Background

Traditional acupuncturists do not merely stick needles 'where it hurts', 'in nerve endings', or via a book-delivered prescription and needles should only be applied 'when and if it is right to do so'. A comprehensive appraisal of the patient through the application of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) principles is essential before acupuncture is considered. From time to time we run courses and talks on the Philosophy and Application of TCM with the intention of promoting deeper understanding of the need for the application of traditional principles when applying acupuncture & moxibustion alongside Western and other Complementary Medical practices.

If you wish to develop a better understanding of TCM contact John (heptonstall@gmail.com) for details.

It is necessary that the TCM practitioner maintains a current understanding of the causes of disease; although the human body is relatively unchanged in major physiological terms since the principles and practices of TCM were devised several millennia ago what has certainly changed are the types and nature of pathogenic effects we face due to the multifactorial alterations in our daily lifestyles, diets and environments. Gone are the days when most people lived reasonably stable rural lives where major pathogenic effects were more simply defined. Today much of the global population can be found in city or suburban environments, with attendant moral, physical and emotional pollution yet also the benefit of easily procured plentiful food, clean water, sanitation and access to health care. Unlike the Western Medical (WM) concept of a pathogen, being in general focussed on organisms that somehow invade the body to cause disease, the TCM concept is much more comprehensive in that it incorporates lifestyle, diet and environment, and numerous other things, atop typical WM pathogens of bacteria viruses and parasites. One can no more ignore the effects of a cold windy day on the patient than their recent close proximity to an infected family member, recent vaccination, electricity pylon nearby or extensive periods sitting at a computer system, or recent foods and any attendant chemical additives. The Western physician would likely ignore all these potential insults to one's health, but the TCM practitioner is usually acutely aware of their potential effects and, through the application of ages old techniques of differential diagnosis can often suggest whether that potential has been realised in a patient and how to recover from it.

Obviously, since TCM considers pathogenic activity as a much more broad based concept compared to WM, and tends to be underpinned by biophysics rather than the biochemistry associated with WM, one might reasonably expect that the application of science and scientific method to TCM practices and principles would differ in many instances from the application to WM practices and principles. The search for evidence base, in order to facilitate evidence based medicine, must also be modified to apply to TCM since the practices and procedures adopted by WM have less relevance than the tried and tested traditional practices still in use. To that end there follows several articles which are hoped to contribute to the understanding of the inherent different approaches taken by TCM and WM, and where they may meet. Clearly the best medicine ought to be gained through the application of best practice from any medical field; not least the meeting of Eastern and Western theory and principle, if coordinated correctly, for a patient should be sought without fear or favour.

4. Do you fear microwave towers (phone masts) near home or your child's school?

7. The development of vaccines in African children should inform global vaccine campaigns; and the serious questions facing the WHO and vaccine manufacturers.

1. Thoughts on Evidence-based Medicine Abstract

Western Medicine (WM) became engrossed in the concept of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) during the 90's. It is a subject that has created much debate both inside and outside the medical profession that is also of great interest to those engaged in the various Complementary and Alternative Medicines (CAM) who seek recognition for these therapies. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) must also rise to this challenge.

WM tends to monopolise the debate, its views and statements are made with the belief that it monopolises a scientific approach that is essential if one wishes to rate any form of medicine as an EBM. This belies the fact that the WM scientific paradigm is almost wholly dependent on biochemistry, that is but scientific branch and despite the fact that WM has a relatively limited history, little evidence base for its current practices, and a reputation as probably the biggest killer and maimer of humanity known to man (Null et al http://www.healthe-livingnews.com/articles/death_by_medicine_part_1.html )

Other branches of science, such as biophysics, offer equally valid scientific paradigms and may be more appropriate for certain forms of medicine. There is no reason why biochemical assessments for TCM cannot be utilized in appropriate circumstances, or why biophysical assessments of WM cannot be utilised in similar manner, to enhance the current scientific understanding of both. TCM has stood the test of time over several millennia such that its interventions are valued by billions of people globally.

The paper concludes that WM systems used to evaluate EBM, through which Evidence-Based Values (EBVs) can be calculated, are either non-existent or ineffective at the moment. Based on a definition of EBM derived from the Concise Oxford Dictionary the author explores the Evidence Base of TCM and WM and suggests criteria that would contribute to the evolution of a sensible, scientific system that would allow for the evaluation of both WM and TCM as providers of EBM.

Key Words

Evidence, medicine, science, TCM, EBM, EBV (Evidence-based Value), ADR, ECE (External Clinical Evidence), supersede, outcomes, follow-up, constitution, anecdote, cohort studies, case histories, prospective, retrospective, modalities, acupuncture & moxibustion (A&M), patient-centered, modality-centered.

Introduction

Combining definitions of medicine and evidence from the Concise Oxford Dictionary, Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) may be broadly defined as the science or practice of diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease where a drug or preparation, or a spell, fetish or charm thought to cure afflictions, is used for the treatment or prevention of disease where the available facts, circumstances etc., supporting a belief, proposition etc., or indicating truth or validity beyond reasonable doubt (or at least more likely than not) show that intervention treats, prevents or cures a disease or affliction.

The quality of any evidence is only as good as the abilities, agenda and integrity of those producing it. Industry, research, production, marketing, prescribing, patient tolerance to, the effects of, and outcome evaluation provide essential witness evidence with which to confirm or refute the claims of evidence-based value (EBV) based on trials performed before widespread use.

In a court of law the sum of evidence must prove a fact beyond reasonable doubt (criminally) or on balance of probabilities (civilly). Medical evaluation schemes for WM and TCM should apply a similar standard of proof as the basic law especially as the medical fraternity are privileged to appear as expert witnesses in courts of law; it is essential that they adopt the same definitions as do the statutes.

Despite scientific, regulatory and methodological processes, which have changed little over decades, WM has a low Evidence Base (EB). In 1978, and 1983, the US Office of Technology Assessment of US Congress (OTA) concluded that only 10 to 20% of conventional treatments have been shown to be efficacious in controlled trial (Ellis et al 1995).

A research trial must show that a medical intervention is safe, efficacious and effective for a specified disorder prior to widespread prescribing. The risk/benefit ratio must favour the patient. The intervention, once licensed, is mass prescribed and if it fails to meet expectations it should lose the EBV assigned through trials. Every time a patient is failed by the intervention that EBV must theoretically diminish therefore outcomes are an important factor in the continued assessment of EBM.

Adverse reaction (ADR) reporting by physicians is generally inadequate, research bears this out (1), and hence the risk/benefit ratios of many mass-prescribed medications cannot be accurately determined. There is no system in place to statistically quantify outcomes for most medical interventions, and long-term follow up is rarely performed. The inadequacies of these three requirements, ADR, outcome evaluation and long-term follow up, make many published EBM studies invalid as they do not take into consideration the true impact of medical interventions on the masses.

The fact that WM has been shown to be the biggest killer and maimer of humanity suggests that its scientific and regulatory framework is seriously flawed. This carnage is caused by both ADRs and medical mistakes.

If a physician prescribes a drug to a patient which is ineffective, another drug is tried; this process is repeated endlessly without recording drug failure such that patients are constantly prescribed medicines whose post-trial EBV long since dissolved; an enormous number of drugs are available on prescription which never obtained an EBV as there was no licensing practice available when introduced (6). They are prescribed by a system that fails to report ADRs, never record outcomes, and rarely follows up patients long-term. They are not EBMs.

General practice is perhaps the most important and heavily used part of a health service; in the UK the GP assesses for treatment virtually all patients. It is very important that the GP gets it right. However, the following piece of research suggests all is not well with EBM and GPs. The paper reflects the attitude, abilities and facilities enjoyed by the average GP who may or may not wish to entertain EBM.

General practitioners perception of the route to evidence-based medicine. McColl et al, BMJ 1998 Jan 31^st; 316(7128): 361-5 concludes that

1. Only 302 of 452 GPs actually responded to the questionnaire designed to assess their perceptions of the route to EBM.

Any theoretical EBV gained from trials declines rapidly when the intervention cannot then be located, understood, or correctly prescribed by a physician. EB values quickly diminish when only 7 out of 10 GPs are interested in EBM; about 1 in 5 have data available locally, few of these have time to research and many could not understand technicalities nor know what databases exist. EBV assessment for any intervention is a complex process. Evidence required confirming an EBM beyond reasonable doubt or on balance of probabilities must be collected, collated and analysed from various sources not least the public. Current wisdom suggests that most WM interventions are failing the public in this regard. With a low EB for prescriptions, high incidence of ADR and error, totally inadequate ADR-reporting, very limited statistical evaluation of outcomes and hardly any long-term follow up for many interventions the EB of WM, if calculable, must be extremely low. Is it any wonder an EB value of about 15 to 20% was reported in researching GP procedures?

A laudable attempt in 1991 by the USA was unable to ensure more powerful safe EBM practices despite improving its physicians access to data concerning the EB of new medical interventions. A system was devised by the American College of Physicians (ACP Journal Club) by which the vast amount of medical data spewing forth from research trials, which the average physician would have little time to assimilate to attain good EBM practice, could be assessed and sifted by experts. They managed to distil 6000 original articles on internal medicine published each year to 300 for easier physician reference, each article is one page rather than four or five (7). Despite this, 1994 realised horrendous medical carnage amongst USA patients (3) that continues to rise; as did UK (4) and Australia (5). WM still remains a major contributor to death and destruction worldwide.

‘Experts’ have emerged, whose theories are widely published since attempts to quantify the poor evidence-base for WM began in the mid ‘90s. They suggest a number of definitions for EBM, for example

1. “EBM has been criticised as being a dangerous innovation perpetrated by the arrogant to serve cost cutters and suppress clinical freedom”.

2. “It is the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients”

3. “The practice of EBM means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence (ECE) from systematic research”.

ECE is “clinically relevant research, often from basic sciences of medicine, but especially patient-centered clinical research into accuracy and precision of diagnostic tests (including clinical examination), the power of diagnostic markers and efficacy and safety of therapeutic, rehabilitative and preventive regimes….External clinical evidence that provides for a better, safer, more efficacious alternative to a current EBM supersedes it, the latter then loses its EBV” say Sackett (8).

Historically most interventions have eventually been banned, withdrawn or superseded by better. WM is a shifting sea of temporary EBMs into which patients dive for assistance, many outcomes remain unpredictable. Fortunately, much illness is self-limiting, driven by the stresses of a complex modern world; many EBMs have limited value in promoting recovery while others are powerful tools with which to treat disease (but they may convey equally powerful side effects). This ought to suggest that medicaments are withdrawn that are no longer EBMs. ‘The Berlin based Stiftung Warentest, a foundation carrying out comparative tests and surveys on products and services, concluded that a quarter of Germany’s 5000 most commonly prescribed drugs are not to be recommended. Half the 45,000 drugs on the German market have never been officially approved by the appropriate agency as they were already in use in 1978 when the current pharmaceutical law came into force, and many drugs have never been tested’ (6). Well over half German prescriptions may not be of an EBM.

There must be a case for retaining medicaments that have proven value for which, when patients do not respond well to a new EBM intervention, they are returned to their original intervention. A new intervention prescribed widely may lose its EBV as it fails to live up to expectations or has to be withdrawn due to serious unforeseen side-effects, in which case the superseded medicament becomes the EBM again.

Sackett and Cook state “Ideally, the information provided should go far beyond efficacy to include measures of harm as well as benefit, to integrate patients’ views on their quality of life with and without treatment, and to include the economic consequences of the treatment alternatives”. (9)

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool, reported only 11% EBV for paediatric surgical interventions, confirmed by controlled trials (10). ‘Convincing non-experimental evidence of 66%’ increased this EBV to 77%. However, a further 23% of interventions at Alder Hey take place ‘without substantial supporting evidence’ - a good reason for ensuring that patient authorisation is an essential ingredient for any EB system. The recipient of treatment must play a part in the evaluation of that treatment; it may be one ‘without substantial supporting evidence’.

One must collect best evidence from all witnesses, from every stage of the development, for each intervention. One should not exclude political, commercial and social considerations that are likely to modify research trial recommendations for the prescribing of a particular intervention such as: -

1. Public requirement: Each patient has an expectation when requesting a physician to provide a prescription. An unbiased, accurate account of the options available is essential. If the treatment fails to achieve a patient’s reasonable expectation some EBV is lost.

2. Physicians’ expectation: If a physician is not prepared to administer an intervention, or that intervention fails to achieve reasonable expectations of the physician, it loses EBV (8) - as the physician has decided that the intervention is to be superseded by another.

3. Industry expectation (profit): A medicine may be marketed such that the original trial-defined EBV is voided. eg. The drug is used for disorders other than those specifically trialled. A company may create a ‘remedy’ for a ‘non-disease’ (eg. HRT for menopause). According to the dictionary-derived definition of EBM that ‘remedy’ is not an EB ‘medicine’.

4. Government expectation. If an EBM is restricted from the public for political or financial reasons the EBV of any treatment used, which has been superseded by the restricted treatment, may be voided.

5. World Health Organisation agenda. WHO encourages governments to employ ‘non-EBM’ strategies by insisting on the deployment of medicines (eg vaccines) without proper consent gained from the public, eg. deployment by the WHO of an anti-fertility hormone contaminant in vaccines given to Philippines women (11), who were not informed and did not give consent. Whenever the WHO deploys vaccines or medicaments that have been superseded by better versions elsewhere it fails to provide EBM (8).

Reliance on a ‘single witness’ source also opens the system to fraud and corruption. On Monday 14^th February 2000 the Daily Telegraph reported that trial data might be falsified. Its report ‘Scientists asked to fix results for backer’, told of how “a third of Government quangos or newly privatised laboratories say they have been asked to adjust their conclusions to suit their sponsors”. The Express Thursday 9^th September 1999 ‘Medical frauds scandal’ reported that a “crackdown on doctors and scientists who carry out fraudulent medical research was launched yesterday as experts fear a growing number of scientific breakthroughs are in fact hoaxes, based on flawed or made-up research”.

One cannot easily calculate the overall EBV for any form of medicine; invariably it will be a complex of multifarious methodologies, interventions and philosophies. The ‘90s saw a rash of studies from the WM establishment declaring EBVs for various interventions of anything from a few percent to almost 100%. The way forward is to assess each individual intervention. One must decide what type of evidence is relevant, to profession and public, from which an EBM is to emerge.

Calculations, which determine an EBV for any intervention, must take into account outcome measures, the acceptability of the intervention politically/financially, physician and patient acceptance and the potential for ADRs in addition to any trial-derived EBV. Most of this data is not available therefore EBM is rarely practised. Witnesses for each procedure must be drawn from the complete chain to supply reliable objective evidence before an EBV can be established. The ‘court’ must compare the original aim, results and recommendations as described by the research trial, with medical, social, political, financial influences and physical outcomes relating to an intervention after careful scrutiny of all data collected by responsible (ideally independent) bodies. The inclusion of physician and patient feedback as well as outcome measures should reduce the impact of fraud and ensure that the prescribing of EBM becomes the norm and not the exception. Under the present circumstances the OTA conclusion of 10-20% EBV for WM may be overly generous.

Evidence-base

WM scientists have stated that TCM is not supported by science. The House of Lords recently placed TCM in Category 3 which is a low grouping for scientific validity while acupuncture, part of the TCM modality Acupuncture & Moxibustion (A&M) whose use is defined by TCM, was placed in the high group for scientific validity Category 1. This is analogous to a screwdriver being accepted for the manipulation of electronic circuits whilst the science of electronics, which underpins the safe effective use of that screwdriver, is deemed unscientific.

This occurred because the HoL appears to have accepted evidence for the validity of both ‘acupuncture’ and TCM largely from WM scientists (who use the ‘screwdriver’ to manipulate body electronics whilst remaining ignorant of the underpinning ‘electronic theory’ TCM) rather than from TCM scientists. Clearly one can only assess the scientific validity of a doctrine and its modalities when one understands that doctrine, and evaluates its modalities in accordance with essential principles of the doctrine. Such evidence is only available to any significant extent from Chinese research scientists; the HoL did access this essential source as necessary to reveal the realities and values of TCM so the decision made is questionable.

The evidence base for TCM is available from various sources. WM depends largely on clinical trials, for its mainly drug-based interventions, using controls, blinding and randomisation. Some TCM modalities can be evaluated using similar techniques, others cannot, so more appropriate methods are used to effect proper scientific evaluation of its modalities.

A main focus of research trials in WM is a drug’s effect on specific biochemical pathways through the correction of which one may safely and effectively treat a disease (usually defined as a single entity eg. headache). A number of patients suffering this disease are given similar doses of the same drug and resulting changes in the biochemistry are recorded along with any change in disease state.

The design of research trials for TCM modalities assumes a different focus. Patients are central to a design along with their particular disharmonies (disorder), a conglomeration of signs and symptoms that define how each individual patient has reacted to internal and/or external environmental ‘pathogens’. This results in a variety of differential diagnoses that reflect the condition of the patient with respect to internal and external factors as described by TCM. ‘Pathogens’ include emotional, lifestyle, environment, cosmological, climate, temporal fluctuations and other considerations relative to TCM, a unique understanding of disease patterns and processes. TCM research involving treatment of the WM disorder ‘headache’ may result in the initial identification of several ‘patterns of disharmony’ revealing a variety of differential diagnoses such as Blazing Liver Fire, Stomach Yang Excess, Hyperactive Kidney Yang, Hyperactive Liver Yang, and Deficient Kidney Yin amongst a cohort of trial subjects suffering from WM defined ‘headache’. Having identified unique patterns for each individual, TCM then applies individualised treatments as ‘patient centered’ interventions at every stage.

WM exists as an ever-changing sea of drugs, that change human body physiology in ways often unimaginable, through which old and emerging diseases are treated. It is encumbered with an incomplete but evolving understanding of the biochemistry of the human body; and uses this to evaluate a body’s response to pathogens, old or emergent, in order to select a new drug regime, the product of the WM marketplace. WM sees old and new pathogens entering a human body and focuses on the introduction of new biochemical weapons to ‘fight these diseases’.

TCM has existed for millennia with an almost unchanging range of modalities (eg. acupuncture & moxibustion, tui na, herbal remedies) to use effectively against old and emergent diseases; it is able to do this because there are two fundamentally unchanging entities in its scientific appraisal of ‘disease’, the human body and the pathogen. Almost all pathogens, even emergent and mutating pathogens, will cause known ‘patterns of disharmony’ in the ‘almost never changing’ human body that TCM understands so well. A ‘disease’ is characterised by well-understood ‘patterns of disharmony’, whatever the pathogen, which TCM recognises and treats with long tried and tested techniques to correct these disharmonies.

Trial types which assess the EBM of TCM

With such fundamental differences in appreciation of disease, approaches to treating disorders and the understanding of a body’s reaction to old and new pathogens, one requires research trials for TCM to maintain the focus specified by the doctrine. WM relies heavily on research trials that limit avenues for bias and corruption; a necessary practice because the medicaments (drugs) are constantly changing as knowledge of body and pathogen biochemistry evolves. Drug research costs and potential profits are enormous, a phenomenon alien to TCM which has always relied on very effective but relatively simple and inexpensive interventions, and this leads to the equally enormous temptation for fraud and corruption. Most new drug treatments have not been evaluated in the human body before a research trial so care is essential to avoid serious injury to research subjects. TCM need not rely on the same trial philosophy for various reasons: -

In the European Journal of Oriental Medicine (EJOM) Vol 2 No. 6 Winter 1998-99 Dr. Adrian White listed his ‘Hierarchy illustrating the different forms of clinical evidence”. These were

No doubt there are WM researchers who would disagree with this particular hierarchy but it is the kind that favours WM research. It is unsuitable for TCM-based studies that hold often very different priorities to WM in methodology, the interpretation of research trial procedures and results: -

This method is only suitable if one excludes all WM ‘acupuncture’ studies which are not based on TCM principles, in fact ‘acupuncture’ does not exist in TCM, the modality is ‘acupuncture & moxibustion’ where an intervention must always consider appropriate deployment of both methods to achieve health balance. Pooling TCM studies is not an easy option as one finds a variety of types of ‘TCM study’ with varying complexes of adherence to traditional diagnostic principles and more modern diagnostic measures. The use of controls differs. One may find studies where a proprietary drug treatment, for which a typical range of outcomes is expected, is used as control. In some cases ‘no treatment’ is used as control. In others a different, already evaluated, TCM modality is compared with that tested. Some studies use a large cohort without controls, an appropriate treatment is given as designed according to TCM principles; and so on. Technically, one could locate a number of similar study types, analyse and review these to assess the effectiveness of A&M in certain disorders, but this may be an onerous task due to complications of required translations (if done by Westerners not conversant with the Chinese language) and the current lack of a suitable database. A good review necessarily takes at least 5 years. (12).

