MSBP THE THEORY FALSE ALLEGATIONS PART 2

[Alison J Stevens]

Vaccines, a differential viewpoint

For many years professionals have been linking adverse reactions to vaccines with autism, neurological disorders, sudden infant death and symptoms mimicking those of shaken baby syndrome,
however, professionals are now also linking adverse reactions to
vaccines with a rise in false allegations of child abuse. These come in
the guise of MSBP, SBS and murder after a child dying of SIDS.

One of the first professionals linking adverse reactions of vaccines with SIDS is Prof Gordon Stewart. He wrote a large number of papers including one in the Lancet in 1979 “Deaths of infants after triple vaccine Lancet 2; 353” listed here on work by Professor Gordon Stewart
under a letter he wrote to the BMJ . The letter details much of
Stewart’s in depth work in the 1970’s showing links that he had seen to
the vaccine DPT and children dying suddenly of SIDS. Part of the letter
relates to Sally Clark, a British women jailed for the killing of her
two children after they had died cot deaths Prof Stewart says:-

“Stewart (1976), GT; Immunisation against whooping cough; British Medical Journal, 31 January 1976; letters:

This correspondence recalls your earlier reports about the conviction of Sally Clarkfor murder in trials for the sudden deaths of her two infants, and about her own death after the conviction had been annulled. I am
writing about this because on 18th August 1999 I was approached by
solicitors in Manchester who were defending Mrs Clark against the
charge of having murdered her two infant sons, Christopher in 1996 and
Harry in 1998. They asked me to read and advise them on reports on
these deaths by paediatricians, pathologists and other experts
beginning with the autopsies performed by Dr Williams, the Coroner’s
pathologist at Macclesfield, Cheshire.

I found, as Dr Williams did, that the two deaths were different and that for this and other reasons, the reports sent to me were confusing,
contradictory and inconclusive. None of them offered a conclusion
fulfilling the requirement that a verdict of unnatural death had to be
beyond reasonable doubt, so I wrote back to the defending solicitors to
say that a charge of murder was unjustified. The same opinion was given
by one of the experts, Professor John Emery, a leading authority in the
UK on Sudden Unexplained Infant Deaths (SUID). Christopher had been
cremated but Professor Emery had conducted a second autopsy on Harry in
the presence of another expert witness. He was unable, under the
circumstances, to give a definite opinion about the cause of death but
he did exclude, as I did, unnatural death due to murder. We agreed that
the deaths were different and noted that Harry had received an
injection of triple vaccine about 4 hours before his death which could
have occurred after admission to hospital. I had already asked the
solicitors for more details, and was awaiting a reply from them to
enable me to write a fuller report.

I was therefore astonished to read some months later in The Times that Sally Clark had been tried at Chester Crown Court and found guilty of
murdering her two infant sons. I wrote immediately (on 24th April,
2000) to the solicitors questioning this verdict. They did not reply
but I learned that neither Professor Emery’s report nor mine had been
quoted in Court, and that conviction by the jury had apparently been
based on the Judge’s acceptance of the opinion of Sir Roy Meadow that
the chance of the second death (of Harry) being natural in the
circumstances was one in 73 million. I regarded this as an absurd and
unproven statistic, and was surprised also that the Defence had failed
to refer to Emery’s report and mine which were favourable to their
client.

The solicitors in Manchester did not reply to a second letter but I then received a call from a new solicitor (JB) who wanted to consult me
about the verdict, and his instruction by Sally, her husband and father
to appeal against it. They were consulting me because Dr W H (Bill)
Inman, former Principal Medical Officer at the Ministry of Health and
Chief Medical adviser to the Committee on the Safety of Medicines had
recommended that they should do so because of my experience with
vaccines. We arranged a meeting at my home and he came there with
Sally’s father (FL) and more evidence. We discussed the case and the
reasons for appeal for several hours, and arranged a further meeting,
at Sally’s father’s residence in Salisbury where he had been
Superintendent of Police until his retirement, A long sequence of
telephone calls, correspondence and a further meeting followed, and led
to the Appeal, which was rejected by three Judges who sidelined the one
in 73 million statistic. Additional evidence was available from a
professor of paediatric neurology and a professor of epidemiology, both
from centres of excellence respectively in USA and UK. Their opinion
was that the injection of pertussis vaccine given along with other
vaccines was more likely than not to have been the cause of Harry’s
death, and that Christopher’s death was different.

