Surrey PCT legal boilerplate meltdown

Surrey Primary Care Trust replied under the Freedom of Information Act today. http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/hpv_vaccine_untrue_safety_claims

Watch out - before even opening the file there is a long load of legalese lingo - here's one paragraph:

Please note that the information provided is the property of Surrey PCT and subject to Intellectual Property and Database Rights. Any commercial application or use of this information may be subject to the provisions of the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005. This means that if for any reason you wish to re-use the information provided for any commercial purpose or applications, you must ask us for permission to do so. Should we agree that you can use the information it will be subject to the issue of a licence which may or may not involve a fee. If you have any questions about this process please contact the Head of Information Governance, c/o the email address below. Any breach of these regulations will be taken extremely seriously by Surrey PCT.

So I respectfully point out that

The aim of the Regulations is to encourage the re-use of public sector information by removing obstacles that stand in the way of re-use.

And that is straight from National Archives.

Besides, how silly! The 2 documents were

(1) a press release already published in the commercial press in 2008 and freely accessible online,

(2) a 32 page booklet published by the Department of Health, and Crown copyright, freely given out as 50,000 copies and online for the best part of a year.

To cap it all, Surrey PCT have now put back on the internet some faulty wording which is untrue and misleading, which had taken me the best part of a year to get all the faulty versions REMOVED! Yes, side effects to that vaccine are much more common than the government's PCTs have been telling you.

And here is the rabbit to pull out of my hat. Here is proof that Surrey PCT sourced its press release information from a document citing clinical trials that weren't even on the same vaccine! Well, that's too bad for Surrey children because the Reisinger paper was on Gardasil, and the studies were even designed by drug giants, Merck. This is all very odd for our Surrey girls who have been injected with Cervarix, made by Glaxo Smith Kline.

Ref: Reisinger Gardasil figures in TABLE 5.
Adverse Experience Summary Days 1–15 Postdose 1, 2 and 3.

Be warned. If you want to know facts, don't believe anything without checking.

And don't be put off by that legalese lingo either. Typical British bully tactics are just putting obstacles in your way, discouraging you from sharing information, and that, my little pumpkins, is precisely what the European Union was trying to put an end to.


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"Opportunity missed"

For all the publicity about the renovation of Reigate Priory Park through Heritage Lottery Funding of £4.2 million plus more millions from local businesses, I have always maintained that a DVD would be an ideal way of recording the process and the outcome.

So it was a great treat this Christmas to see the new DVD sponsored by the Borough Council and Legal & General. It features some key historical elements since the 12th century, as well as the ancient woodland deerpark, medieval fishponds - now the lake, wild flowers, Victorian-style herbaceous borders and numerous magnificent tree specimens.

Those of us interested in nature conservation might be astonished by the attention to regulations when it came to the demolition of the old air raid shelter with its one resident bat. Similarly with the draining and dredging of the lake, one single duck nest had to be protected by giving it a wide berth of several metres.

The silliest story in my opinion, though, is about the fully grown terrapin that is an unwelcome resident of Reigate Priory Park lake - certainly not a genuine heritage feature and according to Surrey Biodiversity Partnership, actually 'a serious threat to our wetland fauna'. Project manager Nina Porter explained that she had heard about the terrapin before, she had seen it herself and it was a menace, eating fish and ducklings. I wonder if it had been properly listed in the paperwork as a living creature that should be moved to a new and more suitable home, if the opportunity presented itself.

Well, now we know that there was indeed a perfect opportunity, but failure of communication with a naive contract worker.

Suffice it to say that, after all that hard work and financial outlay, the overgrown and unwanted exotic pet still lurks there. Yes, Reigate's Rogue of a Reptile was taking a stroll across the grass when it was spotted by a workman, picked up and ushered back into that beautiful, tranquil and ancient lake, where it remains to this day. Watch out - he or she has grown to the size of a dinner plate.

Now how about a Reward for anyone else who finds it again?

Letters to the Editor archives

Now that the local paper has moved offices out of Reigate to Redhill, there is no space for the archives. They have all had to go to somewhere in Brentwood/ford, I hear.

So for posterity, here are two of the letters published in October 2008, one by a colleague and the other from me. Well, if only more people had read them at the time, such as our MP Crispin Blunt who lives in London, not his constituency. We really could have helped prevent at least 4,445 girls from getting side effects in less than two years, some of whom have needed long-term hospital care.