Once referred to as ‘the gold standard of WM’ the Double-blind Crossover RCT (DBCRCT) has seen its standing diminished during recent debates on EBM; a more sensible consensus has emerged which demands that a trial type must be designed to answer a question posed recognising that the RCT answers some but not all typical questions posed by the various research trial aims. For example, a DBCRCT is of little value in assessing the safety and efficacy of existing vaccines amongst a large cohort of children. One prefers retrospective or prospective studies with or without randomisation, remembering that randomisation, blinding, crossover and controls contribute little to the calculation of the efficacy and safety of a treatment. This is especially true for a completely individualised TCM-based system of diagnosis and treatment. Historically TCM has avoided ‘no treatment’ controls as this was seen as unethical, better to treat everyone with a modality known to be safe, after millennia of experience of use, than leave people suffering when improvements are a general expectation and adverse effects are known to be highly unlikely?

TCM provides a very suitable philosophy and range of traditional interventions for evaluation of its modalities through the use of cohort studies. WM uses cohort studies in vaccination research, vaccines being seen as a ‘traditional’ intervention rather like TCM modalities. Many TCM researchers in the ‘70s and ‘80s used cohort studies to show the value of A&M on a large population of sufferers with follow up for months or years. To stand alone a cohort study must large enough, have a lengthy period of follow up, and be clear enough in methodology and result to state with certainty the effectiveness of the treatment tested.

Research data is not collected from a single research trial carried out by a specific dedicated team, but the information these sources provide is similar to that collected from trial subjects in a single trial. Subjects have been diagnosed, evaluated and treated according to TCM principles by a professional. Outcomes were recorded along with input from TCM investigation and the subjective ‘anecdote’ and ‘testimonials’ of each patient plus any WM evidence collected during diagnosis, treatment and evaluation phases. The attending physician has made an assessment of effectiveness.

A study of such items of data from physicians’ notes, accompanied by verification of test results and verbal confirmation from patients involved, could provide a similar standard of evidence as that obtained through the retrospective studies of WM (eg. vaccination outcomes. RCT, systematic review and meta-analysis would be unsuitable yet there is no reason why, as a selection for certain types of TCM intervention, this trial type should not be a first choice scientific approach perhaps preferable to systematic reviews of trials.

I would suggest as most reasonable for TCM practices the following types of research trial: -

Peer review and repeatability are obvious ingredients with which one is able to confirm results from research trials. If one cannot analyse the claimed effectiveness and safety of a form of intervention by conventional trial design routes one must look for alternative ways to achieve a realistic assessment; that is the essence of good science, designing ways to understand physical reality.

TCM includes dimensions of thought and the physical application of interventions that are currently out of reach of WM scientific analysis that has neither the tools nor philosophical maturity to assess these aspects of the TCM reality. The ‘spiritual’ dimension is a major part of TCM philosophy, aspects of which are often described in WM through the application of psychological theories that provide little real scientific understanding. Intervening on any level through TCM practices one necessarily considers the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual essence of each patient and situation. The pathogens of TCM cannot easily be described in modern scientific terms; modern medical science knows little about complex human nature, how the environment impacts on this, and the cosmological effects that maintain flux in our lives, we are microcosms within the macrocosm. It is the millennia old knowledge, experience and teachings born of observation and empirical evaluation that has given TCM a unique understanding of these effects on human physiology and psyche which should not be ignored by research method.

According to William Rosenberg and Anna Donald, EBM is rooted in five linked ideas (7): -

TCM is not a new form of medicine; it is one that had to develop its own scientific format to identify with providing an evidence-based product. It already has a wealth of data derived from generations of activities healing the sick and measuring its methodology, philosophy and modalities against disease such that collection, collation and dissemination of this information can identify very valuable forms of EBM

One must ensure that relevant scientific method is used to develop reasonable conclusions about effectiveness, efficacy and safety. Biochemical markers and measures are inappropriate for some interventions or disorder types where there is, as yet, no known biochemical understanding of why a particular outcome is effected by a particular modality and patients got better. WM usually retreats to the ‘placebo’ concept to explain things it does not scientifically understand due to the inability of biochemistry to explain and define so many disorders. eg MS, CFS, addiction, psychosis. WM claims to treat most disorders despite not really understanding the mechanisms of most of these; TCM also treats all disorders it recognises, however it does so through the use of a medical model that is different but equally and, in many cases, more effective than the WM model. It is imperative that the science used to investigate is capable of understanding and expressing the essentials of TCM.

Like WM there are numerous factors that would be likely to alter the EB value of a TCM modality when faced with national and global political and financial constraints.

There is also, inherent in the unique TCM system of medicine, the acceptance that practitioners can have a very great degree of autonomy when using TCM methods and applying TCM philosophy. This allows for the interaction of emotional, mental, spiritual and physical dimensions inherent recognised through the TCM approach. Different practitioners bring with them similar, yet also unique, qualities that enter the patient-practitioner equation (some of these may contribute to the placebo concept of WM). A system of ‘physician autonomy’ is generally anathema to WM as drugs are involved and the average physician is not qualified to understand the biochemistry of his medicaments so it is better that a strict protocols are followed to safeguard the patient. This situation conflicts with TCM where all medicaments used by a practitioner are both well understood and well described over millennia such that patient safety is rarely an issue. TCM rarely changes its ‘medicaments’, it uses the same needles, moxa, massage, Qi Gong, Tai Qi it has used for generations.

One cannot state with any degree of scientific certainty that any practitioner who treats a particular patient with the same intervention will achieve exactly the same effects for that person. TCM also knows that at different hours of the day and night, in different seasons, under different climatic and environmental situations, our reactions to treatment can vary enormously. WM does not yet understand or value such complexities; hence it often recommends the same prescription for the same patient ad infinitum. The TCM practitioner is like an electronics expert manipulating complex circuitry (human body). As the circuit evolves it is affected by different external and internal factors so he adjusts the system using the same tools as always. He must adjust the approach to the evolution of the machine, whilst keeping up to date on potentially new external and internal noxious effects. The WM practitioner sees the same human body and must also adjust to the evolution of the system as it is affected by similar external and internal noxious factors, but his tools change constantly.

One must also consider the political and financial factors that can affect availability of best EBM treatment.

1. Public requirement: If a TCM intervention trialled was found to be the best option as compared with all previously published trial results, then according to Sackett (1) all other interventions have been superseded and only the new method is an EBM.

2. Practitioner’s expectation: If a practitioner is not prepared to use the EBM suggested by research, he does not necessarily provide an EBM. Eg Western medical ‘acupuncturist’ who fails to adopt safe TCM practices for patients.

3. Industry expectation: If the industry producing the modality equipment (eg particular herb or needle type) fails to supply that type for financial reasons it may negate some or all the EBM.

4. Government expectation: If for any reason a government restricts a modality or type of intervention from public use despite it being deemed ‘the EBM’ through trials, due to cost the public may not then receive an EBM.

5. World Health Organisation: If for any reason the WHO interferes in the availability or provision of a TCM EBM it prevent a population receiving EBM, as it would have to use other methods already superseded.

Clearly if it is accepted as Sackett et al (8) suggests, that a ‘superseded intervention’ loses its EBV, then only the best will do as only that can be considered the EBM. This may not seem too extreme when considering old superseded and new drugs of WM but for TCM it is unacceptable – perhaps even unworkable. With an individualised ‘patient centered’ intervention everyone necessarily receives treatment that is appropriate for themselves, their specific characteristics and circumstances. This situation may exist in WM if, for example, a patient has responded badly to a new drug yet an older version works well. That patient may not, according to Sackett et al, receive an EBM yet the patient clearly receives an already proven treatment that, for that person, must have some EBV.

“Ideally, the information provided should go far beyond efficacy to include measures of harm as well as benefit, to integrate patients’ views on their quality of life with and without treatment, and to include the economic consequences of the treatment alternatives” Sackett and Cook 1994 (9)

Traditional Chinese Medicine already has great EBV, the global public are aware of this, as are Chinese research scientists and practitioners of TCM modalities. WM has major problems with its ability to devise and implement EBM procedures for its practices that will ensure safety and efficacy, whilst reducing the enormous carnage it is currently responsible for worldwide. Both medical systems must utilise science and scientific methodology that apply directly to the kind of intervention researched. Trial design must be completely attuned to declared aim.

Important influential bodies like the House of Lords should be properly informed such that they are able to make sensible valued judgments after having received best advice from scientists and professionals who both recognise and can provide adequate evidence from all available data. China has a wealth of research data in many formats, much of which originated from trials designed to answer the questions posed, not from some strictly theoretical yet restrictive framework feted as a kind of ‘gold standard’ which fails to assess correctly the modality and is unable to answer specific scientific questions asked about interventions already proven over the ages which are eminently suitable for the treatment of many diseases.

1. “Under-reporting of ADRs in general practice” Moride et al, Br J Clin Pharm 1997 Feb; 43(2): 177-81

2. “Clinton acts to reduce medical mistakes”, Charatan, BMJ March 2000; 320:597

3. “Incidence of ADRs in hospitalised patients” J Lazarou et al, JAMA 1998; 279:1200-06

4. “Medical errors ‘kill thousands’”, BBC Saturday 18^th March 2000, Dr. Richard Smith, BMJ”

5. The Quality in Australian Health Care Study”, RM Wilson et al, Med J Aust 1995 Nov; 163(9): 458-71

6. “Germany’s attempt to bring in positive drugs list wins support”, Tufts, BMJ April 2000; 320:894

7. “Evidence based medicine”, F Davidoff, B Haynes, D Sackett, R Smith, BMJ 1995; 310: 1085-86

8. “Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn’t” DL Sackett et al, BMJ January 1996; 312:71-2

9. “Understanding clinical trials”, Sackett DS and Cook RJ, BMJ 1994; 309: 755-56 (24 September)

10. “Evidence-based surgery: interventions in a regional paediatric surgical unit”, SE Kenny et al, Arch Dis Child 1997 Jan; 76: 50-3

11. According to ‘Human Life International’ (June/July 1995) women in Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines were given anti-tetanus vaccine containing human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), an anti-fertility agent, without either their consent or knowledge…the vaccine was developed by the WHO in conjunction with UN Development Program, World Bank, The Population Council, The Rockefeller Foundation, The All-India Institute of Medical Science and a number of Universities including Uppsala, Helsinki and Ohio State, Agneta Sutton, Catholic Times 14^th January 1996.

12. Cochrane Collaboration”, David L. Sackett, Letters BMJ 1994; 309: 1514-15 (3 Dec)

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by John Heptonstall (as published in The American Acupuncturist, the Journal of the American Association of Oriental Medicine, Winter 2001).

When a significant number of people (billions) believe in, and partake of, a medical paradigm one strongly suspects it to have substance. When the paradigm has existed for millennia, with little change to its central tenet (Meridian Theory) yet having evolved through experiential, philosophical and religious machinations to reach the 21^st century fundamentally intact, one concludes that it is worth more than a second glance! That medical paradigm is Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and it has bequeathed us its multifarious modalities such as Herbalism, Tui Na, Qi Gong, Acupuncture & Moxibustion and Tai Qi. All are efficacious methods whereby TCM-based manipulation of the human animal to preserve and restore health is safely effected.

One cannot discuss the merits of one medical paradigm without a suitable comparison, in this case the dominant Western Medical (WM) paradigm – Biochemical Medicine (BM). The backdrop of war, plague, trade and rapid technological advances of the last two centuries, that historians find difficulty comparing favourably with any other period in known history, saw the rapid conception and ascent of BM. Without the simultaneous development of chemistry BM may never have developed and WM may have continued to evolve from the traditional practices of ancient healers such as Culpeper. In China, TCM managed to evolve without a monopolistic science dominating its universal theme. Culpeper would be proud of TCM.

I doubt Culpeper would have expected that his ‘scientific art’ would be deconstructed and reformed as BM, and suspect that he regularly ‘turns in his grave’ at the mass destruction that is an undeniable part of BM. When chemists began to dismantle nature and reform or separate ‘for medical use’ naturally occurring compounds they unlocked the vast potential of BM - a potential for tremendous advances in acute medical care yet equally devastating damage to the environment and public health.

TCM by comparison, through the late 20^th Century, was required by Chinese Parliamentary edict to avoid deconstructing nature as licenses for ‘medicinal products’ were only granted if the producer could guarantee that all the original natural substance was included in the remedy believing that removal of any part destroys the synergy of healing elements and reduces the efficacy of the medicament. BM bases it’s scientific validity on an opposite view - that extracts of plants and synthetically produced alternatives to nature provide efficacious and safe medications. BM’s philosophy conveniently isolates the production of ‘medicaments’ to chemical industries capable of separating or synthesising ‘nature’ thus creating a very powerful industrial drug base that excludes ‘nature’ per se.

Known to “treat almost all yet cure almost no” disease, BM blankets whole populations now suffering extremely high levels of ill health, perhaps than ever before. In the UK about one in three expect to develop cancer, one in five asthma, millions develop heart disease or stroke, epilepsy, diabetes, MS, ME, arthritis and other chronic intractable diseases; BM has recently been shown to be a major cause of death and serious illness in Australian, American and British research studies – around the third biggest killer after heart disease and cancer. Every year BM probably kills and seriously afflicts more people worldwide than died in the Great War of 1914-18. (Lazarou, Pomeranz, Corey; JAMA Apr 15, 1998;Vol 279 No 15 ‘Incidence of ADRs in Hospitalised patients; a meta-analysis of Prospective Studies’; 1200-05 and Sunday Times 19 Dec. 1999 ‘Blunders by doctors kill 40,000 per year’ in UK)

TCM has several millennia of use amongst billions of people and has never been shown to devastate its public, indeed recent statistics conclude that it appears to be extremely safe in the hands of its practitioners. Of the comparatively few ADRs to acupuncture located in a ‘trawl of the literature’ of 1994/5 by Dr. Kim Jobst, Honorary Research Fellow at Glasgow Western Infirmary, “most of these were associated with doctors practicing acupuncture” (Here’s Health; Therapy Update; July 1998 Page 28) as opposed to TCM-based Practitioners of acupuncture. “First do no harm” is an enduring philosophy amongst TCM practitioners that does not mesh well with BM. Should BM be allowed to run amok as some headless apocalyptic beast devouring huge public resources, at times the saviour but often the sinner, or is it time to shackle the monster, tame and re-educate it such that its undoubted merits are realised while its unquestionable hazards are curtailed? Funds released from curtailment of the unsubstantiated and therefore potentially dangerous BM practices can be used to fuel the spread of TCM-based modalities as practised by its practitioners. This would acknowledge and redress the “double standards that exist in judging traditional & alternative medicine” (BMJ 6 Jun 1998; 316:1694)

The 21^st Century model of TCM is without the vast financial and political resources of WM. It’s practitioners generally recognise the same anatomy, physiology and pathogenesis as WM and TCM also has it’s own well defined models for these aspects. What is unique about TCM is it’s central tenet - the Theory of Ching Luo (Channels and Collaterals). It is a description of the ‘Body Electromagnetic’ often referred to by biophysicists. It details the anatomical matrix of ‘energy channels and collaterals’ that is the Meridian System as described in TCM. Modern critics of TCM, particularly those involved in protectionism for BM) say that the existence of the Meridian System and its Acupoint phenomenon has not been proven; they are wrong. They say the philosophy and practices, which accompany the healing modalities of TCM have no scientific base, again they are wrong.

Evidence for the existence of the Meridian System and Acupoints is overwhelming; it is the ‘fine print’ that is now under scrutiny. Yet where is the revised anatomical literature of WM? Why are surgeons still cutting meridian lines of energy flow with impunity? Why are the effects of drugs on this system of human equilibrium not evaluated before prescription? The dominance of BM ‘thought’ in WM continues to blind everyone to the truth by insisting that the adjective ‘scientific’ can only be applied to a theory that fits into the limited biochemical paradigm. People allow this arrogant stance to proliferate despite the extraordinarily high percentages of the public choosing a Complementary or Alternative (CAM) therapy to improve their health. In Europe the uptake of CAMs ranges from 49% in France to 24% in Denmark (Edzard Ernst ‘The ethics of complementary medicine; Journal of Medical Ethics, 1996; 22:197-198).

Understanding and acceptance of the existence of the Meridian System of TCM and the related phenomenon of bioelectromagnetic energies the Chinese named Qi, the ‘vital energy of life’, will help to extract 20^th Century BM from its arrogant, insular dialogue with itself to allow for the rapid development of an objective, multidisciplinary scientific future for world medicine.

Overwhelming evidence for the existence of Meridians and related Acupoint phenomena has been recorded throughout history in various forms and, in recent decades, in modern scientific fashion. The ‘Energy Channels’ follow well-defined pathways around the surface, and interior, of the body. They support aspects of ‘Qi flow’ and other substances described by the TCM medical model. The Meridian System appears to be a phenomenon of intercellular communication, the transfer of energy signals between cells that form part of the anatomical structure of the skin especially the stratum corneum, analogous to the microwave-linked communication systems that serve mobile phone networks. Qi energy, which courses through this system of channels, is the manifestation of electromagnetic energy signals that communicate with, and activate, all body functions. Until electromagnetic energy was measurable one could only obtain electrical measurements. Data collected has long confirmed the presence of electrical phenomena associated with all living things. In recent decades biophysicists have extracted electromagnetic information from our tissues thereby contradicting claims that only biochemistry could provide ‘scientific’ medical intervention.

1. Dr. Robert Becker (an American orthopaedic surgeon twice nominated for the Nobel Prize, Professor of the State University of New York, Upstate Medical Centre and Louisiana State University in Shreveport, a leading expert in the field of biological electricity and regeneration), whilst researching the mechanisms involved in body self-repair and the restoration of growth at amputation sites on amphibian limbs, found what appears to be a universal vertebrate primitive ‘DC current’ system which probably preceded the ‘evolved’ AC system recognised by modern WM. During a study for the National Institutes of Health Becker, together with biophysicist Dr. Maria Reichmanis, “found that about 25% of the acupuncture points on the human forearm did exist in that they had reproducible and significant electrical parameters and could be found in all subjects tested”…”we found also that the meridians had the electrical characteristics of transmission lines, while non-meridian skin did not. We concluded that the acupuncture system was really there, and that it most likely operates electrically”.(1)

2. Chinese researchers have measured the unique meridian and acupoint phenomenon of low impedance (LIP – low impedance points) compared to surrounding tissues.(2)

3. Studies in animals showed that the introduction of carboxyfluorecin into cells in the epidermal layer realised increased transfer between cells along meridian line pathways.(3)

4. The histophysiology of the Meridians was investigated at Xian Medical University in China and led to the discovery of the ‘neuromastocytic junction on the meridian line of human skin’. In tissue areas said to hold meridian lines, special expanded axon terminals that contained various synaptic vesicles, mitochondria or neurofilaments were identified; the team also established that close contact existed with the surface of a mast cell. They named this connection between axon terminal and mast cell a neuromastocytic junction. Further electron microscopic studies concluded that the axons approaching the junctions run in the same directions as the meridians tested and that both axon and mast cell, at such a junction, were Substance P reactive – a characteristic of the Meridian-acupoint phenomenon.(4),(5)

5. Zon and Tien, biophysicists, have investigated the electronic properties of cell and organelle membranes and feel that there is evidence to show that bilayer lipid membranes have n-type and p-type semi-conductor properties (Zon and Ti Tien 1988) (6). If so this would indicate the possibility of transmembraneous current rectification. The implication here is that alternating fields may result in more charge movement in one direction across the membrane rather than the other. Frohlich (7) has proposed that the growth and stability of organs and tissue systems may be controlled by intercellular mutually coherent frequency signals. In other words, cell systems may recognise each other and socially communicate through an interlocking range of specific coherent information and instruction carrying frequencies. Degenerative disease processes and cancer have been modelled as breakdowns of this mutually coherent frequency control by abnormal destructive agencies such as trauma, infection and auto-immune processes. Cancer cells, for example, become increasingly alienated and unresponsive to coherent signaling and at each generation regress (Hameroff et al 1984) (8).

6. Scientists from the Institute of Biophysics, Beijing Hospital of TCM, Beijing Union Medical College, Hospital of Qinyang, Beijing Medical University, and Beijing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics studied the phenomenon of Latent Propagated Sensation along the Meridian (LPSM) using chemical, electrical and electron microscopic means. They confirmed the low impedance nature of the Meridians on the epidermis and stratum corneum, commenting that the low impedance nature of the stratum corneum reflected only one of the biophysical characteristics of meridians and that other substantial structures related to meridians exist in various layers (dermis, connective tissue and muscle) of meridian lines.(9)

HU Xianglong. WU Bao-hua and WANG Pei-qing of the Fujian Institute of TCM, Fuzhou 350003, China carried out research using infra-red radiant tracer, connected to accurate infra-red photographic equipment and a computerised graphics process to obtain images like the one above. Those with a working knowledge of the Meridian System will immediately recognise aspects of the Stomach, Triple Energiser and Small Intestine Meridians. (10)

Other scientific methods adopted to demonstrate hard evidence that the Meridians and Acupoints exist are: -

Analyses of afferent pulses from nerve branches using (Propagated Sensation along the Meridian) PSM. (11)

The existence of Meridians and Acupoints has been demonstrated very effectively by science. The complex TCM doctrine, that has long explained this anatomical and physiological system, has generated an enormous amount of valuable scientific research helping to explain how and why TCM modalities successfully manipulate this system to promote health. The TCM model, which is used in many guises by modern-day Acupuncture & Moxibustion Practitioners, remains in a form very much as it was 2,000 years ago. Skeptics say this is ‘ancient’ therefore outdated and irrelevant. Not only is it as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago, but it is also ultra-modern. Many concepts of TCM are still ahead of current BM knowledge thus BM devotees cannot hope to understand and use the system safely or effectively. It should be used in accordance with the principles of TCM.

