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Formal Charges Filed Against
H1N1 Vaccine Campaign in France
In what is being seen
as the first of many such actions to come, nine individuals have
filed formal charges claiming that the H1N1 campaign is a deliberate
attempt to poison the French population.
These charges, which were filed yesterday, could not come at
a more inopportune moment for the government and health specialists.
The vaccination campaign got underway last Tuesday in a climate
of national skepticism as to the vaccine’s safety and efficiency,
and this news will surely boost the morale of the increasing number
of anti-vaccine lobbyists who are beginning to organize their
resistance to any attempt to vaccinate the population against
H1N1.
Nine inhabitants of the Isére region of France are cited
as joint plaintiffs in the case, including a health sector worker,
a teacher and a radio talk show host. They met each other at various
public meetings held to denounce the vaccine’s alleged health
risks.
The charges take the form of a ‘plainte contre X’ which
means that the perpetrator of an alleged crime or felony is not
known, or is not named, in the charge sheet. This is a commonly
used manner of filing complaints in France, particularly where
the charges relate to supposed government implication in alleged
breaches of the law. In cases where those trials proceed after
prior examination of the facts, the specific persons or organizations
concerned are designated and charged as the trial proceeds.
Jean-Pierre Joseph, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, describes the
vaccination campaign as “A veritable attempt to poison.”
He confirmed that the charges were filed at the High Court in
Grenoble before the court’s senior examining magistrate.
He said other court cases involving other plaintiffs would begin
soon
The various charges filed included one of “Attempting to
administer substances…of a nature which could result in death.”
“The aim is to put a stop to what we consider to be an act
of poisoning,” according to Joseph. “The interest of
this action is that people in France now have a means by which
to express their concern as citizens by saying publicly “We
are aware that the vaccination campaign is a swindle.”
Similar court actions are planned in other areas of the Isére,
as well as in Paris, Pau and Nantes, and several hundred vaccine
opponents are beginning to organize themselves on the internet
with a view to filing class action charges.
The government and health authorities are currently battling
to persuade people to get vaccinated against increasingly difficult
odds. Opposition to the campaign has been increasing steadily,
and various polls taken over the last few days put the figure
for those who do not intend to get vaccinated as high as 70 percent.
Their task is being made even more arduous by the fact that while
authorities believe on the one hand that vaccination is essential
despite negative public reaction, the French have traditionally
proved to be very quick to condemn and file charges in cases where
not enough was said to be done to prevent other medical mishaps
such as the Mad Cow outbreak and an AIDS contamination case, in
which several people died and many more became HIV positive after
receiving AIDS-contaminated blood transfusions in hospitals.
That signifies that the authorities have very little room to
maneuver and are more or less obliged to continue the campaign
in order to avoid similar charges should they decide or be forced
to abandon the campaign and high numbers of people die as a result
of not being vaccinated.
* A
full list of h1n1 vaccine ingredients, alerts and warnings.
Reference
Sources:
www.fleshandstone.net
October 27, 2009
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