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Casualties of Corporate Medicine
The Jennie Burke Story
Written by Eve Hillary
Filed November 1, 2003
Do not read this article unless you agree to the following conditions:
This article should not be construed as medical advice which should be sought from a
qualified medical practitioner. Medical issues mentioned in this article do not refer to
appropriate life saving procedures and drugs, but to harmful and unnecessary ones.
The author asserts copyright. This article is deemed to be in the public interest and may be
distributed for assessment and commentary by authorized persons and stakeholders in the public
interest. For any other purpose please contact the author: evehillary@smartchat.net.au
Part Three
The Global Web
Waking Up Sleeping Watch Dogs
"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free, but first it shall make you miserable."
- Carl Rogers
During the last two years of the 1990’s Jennie Burke worked tirelessly to keep up with
demand as more doctors and other health practitioners requested her specialised tests.
With their permission she listed their names in a brochure. Other practitioners acquired
live blood cell analysis equipment and started doing their own testing. Burke had no
problem with this, though she stated, “Frankly I’d prefer to see practitioners trained in
laboratory protocol”. She herself did not practise any form of treatment but provided
laboratory services only.
By mid 2000 Burke had attracted someone’s interest. Journalists from two major dailies
contacted her with questions she considered unusually similar. She asked where the
questions had originated and was told the name of Dr. John Forbes, who was conducting
clinical trials on breast cancer drugs. She answered the questions and a small article
appeared in a Murdoch paper. When an op-ed article appeared around
November/December of 2000 in a number of inner city newspapers, written by Professor
John Dwyer, experienced observers knew enough to expect trouble in the form of a
predictable, almost scripted course of events. In his article the professor writes: “I was
surprised and delighted…to be named Australian Skeptic of the Year.” Then he takes the
Australian Biologics Testing Services to task. Of Jennie Burke he writes: “The director is
listed as one Jennie Burke, who has no clinical qualifications whatsoever…”
According to his short blurb at the university UNSW website: “Professor Dwyer has
championed in Australia resurgence of the clinician governance and is much involved in
effort to create structural reform within the Australian health care delivery system.” By
2000 a portly grey senior professor, Dwyer had helped reform a health care system that
was just a few years away from near total collapse, but he remained undaunted. His
public profile raised by numerous media interviews, he announced on ABC radio that just
as the government should undertake the privatisation of Australia’s water: “What we
professionals, what consumers, what the public is saying is that we need exactly the same
deal with health.” (26) On another occasion the Professor claimed on the ABC 7:30
Report that the Australian Navy should not hesitate to administer anthrax vaccinations: “If
you inhale the spores of this into your lung, you’re going to die”. Always a stickler for
evidence-based medicine, he seemed unaware that according to the CDC’s studies
published in the Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal, the Anthrax attacks in 2001
resulted in 60% survival rates. The anthrax vaccination, on the other hand, has produced
a number of serious side effects and more recently, deaths from fatal blood clots have
reportedly been linked to anthrax vaccinations (42).
In addition to his regular specialty, immunology, the professor’s influence was
broadening, as he had meanwhile become more involved with cancer treatment.
Jennie Burke was also taking a keen interest in cancer research – in the prevention and
wholistic treatments of cancer and in the extraordinary changes in the blood of cancer
sufferers. Her interest was not as a doctor but to bring independent medical research into
Australia that would give cancer sufferers new hope and empowering knowledge about
viable alternative treatments that were based on scientific evidence. Not three years
previously she had invited to Australia the best scientific brains to discuss cancer
prevention, wholistic approaches to cancer, efficacy of conventional treatments,
nutritional approaches, cellular and molecular approaches, the use of vitamins in the
prevention and treatment of cancer, and immunological approaches to cancer treatments.
