Читать книгу Helen's Story - Rosemary Fox - Страница 15

It was in August 1973 when the question of raising the issue in the House of Commons came up. I knew little about how campaigns worked and, apart from voting for our local Member of Parliament at election times, I knew less about how Members of Parliament worked. Clearly, we needed a strong advocate in Parliament to raise the question of vaccine damage and pursue the Government on the question of making special provision for those who had suffered.

At the time, a local group of the charity Action for the Crippled Child had been set up in Stratford and I went along to some of the evening meetings. It was at one of these meetings, while I was talking about my own child and my hope of running a campaign in Parliament, that one of the Committee members mentioned Jack Ashley. Due to his constant work for disabled children he was well known to the charity executives.

I had, of course, heard of Jack Ashley MP, who suffered deafness following an operation which destroyed his promising career, or so it was said at the time. There are many who have since said that far from ruining his life, his disability enabled him and left him free to devote all his energies to helping others, and the list of those he has helped over the years is endless. This is perhaps a selfish way of looking at it as I am sure that Jack himself had his own dreams of what he wanted to do and what he could achieve in many other important fields. I wrote to him and he agreed to meet me, asking me to bring along a brief outline of what I was proposing.

I told Celia Hall about the impending meeting and on the day of the meeting in The Birmingham Post there was an article reading, ‘Today Rosemary Fox goes to Parliament with a file of stories about vaccine damaged children which she hopes will be the start of a campaign for State provision for them’

I bought a new coat and had my hair done and hoped that I would appear competent and intelligent. The train would take me to Paddington from where I would take the tube to Westminster and, I thought, get to the meeting in good time. But it was not to be so simple. The train stopped for nearly half an hour on the approach to Paddington and I was aware of each minute ticking by, wondering if I would ever get to the meeting. To save whatever time I could I took a taxi from Paddington to the House of Commons where the meeting was to take place. Then there was a further delay while I had to check in and send my briefcase through the security barrier. By this time I was a nervous wreck!

‘Please,’ I said to the attendant, ‘I am very late for a meeting. Could you show me quickly where the committee room is?’

The staff were very helpful and I finally arrived at the meeting. Sitting around a table were Jack Ashley and his wife, Pauline, with Professor Dick, Duncan Guthrie, Chairman of Action for the Crippled Child, and another colleague.

I was afraid that I wouldn’t make a very good impression because of my late arrival I had kept everyone waiting and there was no way I could have let them know what had happened. Today, I would have a mobile phone and the problem would not arise but this was 1973. As well as I could, speaking from conviction and from the data I had accumulated, I told them why I believed that some children had been damaged by vaccination and why the State had a responsibility to make special provision for them.

To begin with, I was nervous about this as I wanted to make my case directly to Jack Ashley, but I was not sure how I would be able to do this if he could not hear what I was saying. I had been told that he would able to lip read, but would I be able to form my words clearly enough for him to understand? I need not of course have worried because Pauline, Jack’s wife, was there to make sure that he could understand everything that was said either by repeating it clearly or by writing it down. I came to know Pauline well over the years and never ceased to admire her constant cheerfulness and patience when helping people to speak to Jack. I hoped that, over time, I would be able to speak so that Jack could easily read my lips, but I wasn’t always successful and, once, to cover up my shortcomings, I told him that he was probably having difficulty understanding me because ‘I am speaking with an Irish accent!’ Pauline’s helpful presence was a great help to me and, I am sure, to countless others.

Indeed, Pauline’s involvement was not confined to liaising with those seeking Jack’s help. She was an active campaigner in her own right and played an important role in many of the good causes devoted to helping those who needed advice and support. Jack himself said that she was often more passionately involved in the campaigns than he was and that she provided invaluable ideas, suggestions and research for all the issues he pursued publicly, which included Thalidomide, domestic violence, bullied soldiers, drug damage, rape victims and others.

This first meeting was pleasant and informative, with Professor Dick confirming that there was a case to answer and, after the meeting, Jack Ashley asked me to provide him with facts and figures to enable him to raise the matter in Parliament. Professor Dick provided me with references to the expert research on whooping cough vaccination in particular and, afterwards, he continued to give me advice and guidance in the preparation of our campaign material. He was always concerned that our campaign should be as responsible and non-controversial as possible and one of his particular requests was that we should never refer to our children as victims.

