Levison Enquiry: Fiona Fox Science Media Centre gives evidence: Includes MMR and XMRV

[Firestormm]

Tuesday 24 January 2012: http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/hearing/2012-01-24pm/

Transcripts are available as well.

Begins at 30 minutes and might be worth watching/listening to:

MMR to begin and then a more topical example of headlines at 37 minutes featuring Stem Cells, Swine Flu, Climate Change (and how worst case estimates are reported out of context)...

At 47 minutes she is talking about MMR and replication and moves into XMRV:

From the transcript:

'22 Q. Then you point out that very often claims even in scientific journals, although they usually are very heavily caveated, turn out not to be true. That, I suppose, is the life history of science, that most claims in science turn out not to be true.

A. That's right. The example I give of the XMRV virus -- again, I don't know if you know anything about chronic fatigue syndrome or ME --

LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: For the purposes of everybody else, tell us.

A. I don't know how we disagree, but it is a disease which affects many, many people which causes chronic fatigue and many people cannot work.

Some children have MECFS but they have never found a biological cause. They've found many things that contribute to it and there are treatments that are effective, but for many people, to discover that a virus has been found in the samples of, I think, 60 per cent of patients was extraordinary.

'We found a biological cause.' And not only that, it promised an effective treatment. The treatments we have can alleviate the symptoms but they don't cure the disease.

So this was huge hope for everybody. It was published in a good journal and it was run on the front pages, but again, I think the question newsrooms should have asked is: this is extraordinary. Has it been replicated? Has it been found before? The answer is: no. No one has ever found it before and this is the first study. Let's put it in the inside pages.

In fact, in the States, people were running out buying tests for this virus, buying treatments which had helped alleviate other symptoms of this virus and then, within months, a group from Imperial College London came to the SMC. They tried to find it, couldn't find it, a group in Holland, a group in the States, and now we've had about ten studies. They cannot find it, and it ends it up it was contaminated samples.

Again, it was in Science. It was in a good journal. It's right that the journalists write it up but not splash it on the front page. It's too preliminary.

So we love science on the front page and there's some fantastic science stories. There's plenty of opportunities but I think it would resolve a lot of problems if journalists just didn't overclaim for these studies.'

 

[currer]

Just to introduce a bit of balance, here are the organisations that FUND the "independent" Science Media Centre.

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/pages/about/funding.htm

Cardiff University? Isnt that where the Centre for Psychosocial Research is, the one that was set up by Unum to look at medically unexplained conditions like CFS? (and keep them medically unexplained)

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/research/spotlight/publichealth/profile.html
http://medicine.cf.ac.uk/departments/primary-care-public-health/research/cpdr/

Public Health research at Cardiff University takes many forms and tackles many health issues .....The group working on socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions is co-chaired by Professor Mansel Aylward, Director of the Unum Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research, which adopts a bio-psychosocial approach to common health complaints such as stress, fatigue and aches and pains. The Centre is also working on identifying mental health issues in the workplace and their resolution another key theme of the Assembly Government Strategy framework.

So these people dont have an agenda of their own, then?

 

[Esther12]

Strange that she didn't comment upon the way in which the PACE researcher's claims of getting patients 'back to normal' were reported so unquestioningly. I'd have thought she'd be concerned about the confusion over the efficacy of treatments for CFS this would cause.

 

[Merry]

What is the significance of Fiona Fox being invited (or subpoenaed?) to testify?

I had a quick look at the website and saw that the public can submit information to the inquiry.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Remember, I have been warnign about these folk for some time.

Fiona Fox (born 1964) is a British writer. She is the director of the Science Media Centre and a former leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

ah huh...
hey, I freely admit to being "mostly socialist", difference is I KNOW the problems and loathe extremes, I vote for whoever's the least corrupt, stupid or extreme, not by what "idiotology" they claim to represent

LOL, in a dark way, it reminds me of the "Thule Society", the psychic nutters who were large part of the the "behind the scenes" culture of the Nazis, in that there's always such "social groups", with vested interests and damn weird ideas, pushing agendas that sometimes go oh so most awry...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Society

Forget names of assclown pseudoscientists who bamboozled Stalin, old memory cells ain't what they were.

tells you something, when a bunch of folk were once Marxist-Leninists, and switched to being Corporate Libertarians
(and please note, folks, there's HUGE divergence of what "Libertarian" is, from benign and legitimate, to actively malign and downright bloody evil, as "Libertarian" is an umbrella that's come to shelter many various and often completely opposed ideals/people, so, no one get their nose out of joint )

 

[Mark]

Remember, I have been warnign about these folk for some time.