Often fundamental concepts of TCM are criticised by BM ‘scientists’ and ‘professional skeptics’. Their ignorance of the meanings of what are essentially limited translations of Chinese concepts they read before criticising is revealed by their outbursts. For example: -

This concept has been said by skeptics to have no foundation in science. If I were a primary school student I may accept that statement, but by the time I’d studied electricity, magnetism, atomic structure, let alone Einstein, quantum mechanics and the molecular nature of life I would begin to wonder what ‘science’ the critics were quoting.

Yin and Yang is a fundamental characteristic of nature. Simply put, it means that everything tends to a state of oscillating balance of opposites. Yin can be –ve, then Yang is +ve, Yin can be action, then Yang is reaction, Yin can be alkali then Yang is acid, Yin can be night then Yang is day…. is that so controversial? Chemistry tells us that the atoms and molecules of nature tend to ‘ionic’ balance. For every electron we like to see a proton, compounds form with strong attraction, just like magnets, with +ve and -ve equality where possible. An ionic bond requires the sharing of ‘spare’ electrons to from a more stable structure – it’s the basic stuff of life.

TCM gives us much information about nature and ourselves from the simple statement that everything should have a Yin/Yang balance. In medical terms we must look for both sides of the coin in our attempt to balance Yin and Yang physiological aspects to achieve health. ‘Kidney Yin’ and ‘Kidney Yang’ must be balanced for health. This is similar to saying that cortisol and adrenaline aspects of the HPA system should be balanced, and that Yin (night – Parasympathetic NS) should balance Yang (day – Sympathetic NS) activities for health. These concepts have yet to find their way into WM thinking. The very essence of anatomical and physiological balance seems pretty remote from general BM theory.

Yin & Yang is here to stay, it is the fundamental concept of the Duality of Nature.

This simple-looking formula of TCM below is often called the ‘five transformations’ as this fits more closely the Chinese explanations of the system described. TCM focuses on physiological change with time whereas BM tends to prefer the snapshot view (X-rays, EEG etc.). BM medics may prescribe a drug for life, anathema to TCM that says that your health picture may change with time and intervenes with that in mind. One cannot assess ‘functions with time’ in a 4-minute consultation, nor by X-ray or CT scan. These modern methods, though valuable snapshots, do not play a major part in the progress of disease until it is already quite serious.

The ‘Five Elements’ formula shows how nature maintains harmonious balance. The Chinese have attributed to it certain ‘aspects’ of the human body to show how we must strive to achieve a healthy balance. Liver and Gall Bladder functions are represented by the element WOOD, Heart and Small Intestine functions by FIRE, Spleen and Stomach functions by EARTH, Lung and Large Intestine by METAL whilst Kidney and Urinary Bladder functions are found under the element WATER. The clockwise cycle, element to element, of (water>wood>fire>earth> metal>water>etc.) is called the creative cycle, each preceding element is the ‘mother’ of the following ‘son’ element

(Mother-Son Law). Positive alterations to a ‘mother’ organ function may affect her ‘son’ similarly whilst alterations to ‘son’ will probably have the opposite effect on his ‘mother’. Destructive cycles are those where opposing elements can have adverse effects on each other eg. Alterations to Kidney function may adversely affect Heart function, i.e. strengthening Kidney weakens Heart.

Although a rather archaic or alchemical-looking form of symbolism, its looks belie its profound value in medical treatment. Adherence to its basic reasoning could save thousands of lives each year that are written off to BM intervention. The formula tells us that whatever we do to one aspect of the body will automatically affect the whole body balance in the way described. One must ensure that any potential adverse imbalance a prescription may induce is simultaneously corrected by additional ingredients to a prescription formula. For example, if one were to prescribe a Heart medication, a TCM doctor would be aware of the potential for knock-on effects to the Liver, Spleen, Lung and Kidney systems. If one does not adhere to this rule of ‘Five Element’ balancing one is likely to cause unnecessary ADRs to a treatment. I find that much BM treatment ‘ADRs’ are predictable through Five Element reasoning.

For example BM may diagnose excess stomach acidity (gastritis) and prescribes say Omeprazole for months (even years). TCM would first ask, if Stomach (Earth) has a problem, what about the rest of the ‘5 element system’? Could the cause lie elsewhere, could another ‘element’ be at fault and its malfunction be affecting the balance of the system? One may find that Liver function (Wood) is hyper-functioning and releasing excess bile thus inflaming the stomach or intestines; or a ‘Lung (metal) excess’ such as an infection or Heart (fire) is hypo-function, or Kidney (water) hyper-function - perhaps a hyper-adrenaline state such as anxiety - may be responsible. TCM would consider all these, thanks to the ‘Five Element’ concept, before achieving a differential diagnosis and completing a prescription. TCM treatment of ‘gastritis’ may involve regulation of ‘Heart’ function, or ‘Liver’ function or ‘Lung’ function or ‘Kidney’ function, or it may result in only ‘Stomach’ function regulation!

Whilst working at the Leeds General Infirmary Pain Clinic in the late ‘80s I saw an elderly patient whose plight epitomised the BM –TCM conflict. She had intractable right upper quadrant abdominal pain for over 30 years. Her gall bladder, and part of her stomach had been surgically removed years before in attempts to stop the pain, to no avail, she had seen numerous specialists and taken multifarious drugs over the years culminating in the chronic intractable state that I saw. I immediately recognised a ‘hyper-Liver’ state (in TCM terms her stomach and gall bladder had been the unfortunate victims of the Liver function excess and BM unnecessary intervention); my acupuncture treatment was immediately effective along with suitable dietary advice. If used 30 years earlier, TCM acupuncture may have prevented her years of pain, ineffective drug and surgical ‘treatments’.

The ‘Five Element’ formula is a profound tool used in understanding the complex balance of the human body. It is an essential part of TCM diagnosis and intervention.

Chinese research scientists constantly evaluate TCM interventions, often proving old knowledge for the benefit of sceptical westerners, and those who want to know the truth.

1. Chinese scientists believe they have found a means to show that Yin /Yang is an accessible tool for measuring progress of disease and medication. They realised, from their understanding of the concept of physical duality for all things, that this duality may reflect in the central cyclic nucleotide variation c-AMP and c-GMP. If this were so, medical scientists would have a valuable insight into ‘body harmony’ via this model in addition to other such as pH balance. Using acupoint GV20 stimulation in 39 rabbits, and radioimmunassay to determine the presence and values of c-AMP and c-GMP, the results led them to believe that they may have discovered the key materials that embody cellular Yin and Yang harmony. (20)

2. Whilst researching the effects of electroacupuncture on experimental myocardial ischaemia in rabbits – the changes of ECG S-T segment and Glycogen – researchers WEN Shen et al of The Institute of Acupuncture, Academy of TCM, Beijing found that Glycogen is a sensitive index in early ischaemic myocardium. (Liver Wood function - glycogen affects Heart Fire function – ischaemia). (21)

3. A preliminary study of the correlation between acupuncture points for the treatment of eye disorders suggested by ancient oriental literature and the corresponding brain location for vision described by Western Medicine was performed using functional MRI. The results obtained demonstrate the correlation between activation of specific areas of the brain cortices and corresponding acupoint stimulation predicted by ancient acupuncture literature. (18)

Multifarious experimental studies are constantly being completed in Chinese and worldwide research centers to illustrate their effects of acupoints on physiological processes. See a few typical examples below.

1. Acupuncture at S36 and GB30 increases Acetylcholine activity in brain significantly (cortex, caudate nucleus, hypothalamus and brain stem)-rat. Also increases 5HT and 5-H1AA in brain. NE content is significantly reduced-rabbit. S36 increases blood platelets, granulocytes, and degranulation of peroneal mast cells in connective tissue and regulates intestinal peristalsis-rabbit. There is also significant increase in activation of T-lymphocytes with insignificant alteration of Es-RFC (stable E-rosettes) sub-population after acupuncture-human. S36 had marked effect on Small Intestinal mobility; heavy twisting of needle reduced mobility while gentle twisting increased mobility-rabbit. Moxibustion at S36 on hypertensives with cerebral thrombosis (in convalescence) showed remarkable reduced FDP (fibrin degradation products) that was maintained over 6 months illustrating the power of acupuncture at S36 to reduce blood coagulation-human. Acupuncture at S36 increases 5-HT and 5-H1AA of brain and excites sympatho-adrenal system and the adrenals to release cate-cholamines, also plasma ACTH increases-rat. (22), (23), (24), (25), (26), (27), (28), (29), (30)

2. Acupuncture at LI4, P6 and SI18 increase Tryptophane, 5-HT and 5-H1AA significantly and decrease NE-human. (31)

3. The essential afferent neurons of P6 exist at C6-8 and T1 spinal ganglia – which is at variance with median nerve (C5-T1). -rabbit. But segmental innervation of P3 was found to be C6-T1. -rat. Afferent neurons in spinal ganglia of H7 were at C6-T1; the segment of Heart is C8-T10. -cat. (32), (33), (34)

4. S36 was tracked mainly to ganglia of lumbar and sacrum (L4-S2) and a few other segments (some T10-12, some L1-7, some S1-3) whereas for the Stomach organ the locations were C4-8, T1-12, L1-7 with most occurring in T5-12. This shows that sensory neurons of S36 and Stomach overlap in the lower Thoracic and Lumbar regions – which may be an explanation for why S36 treats pain, visceral and pathogenic effects of the Stomach.-rabbit (35)

5. UB17 and P3 treat acute myocardial ischaemia but LIV7 could not. -rabbit (36)

6. P4 and UB21 could promote recovery from acute myocardial ischaemia but LIV6 could not. -rabbit (37)

7. S36 and LI11 created a marked reduction in arterial pressure and accompanying decrease of plasma AT-11 (Angiotensin II) level to protect hypertensives. -dog (38)

8. S36 acupuncture made significant alteration to EGG on Stomach/Spleen illness whilst GB34 made none. -human (39)

9. Acupuncture at UB28 caused strong bladder contraction; at UB23 caused bladder relaxation. - rabbit (40)

10. S36, UB20 and P6 produced significant increases in gastric secretion of bicarbonate and sodium with marked decrease in gastric secretion of acid. - dog (41)

11. GV26 produced significant inhibition of gastric motor activity. – dog (42)

13. Moxibustion on GV14 in mice produced certain inhibitory effect on Sarcoma 180.D-PA plus moxibustion on GV14 produced an even stronger anti-tumour effect. - mice/rat (44), (45).

I recently conducted a small study using the PubMed database searching on ‘acupuncture’ and recording chronologically each original and ‘linked’ abstract until I had 105 with which to illustrate a quantum of the kind of research documentation available. Using PubMed’s categorisation of RCT, Meta-analysis etc. my simple study found that: -

25 (23.810%) of the 105 were other types of studies. (Including cohort studies or pilots).

A few Examples of RCT-based studies, Reviews and Meta-analyses drawn from the

1. Meta-analysis of acupuncture for back pain, 12 studies included, acupuncture was shown to be superior to various control interventions (46)

2. RCT of the treatment of migraine by acupuncture showed - acupuncture was significantly more effective than the control procedure in reducing pain of migraine headache (47)

3. RCT of acupuncture for the management of primary dysmenorrhea. In real acupuncture group 90.9% of women showed improvement compared to placebo group (36.4%), standard control group (18.2%) and visitation control group (10%). After treatment series acupuncture group reduced analgesic medication by 41% compared to other three groups 0% or increased analgesic use! (48)

4. RCT of acupuncture treatment of stroke patients in subacute stage showed significantly greater improvement than in control group both during the 6 week treatment period, and even more so during the following year. (49)

5. RCT of treatment of primary Reynaud’s Syndrome with Traditional Chinese Acupuncture showed that it is a reasonable alternative in treating patients with this syndrome. (50)

6. RCT of acupuncture treatment confirmed that the cognitive function of cerebral traumatic dementia patients was increased effectively with the acupuncture. (51)

7. Systematic Review of 22 RCTs (including 1042 patients) showed that the existing evidence suggests that acupuncture has a role in the treatment of recurrent headaches.(52)

Critics who say there is insufficient evidence for ‘acupuncture’ as clinically effective (eg Prof Edzard Ernst “no such technique has so far shown any scientific validity”) (53) appear misguided.

News:- The US Agency for Healthcare Policy & Research and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine have awarded a $1 million grant to study acupuncture as a treatment for chronic lower back pain. (Journal of CM – News 26.12.1999 www.jcm.uk/News)

Modern TCM is the result of an evolutionary process over millennia which describes the fundamental mechanics of nature as viewed through biophysics. BM has evolved through biochemical eyes. The two can be complementary but their nuts and bolts paradigms are ‘alternative’ to the core, yet at that ‘core’ the two basic sciences, or views of nature, intertwine. In the macro-world of human medical intervention they seem like chalk and cheese, analogous to gas and electricity, but with respect for the fundamentals of each one is able to devise an integrated, healthy version of medical intervention based on input, as prescribed, from TCM doctor and BM physician.

It is unwise to allow a TCM doctor to adopt BM modalities unless having had adequate training to so do. The very minimum appears to be somewhere near that of the Nursing Practitioner. It is similarly unwise for a BM physician to use a TCM modality unless having also completed the current minimum training in TCM which, say for the British Acupuncture Council, is 1,500 hours. Any deviation from this may put the public at risk. Dr. Kim Jobst, Honorary Research Fellow at Glasgow Western Infirmary, commenting on his trawl of the literature of 1994/5 to find data on ADRs associated with acupuncture said that “most were associated with medical doctors practicing acupuncture” (‘Here’s Health’; Therapy Update; July 1998 Page 28). There are at present several thousand BM physicians and physiotherapists using TCM modalities in the UK with virtually no TCM training or experience. Based on the TCM view, this is not a safe option for any patient.

In order to manipulate meridian energy flow through acupoints using needles or herbs one must understand the characteristics of that flow and how it affects the organ/visceral system. BM does not recognise the existence of the meridian system, let alone understand its complexities. Allowing a BM physician with the equivalent of only a few days training (a ‘medical acupuncturist’) to manipulate bioelectromagnetic equilibrium is likely to put patients at risk. It is analogous to allowing a gas engineer to manipulate an electronic circuit with scanty understanding, or even acceptance of, ‘electrical theory’ and the complexities of such circuitry. The danger is obvious. One would employ an electronics engineer to ensure safety and effectiveness.

Living cells are weak emitters of selective frequency radiation across much of the EM spectrum up to long ultraviolet frequencies. All cells generate a surrounding dielectric field which will organise particles in patterns similar to iron filings around a magnet. This field is at its maximum during mitosis (Pollock and Pohl 1988) (54). Cells also emit photons, known as biophotons, at spectral frequencies ranging from near infrared to ultraviolet A (Kart and Rose 1989) (55). Emission intensity usually seems proportional to cellular activity, inflamed and healing tissues, therefore may be strong sources for such emissions which could be received through the ‘frequency windows’ of neighbouring cells to initiate their response.

TCM is at present the only well-established means of understanding ‘the body electromagnetic’. Its modalities such as acupuncture & moxibustion are believed to be very effective tools for the manipulation of the electrical, electromagnetic and biochemical systems of the human animal. BM recognises and is adept only at the latter and carries a serious penalty for an unfortunate proportion of those its power touches.

Electromagnetic manipulation of the biophysical body, refined over the millennia, is here to stay, as is biochemical intervention. The former is safely attainable through the TCM model. We may say that TCM constitutes medical alignment with the WAVE perspective of nature (and the quantum world), then BM constitutes medical alignment with the PARTICLE perspective. This essential duality of nature, the Yin and Yang of our reality provides great potential medical benefit as East meets West in medicine. Let us give the public the best of both worlds from those well trained and experienced in each paradigm.

It is incumbent on any government tasked with selection of safe and efficacious methods of healing to provide the best available for public (who funds it) consumption. It is no longer good enough to say the doctor knows best when ‘doctor’ is a term monopolised by ‘gas engineers’ yet electronics and well-trained ‘electronics engineers’ have become widely available. This paradigm now deserves a place in their lives. The Patients’ Charter gives them a choice, in order to make that choice they require access, through State Registration and adequate funding to both paradigms.

2. WU Bachua et al, Fujian Institute of TCM, Fuzhou 350003 in Acupuncture Research 1993; 18(2): 104-7

3. CHEN Daoliang et al, Fujian Institute of TCM, Fuzhou 350003, in Acup. Res. 1993; 18(2): 108-113

4. ‘Histophysiology of Meridian Lines, I’ ZHANG Baozhen, Research Lab. of Meridians, Xian Medical University, Xian, China; at First World Conference on Acupuncture & Moxibustion, Beijing Nov 22-26 1987 in ‘Selections from Article Abstracts’ 1987 by China Association of Acupuncture and Moxibustion,(SAA-CAAM-1987), p415.

5. ‘Histophysiology of Meridian Lines, II’ ZHANG Baozhen, CHEN Liangwei, Research Lab. of Meridians, Xian Medical University, in SAA-CAAM-1987 p416.

6. Zon & Ti Tien 1988 ‘Electronic Properties of natural and modelled bilayer membranes’ in Marino A (ed) “Modern Bioelectricity”, Marcel Dekker Inc. New York.

7. Frohlich “Biological Coherence and response to External Stimuli”, 1988, Springer Verlag, Heidelberg.

8. Hameroff SR, Smith SA, Watt RC, 1984 “Non-linear electrodynamics in cytoskeletal protein lattices” in Adey WR & Lawrence AF (eds) “Non-linear Electrodynamics in Biological Systems”, Plenum, New York

9. ZHU Zongxiang et al; Institute of Biophysics, Academia Sinica; Hospital of Qinyang, Ganzu Province; Beijing Hospital of TCM; Beijing Medical University; Beijing Union Medical College Hospital; Beijing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In SAA-CAAM-1987 p418

10. HU Xianglong et al; Fujian Institute of TCM; in Acup. Res. 1993; 18(2): 83-89

11. HU Xianglong et al; Fujian Institute of TCM; Nanping Hospital of TCM; Fujian Provincial Hospital; in Acup. Res. 1993; 18(2): 115-122.

13. HOU Xiang; Fuxing Hospital, Beijing. Second National Symposium on Acupuncture & Moxibustion and Acupuncture Anaesthesia Abstracts (SNSAM), Beijing China August 7-10 1984.

17. HE Guangxin et al; Dept. of Meridian, Beijing Institute of TCM; Dept. of Surgery, Beijing Hospital of TCM; Dept. of Acupuncture, Beijing Hospital of TCM; SNSAM 1984 p295

18. Z.H. CHO et al ‘New findings of the correlation between acupoints and corresponding brain cortices using functional MRI’; Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA Vol95 pp2670-2673 March 1998, Physiology.