All of this and much more clinical and forensic detail about the two deaths is available in the transcripts, correspondence and especially
in the book Stolen Innocence by John Batt, all of which contain
additional reasons for questioning the conviction. For instance, it was
revealed that the medics who transported Harry alive to the hospital in
Macclesfield and the three doctors – a casualty officer, a registrar
and a consultant paediatrician – who examined and tried unsuccessfully
to revive him were not called to give evidence. There is no proof
anywhere that the vaccines used (DTP/Hib/Polio) cause death but the
pertussis component was the whole cell preparation are known to be
associated with apnoea, shock, encephalopathy, and very occasionally
with deaths, which led Sir Graham Wilson, former and first Director of
the PHLS, to say in his book on Hazards of Immunization that
life-spoiling and threatening reacticns, especially after pertussis
vaccine and in the context of incomplete or non -protection were too
frequent to justify mass vaccination. These features, widely-recognized
internationally, led some countries in the 1960’s and others later to
omit pertussis from childhood programmes and to replacement of the
whole-cell vaccine with an acellular replacement. In the UK, this did
not happen until 2006. It should be noted also that the three main
manufacturers of pertussis vaccine in the UK and 10/13 in the USA
withdrew their products between 1978 and 1986. These facts are
important because vaccination is compulsory in most States of the USA
and some in the EC. This removes the safeguard of parental option,
respect for contraindications and medical discretion.

This information was understandably lacking in Clare Dyer’s short article. Sally Clark was acquitted after five years in prison only
because bacteriological reports about a questionable staphylococcal
infection had been with-held by Dr Williams and others from the
previous hearings. The success of Dr Williams’s appeal ensures that
expert witnesses can overlook or with-hold essential evidence without
fear of the penalty that can be imposed legally on criminal defendants,
of whom Sally is just one. [2008] Rapid Responses to Does cot death still exist?”

The most interesting fact about the Sally Clark trial was the Expert Witness used by the prosecution was Professor Roy Meadow who had known for some years that adverse reactions to vaccines and SIDS were linked.
He knew about Prof Gordon Stewart’s work and had had access to his
papers when they were discussed because he was a member of the Joint
Committee of Vaccination and Immunization in the UK, this is the
committee who advises the British Government on the safety of vaccines.
As a member of the JCVI he sat on meetings in the 1980’s Sir Roy Medows Meetings
hearing the evidence of links between the DPT vaccine and sudden infant
death. However. despite this knowledge and clear conflict of interest,
he has testified as an expert witness in many trials where parents have
been accused of child abuse and refused to acknowledge that vaccines
may have contributed to their child’s condition or death.

In the article Professor Sir Roy Meadow reports: Michael Nott: A Failure to Learn … Michael Nott an advocate for mothers accused of Munchausen Syndrome (factitious illness) by proxy says:-

“Meadow was struck off by the British General Medical Council (July 2005) for serious professional misconduct relating to statistical evidence he gave at the trial of Sally Clark. At his
professional misconduct hearing, Meadow’s principal defence was that he
had not held himself out and should not have been treated as an
‘expert’ witness in child abuse. However, he has written numerous
articles and edited books on child abuse. He forged a substantial
career as an expert witness in this area. In Australia, he has
presented himself as an expert in child abuse, provided expert opinions
on cases involving deaths of children and MSBP, and has liaised with
many Australian professionals on the issues.

According to Stephen Clark, Sally Clark’s lawyer husband, when Meadow was asked to produce the data supporting the evidence at his wife’s committal hearing (and which underpinned his
entire career) he initially prevaricated, then eventually admitted he
was unable to do so because his secretary had ‘shredded it’. This meant
that his evidence could not be properly tested.

Clark said Meadow was found guilty of serious professional misconduct not simply because he made a one-off mistake. ‘It was because he gave “misleading and erroneous evidence” outside his
expertise that was “compounded by repetition over a considerable period
of time”, the British General Medical Council (GMC) found. Meadow went
on to embellish it and failed to disclose evidence that provided
balance.’

Clark said the GMC rejected Meadow’s arguments that he was not an expert and that everyone except him was to blame. ‘The GMC determined that Meadow had “abused” his position as a doctor and may
have seriously undermined the authority of doctors giving evidence.’

Stephen Clark made the point that at Sally’s second appeal hearing 12, leading British and international medical experts made statements, with varying degrees of certainty, but all to the
effect that following the discovery of medical reports which had
previously not been disclosed, his son Harry had died from an
overwhelming bacterial septicaemia. The appeal court, Clark states,
held that Meadow’s statistics were ‘grossly misleading’ and
‘overstated’ and sufficient on their own to make Sally’s conviction
unsafe.

