The Professional Assassination Of Autism Expert Lisa Blakemore-Brown
Author:
Christina England
Dec. 29, 2010
The story of what happened to the UK professional Lisa Blakemore-Brown when she voiced her concerns about vaccines, has all the intrigue and drama associated with an Agatha Christie crime novel. The sad reality is that this has not been written as a work of fiction but to expose the horrific facts surrounding her case and the efforts made to cover up vaccine damage in children.
Her case began when a number of unsubstantiated complaints arrived at the offices of the British Psychological Society attacking the professionalism of the leading educational psychologist and expert in autism Ms. Lisa Blakemore-Brown. Instead of backing their psychologist as one would expect, the BPS backed the complainants and accused Ms Blakemore-Brown of being paranoid. On each occasion she won her case, one complaint turning out to be based on a forged document and the final complaint being lodged by a support group heavily funded by a drugs company. Despite her spectacular wins however, she not only lost her home but she has had her career totally sabotaged.
I have always been shocked and frankly appalled that Ms Blakemore-Brown’s case has not been written about in full. There was no media coverage of her case and no articles of support before it. There were no protests outside the gates of the BPS for her as she struggled to cope with the pressure and no evidence of support from the families that she had so gallantly fought for.
Paranoia of course, as we know, is an ugly word along as with an accusation of paranoia comes stigma, prejudice and discrimination. In fact, this wonderfully talented and gifted professional was being treated in exactly the same way as the many families she had helped over the years who had been falsely accused of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (a diagnosis given to a mother or care giver to describe aspects of their behaviour. This behaviour usually includes subjecting what appears to be a previously healthy child to unnecessary and often painful tests or medical interventions i.e.: scans, x-rays and even surgical procedures to gain attention from the medical profession) This leads us to question whether this was why the BPS turned what should have been a simple ‘conduct case’ into a ‘fitness to practise’ hearing, carried out behind closed doors with accusations of paranoia and an enforced psychiatric assessment. Common sense tells us that any professional that is deemed paranoid by their governing body automatically has their past work professionally discredited. I personally believe that this was what was aimed for in this case.
Two professionals did write in support of Ms Blakemore-Brown to the BPS. These were Earl Frederick Howe – House of Lords and Dr Michael Innis, who both viewed Ms Blakemore-Brown as a professional of integrity and gave very high accounts of her excellent work.
I am honoured that I have been given the opportunity to write about the case of Lisa Blakemore-Brown, which is one that shows monumental injustice. Her case was instigated, in my opinion, by financially motivated pharmaceutical companies, corrupt governments and a failing system. I hope in writing this I can begin to expose the real truth of what can happen to a professional who speaks out against vaccines and their dangers.
Lisa Blakemore-Brown is an independent applied psychologist specialising in ADHD, Asperger Syndrome and related disorders. Her research focuses on early intensive system intervention and the increasing professional recognition of the interweaving of ADHD, Asperger Syndrome and related disorders. For this interweaving of disorders she uses her own metaphor ‘Tapestry Disorders’.
In 1996, Ms Blakemore-Brown was introduced to and asked to assess twin girls whose mother had been accused of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP).The paediatrician and expert leading the case at the time was the since discredited Professor David Southall.
After spending many hours researching the twin’s background and studying the vast quantity of medical records ascertaining to the case, Ms Blakemore-Brown discovered that these two little girls had been born prematurely, at just 26 weeks and were severely disabled. Against all odds, the twins managed to survive, even after they both suffered multiple complications which included brain haemorrhages. Ms Blakemore-Brown diagnosed the twins with Autistic Spectrum Disorder and ADHD saying that they were, in fact, very disabled little girls, Professor Southall and social services disagreed, stating that these little girls were normal. Professor Southall later admitted on a television documentary surrounding the case, that he had no expertise in psychology or indeed the condition ADHD. Why did he go against Ms Blakemore-Brown’s expert opinion when in fact he knew nothing whatsoever about psychology or the condition ADHD?