Scientists, clinicians, biochemists, specialist oncologists, professors of medicine and
surgery and wall-to-wall PhD’s arrived from Finland, Germany, Australia, USA, Mexico,
Austria, UK, China, Japan, Canada, Hungary, Sweden and New Zealand. (19) It is
difficult to imagine that a conference hall full of top flight cancer specialists and
scientists from all over the world with suitcases full of scientific evidence supporting
natural and alternative cancer treatments – would escape the attention of the
establishment. It is entirely possible that Drs. Forbes, Dwyer and others were none too
pleased with “one Jennie Burke”.
Not this Little Black Duck
"Truth is stranger than fiction - fiction has to make sense." Leo
Roston.
During the time of Professor Dwyer’s vigil on quackery he had acquired another title as
head of Clinical Oncology at Sydney’s Prince of Wales hospital. In 1999 an Oncology
department computer was programmed incorrectly. The program was to administer a
cancer treatment by delivering radiation therapy to patients with tracheal and oesophageal
tumours. In June 2003 ten persons were discovered to be affected by this error which
was admitted by the hospital. Eight of the ten patients affected had already died by the
time the error was discovered. While the deaths were being investigated, Professor
Dwyer was reported on ABC Newsline on 20/6/03 as saying that he did not believe the
mistake hastened their deaths. And he did not believe that any of them had died because
of the error. (39)
Moving In For the Kill
Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of
solidity to pure wind. Anon
On July 26, 2000 Cheryl Freeman lodged a complaint against Jennie Burke with the
Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC). Freeman had never been to Jennie
Burke’s laboratory. Freeman’s allegations against Burke included the; “use of unscientific diagnostic device, THERMOGRAM…use of unscientific LIVE
BLOOD CELL ANALYSIS TEST…and alleged SEXUAL ABUSE-ASSAULT…female clients required to sit to (sic) NAKED to waist for useless-nonsense THERMOGRAM
tests”.[Complaint above as written by Freeman, capital letters are Freeman’s.]
Without ever having been a patient, undercover or otherwise, Freeman expanded her
complaint to include; “19 Sydney Holistic Medical Doctors, and 33 Sydney qualified
alternative therapists”.
Freeman’s complaint was levelled against 53 people, but just for good measure, she
included; “possibly many others in NSW also referring patients and clients to Ms.
Burke’s Sydney Clinic.” Fortunately Freeman concentrated her terms of reference on
NSW alone. Had she included doctors from other states or foreign countries, who’d sent
their pathology to Australian Biologics, the list might have circumvented the globe, and
required an enormous army of quack watchers to haul in the offenders.
Accused of “This and That”
“All is not well “ “Something is Rotten in the state of Denmark”
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
News about Jennie Burke travelled fast and health freedom watchers waited for the other
shoe to drop. They didn’t have long to wait. The professor lodged a complaint on
December 4, 2000. It was written on Professor Dwyer’s official stationery and addressed
to “Sonya Eibl” at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and it
read:
Dear Sonya,
I would be most grateful if you could take on the job of looking at the issues around Australian Biologics
Testing laboratories as outlined in my newspaper column and material that I am supplying to you past (sic)
onto me by [name blacked out]. Increasingly patients are turning up in the clinic thoroughly agitated by
what they have been told and not infrequently having spent good money to be ripped off with bogus devices
claimed to cure “this and that”. Both live blood test and the bogus thermogram treatment deserve the
microscope of ACCC to be held above them. If you are not able to undertake the matter personally I would
be grateful if you could pass it onto someone else at ACCC who might like to pursue the matter and of
course I will help out in every way possible.
Best Personal Wishes, [Signed] G. Tomasiello per John M. Dwyer.
Meanwhile Freeman’s complaint to the HCCC went nowhere. The professor, on the
other hand, pressed his complaint to the ACCC on the basis of alleged persons in his
clinic. The complaint itself does not explain who allegedly complained and why patients
were “agitated” and what they have been told and who told them and in what way were
they “ripped off”. Not to mention what those “bogus devices” were that claimed to cure
“this and that”. It is not made clear what “this and that” actually means. The professor,
ever worried about quackery, neglected to ask Burke to supply him with scientific
evidence, a request she says she welcomes and has no trouble in supplying. So on the
basis of “this and that” the ACCC, a very strict watchdog with wide ranging
investigational powers took the matter on and commenced an investigation in the absence
of any genuine consumer complaints.
The Australian Consumer Complaints Commission (ACCC) is a governmental
organisation devoted to fair competition. It enforces the fair trading act. It also
incorporates consumer protection provisions which “prohibit unfair practices such as:
misleading and deceptive conduct; false representations; misleading statements;
harassment and coercion; bait advertising; referral selling; and pyramid selling.” Its
commissioners and directors come from corporate, and banking backgrounds. It has a
health sector team who will be entrusted with assessing Burke’s science. They include an
occupational therapist, physiotherapist, a bachelor of commerce graduate, and a past
analyst at the Reserve Bank.
The ACCC bristles with highly salaried staff and is not a bureaucracy that tends to wait
for genuine complaints from real customers. Instead, they make the world “safe” for all
Australians by scouring the planet for internet sites they regards as “suspicious”. ACCC
is the prime mover in “International Internet Sweep Day” whereby ACCC, TGA and the
Federal Treasury, along with 18 other countries and 58 local and international agencies
sweep internet websites using special spy software keyed for words like “health” and
“immune system” “cancer”, and “arthritis”. These key words turn up websites
advertising natural products or health services which the massive international taskforce
usually considers to be misleading claims about health products and quackery. The
Federal Treasury may well be involved to track money customers pay for goods.
Products or services may be considered “suspicious” even if there are scientific studies
and testimonials to back up the claims. The alleged quacks are then possibly prosecuted
by their own country’s authorities or they are “re-educated” in any number of ways. This
self appointed and tax-payer funded task force is to make Australian and the world’s
consumers safe from “false, misleading or deceptive conduct” (43). The world’s
authorities, however have failed to investigate the false claims for “cures” made by
mainstream cancer centres, which often needs to be addressed by victims of consumer
fraud. In 1998 MD Anderson Cancer Centre was sued for claiming to cure 50% of
cancers with chemotherapy (44). While attempting to sweep the world clean of
nutritional supplements and naturally derived products, the ACCC and other foreign
government watchdogs appear to have severe difficulty in prosecuting pharmaceutical
companies making false claims and mainstream medical fraud.
In his book, Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry, author John Braithwaite:
“shows how pharmaceutical multinationals defy the intent of laws regulating safety of
drugs by bribery, false advertising, fraud in the safety testing of drugs, unsafe
manufacturing processes, smuggling and international law evasion strategies”. “Data
fabrication is so widespread”, says Dr Braithwaite, “that it is called ‘making’ in the
Japanese pharmaceutical industry, ‘graphiting’ or ‘dry labeling’ in the United States.”
He further states: “ The incentive for clinical investigators to fabricate data is enormous.
As much as $1000 per subject is paid by American companies, which enables some
doctors to earn up to $1 million a year from drug research…”
According to current available statistics, when patients are prescribed pharmaceuticals
they have no way of knowing whether the drug’s effects are as claimed. Side effects
from drugs are now the 4th leading cause of death in the US. By their own standards the
ACCC and Department of Fair trading and the 58 international consumer watchdogs
should regard those deaths as a consumer issue involving false, misleading and deceptive
conduct, but so far they have not conducted any investigations. Nor have they conducted
a “sweep” with their official “broom”.
On March 20th 2001 the ACCC took Jennie Burke to task, alleging false, misleading and
deceptive conduct because she had given brief explanations on her website and her
brochures about the tests she offered in her laboratory, explanations she took from the
available world scientific literature on the subject. For several months the then
Commissioner, Professor Allan Fells would decide whether to take the matter to court.
By May of 2003 Burke had still heard nothing from the watchdog and assumed the matter
had become redundant.
Web of Deceit
"There are only a few evil people in the world, but they get around a lot." -- Author Unknown
Those who steal from private individuals spend their lives in stocks and chains; those who steal from the public
treasure go dressed in gold and purple. - -Praeda militibus dividenda (Id., XI, 18)
On a frosty February morning in 2000, a prominent Australian, President of the National
Competition Council in Melbourne gave a speech to the World Bank in Washington DC.
The World Bank is a supra national banking conglomerate which is the prime mover of
globalization (46). World Bank agendas have been revealed by an ex-employee, Nobel
Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz who was sacked after he began to feel uncomfortable and
questioned the clearly damaging agendas on the people of the world through World Bank
policies. “It has condemned people to death,” said Stiglitz of the World Bank’s economic
policies. Stiglitz was in the position to make that judgment as the organization’s Vice
President and chief economist (45). Stiglitz leaked a number of secret World Bank
Documents that clearly demonstrated their deliberate policies of privatising nation’s
public assets and natural resources such as water, with the help of each country’s power
elites who would in turn pocket considerable financial benefits with which to feather their
nests. Stiglitz calls this form of privatisation “briberization”. The World Bank in turn
issues tens of thousands of contracts to multinational corporations who wait eagerly to
privatise and take over national assets proving an effective way of transferring ever more
of the world’s public assets and natural resources into the hands of a very few elite
individuals. There appears to be no shortage of helpers to further this agenda; various
complicit politicians, corporates, prominent heads of organizations, doctor-politicians,
lawyers, academic-politicians and powerful bureaucrats all play a part for a variety of
motives (34, 29, 47).
In 1987 the World Bank released its agenda for health “reform” giving the world’s
nations, including Australia, notice it intended to play a crucial role in health care along
with the WHO. (33) In its report entitled; Financing Health services in Developing
Countries: An Agenda for Reform, the World Bank clearly spelt out “reform” meant
corporate medicine and managed care. The plan was couched in a more innocuous term:
“market driven health care”.
Conveniently the World Bank hands out 40,000 contracts each year to favoured
corporations (47). To facilitate privatisation, multinationals and their powerful lobbyists
ensure “reforms” progress at a cracking pace by excluding small business from the
playing field (30). The Australian government has supported corporate dominance by
requiring small business to pay proportionately more tax than multinational corporations.
Multinationals have successfully lobbied governments for a “level playing field” to lever
out their small business competitors and have been greatly assisted by anti competitive
instrumentalities with the power to disadvantage small business and dissenters, driving
them out of the market place. In Australia at least, there appears to be no shortage of
“reformers” and “consumer” watchdogs with the capacity to drive small business or
dissenters to the wall after raking through their victim’s business.
The prominent Australian from the National Competition Council gave a rousing speech
to the well appointed World Bankers in Washington. This man was Graham Samuel. Few
Australians knew of this power broker even though he had made his mark on public
policy. Samuels, a Melbourne based lawyer, was also a banker, a corporate adviser, and
president of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (48). Some of his lesser
known accomplishments included his significant role in introducing the unpopular Goods
and Services Tax to Australia and his Chairmanship of the Inner and Eastern Health Care
Network, Australia’s most profitable and influential health care provider, consisting of a
number of hospitals in Melbourne Victoria (41).
When Dr. William Runciman discovered in 1995 that 18,000 deaths and 50,000 injuries
occurred in Australian hospitals annually from orthodox medical treatments, the then
Federal Health Minister Carmen Lawrence was sufficiently alarmed to form a taskforce
to investigate the matter (22). The Melbourne Age newspaper launched a freedom of
information request in June 1998 with Victoria’s six health care networks including the
one chaired by Samuel. This was bitterly opposed by Samuel. During a hearing in the
Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Samuel along with eminent professors of
Medicine and other top brass from the Inner and Eastern Health care network joined
forces with a formidable legal team to try to prevent any statistics about hospital deaths
from being released to the public. Their reasons, according to journalist Bill Birnbauer in
his feature article entitled The Story behind Fatal Care, was that the: “public would have
difficulty understanding the information…and it would be contrary to the public
interests”, or so one of the network’s witnesses alleged (41).