The statistical evidence that Clark is convinced resulted in the original false conviction of Sally Clark and the disbarring of Meadow has been used in a similar fashion at the
committal hearings of a NSW woman who was subsequently convicted of
killing her four children. The USA professional, Dr Janice Ophoven, who
provided the statistical evidence for the woman’s committal hearings
also gave expert opinion in a similar case in Victoria.

Meadow is also responsible for the child abuse belief of MSBP, or Munchausen syndrome (factitious illness) by proxy (The Lancet, 1977) that is widely accepted in the child protection sector, police
and judiciary in Australia. The basis of this allegation is that a
parent or other carer has deliberately fabricated or induced an illness
in a child. There is no scientifically-based evidence to support
Meadow’s beliefs that were based on anecdotal comments on two of his
patients. Meadow fails to consider other reasons for a child’s death or
illness. These include vaccination damage, adverse reaction to drugs or
the combination of drugs, toxic poisoning, allergies to foods or food
additives or an adverse reaction to chemicals, genetic problems, doctor
negligence or misdiagnoses and the like. Rather, when the matters are
fully investigated there are compelling evidentiary alternatives to an
unsupported belief that a mother killed her child or caused the child
to be sick”.

Mr Nott studied law at the University of Western Sydney and was a senior media and communications officer for Australian federal and state government departments and agencies and was formerly a journalist.

Lisa Blakemore-Brown was one of the first professionals in the world to notice a link between vaccines, the children she was assessing with Autism and false accusations of child abuse called Munchausen by Proxy
(MSBP). She voiced her fears and suspicions again and again but instead
of being listened to, she was ignored and patronised.

In June 1998 an article appeared in The Therapist written by Lisa Blakemore-Brown, this was a year after Sir Roy Meadow had himself written an article for The Therapist. She was asked to
write this when on reading Lisa Blakemore-Brown’s letter in the
‘Psychologist’ Psychologist letter
the Editor of the The Therapist contacted Lisa Blakemore-Brown to ask
if she would write an article showing the opposite view to start
debate. The Therapist article began :-

“A young mother took her son for one of the routine vaccinations of childhood. That night he developed a dangerously high temperature and soon afterwards started banging his head, soiling and
gradually lost all his language. His behaviour became erratic, he
couldn’t relate to others and he was difficult to control.
Investigations followed which led to the diagnoses of Asperger’s
syndrome, a form of autism. Suspecting that the vaccination might have
been the cause, although nothing could be proven, the mother decided
not to have her next three children vaccinated.

As time went on she kept pestering the social services department for respite care, because she found her eldest boy so difficult to deal with. She became to been seen as a bit of a nuisance.
It was suggested despite the known diagnoses of Asperger’s Syndrome
that his symptoms might perhaps of been induced by the mother herself.
An expert was called in and she was accused of Munchausen Syndrome by
Proxy (MSBP). – deliberately her child. Her two youngest children were
taken into foster care and the youngest was taken from the foster home
against the mothers wishes to be vaccinated. Instantly and tragically ,
the child’s behaviour deteriorated in the same way her eldest brother’s
had done.

The foster mother had videotapes of the little girl’s behaviour before and after the vaccination and yet the younger children are even now being put up for adoption.”

This is just one of many of Blakemore-Brown’s accounts of a change of behaviour immediately after vaccination, and a subsequent MSBP accusation.

In a speech she gave in 2005 at the House of Lords Lisa Blakemore-Brown
speech at House of Lords she said :-

“The range of conditions on the increase in the last few years include: Apnea, Reflux, Allergies and food intolerances, gastro-intestinal problems, autistic spectrum disorders, ADHD, ME/CFS
etc. It is the mothers whose children have these conditions who are
likely to be accused of causing them or exaggerating them. All of these
have been implicated in iatrogenic abuse, which is NEVER considered as
part of the differential diagnosis, for some curious reason. Auto
immune disorders, congenital abnormalities, birth trauma and the
greater likelihood of problems given prematurity, are simply not
considered as the suspicion of the demonised mother in the MSBP theory
swamps reasoning.

In a Survey of families undertaken in 2003 and presented at Portcullis House, mainly from the Isle of Wight but including others experiencing the same problems of feeling blamed for their children’s
difficulties and being totally unable to access appropriate services
for them, over 80% felt blamed and targeted, over 70% felt the process
was highly stressful and over 90% felt frightened. Amongst this group,
28% of the babies were in Special Care Baby Units and 13% were
prescribed essential medication during pregnancy. The range of their
children’s problems echoed those listed above as having increased
dramatically over the last few years, with over 70% displaying
obsessional behaviour and literacy difficulties, over 65% suffering
from anxieties, attentional problems, social exclusion and learning
difficulties, 50% suffering from motor impairments and bowel problems,
over 30% suffering from allergies and 30% suffering from depression.