Ms Blakemore-Brown spoke about the case more recently at the Convention of Modern Liberty and said:
“Back in 1996 I was an Expert Witness in a Court case involving autistic spectrum hyperactive identical twin girls who had been born at 26 weeks gestation in 1984. The behaviour of the twins, one in particular, was so difficult for the mother to manage especially with two other younger children, that she threatened to sue the authorities if they had missed the nature of the twins’ problem. This triggered an allegation of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP) – that she was fabricating or inducing the children’s behaviours/illnesses. What became clear to me was that Social workers, the Court and other professionals were being groomed by perverted logic to see real disorders and symptoms of real illness as child abuse.”
In 1996, the case went to court and despite Ms Blakemore-Brown’s evidence, the twin’s mother lost all four of her children to the care of social services.
It was around this time that Ms Blakemore-Brown began to have serious concerns about other cases involving autistic children she was assessing. Many of these were where the parents had also been accused of MSBP particularly she noticed after the parents had claimed that their children’s problems only began after a vaccine had been administered. In 1997, she wrote about her concerns in a letter that was published by the BPS in the magazine the Psychologist http://www.profitableharm.com/psychologist_letter.html .
In June 1998 an article appeared in also written The Therapist by Ms Blakemore-Brown; this was a year after Sir Roy Meadow (a British paediatrician who had risen to initial fame for his 1977 academic paper on MSBP and his crusade against parents who wilfully harm or kill their children and also famous for endorsing “one sudden infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder, until proved otherwise“ now known as Meadow’s Law) had himself written an article for The Therapist. Ms Blakemore-Brown says that the Editor of The Therapist had contacted her after reading her letter in the Psychologist, asking her if she would write an article showing the opposite view, to start a debate.
In her article which she entitled False illness in children – or simply false accusations , she described a tragic case that she had been involved with involving a child that had developed a dangerously high fever, immediately after routine vaccinations. Shortly thereafter, he began to bang his head, soil and lost all his language. After many investigations, the child was diagnosed as having Asperger’s Syndrome. The mother began to suspect that the vaccinations were the root of the child’s problems and decided not to have her other children vaccinated. As time went on, she became desperate for help and turned to the social services, begging them for respite care because she was finding her elder son difficult to manage. Instead of the help this mother so badly needed, she was accused of MSBP and her children were taken away from her.
In foster care, the youngest child, a little girl, was vaccinated against the wishes of her mother. Instantaneously and tragically, her behaviour deteriorated the same way as her brother’s had, only this time the foster carer had video tapes of before and after vaccinations to prove this. Despite this evidence, both of the younger children were adopted. Ms Blakemore-Brown wrote:-
“I have now seen details of many cases where children were wrongly taken from their families”.
In 1999, Ms Blakemore-Brown gave evidence in the Griffiths Inquiry. This inquiry was looking into the alleged malpractice of Professor David Southall.
When the Griffiths Report came out, Ms. Blakemore-Brown was named as a professional who had given evidence in relation to the mistaken thinking and logging of evidence of cases involving MSBP. The Griffiths Report included a paragraph on the concerpt of Munchausen’s Syundrome by Poxy (‘MSBP’) and its potential for errors of judgement. This led Ms. Blakemore-Brown to be conversant with the evolution of the MSBP guidelines.
Shortly after and with Ms. Blakemore-Brown fighting breast cancer, she went to New Zealand to give evidence in a case involving the mother of the twins, who had by this time fled to NZ to start a new life. Whilst away, Ms. Blakemore-Brown had her home burgled by a mother accused of MSBP, who had told Ms. Blakemore-Brown that she was suffering terminal cancer. Consequently, Ms. Blakemore-Brown had allowed her to stay in her home with her children to give them a holiday as her home was by the sea. Ms. Blakemore-Brown said that she could help care for her elderly dog and answer her phone. Ms. Blakemore-Brown soon discovered that this was in fact an elaborate hoax, as when she came home she found that her papers on the Griffiths Inquiry had been stolen and her home had in fact been ransacked. She then had a call from a professional she knew in the North, who was claiming that this woman had arrived in their offices and spent the whole day in what can onloy be described as sabotaging Ms. Blakemore-Brown’s reputation. This was the very day she had said to Ms. Blakemore-Brown that she was supposed to be having possible life saving surgery.
