Thank you to Hilary Butler for allowing us to excerpt this entry from Friday, June 29, 2012

There is no place for pro/anti vaccine divides, when it comes to allegations of corporate fraud.

Yet all across the media, the focus of the discussion about the Merck lawsuit is not to really discuss the issue, but to slap the "vaccine foes". The first example came out loud and clear in Forbes magazine. You don't have to read further than the title, to know where Gergana Koleva is heading. She is hoping Krahling and Wolchowski lawsuit is all lies, and so she plants a decoy story. Her article title was “Merck Whistleblower suit a boon to vaccine foes even as it stresses the importance of vaccines.” The URL, reads, "Merck whistleblower suit a boon to anti vaccination advocates though it stresses importance of vaccines."

Nothing like hanging out provaccine bias for all to see. But the problem is, Gergana seems to be blind to her own message, insisting that those who are calling out her bias, are guilty of "baseless criticisms". Medical history from 1998, stated that there was something badly amiss with the Merck Mumps vaccine. These two 2007 medical articles Brunell and Peltola are compulsory reading.

When journalists like Gergana, who claim to specialise on corporate fraud, bioethics and health, publish an article, readers would expect to enjoy a competent fleshing out of facts; a time line; the medical literature; the legal process; the facts about the Department of Justice; the history of the company including history of previous corporate frauds, and how corporate fraud affects us all in day to day life. Yet what they got from Forbes, was primarily a fingering of the "vaccine foe", which is particularly noticeable if you analyse the adjectives she used when describing the two "sides"; dripping doubt about the case, and dripping sarcasm, aimed at the "vaccine foes"....

After glossing over the case as fast as possible with minimal analysis, Gergana launched into her main mission, incorrectly stating that the "Department of Justice refused to rule on the case.” This was done in my opinion, to link her incorrect comment about the Department of Justice, to Merck's statement that the case is "without merit". A perception is thereby created in the reader's mind, that if the DOJ's investigation has found the case to be true, they would have joined with the whistleblowers. The slant of the article infers that because the Department of Justice did not join the case, and Merck said that the case is "without merit", ....there must be nothing to the case.

But is that what the Department of Justice said, and did? No....  Read the full entry HERE.