Me too - 'these folk' being a network of former revolutionary communists turned corporate apologists, with a documented agenda to infiltrate key science and media positions and act in defence of a post-marxist, pro-corporate, anti-environmentalist agenda. Their stated aim back in the Living Marxism days was to deny any harmful affects caused by scientific progress to human health, arguing that the televising of incidents like the Bhopal Disaster would only lead to a public outcry and punitive damages on technology companies, thereby slowing down technological progress to the detriment of humanity. They overtly declared an all-out war on the environmental movement, expressly supported Trotskyite infiltrationist tactics, and are now in charge of dictating science reporting in the UK to a largely obedient media.

Fiona Fox's affiliations to this network are documented on Powerbase.

According to the profile provided by the SMC, Fox previously ran 'the media operation at the National Council for One Parent Families' and was 'Head of Media at CAFOD, the Catholic aid agency'. In addition, the SMC says, Fox 'has written extensively for newspapers and publications, authored several policy papers and contributed to books on humanitarian aid.'

What they do not say is that throughout much of that time Fox led a double life. It's one which seriously undermines the SMC's claims to be open, rational, balanced and independent, not to mention its being in the business of ensuring the 'that the public gets access to all sides of the debate about controversial issues.'

It's a double life that connects the SMC's director to the inner circles of a political network that compares environmentalists to Nazis and eulogises GM crops and cloning. More disturbingly it is a network whose members have a long history of infiltrating media organisations and science-related lobby groups in order to promote their own agenda. It is also a network that has targeted certain media organisations and sought to discredit them or their journalists.

Fox's double life was first exposed after an article entitled 'Massacring the truth in Rwanda' appeared in the December 1995 issue of Living Marxism. The magazine subsequently reported receiving 'a stream of outraged letters from the Nazi-hunters of the prestigious Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, the Rwandan embassy, the London-based African Rights group and others.'

http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3164

The experiences of the anti-GM campaign while dealing with this group have disturbing echoes for us today:

Articles in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) and elsewhere went further, suggesting that the GM public debate had been "hijacked" by "activists" - an idea repeated in the coverage of SAS's letter to Blair. They also claimed that scientists who support GM were being subjected to a campaign of physical and mental abuse, leading some to leave the country for jobs abroad. One THES article headlined, "Scientists quit UK amid GM attacks", named two scientists said to have suffered such intimidation. One was - again - Chris Leaver, a SAS trustee. The other was Mike Wilson, a SAS advisory panelist.

Another THES article - "GM debate cut down by threats and abuse" - sounded a more sinister note. It spoke of "the increasingly violent anti-GM lobby", "growing levels of physical and mental intimidation", "hardcore tactics of protesters", "intimidation by anti-GM lobbyists... mirroring animal-rights activism", "increasingly vicious protests", "a baying mob of anti-GM activists", and "a string of personal threats". It called for "the government to intervene to protect researchers." However, this article, like the others, failed to cite a single instance of a researcher being assaulted or anything similar. Indeed, the only specific threat of any seriousness cited was a bomb hoax in 1998.

The irony is, of course, that victimisation is predominantly suffered by those scientists brave enough to publish findings unfavourable to the biotech industry or to criticize it (see "Biotech critic denied tenure", for the latest punishment meted out by the pro-biotech scientific establishment). What better way to deflect attention from these shameful events than to reverse the roles of victim and attacker in the public mind?

The same tactic was used again a month later in an article in The Times, by SAS chairman Lord Taveme, headlined, "When crops burn, the truth goes up in smoke". Taverne spoke of farmers and researchers being "terrorised" and of "anti-GM campaigners" adopting "the tactics of animal welfare terrorists". Again, no examples were given, other than the bomb hoax five years earlier. Taverne wrote, "The anti-GM campaign has become a crusade. Its champions... have become ecofundamentalists, followers of a new kind of religion... But when campaigns become crusades, crusaders are more likely to turn to violence."

The attempt to portray anti-GM activists as terrorists is no spur-of-the-moment inspiration on the part of Taverne and his team. It is a carefully calculated tactic borrowed from America's pro-corporate 'Wise Use' movement - the brainchild of Ron Arnold, executive vice president of the Centre for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Founding funders include logging firms, oil company Exxon and biotech giant DuPont.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2785

LM began life in 1987 as Living Marxism, the monthly review of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). The RCP started out as a far-left Trotskyist splinter group. In the early 90s, however, it underwent a drastic ideological transformation. Its leaders turned their back on seeking mass working-class action.