Despite this, Ms Blakemore-Brown continued to speak out about her fears of vaccine damage and in particular, the use of Thimerosal in vaccines and the overuse of the label MSBP to blame parents for their children’s disabilities. Ms Blakemore-Brown attributed this overuse to the work of Professor David Southall and Professor Roy Meadow.
During this time, she complained to both the General Medical Council and the Department of Health, asking for a public health inquiry. She was ignored. In fact Ms Blakemore-Brown wrote several times to the Government, even sending a letter to Jackie Smith, the then Health Secretary, demanding that action be taken. Jackie Smith returned this with a curt reply, saying that her fears had been documented.
In 2000, Ms Blakemore-Brown launched her book Reweaving the Autistic Tapestry in which she featured the case of a child she called Lorelei (name was changed to protect identity). This was a child who had reacted to the pertussis vaccine and in this case, the hospital had noted it in her medical records. The little girl went on to develop Kawasaki Syndrome, (KS is characterized by fever, rash, swelling of the hands and feet, irritation and redness of the whites of the eyes, swollen lymph glands in the neck, and irritation and inflammation of the mouth, lips, and throat) which has been attributed to vaccine damage by many renowned professionals including Dr Michael Innis. The consultant Gillian Baird referred the child to Ms Blakemore-Brown to be assessed because the child had also developed Asperger’s Syndrome.
Ms Blakemore-Brown later wrote about the case in a letter to the British Medical Journal rapid response on the Internet. The BMJ wrote to the parents to check that the information was correct and then published the letter saying that the information was correct.
At this time, Thimerosal was being used in many childhood vaccines. Thimerosal was first put into vaccines by the drug company Eli Lilly. Ms Blakemore-Brown had mentioned in her book that vaccines were a possible cause of ‘Tapestry disorders’ in children. At the back of the book Ms Blakemore-Brown had mentioned names of lawyers that dealt ‘with claims against manufactures on the basis that autism has been caused by mercury and in particular Thimerosal’. Of course looking back, if this had later been proven to be the case and Lorelei had reacted to the Thimerosal in the DPT vaccine, this would mean that Eli Lilly could be sued for billions of pounds by parents worldwide. Suddenly the book disappeared and parents desperate to have a copy were being told that this was an ‘extremely rare book‘. Was this an early indication that Ms Blakemore-Brown has inadvertently hit upon something that was very damaging not only to the pharmaceutical industry but also the UK government?
This does appear very odd indeed because just a few weeks before this book had been a best-seller on various Autism websites and was the number one best-seller on the Attention Deficit Disorder Information Service (ADDISS) website. This is what Ms Blakemore-Brown had to say in an article she later wrote:-
MMR, Mercury and the Mystery surrounding my book
“Tomorrow, the General Medical Council will start the case against Dr Andrew Wakefield and two other doctors who raised concerns about children they assessed in the nineties, very worried that the problems they found were linked to adverse reactions to the MMR vaccine.
As there has been an almighty reaction by the Pharmaceutical lobby, there has been NO public debate on exactly what has been going on.
In my book, Reweaving the Autistic Tapestry, having seen too many children with what I called ‘tapestry impairments’ many of which developed following the DTP and in fewer cases, the MMR, I suggested there may be a ‘tapestry’ causal effect with vaccines as one thread.
I mentioned Thimerosal and included some lawyer’s details here and in the US.
The launch of the book was at a CHADD conference in Anaheim California in October 2001. Eli Lilly were on the next stand and bought a copy of the book.
On my return to the UK, there was no contact from the publisher.
Within weeks of my book being published, parents were being told by Amazon that it was a ‘rare book’ and that it would take a year to get and would cost $79 plus post and packing!!!
There were none in the shops.
There were none in the warehouses of the retailers.
There were none in the distributors.
The UK National Autistic Society carry all the books on Autism – except mine.
