There Is No Doubt That Glaxo Is A Problem !
UK Observer July 8, 2001
Drug Company Admits Unsafe Vaccines Were Used
The former UK company Wellcome allowed thousands of babies to be inoculated in the 1960s and 1970s with toxic whooping cough vaccines it knew had not passed crucial safety tests, the Observer, a UK newspaper, claimed on July 8.
It said its investigations showed that two batches of the firm's vaccine were more than 14 times more potent than the standard dose and 14 other batches containing thousands of vaccine doses were not put through a crucial toxicity test.
One of the toxic batches was the same batch that led the Irish Supreme Court in 1992 to award £2.7 million (US$3.8 million) in compensation to Kenneth Best, a Cork boy who suffered permanent brain damage. At the time the Irish judge accused Wellcome of negligence and attacked the company's poor quality control at its Kent laboratory.
Now, 9 years after the award, the newspaper said the Irish Department of Health had received details from GlaxoSmithKline about the batch--numbered 3741--and was tracing 296 Irish children who were inoculated with it.
Glaxo Wellcome merged with SmithKline Beecham to form GlaxoSmithKline in late 2000.
The newspaper added that pressure from Denis Naughten, a senior Irish Member of Parliament (MP), has forced other disclosures from the company, including the fact that a second batch of vaccine, numbered 3732, produced by Wellcome around the same time, was even more potent than that used on Best in 1968.
In the 3 years after Wellcome produced the toxic batches, dozens of British parents believed their children suffered brain damage or even died as a result of the whooping cough vaccine. But their views were dismissed by drug companies and health officials.
The report quotes Gordon Stewart, emeritus professor of public health at Glasgow University, as saying the revelations are "scandalous." Stewart, who in 1984 was asked by the government's Chief Scientific Officer to investigate a link between brain damage and the vaccine, said he advised the Department of Health about these potential toxic batches in 1989 but they did not act.
His report, which was never published by the government but has been seen by The Observer, is highly critical of the whooping cough vaccine used at this time, which he believes was toxic.
Ian Stewart, Labor MP and chair of the all-party Commons committee on the vaccine issue, said he would be holding an emergency meeting of the committee this week and tabling a series of parliamentary questions.
He said, "The families need to know the truth."
"If it can be shown that Glaxo Wellcome were negligent in allowing toxic vaccines to be used, then the company must face up to its responsibilities."
The families of vaccine-injured children receive £100,000 compensation from a government fund financed by the taxpayer. Stewart believes if the firm is at fault, then they should pay compensation, which would be significantly more.