Western Bio- Terrorism: Struck off for “Islamic sectarian violence” but no action against doctors killing patients

November 2, 2014 8:42 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

What is “extremism”?

Yesterday I reported on former British surgeon Tariq Ali who was struck off by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) and has now joined Pakistan Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (TTP JA). This case of “extremism” was the first-ever successful prosecution for Islamic sectarian violence in Britain and was heard against Ali in his absence.

Natalie Glenville reported in the Guardian (Series) that,

“Ali was charged with violent disorder following a demonstration calling for jihad in Syria organised by Walthamstow-based extremist preacher, Anjem Choudary.

On Wednesday, The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MTPS) panel heard how Tariq helped organise the protest in May 2013 which resulted in several Shi’ite Muslims being attacked in Edgware Road.

Ali used the flagpole of his wooden placard to repeatedly hit a man who already been punched to the ground”

More on this story can be read in my article,

“Former surgeon Tariq Ali joins TTP JA, slates Pakistan army in new video”

http://activist1.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/former-surgeon-tariq-ali-joins-taliban-ttp-ja-slates-pakistan-army-in-new-video/

What is concerning however is that whilst action was taken in Ali’s case, dozens of other cases of doctors involved in another form of “extremism” violent biological assault against their own patients which eventually led to many deaths did not result in these medical staff being removed from practicing in the UK.

Janet Parshal, writing in the Christian Post on “How do you define an ‘extremist'” states,

“if you look up the word “extremist” in the dictionary, you will find it defined as ‘one who goes to extremes or advocates extreme doctrines or practices.’ If I were to ask you to name a group of extremists, who would come to mind?”

For many, Tariq Ali might come to mind as he fits the stereotypical image of an “extremist” dished up in the media’ He is male, Asian and a Muslim and has spoken openly of his religious and political beliefs, advocating for sharia’ah law to be implemented. However there are far more dangerous cases of extreme behaviour carried out by white, male, British doctors of largely Christian faith that has been swept under the carpet by the medical establishment including the General Medical Council (GMC) where no punitive action was ever taken.

There are “Dr Deaths” roaming our hospital corridors even now. Not the horror story character as depicted by actor Vincent Price but something rather more mundane which makes it all the more frightening.

Definition of “extremism”‘ “the holding of extreme political or religious views; fanaticism”

In what has come to be known as the “worst medical treatment disaster in the the history of the National Health Service (NHS)” the infection of patients with HIV and hepatitis viruses, “extremists” were free to break all ethical boundaries and indulge in the most horrific of experiments, practicing on live patients. They were the haematologists (blood doctors) employed in so called “centres of excellence” up and down the country to care for patients with haemophilia (a condition, largely affecting males, where the blood fails to clot).

Many of these doctors practiced a form of “political extremism”. They believed like the doctors of Nazi Germany, that in the politics of disability it was considered acceptable to use patients born with hereditary medical conditions for unethical experimentation against the Nuremberg Code. The “disabled” were treated as second class citizens with no rights, they were denied key information regarding their “treatment” were viewed as expendable and killed!

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The medical profession and “bio-terrorism”

Haematologists knowingly injected contaminated plasma products into their patients sourced from US prisons such as Arkansas State Penitentiary. This blood was taken from the “highest risk” prisoners, drug addicts and gay men practising unsafe sex that sold their blood for a few dollars to pharmaceutical companies which ignored all the rules of safety. The prisons and pharmaceutical companies made millions putting “profit before safety”.

Inmates had themselves been subjected to unethical experimentation, injected with material considered a” bio-hazard” deadly viruses such as HIV, hepatitis viruses to be studied in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. This was none other than “bio-terrorism” as many prisoners had no idea what they were being injected with and patients on the receiving end of inmates’s plasma had no idea they were getting prison blood and were told the product was safe.

This evidence was presented at the Archer Private Inquiry held opposite the Houses of Parliament. The British government covered up their role in PROMOTING this treatment as “safe” knowing it to to be to “highly dangerous” as testified by Lord David Owen (former Health Minister). The government themselves REFUSED to hold a public inquiry into alleged wrongdoing and the unlawful killing of around 2,500 NHS patients with 2,300 more seriously injured through infection with HIV and hepatitis viruses.