Probably nothing to do with my concerns about the vaccine, a small part of the book incidentally, or about my concern about the use of the label Munchausen Syndrome by proxy when children were genuinely ill – many had suffered reactions to vaccines. The fact that during the time my editor was working on the book, he was invited to change jobs and work on the MSBP/Factitious Illness Guidelines at the RCPCH – Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, I am sure was total coincidence.
Guess I’m just paranoid when it comes to the things done by the powerful vaccine lobby and the need to protect the vaccine programme more than the public…
Prior to the documentary, My Family and Autism, being aired on the BBC, over a year after the trip to Anaheim in which I am seen undertaking an assessment, I was able to at least get the book made more accessible.
If just one person is allowed to speak about their concerns without being leapt on from a great height, I might have confidence that the vaccine programme is safe – but I think they have gone too far and protested too much.
We all now want to know WHY???”
The book issue was not the only strange thing to happen at this time. A series of strange things were beginning to happen; hate posts began to be posted on the Internet site Mothers against Munchausen Allegations (MAMA). This was highly unusual as the site was aimed at supporting mothers who found themselves falsely accused of MSBP. These posts referred to Ms Blakemore-Brown as being unprofessional and a danger to children, some even indicating that she was mad using phrasing such as ‘barking mad’ or ‘paranoid’. At around this time Ms Blakemore-Brown also began to get abusive emails, Ms Blakemore-Brown says that one in particular she remembers was from a Ms Penny Mellor, a campaigner and one of the main contributors to the MAMA board, according to Ms Blakemore-Brown this email was extremely hurtful stating in capitols ‘ UNDERSTAND THIS – YOU ARE IRRELEVANT’ then about Ms Blakemore-Brown’s book she had added ‘Tapestry? Weaving? More like basket case!!!!‘ . Shortly after losing her home due to legal costs from the first hearing, Ms Blakemore-Brown managed at last to set up her dream unit, ‘The Tapestry Life Centre’, at the Brunel University in London to support and aid children with autism. This was to be one of the first of its kind but within days of the news of the Centre being made public, the MAMA website, became littered with posts containing the most dreadful slander and libel, sneering at her efforts and asking where the money came from.
Another strange event surrounded the documentary mentioned by Ms Blakemore-Brown in her piece above. Although Ms Blakemore-Brown was featured heavily in the original documentary which was filmed at the Brunel University in July 2003 when the film was made on that documentary starring Helena Bonham-Carter entitled ‘The Magnificent Seven’ Lisa Blakemore-Brown had been airbrushed out.
The BBC say that this was because it was impossible to show all aspects of the documentary and that the film was based on the family itself.
In 2004 Jamie Doward wrote a piece in the Observer entitled Ministers told child harm theory was flawed | UK news | The Observer This article heavily featured Blakemore-Brown and received front-page coverage. Just a month later, Ms Blakemore-Brown along with Charles Pragnell, Helen Hayward-Brown, Dr Kalokerinos and Dr Innis were asked to speak at a conference in Sydney Australia. The Sydney Conference was the first International conference to challenge the diagnoses of MSBP and SBS. The conference was heavily covered at the time by the world press but strangely enough, not here in the UK. Blakemore-Brown in the same year gave a speech at House of Lords on MSBP which she called MSBP – A PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC TRAP
The speech was a huge success.
It was around this time that the second complaint had gone in to the BPS about Ms Blakemore-Brown.
Had Ms Blakemore-Brown become a public embarrassment to the government, and just who was behind the complaint?
In 2005, Blakemore-Brown was involved in the writing of the Consensus Paper, entitled Misdirection of Social Policy, a powerful document outlining faults in the system when looking at MSBP.
The Consensus document was written by a large group of professionals from various walks of life who saw a system was failing. It appeared that the result was that a large number of innocent parents were being accused of MSBP. These were parents with children who were sick or disabled that were being denied help. These professionals came together to discuss and draw up a document outlining what they saw going wrong and why. It was written for politicians and the government, to advise where the problems were seen to be and where changes may be made, for this reason it was not a Scientific document but a consensus of views. There are many instances where opinions are sought from service users and professionals.