The effects of Vitamin K and C deficiencies following vaccines in vulnerable children have been misinterpreted as fractures or cigarette burns. (Kalokerinos 1981, Innis 2002. Clemetson 2002) and
Professor Meadow’s own paper makes interesting reading in this regard.
Mercury effects from thimerosal in vaccines (Simpsonwood meeting 2000)
are never introduced as part of the differential diagnosis. Neither are
the side effects of drugs such as Cisapride given for gastro-intestinal
problems, now taken off the market due to serious side effects and
sudden death”.

Dr Michael Innis another professional worried about the false allegations of child abuse, has been speaking on the issues of Vitamin K and C deficiencies following vaccines, in vulnerable children, that
have been misinterpreted as fractures or cigarette burns for many
years. He says in his paper [pdf]
Vaccines, Apparent Life-Threatening Events, Barlow’s Disease,... that

“Apparent Life-Threatening Events (ALTEs), as defined by the National Institutes of Health, encompass all the findings hitherto attributed to .Shaken Baby Syndrome. (SBS), and may follow

routine vaccination. Vaccines may also induce vitamin C deficiency (Barlow.s disease), especially in formula-fed infants or infants whose mothers smoke. This could account for some of the changes
seen in these infants, including haemorrhages, bruises, and fractures.
Vitamin C deficiency should be excluded in patients suspected to have
SBS”.

Another worried expert is Charles Pragnell who left Britain to work in Australia. Pragnell has a Diploma in Social Work and Letter of Recognition in Child Care and is Expert Witness – Child Protection and
Social Care Consultant and Child/Family Advocate. He has written many
articles on the subject and in 2007 he wrote one called Iatrogenic Child87 Abuse and another Vaccines and Child Abuse Accusations he stated-

“There can be no debate that some vaccines cause very serious injury and even death, to some children. This has been recognised by both the British government(1980) and the U.S.A.
government (VAERS Act 1986) for over 20 years and both governments have
provided compensation schemes to families with children who have
suffered such adverse reactions. Under both Schemes doctors are
required to report every adverse reaction of a child to a vaccine to a
central government body but it is reasonably estimated that less than
one in ten are so reported.

Many parents in many places around the world have given personal testimony that following the administration of vaccines to their child, the child has become seriously ill within hours or days.
Such illnesses have taken many forms but commonly they are febrile,
listless, and some are reported to have experienced epileptic seizures.

Within days or a few short weeks, parents report that their child then takes on a totally different personality – they are distant, unable to make eye contact, they are constantly restless and
hyperactive – “they have gone into their own little world” is an often
stated assessment by the parents. The parent, quite naturally, becomes
extremely anxious and fraught as they lose contact with their child.
They want their child to be healthy and normal, as the child was in the
first few weeks after birth. So what has happened they wonder?.

In the Britain, the parent will usually seek help and advice from the Health Visitor and perhaps their General Practitioner but this is when they are hit with the first of the `Double Whammies’.

The Health Visitor reports them to the Child Protection agencies as their child is “failing to thrive” and is not reaching its expected developmental milestones. They are seen as over-anxious and if
they seek a second medical opinion, they are accused of
`Doctor-shopping’. In the UK they are then called to a Child Protection
Conference with all the assembled professionals usually after being
subjected to an extremely invasive child protection investigation. They
are not allowed representation although they are being accused of a
criminal offence of neglecting their child and they are summarily found
guilty merely on the opinions and suppositions of the professionals
present, many of whom they have never met before. Their child’s name is
placed on the Children `At Risk Register’ and they are now branded and
stigmatized as `Child Abusers’ in their local community. They can
expect no sympathy nor understanding from their neighbours, friends, or
even some of their relatives, many of them with the horrifying thought,
“there but for the Grace of God, go I” .

If they are fortunate, the parents will only experience this state of stigmatization and the accompanying isolation and societal condemnation, if they are unfortunate the matter will be taken
to Court and the child will be removed from their care, often
permanently. Child Protection agencies are reluctant to take this
latter step, not because they think the parents are innocent or can
manage the care of the child, but because such children with mental
and/or physical disabilities are not usually suitable for adoption or
long-term fostering which would be immensely expensive to the agency.