The real contradiction in society lay, they seemed to argue, was between those who believed in the increased human domination of nature and those who did not. They declared a total war of ideas on those they saw as the enemies of human progress. The RCP's new vision, which championed "progress" by opposing all restrictions on science, technology (especially biotechnology) and business, bore startling resemblances to that of the libertarian far-right.

While intellectually the RCP was singing from the same hymn sheet as the far-right, tactically it drew on elements on the far-left, such as "entryism" - infiltrating an organisation to influence its direction. To forward its war of ideas, the RCP initiated a new style of entryism. Suddenly its members were sharp-suited and organising seminars. By the mid 90s, Living Marxism had become the innocuous sounding LM, while the RCP had been formally liquidated.

LM's drastic swing to the right was reflected in the career of the ideological "Godfather" of the LM network and star of Against Nature, the sociologist Frank Furedi. In recent years, Furedi has written for the Centre for Policy Studies (founded by Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher) and contacted the big supermarket chains, offering, for GBP7,500, to educate their customers "about complex scientific issues". This once-fervent Trotskyist was now to be found defending Monsanto in the pages of The Wall Street Journal.

http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2785

The biggest question for patients with ME is: Why is this network, with these stated aims, so consistently interested in writing about, and misrepresenting, the science around ME? Professor Malcolm Hooper identified the connection in "The Mental Health Movement: The Persecution of Patients?", citing George Monbiot's "Invasion of the Entryists":

One of the strangest aspects of modern politics is the dominance of former left-wingers who have swung to the right. The neo-cons pretty well run the White House and the Pentagon, the (UK) Labour party and key departments of the British government. But there is a group which has travelled even further to the extremities of the pro-corporate right. Its tactics (involve) entering organisations and taking them over. Research published for the first time today suggests that members of this group have colonised a crucial section of the British establishment. The organisation began in the late 1970s as a Trotskyist splinter; it immediately set out to destroy competing oppositional movements. In 1988 it set up a magazine called Living Marxism (known as) LM. By this time it had moved to the far right and was led by the academic Frank Furedi who started writing for the Centre for Policy Studies (founded by Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher) and who contacted the supermarket chains, offering, for 7,500, to educate their customers about complex scientific issues. In the late 1990s the group started infiltrating the media, with remarkable success. In 2000, LM was sued by ITN after falsely claiming that (its) news journalists had fabricated evidence of Serb atrocities against Bosnian Muslims. LM closed, and was resurrected as the web magazine Spiked.

...

(One of its participants) is Fiona Fox, who is the director of the Science Media Centre (which) is funded, amongst others, by the pharmaceutical companies Astra Zeneca, Dupont and Pfizer. Fox has used the Science Media Centre to promote the views of industry and to launch fierce attacks against those who question them.

Are we looking at a group which wants power for its own sake, or one following a political design? The scientific establishment appears unwittingly to have permitted its interests to be represented to the public by the members of a bizarre and cultish political network. Far from rebuilding public trust in science and medicine, this groups repugnant philosophy could finally destroy it.

Of significance to the ME community is the fact that Spikeds health writer is Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, well-known for presenting and promoting the views of Professor Simon Wessely and for his perverse and immoderate attacks on those with ME. One such article can be found at http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000002D3B6.htm (SPIKED: Health: 17th January 2002: ME: the making of a new disease). Referring to the then newly published Chief Medical Officers Working Group report on CFS/ME (see text), Fitzpatrick roundly derided the CMO, Professor Liam Donaldson: The CFS/ME compromise reflects a surrender of medical authority to irrationality. The scale of this capitulation is apparent when Professor Donaldson claims that CFS/ME should be classified together with conditions such as multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease. The effectiveness of the ME lobby reflects its middle-class base.

Also of significance is the fact that in its NOTES FOR EDITORS, Spiked states that Professor Simon Wessely is available for comment or interview and can be contacted through Sandy Starr at Spiked (0207-269-9234).

