184762
  • Log in
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Newsletter
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

The Covid Vaccines Scandal Shows That Lessons from Primodos Have Still Not Been Learned, Says Former Government Minister

by Will Jones
9 September 2023 7:00 AM

The scandal of the unacknowledged harms from Covid vaccines shows that lessons from Primodos have still not been learned, a former Government Minister has said.

Speaking in the House of Commons debate on the ongoing Primodos scandal, Esther McVey, a Conservative MP and Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Pandemic Response and Recovery, said that the drug regulator the MHRA continues to miss the vast majority of harms from drugs and the system continues to fail the victims. Here’s a transcript of her speech.

How distressing it must be for the women and families harmed by Primodos that they are still having to fight nearly five decades on. Their road to justice has been long and cruel, and it is shameful that we (MPs) find it necessary to debate this again. How can it be that the Primodos families are still not being properly supported and compensated after all the evidence that has been presented?

Sadly, Primodos is not an isolated case, and we have seen many examples over the years of our regulatory bodies failing to keep patients safe from new medicines and medical devices. In 2013, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) listed 27 medicines that had been withdrawn on safety grounds. The average time they were on the market was 11 years. I wonder how many times we will allow history to repeat itself. There have been reports and reviews calling for reform, and back in 2004 the Health Committee undertook an inquiry into the influence of the pharmaceutical industry. It noted, of drug companies, the “closeness that has developed between regulators and companies”, which had “deprived the industry of rigorous quality control and audit”.

It also highlighted “the MHRA’s poor history in recognising drug risks, poor communication and lack of public trust”.

In 2020, Dame June Raine, the Chief Executive Officer of the MHRA, stated that her agency had transformed itself from watchdog to enabler, so I ask: has anything improved in the intervening 20 years since the Health Committee inquiry? I fear not, and I think the time has come for another inquiry of similar scope and depth, only with more robust outcomes. That is what we want — robust outcomes.

In 2020, the independent medicines and medical devices safety review, ‘First Do No Harm‘, found that Primodos, sodium valproate and pelvic mesh had all caused “avoidable harm”. The review showed that patients had been let down, and it called for significant reforms of the MHRA, due to its mishandling of safety concerns. The review was clear that there is “gross under-reporting” of suspected adverse reactions and that “systems are both too complex and too diffuse to allow early signal detection”.

That theme keeps coming up, and in a recent meeting of the APPG on pandemic response and recovery we heard from Professor Carl Heneghan, who described widespread problems with the reporting of adverse drugs and device reactions, which continue to be a major cause of hospital admissions. As many as 98 out of 100 adverse drug reactions go unreported.

The APPG, of which I am a Co-Chair, was told that the MHRA is running a system that is too slow to act and is beset by conflicts. Failure to act now will only lead to more harm. We also heard from the solicitor Peter Todd who was acting for 43 individuals who suffered blood clots as a result of the AstraZeneca vaccination. He described how the Government’s vaccine damage payment scheme is operating poorly and failing to help those who have been injured. Not only is the current system unable to protect patients from harm, but it is failing to look after those who have already been harmed.

Three years on from Baroness Cumberlege’s landmark review, the Government has not fully implemented its recommendations. In particular, we are still waiting for redress schemes to be set up to meet the costs of additional care and support for those who were harmed by Primodos, sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. Why has that not been done?

Jacob Rees-Mogg, another ex-Government Minister, also contributed to the debate, wondering why even when scandals occurred decades ago, the present Government so often seems reluctant to face up to the errors made in the past and implement the recommendations of inquiries.

The case before us seems so remarkably straightforward that it is impossible to see why there is such a stick-in-the-mud attitude from the Government, though perhaps less so from the pharmaceutical companies, because they know that they are culpable and, ultimately, deserve a financial liability. Why can I be so confident of that link? There seems to be one very striking fact, which was revealed by Jason Farrell in the important work he did for Sky News: the drug was used in South Korea and Germany as an abortifacient. It was used to procure abortions. What is a drug that will do that doing to a baby? It is causing harm. That is so straightforward. We have heard already that Primodos contained 40 times the amount of hormone in a contraceptive pill. It also contained 13 times the amount of the morning-after pill. It is so clear and self-evident that harm has been caused, and therefore responsibility must be laid at someone’s door. We know from today’s debate where those doors are.

I have great sympathy for the Minister who is to respond, because there is an extraordinary, peculiar tendency of Government — one I do not understand as a Back Bencher and did not understand in Government — to cover up the mistakes of long-since-passed Administrations. We have seen it with Hillsborough, the infected blood scandal and even with thalidomide. There is no doubt an almost endless list. I do not understand it — it is not the current Administration at fault. They have done nothing wrong; some were not even born — the Prime Minister was not — when the scandal started. Yet again and again, Governments and the bureaucracy will not open up, allow the real truth to come out and follow the evidence that was so brilliantly and clearly put by Baroness Cumberlege in her report.

Tags: COVID-19MHRAPrimodosSafetyVaccine

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

News Round-Up

Next Post

No Bids for Offshore Wind in Government Auction That is Branded a “Failure” and “Landmark Moment for Renewables Policy”

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

14 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

 

DONATE

PODCAST

Nick Dixon and Toby Young Talk About the Fall of Russell Brand, the BBC’s Trans Rights Activism and Graham Linehan Topping the Bestseller List

by Will Jones
19 September 2023
9

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editors Picks

Lucy Letby Must Be Allowed an Appeal

11 September 2023
by Dr David Livermore

Football Focus in Peril as Viewing Figures Plummet Following Replacement of Dan Walker With Alex Scott

23 September 2023
by Will Jones

German Whistleblower Finds DNA Contamination Up To 354 Times Recommended Limit in BioNTech-Pfizer Vaccine

23 September 2023
by Robert Kogon

News Round-Up

24 September 2023
by Will Jones

Heart Failure Deaths in 2023 Up 26% on Pre-Pandemic Levels, Data Show

24 September 2023
by Nick Rendell

News Round-Up

78

U.K. Health Security Agency Head: We’ll Behave More Like Sweden When the Next Pandemic Hits

35

Heart Failure Deaths in 2023 Up 26% on Pre-Pandemic Levels, Data Show

32

Members of England Ladies’ Angling Team Refuse to Compete in World Championships After Team Picks Trans ‘Woman’ Who Used to Be a Rugby Player

30

MPs Who Believe ‘Women Have a Penis’ Will Be Named and Shamed Ahead of General Election

22

Canadian Parliament Gives Standing Ovation to Man Who Served in Waffen SS

24 September 2023
by Noah Carl

Heart Failure Deaths in 2023 Up 26% on Pre-Pandemic Levels, Data Show

24 September 2023
by Nick Rendell

German Whistleblower Finds DNA Contamination Up To 354 Times Recommended Limit in BioNTech-Pfizer Vaccine

23 September 2023
by Robert Kogon

Decades of Mismanagement Are Dooming Britain to Decline

22 September 2023
by Dr Angus Dalgleish

The Measles Scaremongering Doesn’t Stand Up to Scrutiny

22 September 2023
by Dr Ros Jones

POSTS BY DATE

September 2023
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
252627282930  
« Aug    

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Please note: To be able to comment on our articles you'll need to be a registered donor

Already have an account?
Please click here to login Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment