An Appeal For FundsMartin Walker, one Britain's few independent investigative writers, author of Dirty Medicine, has been deeply committed to the campaign against vaccine damage denial being waged by thousands of parents in Britain and the US. For almost two years now, he has attended the General Medical Council (GMC) fitness to practice hearing against Dr Wakefield, Professor Murch and Professor Walker-Smith, being held in London. This is an entirely self-interested prosecution in which the GMC pays the prosecution, picks the jury (or panel) and even employs the legal assessor who sits with the panel. The trial has proceeded with hundreds of charges based originally on the word of a journalist, Brian Deer. Deer works for The Sunday Times, which is owned by News International whose Chief Executive, James Murdoch, now sits on the board of GlaxoSmithKline, a manufacturer of MMR. The intention of the hearing is to damage Dr Wakefield's name and reputation, and get him struck off the medical register, thereby stopping him from giving evidence, anywhere, against MMR or its adverse reactions. Although the hearing was meant to last three months, the prosecution has been dragged out to become one of the longest regulatory trials in British history. Walker has followed and written about the hearing not just because he is committed to exposing ways in which the drug companies and the GMC manipulate legal and other realities, but because a large number of parents of autistic and otherwise vaccine-damaged children, who have been air-brushed out of this show trial, have great difficulty in attending it. Walker is now finding it difficult to fund coverage of the last stages of the hearing. He says: "In the beginning and at different occasions, autism-related individuals in the US have supported my work. Recently, however, I have had to depend on the parents of vaccine-damaged children who support Dr Wakefield. These parents are already under considerable financial pressures and I can no longer ask them for, or accept, their contributions. As the hearing nears its end I feel like a marathon runner who can see the tape but whose knees are buckling and I am fearful that I will collapse. From the roadside I will be forced to watch hoards of disinterested mercenary journalists who have joined the marathon in the last hundred yards pass me to write their received and opportunist opinions about vaccines, vaccine damage and the GMC manipulation of evidence against the three doctors. I need funding for my expenses in the last three months, on and off, of this hearing, I need this funding by the beginning of June when the hearing resumes again. I don't think that I need to state the obvious, that the trial is of real importance not just to Dr Wakefield and the two other defendants, but to the freedom of medical research and independent health practice in Britain. I will, however, state something that has not been quite so obvious over the last two years. Despite these three doctors being orthodox, and even conservative practitioners, there practices have been partly based upon nutritional and environmental approaches to the cause and diagnosis of gut and bowel disorders. I will personally acknowledge any funding that is sent to me and if individuals provide me with their email address and a land address, I will send them copies of my most recent essays about hearing issues. I will also keep any contributors informed, by email, of my work and this appeal in the next four months. All my writing about the GMC hearing, well over 400 pages now, can be read on the CryShame web site. Any money in excess of that which I need to attend the hearing, will go towards the production of a book that I hope to publish after the trial ends in August." Cheques should be made out to
Martin J Walker and sent to: Online Payments can also be made on the Slingshot Publications site at: www.slingshotpublications.com. |