Of relevance to the ME community is the fact that Lord (David) Sainsbury (Science Minister see text) is a keen supporter of the Science Media Centre. It is Lord Sainsburys Linbury Trust that since 1991 has financially supported studies of chronic fatigue by psychiatrists of the Wessely School.

http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/PRiME_and_the_Science_Media_Centre.htm

So to sum up: Fiona Fox, Director of the UK's Science Media Centre, is a member of a network of former Living Marxists with a stated agenda of infiltrating the UK establishment and an ideology based on defending bio-industry from damaging revelations about issues affecting public health. This group is well known for promoting the views of Professor Simon Wessely, and for perverse and immoderate attacks on those with ME, and attributes the 'effectiveness' (sic) of the 'ME lobby' to its 'middle-class base'. And Professor Simon Wessely (himself a member of the Science Media Centre's Science Advisory Panel) may be contacted through Living Marxism's modern incarnation, the online magazine 'Spiked'.

And any similarity to the 'Sonic The Hedgehog' character Fiona Fox is purely coincidental...

Fiona Fox is captured by Robotnik along with Sonic, Ray, and Mighty ten years before the series began. Formerly a test subject for creating Auto-automations, she is left behind when Sonic and Mighty escape. She feels abandoned, so she loathes Sonic, and eventually frees herself. She and Nic work as bounty hunters for a time, but they part ways. She joins the Freedom Fighters after learning that Sonic is truly heroic. She develops feelings for Scourge during his impersonation of Sonic, and after unable to develop the same feelings for the real Sonic, she leaves The Freedom Fighters. She later joins The Suppression Squad after Scourge forms it and leaves after their team mutinees on Scourge. Fiona escaped when the plan was in utter chaos and joined the Destructix, when Scourge was in prison, she formed a pact with Dr. Finnitivus to obtain a Warp Ring. She rescued him and Scourge took the lead. Fiona apparently loves him and claims so, she stands up for him when it would be easier to handle herself and leave him. Fiona believes free spirit and feels she can rely on no one and owes no one anything and only does things for her own accord. Despite this, she is still strongly attached to Scourge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_characters_in_Sonic_the_Hedgehog_%28comic_book%29#Fiona_Fox

 

[Merry]

Fiona Fox spoke at the inquiry to give evidence? Evidence of what? Evidence of what she sees as shoddy, sensational science reporting in the US as contrasted to the sensible restraint shown by the press covering the ME/CFS story in the UK (as guided by the SMC)?

Is her authority and the authority of the SMC under investigation? Doesn't sound like it, if she was invited to "give evidence" as the headline at the top of the first post says.

Although I've been reading at the Inquiry website, I have not watched the tape. Pardon me if I've not grasped what is obvious to everyone else.

I was surprised to find out that a friend in the UK (well-read, interested in politics) has never heard of Fiona Fox or the SMC.

 

[VillageLife]

If your going to mention XMRV at least tell the story!
The part about the tests being used were able to detect other retroviruses.... The NIH continuing work, the lipkin study.
People in your own country positive for a new human retrovirus....The Ashford uk 50 tested at NCI and most of them positive for a retrovirus.

Why did she take the oath that she would tell the truth.

I'm going to complain tomorrow, what is the point of anything she is saying, her main point is be careful what you report, make sure the science is balanced, research the facts.... well she made the biggest error and did not explain clearly to the whole room the current situation with this retrovirus, she broke her own rules on reporting.

 

[Esther12]

I was surprised to find out that a friend in the UK (well-read, interested in politics) has never heard of Fiona Fox or the SMC.

Very few people have. There are public names, like politicians or popular journalists... and then there's a whole raft of really important officials, academics and civil servants who are moving forward on contentious political issues without any real public scrutiny or debate. We have an 'independent' civil service, so officials stay in their jobs when the government changes, unlike America. It has good and bad points, but the more I learn about the specifics, the more I come to see the advantages of the American system - one of the advantages being that it's absurdities are more easily observed, where as our can remain hidden away.

 

[currer]

If the public can give evidence to the Levinson enquiry, couldn't we make a complaint?. After all, we are abused by the press all the time! The internet enables us to come together and organise ourselves.

It seems that representing innocent citizens with valid grievances as some kind of dangerous urban terrorist is the standard response of these factions. Remenber this was also an accusation in the BMJ in the article by "Nigel Hawkes" an alias if ever I heard one.
http://www.meassociation.org.uk/?p=6711
Ending the stalemate over CFS/ME, British Medical Journal, 22 June 2011

We must object to this - it is tantamount to stripping us of our citizenship. We have a right to our own voice and a right to defend ourselves against persistent press misrepresentation

 

[Snow Leopard]

If your going to mention XMRV at least tell the story!
The part about the tests being used were able to detect other retroviruses.... The NIH continuing work, the lipkin study.
People in your own country positive for a new human retrovirus....The Ashford uk 50 tested at NCI and most of them positive for a retrovirus.