The recommendations should have been discussed further to allow further development of policy. This was the logical way forward. The document had no named author. This was to protect the identities of all the professionals due to the fear of harassment. Sadly the Consensus document was heavily criticized by the media and certain campaign groups including the MAMA internet site, some of who never checked out the facts before voicing their opinions. Every opinion should count when there is a discussion of further improvements of policy. If the scientific community had reservations in accepting this document, they could have used it as a baseline to develop further larger studies containing a random group of cases. The recommendations could have been investigated further but it seems that the child protection specialists have so far failed to examine the issues to determine whether or not they can be implemented.
Specialists from the scientific community have mistaken it and compared the document to a scientific paper when it was simply a consensus of opinions and suggestions to be taken on board and perhaps examined in more detail.
The Consensus was written to effect change. This was a document to enable better guidelines and the changes suggested may have been implemented within government legislation. Recommendations were made and changes could have happened. The document was sadly shelved and gathers dust. The vast divide between child protection specialists and the parent population has caused a serious failure in communication. This in turn now results in falsely accused parents. Their real plight is often undermined or discarded. Various nefarious campaigning groups have overshadowed the true suffering of those who have been wrongly diagnosed. Perhaps this consensus document could be considered by the child protection specialists, government officials and those responsible for creating current policy. A proper robust policy should be developed to enable the protection of the child and the protection of the parent – equally.
Despite the Consensus document backing parents who had been falsely accused of MSBP and aiming to put new guidelines in place, the MAMA website appeared to once again sabotage Ms Blakemore-Brown’s efforts, siding instead with an article written in The Guardian by Jonathan Gornall entitled ‘No names, no proof, no consensus’ http://www.mensaid.com/msbp-fii/press-no_names_no_proof_no_consensus.htm that attacked the document because it had no named authors.
In March 2007, Ms. Blakemore-Brown was featured in the ‘Spectator’ in a piece entitled, What killed Sally Clark’s child? | The Spectator which explained a UK case involving a mother who had been jailed for three years after being accused of killing her baby, despite him dying just five hours after the DPT vaccine .In fact Sally lost not one but two of her children within hours after vaccines.
The article began:-
“Sally Clark spent three and a half years in jail wrongly convicted of murdering two of her babies after a jury was assured there was no other explanation for their sudden deaths than that she had deliberately smothered them. Yet five hours before her second child, Harry, was found lifeless in his baby chair, he had been injected with a combined vaccine with a long history of serious adverse reactions.
Harry was eight weeks old, the regulation age for the first of three injections against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (DTP) and Hib (a bacterial infection that can cause meningitis). He was also given an oral polio vaccine. His biological age was five weeks, as he had been born three weeks premature. Because of the previous sudden death of his brother, Christopher, his breathing was being monitored. He was uncharacteristically dozy from the time of his jabs to the time he died.
Not many people know these facts, because at Sally’s trial the defence did not mention immunisation as a possible cause of death. Two prosecution witnesses, including the paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow, assured the jury it could be discounted. Their statements went unchallenged, and the issue did not form any part of the appeal hearings. Professor Meadow, a former member of a Department of Health sub-committee on adverse reactions to vaccines, told the jury that he could not think of any natural explanation for Harry’s or Christopher’s deaths. ”
However, the expert witness in this case was Professor Sir Roy Meadow. Meadow, it has since been discovered sat on meetings discussing sudden infant deaths after the DPT vaccination years earlier when he say on the Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation, an organisation that decides vaccine policy in the UK. He knew only to well the DPT vaccine could cause sudden infant deaths in some children. IN the Sally Clark case however, he told the jury that vaccinations were unlikely to be the cause of the children’s death. To read papers about those meetings Click Here
During all this time, strange events just continued to happen to Ms Blakemore-Brown including her computer being hacked, her phone being tapped and death threats. More and more despite her dedication and exceptional work on the MSBP/Vaccine issues she found her self pushed aside and cut out of any media or political coverage surrounding the issues. Blakemore-Brown explained about one of the strange occurrences in her article The Politics And Commerce Of Autism By Lisa – ***** THE POLITICS …
“I was contacted by Judith Barnard and asked to speak at a conference looking at various matters pertaining to autism and they wanted me to speak on my concerns about MSBP. I agreed and this went ahead at Regents College in Regents Park London. I was also asked to meet with Judith Gould at the National Autistic Society to discuss matters. They apologised for not taking seriously my concerns in 1997, saying that they too now had a family being destroyed by a false allegation of MSBP and had finally seen what I had been trying to tell them some 5 years earlier. There was understandable deep concern about the Guidelines and the section I had picked out. Subsequently Judith Gould, Lorna Wing and Judith Barnard attended a meeting at the Department of Health.