20. PEI Tingfu et al; Heilongjiang Research Institute of TCM, Harbin; SNSAM 1984 p431

21. WEN Shen et al; Institute of Acupuncture, Academy of TCM, Beijing; SNSAM 1984 p442

22. GUAN Xinmin et al; Department of Acupuncture Anaesthesia Research, Wuhan Medical College, Wuhan; SNSAM 1984 p409-10

23. SHI Xueyi, WU Jinglan; Department of Histology, Henan Medical College, Zhengzhou; SNSAM 1984 p494-5

24. ZHONG Anming, WU Jinglan, ZHANG Linqing; Dept. of Histology, Henan Medical College, Zhengzhou; SNSAM 1984 p495-6

25. GAO Shan, MING Cairong, WU Yuwei; Dept. of Histology and Embryology, Liaoning College of TCM, Shanghai; Institute of Biophysics, Academia Sinica, Beijing. SNSAM 1984 p 496-7

26. WU Jinglun, WANG Yilin, CHAI Xinmei; Dept. of Histology, Henan Medical College, Zhengzhou; SNSAM 1984 p498-9

28. JIANG Youguang et al; Guang’anmen Hospital, The Academy of TCM, Beijing; SNSAM 1984 p538-9

29. WAN Xinxiang et al; Dept. of Biochemistry, Suzhou Medical College, Jiangsu; SNSAM 1984 p422

30. LI Jialing, Dept. of Physiology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, China Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing; SNSAM 1984 p425

31. LIU Binghuai et al; Institute of Acupuncture and Meridian, Anhui College of TCM, Hefei; Anhui Provincial Hospital, Hefei; SNSAM 1984 p411-2

32. TAO Zhili et al, Inst. of Acupuncture, Academy of TCM, Beijing, SNSAM 1984 p491

33. ZHOU Yulin et al, Dept. of Anatomy, Changchun College of TCM, Jilin SNSAM 1984 p493-4g

34. TAO Zhili et al, Inst., of Acupuncture & Moxibustion, China Academy of TCM, SAA-CAAM-1987 p479-480

35. TAO Zhili et al, Inst. of Acupuncture, Academy of TCM, Beijing SNSAM 1984 p491-2

36. CAO Qingshu et al, Inst. of Acupuncture, Academy of TCM, Beijing; SNSAM 1984 p504-5

37. ZHANG Honglin et al, Inst. of Acupuncture, Acad. of TCM, Beijing; SNSAM 1984 p505-6

39. HE Zhimin et al, Research Group of Meridian and Collateral, Guanzhou College of TCM, Guangzhou; SNSAM 1984 p529

40. WU Dingzong, YANG Liping, DENG Chunlei, SHI Peifeng, Shanghai College of TCM, Shanghai; SNSAM 1984 p537-8

41. LU et al, Dept. of Physiology, Inst. of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of TCM, Beijing; SAA-CAAM-1987 p593-4

42. LU et al, Dept. of Physiology, Inst. of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of TCM, Beijing; SAA-CAAM-1987 p593-4

43. ZHOU Youngxing et al, West China University of Medical Sciences; SAA-CAAM-1987 p608-9

44. YANG Youm, LUO Mingfu, WANG Pingping, Inst. of Acupuncture & Moxibustion, China Academy of TCM, Beijing; SAA-CAAM-1987 p610

45. NI Jinfang, HU Zhongzhen, DING Guangxia, Dept. of TCM, Changhai hospital, Second Military Medical College, Shanghai; SAA-CAAM-1987 p611

53. Prof. Edzard Ernst MD, PhD, Centre for Complementary Health Studies and Postgraduate Medical School, University of Exeter, ‘Orchestrating a roomful of cats: Scrutinising Complementary Medicine’ extract from talk given to The Acupuncture Association of Chartered Physiotherapists March 1995 about Complementary Medicine.

54. Pollock JK and Pohl DG 1988 “Emission of radiation by active cells” in Frohlich H (1988 above at 68).

55. Kart J & Rose L (1989) “Clinical laser therapy: low-level laser therapy”, Scandinavian Medical Laser Technology, Copenhagen.

Over the past few years a phenomenon has emerged which is widely reported, largely over the Internet but it has been covered in several daily newspapers, in the USA and UK. What appears to be a massive increase, some say way beyond the increase in commercial over flights, of ‘condensation trails’ (contrails) from aircraft that some ground observers say correspond to and perhaps have resulted in corresponding increases in health deterioration amongst communities affected by these over flights; and the coincidental appearance of ‘clouds’ that form within minutes as these ‘contrails’ descend earthwards expanding into cirrus-like formations blocking out our life and health giving sun.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has produced a fact sheet (1) and details at www.epa.gov (2) attempting to dispel increasing public concern over these rather unusual contrail formations. Together with the US FAA, NASA, and NOAA the EPA asserts that all contrails are formed from known aircraft emissions, the science of which is understood, and allegations that secret operations by Government outside public knowledge are responsible for some of these persisting contrails are a mistaken. The EPA fact sheet contains scientific examination and explanations for the contrails and concludes that ‘persistent contrails pose no direct threat to public health’?

Then why is there public concern over contrails, why do people believe that contrails made them ill, why has there been outbreaks of respiratory illness amongst communities, experiencing higher than normal contrail activity, within days of that increased activity, why are contrail-inducing over flights experienced which allegedly do not appear on commercial logs, and why have laboratory tests of ‘contrail fallout substances’ allegedly recorded banned jet fuel chemicals, human blood cell material, identifiable pathogens and bear some relationship to allegations made by people described as ‘whistleblowers’ that governments are carrying out secret biological, chemical and sun-exclusion experiments?

Are all contrails merely commercial or military flight-induced phenomena, or are some produced by military or non-commercial flights authorised by government which have a more secret and perhaps sinister purpose (3)?

Should some of these ‘condensation or vapour trails be more accurately referred to as government-sponsored ‘chemtrails’ and ‘biotrails’ (4) (5)?

The EPA Case

The EPA evidence apparently designed to reduce public suspicion that the US Government may be acting against public interest does not appear to answer quite obvious questions: -

The EPA and its allies NASA and NOAA, having produced a Fact Sheet, appear to be ignoring specific cases that have caused concern to observers who have taken a dedicated, scientific and rational approach to investigating this new phenomenon. Unless the EPA and partners can scientifically, or in other rational ways, refute the allegations being made about the unusual formations said to have been analysed and investigated by dedicated researchers, they could be failing in their Duty of Care owed to every American Citizen.

Ken Caldeira, a scientist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories USA and a US expert on weather modification, is said to have conducted original computer modelling for the use of Aluminium Hydroxide to fight global warming and concluded that it should not be done due to the adverse health effects on the population subjected to the fallout. The science is known, the application is patented, observations suggest it is in use, and scientific expert opinion advised against use. Has Government ignored his warnings and authorised its use despite public dangers and in secret – could government be acting against the best interests of the US public and to the detriment of public health? Is the UK Government duplicating those practices against its own citizens?

he 1977 UN Treaty “The Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Technique” prohibited the use of technologies that would have widespread, lasting or severe effects through deliberate manipulation of natural processes such as earthquakes, tidal waves, change in climate and weather patterns.

If a country creates domestic laws that support anti-social and anti-international convention activities, can Government and employees found co-conspiring be found in contravention of the UN Treaty and be brought before the International Court of Law? Citizens have a right to protection against abuses of public trust, carried out in secret by governments without the acceptance of their public.

If our politicians authorise covert and health damaging chemical and/or biological applications in our skies they are probably acting in defiance of the United Nations International Conventions, the European Law on Human Rights for Europeans including UK citizens, and probably Rights conferred on American citizens through their Constitution and Bill of Rights that were drawn up to prevent intentional abuse of the public – whether or no scientific support exists for the technologies involved – by governments. If so are they indulging in crimes against humanity if chemical aerosol operations are taking place?

Evidence Suggesting that Governments May be Abusing Public Trust, Health and Safety.

Clearly a phenomenon exists, it can be seen by the naked eye, and has been extensively photographed and videoed. The trails affect atmospheric conditions and are affected by prevailing conditions. I have heard people state that on a day of clear blue skies and not one cloud, as they sat relaxing in the garden, aircraft appeared that created persisting contrails that resulted in the sky soon clouding over.

Whether this phenomenon is the effect of standard commercial aircraft going about their business or has more sinister connotations – chemtrails for instance – it is unreasonable that public access to sunshine is being limited by the phenomenon – especially in the UK that sees precious little sunshine each year. Our Sun provides life-enhancing and protective radiation that, contrary to unscientific propaganda, is less likely to cause ill-effects such as skin cancers unless so-called protective sunscreens are used at the same time – in other words, statistically if you wish to reduce the probability you will develop skin cancer do not use sun screen. The Sun provides us with life-enhancing and essential Vitamin D that protects us against cancers and heart disease.

Anything that diminishes our sunshine is diminishing our protection against some of the most common – in cold climates - widespread diseases.

The ‘whistleblower’ alleged that the US Government seeks to block sunshine to reduce global warming – if so, why is the public not told or consulted? There is a theoretical possibility that global warming has a negative impact on society through the burning of fuels such as coal, petrol/diesel and gas plus and that other man-made phenomena such as the HAARP applications of the USA may also destroy our atmosphere and therefore environmental spacesuit (15) (16). It would appear that the former theoretical risk allows governments to consider reduction of global warming yet the latter theoretical risk is considered by the same governments to be worth the risk as it increases its use of HAARP technology to control climate and attack the atmosphere for military purposes – surely these assumptions and this conduct cannot be used by governments to usurp the rights of their citizens to enjoy as natural and safe environment as possible, and does not authorise governments to take steps to chemically, electromagnetically, or in any other way interfere with those human rights without first asking, in a democratic manner, their peoples first to see if they wish to have those rights restricted in the name of theoretical science.

I believe that a government which fails to seek authority of its citizens, asking if they wish to give up access to sunshine or ‘chemical free’ atmospheres, and activates systems secretly which deny its citizens access to those healthy options, does not deserve to govern, is not acting democratically, and is possibly defying its own and International Law.

This is the explanation the relevant government departments project when asked by concerned observers – whether of environment or airspace. It is certainly a compelling explanation and, for a large proportion of contrails many of which disperse within minutes, it is probably true. However, those contrails formed when atmospheric conditions do not scientifically support natural water vapour trails remain a question that to date government bodies seem ill disposed to explain. For example, how can so many contrails appear as numerous straight lines side by side across the sky, or criss-cross each other like band-aids, in areas where flight paths do not seem to support such formations?

It would be good to know that it is the natural effect of commercial airliners carrying fee-paying citizens; even so it is unacceptable that serious health concerns of the output of said commercial flights are not addressed such that allegations of respiratory and other serious population effects can be minimized.

If we take as examples some of the most unnatural looking ‘contrails’ which, if merely water vapour, or even water vapour with small quantities of chemicals expected from aircraft combustion processes, appear to defy scientific explanations; see photographs for details: -

These two shots depict a typical ‘after trail’ sky, no aircraft were seen only the visible trails which developed into a wider and wider ‘cloud like’ phenomenon as the sky ‘hazed’ over. The flight paths to the local airport do not support these trails; hence they were formed at high altitude before descending. The paths are South-North over West Yorkshire.

and on 10^th February 2003 the following criss-crossed trails were seen over South Leeds, W. Yorks, not local traffic and very unusual; the lower more dispersed contrails are clearly visible and the higher ones will gradually descend and disperse into cloud-like formations:-

The following photos show a typical development from ‘trails’ to ‘clouds’. The trails seem to descend quite quickly – often within 10 to 15 minutes - reaching a level far below that at which they were generated. They are often seen without the aircraft that were probably active at great height and their contrails have persisted much longer than expected. They invariably descend, widen and become less dense and develop into cirrus cloud-like formations only a couple of thousand feet up. It has been estimated by observers that the aircraft creating these contrails fly at between 20 and 40,000 feet and, unlike normal commercial aircraft paths, they appear and re-appear criss-crossing the sky working singly or in pairs. Below the first photo shows a contrail still ‘thin’ and descending while another has already reached low level and gradually widens and forms a ‘cloud’. The first picture shows a trail which has been ‘shut off’, a phenomenon I saw more and more frequently last year, as the aircraft moves from right to left suggesting either that the atmospheric conditions suddenly preclude a vapour trail forming or, and perhaps more likely, the aircraft was generating something other than a vapour trail and can turn it on and off at will. This has been shown to occur in the USA by aircraft believed to be laying 'chemtrails'. The change to the phenomenon was noticed later in 2003. The outcome is invariably the tell-tale ‘elastoplast' patchy clouds, seen in the 2nd to 4th pictures below, rather than the usual elongated ‘clouds’.

Below see the common ‘after contrail’ cirrus-like cloud formed by descending contrails in the early evening of 21^st September 2003 over South Leeds. The photo shows a higher thinner contrail being created as the ‘contrail cloud’ forms closer to earth.

Below the formations show how easily the contrails are interlinked to create an effective cloud-base, on 25th September 2003, that separates the public from health giving sunshine. Do such formations constitute any health danger to the unsuspecting public underneath?

Below is yet another example of formation contrails on 25^th September 2003. No aircraft were seen as the trails dropped to low levels. On one occasion (not shown) the criss-cross pattern was repeated 7 or 8 times in a line from SSW to NNE over South Leeds as though an aerobatic display had taken place at high altitude. Again this was untypical of commercial activity and suggests unknown and unacknowledged activity taking place above a heavily populated area.

Below are two photos of 26^th September 2003 showing the kind of late summer skies we expect devoid of contrail activity above West Yorkshire giving healthy access to sunshine and normal cloud on a mild Autumn day. This type of climate, certainly above Yorkshire, in the past two years and especially through 2003 seemed to become relatively rare as contrails/chemtrails were seen all too often preceding cloudy skies which blocked out the sun.

On several occasions there was ‘detergent-like’ smell in the air as the contrails descended to form clouds at very low levels before gradually dispersing and coincidentally there was an increase in respiratory infections; the local media told of ‘respiratory’ effects and asthma increases amongst the population. Were the "contrails" responsible? Why do ‘healthy skies’ not persist after aircraft "contrails" which block our essential sunshine; why do Government and climatologists appear to ignore the phenomenon?

The trail formations on 11^th September 2003 at 08.30hrs seen below over West Yorkshire coincided with families and children walking to school; it is doubtful that the trails represented local air traffic so must have been formed in early dawn by high altitude aircraft flying South-North. Commentators on the phenomena believe that 'aerosol immunization' would be best performed at dawn or dusk since sunshine kills pathogens and could render the ‘immunisations’ useless so maximum exposure might take place during peak early/late travel to/from work and schools….

Environment and Health departments have a Duty of Care to investigate any potentially hazardous phenomena to ensure there is no risk to the public.

In the USA observers and researchers report communities suffering respiratory illness when such formations appear – and say that deaths have been reported. If these trails are caused by lawful commercial or military aircraft their output appears to be pathogenic so possible serious effects on public health require to be studied. If governments are experimenting with climate control, global warming control and/or biological/chemical exposure patterns as some observers suggest, they should account for their actions immediately.

Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners try to understand all pathogenic activity as it affects patients and public alike – including man-made pathogens. Epidemiology is an important part of TCM principles and practice. If one cannot evaluate where diseases originates how can one prevent the disease?

IT is highly unlikely that commercial flight contrails form almost perfect parallel lines, and why should those ‘contrails’ develop into persistent cirrus-looking clouds that observers associate with detergent-like smells? If, as some observers report, some trails are created by aircraft refueling craft what are they ‘leaking’ and is it pathogenic and why so often in early morning? In late 2003, perhaps with the publicity about contrails/chemtrails in the media and on the Internet in the USA and UK there seemed to be an alteration in patterns as on some days the contrails left shortened lengths around the sky as though generated for shorter periods then shut off like a tap - unlike normal vapour trails - leaving ‘elastoplast-like’ patches of white cloud-like formations all over the sky. In 2004 contrails appeared more often earlier in the morning (as early as 05.00hrs) as though created before or just after dawn, and as night falls when they are less easily seen, yet they are as persistent and have coincided with patients speaking of respiratory infections - some stating ‘they rarely catch such infections’; or report ‘suffering weeks of unusual persisting infections with lots of phlegm yet physicians have written them off as winter colds, which may be true, but the coincidence with contrails exists.

At the very least a new form of ‘cloud’ development should be acknowledged, and acknowledged in school physics lessons, as children are taught that clouds are formed through the evaporation of seawater yet, according to NASA and the US EPA, some must be persisting’ vapour trails’ and these will inevitably contain small quantities of chemicals harmful if breathed in. History tells of chemical and biological experiments performed by governments on its peoples, not least the UK and USA governments, hidden through secrecy acts until the perpetrators are unlikely be held to account. 'Conspiracy theorists' claim that chemtrails and biotrails have sinister applications. Are we victims of anti-social activities that will not be admitted until secrecy laws allow many decades hence?

Claims have been made by researchers that some ‘contrails’ contain biological materials and these are responsible for some of the illnesses seen at ground level. It is alleged that a “Washington reporter, Mike Blair” wrote that “anti-bacteriological warfare chemicals are being tested by the Federal Government” and that “ covert immunization” may be taking place “gaining legality from US Code Title 50, Section 1520 that gives the Secretary of Defense the authority to order testing involving use of chemical or biological agents on a civilian population for research purposes”. If this article allows for research testing on the US (and other?) populations what of the Nuremberg Code?

In 2003 several patients, almost exclusively female, presented with similar symptoms on similar days at similar times and so using a spectrum analyzer to assess any pathogenic frequency activity (as per Hulda Clarke theory) I found results that were repeated in these patients. The small repeating frequencies range represented a variety of pathogens and the days they felt ill coincided with heavy contrail activity over West Yorkshire. The common frequency detected in these females was coincident with the recorded frequency for Klebsiella Pneumoniae (398.45-404.65KHz) as a potential pathogen. An internet search on contrails suggested that Klebsiella was associated with contrails although the pathogens most commonly associated with contrail reports were Pseudomonas Aeruginosa (331-333KHz), Serratia Marcescens (349-351KHz), Strep (various between 313 and 373KHz) and Molds (40-250Khz).

My tests are certainly not strong or conclusive evidence that the ladies suffered a similar infection, or that it was caused by fallout from aircraft contrails, but their respiratory and gastric upsets, inflammatory processes, and increased anxiety states, suggested that some form of infection borne of the same pathogen could not be ruled out. Their physicians offered antibiotics which had proved useless, no swabs or blood tests had been performed and they received the same story – "there are a lot of respiratory tract infections around". The ladies were not related through family or location within 10 to 20 miles though one had a family history of Ankylosing Spondylitis for which Klebsiella involvement is suspected. With acupuncture & moxibustion treatments the frequencies disappeared and their health improved. I continued to detect more and more ‘Klebsiella frequencies’ throughout the summer in various patients, frequencies usually rarely detected with the spectrum analyser, and many displayed respiratory problems coincident with ‘contrail’ activities, within a few days of activity over their town or region. Although not conclusive, it isl suspicious, and if physicians fail to analyse spurious infection rates and types contrail-driven health problem will go unrecognized by mainstream medicine.

The frequencies that kept repeating were approximately 400 and 420 KHz. I had not come across these frequencies very often but suddenly, and coincident with contrail dates, they were abundant. The similarity of symptoms and frequencies suggested a common pathogen but one finds several potential pathogens at or near those frequencies, at least one supporting the sinister motive alleged by the ‘whistleblower’ were it actually present in aircraft contrails…393.5-398.05KHz Bacillus Anthracis. Although no patients presented with symptoms of anthrax, it is always possible (witness historic interventions covertly by US and UK governments secretly testing on their peoples) that a covert attempt to inoculate the population with anthrax vaccine ( the respiratory symptoms could be a reaction to such inoculation) (17 page 5) may have occurred according to the whistleblower who is alleged to have told a Washington reporter that the government was using covert immunization of the public as it feared a backlash from the Gulf War Syndrome episode that left people with a strong mistrust of mass vaccine campaigns such that they may not accept overt immunisation. (18) (19) .Are governments spraying populations with anthrax-immunisations? (20) (21) (22). Aerosol applications of vaccines for animals have been used and considered for use in the USA and UK so are they animal vaccines (23) even though they are known to have a hazardous affect on human health? No one, including Government, has a right to medicate any citizen without that person’s authority – the Human Rights Act, UN Treaty and Common law restrict such acts.

The suggestion from this limited research is that governments are acting anti-socially and probably unlawfully against their citizens; others take a similar view (24). Is government trying to inoculate without seeking authority from the public? If so datasheets suggest there are no SAFE vaccines, and anthrax vaccine along with smallpox vaccines have a bad track record such that the US and Australian Governments had to acknowledge dangers inherent in those vaccines to troops and health workers - medications cause death and serious injury hence the reason for requiring prior authorisation from persons (25). Does cronyism play a part, are the enormous profits associated with immunisation programs covert or overt playing any part, can we trust our politicians to act without our authority to our benefit? (26) (27)

This morning heavy "chemtrails" seen over West Yorkshire criss-cross patterns; was to be sunny day so at intervals sunshine is being eliminated by trails, is this an attempt reflect sunlight (and its health properties) in a probable misguided attempt to reduce global warming effects over Leeds and surrounding area by particles containing aluminium - the metal believed to cause Alzheimer's disease and possibly implicated in Multiple Sclerosis and autistic spectrum disorders? The LIB CON Government must obviously be implicated in authorising these suspected physical assaults on public health, and taxpayers monies may be used therefore inappropriately; if there is an exceptional increase in respiratory illness, or other, over the next 7 to 14 days in the West Yorkshire area, suspicion must be drawn to the "chemtrails" - medical authorities should become alerted to the possibility that any unusual incraese in certain types of disease associated with aluminium or barium exposure may be linked to the "chemtrails" and the environmental health and policing authorities should be required to investigate the activities, organisations and corporations involved in the public interest.

4. Do you fear 'microwave towers' (phone masts) near home and your child's school?

The trend for the appearance of 'microwave towers' around the UK has not abated despite the action of many informed councils and their residents complaining about the close proximity of the mobile phone masts to their homes and schools. Clearly the technology represented by these towers is valuable, witness the enormous number of adults and children carrying mobile phones, a technology rapidly developing in function and performance. There is evidence that microwave radiation and the electromagnetic fields (EMF) generated by the power sources that produce the radiation can cause ill health so it is imperative that people become aware of the inherent dangers, and safety factors, so both public and industry survive.

