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jabsadmin
958 Posts |
 Posted - 12/07/2006 : 17:33:07
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PRIVATE EYE
8 DECEMBER TO 21 DECEMBER 2006
LEGAL AID AND A BET
Even though the concensus view is that the MMR debate is over, a handful of cases of alleged vaccine damage against the manufacturers are still working through the high court.
They concern children suffering conditions such as epilepsy and brain damage, transverse myelitis (an immune system disorder affecting the central nervous system) and deafness. Because these are all acknowledged, if rare, side effects of the triple vaccine, theirs were arguably the more straight forward claims against the vaccine manufacturers. However, they were forced to take a back seat for several years while the courts and the Legal Services Commission, which decides legal aid funding, prioritised the hundreds of autism and bowel disease cases.
However, even these straightforward cases are now struggling to stay in the fight because the families' legal aid has been withdrawn - even from one brain-damaged child whose family had already received a vaccine damage payment from the government. Only the two cases of tranverse mylitis, after appeals, are so far guaranteed court funding.
Last week Jackie Fletcher, whose son Robert suffered a massive seizure 10 days after his MMR jab and now has brain damage and epilepsy, told the high court that she blamed her solicitors, Irwin Mitchell, for the withdrawal of legal aid. She said she had lodged a formal complaint about the "Top 10" firm with the Law Society.
She and other parents were in court to ask the judge, Mr Justice Keith, to resist attempts by the defendant drug companies to strike out the remaining MMR cases, and give the families more time to obtain funding. "I expected Irwin Mitchell to conduct Robert’s case in a professional and competent manner," said Mrs Fletcher. "There have been major issues important to the running of Robert’s case that I believe should have been handled differently."
Mrs Fletcher told the judge the law firm had, without her knowledge or presence, consulted four experts, none of whom appears to have written a report on Robert’s case. Then, again without consultation, the firm informed the LSC that hers and the other cases could not proceed.
Had Mrs Fletcher known of the experts, she would have objected to two of them because of the potential for a conflict of interest. One was Prof Brent Taylor, who sits on the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation, which approved MMR, and another was Dr Stephen Conway, another paediatrician, who used to sit on the committee. It was Brent Taylor, an outspoken critic of Dr Wakefield and the MMR litigation, who apparently "drove the consensus of all the medical experts".
Mrs Fletcher said she asked for copies of the minutes of all meetings where Robert’s case was discussed and was "shocked" to discover that only a couple of points were raised at a telephone conference, where the only expert present seemed to be Dr Conway. "He actually stated that one of the points raised was beyond his expertise and a neurologist should be asked to comment on the point," she said. But no neurologist ever was consulted about a unique pattern of brain damage suffered by Robert.
The experts had adopted a template of four criteria that each child should meet before deciding whether each case could progress. "The template was very restrictive but even with this strict criteria Robert met the template so his case should have been allowed to progress," she said.
Mrs Fletcher told the court that while she accept Irwin Mitchell’s’ contention that the field of paediatric immunology was small, Richard Barr, the solicitor who first handled the case, had found "a comprehensive team" – including a neurologist Dr Marcel Kinsbourne. He had been consulted by a new firm of solicitors, Hodge Jones and Allen, which was now acting for some of the families, including hers. "These new clients, it should be noted, had lost their legal aid following Irwin Mitchell's experts' opinion but regained it following a successful legal aid Funding Review Committee hearing," she told the judge.
She said that in the absence of a report from Irwin Mitchell, she had obtained her own expert opinion from an American, Dr Edward Yazbak, a paediatrician and vaccine damage expert witness, which attributes Robert’s brain damage and epilepsy to his MMR vaccination.
She said that she too, through Hodge Jones and Allen, has submitted a new application for legal aid to the Funding Review Committee. "I believe that any delay with the timetable of the Court is of Irwin Mitchell’s making and I would hope that as the parents had no control of this, the delay would not be held against the child’s case."
Irwin Mitchell said it had investigated the cases thouroughly using "highly regarded expert witnesses" and determined that they "lacked merit", informing both clients and the LSC, after which funding was withdrawn. The firm said it was addressing complaints it had received, adding: "We do not accept that anything other than appropriate advice has been given."
The judge is expected to announce his decision about granting the families more time shortly.
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jennyr
379 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2006 : 11:00:38
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Ah, this all sounds quite familiar in terms of how some medical negligence cases are conducted, or perhaps that should be "misconducted".
The "highly regarded expert witnesses" who appear to be more like hired guns. The meetings between the lawyers and the experts which appear to be ..... rigged? (There's no other way of putting it unfortuntately.)
And then - the final indignity - the solomn pronouncement that the legal aid money has run out as the "highly regarded" experts have done an excellent job. Hmmm....a regular pattern emerges. |
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Legal Aid and a bet - Private Eye 8/12/06