They met Jacqui Smith and a civil servant, Jenny Gray. I was not invited to the meeting and from that time on, no one contacted me again from the NAS, well certainly not in a supportive manner. Something clearly happened at that meeting. My book, Reweaving the Autistic Tapestry: Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome and ADHD, is the only book on autism published by Jessica Kingsley that the NAS do not carry. I address concerns about the use of MSBP, concerns about the possibility that vaccines are implicated in autism, and a full chapter on how the educational system failed children with special educational needs”
So who were behind all these strange events and just what had Ms Blakemore-Brown said that was so important that she needed to be silenced? Had she inadvertently uncovered something that was very worrying indeed to the drugs companies and the UK government? The events that followed appear to indicate that this could well be the case.
It soon materialised that the National Autistic Society who no longer supported Ms Blakemore-Brown or her work were being funded by the drugs company Glaxo SmithKline.
In my article Is There More To Professor Simon Baron-Cohen Than Meets The Eye, I showed how the NAS was receiving funding from Glaxo SmithKline by citing the GSK website which said:-
“National Autistic Society (NAS)
NAS provides support and advice to families and individuals across the autistic spectrum and are increasingly concerned by the lack of information and advice available to GPs and health professionals in terms of diagnosing this condition.
We have supported this organisation since 2003.
During 2006:
Our charitable donation of £9,988 will fund a targeted mailing to over 4,000 GP´s surgeries in the UK with information about autism, NAS and their services.
Our funding represents 0.15 per cent of their income overall.”
It then emerged that the group ADDISS was behind the new complaint against Ms Blakemore-Brown .
Lisa says in her article ***** THE POLITICS AND COMMERCE OF AUTISM
“Given the profound need for such efforts and such facilities espoused by none other than Jacqui Smith at the Kings Fund Centre just a few months earlier and the considerable media exposure of the wrongful convictions of women accused of killing their children by Professor Sir Roy Meadow, I had every reason to feel optimistic about the Centre, my own future and that of the children I dedicated my working life to.
Within a matter of weeks, another vexatious complaint was drummed up with a group called ADDISS heavily involved at the outset. This group was just beginning to receive considerable funding from Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical company which first produced Thimerosal, a mercury-containing vaccine preservative implicated in the rise in autism. Liam Byrne, a Labour Minister who has also had responsibility for matters linked to autism, defended the funding this same group received from the Department of Health at the same time. He was also brought in to spin out the considerable number of recommendations following a two year Select Committee Parliamentary inquiry into the influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry.
Despite knowing about the actions of this group from a colleague, the British Psychological Society ploughed on. The University was bombarded with vexatious calls relating to me and the Director was told, out of the blue, to take early retirement. It was all quite shocking for everyone”
It was around this time and completely out of the blue, another complaint went in to the BPS. This time the complaint was from Penny Mellor, herself an avid campaigner against false allegations of child abuse and the main contributor to the website MAMA. Ms Mellor implied that Ms Blakemore-Brown was not fit to practise and was in her opinion mentally ill.
Ms Blakemore-Brown was shocked as she had only ever met Ms Mellor on three occasions. However. Ms Mellor had tried to sabotage every attempt Ms Blakemore-Brown made to expose the ever increasing number of parents being falsely accused after a vaccine injury had occurred.
Suddenly and without warning Ms Blakemore-Brown was asked to leave the university and close down the Tapestry Life Centre; her lifetime’s dream was shattered.