Health Visitors, Doctors, and social workers lack the knowledge, or find it incomprehensible, or simply collude in the Dept of Health propaganda that “vaccines are safe” and deny even the
possibility that the vaccines are to blame for the child’s mental or
physical disabilities and developmental delays. To challenge the
received wisdom of the Department of Health would be a heinous sin in
professional circles with appropriate chastisements and sanctions
likely to follow.

But worse is to follow for the parents of the mentally and/or physically disabled child. Firstly they are left to cope alone with the demands and needs of their child who requires almost 24 hours
a day supervision, sometimes has to be fed, and their personal care
needs met. The parent becomes gradually and totally exhausted and
emotionally and mentally drained. But worse awaits them – the Triple
Whammy!. If they have been persistent with seeking help for their child
or just lucky, they may have obtained a diagnosis by a psychologist
that their child is autistic within the Spectrum of Autistic Disorders
and requires special education provision suitable to his/her needs. The
child is probably now aged 7. 8. 9, or 10 years. They then face years
of battling with the Education Authority to obtain a Statement of
Special Needs and even when this is finally achieved, and usually only
after appealing to a Special Tribunal, the Education Authority can’t or
won’t make the appropriate provision. Either because the Special
Schools in the area have all been closed under the central government
policies of `integrating’ all disabled children into mainstream schools
or because the Education Authority do not wish to bear the very high
costs of such special education.

Although it can occur earlier, it is usually at this point that the parent is accused of `Fabricating or Inducing the Child’s Illness/Disability’ a catch-all theory of child abuse based on
the scientifically fraudulent and infamous `Munchausen Syndrome By
Proxy’. The parents are stunned – it is unbelievable!. They are now
accused of causing their child’s autism or other disability, perhaps
Asperger’s Syndrome, or ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or Cystic
Fibrosis, or ADHD, or any combination of these disabilities or
diseases. !.”

Dr Harold Buttram also an expert concerned that parents are being falsely accused of child abuse after their child has suffered an adverse reaction to a vaccine, wrote the paper Dr Harold Buttram
Shaken Baby Syndrome And Non Accidental Injury Are Parents and Care Givers Being Falsely Accused? In his introduction he says:-

“These cases fall in three general categories: (1) Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), in which it is assumed that a parent or caretaker, exhausted and irritated by a fussy baby, picks up the infant
by its chest or heels and shakes the baby with such violence that any
onlooker would recognize it as excessive and dangerous. (2)
Non-accidental trauma in which there may be incidental head or body
impact against a solid object during the shaking, and (3) infants with
multiple fractures. The latter is addressed in a separate monograph.
Based on personal observations of more than 10 years, in each of these
categories there have been patterns of precipitous diagnoses of
inflicted child abuse without first establishing a differential
diagnosis and ruling out other possible causes of the findings. Due to
these deficiencies, many parents and caretakers are being falsely
accused and criminally convicted. In any other medical speciality,
these failures to establish a differential diagnosis.”

He goes on to say later in the paper -

“One of the gross errors throughout the history of childhood vaccines has been a failure to take into account the fatty nature of the brain, a large portion of which consists of
polyunsaturated fatty acids and therefore highly vulnerable to
inflammatory lipid peroxidation.”

Lisa Blakemore-Brown remains convinced that professionals are covering up the truth in favour of blaming the parent and said as much in a letter to the BMJ rapid responses. Sadly the letter was not
published in full and one can only presume from this, that this was due
to her blunt honesty which left some with a bitter taste. The group One
Click News did however print this in full a few weeks later Omissions Prove What is really going on in the system. In the letter Blakemore-Brown makes her feelings very clear.

“Adverse reactions to vaccines are well known”

Everyone working in public health knows that there are adverse reactions to every drug and vaccine that’s ever been manufactured. These reactions are multiple and have been studied by
medics for decades. What is shocking is that instead of admitting this,
extraordinary efforts have been put in place to damn those who dare to
mention them, including the innocent parents who took their child for
vaccine and watched them react. Ms Coombes, sad to say, joins the ranks
of the establishment who will do anything rather than admit that
sometimes vaccines cause adverse reactions to some people. That
includes blaming the parents and hounding them to their own graves.”

After studying the above evidence from many experts worldwide and bearing in mind that this is only a small fraction of the growing volume of professionals speaking out for parents who now believe that
their false accusation of child abuse, came after a vaccine injury, it
begins to paints a very scary picture of what is really going on in the
world of child protection. Are parents being falsely accused of
injuring or even killing their children in a bid to hide what is really
going on and that is that vaccines are not the quick fix to a healthy
world after all?

value, the theory of msbp.