Professor Dick was a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which was set up to advise the Department of Health on vaccination. He had his own reservations about the whooping cough vaccine and had published reports on its possible side effects. At the time, he was also concerned about the side effects of smallpox vaccination and argued for its withdrawal.

I was unable to agree with the suggestion made by Duncan Guthrie that the campaign should cover all disabled children, not just those who were vaccine damaged. Like others, he thought that the more money spent on special cases, the less would be available for charities. We were a very small, new group without the staff, office facilities or funding which would have enabled us to carry out the kind of campaign he had in mind and which was already being carried out by charities like Action for the Crippled Child. I did not see our campaign as detracting from the work of others and I was completely convinced, and always have been since, that healthy children who became disabled by the action of the State in the interests of community health merited very special consideration, far above what the State was likely to provide for disabled children generally.

This has always been a very difficult argument to maintain, because to the parent of a child who is born disabled, or becomes disabled by illness or accident, there is no difference. Disability is disability, however it occurs, and arguing special cases can sound selfish. My argument however, which I still maintain, is that when higher levels of provision are achieved for special cases like ours, comparisons are created which can help to improve provision for all. When the meeting finished Jack Ashley promised that he would ask for a Parliamentary Debate on the subject.

When I went to that November meeting, I had received details from 28 families about their vaccine-damaged children. By the time Jack Ashley had applied for and been given a date for what was the first ever Parliamentary Debate about vaccine damage, the numbers had risen to nearly 300. There was great excitement among the families when I told them that there was to be a debate in the House of Commons on 31 January l974, at which Jack would put forward the case on behalf of our children who had been damaged by vaccinations of various kinds, and ask the Government to make special provision to enable us to care for them properly.

I went down to hear the debate. It was my first proper visit to the House of Commons.

Having given my name and the reason for my visit, quoting Jack Ashley as my reference, I was able to look around the lobby and saw all the statues of famous politicians and look at the impressive floors and ceilings.

Sitting on a side seat, I watched Members of Parliament passing in and out of the Chamber, meeting constituents or walking briskly with briefcases on urgent business. Standing near one long corridor I had to move to one side to let Ian Paisley, dressed in black, walk past – but I didn’t dare say hello.

As the debate was an evening or adjournment debate I had plenty of time to look around and be impressed by all the activity. Jack, who had been in the House during the day, came to the lobby with Professor Dick late in the afternoon and told me the BBC wanted to do an interview with us about the debate. Further excitement!

I was taken to a BBC studio nearby and escorted into a long, brightly lit room where a young girl was ready with make up and lipstick to paint me. I told her that I didn’t really like make up and asked her why it was necessary but she said it was because of the very bright studio lights and without it I would look like a ghost. Fortunately I wasn’t aware until much later that I looked fairly unusual for me, with rosy cheeks, bright lipstick and blue eyes.

It was a fairly brief interview. Jack outlined the case for compensating children damaged by vaccination while Professor Dick confirmed from his own research that some children had been – and were being – damaged by whooping cough vaccination in particular although he referred to the severe effects of the smallpox vaccination as well. I was asked what kind of cases I had collected and how many parents had joined the Association which was set up to campaign. It was clear that the media regarded the subject as very new and perhaps controversial.

Afterwards, Jack took myself and Professor Dick for tea in the House of Commons Visitors’ Dining Room and after that excitement I went up to the Visitor’s, or Strangers’, Gallery to hear the Debate. Looking down onto the floor of the House I could see a number of Members of Parliament; some were waiting to participate in Jack’s debate about vaccine damaged children and some were waiting for a later debate on historic buildings. Sitting in the gallery I was excited and pleased to think that my dream of getting recognition and recompense for my daughter and others who had suffered in the same way was about to be fulfilled.

It was 8.34 pm when the debate was called.

