Letter by Hilary Butler to Johann Hari, re: This deadly resistance to vaccination

2007

Dear Johann,

 I’ve added to my yesterday’s e-mail, corrected some typos, expanded some points, and probably made some more mistakes.  But at throughout are some other thoughts you could well follow up, in order to give you a focus for some real journalism should you consider that a worthy aim.

 To recap, then add to:

 I’ve followed your knee-jerk writing for many years now, and have felt up until now, that only one other thing you have written, has deserved a reader’s response. Even then, I got no response from you, so I suspect that I won’t this time either.  The fact that you don’t respond, shapes what I do with this e-mail.

 I’ve attached two word documents for you to flick into the ether waste paper basket no doubt. 

 But as a guaranteed “receipt” that I did indeed send these to you, I’ve BCC’d in, the wider universe.

 Not that it will make any difference I suspect.

 BTW, did you bother to ask Maria Abawede what she did with the three children who died of measles?  A doctor just recently informed me (after being run out of Zimbabwe by Mugabe, ) about some of that base-line problems you don’t take account of, which are operating in Africa. 

The first is that many of the children he sees with measles ARE vaccinated. 

Secondly, the traditional and ongoing “method” of African mothers to treat fever of any origin is to put their babies naked, out in the night air.  Have you ever sat naked out in the African night air, Mr Hari.  It’s freezing. 

 Given that most of the children who get measles often don’t see a square meal, why would you put a malnourished child out in the night air?  Supposedly, to reduce the fever?    Unfortunately the use of the measles vaccine hasn’t got rid of this “stupid” factor, which of course, explains why children still die in Africa, because their mothers still put them out in the cold air at night, when they have a temperature from any cause.  Maybe they would die anyway, but don’t you think it would help if parents understood why fever shouldn’t be treated this way? And please don’t suggest free Calpol!  That in itself is a recipe for disaster!  If you wish to know why, I’ll be delighted to send you the medical literature written by experts, and the WHO, which is currently IGNORED by every single scientist in the medical world, because it suits them to.

 Are you shocked?  Do you find that unbelievable?  Then be a journalist, and investigate one of the secrets that these scientists you revere blatantly and criminally ignore every year.  I will restate it.  Paracetamol taken to reduce fever from infectious diseases border on criminal neglect and is definitely medical malpractice.  And I can provide you will all the evidence to support that statement.

 The other interesting fact that my doctor friend in Zimbabwe told me was… that the most common cause of death in the hospital he worked in, was not measles, or indeed AIDS.  It was TB in fully vaccinated people and… infected injuries caused by sticks and other objects impaling bare feet.  He told me that if there was a way to get every African mother, father and child “shod” with shoes, his job as a doctor would be far far easier.

 It is amazing, that in today’s world of supposedly educated journalism, that you don’t write about the real daily world of Africa, which some of us who support medical personnel directly, do know about.  …. But then, that would be harder to do and take more time than rabble rousing.

 Wouldn’t doing something to really help Africans have been more likely to net you the equivalent of a journalist’s Nobel prize, than taking a cheap shot at democratic right of choice anywhere?  Does it not strike you as odd that Africans deserve the right to live with meaningful jobs, lives, education, sanitation, water, food which is denied them by tribal despots, corrupt governments and a western world whose only answer is spot aid, and vaccines?

 You know (I presume) that the European and UK history from Industrial Revolution days was a long and painful process.  Yet that is the process that was required to give you the life you now “enjoy” in UK.  You have paved roads, clean water, sewage disposal systems (Africa would need quite a different system to the one UK has…) That is your day to day life.  Yet you think the measles vaccine means anything when it comes to daily life in Africa?  Does it not occur to you that if Marie Abawede had had a good diet, and constant access to vitamin A, her three children wouldn’t have died of measles in the first place?

 I thought journalists asked real questions… like… how it is that the WHO actually came up with the measles decline statistics in the first place? That sounds such a simple thing doesn’t it, and yet, it has a very complicated enlightening answer, that raises more questions than it answers.  Perhaps real journalism died with Deep Throat judging by the fact that I see so little of it these days.

 I guess its only the home-grown jihad you pillory and slander, who question pre-digested press releases, or have the brains to ask real questions.

 It’s so much easier to be paid for the words that just tumble out from that place called “opinion” isn’t it?

 Which scientists do you listen to Johann? The ones who support your theories?  Have you ever read “Science is God” by Nairobi Professor David Horrobin?  Has it ever struck you as interesting, that like nobel prize winner, and once respectable Linus Pauling, there are over 300 scientists today, who once, ….because they said the same mantra as everyone else,…. were considered respectable.  The minute they started their own research and stated their own finding, they were relegated to the disreputable status.  Are you saying that “respectable” scientists are the only ones who speak the truth?

 As an illustration of this anomaly.  A New Zealand lawyer wrote to a friend of mine, a scientist with a CV most people couldn’t even obtain these days, even with hard work.  She asked him for a list of 10 other doctors like himself, who would be considered experts in their field.

 His 1994 answer was a classic, even to this day.  He said “Dear Ms Fisher, I could give you a list of 10 very eminent doctors who could furnish you with reports which are very accurate and well referenced.  But I must warn you, that, like me, they are “ex-eminent” doctors.  Having broken ranks with the system they too, are now “disgraced” ex-eminent doctors.  That is your dilemma.  No-one who holds a contrary view, is considered “eminent”.

So long as you only listen to the supposed experts, and don’t put your brain into gear, you will continue to spout focussless rabble rousing. 

 All you want, is everyone to conform to your way of thinking.  Will that do anything to help African mothers like Marie Abawede, who for lack of vitamin A, good food, and the basic amenities you take for granted every day, lost her children to measles?

 Did you know that in the UK in the late 1800’s children died of measles?  Did you know that the REASON they died from measles was because of fundamental malnutrition?  You didn’t? Why didn’t you?

 If as you say, the MEASLES VACCINE will save the rest of Marie’s children, perhaps it will be her children who survive measles, who dies on a European beach, because they tried to illegally enter, because the western world’s only contribution to Africa was vaccines, and meaningless aid, which does nothing to deal with the fundamental humanitarian issues which that continent faces today. 

 The western world will pay the price for that one day.  While you laud an unproveable achievement of 90% measles decrease, based on spurious diagnostic criteria, sit and consider this fact.  If this figure is accurate (and I dispute that) then every child saved, and educated in Africa, and not provided with the basics of life and a meaningful future, is another immigrant potentially pounding on your door tomorrow because their life in Africa isn’t worth living.

 You would be better focussing on pushing for action on the real issues which would help Africans, be Africans, and live their lives to the full in Africa, because that’s the key.

 Until the Western World gets a handle on real life in Africa, no amounting of self-congratulatory smugdom about the millions of children who survive today in Africa allegedly because of vaccines to provide fodder for Mugabe-types’ henchmen, will be any comfort when Africa comes to Europe en masse, because they have no food, no peace and no life worth living in Africa.

 Sadly.

 Hilary Butler.