Robert Winston

The following letter from the sister of an Arkansas prisoner, who sold his blood to pharmaceutical companies was handed in to No 10 Downing Street in 2001, for the attention of then Prime Minister Tony Blair (no reply was ever received)

March 22, 2001

Mr. Tony Blair, British Prime Minister

10 Downing Street

London, England

Dear Mr. Blair:

My name is Linda Tant Miller and I live in the state of Washington in the United States. The purpose of this letter is to provide you some of the information to which I am privy regarding the collection of HIV and hepatitis-tainted human blood plasma from the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction, (ADC) and its distribution throughout the world.

My brother, Bud Tant was a prisoner in the Cummins Unit from 1984 until his death from hepatitis C on March 14, 1999. Neither my brother nor his family was aware of the fact that he had this virus until approximately 1996, but according to John Byus, the current Medical Administrator of the ADC, Bud had the virus at the time he was first incarcerated there. During part of the time that my brother was donating plasma, Mr. Byus, a Registered Nurse worked in the Cummins Unit Infirmary, so he is in a position to know this fact. Bud was, nonetheless permitted to donate plasma at every collection session from 1984 until the program was terminated in 1992.

I first learned of the sickness in Canada as a result of the Cummins Unit plasma just prior to my brother’s death, but I didn’t have time to address the subject in depth until after he died. As I watched my brother die a death more gruesome and agonizing than I’d ever dreamed in my worst nightmares, I realized that millions of people all over the world would suffer his same horrendous fate and their families would stand helplessly by, suffering the same grief and agony we were enduring. I realized that most of them would never know the source of their infection, but I knew, and I vowed to my brother that I would see the atrocity exposed and those responsible for it brought to justice. I have devoted my life to this cause since that date.

Several years ago Sgt. McAlpine of the RCMP, indicated to me that they had little hope of bringing to justice the ADC administrators responsible for the knowing and deliberate harvesting and sale of tainted plasma, because by the time they got to Arkansas the paper trail was gone, so I promised him that I would find eye-witnesses and participants who would be willing to testify to what happened. I have since that time located many current and former inmates, former Cummins Unit Plasma Program staff members and a former ADC Compliance Officer who are anxious to testify to the facts of this crime.

Here are just a few of the facts I have uncovered:

  • Known homosexual prison prostitutes, even those in the final stages of AIDS were routinely permitted to donate plasma.
  • Men who were bloated and jaundiced from the final stage of hepatitis were routinely permitted to donate plasma.
  • Even when available, tests for HIV and hepatitis were seldom utilized, and when they were, results were often falsified.
  • Needles re-sharpened with sand paper and collection tubing were re-used from inmate to inmate, thereby cross-infecting virtually the entire donor base.
  • The collected plasma was stored in a freezer that was often out of order. Plasma rendered unfit by thawing was re-frozen and shipped out in regular shipments.
  • Plasma that was rejected by the plasma brokers as unfit was returned to the Cummins Unit for destruction. Out of each returned case of plasma, one or two units were destroyed and the rest was re-frozen and re-shipped.
  • During periods of time when the US Food and Drug Administration had shut down the Cummins Unit program due to their unsafe practices, the ADC administrators continued to collect and sell plasma, using names collected from the local telephone book and selling it through a community plasma center.

All of these charges and more can and will someday be proven in a court of law.As I’m sure you are aware, many thousands of innocent British citizens have been sickened and killed due to the deliberate crimes committed by the MEDICAL PERSONNEL who administered the Cummins Unit Plasma Center. I hope therefore that you will join your voice to those of us who are working to see justice served in this matter.

I urgently implore you to use the power of your office to spur the FBI and the US Department of Justice to implement a full-scale investigation of the people and institution that made the tainted plasma available to the pharmaceutical companies. Had it not been for the greed and corruption of the plasma collectors the people and governments of the world would not now be facing the tragedies and financial burdens with which we’re now forced to struggle I know all too well the effect my brother’s suffering and death has had on my family.

