http://www.fleshandstone.net/healthandsciencenews/1662.html
Poisoning attempt charges filed against French H1N1
campaign
24 October, 2009 05:17:00
Michael Cosgrove
In what is being seen as the first of many such actions to come, nine
individuals have filed formal charges claiming that the H1N1 campaign is a
deliberate attempt to poison the French population.
These charges, which were filed yesterday, could not come at a more
inopportune moment for the government and health specialists. The vaccination
campaign got underway last Tuesday in a climate of national skepticism as to the
vaccine’s safety and efficiency, and this news will surely boost the morale of
the increasing number of anti-vaccine lobbyists who are beginning to organize
their resistance to any attempt to vaccinate the population against H1N1.
Nine inhabitants of the Isére region of France are cited as joint plaintiffs in
the case, including a health sector worker, a teacher and a radio talk show
host. They met each other at various public meetings held to denounce the
vaccine’s alleged health risks.
The charges take the form of a ‘plainte contre X’ which means that the
perpetrator of an alleged crime or felony is not known, or is not named, in the
charge sheet. This is a commonly used manner of filing complaints in France,
particularly where the charges relate to supposed government implication in
alleged breaches of the law. In cases where those trials proceed after prior
examination of the facts, the specific persons or organizations concerned are
designated and charged as the trial proceeds.
Jean-Pierre Joseph, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, describes the vaccination campaign
as “A veritable attempt to poison.” He confirmed that the charges were filed at
the High Court in Grenoble before the court’s senior examining magistrate. He
said other court cases involving other plaintiffs would begin soon
The various charges filed included one of “Attempting to administer
substances…of a nature which could result in death.”
“The aim is to put a stop to what we consider to be an act of poisoning,”
according to Joseph. “The interest of this action is that people in France now
have a means by which to express their concern as citizens by saying publicly
“We are aware that the vaccination campaign is a swindle.”
Similar court actions are planned in other areas of the Isére, as well as in
Paris, Pau and Nantes, and several hundred vaccine opponents are beginning to
organize themselves on the internet with a view to filing class action charges.
The government and health authorities are currently battling to persuade people
to get vaccinated against increasingly difficult odds. Opposition to the
campaign has been increasing steadily, and various polls taken over the last few
days put the figure for those who do not intend to get vaccinated as high as 70
percent.
Their task is being made even more arduous by the fact that while authorities
believe on the one hand that vaccination is essential despite negative public
reaction, the French have traditionally proved to be very quick to condemn and
file charges in cases where not enough was said to be done to prevent other
medical mishaps such as the Mad Cow outbreak and an AIDS contamination case, in
which several people died and many more became HIV positive after receiving
AIDS-contaminated blood transfusions in hospitals.
That signifies that the authorities have very little room to maneuver and are
more or less obliged to continue the campaign in order to avoid similar charges
should they decide or be forced to abandon the campaign and high numbers of
people die as a result of not being vaccinated.