Two years after his efforts to prevent the public knowing about the adverse events
resulting from orthodox medicine in our public hospital system, Graeme Samuel was now
addressing the World Bankers and delivering his plan for privatised healthcare in
Australia (40). Judging by Samuel’s previous actions his euphemisms such as “market
based healthcare” had more to do with privatising the Australian health care system and
permanently installing corporate medicine, than with any sense of fair play, healthy
competition or public access to cost effective healthcare. The taxpayer and the public
however, were excluded from the elite gathering in the plush five star surroundings; as
always when public assets are “redistributed” and “privatised”. Most Australians, too
busy working two jobs to scour alternative news sources, could have used a lesson about
the direction in which their public assets were headed, assisted by the National
Competition Council which is involved in; “overseeing the opening up of public sector to
competition” (31,35,49). The World Bankers however, could not have been more
delighted that Australia was nearing its final target as outlined in its “Agenda for
[Healthcare] Reform”.
In 1998 Graeme Samuel was awarded the AO, the office of the order of Australia, given
to persons who perform a distinguished service of a high degree to Australia or to
humanity at large.
On June 27th, 2003, the Commissioner of the ACCC, Allan Fells announced his
resignation. His position was taken up by Graham Samuel. That afternoon Jennie Burke
received a writ. The ACCC with its brand new Commissioner Graeme Samuel at the
helm had decided to prosecute Australian Biologics under the “Fair Trading Act” for
false, misleading and deceptive conduct. (20)
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About Eve Hillary
Eve Hillary is based in Sydney. She a medical analyst, public speaker and writer on
issues pertaining to the health care industry and environmental health.
She is the author of Children of a Toxic Harvest: An Environmental
Autobiography, and numerous articles relating to health issues. Her most recent
book is Health Betrayal; Staying away from the Sickness Industry.
Eve has spent 25 years in health care where she has observed the medical industry
at first hand from the inside.
evehillary@smartchat.net.au
References
(1) www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jul1999/hosp-j27.shtml
(2)www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/Parlment/HansArt.nsf/0/ca256d11000bd3aa4a256466002848e4
(3)www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/health/privatisation_austr.html#Political%2
0history
(4) http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
(5) http://www.world-prosperity.org/healthcare.htm
(6) Written by Professor Dwyer in confidential report to insurance company. Author’s personal
documents.
(7) Nurses’ Association Online Press Release 13 June 2002
(8) In an interview with the author.
(9) Doctors are the Third leading cause of death in the United States – Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA) Vol. 284, July 26, 2000; Drugs are the Fourth leading cause of death –
American Family Physician – Vol 56, No 7, November 1, 1997.
(10) U.S. Health System – Most expensive in the world – The New England Journal of Medicine,
January 7, 1999; 340:48, 70-76.
(11). www.ratbags.com/rsoles/files/about.htm
(12) Bogus Watchdogs at the Helm? The Big Stink if Health Industry – By Eve Hillary Posted
November,2002
(13) The Skeptic, Spring 2001
(14) Complaints written by Ms. Freeman to HCCC about 4 different practitioners.
(15) The Honourable Richard Jones NSW Parliament 13 November 2002 -“However, we have
received reliable information that one member of the committee has been using a false name to
telephone various practitioners, pretending to be a patient and seeking information. That person is
trying to dupe these practitioners into giving therapies by means of entrapment as an agent provocateur.
It would appear that Professor Dwyer has been hired by the Minister for Health to conduct an
unprecedented attack on complementary medicine in this country. It would appear from Professor
Dwyer’s various pronouncements that he has a total antipathy towards complementary medicine.”
(16) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/QuackbustersOfTheIlluminati
(17) http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/quackery/index.html
(18) The terms alternative medicine and wholistic medicine are used in this article to refer to
modalities for which scientific evidence exists for its efficacy. This includes nutritional medicine for
which there is a significant body of scientific evidence.
