parents or hospital files. And

anyway, old news is no news. The medical machine had done it’s job.

Every few months, up popped an allegation that the parents had given it to

the child. So the parents started to try to find out where the isolate came

from. It’s a simple procedure, and they assumed it had been done, because

everything they had read in the medical literature showed it to be standard

procedure. They requested the results.

But the ESR had not had them done. They had sent samples to Australia, but

the replies had no answer with regard to geographical regions. So, the

parents wrote again, asking for the sample to be geographically typed against

a reference library. The CDC in Atlanta, and in other countries, have samples

of every strain which exists, and can tell by the genetic code which country

it comes from. However, ESR said that Paris and London were being consulted,

and they would get back to them. By 10th August 1999, ESR still didn’t know,

but enclosed their report on , which infuriated the parents. They

politely asked that the ESR amend their records based on the hospital files

to show as an isolate, not a case, since at no time had he shown

clinical signs of or been treated for diphtheria, and to send a sample for

geographical typing immediately.

11 months later, the, ESR has still not replied to the letters. This year,

Trish Batchelor and Nikki , both writing in the “New Zealand Doctorâ€

continue to perpetuate the myth that the parents, who never tested positive,

or had any symptoms, brought it back from Indonesia and gave it to .

Contrast this with 1997, when IAS suggested that some of the vaccinated

children who got measles after the MMR might have got it from the vaccine. We

were told that there wasn’t a shred of evidence to support such anecdotal

theories – even though we had a letter from the vaccine manufacturers saying

it could happen.

And as to the sewage spill which the parents wondered might have contained

faecal diphtheria bacteria? This was mentioned several times in the early

days to Nick , and Dr Phyllis , who both thought such a

suggestion, even with historical precedence, was far too ludicrous a

suggestion, and anyway, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But what the parents really wanted to know was why they had been made such an

example of and harassed. They were literally driven out of their home to seek

peace and solace, and try to deal with the garbage which was being said about

them.

As I see it, there are a few personal opinions which I believe are relevant

as to why an example was made of . Baker, Lennon and Nikki

are very consistent. They have always been so pro-vaccine I don’t

believe they’d acknowledge anything negative about vaccines if it bit them on

the nose. Dr Baker appears to have had considerable difficulty getting

accurate clinical notes, and even more difficulty classifying the “problemâ€.

But I believe that they knew that defining an isolate as a “case†was a

publicity gift that money wouldn’t buy, and one which could be traded on for

years.

Contrast the speed at which they sprang into print about , with the six

weeks it took to drag an admission out of anyone that a mother was on life

support with paralytic poliomyelitis caught from her vaccinated baby. How are

these two cases related?

In the case of , his parents never gave anyone permission for any

information to be released, yet it poured out in a torrent. The media were

camping on their street right from word go. Starship hospital saw to that. My

journalist friends told me how zealous they were to make all details known.

Over a year later, when a North Shore polio case landed up in intensive care

on life-support (and is still on life support), and who also could have

passed infectious polio virus around here, there and everywhere, the

situation was very different. The parents were told under no circumstances

were they to go to the media. Staff were sworn to total secrecy. Though it

turned out that some journalists did know, the story, it appears, never even

got to the sub-editor’s desk. How was this achieved? Probably, yet again,

that Public Health Act from way back which gives the Health Department total

censorship rights where they consider it in the public interest. The Health

Authorities were so rigid about keeping it a secret it was inevitable that it

would come out via people who were annoyed about the hypocrisy of the

Auckland Hospital’s “risk management†position eighteen months previously.

When television finally decided to run the polio story, the “experts†in the

medical profession flicked it off so fast, you wouldn’t know it had ever

happened. Suddenly they became defenders of privacy, of parental rights. To

them, there were no issues. No such luck for ’s family. Why? Because

strategy is always decided with an eye on:

Ø Maximum political gain, especially if that results in more “co-operationâ€

and money

Ø Maximum pro-vaccine media support.

As simple as that.

BUT the real message centres around the title of Baker’s article

“…implications for disease controlâ€.

The parents reported back from hospital one day, thoroughly incensed that a

specialist (who I could name but won’t) took the trouble to say, in their

line of sight and hearing, to another staff member that the parents should be

sued for all the cost of all the trouble they had caused. In the context of

implications for disease control, I believe that the person who said that

should think very carefully. In reality, if had had a true clinical

case of diphtheria as per the old days, the hospital’s isolation procedures

and ability to treat it were so lax, that had it been, say, Ebola as in

offman’s “Outbreakâ€, a pandemic could have marched half way down

the

country before the hospital doctorseven woke up. There wasn’t even anti-toxin

in the country. That is the real implication for disease control in this

country. Instead of wanting to sue someone, a certain person perhaps should

contemplate the implications of the failure of the medical profession to act

in accordance with printed international protocols for suspected diphtheria.

They cannot claim they didn’t know. All hospitals are on Internet, where it

took me 10 minutes to find out what should have been done.

There is another side to that coin though. It is my opinion that from ’s

point of view, the hospital’s disbelief of their GP and the walk-about of the

throat swab were to his medical advantage. Dr Baker said in his article that

all cases of suspected diphtheria should be treated with anti-toxin before

the swab comes back. Had the hospital followed protocols - and suspected

diphtheria, would have been filled up with diphtheria specific

antibiotics and anti-toxin from the start.

The problem with that is that anti-toxin can be very, very dangerous. If

someone is dying anyway, it might be worth the risk. But it has the potential

to kill a healthy person, can have serious side-effects and cause life-long

immunological problems. had NO clinical signs of diphtheria. And the

delay in assessing him for treatment allows us to consider the fact that he

was a carrier, not a case.

But had things been different, could have been treated (unnecessarily)

and died as a result. He could also have been treated (unnecessarily) with no

side effects, with the doctors proclaiming that he survived because the

anti-toxin saved his life. No-one could have proven otherwise.

But if he had died from the anti-toxin, how would they have presented that to

the media? Would the doctors have said that had died – in spite of

their efforts to save him – and this is what happens when you’re not

vaccinated?

Picture the media result of that for a moment. Those who chose not to

vaccinate would instantly have been portrayed as national pariahs, the media

frenzy would have become an inferno, with parliament probably making

vaccination compulsory. There are rumours coming out of parliament anyway

that this is Annette King’s passport to medical canonisation.

This cautionary tale shows that all it takes is some careful sculpturing of

the facts to change the slant, some obscuring of the facts – and freedom of

choice is in the slammer. The factual mangling of the events as they actually

were was unprofessional enough, but as the language against those who chose

not to vaccinate becomes even more aggressive and strident, the implications

of what could have happened media-wise had been promptly treated

(unnecessarily) and died just don’t bear thinking about.

As of the date of posting this item, all contact with the parents from the

Health Department has been cut off. Their requests for isotype identification

have been met with silence, and to their knowledge, nothing has been done to

amend the official records, or retract incorrect information.

Why, because it does not suit the Health Department and the doctors to tell

the truth, and admit that they shamelessly used an " isolate " as a politically

expedient pawn in their tasteless games.