False Meningococcal Data Distributed by Experts

Press Release
Ron Law and Barbara Sumner Burstyn

Falsified Meningococcal Data Distributed by Experts

The Ombudsman has intervened to ensure the Ministry of Health release the 2004 annual meningococcal disease report prepared by the ESR.

Risk & policy analyst Ron Law and writer/researcher Barbara Sumner Burstyn comment that the report provides compelling evidence that experts are falsifying meningococcal disease data.

Documents, recently distributed by the Ministry to healthcare workers, contained a falsified graph suggesting that meningococcal disease was on the increase. The graph contains 70 additional cases in the 2004 data, making it appear to well-meaning healthcare professionals that meningococcal disease was on the rise again. [See attached]

The falsified graph showed the number of meningococcal bacteria isolated from patients; most people, including healthcare professionals would not have realised that this was not a graph of all cases and would have been mislead.

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"Falsifying data is serious scientific misconduct. This, and other evidence we have, strongly suggests that the message being conveyed by the Ministry to the public about the urgent need for and efficacy of the experimental MeNZB(tm) vaccine is being falsified," says Ron Law.

Authored by Dr Stewart Reid, a General Practitioner at Ropata Medical Centre, the data contained in the Ministry of Health circulated report; "MeNZB - what it targets, its efficacy and the duration of protection," is said to come from the ESR.

While noting that Dr Reid is also the Advisor to the Meningococcal Vaccine Strategy, the document fails to disclose that he is listed as the clinical investigator for Chiron's MeNZB™ clinical trial V6OP4. The fact, that Dr Reid was also a prominent member of the Medicines Assessment Advisory Committee that recommended licensure of the MeNZB(tm) vaccine is also not disclosed.

"Internationally such conflicts of interest are increasingly under the spotlight," says Barbara Sumner Burstyn. She goes on to comment that a request under the Official Information Act to view the CV that Dr Reid would have submitted with the trial application has been turned down on grounds including that making it public would harm public confidence.

"When the qualifications of reporters investigating the development and release of an experimental medicine are called into question, it is ironic that the qualifications of one of the most senior players in the MeNZB(tm) saga have been withheld from the public."

A Royal Commission of Inquiry is urgently required to unravel the truth so that our nation is never subjected to this kind of manipulation again.

Parents are quickly realising that the MeNZB(tm) vaccination program has become so politicised that science has been sidelined.

This unethical, if not illegal, manipulation of the facts provides comfort to the thousands of parents around the country who are withdrawing their children from this State funded medical experiment.

ENDS

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