Reports say she felt faint, passed out at school, and was unable to be revived by paramedics. Autopsy results released this week, reveal that she died from a malignant tumour, meaning the cause of death was unrelated to the vaccine.

Never mind that these are the facts being presented to us, the anti-vax lobby have latched onto this death as evidence that the HPV vaccine kills. They have even gone so far as to  call the autopsy report fake and the pathologist who conducted the autopsy a liar.

This from NaturalNews dot com.

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Today, the mainstream media is reporting an obviously-fabricated explanation for her death. A pathologist is declaring that Natalie died from a “malignant chest tumor” that just coincidentally and suddenly killed her within hours after she received the cervical cancer vaccine.

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The opinion piece, written by Mike Adams, goes onto suggest that the explanation is purely a cover up to protect the billion dollar vaccine industry.

He continues;

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The continuation of global cervical cancer vaccination programs — which generate billions in profits — absolutely required blaming Natalie’s death on something other than the vaccine. Blaming it on cancer is very easy to do, since every person living today has cancerous micro-tumors in their body right now. All the pathologist had to do was locate such a micro-tumor in Natalie’s body, then dismiss the vaccine altogether.
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As a lawyer friend of mine pointed out, these statements constitute serious defamation against the pathologist, in particular this statement;

“But why would a pathologist cover up the true cause of Natalie Morton’s death?..”.

And then this statement about the executives of the vaccine manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline;

“It takes a real cold-hearted CEO to watch your product potentially kill a 14-year-old girl in mere hours and then continue to recommend that same product to millions more”.

Then, in an even more preposterous link, the author suggests a statement by a GSK spokesperson which says “GSK’s deepest sympathies lie with the parents at this very sad time” is merely a Freudian slip since it contains the word “parents” and “lie”.

Good grief.

The editors of Natural News would be wise to fact check their stories and ensure they are not putting themselves at risk of defamation suits by allowing their contributors to make such accusations. Mind you, they don’t have a reputation for fact checking before publishing stories, as is evidenced by their recent publication about an alleged lawsuit challenging compulsory vaccination in the USA, which turned out to be a hoax. The retraction can be read here or is reproduced below.

“(NaturalNews) Editor’s Note: It has come to our attention that the following article is factually incorrect. It was written by a contributing writer, then approved by an in-house editor who did not catch the significant errors in this article. As a result of these significant errors, and due to our commitment to publishing only true and accurate information to the best of our ability, we have made an editorial decision to reject further articles from this author.

“NaturalNews deeply regrets this unintentional error, and we are brainstorming new ways to put in place tighter fact-checking oversight so that the same mistake does not happen again in the future. We thank all those who have brought this important matter to our attention, and we pledge to increase our efforts to reject stories that contain factual inaccuracies.

“For the record, what was factually incorrect about the story (which we confirmed by phone with a clerk of United States District Court of Trenton, New Jersey) is that no such injunction has been filed. Thus, the entire premise of the story was factually incorrect.

“Here at NaturalNews, we strive to bring you accurate, honest information on these topics, and we deeply regret the unintentional publishing of the inaccurate information that previously appeared in this article space.”

This also resulted in the AVN publishing and distributing an incorrect press release, which was never retracted, despite several people politely suggesting that this would be the right thing to do.

My mate even suggested that if the editors of Natural News have any money they might soon be separated from it.

One would expect, if you are accusing pharmaceutical companies of cover-up and fraud you might wanna check your own facts. Because one thing’s for sure, Big Pharma are certainly not lacking in money, legal muscle or time.

Gardasil side effects controversy.

This story was screened on the incredibly erudite and well-researched-magazine-style-piece-of-fluff show, Today Tonight on December 7, 2007. I know this is over a year ago, but this kind of misrepresentation of science continues to occur all over the world and in many different incarnations. I was reminded of the extent of this nonsense during a recent conversation with Dr Ben Goldcare of the Bad Science column and blog. He has spent years tirelessly fighting the perpetuators of misinformation (in his own time, for no money) who will often go to incredible extremes just to get a sensationalist story*.