On winning her case in 2008, three years after the complaint was originally filed, Ms Blakemore-Brown promptly resigned from the BPS as she no longer wanted any association with an organisation she felt was as corrupt as their counterpart, the GMC. She continued to speak out until the middle of 2009.
Little has been heard from Ms Blakemore-Brown since then. Has she finally called it a day and realised that the drug companies and the UK government have just become too powerful when it comes to vaccinating our children? Well I am sure that is what they would like to think. After all, it would be another ‘notch on their bedpost’ so to speak. Ms Blakemore-Brown has this saying, however: ‘Slowly, Slowly, Catchy, Monkey‘, and I doubt very much that they have seen the last of this amazing women.
On July 18th 2010 it was announced by The Independent newspaper that Ms Mellor had been recruited by the General Medical Council to be part of a group of experts offering guidance to doctors on child protection procedures. In the article by Nina Lakhanni called – Child abduction conspirator hired to advise doctors she wrote:-
“A row has broken out after the General Medical Council recruited a woman convicted of conspiracy to abduct a child on to an expert group charged with producing child protection guidance for doctors.
Penny Mellor, from Wolverhampton, served eight months of an 18-month jail sentence after being found guilty of a “wicked conspiracy to abduct” a little girl in 1999. She still maintains she was trying to prevent the child from falling into the hands of social services. Mrs Mellor has been involved in more than 50 complaints against professionals working in child protection, accusing numerous doctors and nurses of misconduct.
The GMC was last night under growing criticism from respected paediatricians, just months after winning widespread praise for setting up the group.
This followed controversy involving a paediatrician, Dr David Southall, an expert on a condition formerly known as Münchhausen syndrome by proxy, in which a person causes injury or illness to another (often their child) to gain attention. Mrs Mellor, who describes herself as a campaigner and medico-legal researcher, has confirmed taking part in around 30 complaints against Dr Southall. The GMC had ruled that he be struck off the medical register but he successfully overturned this at appeal. Mrs Mellor has been investigated, but not charged, for criminal harassment against Dr Southall”.
On 26th July 2010 Ms Blakemore-Brown had this about the to say about the GMC and Ms Mellor in and article entitled Ms Penny Mellor, The BMJ, The GMC And – The One Click Group – News …
“I am no longer astonished about what happens in the country within the so called Regulatory bodies and in the world of so called Child Protection”
She continued-
“Ms Mellor seemed hell bent on making sure she was seen to be the only voice for the parents, and any other attempts by others were thwarted. To this day I don’t know why, though clues may lie in the fact that she publicly defended Sir Roy Meadow when it was discovered through FOI that he had been on the Adverse Reactions to Vaccination and Immunisation sub committee of the JCVI. A leading journalist, who, like many others, had been shocked by the Sally Clark case, began to put two and two together – was MSBP a cover up for vaccination adverse reactions and maybe other iatrogenic damage? If so, why would a “housewife” claiming to be on the side of falsely accused parents (many of whom had children whose illnesses began after a vaccine) want to deny that possibility just as Sir Roy himself did in the Clark case? Why is it NEVER considered as part of the differential diagnosis? Who was she protecting? It wasn’t the children who reacted to vaccine whose parents were destroyed by false allegations of MSBP.
Penny Mellor even sent in a vexatious complaint about me, in her many long years of efforts to sabotage whatever I did in relation to MSBP. She sent in a scribbled page to my Regulatory body saying I was not fit to practise – implying mental illness – because she thought that I had said that she had a personality disorder. My own Regulatory body, The British Psychological Society, were only too happy to listen to Ms Mellor and push this complaint through over many years when even their own adjudicator said it was vexatious and should be thrown out. I eventually won, but the damage was considerable. Who influenced them?”
Who indeed, Penny Mellor perhaps?
I have since discovered that shortly before the Director of Brunel University was asked to retire, the University had in fact received funding from GSK.
Since writing this article Ms Mellor resigned from the GMC. In an article covering the story in the BMJ Doctors’ critic resigns from guidance group after protests Clair Dyer had this to say:-
“The controversial parents’ advocate and campaigner Penny Mellor has stepped down from the General Medical Council’s expert group on child protection in the face of a High Court challenge to the GMC’s decision to recruit her to the group.
