by Janine Roberts c95 Impact Investigative Media

Gail Venables (real name can be used) had decided not to have her son Bryn immunised. Two other families she knew had also made the same choice, the Thompson's and the Gilmour's. (Annie Thompson has agreed to an interview -Gail is directing your man on the spot to her. Amanda Gilmour is away this weekend on holiday in the Gower - Amanda is the homeopath) But when she told her family doctor, J. Goodall-Copestake, she said: "I cannot forget his response. It was: 'I hope you will have him immunised against the killer diseases. I think not doing so is disgusting.'" She then asked him for statistics on the risks involved. He replied: '"Statistics are irrelevant if it is your child that dies."

A short while afterwards all the families who had refused to have a child immunised received a form letter from Goodall-Copestake saying: "I sympathise with anyone's rights to choose what they believe is the best for their child, and I hope you can sympathise with my rights to choose what is best for my practice. Unfortunately our rights seem to clash. The next calculating date for children's immunisations is at the end of October so I would be grateful to immunise Bryn before then. Failing this I would have to remove his name from the practice register..."

Dr. Goodall-Copestake, a Fund-holder with a practice in Presteigne, Powys, explained why: "In the current quarter of the year 26 out of a possible 29 were immunised and as a result the practice was deemed to have failed in the immunisation programme and we lost £500 of income as a result." Doctors are rewarded by the Department of Health if they get 90 percent of the children of their list immunised.

The families did not yield to pressure. Mrs Venables explained that they thought they could better protect their children's health by other means than vaccination such as by homeopathy. One of the other 3 families was that of an homeopath. But, although Goodall-Copestake did not withdraw emergency care, the families were horrified to have their children struck off their doctors list. Mrs Venables said: " All 3 families then wrote to the Minister of Health on the 24th October saying we did not believe the 90 percent rule was meant to be interpreted in this way and asking for our children to be put back on our doctor's list."They also wrote to their MP, Jonathan Evans, a Junior Minister in the Government for Trade and Industry. (Have not yet checked this with government lists) She said they enclosed copies of the letters sent to all three families threatening them with having their child struck off the list.

When Dr Goodall-Copestake was sent a copy of the letter to the Health Minister by Mrs Venables, he wrote to her to say: "Thank you I am grateful that you have brought this to the attention of the authorities.. It puts us both in a difficult situation. Under the ruling imposed on GPs in 1990 I am losing income if I accept patients on my list ."who are not immunised." Mrs Venerables commented: "He did not say he would put our children back on his list."

Doctor Adrian Hickson, Chairman of the Primary Care Virology Group, an organisation with a membership of about 250 general practioners, when told of this action said "I thought by now doctors would have learnt. Parents need to be given the right to make a fully informed choice."

Mrs Venables then sent a copy of her letter to the Informed Parents organisation and from thence it made its way to The Independent. (I will be filing an interview with this organisation - it has about 1,700 families as members and campaigns for the right of parents to a free and informed choice. I've arranged to do this after filing this copy)

Today Mrs Venables, nervous that by going public she and the other families might be black listed by the doctors of the small community in which she lived, told her GP that she had given the letter to The Independent. "He did not seem upset. He said he hoped that this would draw attention to a funding rule that needed to be changed. He called it maladministration by the Department of Health." She also learnt that he had struck many more than 3 families off his list for refusing to have their children immunised.

End.

>From Janine Roberts, IMPact. Saturday, November 04, 1995