Why did she take the oath that she would tell the truth.

Telling the story also involves the long prostate cancer saga and the same failures to replicate in Europe before the WPI had even published their paper in Science. If Fiona Fox has neglected to mention that part, then she is also behaving unethically.

 

[Esther12]

The XMRV example was explained so briefly that it was always going to miss important stuff out. I don't think this can be pointed to as unethical behaviour, although for those who have seen how the SMC has behaved with regards to CFS, it is part of an ongoing pattern.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Very few people have. There are public names, like politicians or popular journalists... and then there's a whole raft of really important officials, academics and civil servants who are moving forward on contentious political issues without any real public scrutiny or debate. We have an 'independent' civil service, so officials stay in their jobs when the government changes, unlike America. It has good and bad points, but the more I learn about the specifics, the more I come to see the advantages of the American system - one of the advantages being that it's absurdities are more easily observed, where as our can remain hidden away.

*nods in agreement!*
As I've said, UK was one of the world's most secretive societies, only exceeded by North Korea and Albania, even the Soviets weren't as secretive! Jeesh (htough on their part was often gross ineptitude that exposed things, lol)

and since the Weasels and this bunch of maniacs are invovled, it's hard proof they know or suspect ME is linked to vaccines or other parts of the medical technology industry!
The wouldn't get invovled otherwise!

Large part of why I want Scotland the Hell away from this horror unfolding in England, sorry, i don't believe this can be fixed short of violent or massive revolution, societal collapse or the like, it's too horrendously entrenched, adept at perverting and preventing democratic change etc, so we're best away from that before they drag us down into an abyss, too
not about "anti-Englishness", at all.
When a ship goes down at sea, and you have two life rafts tied together in a stormy ocean, and one raft has a small cadre of rich, brutally uncaring scum who demand larger shares of the limited rations, who start messing with the boats' safety, who sell seats in the boat to the poor sods swimming in the water and toss overboard those who can't pay...and threaten to sink BOTH ships by their crap...well, you cut the rope and drift away to save yourself, even if you care for some of the poor sods on the other ship

 

[Esther12]

and since the Weasels and this bunch of maniacs are invovled, it's hard proof they know or suspect ME is linked to vaccines or other parts of the medical technology industry!
The wouldn't get invovled otherwise!

I don't think that's true - I expect that there are lots of different and overlapping explanations for the way in which CFS has been treated, and no particular conclusion can be drawn from it.

re Scottish independence - I have to admit that I hadn't thought about those advantages to it.

 

[currer]

Actually silverblade, I have considered moving to Scotland (where my ancestors came from, not wholly a foreigner) to get away from the disturbing and seemingly irreversible change for the worse in England.
Scotland takes quite a number of refugees from England, who cant stand the politics here, according to a radio programme I heard. They seem to integrate well and become rabidly pro Scottish, including supporting scottish rugby and football teams against England.

 

[Firestormm]

I did listen to the enquiry and from what I gathered the examples of MMR and XMRV were used in the context of 'over-hyped' and potentially damaging i.e. inciteful reporting. And perhaps supporting unsubstantiated claims.

I think that was the point she (and her submission) and others were trying to made. This enquiry (for those who don't know) is a 'public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press' although what struck me as ironic was that in the case of the above (and as Levison himself made mention) both studies were in reputed Journals and both were covered extensively by those Journals and other similar medical/science publications - including all the commentaries and sensationalism.

I mean it wasn't only the tabloids but it could be said that the tabloids over-hyped these two issues mentioned - though personally I think the MMR example is more highly relevant than XMRV. Particularly in this country. But I don't think - in the context of the submission - that she can legitimately be criticised for not telling the whole story.

Neither does 'truth' or 'liable' or anything else we might think come into it. This was her impression of how 'the press' sensationalise scientific findings and she chose some examples to demonstrate her point - as she saw them relevant. I will probably have to listen to it through again - but that's my impression.

She seemed to be saying that tabloids should take a deep breath before launching 'front page' breakthroughs and (in the example re: climate change) actually listen and report what is said at the science media conferences from the scientists themselves as well as seeking second opinions and trying to report a balanced piece.

