Comments by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
Our UK correspondent Christina England brings us this report regarding a vaccine injury case recently ruled on by a European Union court.
The ruling is significant, because the court looked at the evidence of the particular case, and ruled that the evidence showed that the hepatitis B vaccine caused multiple sclerosis.
This greatly upset pro-vaccine extremists who boldly declare that the “science is settled” on vaccines, and that there is no scientific proof that they cause injuries like this.
The court was not swayed by this position, however, and ruled on the evidence presented in the case, not “scientific” opinion.
On Wednesday, the EU’s top court said that despite the lack of scientific consensus on the issue, a vaccine could be considered defective if there is “specific and consistent evidence,” including the time between a vaccine’s administration, the individual’s previous state of health, the lack of any family history of the disease and a significant number of reported cases of the disease occurring following vaccination.
The corporate sponsored mainstream media spun the story from the vaccine extremist position, of course, with headlines such as: “EU court: Vaccines can be blamed for illnesses without proof.” (CBS News) They define “proof” according to their own standards, declaring that anyone who disagrees with them has “no proof.”
“Scientific proof” is, of course, almost a contradiction in terms, since science cannot technically “prove” anything. Scientific studies and their outcomes are only as good as the data examined, and as new data becomes available, scientific theories are revised.
For more information on this topic, see the excellent article:
The Limitations of Science and the Medical Paradigm
The other problem with relying on “science” is that most scientific studies today are heavily biased, producing the outcomes desired regardless of the data. Corruption and conflict of interest are common, as one CDC whistle-blower has revealed regarding data withheld from CDC studies supposedly proving vaccines do not cause autism.
Throughout the history of jurisprudence, truth was always determined based on the preponderance of evidence, and not simply on the testimony of “experts” who claim they have “science” on their side over-writing all other types of evidence.
EU Court Rules in Favor of Vaccine Injury Based on Evidence
by Christina England
Health Impact News
Every day, we hear stories about vaccine injuries. However, courts generally have failed to recognize the fact that vaccines can have adverse reactions due to the testimony of medical professionals and government officials that claim there is no medical science showing vaccines cause harm.
For this reason it has been virtually impossible to win a case without being able to produce medical evidence. In the U.S., it is illegal to sue pharmaceutical companies for vaccine injuries, and one must take their case to a special government run “vaccine court,” and that court has ruled that certain injuries (such as autism) are not allowed because the “medical science” has reportedly proven that vaccines do not cause these injuries.
This struggle could be about to change, however, because on June 21, 2017, the highest court in Europe, the European Union, ruled that courts can now consider whether a vaccination has led to someone developing an illness, even when there is no medical scientific proof.
CBS News reported on the court’s landmark decision, stating that the decision was issued in relation to a French man named Mr. J.W. who developed multiple sclerosis after receiving the hepatitis B vaccine in late 1998-99.
They stated:
In 2006, he and his family sued vaccine-maker Sanofi Pasteur in an attempt to be compensated for the damage they claim he suffered due to the vaccine. Mr. J.W. died in 2011.
At the time, the case was dismissed because the French Court of Appeals ruled that there was no causal link between the hepatitis B vaccine and multiple sclerosis, in spite of testimony of medical evidence to the contrary. (See: New Study: Hepatitis B Vaccination in France Sparked a Wave of New Cases of MS)
The case then went to the French Court of Cassation, who referred the case to the European Union.
The European Union Court document on the ruling stated that:
In the light of all the foregoing considerations, the answer to the second question is that Article 4 of Directive 85/374 must be interpreted as precluding evidentiary rules based on presumptions according to which, where medical research neither establishes nor rules out the existence of a link between the administering of the vaccine and the occurrence of the victim’s disease, the existence of a causal link between the defect attributed to the vaccine and the damage suffered by the victim will always be considered to be established when certain predetermined causation-related factual evidence is presented. (emphasis added)
Their landmark decision has given hope to thousands of families worldwide, families like the Marchant family, whose daughter Jodie was permanently brain damaged after she received a mystery combination vaccine in 1993.