Yes, both subheadings were shown to be correct - the HPV comments WERE misleading, and Better safe than sorry - but it is too late now for those girls.

Click here to enlarge

Click here to enlarge









For an up to date account of my findings please take a look at my new Pigeon Post page: Truth about Cervarix.

A curiosity - school fire escapes made of wood

44 years ago this summer, there was a tragedy waiting to happen in a village in Wales, because nothing had been done about an overloaded slag heap and a water main in a disused canal. It was only a matter of time - actually by October of 1966, when a third factor - so much rain - created a disaster at Aberfan.

"Tip No 7...slipped and descended upon part of the village killing 116 children and 29 adults. The tragedy occurred just after 9 o'clock in the morning under circumstances which apparently precluded the issue of warning." Well, that is the official view of the Cabinet Office in their case study this summer. They describe the rescue at Pantglas Junior School as "near fruitless" and
"the mental scars are so hard to heal, some 40 years after the Aberfan disaster".

Yet the case study makes no mention of prevention or any concerns expressed by professionals or local people before the tragedy.

Here in Reigate in 1966, that event immediately sparked a concern with a teacher at a local primary school that there were no fire escapes for the upstairs classrooms. It only took one person to realise that if something went wrong in the boiler room, there would be no escape since the children's only staircase was directly above it.

What happened next? A letter to the local authority resulted in a terse conversation with an official who reckoned to the effect that "If you make a strong point like this and we have to spend our limited resources on fire escapes then we cannot afford to allocate funds to Redstone Secondary School for much needed playing fields." Fortunately, that intuitive teacher was inspired to reply gently along the lines that there may be less need for playing fields at secondary level if a whole cohort of children were to suffer in a disaster in a primary school with no alternative exit route.

Oh well, this is all history now. I will just divulge that fire escapes were authorised to be installed in this Surrey primary school as a result. The silly thing is that the new fire escape to the upper floor of the Infants department didn't even match up with a suitable door or window (I am told), and would you believe it - what a classic blunder - the fire escapes to the Infants department and the Juniors department were both made of WOOD. This must surely be a local curiosity?

I would like to ask for a bit of common sense and balance in local authorities. This can be achieved, very economically, by listening to employees and local residents who have the courage to voice their concerns and offer some practical suggestions. With modern communications technology and the internet, history might just prove the point as "Lessons Identified" - or even, "Lessons Unidentified".

Surrey's Commemoration of People, Places and Events

There is a one-day conference on Monday 24th May, 9.30am-4.00pm at the Surrey History Centre in Woking, organised by Surrey History Trust and Surrey County Council.

I sent them the list of notable local citizens that previously I presented to the Reigate Society a year ago and it will be interesting to hear what happens.

Update: 29th May: nothing.

Reigate's role in motoring history

If you are very lucky, you can see these treasured veteran and vintage motor cars on display at special occasions in Reigate. This particular one was a garden party for the residents of a nursing home in July 2009. The enterprising manager at the time asked me for a few local contacts, so it was no trouble at all to put him in touch with the owner of the cars, Bryan Goodman. Bryan is an authority on motoring history and author who lives just round the corner from the nursing home. What a stunning collection and a joy to behold.

Since then I have acquired an original page from the Illustrated London News, November 21st 1896, which beautifully illustrates the famous day when the first motor cars arrived at Reigate - on the inaugural run from London to Brighton. The drivers stopped here for lunch at the White Hart Hotel, which was in those days at the top of Bell Street. Note the magnificent full page illustration by artist H.P. Seppings Wright with his amusing observations alongside. In the right hand corner, in the background is the entrance to Reigate's Tunnel Road - historic in itself as the gift of Lord Somers in 1824 and the first road tunnel in the country.

It must have been some major achievement to get the 'Red Flag Act' repealed in Parliament. Just one year before, it had become law that a man had to walk 60 yards in front of any vehicle waving a red flag - there was a speed limit of just 2 miles per hour in towns! The annual London to Brighton Emancipation Run - not a race - has commemorated this common sense liberation most years ever since. No wonder there is an additional drawing in the bottom right hand corner if you look very carefully. It's a patriotic display of flags flying high, along with the notice "REIGATE WELCOMES PROGRESS". The whole artwork bears close scrutiny and is now carefully preserved in a double glass frame, with a photograph of the unique occasion on the reverse.