(19) World Congress on Cancer 1994 Book of Abstracts. Proceedings of the 2nd World Congress on
Cancer Sydney Australia 1995
(20) www.australianbiologics.com.au/modules
(21) Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry, John Stabber and Sheldon Brampton
Common Courage Press USA 1995, page 94
(22) Wilson RM, Runciman WB, Gibberd RW, et al. The Quality in Australian Health Care Study.
Med J Aust 1995; 163: 458-471.
(23) O’Hara D, Carson NJ. Reporting of adverse events in hospitals in Victoria 1994-1995. Med J
Aust 1997; 166: 460-463.
22
(24) National Expert Advisory Group on Safety and Quality in Australian Health Care. Interim
report – Commitment to quality enhancement. July 1998.
(25) The 5th April edition of the Sun-Herald carried an article by Professor John Dwyer:
In NSW, $2 billion is needed to _odernize our hospitals, let alone build new
ones to serve our ever increasing population . . .
The first step in our attempts to remedy the situation, namely an invitation to
the private sector to help us build and manage some of our public hospitals, is
topical and controversial . . .
Port Macquarie Hospital, for example, could benefit from an injection of
private sector finance and management skills. No services would disappear
and none of the hospital’s current clientele would be disfranchised.
www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/Parlment/HansArt.nsf/0/ca256d11000bd3aa4a256466002848e4
(26) http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s934371.htm
(27) http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r011109p.htm Emerging Infectious
Diseases journal.
(28) http://www.curezone.com/books/best/book.asp?ID=418
(29) http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1121-03.htm
(30) http://www.pushhamburger.com/global.htm
(31) http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/health/central.html
(32) Author’s Interview.
(33) www.phmovement.org/pubs/issuepapers/hong11.html
(34) www.globalaware.org
(35) Dr. Michael Wynne a health care whistle blower analyses Mr. Samuels’s speech on corporate
market based healthcare;
“Health and aged care are on the table for global trade agreements. They have been targeted for
inclusion in agreements made by the World Trade Organization (WTO). If health and aged care is
included in WTO agreements then matters which would profoundly affect the way health care is
provided and the sort of care provided will be decided by an industrial court at the WTO and not by the
Australian citizens and their governments.
Australia’s National Competition Council is at the forefront of these moves and its chairman Graeme
Samuel attempted to persuade the World Bank to accept a marketplace model which he proposed. Both
Labor and Coalition governments have promoted market systems in Australia and welcomed
multinationonal health and aged care corporations into Australia.” (30, 31)
(36) World Without Cancer, Edward G Griffin, American Media, California, USA
pp. 261-268
(37) Excerpts from The war Against Alternative Medicine, How Mainstream Medicine is Trying to
Destroy Complementary and Alternative Medicine, A consumers for Medical Choice Report.
Quicksilver Press USA 2002. ISBN 0-9643870-1-8
(38) New England Journal of Medicine, “Unconventional Medicine in the United States: Prevalence,
Costs, and Patterns of Use”, D.Eisenberg, R. Kessler, C. Foster, F. Norlock et al.
(39) http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s884768.htm
(40) A presentation by Graeme Samuel, President, National Competition Council, Melbourne, Australia,
To the World Bank Human Development Week
Washington DC, Tuesday 29 February, 2000
(41) http://www.fifth.estate.rmit.edu.au/August/bill.htm
(42) http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031006-113325-5591r
(43) http://www.accc.gov.au/pubs/catalog.htm
(44) http://www.ngi-net.com/health_Plaza/Illness/P_C_R.html
(45) http://www.globalfairtrade.ca/cold.html
(46) The Challenges of Globalization: The Role of the World Bank a speech in Berlin, Germany,
April 2, 2001 by James D. Wolfensohn, President of The World Bank Group
(47) http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PII.jsp?topicid=111
(48) http://www.monash.edu.au/alumni/about/prominent_alumni/graeme_samuel.html
(49) http://www.leadershipvictoria.org/resources/interviews.htm
(50) http://www.join.org.au/honours/aushon98.htm
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