In my experience the electromagnetic field generated by the equipment within the towers/masts can affect persons residing or working nearby. For example, I assisted with a case of a person working in a room directly beneath a tower (8 feet away), placed on the roof of the building, who developed severe migraines and blackouts that could not be otherwise explained by a neurologist; the condition was unlikely to be caused by microwave radiation as the beam was directed at right angles away from the roof of building towards a distant receiver but she worked directly beneath the mast. The condition was most likely caused by the strong magnetic field generated by the power source to where she was positioned daily. The building was checked by the NRPB and local university scientists; the microwave radiation from the tower was said not to be affecting the victim's classroom, but I was informed that neither set of experts checked for EMF radiation. 'Hot spots' of microwave radiation were found within her school building - though not in her classroom, and these were caused by microwave radiation emissions from other towers, one being located on a fire services building some distance away. The 'victim' told me that the tower on her school directed its radiation over a nearby infants school...it's 'hot spots' might have been locatable there.

If you think a microwave/mobile phone mast may be causing health problems locally remember to have a scientific exploration of both the EMF output and microwave radiation. Consider that the microwave radiation from 'your' mast may be affecting others within its path, rather than you, and consider informing people caught directionally that they may be at risk. Consider masts that may not be in your vicinity, but are 'aimed' along your path, as the ones that potentially affect your community. To assess for effect contact a university physics department, or some other expert who has access to a spectrum analyzer to take local readings for microwave/radio frequency 'hot spots' and an EMF detector, or the NRPB which is tasked to protect the public; ensure they check EMF readings close to habitation. There may be other more subtle forms of low frequency radiation emitted but this article is not designed to elaborate on those - ask the scientists or NRPB.

You may have a certain amount of protection from building and other materials present between you and the radiation, if necessary ask those experts about the quality/quantity of protection afforded by those materials and your position relative to them; and be aware that for beamed microwave radiation, although most of the energy should travel line of sight towards the receiving apparatus some distance away there is an amount that travels outside that direct path and may impinge on those within the arc of the projecting beam.

Finally a consideration often omitted from an analysis of harm is that during inclement weather (snow/rain) microwave energy can be deflected into communities above which it passed harmlessly on a fine day....

In May 2008 Labour MP for Wakefield Mary Creagh, head of the Labour Party Manifesto Group on Public Health, and Sir Sandy Macara, ex-Chairman of the British Medical Association, the physicians’ union, wrote in the magazine of the Fabian Society, the Fabian Review, that the United Kingdom should use the same sanctions as the United States to make vaccines compulsory, that schools should be required to verify that all children enrolled have been vaccinated, and that children should not be allowed to receive health benefits unless they are vaccinated. The chair of the British Medical Association, Dr. Hamish Meldrum, stated such a plan was "morally and ethically dubious." And that "A Stalinist approach like this would be likely to backfire on an unprecedented scale and increase opposition to vaccinations". Jackie Fletcher of the organisation JABS said “It's only six months since a big public consultation by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics which we contributed to and they concluded there was no reason to change the voluntary system". The government responded to Creagh and Macara's articles by saying that it has no plans to make vaccination compulsory. (http://www.naturalnews.com/024291.html ).

The Chair of the BMA, the Government, and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ views were also ignored by Wales Health Minister Edwina Hart who announced that “she had been considering MMR as an entry requirement for school” since Wales was experiencing 302 cases of measles; “the rising number of measles cases necessitated a fresh look at compulsory MMR vaccination and this has been undertaken” she said, then concluded that “compulsion would adversely affect the trust that most parents have in local health professionals”….and she would “concentrate on providing reassurance based on sound advice to parents”. Not to be outdone, “after a debate in Cardiff Bay Sir Sandy Macara, a former Chairman of the BMA, backed a compulsory MMR vaccine saying he believed children should not be able to go to school unless they have first been vaccinated”. A similar demand was made by NHS London, the Strategic Health Authority for London, said to have “asked the Department of Health if it could introduce compulsory vaccinations and the right to insist on an immunisation certificate”. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8103969.stm ).

Why are Macara, Creagh and NHS London are so set on compulsion; are they not concerned by the evidence on MMR suggesting the vaccine may be ineffective and dangerous? The Yellow Card adverse reaction alert system, and decisions made in the vaccine damage payments courts, demonstrate that vaccinations kill and seriously disable children, not least MMR which seems to be one of the main focus for those demanding compulsion. British children must enjoy their right to choose whether to risk death and permanent disability, a right which requires their choice to be preceded by complete and accurate information on risk and benefit, as enshrined in Common Law and the Declaration of Helsinki.

The Labour Government and Oppositions, NHS London, the Department of Health and their advisory bodies CSM, ARVI, JCVI, MHRA must also be aware of the most comprehensive Systematic Review on MMR by Demicelli, Jefferson et al 2005 (Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2005 Oct 19;(4): CD004407. “Vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in children”) which after analysing more than 5000 published studies stated “..We could not identify studies assessing the effectiveness of MMR that fulfilled our inclusion criteria.... The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate…” which seems to be a damning statement as it suggests there inadequate scientific evidence that children receiving MMR vaccine will be safe, or experience efficacy and effectiveness if agreeing to be vaccinated.

A major British manufacturer making enormous profit from the vaccine already and which could be expected to make even greater gains from compulsion of MMR is GlaxoSmithKline ( GSK ). A very prominent GSK figure for decades was Richard Sykes who became Fellow of Imperial College Oxford and of King’s College London, Fleming Fellow of Lincoln College Oxford and Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales, Cardiff and the University of Central Lancashire. After being with GSK for 30 years he resigned as Chairman and Chief Executive before, in 2002, becoming Rector of Imperial College Oxford until June 2008 and then Chair of NHS London on 1^st December 2008. “NHS London is the Strategic Health Authority (SHA) for the whole of the Greater London area. That means we are responsible for making sure that all the NHS healthcare services provided in London are world-class.” (http://www.london.nhs.uk/who-we-are). The significance of MMR vaccine manufacturer and distributer GSK having the potential to influence compulsion is not lost when one considers that ex- GSK Chairman and CEO Richard Sykes on 1^st December 2008 became Chair of NHS London, which is now requesting compulsion of MMR vaccination, and he is a Fellow of the University of Wales, Cardiff where Sandy Macara argued for compulsion along with Labour Child Health MP for Wakefield Mary Creagh coincident with Richard Syke’s brother Hugh Sykes coming to the end of a 3 year term as Chair of Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which encompassed Creagh’s constituency. GSK (referring to Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham as GSK for ease of reference and as subsequent partnerships attain a measure of prior accountability) features heavily in British “pharmaceutical provisioning”, and has numerous links with board members in advisory areas of public health, not least the JCVI and CSM.

The GSK Pluserix MMR vaccine was introduced into the UK childhood schedule with great fanfare in 1988 by Minister Edwina Curry who declared it offered lifelong protection; her advisors, undoubtedly some having significant vested interests in GSK, gave her what is now known to have been unjustifiable advice such that MMR2, provided by GSK, was introduced increasing the schedule. There was also no mention from Government of that time that the vaccine was likely to cause serious neurological problems, as Merieux’s Immravax MMR similarly introduced, and both were hastily withdrawn in 2002 when their Urabe mumps components caused outbreaks of meningitis in children of the UK as they previously did in Canada and Japan. The JCVI and related advisory bodies, along with the Conservative British Government of the time, had been informed that Urabe MMR caused meningitis in Canadian children and Japan also informed us but the pharma-vested-interest Joint Commission on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) ignored the warnings given to British children and their families by Canada and Japan and promoted MMR with Urabe strain mumps vaccine for children, some of whom suffered the consequences. The JCVI minutes clearly show that the JCVI advisors knew of the problems yet cleared the vaccine for the childhood schedule.

The Minutes of the JCVI meeting of Tuesday 8^th March 1988 where advice was prepared on MMR for Government discussed MMR trials of 5000 children in Fife, Somerset and N. Herts saying there had been no “problems” yet Somerset children experienced convulsions. Another MMR trial took place in Nottingham which resulted in “local concerns about the potential infectivity of the mumps component of MMR to susceptible contacts”. “Prof. Hull assured the JCVI that the mumps component is not infective”. The JCVI was informed of 5 cases of mumps encephalitis caused by MMR in Canada, 4 definitely associated with the Urabe MMR, and that in the USA the Jeryl Lynn mumps virus strain had been used instead of Urabe in the MMR and noted “many of the reported neurological complications being clearly related to the measles component of the MMR vaccine”. The Jeryl Lynn mumps strain MMR vaccine was used to replace withdrawn Urabe MMR vaccines in the UK several years later on JCVI advice, despite JCVI knowing that American children experienced neurological complications with the measles strain of that MMR vaccine. The JCVI then, as now, seemed to hold no formalized responsibility for child safety. Studies in Japan demonstrated that not only Urabe mumps MMR vaccine was associated with meningitis but other strains of MMR they tested bore some association with meningitis so one might expect it inevitable that British children would suffer as American, Canadian and Japanese children had. It is also probable that even now in 2009 MMR vaccines present dangers for neurological damage as seen in early vaccination campaigns. One must also strongly suspect that financial opportunities presented to the corporations that gain from MMR distribution are that they also gain financially from increases in neurological side effects through sales of other products. It is win win for them should they be so inclined to abuse public trust.

Parents began to respond and an example of this was the creation of the JABS group by parents of vaccine damaged British children. The first meeting attracted about 150 parents, and a list of suspected vaccine damaging events was produced. Jani Roberts continues “Out of the 90 children on that list, 24 received a vaccine called Pluserix-MMR manufactured by SmithKline Beecham. It was withdrawn in the UK on the 14th September 1992 because of "reports of mild transient meningitis." "Of the children that received Pluserix-MMR on that list, 3 died (one after meningitis), 4 had meningitis symptoms, 5 epilepsy, 5 had become autistic, 1 suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, 1 had severe urticaria and 2 had mumps. 6 had their speech affected - forgetting language skills they had acquired, 1 went deaf. 6 from this time suffered from delayed development and 4 were very very disturbed. One of the deaths was from the Guillain-Barré syndrome - where antibodies are produced that attack the body's own cells. 7 or more suffered frequent fits or convulsions, 1 had terrible screaming fits. Thirteen of the children on that list received Immravax made by the French company, Merieux UK Ltd. This was also withdrawn on the same date and for the same reason as Pluserix-MMR - because of "reports of mild transient meningitis.” Of the children that received Immravax; 6 became epileptic, 1 nearly died from encephalitis, 3 had meningitis, 1 measles and 1 mumps, 5 had speech and communication problems, 3 became slow developers, 7 had frequent fits and convulsions, 2 went into the kind of terrible screaming fits that are associated with brain trauma." (http://www.gn.apc.org/inquirer/jabs.html).

The consequent increase in childhood deaths and debility soon after MMR introduction into the UK could have been predicted according to evidence in the 1988 JCVI minutes and it is worth mentioning that the heavily pharma-vested group of advisors to the UK Department of Health never had its advice rejected by Government according to Professor Campbell, Chair of the JCVI, speaking during the BSE investigation period. Parents had death and debility visit their children without reason, perfectly healthy children suddenly ceased to function after vaccination yet scientists and professionals responsible for MMR vaccination provided no reasonable explanation. Twenty years on they still cannot guarantee that MMR will not kill and disable any particular child around the world according to the wisdom in Demicelli et al and it is the duty of the vaccinator to ensure each child is comprehensively informed on risks, and they must not be impressed through ignorance or denial. Vaccination has inherent danger so people who believe that the risk benefit ratio favors vaccination may prefer to take the risk for themselves and their children but that is a risk that must be properly and adequately defined before a lawful contract is agreed by vaccinator and vaccinated. The issue of consent is therefore of prime importance, Creagh and Macara ought to take note, and compulsion should be consigned to the same dustbin as should Nazism; children deserve complete protection from corporations who may find means to bend the rules of morality and lawfulness.

The Observer reported in April 2004 that orphans and babies as young as 3 months old had been used as guinea pigs in potentially dangerous experiments sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, including GSK, as between 1995 and 2000 GSK sponsored at least 4 experiments on Hispanic and black children at the Incarnation Children’s center, a New York care home that specializes in treating HIV sufferers and is run by catholic charities. GSK tested experimental products, particularly HIV/AIDS treatments, on children who did not have the capacity to consent for themselves being “wards of the US state”. They were typically orphans, often due to parental drug or HIV status. Allegations have been made of horrific abuse in the name of medical research, consented to by the American state, and children who attempted to refuse barbaric experiments suffered forced surgical insertion of tubes through which experimental drugs were delivered against their will. Some children died and others were seriously debilitated by these Nazi-style experiments. GSK admitted involvement between 1995 and 2000 in at least 4 such “trials”. (http://liamscheff.com/content/view/51/31/ ) and (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/apr/04/usa.highereducation ). There are numerous potentially devastating, if not fatal, adverse reactions possible with vaccination. February 2008 Reuters reports “Pneumonia deaths seen in children with Glaxo vaccine” - GSK’s rotavirus vaccine was associated with an increase in pneumonia related deaths and other reactions”. In August 2008 in Argentina there were 14 suspicious deaths in children from an experimental GSK vaccine for pneumococcal diseases. (http://www.amazines.com/GlaxoSmithKline_related.html). Vaccine manufacturers may also market other products, and those commercial areas allow one to ascertain whether a company has integrity or not. It is interesting to find reports such as those associated with “birthing complications which have been popping up at an alarming rate in the past couple of years attributed to the drug Paxil. GSK manufactures Paxil, an antidepressant that has been on the market since 1992 which gained much popularity with over one million users in 2006. However in that same year a warning label was issued on all Paxil prescriptions that Woman who are pregnant or may become pregnant should not take the drug, for women who are pregnant and taking Paxil may see birth injuries in their newborns. It has been released that these birth injuries can result in heart, lung, and spinal cord injuries. These negative side effects came about 14 years after Paxil was released onto the market. Therefore for 14 years pregnant women have taken the drug not knowing about these dangerous side effects. When this information came out in 2006, many things began to click as women who took the drug while pregnant have children who have suffered from birth injuries. When GSK issued the warning about Paxil, it made many people very angry; if they had been informed on this when they were taking the drug they could have avoided their child’s birth injury. It is this type of unethical behaviour that makes consumers unwilling to buy prescriptions from large pharmaceutical companies because they do not practice ethical procedures. GSK did not institute the proper procedure to ensure that their products are safe. This type of practice from a large pharmaceutical company sends shock waves into the public discouraging them from wanting to trust their lives in another carefree pharmaceutical giant. In order for GSK to right what the have wronged, they must take responsibility for their actions and issue an apology for all of those who have suffered on their accounts. Birth Injury Attorneys have been seeing a large amount of claims against GSK about their drug Paxil.” …”Six doctors who have received financial compensation from the pharmaceutical industry through stockholdings or speaking fees will be on the FDA panel which decides whether the GSK drug Avandia is linked to increased heart risks. The panel which will convene on July 30 will discuss the safety of the drug. The financial disclosure documents released by the agency stated that four of the six doctors with conflicts may vote on recommendations to the FDA. The agency wouldn't say how many members the committee will have. This situation is very similar the Merck and Co.’s Vioxx” - author Joshua Daly 16/7/2007.

Had the American or British public been aware that GSK and a National authority charged with the care and protection of babies and young children who, through no fault of their own, had become “wards of state”, would become victims of horrific experiment between 1995 and 2000, the time when GI Specialist Dr. Wakefield was being attacked by many politicians, academics, media and health professionals? Those children’s screams were being ignored and their torture continued apace; would the public have been so accepting of GSK products, compulsion and corporate immunity, could parents expect GSK to maintain a scrupulous relationship when marketing and distributing MMR vaccines to their children? These questions become more relevant when one understands the influence corporations like GSK have fostered within political, academic, legal and media institutions despite admitting serious infringements in its practices to the states. GSK faced one of its most powerful challenges to dominance of the UK MMR market when Dr Wakefield’s research was published in 1998 and one might be excused for suspecting that big pharma corporations like GSK might seek to derail important revelations such as those by Wakefield and the excellent team who might then suffer the consequences of vigorous, even unlawful, damage limitation for MMR confidence and sales. A Cochrane Collaboration systematic review by Demicelli, Jefferson et al concluded there is little evidence, despite thousands of scientific papers said to support such products, of effectiveness or safety of MMR. In 1998 GSK, Government and academic scientists should have been aware that the MMR had little if any published peer reviewed scientific credibility. Parents and clinicians had been alleging serious damage from MMR for almost 10 years including that MMR caused autistic spectrum disorders, the frequency and rate of which skyrocketed after MMR was introduced. Wakefield found that the vaccine virus in the gut of sufferers coincident with a newly defined type of gut disorder and suggested that measles vaccination should be investigated as potential for causation, the first clinical evidence providing suspicion of a possible association between a new gut disease and MMR vaccine virus, that in the small sample of subjects seemed to be associated with regression into autism. There was a flurry of activity involving academics, JCVI members and UK DoH officials in support of MMR, attacking Wakefield in the media. The Lancet had published Wakefield et al in 1998 yet it was later attacked by MMR supporters in 1999 as Crispin Davies, who was another GSK director, had become CEO of Reed Elsevier which owned The Lancet. In 1998 JCVI Chairman and promoter of the dangerous GSK Pluserix MMR vaccine Professor Sir David Hull attacked Wakefield and Dr Evan Harris MP assisted Deer in his investigation against Wakefield, Deer allegedly having been provided unusual assistance from the Strategic Health Authority over the Royal Free Hospital where Wakefield’s research took place as it passed confidential documents to Deer “in the spirit of openness”, including documents referring to confidential medical treatments of the MMR child litigants. The SHA denied this at first but later admitted when it was shown that Evan Harris disclosed that fact in Parliament on 15^th March 2004. This coincided with the outstanding case of hundreds of allegedly vaccine damaged children waiting their day in court to take on GSK and other vaccine manufacturers they blamed for their damaged health; they awaited Legal Aid to continue the fight.

On 22^nd February 2004, five days before the judgment for legal aid by Sir Nigel Davies (who happened to be the brother of ex-GSK director Crispin Davies CEO of Reed Elsevier owning The Lancet) The Sunday Times published stories attacking Wakefield and ironically the person said to have commissioned Deer was Paul Nuki, “Sunday Times sometime Head of Newsroom” whose father, Professor George Nuki, in 1987 sat on the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) when the CSM was considering the GSK Pluserix MMR vaccine for safety approval. The CSM approved Pluserix that was later withdrawn after very high levels of adverse reactions. With Nuki on that CSM were the now disgraced Professor Roy Meadow, and Professor Sir David Hull. (http://www.whale.to/vaccine/mmr666.html). Prime Minister Blair and Health Secretary Reid were also quoted in the press to be in favour of MMR. On 27^th February 2004 High Court Judge Nigel Davies withdrew legal aid from the children in a secret judgement, his reasons remaining unpublished. Evidence given in open court at a different hearing included an allegation from a parent that an official admitted to her that legal aid was withdrawn after government pressure. In 2009 it is reported that Murdoch (Deer’s boss) of The Sunday Times has joined the GSK Board as a non-executive director.

In 2009 the issue of compulsion seems to have been placed on the back burner by Government yet it seems to me that GSK cannot afford to allow the proposition to fail. MMR may soon be accepted to be a major cause of ASD, rates skyrocketed after MMR was introduced and US Courts have begun associating, for vaccine damage payment purposes, ASD conditions with MMR vaccination. When that news is confirmed the enormous financial prospects for GSK and other vaccine manufacturers and distributors, could be destroyed by an informed public. Temporarily at least compulsion might coerce, at risk of imprisonment, sufficient numbers to accept vaccinations for their children until all stocks are cleared. The MR campaign in 1994/5 demonstrated how gullible the public is at accepting fabricated DoH stories of impending epidemics to clear damaged and end of life stocks before renewing them with an update product, then MMR2. The 2000 repeat process, when children were made to ingest oral polio live virus vaccines alongside their BCG jabs at school without fully informed parental or child consent cleared “to be withdrawn” stocks of OPV suspected to be contaminated with NvCJD suggesting that vaccinators have little concern for health or welfare of children and compulsion may be the only tactic left for the pharmaceutical industry vaccinators. History shows that compulsion in democratic societies can result in mass public outcry, perhaps rebellion against those who conspire to defy public decency. Compulsion may come like privatization, by the back door. Politicians test the water, academics and media sponsored by drugs giants develop the theme after securing essential positions in political, academic, judicial and scientific circles at the heart of the British establishment.

