Hilary's Desk

The Sunday Star Times has a magazine called Escape in which their regular medical columnist, Dr Paul Trotman, pontificates on a diverse range of medical issues. He is known for his vigorous denouncement of anything thought to originate from, or be, “anti-vaccine”. His latest contribution however, is remarkable for the utter stupidity of opening the mouth prior to opening the brain. Apparently, comments about overcrowding being the biggest “cause” of meningitis are dismissed as some “attitude” of anti-vaccination people. The column reads:  Read Full Blog

Funny how “debate” about the MENZB vaccine, becomes acceptable to the Herald, when it comes from the mouths of IMAC, rather than “anti-immunisation extremists”. But here’s the puzzle. The so-called “anti-immunisation extremists” sounding off in 2004 was primarily pro vaccine Ron Law, whose primary quibble was the hiding of just this sort of information. Funny too. He provided that information to journalists pointing to exactly that debate, but where did it get him? Jane O’Hallahan called him an “anti-immunisation menace”. We all rolled around laughing.  Read Full Blog

"Turia sets dangerous example" was the headline for a letter by Anna Hardy RN, on behalf of the Stewart St Surgery Team at Marton. (Herald on Sunday, July 17, 2005 page 36)  The surgery was in an uproar because Tariana Turia, a former Associate Health Minister, decided against giving her granchildren, then aged 3 and 5, the MeNZB vaccine. Read Full Blog

How is it that we are only now being told what the scientists knew from Phase I and II trials, which was that in the most vulnerable, MeNZB antibodies would last 7 months, if that? Read Full Blog

This morning the editor of the Herald came out of his myopic little hole, and whined about the fact that the New Zealand Ministry of Health had got away with blue murder, and not told parents everything they needed to know. Read Full Blog