On 1st April, Dan Olmsted, the bane of vaccine "defenders", pointed out on Age of Autism that the files of Kanner's original autism cases from Johns Hopkins Hospital, had grown legs and disappeared. He expressed astonishment that such a thing could happen, and discussed the implications of crucial missing information. The problem that he seems to be unaware of, is that this is nothing new. I've been involved in vaccine research for 25 years and right from the start of my work, "right of reply" articles, promised in the "next" journal, would be "missing" from Philson Medical Library archives.
Ironically, missing items were always information that would not be useful for vaccine "defenders".
Over the years that I've been going to Philson Medical Library, I've found really interesting old textbooks on the "biff out" table, many of which are now in my library. I've occasionally seen what could be medical library throw-outs on ebay, or trademe. The tragedy of this, is that medical people can't be pointed towards invaluable historical perspectives missing in the "magic bullet" era of today.
If you think this "toss out" policy is new, it's not. And to an extent, you can see that there are so many journals now, that space is most definitely an issue!
However, the reality is that often, information important to the truthful depiction of history is removed either incidentally, or deliberately.
Here is an example to check out for yourself. Go to your medical library, and ask to see the United States Polio Surveillance Unit's bulletins from 1955 to 1970. They were listed as "missing" in all New Zealand medical libraries, the last time I tried.
Every single medical library in USA, that someone checked out for me, also has them listed as "missing".
There is one place you can see them, as far as I know, and that is in the United States American Medical Association Library. The only snag is that you have to have top security clearance to see them, according to someone who tried to access them.
Why might this be? When he was alive, Dr Ratner had copies of them at his home. He gave me many of the years' data I wanted. They clearly showed that from the inception of the SALK vaccine, to it's discontinuation, the vaccine had MINUS efficacy and was actually causing more polio in the vaccinated than in the unvaccinated.
Any studious person looking at those Government stats in retrospect, would be able to see clearly that the polical and media canonization of SALK and his vaccine was a mirage of duplicity upon duplicity.
I have NOT known a time, in the last 25 years, where any medical library has made it easy for members of the public, to do any meaningful research. Even though our taxes keep these libraries running.
For instance, a decade ago, if I wanted to look at the last hundred years of BMJ or the Lancet, inside Auckland's Philson medical library, I could go down to the third floor (making sure I didn't bang my head on the concrete support which selected out anyone taller than four feet in height) and start at the beginning, to "see" if there was something that might be interesting. For the last 10 years or so, that has been impossible.
Now I have to place an official request at the main desk, asking for a specific bound volume by year, which means I have to know what I want and which volume it is in. This will then be brought to Philson medical Library at a specified date and time, from a locked storage "dark hole", in a campus, some distance away.
Can I actually GO to this campus and sit and study? No. However, I'm sure if I had appropriate credentials, specific authorization, or was a suitable bigwig, no obstacles whatsoever would be put in my way.
In terms of hospital files in this country, anything over 15 years of age, is automatically destroyed.
Parents should know that to ensure full files are available to them, they should ask for copies of everything at each visit or follow-up, and keep their own running paper copy of all medical files, in their own home. If they don't, then don't expect either a hospital, or a doctor to do that.
This also applies to anything to do with ACC, who have a notorious ability to "lose" key documents regardless of it's "age".
In this age in which it is possible to drown in all the published information, "storage" and "budget constraints" will continually be a fact of life.
Even more so, for controversial material!!!
Wink wink.
