Your article, Bharat Bio to produce Rotavirus for trials (19/10/02), may as well have included the by-line, a paid advertisement by GlaxoSmithKline. Indeed, what it lacked in truth it made up for in company hype!

Rotavirus is a disease that is virtually unheard of in breastfed children. It is generally caused in infants by improper sterilisation techniques or lack of clean water when making up infant formula. Whilst it can cause significant morbidity, especially where a child's nutritional status is not good (eg an artificially fed baby), it is eminently preventable by the simplest measure of encouraging all mother to breastfeed for a minimum of 2 years as recommended by the World Health Organisation.You may be unaware, but Wyeth Laboratories introduced another vaccine for Rotavirus in the United States just a few years ago. Within less than 12 months, this vaccine was withdrawn due to many deaths and serious illness from a condition called a intussusception where the bowel folds back on itself quite painfully.

In the ensuing scandal over how this vaccine could have been released so quickly without the proper testing, it was discovered that half of the government committee which approved its use held financial interests in vaccine manufacturers. In fact, one of the committee members owned a patent for a Rotavirus vaccine!

Before allowing yet another unnecessary vaccine to be tested on innocent children in India, I would like to know how the GlaxoSmithKline version differs from the Wyeth one which hurt so many children.

In addition, it would be good journalistic practice to offer your readers the other viewpoint when reporting on a subject known to have such serious risks.

 

Thank you,

Meryl Dorey

 

Meryl W. Dorey,

President

The Australian Vaccination Network, Inc.

PO Box 177                               02 6687 1699 Phone

Bangalow NSW 2479              02 6687 2032 FAX

meryl@avn.org.au                  http://www.avn.org.au

"All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident." (Schopenhauer)

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Any information obtained here is not to be construed as medical OR legal advice. The decision to vaccinate and how you implement that decision is yours and yours alone.