I didn't listen past the XMRV bit - kind of ran out of steam - but she also referred to the more recent reporting of stem cell implants in patients who were blind. And how that was reported as a 'cure for all' when in fact is clearly wasn't and was indeed only a small trial that needed much work.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Esther
aye, I'more concerned about a small, and thus, more accountable government
"Bigger " is *NOT* best, it leads to gross arrogance from inflated power, wars and other crap from complete devolvement frum seeing the suffering actions caused

Westminster government doesn't give a damn about anything more than 150 miles from London, the centre of power, as that's what it's all about: power. :/

See also the terrible stuff about the Metropolitan police over last 20 years, they could commit any crime and get away with it because they "protect the City"
Did you see the video of the Met cop SOB attacking an MPs aide?
http://uk.video.yahoo.com/news-1260...-to-sue-met-police-over-assault-27878999.html
Never mind Brazilian plumbers getting their heads blown off
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes

Scotsmen shot in the back cause the twats thought he was a ProvoIRA with a shotgun (was a chair leg he was taking to get fixed and ya know, Scottish accent doesn't sound Irish),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Stanley

or the passer by getting batoned and dying...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ian_Tomlinson

or the classic Stephen Waldorf case
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Waldorf_shooting

The shooting

On the evening of 14 January 1983, police officers in unmarked cars were following a hired Mini in which Stephens was sitting on the back seat, occasionally looking out of the rear window. The driver was Lester Purdey, and the front-seat passenger was freelance film editor Stephen Waldorf, who the police thought was Martin. When the Mini came to a stop due to rush hour traffic congestion in Pembroke Road, Earls Court, a detective was sent forward to confirm the identity of the front-seat passenger. The only one who knew Martin was Detective Constable Peter Finch, who had been one of the arresting officers when he was detained the previous September, so he approached the car along the pavement on foot with his revolver already drawn. Finch later said that at this point the driver glanced at him through the window, then said something to the passenger, who turned and reached toward the rear seat.

Finch opened fire, shooting twice at the passenger-side rear wheel of the Mini, then four times at Waldorf himself. Detective Constable John Jardine then ran up to the back of the Mini, and fired five shots at Waldorf through the rear window. During the shooting, Purdey jumped out of the car to escape, and Waldorf attempted to follow him, even though he had already been hit several times, and ended up slumped across the driver's seat. Detective Constable John Jardine then fired twice at Waldorf through the open driver's door. Finch, meanwhile, had made his way round to the driver's side, where he leaned into the car, aimed his revolver between Waldorf's eyes and said, "Okay, c*cksucker," before pulling the trigger. Finding that he had already used all his ammunition, Finch then pistol whipped Waldorf until he lost consciousness.[1][2][3]

Hit five times and severely wounded in his head, abdomen, and liver, the handcuffed and unconscious Waldorf was then hauled by his arms onto the pavement. Stephens, screaming and protesting, was also dragged from the vehicle.[4] Stephens was taken to hospital and treated for injury.

Did any met cop pay for those crimes? NO.
ugh
(and I have family who are/were cops, I have no issue with the force per se , and certainly not when they have to defend themselve sor others vs brutal or mad maniacsm, but the Met force is in general, rotten)



Currer
hey yer welcome!

there is some "antiEnglishness" to be honest (hey Maggie did no one any favours, bar the bankers, lol) but it's more often in rural areas and is the same problem across much of the UK:
rural folk see house prices rising as "townies" who cannot afford to live in the insane spiralling house priced urban centres, move into lower priced rural
but the locals lose ability to get housing which is now increasing in price and "grabbed", which puts their back up.
Hence some councils have been trying to build more council homes, or doing "liek for like" so locals and incomers have housing.

and of course, we have "Neds"...sigh. Proof that mutants do exist!

 

[markmc20001]

She seemed to be saying that tabloids should take a deep breath before launching 'front page' breakthroughs and (in the example re: climate change) actually listen and report what is said at the science media conferences from the scientists themselves as well as seeking second opinions and trying to report a balanced piece.

Or they could get a good concise summary from scientists and journals from wellcome the trust SPIN unit.

SPIN
Produced by the Wellcome Trusts Strategic Planning and Policy Unit, SPIN provides rapid access to concise digests of articles relating to science policy and is issued as a weekly email newsletter every Friday

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Publications/SPIN/index.htm

 

[SilverbladeTE]

She got across that "XMRV is not real" so, mission accomplished because that is now in the minds of MPs and the Parliamentary record!

 

[Uno]

I am submitting a response to Lord Justice Leveson and I urge you all to do the same.

The truth needs to be made public and the bias of the press needs to end. Look how quick they rushed to report the PACE trial, it was even on mainstream news channels. That had no scientific basis in fact yet it made mainstream news within a day.