When GSK in its various forms was accused, and found guilty, of uncivilized behaviour Richard Sykes was with the company having spent around 30 years in positions to CEO He was knighted in 1999 for services to the pharmaceutical industry and left GSK for Imperial College Oxford in 2002 as Rector having been proposed for Provost of UC London (http://www.felixonline.co.uk/articles/13/Rector146s_UCL_Plan ); that post was given to an already retired Sir Derek Roberts who, like Richard Sykes, appeared obsessed with merging UCL and Imperial. One wonders, as did commentators at the time, why these two men were so set on the merger when the weight of opinion was set against that, and prevented it. “The strategy is that Imperial cuts out UCL's dead wood and pockets its research grants. For Sir Richard a university is a drugs company. He could call his new empire Glob-U or Unron. The rationale is set out in his message to Imperial's staff, written entirely in consultancy Birtspeak.” (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-1842695-details/Spare+London's+colleges/article.do)

During his tenure at Imperial Sykes became unpopular in his quest to merge Imperial, UCL and Cambridge. (http://live.cgcu.net/opinion/heepson/500). His work was not in vain, the powers eventually won the day as shown now by the merging of various NHS and academic institutions in London area under the scheme “Academic Health Science Centres” (“Universities and NHS organizations working together to bring world class research, education and patient care”, the culmination of which was acknowledged by Health Secretary Alan Johnson in 2009 within NHS London). In December 2008 Sykes became Chair of NHS London, the body that now requests Government to make compulsory vaccination and the presentation of a certificate to that effect for its children. Despite insufficient evidence of MMR efficacy or safety NHS London and Macara request this draconian measure. Sandy Macara and Sykes go back a long way through the Academy of Medical Sciences as at the inauguration in 1998 Maraca was Editor of the Newsletter which sported an article by the then CEO of GSK, Sir Richard Sykes. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sykes_(biochemist)

The Academy of Medical Sciences was set up in 1998 and forms the ideal old boys club; in the first Newsletter sporting a letter from Alan Milburn Minister at the DoH dated 26 January 2000, Peter Lachmann its first President notes they have “elected 100 fellows to augment 350 founder Fellows” – also a Fellow of Christ’s College Cambridge he is a distinguished immunologist and controversial promoter of GM foods. In 1999 he reported tried to threaten by phone call the Editor of The Lancet Richard Horton not to post Arpad Pusztais research on the adverse effects of GM potatoes on rats. When Richard Sykes left Imperial in 2008 a new Rector was appointed, Roy Anderson, a leading British epidemiologist. Anderson chairs the scientific advisory board of the WHO Tropical Diseases program, is a member of the Gates’s Challenges advisory board and is a non-executive director of GSK. He gained his BSc in Zoology thence PhD in parasitology in 1971 at Imperial becoming a full professor there in 1984. He left Oxford University after a unanimous vote of no confidence in him by the Department of Zoology, which prompted his resignation from the Wellcome Trust in May 2000 where he had been a Trustee and Governor for nearly 12 years. Despite that chequered past, he was knighted in the Queens Birthday Honors List 2006 and is the next ex-GSK rector of Imperial. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Anderson_(zoologist). Between the Academy of Medical Sciences, Imperial and King’s (a GSK and Eli Lilly haven http://www.kcl.ac.uk/business/news/year2006-7/air and http://www.kcl.ac.uk/business/commercial/people/) Colleges and NHS London we find an accumulation of ex-pharmaceutical executives, particularly out of GSK, who hold great influence over UK policy, politicians and the media it would appear. GSK has plenty of spare finance to splash around for influence (http://www.gsk.com/media/pressreleases/2009/2009_pressrelease_10050.htm and http://www.gsk.com/media/pressreleases/2007/2007_04_18_GSK1017.htm )

Hannah Poling demonstrated in Court linkage of mitochondrial dysfunction, autism and vaccination including MMR vaccine. Bailey Banks in June 2007 was found in Court to have an autistic spectrum disorder caused by MMR. Parents of 3 years old child Julie has an ASD-like disorder that she has recently been awarded a lump sum of more than $810,000 (plus an estimated $30-40,000 pa for autism services and care) in compensation; the court ruled that the MMR vaccine had caused her acute brain damage. Enquiries in the US found that vaccination damage cases involving children with ASDs are being represented in the courts without mention of autism as success depends on not mentioning autism. CBS news found that since 1988 the vaccine court has awarded money judgments, often in millions of dollars, to 1322 families whose children suffered brain damage to vaccines; in many of these cases the government paid out awards following a judicial finding that vaccine injury lead to the child’s autism spectrum disorder. “The Bailey decision is not an isolated ruling. We now know of at least two other successful ADEM cases argued in Vaccine Court. More significantly, an explosive investigation by CBS News has found that since 1988, the vaccine court has awarded money judgments, often in the millions of dollars, to thirteen hundred and twenty two families whose children suffered brain damage from vaccines. In many of these cases, the government paid out awards following a judicial finding that vaccine injury lead to the child's autism spectrum disorder. In each of these cases, the plaintiffs' attorneys made the same tactical decision made by Bailey Bank's lawyer, electing to opt out of the highly charged Omnibus Autism Proceedings and argue their autism cases in the regular vaccine court. In many other successful cases, attorneys elected to steer clear of the hot button autism issue altogether and seek recovery instead for the underlying brain damage that caused their client's autism. Medical records associated with these proceedings clearly tell the tale. In perhaps hundreds of these cases, the children have all the classic symptoms of regressive autism; following vaccination a perfectly healthy child experiences high fever, seizures, and other illnesses, then gradually, over about three months, loses language, the ability to make eye contact, becomes "over-focused" and engages in stereotypical head banging and screaming and then suffers developmental delays characteristic of autism. Many of these children had received the autism diagnosis. Yet the radioactive word "autism" appears nowhere in the decision. Instead the vaccine court Special Masters rest their judgments on their finding that the vaccines caused some generalized brain injury, mainly Encephalopathy/encephalitis (brain inflammation) or "seizure disorders" -- conditions known to cause autism-like symptoms. A large number of the children who have won these judgments have been separately diagnosed with autism. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-david-kirby/vaccine-court-autism-deba_b_169673.html)

Vaccines can never be declared free from the threat of disaster therefore compulsion should never be considered. Questions over vaccine safety, by Steve Connor, Science Editor Thursday, 26 February 2009 illustrates this perfectly.

“Health officials have been forced to withdraw 21,000 doses of the meningitis C vaccine from GP clinics around the UK after it emerged that some doses may have been contaminated with a blood-poisoning bacterium. More than 60,000 doses of the vaccine, which is offered to all four-month-old babies, could be contaminated with the hospital-acquired infection – the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium – and a third of these had already been sent to vaccination clinics before officials became aware of the problem. Officials within the Department of Health and the vaccine's manufacturers are believed to have known of the problem since Tuesday but only issued an emergency recall last night after being contacted about the potential contamination by The Independent”

GSK and Merck are battling for the HPV market. The vaccines were rushed into service with relatively little prior safety testing and since Merck’s US experience is developing into a nightmare scenario for so many young women and girls, can GSK expect any less from its Uk vaccine and potential victims? If so does it care? Teenage Girls Develop Degenerative Muscle Diseases After HPV Vaccine Injections

“The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have launched an investigation into a potential connection between the Gardasil vaccine for the human papillomavirus (HPV) and a rare degenerative muscle disease. Concern over a connection between Gardasil and the rare disease -- known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease -- was first raised by Phil Tetlock and Barbara Mellers on their blog. Shortly after receiving the Gardasil vaccine two years ago, their daughter Jenny began to lose motor strength and control, eventually becoming completely paralyzed before dying on March 15. Doctors suspect that she suffered from a rare juvenile form of ALS, which affects one out of every two million children. Government researchers might have taken no further notice, if two other sets of parents had not contacted Tetlock and Mellers with similar cases. In one, a 22-year-old woman died 13 months after receiving the vaccine, apparently from ALS. In the other, a 12-year-old girl who received the vaccine began losing the ability to walk soon after. "They don't know what she has," her mother said, "but it's destroying her nerves and muscles, and none of the treatments they've given her are working. Before the vaccine, she was a perfectly healthy child, going for her brown belt in karate." According to ALS expert Barbara Shapiro of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, it is unlikely that the cases are just coincidence. "Juvenile ALS tends to progress very slowly over years or even decades," she said, "but these girls all seemed to have a more rapid, progressive form." Shapiro has uncovered what may be a fourth case in the CDC's adverse events database. CDC researchers are now searching the database for other cases, and the FDA has begun to investigate whether a vaccine could trigger ALS.”

Interestingly, a meeting of Government advisory body for NICE discussed smoking reduction strategies that was Chaired by Sandy Macara and virtually all members had vested interests in pharmaceutical firms vying for smoking cessation contracts as follows

Robert West: Contributor to the review on Non-NHS services; Research and consultancy for pharmaceutical companies GSK, Pfizer and Novartis; instigator of the concept of glucose use in smoking cessation; unpaid research support on Cytisine; Trustee of QUIT; share of a patent in a novel nicotine delivery device.

Chris Owens: runs PCT-funded stop smoking service; been in receipt of educational grants for literature, travel and hospitality from GSK, Novartis and Pfizer.

Gerard Hastings: Advisor on tobacco control to governments at various levels; currently involved in litigation with the tobacco industry.

Paul Hooper: Received educational grants for attending conferences, hospitality and fees for lectures from pharmaceutical companies.

Kiran Patel: had attended educational events and given lectures at meetings sponsored by industry including Pfizer. Has been on advisory boards for Merck, AstraZeneca and Sanofi-Aventis.

Mike Ward: Has been invited as a speaker and received educational grants to attend meetings from Ivax, Altana, GSK, AstraZeneca

Ian Gray: Advising the government on secondary legislation on the workplace smoking ban.

Hilary Graham: work in a health sciences department which may benefit from research

Paul Aveyard: has received consultancy payments for a company making a nicotine vaccine. Involved with trial on Cytisine and currently doing a trial on St Johns Wort and Smoking Cessation.

Currently in a frozen EU project looking at health professionals and smoke cessation across Europe which was part funded by Pfizer.

Ron Gould: Lead politician for Smoke Free Liverpool; formerly owned a manufacturing facility for making St Johns Wort.

Ruth Bosworth: Received educational and hospitality from pharmaceutical companies.

Carmel O’Gorman: In receipt of small project funding from pharmaceutical companies.

Pam Rees: In receipt of a number of small grants from pharmaceutical companies for community based projects and a small educational grant for conference attendance.

Andrew Hayes: has accepted funding from pharmaceutical companies for supporting conferences.

A decision they made was to declare acupuncture of no value for quitting smoking but apart from having no such expertise available how could those vested interests promote a competing strategy? Acupuncture has a very good track record for stopping smoking so is this still typical of a NICE “expert” group supposed to act in the public interest?

Compulsion of vaccination, indeed of any medical product, contravenes ones’ human rights as it fails to acknowledge right to the lawful consent, the right to decide one’s own fate in the face of potential death or debility. It is more fittingly prescribed by a fascist regime and has no place in a civilised democracy.

The call was made by Creagh and Macara in the magazine of the Fabian Society, which has an interesting history. “Leon Trotsky, an influential 20th century revolutionary socialist, wrote that Fabianism was an attempt to save capitalism from the working class. He wrote that "throughout the whole history of the British Labour movement there has been pressure by the bourgeoisie upon the proletariat through the agency of radicals, intellectuals, drawing-room and church socialists and Owenites who reject the class struggle and advocate the principle of social solidarity, preach collaboration with the bourgeoisie, bridle, enfeeble and politically debase the proletariat.”..”In an article published in The Guardian on 14 February 2008, following the apology offered by Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd to the "stolen generations", Geoffrey Robertson criticises Fabian socialists for providing the intellectual justification for the eugenics policy that led to the stolen generations scandal.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society ).

Clearly, proposals made to the society by its’ “thinkers” gained strong criticism in the past and it would be children of the proletariat of modern Britain – a so called wealthy country yet one steeped in extraordinary child poverty with a third world child health rate – who would pay a price for known and hidden dangers of childhood vaccines which are known to adversely affect malnourished children and those in poverty most of all. There is no excuse for MP Creagh or Macara to be other than fully aware of any dangers posed to a population such as Britain of young children from compulsory mass vaccination. Before embarking on their simplistic arguments for compulsion they should have done essential research into published and widely available other sources of information on vaccinations. Creagh and Macara are promoting compulsion of an “NHS programme which immunizes toddlers against MMR, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, meningitis and pneumonia” to include “expanding that scheme by adding chicken pox, flu and winter vomiting virus to the list of jabs for under twos” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/1944753/No-MMR-jab-no-school-under-Labour-plans.html), despite the probable addition of three untested, in the British public domain, new vaccines. I believe that is irresponsible, especially at this time when increasingly powerful evidence has emerged that vaccinations may pose an enormous potential for destruction of health of the globes’ children known to man.

Allergic Disease and Atopic Sensitization in Children in Relation to Measles Vaccination and Measles Infection” Helen Rosenlund et al.

“After this exclusion,inverse associations were observed between measles infectionand "any allergic symptom" and "any diagnosis of allergy bya physician."…. However, no associations were found between measlesvaccination and allergic disease…. Our data suggest that measles infection may protectagainst allergic disease in children.”

Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2005 Oct 19; (4):CD004407. “Vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in children.” Demicheli V, Jefferson T, Rivetti A, Price D.

”We could not identify studies assessing the effectiveness of MMR that fulfilled our inclusion criteria....The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate. The evidence of adverse events following immunisation with MMR cannot be separated from its role in preventing the target diseases.”

Government Health Authorities and the World Health Organisation told us the world is in the grip of a pandemic of swine flu. According to expert Tom Jefferson, whose Cochrane Collaboration team produced the most comprehensive systematic review of all known research papers on influenza vaccines that concluded flu vaccines provide very little benefit; the WHO changed its definition of pandemic. The old definition was a new virus, which went around quickly, for which you didn’t have immunity, and which created a high morbidity and mortality rate. (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-637119,00.html). He suggests the industry thrives on pandemic business – “..The WHO and public health officials, virologists and the pharmaceutical companies. They’ve built this machine around the impending pandemic; and there’s a lot of money involved, and influence, and careers, and entire institutions; and all it took was one of these influenza viruses to mutate to start the machine grinding”.

We are told that viruses mutate all the time, yet mutants are created in modern laboratories all the time which provides adequate opportunities for companies to unleash, by accident or design, rogue viruses they analyse or create - witness the recent Baxter International event; in December 2008 a Baxter facility in Austria sent a human flu vaccine contaminated with deadly H5N1 live avian flu virus to 18 countries, including the Czech Republic, where testing showed it killed ferrets inoculated, Czech newspapers questioned whether Baxter was involved in a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic. So far Baxter continues to rake in multimillion profits despite the most potentially deadly virulent virus being released into the public domain by that US company; Novartis was in the news in 2008 for a clinical trial of H5N1 in Poland; the trial was administered by local nurses and doctors who gave the vaccine to 350 homeless people leaving 21 dead. The Police prosecuted them and Novartis claimed the deaths were unrelated to the H5N1 vaccine that had “been tested on 3500 other people without any deaths”. When a renowned journalist believes she has uncovered such evidence of impropriety within the vaccine industry and related circles that she lays information with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for possible prosecution, she is thrown out of her job (http://www.infowars.com/journalist-fired-over-flu-pandemic-lawsuit/).

Austrian journalist Jane Burgermeister filed criminal charges against the WHO, the UN, and several high-ranking government and corporate officials concerning bioterrorism. She stated “There is proof many organisations – World Health Organisation, UN as well as vaccine companies such as Baxter and Novartis – are part of a single system under the control of a core criminal group, who give strategic leadership, and who have funded the development, manufacturing and release of artificial viruses in order to justify mass vaccinations with a bioweapon substance in order to eliminate the people of the USA, and so gain control of assets, resources etc. of North America”.

Although such allegations appear astonishing she is entitled to have her evidence investigated and especially as she is a respected journalist so must realise the penalties for false accusations and libel. Baxter International is known to have unleashed a most deadly pathogen into Europe just weeks ago, and Novartis reflecting Chiron vaccine company which Tony Blair favoured Chiron director Drayson who sold Powderject to Chiron; Drayson was cited in the media as a crony of Blair since Blair gave him smallpox and anthrax vaccine contracts and tens of thousands of pounds were paid to New Labour. Drayson was said then to have sold smallpox vaccines to Britain, at an inflated price, that were unusable for the strains envisaged yet he was “rewarded” by becoming Lord Drayson, and put in charge of UK Defence procurements only to then preside over the scandalous sell out of Qinetic, amongst other sales of portions of UK Defence establishment to private corporations, to the Carlyle Group which owned Chiron. The sale of such public assets so cheaply allowed massive gains to be made on them by aspects of the Carlyle Group, the organisation developed by George Bush senior with the Bin laden family, having ex UK Premier John Major and Thatcher minister Geoffrey Howe as European directors.We saw the mysterious SARS epidemic fizzle out, followed by bird flu events with a physician said to have worked in a research complex in China portrayed as the first fatality during a visit to Hong Kong. Events typically of little consequence to the UK and many other parts of the world but providing opportunities for enormous sums to be paid to the companies indulging in medical and military-industrial processing, supported by effective speculation and scare mongering.

In February 2006 the British Government said it was ordering 3.5 million doses of H5N1 “bird flu” vaccine from manufacturers Baxter International Inc. and Chiron Corporation. Then Health Minister Rosie Winterton said the contracts were worth £33 millions; the British Department of Health said the vaccine was scheduled for delivery in May 2006. Noel Barrett Vice President of vaccines at Baxter International told reporters the vaccine was based on a strain of H5N1 found in Vietnam…. it was not clear whether this vaccine would offer any protection should a mutated pandemic strain emerge. Government said the order was an addition to plans for so-called sleeping contracts for 120 million doses of a pandemic vaccine – such contracts are a way of reserving future access to vaccine supplies. Novartis AG of Switzerland was buying out California-based Chiron.

The current swine flu outbreak is believed to be using up enormous stocks of Tamiflu Blair paid for several years ago, a 2004 dated batch of Tamiflu was handed out to one of my patients last week by a “specified pharmacy”, so one can see how easy it is for speculation to take place. The lady told me she took two doses as specified by the NHS helpline and thought she “was going to die” so immediately stopped the Tamiflu and felt much better. She had not been warned by the prescribers not suppliers that Tamiflu is associated with a number of deaths.

Government tells us that medical interventions are available should a “deadly swine flu pandemic” afflict the United Kingdom this coming winter (fortunately Australia is suffering the same current “pandemic” of swine flu, despite it being winter down there, and the flu has remained mild) but real experience proves these measures are extremely costly in public health and wealth. Although wealth defers to health in a sensible society, it is essential that public monies are not wasted on potential and proven ineffective, potential and proven dangerous, potential and proven deadly medical interventions. Is the Government providing adequate proven medical interventions for a serious pandemic, has an adequate risk/benefit analysis of all options been carried out, and could it do more?

Flu jabs have been shown to be ineffective, through extensive systematic review, in the general population. They showed a very modest effect in a narrow age range and no effect in the elderly. Numerous studies have documented that flu jabs give little or no protection against infection and illness, and there is no reason to believe that swine flu vaccines will be any different. A review of 51 separate studies in 2006 concluded that flu vaccines worked no better that a placebo in 260,000 children ranging from 6 to 23 months of age (Smith S et al http://www.ncbi.nih.gov/pubmed/16437500).

Michael Elsahoff and other FDA reviewers showed Relenza, the antiviral drug from GlaxoSmithKline, no more effective than placebo in American patients in 1999. Just before a controversial licensing of Relenza by the FDA in 1999 Jolson of the FDA said that Relenza had not been shown effective for patients over 65 or those “with a variety of respiratory, cardiovascular and other medical conditions” and “special precautions are warranted”. She said “the totality of the data” suggested some Relenza patients could expect modest benefit and that their influenza A or B symptoms might improve“ on average of one day sooner by taking the drug”. Is “one day sooner” worth the risks of side effects?

The “experimental” swine flu jabs given to Americans in 1976, for a pandemic that never emerged, caused 532 known cases of the severe neurological disorder Guillain Barré syndrome, over 30 died, amongst many other side effects. The US VAERS vaccine reporting system databank holds thousands of reports of deaths suspected as caused by flu jabs; underreporting of more than 1000% is believed common, therefore deaths from flu jabs could number in the tens of thousands in the US alone over the period of VAERS reporting.

Relenza has been shown to be dangerous. A report published in 2009 showed children with asthma who received Relenza had a 3-fold increased risk of hospitalisation visits (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/703235 “Flu vaccine may triple risk for flu-related hospitalisation in children with asthma” 25^th May 2009). Following the voluntary reported deaths of 7 Relenza patients the FDA announced an unusual “public health advisory” to doctors on 12^th January 2000 warning of the limited role of Relenza; 2 of the dead had bacterial infections that could have been treated with antibiotics. Reports filed through to June 2000 showed that Relenza was cited suspect in 22 deaths; there have been well over 100 reports of psychiatric events, of which over 70 were children.