Papers served on the GMC by the paediatrician David Southall argue that her inclusion in the group is “illegal, perverse, and unethical” and contrary to the public interest and the spirit of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006.
Dr Southall also contends that Mrs Mellor’s appointment is contrary to the GMC’s obligations in respecting the professional status and work of the doctors it registers and contrary to its role, as established with the Charity Commission, to regulate professional practice and provide advice on standards of conduct and performance and on medical ethics.”
PACA Professionals Against Child Abuse http://paca.org.uk/ had this to say:-
“PACA welcomes the resignation of Mrs Penny Mellor from the expert group set up by the GMC to review doctors’ conduct in child protection matters. Mrs Mellor has led a long-standing campaign against professionals who take a lead in complex and life-threatening child abuse, including paediatricians, pathologists, radiologists and social workers. She has spun a series of false allegations that have impacted on the lives of professionals, as well as the resources of the NHS and GMC, and not least continues to post confidential material concerning families involved in child protection proceedings on public web sites.”
Many professionals have had their careers ruined through speaking out about the dangers of vaccines. Few however have had to endure the years of victimisation that Ms Blakemore-Brown has had to go through. In my opinion this has been a well engineered campaign to destroy the career of a brave child advocate and dedicated professional.
All documents and references cited in this article can be found in full on www.profitableharm.com under Lisa Blakemore-Brown. Many of these documents can be found nowhere else on the Internet.
Other research used
The David Southall Film Clip. For the full catalogue, see here
Reading Ms Blakemore-Brown’s book, Reweaving the Autistic Tapestry, which can now finally be purchased on Amazon. The book however has strangely been edited and not by Ms Blakemore-Brown and is now minus the recommendation from Earl Howe on the back cover.
Conversations with Ms Blakemore-Brown
Author Information:
Christina England
I am a UK journalist with an HND in journalism. I am also a member of ICAP International Coalition of Advocates for the People
i.c.a.p.org
I have an interest in Human Right issues, especially the rights of the disabled and the elderly.
I wish to expose the new evidence that is being uncovered surrounding vaccines.
Many vaccines have been proven to have serious adverse reactions that have been found to cause, Autism, ADHD and other neurological and physical disorders.
I believe that all parents have the right to the information often hidden by the pharmaceutical industries about what vaccines contain and the often devastating side effects that these vaccines have been found to cause.
It is only when a parent has the full facts that they can make a fully informed choice as to whether they wish to have their child vaccinated or not.
Parents also need to know that there are other choices open to them like single vaccines, mercury free vaccines, homeopathic vaccines and diets to boost the immune system to promote good healthy living.
Our children must not become human pin cushions or profit making machines, they are precious and they are ours.
Christina England
RECENT CASES illustrate how rare diseases can be mistaken for child abuse, mimicking the bleeding or fractures of shaken-baby syndrome.
FRANKLIN COUNTY — A Chambersburg man charged with assaulting his infant daughter was in court Monday for the first day of a jury trial scheduled for the whole week.
CHAMBERSBURG, Tuesday, Dec. 14 – A Franklin County jury heard hours of medical testimony this morning in the trial of a man accused of shaking his infant daughter until she suffered brain injury.
Dr. Arabinda Choudhary, director of pediatric neuroradiology at Hershey, also testified Tuesday that the baby had blood on her brain and retinal hemorrhages, as well as apparent brain swelling and bruising.
Hospital emergency room. Those events led to a child abuse investigation and criminal charges.
A Chambersburg man was acquitted Friday of charges that he shook his 3-month-old daughter.
When the liver cells become damaged, the immune system of the body
By JAMI REAVES
Published December 16, 2010LEAGUE CITY — After reviewing evidence that prompted the state to accuse a father of killing his only son, a defense expert testified Wednesday the fractures and bruises occurred after the infant died.
Young disagreed, saying cardiopulmonary resuscitation caused the fractures and the movement of a small amount of blood behind the skin and in the child’s eyes. This could have been confused with tissue hemorrhage, he said.
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