In this instance, the reporter Laura Sparkes has outdone herself by criticising the work of Professor Ian Frazer, a Queensland immunologist who’s team of researchers are responsible for developing the cervical cancer vaccine, marketed as Gardasil and more recently a skin cancer vaccine. Laura reports on two cases of adverse reactions by teenage girls after receiving the vaccine. Now if this is true, then it needs to be treated with all seriousness. There are mechanisms in place in Australia for reporting adverse reactions to registered drugs and this is particularly important when a new drug is released. But there is no need to get hysterical Laura.

“I had a headache, I was dizzy, I was nauseous, my right side was weak, my right fist was clenched and I was hallucinating,” Allie said. Gardasil has been hailed as a medical breakthrough, the first ever immunisation against cancer; but no-one was warned about this.

Well, this is just not true Laura. You can go to Gardasil’s own website where the side effects are listed on the front page and the TGA also details a list of adverse effects. It’s a government requirement that all drugs come with warnings of even the most unlikely or rare adverse effects. Whether this information was passed onto the girls I do not know, but certainly this information is publicly available.

But here’s where Laura really should have done her research when reporting on a serious public health issue. She asks the opinion of one Bronwyn Hancock from the vaccination information service, who is cited in the article as a “scientist and health researcher”. Long bow Laura. According to their website, Bronwyn has a BSc from Macquarie University obtained in 1981, which she never used – instead she went onto to work in computer programming for 14 years (which I don’t disparage, I just don’t think you can call yourself a scientist unless you have worked in the field). I hardly think you can call yourself a “scientist and health researcher” just because you have a BSc on paper. If I qualified as a hairdresser but never worked as one, then 14 years later offered to cut your hair, would you let me? She also has a certificate of nutrition which hardly qualifies you for anything particularly useful with respect to vaccines and immunology.

But this extract from her bio worries me even more.

“…to bring to the awareness of the public what is well published in the depths of medical research about this procedure, but is generally not studied or at least brought to the attention of the public by doctors or the media, due, it would seem, to the heavy influence of the “health”, rather sickness, industry”.

The depths of medical research? Hey Bronwyn, ever heard of the public database PubMed? Oh who really cares, you lost me with the big pharma conspiracy stuff at the end.

Then this little gem; “The Gardasil vaccine has never been shown to be safe or effective in preventing cervical cancer,” Bronwyn said. “There are so many limitations with the testing that they’ve done.” Okay so if you really are a scientist you would understand the structure of clinical trials, involving 4 phases of testing and millions of dollars and many, many years, (sometimes decades) before the drug is approved for human use.

People like this infuriate me because they detract from the complex and intricate process that is science. They also contribute to the public misunderstanding of science by suggesting that we just design a drug, test it on a bunny a couple of times then throw it out to the public, meanwhile exclaiming “it’s alive!”. The drug development process is complex, extensive and expensive. It makes my blood boil that people this daft are given air time to undermine the brilliant and thorough work of scientists like Professor Frazer, who has since gone on to develop a skin cancer vaccine.

Two strains of human papiloma virus (HPV) have been shown to cause cervical cancer. In 2006, the cancer council of New South Wales estimated there would be approximately 240 new cases and around 75 deaths attributable to cervical cancer in NSW. Worldwide, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women and it is estimated to result in over 470,000 new cases and cause 233,000 deaths per year worldwide.

Meanwhile in 2006, Professor Frazer was honoured with the Australian of the year for his work on the cervical cancer vaccine. This later resulted in his research facility attracting a $500 million donation from a wealthy Taiwanese donor. High praise indeed.

I wonder how many lives Bronwyn and her cronies can claim to have saved by perpetuating misinformation and lies about the effectiveness and science behind vaccines.

Congratulations morons.

*Buy a copy of Ben Goldacre’s wonderful book Bad Science to read for yourself how far journalists will go to get the positive results they required to perpetuate the MRSA (Methicillan Resistant Staphylococcus aureus) hoax from a few years back.