We will never be the same. I no longer work at a paying job because seeing justice done in this matter is far more important to me than my own personal comfort and finances. My parents have developed health problems due to the stress and grief of our tragedy that will soon see both of them in their graves. My sister and I have debilitating flashbacks to the time of our brother’s dying which haunt us day and night, turning our lives into nonstop nightmares of pain and grief. Multiply our suffering by BILLIONS, since the secondary infections from the Cummins Plasma Program will continue to the end of time unless science discovers cures or vaccines against the plague the Arkansas Department of Corrections and its employees have unleashed upon the world.

Sir, the people who are guilty of this atrocity are the worse criminals in history and I hope you will be as incensed and determined to see justice done as I am.

I also pray you will heed the pleas of my good and wise friend Carol Grayson and take the steps necessary to see to it that no other British subjects will be infected with deadly diseases during medical treatment and to assure that fair and equitable compensation is made to ALL the victims of this atrocity.For more information on the Cummins Unit Plasma Program please visit my web site at http://www.geocities.com/bloodcows .

In addition, a friend of mine is producing a documentary film about the Cummins Unit Plasma Program that contains yet more testimony and information. It will air in a few months and I will notify you of the date and time as soon as they are known.I will appreciate a response to this letter, apprising me of your thoughts and intentions regarding this atrocity and the plight of the victims.

Thank you for your time and attention to this urgent matter of justice

Sincerely

Linda Tant Miller

(address, email and phone number given)


——————–

730

A poster on the Contaminated Blood Disaster hung outside the Department of Health, London

What doctors knew and did to their patients

Evidence from the monthly meetings of haematologists and thousands of other documents exchanged between the British government lawyers and lawyers for patients showed exactly what the doctors treating haemophiliacs knew at the time and how they behaved. They knew the risks, lied to their patients and a number were on the payroll of international plasma companies constituting a “conflict of interest”.

The doctors also documented their use of Previously Untreated Patients (PUPS, newborn haemophiliacs) and mild haemophiliacs in EXPERIMENTS at the British side to monitor progression of diseases. In other words their own records state doctors deliberately injected dirty blood into children and others because as they said “they were cheaper than chimpanzees”. They were used in experiments against the Nuremberg Code, a set of rules guiding ethical practice.

General Medical Council ignored the evidence

Patients submitted complaints to the General Medical Council (GMC) once they had the evidence. This body not only failed to act but allowed patients to continue to be treated for years by the very same doctors that had experimented on them and were implicated in unlawfully killing patients. This caused terrible fear and stress in patients who were often treated very badly by medical staff for speaking out. Some patients infected with HIV, hepatitis B and C and exposed to variant CJD said they were terrified to be left alone in hospital and begged relatives to remain with them 24 hours a day.

You only truly understand bio-terrorism when you open your door to a man in a bio- hazard suit and you realize no hospital has given you guidelines on how to safely nurse your loved one.

One of the complaints was that doctors had tested their patients for viral infection HIV and hepatitis viruses after giving them plasma products and then withheld positive test results sometimes for years putting their family members at risk also. This was evident from matching dates of tests to dates within medical records of when the patient was actually informed of their infection. Yet no doctor was ever held to account.

The biggest lie

The biggest lie (proven by extensive and award winning research) was that this tragedy was an “unavoidable accident” as stated by government. In fact documents showed repeatedly that the government and other authorities suppressed key evidence, trashed important documents and threatened and tried to silence those that had evidence of deliberate unethical experimentation, gross negligence and unlawful killings.

The media that did try to expose were threatened with a D notice (Defence Advisory Notice) not to publish and penalized by press bodies with stories closed down. Again this evidence was presented at the Archer Inquiry.. One case involved a well known doctor who lied to protect himself, and made a complaint regarding journalist Susan Douglas to the Press Complaints Commission. She has still not received an apology despite evidence presented showing this doctor to have deceived the public.

Legal (a ridiculous principle)

A law called the “Bolam principle” was applied to haemophilia legal cases’

“a doctor is not guilty of negligence if he has acted in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of medical men skilled in that particular art”

Though to quote Bertrand Arthur William Russell,

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd”

The problem was the vast MAJORITY of doctors nationwide had acted in a dangerous and unethical way so medical staff, hospital authorities, the GMC and British government who advocated the treatment and knew the practices involved all conspired to cover -up and are still doing so. The problem for the GMC was that had it acted properly it would have had to have struck off almost all haematologists treating haemophiliacs during a certain period of time.