Tamiflu, manufactured by Roche, has been shown to be dangerous. The recent mild flu outbreak around the UK saw over 50% of recipients of the drug develop side effects. The experience echoes Japan a few years ago where Tamiflu had widest exposure. In 2005 Dr Rokuro Hama, head of the Japan Institute of Pharmacovigilence said he had investigated 8 suspicious deaths of children aged from 2 to 17 years of age over the previous 3 years that he thought were linked to Tamiflu. In 2004 a 17-year-old boy, after taking Tamiflu, left his home in a snowstorm then jumped in front of a truck and died. In 2005 a 14-year-old boy, after taking one Tamiflu capsule, jumped or fell from the 9^th floor of an apartment building. Neither boy had exhibited any abnormal behaviour before taking Tamiflu. In 2005 the FDA investigated the deaths of 12 children who took Tamiflu in Japan and 32 psychiatric events.

The Japanese Ministry of Health warned against Tamiflu for patients aged 10-19 in March 2007. The Japanese looked at Relenza and new warnings came into place citing neurological and psychiatric problems that could lead to self-injury and, in some cases, death; in March 2008 Tamiflu warnings were intensified citing rare reports of delirium and abnormal behaviour leading to self-injury and, in some cases, death.

Nausea, diarrhoea, bronchitis, abdominal pain, dizziness, headache, insomnia, cough, vertigo, fatigue, vomiting, otitis media, asthma, epistaxis, pneumonia, ear disorder, conjunctivitis, dermatitis, lymphadenopathy, tympanic membrane disorder, rash, eczema, urticaria, erythema multiforme, Stevens Johnson Syndrome, toxic epidermal necrolysis, allergy, anaphylactic shock, face oedema, convulsions, delirium, altered levels of consciousness, confusion, abnormal behaviour, delusions, hallucinations, agitation, anxiety, nightmares, haemorrhagic colitis..

Bronchospasm serious and sometimes fatal and/or decline in respiratory function (some of whom had no history of respiratory disease), seizures, confusion, delirium, hallucination, abnormal behaviour, placental transfer shown in rats (no studies done in humans), allergic reaction including facial and oropharyngeal oedema, dyspnoea, rash, urticaria, sinusitis, fever and or chills, arthralgia and articular rheumatism, headaches, digestive problems, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, nasal problems, bronchitis, cough, sinusitis, ear nose and throat infections, nervous system disorders, malaise, fatigue, abdominal pain, myalgia, elevations of liver enzymes and CPK, lymphopenia, and neutropenia, ear nose and throat haemorrhage, asthma, anorexia, feeding problems, endocrine and metabolic disorders, viral respiratory infections, allergic or allergic-like reaction, including oropharyngeal edema, altered level of consciousness, delusions, agitation, anxiety, nightmares, syncope, serious cutaneous reactions. Not to be used in persons with previous allergic reaction to lactose and milk proteins. Serious bacterial infections may begin with influenza-like symptoms or may coexist with or occur as complications during the course of influenza. Relenza has not been shown to prevent such complications

Safety and efficacy have not been demonstrated in patients with high-risk underlying medical conditions. No information is available regarding treatment of influenza in patients with any medical condition sufficiently severe or unstable to be considered at imminent risk of requiring inpatient management. Safety and effectiveness of Relenza for treatment of influenza have not been assessed in pediatric patients less than 7 years of age. Lactating rats excreted Relenza in their milk. Should not be used in pregnancy, especially 1^st trimester unless possible benefit to patient outweighs risk to foetus.

Tamiflu and Relenza have been associated with deaths. The swine flu vaccine of 1976 was associated with numerous deaths. It is inevitable that a swine flu vaccine 2009 will be associated with deaths.

If you are more likely to die of the pathogen than the medicine, there is justification for the medication to be offered the public. For any medication that can kill and injure there can be no justification, in Common Law, to mandate the medications; one cannot be forced to offer themselves for possible death or debility therefore vaccine uptake must be based on fully informed consent. Clearly there are nations that shamefully and unlawfully fail to uphold this basic law and human right.

When death and debility are caused by medicines prescribed during illness, medicines that can have side effects similar to symptoms brought by the illness, it is easy for the professional to misdiagnose death or debility by medication as death or debility by illness. Using prophylaxis, as a vaccine, death and debility by vaccine ought to be more readily identified, as usually there is no predisposing or underlying pathology in the vaccine recipient. That is the theory, but in practice children die or are debilitated, according to diagnoses, “by unknown cause” or sometimes “by natural causes” despite there being no other probable cause than vaccine. If not incompetence or ignorance, these diagnoses must flag protection of the profession and industry. In science as in law, when the only plausible cause is vaccination as it is the only scientifically arguable new factor, vaccine must be the strongly suspected cause.

The US VAERS database is dependent on scientific reasoning and the integrity of those making the reports; medical professionals are not supposed to administer vaccines to persons known to be suffering symptoms of illness at the time, unless specifically prediagnosed “safe” to vaccinate being in a sufficiently stable state to warrant safe administration of a potentially harmful procedure. There are reports by recipients, and relatives of recipients, of vaccination without fully informed consent having been sought or gained – the vaccinator acting unlawfully – and if complicated by the death or debility of the vaccine recipient, this warrants arrest and prosecution for murder and serious criminal assault respectively.

a. Vaccinated on 1^st December 1989, on 3^rd 66 years old F of NY State developed myalgias, eye/temporal pain was admitted with GB syndrome on 15^th February 1990.

b. 43 year old F from New Jersey on 7^th November 1989 vaccinated, same day developed arthralgia, arthritis, hypokinesia, lymphadenopathy, pain, back pain, parasthesia; hospitalised and two operations.

c. 31 years old F vaccinated 26^th January 1990 on 20^th February developed asthenia, bradycardia, dizziness, flu syndrome, neuropathy, GBS.

d. 62 year old M, vaccinated on 12^th October 1989, awoke next day in semiconscious state, grossly confused, weak, unable to recognise wife and doctor.

e. 62 year old F vaccinated 21^st August 1990, onset of GBS 1^st September 1990.

f. 53-year-old F vaccinated 24^th October 1990 on 5^th November 1990 asthenia, dysphagia, neck paralysis, and parasthesia, GBS.

2. Records with “Vaccine Contains FLU and symptoms contain GBS” search criteria

a. 31 years old M army inductee vaccinated 1^st February 1973 onset GBS 1^st March 1973, 180 days hospitalised

b. 60 years old M vaccinated 20^th November 1990, on 27^th November 1990 onset GBS, 35 days hospitalised

d. 58 years old M vaccinated on 30^th October 1990 and on 1^st November 1990 developed weakness and difficulty swallowing and talking, hospitalised 8 days, developed quadriplegia and respiratory difficulties, 15^th November respiratory arrest, GBS.

e. 72 years old F vaccinated 24^th October 1990 and on 2^nd November 1990 funny feelings in both legs, clumsy, numb, tingly, not work well; GBS.

a. Bronchial asthmatic 52 years old F vaccinated on 20^th September 1990, same day died of respiratory arrest.

b. 92 year old F vaccinated 9^th October 1990; 11^th October 1990 developed fever, died at 02.30 hrs 12^th October 1990.

c. 62 years old F terminally ill cancer patient vaccinated on 1^st October 1990, same day developed apnoea, fever, flu syndrome, pneumonia, and rhinitis and died.

d. 65 year old F vaccinated 18^th October 1990, around 23^rd October complained of fatigue, low back pain and upper shoulder pain, on 25^th October 1990 sudden death.

e. 77 year old M vaccinated on 2^nd October 1990, same day onset of nausea and pain apnoea, pneumonia, shock, heart arrest; died on 9^th October 1990 respiratory failure and cardiac arrest.

f. 69-year-old F vaccinated on 26^th November 1990, developed a cold next day, upper respiratory infection and cough, treated for bacterial bronchitis, found dead 2 days later.

g. 82 year old M vaccinated 26^th November 1990, same day immediate cardiac arrest, CPR initiated, taken to hospital where died.

h. 72-year-old M vaccinated 24^th October 1990, on 2^nd November started funny feelings on legs, clumsy, numb, tingly, BP 180/100, died.

4. Record using search criteria “age from 0 to 1 and Sex is Female and Vaccine is Flu and Patient Died”

a. 10 months F vaccinated 27^th October 1998, on10^th November 1998 severe vomiting, cranky, glucose 92, viral, continued till on 12^th December 1998 died.

b. 9 months old F vaccinated 7^th October 2003, no illness or fever reported, put to bed, last checked 0300hrs on 8^th October 2003, at 0900 hrs found dead in crib.

c. 6 months old F vaccinated 18^th October 2004 with flu, DTaP, IPV and PNC on 19^th October 2004 found dead in crib with lung congestion, liver and brain damage.

d. 8 months old F vaccinated 24^th January 2007, 26^th January 2007 found dead at home, called SIDS.

e. Newborn vaccinated on 5^th November 2007, developed cyanosis, low blood pressure, bradycardia, dehydration and died on 10^th October 2007.

f. 6 months old vaccinated 20^th December 2007 with DTaPHE, Flu, PNC and ROTHB5; on 22^nd December 2007 anoxic encephalopathy, apnoea, and cardiac arrest; died 24^th December 2007.

VAERS data is rarely used to full extent, the mantra heard from vaccine interest professionals is that the data cannot be used to prove cause and effect which is of course true in terms of single events but, as in any court of law or science arena, the analysis of accumulated repetitive events can provide accumulating evidence to develop a hypothesis on which further record analysis can be based. Sometimes the records will yield sufficient evidence to stand alone, supported by individual witness testimony, at other times it can provide sufficient circumstantial evidence in support of testimony that can be measured against medical or other scientific rebuttal; what is not true is that VAERS is of not value evidentially.

When a number of children die minutes or hours, or even days, after vaccination and there is no other explanation for the deaths, there must be strong suspicion of the vaccination. When law courts begin to reflect this basic scientific and logical position, judges will arrive at long overdue conclusions about vaccine safety and damage.

Jon Rappoport in his article “Vaccine Dangers and Vested Interests” argues that the typical CDC media speak of 36,000 deaths from flu in the US every year is propaganda to promote flu jabs; he states that government data shows that actually the figures biannually between 1979 and 1995, then annually to 2001, for total influenza deaths in the US are:

1979 604, 1981 3006, 1983 1431, 1985 2054, 1987 632, 1989 1593, 1991 1137, 1993 1044, 1995 606, 1996 745, 1997 720, 1998 1724, 1999 1665, 2000 1765, 2001 257.

The members of the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP) in the USA, as the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), make recommendations each year on vaccinations. Most ACIP and JCVI members have financial or other ties to the vaccine industry and they obviously recommend flu jabs DESPITE evidence of ineffectiveness, danger and lack of sufficient safety studies as they ignore the Cochrane Collaboration systematic review. Furthermore, research has shown that for every 100 people who get the flu jab only 1 will benefit. It is not clear just how many die or are disabled by jab they did not need; many flu jabs contain mercury at 250 times the EPA recommended daily intake level for some infants and there is evidence that flu jabs cause Alzheimers disease. Research showed that people who receive a flu jab each year for 3 to 5 years have a 10-fold greater risk of developing Alzheimers disease that those who did not.

Perhaps the most crucial remedy required to protect us from influenza, that I have yet to hear any Government spokesperson on health advise the public about, is Vitamin D. Vitamin D is possibly the most important protective remedy for flu. (http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller27.html)

Vitamin D levels fall to their lowest ebb during flu seasons due to lack of sunshine that promotes Vitamin D expression in the skin. This probably causes a fall in the body’s own antibiotics (antimicrobials peptides) that Vitamin D engineers; it switches on genes in macrophages that make antimicrobials peptides that attack and destroy bacteria and viruses. Vitamin D can also express genes that stop macrophages from overreacting to an infection and releasing too many inflammatory agents – cytokines – that can damage infected tissue; for example it down regulates genes that produce interleukin-2 and interferon gamma, two cytokines that prime macrophages and cytotoxic T cells to attack body tissues. Studies showed that children with rickets, a Vitamin D deficiency disorder, suffer from frequent respiratory infections, and children exposed to sunlight are less likely to get a cold. TB and various autoimmune diseases such as MS, Lupus and Type 1 diabetes have a causal association with low Vitamin D blood levels. Vitamin D deficiency also plays a causal role in hypertension, coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, peripheral vascular disease and stroke. ( http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/51913.php )

The increased deaths that occur in winter, mainly pneumonia and cardiovascular diseases, are therefore much more likely linked to Vitamin D deficiency than to increased prevalence of serologically positive flu virus (which also relates to Vitamin D deficiency). A double blind RCT trial showed Vitamin D prevents colds and flu significantly better than placebo (Epidemiol Infection 2007; 135:1095-6)

Vitamin A and Vitamin C should be a further consideration for storage in the flu protection cupboard; one easy way to obtain adequate vitamin D and Vitamin A is to use cod liver oil daily, especially throughout the winter and low sunshine periods; eating butter, cheese, full cream milk and other good sources of Vitamin A and D will add benefit. Vitamin C occurs in good amounts naturally in fruits and vegetables but the levels said to protect and treat viral illness like flu are much higher than naturally available; gram of Vitamin C is stored in about 30 to 40 oranges so it is probably best to use supplements during flu season, synthetic Vitamin C or ascorbic Acid. These are available over the counter or from specialist suppliers where one can vary the added ingredients, such as valuable bioflavinoids, and obtain buffered tablets to reduce impact of acid on stomach. Linus Pauling, the Nobel Prize winner and Vitamin C expert, said the average primate requires about 2.5 gms of Vitamin C per day and humans cannot synthesis their own as do certain animals like rats. 2.5 grams in terms of the RDA is an enormous amount but very many of my patients over many years state their health is supported, especially during epidemics, with 2 to 3 gms of Vitamin C per day and during epidemics they may increase to 5 or 10 gms per day depending on symptoms, or until stools become loose. Their regular daily dose is around 1gm – and I heard it said that Maggie Thatcher used to take 1gm per day to remain fit and healthy during her arduous years as PM.

There are other tried and tested natural remedies available to counter and protect against flu disorders; ask of your local health and alternative health professionals, and check products at local health food stores. Remember “one man’s meat is another man’s poison” so what does for one may not do for another, and what works for one may not work for another as we are all individuals, also that numerous survivors of the 1918 pandemic swore their survival was based on taking natural remedies, such as Gelsemium and Bryonia from the homeopathic doctor, and avoiding medications like aspirin and vaccines. (http://www.naturalnews.com/026148.html)

7. The development of vaccines in African children should inform global vaccine campaigns; the serious questions face the WHO and vaccine manufacturers.

The global development of vaccines, and the very lucrative vaccine markets, owe a great debt to African children and their families over the past four decades. Africa is an environment where many families face levels of poverty and lack of access to modern sources of information required to make informed choices on vaccination and this can leave families wide open to a monopolising view of the pharmaceutical industry and World Health Organisation which maximise deployment of vaccines amongst these low income peoples, at times without adequate recourse to studies that might provide safeguards for trial subjects who are invariably infants and children. We hear much about the successes of vaccination in sub-Saharan Africa via the mainstream media but very little of the disasters that colour the history of vaccine development in African children; even in the age of high tech communication and wide dissemination of scientific and medical data via the media most people will probably be unaware that vaccines trials in African children have led to unnecessary deaths, probably much debility, and potentially serious sex-differential effects on their populations. The data suggests that vaccine-related mortality and morbidity is a function not only of vaccine type but also of scheduling.

1. OPV with BCG at birth in Guinea Bissau cause sex-differential effect on infant mortality.

In December 2008 Benn, Aaby et al reported that OPV at birth (as recommended by the WHO for over 20 years) had a sex differential effect on mortality. They also found that poliovirus is almost eradicated and the OPV at birth contributes little to herd immunity so called for a randomised study of the effect of OPV at birth on overall mortality in both sexes. The policy to provide OPV at birth was introduced, presumably by the WHO or sanctioned by that body, in low-income countries to increase coverage but the effect of this measure on childhood mortality was never studied prior to introducing this apparently flawed policy.

During a trial of vitamin A supplementation (VAS) at a level of 50,000IU, or placebo, administered with BCG at birth between 2002-4 OPV had not been available during several periods so the team took advantage of the “natural experiment” to test the effect of OPV at birth on mortality. Providing OPV at birth had not been part of the trial but the team noted whether the child subjects had received OPV or not as it was missing for several periods in 2004. They compared death rates between children who received OPV and those who did not of 4345 children enrolled; 962 did not receive OPV at birth of which 179 died in their first year of life. Missing OPV at birth was seen to improve life expectancy for these children significantly 0.69 CI=0.46-1.03; the effect was similar amongst recipients of VAS, and of placebo. They also noted a highly significant interaction between OPV at birth and sex; not receiving OPV at birth caused a weak tendency for increased deaths in girls (1.14 0.70-1.89) but a significantly reduced number of deaths in boys 0.35 0.18-0.71).

WHO vaccination policy on distributing OPVat birth in Guinea Bissau appears to have been imposed despite there being no study investigating potential hazards or non-specific effects prior to its imposition. Those vaccinations may have killed untold numbers of male infants for many years, and may continue so to do, and as a similar policy has existed in the UK are British infants suffering unnecessary increased mortality through this practice sanctioned by Department of Health?

2. The effect of vitamin A supplementation (VAS) administered with missing vaccines in Guinea-Bissau

In August 2008 Benn, Aaby et al reported that vitamin A supplementation (VAS) is more beneficial when given with Measles Vaccine (MV) but potentially harmful when given with DTP Vaccine. The WHO recommends high-dose VAS at vaccination contacts after 6 months of age but it has never studied if the effect of VAS on mortality depends on the type of vaccine. The team studied the effects of VAS with MV and DTP vaccines and although, as they state, their study design did not allow for definite conclusions they did demonstrate that VAS with DTP seems to cause a high death rate whilst VAS with MV caused no deaths. They note that 20 of 982 VAS recipients aged 6 to 17 months old died during follow-up and no deaths could be related to VAS with MV, or VAS alone, but deaths could be related to VAS with DTP. The team further stated that the evidence suggested also that VAS with DTP caused greater mortality than DTP alone.

WHO vaccination policy distributing vitamin A supplementation during vaccination with DTP, without studying possible adverse consequences prior to adopting the policy, maybe causing unnecessary deaths in African children.

In 2009 Benn, Aaby et al that a WHO recommendation was problematic on reporting from a study in Ghana that the effect of VAS differed by vaccination status where VAS is provided at vaccination contacts. Children aged 6 to 90 months of age were randomly assigned VAS or placebo every 4 months for 2 years and vaccination status was assessed at enrolment and after 1 and 2 years. They found that VAS was beneficial only in children with no record of vaccination at enrolment. The team note that VAS in low-income countries had been estimated to reduce overall mortality by 23-30% based on several meta-analyses of VAS trials conducted in the 1980s and early 1990s yet none of those trials that found for reduced mortality had examined the link with vaccination status, hence it was not known if the reduced mortality caused by VAS was independent of vaccination. The team already knew that VAS effects varied by age group, and that BCG and MV were associated with decreased mortality when given at birth and 9 months respectively but that DTP recommended at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age was associated with increased mortality in areas where exposure to pertussis is limited due to high vaccination coverage; and that both the beneficial and negative effects of vaccines have been strongest in girls. Because Vitamin A may act as an adjuvant the team proposed that VAS might amplify non-specific effects of routine vaccinations on mortality. They further showed that VAS was associated with increased deaths amongst MV vaccinated girls who were likely to have received DTP during follow-up.

The WHO may be perpetuating policies in Africa, copied in other parts of the world, that are not based on sound understanding of the potential effects, and which are causing unnecessary deaths and sex-differential effects in African children.

4. Vitamin A supplementation and BCG vaccination at birth in low birthweight neonates

In 2010 Benn, Aaby et al reported that in Guinea Bissau 1717 low birthweight neonates born at the national hospital were randomly assigned to a 25,000IU VAS group or placebo group as well as to early BCG vaccination or the usual late BCG vaccination, and were followed up to age 12 months. The mortality rate for children receiving VAS was the same as those receiving placebo so there was no apparent advantage to the neonates to be given VAS at birth. When they combined their results with data for normal birthweight neonates they realised a significant and serious effect; worryingly, the trials show that VAS at birth can be harmful to girls.

This evidence should preclude the imposition of a WHO VAS policy for neonates as, despite three studies in Asia suggesting it would provide for reduced mortality, other studies in Africa suggested there would be no advantage, this study confirmed that. The sex-differential seen in this study, where girls appear to be at increased risk of mortality through VAS as neonates, echoed studies that had recently shown that girls receiving VAS with DTP vaccine appear at increased risk of dying.

5. Sex-associated differences in the antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity antibody response to Measles Vaccine (MV)

Atabani et al (2000) looked at differences in the immune response to MV to see if they underlie the excessive female death rate when high titre MV was trialled; they investigated 65 3 years old Gambian children who were immunized with Edmonston-Zagreb medium titre MV or Schwarz standard MV during infancy. They found that some of the females had significantly lower antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) antibody response than some of the males, and only with the Edmonston-Zagreb measles vaccine and concluded that decreased ADCC antibody activity may contribute to the higher death rate observed in females receiving high-titre measles vaccine.