After hearing of the European Union’s decision, Mr. Marchant, Jodie’s father, stated:
This decision could well be the key for vaccine-injured children and adults to obtain justice.
This could also affect the decisions where compulsory vaccinations are being forced on unwilling victims, as compensation would have to be paid.
This is an important point, especially as the Italian government has recently proposed new legislation to increase the number of their mandatory vaccinations to 12, resulting in mass protests.
Mr. Marchant told Health Impact News that he believes that the court’s decision will make Jodie’s case easier to settle, and he has great faith in their present legal representatives to obtain justice for his daughter.
We asked UK lawyer, Juliette Scarfe, for her professional opinion on the ruling. She told us that:
This case that came before the EU Court concerned the liability of a vaccine manufacturer for damage to a customer, due to the alleged defect in the product. In other words it concerned manufacturer liability for defective products.
The Court was asked for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of the EEC Directive 83/374. Under Article 1 producers are held liable for damage caused by a defect in their product. Article 4 further clarifies that the injured person has to prove damage, the defect in the product and the causal relationship between the defect and the damage.
This is a high bar of proof, as the burden of proof is wholly on the claimant.
The issue the Court considered is that there is no legal definition in the legislation as to what “causal relationship” constitutes. Therefore, it is unclear as to what evidence and proof is sufficient to discharge the burden in respect of the connection between the defect in the product and the damage caused to the consumer.
How does a national member court decide that the proof has been made out to the requisite legal standard? Has the claimant discharged the burden of proof under Article 4 of 83/374? In other words is the administration of the vaccine the most plausible explanation for the occurrence of disease and damage and therefore the vaccine does not offer the safety that the consumer under EU law is entitled to expect.
The Court concluded that if causal related factual evidence is presented at a National Court level in the member state, that is sufficient to discharge the burden of proof Under Article 4, and prima facie the claimant suffered damage by the product for which they can seek redress. There is no need for medical research to be adduced that proves a causal link in the affirmative or negative. The claimant can stand as proof and prima facie evidence themselves.
This is common sense, surely. If I develop a debilitating illness shortly after receiving a vaccine, I should be the medical evidence in chief. It should not matter whether the medical community accepts or rejects that there exists a causal link between the disease and the vaccine in order to consider my defective product claim.
I should be able to rely on the safety of that product and make a claim if I have suffered harm, by adducing specific evidence in my member state court of that harm. I am not precluded from exercising those rights by the existence of scientific research that there is no causal link between the product and the damage. This is what the Court agreed, when interpreting the above EU Directive.
We shall see how the member state courts apply this interpretation and use legal precedent via case law to actually define the meaning of “causal relationship,” although I would caution against the definition becoming too rigid in terms of the framing of evidence that they will accept.
Juliette Scarfe Partner
Ms. Scarfe raises some interesting points. If a perfectly healthy person goes into a doctor’s care and receives a vaccine and then shortly after develops a debilitating illness, it is as Ms. Scarfe points out, common sense that there is a casual link between the disease and the vaccine.
Medical Experts Cannot Prove Whether or Not a Child has Been Vaccine-Injured
Medical experts can only ever base their evidence on medical opinion, because it is virtually impossible for any medical expert to prove categorically that a vaccine has or has not caused a specific injury.
However, it is equally impossible for science to prove that vaccines are completely safe, because every person is different. To rely on scientific evidence alone would be futile, as to date, no scientific evidence has been able to prove categorically that all vaccinations are 100% safe.
As a consequence, lawyers, the justice system and medical professionals have refused point blank to examine vaccine cases in their entirety.
Their blanket refusal to examine all of the facts relating to vaccine cases has infuriated parents and professionals for many years and left many vulnerable children unable to get the justice they deserve.