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Ken Baxter, painted blood red and holding a skeleton to represent the global haemophilia community that received US prison blood

The following statement appeared in the Lancet medical journal back in 2000,

“Behind each adverse event there is a patient, a doctor, and a doctor-patient relationship. A patient must be told when things have gone wrong. Every effort must be made to minimise the after effects, including financial compensation where necessary. Most patients wish to know in detail what happened and what is being done to reduce the possibility of a recurrence. And members of healthcare teams need mechanism to come to terms with their fallibility. It is hoped that clinical governance will make a difference (BMJ Letters Page 19-16 th August 2000)”

When we consider the actions of former doctor, Tariq Ali, although he was convicted of violence and extremism, it is important to consider who had the most extreme behaviour? Was it Ali or dozens of doctors whose behaviour unlawfully killed 2,500 patients and irreversibly damaged 2,300 more? There is no comparison in the way these cases were handled and that is both shocking and deeply disturbing.

BBC Newsnight highlighted this issue in 2007 and was nominated for best Newsnight of the Year by Royal Television Society (RTS) for factual reporting

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/6565071.stm

These are the double standards of western so called “democracy” that are forever criticising the human rights violations of other countries but will not act on their own abuses. Ali’s case also highlights that as an Asian Muslim male he was always going to be held accountable. There is a popular narrative around extremism which is narrowly defined and does not seem to include looking at the extreme behaviour of white, Christian men.

Ali’s conduct outside the hospital environment during a protest came under close scrutiny and he was severely punished. Doctors who repeatedly biologically assaulted their patients for years on end by injecting them with deadly viruses went unchecked and they literally got away with killing their patients and breaking every ethical rule in the book!

Ironically someone who was punished was a prisoner named Rolf Kaestel in Arkansas State Penitentiary. Lawyers and human rights activists have argued that Kaestel would have been released long ago had he not given evidence on the prison plasma centre to a documentary maker Kelly Duda (Factor 8, The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal) to support infected haemophiliacs. See,

“Free Rolf Kaestel the prisoner who blew the whistle on a prison blood scandal linked to Bill Clinton”

http://activist1.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/free-rolf-kaestel-the-prisoner-who-blew-the-whistle-on-a-prison-blood-scandal-linked-to-bill-clinton/

The contaminated blood “treatment” batch numbers given to UK patients were traced back to Arkansas and other prisons by both lawyers for haemophiliacs and Kelly Duda. The Archer Inquiry took evidence from Duda but the British government failed to carry out the recommendations of Lord Archer stating “the state of the economy” meant they were unable to compensate victims properly and a full and open public inquiry was “not in the interests of the public”. It was not in the Archer Inquiry remit to establish legal liability so sadly not all the evidence provided was even heard.

In France two doctors in high ranking positions plus a former health official were jailed for their part in a “contaminated blood scandal” but no such action was ever taken in Britain.

Alistair Burt MP has given a commitment to raising these issues with the government. How long are families to wait, decades? Many patients have long since died and “justice delayed is justice denied.” As no lessons have been learnt from the past, one can only imagine what experiments might be carried out on patients in the name of Ebola “treatment” the latest health scare to emerge around the world!

Review for Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Scandal

http://variety.com/2005/film/reviews/factor-8-the-arkansas-prison-blood-scandal-1200520280/

Carol Anne Grayson is an independent writer/researcher on global health/human rights and is Executive Producer of the Oscar nominated, Incident in New Baghdad . She is a Registered Mental Nurse with a Masters in Gender Culture and Development. Carol was awarded the ESRC, Michael Young Prize for Research 2009, and the COTT ‘Action = Life’ Human Rights Award’ for “upholding truth and justice”. She is also a survivor of US “collateral damage”.

This article first appeared at http://activist1.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/bio-terrorism-struck-off-for-islamic-sectarian-violence-but-no-action-against-doctors-killing-patients/

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This post was written by Carol Anne Grayson

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