‘The purpose of this debate is to tear aside the veil of obscurity which has shrouded the fate of thousands of children, to suggest urgent action aimed at reducing the number of future tragedies and to offer proposals to compensate those who are severely damaged,’ Jack started. ‘An eminent virologist of international repute has spoken of a “conspiracy of silence” about reactions to a vaccine and warned that authorities “try to muzzle critics”The suffering of vaccine damaged children and their families is appalling.’

He went on to tell the stories of some of the damage that had been inflicted.‘Carolyn cannot walk, talk or help herself in any way … and at 13 has no mental age at all’

A ten-year-old boy ‘has had fits daily ever since his injection, has as many as 12 fits a day … has three drugs three times a day and has to continually wear a crash helmet to avoid injury to himself.’

During the debate, and raising the question of how many cases of adverse reaction were there, Jack quoted the reply he had received from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Services two days previously, to a written question on the subject, to which the answer given was, ‘the majority of adverse reactions are not reported.’

This was, Jack said, ‘a serious admission of gross neglect,’ and he said that this daunting human cost can be reduced by resolute Government action and the co-operation of the medical profession. He urged that the Government should do much more to reduce the risks and should also set up a state compensation scheme to underwrite the immunisation programme.

It was a passionate speech which highlighted all the flaws and failings in the promotion of the immunisation programme which had led to a situation where children had been and were being damaged without, it seemed, causing any concern to the health officials responsible for immunisation.

I sat on the edge of my seat, shaking with nerves and excitement, waiting to hear the response from the Conservative Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, Michael Alison. Once he had risen to his feet, he spent a very long time outlining the history of immunisation, referring to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation as the body set up to advise the Health Ministers about vaccination programmes and to review the vaccines in use. He referred to the withdrawal of smallpox vaccination in 1971 as ‘a historic decision’ taken by the Joint Committee, because the vaccine had proved so effective in dealing with the disease that it was no longer required. What he did not say was that statistics gathered by the Health Department for years showed that smallpox vaccine was causing a significant number of serious reactions and that at least one reason for its withdrawal was serious concern by Professor Dick, a member of the Joint Committee, that the vaccine was creating more damage than was ever likely to occur from smallpox at the time.

‘No immunising procedure is entirely free from risk,’ Mr Alison stated, adding that precise estimates of the degree of risk were difficult to make. He then made the surprising statement that the fact that there were risks was generally known but that ‘it is a moot point how far it is desirable to do more to warn individuals or parents about possible risks when these are exceedingly remote.’ This brought Jack Ashley to his feet to ask if the Minister was suggesting that it was a deliberate act of Government policy to hide the truth, but Mr Alison passed the responsibility for discussing this to doctors.

He finally arrived at the question of compensation and said it was the Government’s view that the granting of compensation in these cases was not ‘appropriate or feasible’. It was the use of the word ‘appropriate’ that made me so angry; it indicated such a degree of insensitivity and lack of understanding that I found it hard to restrain myself from comment. ‘Feasible’ was just a question of finding the money, and governments always have difficulty with that, but denying the justice of the case for compensation was very hard to take.

Mr Alison then referred to the Royal Commission on Compensation and Civil Liability which had just been set up and said that the most constructive course to undertake in pursuing the question of compensation for vaccine damage was to give evidence to the Commission. He then spoiled what little hope there was by adding that the Prime Minister had made it clear that ‘no recommendation the Commission might make could have any retrospective effect’.

Over the years, one learns that Parliamentary debates are intended to raise issues which the Government may later consider in detail, but that they do not produce firm answers to begin with. On that night, however, I was extremely upset and disappointed by Mr Alison’s comments and I left the House of Commons even more determined to continue with what I knew was an entirely justified campaign for children severely damaged by vaccination. I was disappointed that the Royal Commission would obviously not provide any answer for us but was happy to know that Jack Ashley would act as our spokesperson in Parliament. He was the leader of many MPs who eventually supported our campaign, and it was through his efforts and those of his colleagues that we’d eventually succeed.

I spent that night in London with David’s Aunty Betty who made me supper, helped me to wash all the makeup off my face and listened with interest to the details of the debate. I used her phone to ring David and to tell him what had happened. As usual he was at home babysitting two of our daughters: I had been able to arrange overnight accommodation for Helen at her day centre overnight facility.