Martin J Walker

Brave New World of Zero Risk

In 1997, New Labour brought to power a strange brew of liberalism, anti socialism, public relations and corporate lobby groups. While Thatcher had encouraged the pharmaceutical industry, Blair made it a partner in government. The National Health Service, set up originally to provide health care to the British people regardless of income, has been sold off bit by bit, mainly to pharmaceutical interests. The most serious consequence of letting corporate interests look after science, medicine and health is that the independence of science and any possible independence of health care have been obliterated. Corporate lobby groups, in bed with Big Pharma, insurance companies and New Labour, now press for the least expensive and the most profitable solutions to health care. They attack alternative medicine, and campaign for animal testing and vivisection. They have politicised science and now control both its methodology and the results of its research. Using spin, lies and propaganda they harass and isolate anyone who comes to conclusions critical of new technology or pharmascience. They preach zero risk and claim that new technologies can cause no harm.

This book examines the contemporary corporate politics of science in two areas, that of MMR (mumps, measles and rubella) vaccination and the illness or ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis). It shows how those who have fought for independent science have been bullied, attacked and discredited, using political strategies have nothing to do with science and everything to do with power and profit.