Meningitis Trust's Grandstanding is Shameful

"The Meningitis Trust's opportunistic use of one family's tragedy along with false and fabricated claims to promote its sponsors products vaccine is a shameful and worrying development in the PR lobby war that has come to represent medicine," says Risk & Policy Analyst, Ron Law.

There already is a cheap multi valency vaccine available for over two year olds for pneumococcal bacteria.

The expensive Prevenar vaccine manufactured by one of the Meningitis Trusts biggests sponsors, Wyeth, would only be made available free to young children, not adults, and the Meningitis Trust has only been promoting its inclusion in the vaccination schedule for children, not adults as claimed.

The Prevenar vaccine would not have been any more effective in preventing Mrs Matic-Kennar's tragic death than the vaccines available now for adults.

It is really sad when the Meningitis Trust uses a family's tragic grief, and false and emotional claims to unashamedly promote their sponsors' products.

The Meningitis Trust was established in New Zealand by a large grant (over $500,000) from the UK Meningitis Trust and it is controlled by UK trustees.

The Medical Director for the Meningitis Trust is UK Professor Keith Cartwright, a long-time Wyeth consultant.

Claims that "500 people are struck down with pnuemococcal disease every year...", "It mainly effects the young...", and "Of the victims who survive, a quarter are left with serious disabilities including cerebral palsy, epilepsy and deafness" are mostly science fiction.

The fact that the media uncritically regurgitates such fabricated data is puzzling and unethical. It is also a puzzle that the front man for Fair Go is the Meningitis Trust's Patron.

The New Zealand Herald's article on Saturday 17 February 2007 is one such example of uncritical reporting.

Of the 411 people of all ages who were admitted to hospital in 2003 with pneumococcal pneumonia, 85 percent were over 15 years old. Thirteen of those died; 10 of them were over 55 years old.

According to the Minister of Health in a reply to parliamentary questions;
PwQ 9319 (2006). Child mortality for pneumococcal meningitis as an underlying cause of death in children aged 0-14 for the last five years was;
1 child in 1999,
1 in 2000,
2 in 2001,
0 in 2002
0 in 2003.

Child mortality for pneumonia due to Streptococcus pneumoniae as an underlying cause of death in children aged 0-14 for the last five years was;

2 in 1999,1 in 2000,
0 in 2001,
3 in 2002
1 in 2003. This is the most up-to-date mortality data available.

PwQ 9318 (2006). Discharges in children aged 0-14 years from pneumonia due to Streptococcus pneumoniae

53 in 2000/1,
61 in 2001/2
60 in 2002/3.

Hospital discharges for pneumococcal meningitis
27 in 2000/2001,48 in 2002/3
21 in 2002/3

The Meningitis Trusts fabricates figures on its website by claiming; "Invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) is a very serious and sometimes fatal illness, affecting approximately 150 New Zealand children under the age of 5 each and every year. Of these, 25 will die and a further 35 will be left with a disability such as cerebral palsy, deafness, epilepsy and behavioural problems." http://www.meningitis-trust.org.nz/media_latest_news.htm

It further fabricates data in claiming, "The Meningitis Trust organised a march to Parliament in July and will stage a second rally, on Wednesday, to keep the significance of this disease, which kills or maims about 500 New Zealanders every year, at the forefront of politicians’ consciousness as they make decisions on the 2008 free immunisation schedule."

According to Official data 11 children under the age of FIFTEEN (15) died of pneumococcal disease over the five years 1999-2003 at an average of 2.2 deaths per year. Four of those deaths were due to meningitis; an average of 0.8 per year.

The Meninigitis Trust has for some inexplicable reason fabricated a figure of over eleven times higher for under five year olds alone.

The Ministry of Health's New Zealand Heath Information System reveals that in 2003 zero deaths occurred in under two-year-olds due to meningitis caused by streptococcal pneumoniae, the bacteria targeted by the Prevenar Vaccine at a cost of over $20 million per year.

The claims that 60 under fives will die or be left with a disability such as cerebral palsy, deafness, epilepsy and behavioural problems is pure PR twaddle designed to emotionally blackmail members of the public and politicians to fund the Meningitis Trusts sponsors product via their Toddle Waddle campaign.

It wasn't that long ago that false claims were being used to ramp up public demand for the MeNZB vaccine under the pretence that it would 'stop the meningococcal epidemic.' The public has not been told that in December 2006 and January 2007 there have been further deaths due to meningococcal disease... Where is the outrage from the Meningitis Trust concerning that?

If the Meningitis Trust wants genuine support of the public then it should not be fabricating data or making false and emotional claims on the back of ill-informed grieving families; that is grossly immoral, as is using captains or sports teams to support their cause when they wisely chose not to vaccinate their children with the experimental MeNZB vaccine; as is using the front man of Fair Go to promote such fraudulent claims.

The vaccine being promoted by the Meningitis Trust will cost approximately $20 million per (at Wyeth's gain)... to prevent at best 2 deaths per year out of 420 deaths per year in under five year olds or 520 per year in under 15 year olds.

If the government has any social sense at all it will channel that $20 million into more productive areas such as reducing the cot death by giving every mother of a new born a plastic mattress wrapper. Based on the fact that not one of approximately 200,000 babies have died on a wrapped mattress as proposed by Dr Jim Sprott, 42 deaths would have been prevented in 2003 at a cost of just $12,000 per life saved. Prevenar at best would cost approximately 1,000 times that much per life saved.

The Ministry of Health needs to establish a pragmatic model for managing public health risk... not be influenced by pharmaceutical company driven propaganda hiding behind opportunistic Trusts who are hijacking grieving families to promote their cause.

The government should not bow to pharmaceutical company driven PR and scientific twaddle. The public deserves a fair go!

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ENDS

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