Khalil MK et al (2003) discovered gender differences in the reporting of adverse events to MMR vaccination in Saudi children aged 6-13years. After vaccinations the team monitored 160 schools for 14 days and 19 hospitals in the 8 cities under study for 10 weeks. They found that incidence rates were significantly higher in females than males. Typical incidences amongst the children were for Meningitis 1/195,000, for fever 40.2/10,000 (females) and 0.9/10,000 (males), for parotitis (mumps) 5.4/10,000 (females) 0.9/10,000 (males). They concluded that these gender differences should be considered when future studies are designed.

7. Epidemiology of Pertussis in a West African Community before and after introduction of a Widespread Vaccination Program” by Preziosi et al, 2002.

The team use data from 1984 through 1996 for the occurrence of pertussis in a Senegal community and state that prior to the vaccination drives to eliminate pertussis the crude incidence rate for the disease in under 5s was 18.3%, with a mortality rate of 2.8%, i.e. mortality rate per population of under 5s of around 0.55%, approximately one in 200 under 5s likely to die of Pertussis. They evaluated the effects from the data of decline in incidence in all age groups and noted it was particularly pronounced in under 5s, and especially in the unvaccinated, suggesting it was due to herd immunity caused by vaccine programs. The decline in incidence they recorded was 27% after 3 years and 46% after 6 years follow up which represents a reduction in mortality rate from pertussis in a population to around 0.3% or about one in 300 cases.

Taking as an example the paper at 3 above; the study was used to demonstrate differences in mortality rates after vaccination when Vitamin A supplementation (VAS) was used and they noted non-specific effects involving DTP vaccine (the P being pertussis). If children had not received DTP vaccination after their measles vaccine during their first year and prior to VAS, the mortality rate was significantly less than if they had been vaccinated with DTP after their measles vaccine during the first year so DTP through some non specific effect appeared to be killing infants when introduced according to policy. There also arose serious questions concerning sex differential effects caused by DTP vaccination, which were more prominent in girls than boys.

a. Boys who received no DTP after MV prior to VAS had 0 mortality rate after VAS.

b. Boys who received a DTP vaccination after MV prior to VAS had a 2% mortality rate after VAS.

c. Girls who had no DTP after MV prior to VAS had a 1.2% mortality rate after VAS.

d. Girls who had DTP vaccination after MV prior to VAS suffered a 4.3% mortality rate after VAS.

DTP when associated with VAS appears to have a non specific death effect that is stronger in girls than boys but is significant in both sexes; when compared with the data in Preziosi et al 2002 above, the death rate caused by DTP in these particular circumstances outweighs the proposed benefits of DTP vaccination in Preziosi et al 2002 albeit the latter did not question DTP in association with VAS. Benn Aaby et al demonstrate that there may be non-specific effects of vaccines and vaccinations that confound current trial conclusions for DTP vaccines. The child deaths seem to have increased almost 400% in girls and 200% in boys when VAS was distributed for children who had received DTP and MV vaccination prior to VAS. These death rates may negate apparent benefits to the pertussis mortality rate in children that Preziosi et al suggest can be induced by vaccination.

Benn, Aaby et al suggest “the mortality age pattern following VAS is similar to the mortality pattern they observed after routine vaccinations”. They observed that many vaccines have non specific effects, BCG usually given at birth and standard measles vaccine given at 6 m of age are associated with a larger than expected reduction in all cause mortality, whereas DTP vaccine, given with OPV at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age may be associated with increased mortality in an area with herd immunity to pertussis and diphtheria. Though these observations are controversial no study has clearly contradicted these tendencies. They hypothesise that the mortality effects of VAS may depend not only on the prevention of vitamin A deficiency but also on vitamin A amplifying the non-specific immune modulation induced by routine vaccination” (Benn, Bale, Sommerfelt, Friis and Aaby 2003).

These findings should form the basis of a thorough investigation, not only in Africa and other low income countries but also in the developed world, of the impact such potential “non specific” effects of vaccine type and scheduling on all our populations.

Peter Aaby “Assumptions and contradictions in measles and measles immunization research: is measles good for something?” available Online March 2000 www.sceincedirect.com has a warning with respect to measles vaccination and measles disease. He uses various pieces of research to conclude that, as both measles vaccination (though not high titre vaccine which increases mortality) and wild measles infections appear to confer a definite survival benefit on those children who survive the infection/vaccination when compared to children who were not vaccinated or did not suffer wild measles infection, the eradication of measles may reduce a specific survival advantage for children.

The Precautionary Principle is derived from the 1990 Bergen Declaration, and states “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation”. Vaccination and global vaccine campaigns are a form of environmental exposure since vaccines contain a number of known environmental hazards from heavy metals to spurious DNA contaminants from various species whose tissue and other materials are used in the development and processing of a vaccine. The effects of these contaminants on humans are unknown.

Over the past decade numerous accounts have emerged from “low income” country communities of possible vaccine deaths.

1. BBC News Online Mon 12^th Nov 2001 reported that at least 10 children died in Assam of probable side effects to OPV and more than 500 children were admitted to government and private hospitals after falling sick; angry groups of parents protested outside the offices of the local administration.

2. www.unfoundation.org reported 14^th Nov 2001 that WHO and UNICEF was rejecting links between the OPV and the Assam children death and debility. It further reported that UNICEF was investigating possible links between liquid doses of Vitamin A given to children as part of an anti-blindness campaign since illnesses following VAS left at least one child dead and hundreds of children hospitalised. In Guwahati the state government ordered an enquiry into the death of one infant and thousands of children below the age of 5 being taken ill after VAS, and another 3 children being critical.

3. www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news 26^th January 2001 Riots swept through the Algerian town of Oued el Abtal after the deaths of 7 babies, aged between 3 and 18 months of age, after receiving Measles Vaccine, 3 dying immediately on receipt of the vaccination and the other 4 within an hour; dozens more were taken to hospital in a serious condition. People set fire to government buildings and fought police.

4. Dr Randall Neustaedter (“The vaccine guide; making an informed choice”, North Atlantic Books 1996) stated, “During a recent polio epidemic in Oman, DTP vaccination again caused the onset of paralytic polio. In that epidemic 70 children 5 to 24 months old contracted paralytic polio during 1988-89. When compared to a control group of children without polio it was found that s significantly higher percentage of these children had received a DTP vaccination within 30 days of the onset of polio, 43 % of victims v 28% controls (Sutter et al 1992).”

5. Morton S. Biskind MD “Public Health Aspects of the New Insecticides” American Journal of Digestive Diseases, New Yorks, 1953 v20, p331, refers to pesticides, in particular DDT, as a suspected cause of polio.

The following BBC podcasts contain interviews with researchers in the field: "The Vaccine Detectives", Part One and Two

Any advertiser who makes an efficacy claim for their product or service in an advertisement is expected to hold substantiation for those claims.

That seems reasonable

Claims should not be presented as universally accepted if there is as division of scientific opinion as to the efficacy of the product.

That seems reasonable, though it is unusual in my experience to find any claim to universal acceptance for any medicine since science itself can only be as valid as the current theoretical base.

Products that make medicinal claims need to be approved by the MHRA before they are able to be advertised, this is a legal requirement and not enforced by the ASA.

Products that make medicinal claims do have to be approved by the MHRA, but not acupuncture. Acupuncture is not a “product” under current MHRA notation.

The ASA applies the rules in the Advertising Codes.

That seems reasonable.

The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) is the industry body responsible for writing the rules.

That is how CAP and the ASA seem to work together, although what is meant by “rules”, and how these may or may not apply to business advertising, especially medical or scientific-based advertising is not made clear. CAP does not appear to have any medical science, or science research, or professional CAM researcher scientists or practitioners aboard to create definitions or in support of CAP “rule” making so one wonders on what basis are their “rules” created.

The CAP Copy Advice team are available to help advertisers and marketers with queries relating to their advertising and marketing material.

That seems reasonable; it is incumbent on CAP to ensure their advice is valid on content, especially medical or scientific content and it cannot make said advice up itself, it must obtain this from appropriate objective non-vested interest scientific sources generated by people having expertise in the subject/technology in question.

The advice given by CAP Copy Advice is not binding.

That is because CAP has no power to enforce or “bind” anyone to their opinion.

Advertisers can choose to ignore their advice. Similarly, the ASA Council is not bound by any advice given by CAP.

That is because neither CAP nor ASA have any power to enforce or bind and no remit nor the expertise themselves to scientifically assess content. Statutory authorities such as Trading Standards, the OFT or MHRA can commission appropriate scientific expertise.

On 1st March our remit was extended to include marketing communications on company websites and also in other online space under their control, such as on Facebook and twitter. Since the extension of our remit to include marketing material on company websites we have received a number of enquiries from health practitioners. The following information may be useful in understanding our current position in this area:

That is reasonable.

The UK Code of Non-Broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (the CAP Code), holds that “Objective claims must be backed by evidence, if relevant consisting of trials conducted on people. If relevant, the rules in this section apply to claims for products for animals. Substantiation will be assessed on the basis of the available scientific knowledge [...]” (Rule 12.1). This means that advertisers making claims that they can offer treatment for specific medical conditions will need to hold appropriate evidence, in line with the above rule.

That is reasonable, but neither CAP nor ASA have expertise or remit to assess the reasonableness or validity of scientific advice or evidence. Neither do they have the ability or expertise to adjudicate on what is and is not “available scientific knowledge”.

The ASA has, over the course of many investigations into claims made in many different offline mediums (press, posters, leaflets, etc.) taken the reasonable interpretation that listing medical conditions is an implied offer to treat them, in much the same way that a clinic listing screening and health services, but not actually offering them, would be likely to mislead consumers. Advertisers will therefore need to hold appropriate evidence to support such claims.

That is reasonable; but CAP and ASA have neither experience nor expertise in deciding what is appropriate evidence. If they question evidence for an advertiser, they must refer the question to objective, non vested interest, experts in the field; they have neither power nor expertise to adjudicate on “evidence”.

Having just taken on the regulation of marketing communications online, we have yet to definitely establish whether this interpretation will be similarly taken in relation to advertisers’ claims on their own websites, but it seems likely that this will be the case.

That is reasonable so long as CAP/ASA do not themselves attempt to define what is evidence or what is scientific knowledge.

Advertisers will also need to be aware of Rule 12.2, which states: “Marketers must not discourage essential treatment for conditions for which medical supervision should be sought. For example, they must not offer specific advice on, diagnosis of or treatment for such conditions unless that advice, diagnosis or treatment is conducted under the supervision of a suitably qualified health professional. Accurate and responsible general information about such conditions may, however, be offered [...]” So unless the advertisers are an appropriately qualified health professional, the ASA has previously considered that it is not appropriate to offer specific advice on, diagnosis of or treatment of potentially serious medical conditions and these will need to be removed. It is worth noting that general information about such medical conditions including, for example, links to appropriate evidence that is both accurate and responsible, is likely to be acceptable.

Generally reasonable though areas which suggest the ASA may be going beyond its remit; she does not make clear whether “Rule” 12.2 a CAP rule, or a statutory “rule”, or what a suitably qualified health professional is, although she qualifies this by stating that valid advice can be given by anyone if it is accurate and responsible. It is unlikely that ASA can censor or limit free speech, or impose restrictions on who gives “advice” as long as it is reasonable and accurate whether by advert or speech in any medium; ASA cannot define “potentially serious medical conditions” unless these are defined in statute or Common Law, and they are not.

The Committee of Advertising Practice team can offer free advice to practitioners who want to check their advertising against the requirements of the Advertising Codes. They also provide extensive advice via their website. For example they provide specific guidance on what is currently likely to be acceptable in ads for acupuncture as follows:

That ought to be reasonable, depending what CAP advice is given

This section should be read in conjunction with the entry on ‘Therapies, General’.
Acupuncture is the insertion of needles into the skin and underlying tissues in key ‘points’ for therapeutic or preventative purposes. The stimulation of certain “trigger points” – probably nerve fibres or receptors – with needles, electrical impulses or lasers is thought to induce rhythmic discharges that cause a release of endogenous opioids and oxytocin. Other theories have been put forward to explain acupuncture’s apparent success at relieving menopausal hot flushes and sweats and reducing skin-flap necrosis in reconstructive surgery.

This is wholly inadequate. It does not constitute any scientific or professional definition of acupuncture according to any nationally recognised or internationally recognised documentation, statute or Common Law definition.. It would be a figment of the ASA/CAP imagination and has no legal or other binding foundation. Neither CAP nor ASA have any right or privilege to impose such an inaccurate, contrived, definition nor do they have the expertise.

CAP understands that no statutory regulation exists for acupuncture practitioners and they should not claim to be able to treat serious or prolonged conditions (Rule 12.2). Marketers of acupuncture are advised to encourage consumers to take independent medical advice (Rule 12.3).

This wholly inadequate. It has no merit. CAP has neither right nor expertise to impose such condition, or “rule” on advertisers. “Treating serious and prolonged conditions” is what medical and CAM medical practices do, nationally and internationally, there is no legal nor statutory restriction on this, and so neither can CAP nor ASA can impose such restrictions; that would be acting beyond remit.

CAP is unlikely to accept claims that acupuncture can treat tinnitus or can control appetite. Although commonly claimed, we have not seen evidence that acupuncture can either help quit smoking or aid weight loss (Chinese Medicine Centre, 14 January 2004). And CAP has not seen evidence that acupuncture can “de-tox” the body, improve blood circulation, increase metabolism or boost energy.

This is wholly inadequate; CAP cannot define what acupuncture can treat, or what is evidence, it has neither expertise nor legal status to impose any such limitations or restrictions. It would have to refer this for expert scientific opinion to objective non vested interest expertise equally in the public and professionals interest.

Marketers occasionally claim that acupuncture can help delay or prevent ageing. To date, neither CAP nor the ASA has seen evidence that acupuncture can slow down, reverse or even relieve the superficial signs of ageing. CAP, therefore, advises marketers not to make claims relating to the improvement of the appearance of skin conditions (scarring as well as the signs of ageing). Acupuncture practitioners may, however, claim they can help treat dental pain, nausea and vomiting, provide short-term relief of tension-type headache and provide temporary adjunctive treatment for osteoarthritis knee pain (the latter must include the stated caveats). Practitioners may be asked to supply evidence for the efficacy of their treatment in the event of an ASA challenge (Herbmedic, 22 October 2003 (complaint 4)).

This is wholly inadequate, way beyond remit; the prose would be challenged in any debate or court of law. Neither CAP nor ASA can rule or decide on any scientific or scientific evidential matter, they have to refer for objective scientific advice. Attempting to limit acupuncture to treating the few conditions demonstrates the naivety and inappropriate thinking at CAP/ASA, there is no expertise available nor consensus on these issues nationally nor internationally, in science. Practitioners should be expected to supply evidence for claims if requested but that evidence cannot be restricted by any inaccurate and inadequate consensus opinion of CAP; any evidence must be referred for proper expert opinion from ASA, not to CAP, to appropriately qualified and experienced expertise if available.

At the time of writing, scientific studies seemed inconclusive for some conditions and marketers are advised not to advertise acupuncture for them unless they have robust evidence to support efficacy. Those conditions include addictions, asthma, headaches, feeling blue, certain types of facial pain, trouble sleeping, lateral elbow pain, shoulder pain, low back pain and neck pain. It might be possible, however, to speak about the purely sensory effects of acupuncture and make claims about well-being and well-feeling or to use phrases such as “feel revitalised”, “more positive” or “relaxed”.

Again this is way beyond the remit of CAP and ASA. They have no authority nor right in law to try defining or imposing definitions on scientific and professional practices or policies unless there is a statutory or Common Law definition they can apply; they have no remit to create such definitions.

Evidence is almost certainly going to have to include placebo-controlled trials on humans and back in 1998 the Lancet suggested that a placebo acupuncture needle (which pricks the skin without penetrating it) might be suitable for use in such trials.

More nonsense from the ASA spokesperson which illustrates that ASA may be making rules and decisions that are beyond right or remit.

Neither CAP nor the ASA accepts that hand-held acupuncture and acupressure devices work (Dove Alliance UK Ltd, December 1999).

Neither CAP nor the ASA can opine on scientific or technological matters without expertise being provided on the specific science or technology addressed; it shows naivety of CAP/ASA and suggests they may be misusing or abusing their position.

CAP also produces a help note with regards to ailments in health ads – I have attached for reference.

CAP has no expertise for this; any help note would have to be published in accord with ones legal and underpinned by appropriate scientific expert consensus if there is one.

Advertisers do not have to follow CAP’s guidance, although by doing so they are limiting the possibility of any complaint made about their advertising being upheld as the CAP Executive have a detailed knowledge of the Advertising Codes and can refer to previous decisions made by the ASA Council. It is also worth noting that their guidance is not set in stone and they will consider any new evidence or appropriate information which becomes available and update their guidance as appropriate.

CAP and ASA do not have any powers to prosecute or enforce their opinion. It is reasonable that they are prepared to consider new evidence albeit their current statements on many aspects of CAM seem naïve and badly prepared, lacking in objectivity or serious analysis or investigation of the available evidence. This is not a good basis on which to try imposing their own “rules” on the public.

I know you have queried our authority in this area. I can only say that the system of ad regulation has been in place for nearly 50 years and is recognised by the Government and courts. We endeavour to make our procedures as open and transparent as possible. Our procedures are open to judicial review and have been tested by the courts on previous occasions and have been found to be reasonable and fair.

If reasonable and fair, despite their lack of scientific objectivity, it would be surprising since to be reasonable and fair one does not impose inaccurate and inadequate “rules”, nor create definitions and conclusions on scientific and technological issues without a comprehensive appraisal of the available scientific evidence.

The Manager Esra Erkal-Paler, Director of Communications, Policy and Marketing, later commented: Our role is not to question the validity of acupuncture or Chinese herbal medicine as therapies – we are merely concerned with the content (and placement) of ads. The key test we apply is that ads must be legal, decent, honest and truthful in order not to mislead, offend or harm consumers. And that advertisers must be able to substantiate the claims they make – those can be explicit as well as implied claims. This is why it is important for us to consider each ad on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the likely overall impression on the intended audience. These rules are in place not just to protect consumers, but also to provide a level playing field for advertisers.

The Manager made sensible points. Legal, decent, honest and truthful is reasonable. Substantiating claims is reasonable. Case-by-Case basis is reasonable and lawful. The Manager seems to understand that CAP and ASA cannot impose “reason”, “rules”, or “definitions” that are not nationally or internationally recognised in a professed field, especially without the expertise. Unfortunately the Manager was not requested to go over the comments made in her absence by the ASA spokesperson, as one gets the impression that her answers may have been very different.

The ASA is overseen by Lord Chris Smith who seems to be a man of integrity; it is to be hoped he recognises the unacceptable activity currently taking place at CAP and ASA and installs some integrity and professionalism into what appears to be misplaced enthusiasm to pontificate on matters and principles for which there is neither adequate expertise nor a statutory remit to allow for the making of "rules" promoting CAP definitions having no national or international professional status or expertise since these are being displayed inappropriately at CAM advertisers. Lord Smith might also initiate an investigation to see if CAP and the ASA are used to launch malicious attacks, through the use of formal complaints, against CAM practitioners by groups of individuals rather than reasonable complaints made by concerned members of the public as this would constitute an abuse of the advertising standards system.

Morley Acupuncture Clinic
1 Queen Street, Morley, Leeds LS27 8EG, UK
tel/ fax 0113 2380208

e-mail heptonstall@gmail.com
John P. Heptonstall, M.D. (M.A.), B.Sc. (Hons.), D.Ac., M.I.Ac.S., M.B.Ac.C., M.R.S.M
Traditional Chinese Medicine - Acupuncture & Moxibustion Specialist

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Articles

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Introduction

Evidence-base

Trial types which assess the EBM of TCM

The EPA Case

Morley Acupuncture Clinic 1 Queen Street, Morley, Leeds LS27 8EG, UK tel/ fax 0113 2380208

e-mail heptonstall@gmail.com John P. Heptonstall, M.D. (M.A.), B.Sc. (Hons.), D.Ac., M.I.Ac.S., M.B.Ac.C., M.R.S.M Traditional Chinese Medicine - Acupuncture & Moxibustion Specialist

Home Location Products Information Treatment

Articles

1. Thoughts on Evidence-based Medicine Abstract

Key Words

Introduction

Evidence-base

Trial types which assess the EBM of TCM

The EPA Case

Morley Acupuncture Clinic
1 Queen Street, Morley, Leeds LS27 8EG, UK
tel/ fax 0113 2380208

e-mail heptonstall@gmail.com
John P. Heptonstall, M.D. (M.A.), B.Sc. (Hons.), D.Ac., M.I.Ac.S., M.B.Ac.C., M.R.S.M
Traditional Chinese Medicine - Acupuncture & Moxibustion Specialist