By John Stone
Reprinted with permission from Children's Health Defense

These days every country seems to have evolved its own bureaucratic methods for inflicting misery on its citizens. This article documents the complicity of the British state and politicians in the continued deliberate practice of medical abuse. It results from the recent report of veteran Conservative politician, Julia (Baroness) Cumberlege into instances of iatrogenic (medical) harm and patient abuse. Though the report, First Do No Harm commissioned by the former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, was excellent in itself, it only looked into three areas: hormone pregnancy test (abandoned long ago in the late 1970s), the epilepsy drug sodium valproate and vaginal mesh implants. At the time of commissioning the report Hunt had already stated:

“It is an essential principle of patient safety that the regulatory environment gives sufficient voice to legitimate concerns reported by patients, families and campaigners, works alongside them and responds in a rapid, open and compassionate way to resolve issues when they are raised. My view is that that did not happen in the way I would expect in these three cases.”

These are excellent sentiments but the question remains whether the British government is prepared to look into abuse in areas other than these. It seems unlikely that the issues involved, such as failure to identify serious harms and the ignoring of patients or their representatives when they speak up about horrifying side-effects, only occurred in connection to these three groups of products. In this regard Julia Cumberlege has written to me:

READ MORE HERE: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Systemic Patient Abuse and State Repression