CBS News turned to the corporate sponsored mainstream media’s favorite pro-vaccine spokesperson for comment, Dr. Paul Offit:
Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccines expert at the University of Pennsylvania, said the criteria used by the court made no sense and are similar to those used by vaccine injury compensation programs in the United States. ‘Using those criteria, you could reasonably make the case that someone should be compensated for developing leukemia after eating a peanut butter sandwich,’ he said.
Offit said the courts shouldn’t be trusted to make rulings about scientific evidence.
Dr. Offit, of course, has a conflict of interest since he holds a patent on a childhood vaccine included in the U.S. CDC vaccine schedule. His extreme views on vaccines hardly represent the entire medical profession, and he has stated publicly outrageous comments, suggesting even that journalists who do not report the extremist views on vaccines should go to “journalist jail.”
Here is an older CBS report exposing the bias and conflict of interest of Dr. Offit:
Independent psychologist Lisa Blakemore-Brown’s 2001 online response to a Finnish study claiming that the science behind the MMR vaccine proved it was safe, was published in the British Medical Journal and put things into perspective. She wrote:
If a group of people collapse after eating, say, Lemon Sole, in a particular restaurant, it would be ludicrous for those responsible to wave a hand over the problem saying that millions of people eat Lemon Sole every day and there are no problems. Health and Safety officials will get straight to the point of the issue and look at the fish in the restaurant, look at the individuals, test findings in the lab.
As hundreds of parents have found their children to react to vaccine, in some cases leading to the ‘new variant autism’ of loss of communication skills, motor impairments and bowel problems, is it not these cases the government should be looking at for answers?
The incidence of this particular tapestry of autism is indisputable. This is not related to increased recognition of autism, the TYPE is unusual and baffling to education and health professionals. In one of my cases of very obvious and indisputable reaction to pertussis vaccine the child in question has been found to have Kawasaki disease, her own immune system attacking itself. She presents as Asperger. There is no autism in the family but the baby had allergies prior to the vaccine. It is scientific examination of cases like this which will enable us to ultimately put measures in place to reassure the public.
Blanket refusal to look at the real issues and prevention of individuals exercising choice seems a dangerous policy…
Today, years later, the “common sense approach” that Ms. Blakemore-Brown described, was exactly the same approach that was used by the European Union Court to base their ruling on.
Comment on this article at VaccineImpact.com.
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In this autobiography she explains why good doctors are constrained within the current corrupt medical system from practicing real, ethical medicine.
One of the sane voices when it comes to examining the science behind modern-day vaccines, no pro-vaccine extremist doctors have ever dared to debate her in public.
Medical Doctors Opposed to Forced Vaccinations – Should Their Views be Silenced?
One of the biggest myths being propagated in the compliant mainstream media today is that doctors are either pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, and that the anti-vaccine doctors are all “quacks.”
However, nothing could be further from the truth in the vaccine debate. Doctors are not unified at all on their positions regarding “the science” of vaccines, nor are they unified in the position of removing informed consent to a medical procedure like vaccines.
The two most extreme positions are those doctors who are 100% against vaccines and do not administer them at all, and those doctors that believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective for ALL people, ALL the time, by force if necessary.
Very few doctors fall into either of these two extremist positions, and yet it is the extreme pro-vaccine position that is presented by the U.S. Government and mainstream media as being the dominant position of the medical field.
In between these two extreme views, however, is where the vast majority of doctors practicing today would probably categorize their position. Many doctors who consider themselves “pro-vaccine,” for example, do not believe that every single vaccine is appropriate for every single individual.
Many doctors recommend a “delayed” vaccine schedule for some patients, and not always the recommended one-size-fits-all CDC childhood schedule. Other doctors choose to recommend vaccines based on the actual science and merit of each vaccine, recommending some, while determining that others are not worth the risk for children, such as the suspect seasonal flu shot.
These doctors who do not hold extreme positions would be opposed to government-mandated vaccinations and the removal of all parental exemptions.
In this article, I am going to summarize the many doctors today who do not take the most extremist pro-vaccine position, which is probably not held by very many doctors at all, in spite of what the pharmaceutical industry, the federal government, and the mainstream media would like the public to believe.
