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the bennymay story

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After the Royal Australian Air Force illegally vaccinated me, I suffered a severe adverse drug reaction.

note the words CAUSALITY CERTAIN, relating to an immune system disease lasting from 1998 until the time of the report (2003) and treated with blood infusions for almost a year.

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Office of Medicines Safety Monitoring, Therapeutic Goods Administration, Australian government Department of Health (formerly Adverse Drug Reactions Advisory Committee):

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The reaction was so severe that I required blood infusions every three weeks.

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Air Force doctors were secretly administering the same sort of blood infusions to another pilot on my base in Western Australia. Rather than discriminating against me and booting me out of the air force, they treated me the same way.

However, when I moved back to New South Wales, medical assistant Ian Swney and pilot Craig White severely disliked the blood infusions.

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On 2 May 2001 Craig White said to me that he phoned immunologist David Sutherland and told him blood infusions are incompatible with being an air force pilot. After that moment the air force refused to give me blood infusions, despite representation two days later by my doctor, who believed the status quo option of continuing with the blood infusions was ‘the most suitable’.

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The air force decided to cover up the fact a pilot had interfered with my medical treatment, and cover up the fact another pilot was on the same blood infusions. After this string of illegal behaviour, the senior doctors and senior officers figured out the one medical treatment that kept me healthy, and refused to give it to me ever again.

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The air force acknowledged that their vaccines permanently damaged the balance organ in my left ear, causing me great difficulties with dizziness.

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Later they found a specialist who said he personally had never seen a case of dizziness after vaccinations. On that feeble foundation, the air force and the department of veterans’ affairs pretended I suffered no adverse drug reaction, and so refused to help me.

The experts in adverse drug reactions in Australia (within TGA) confirmed that the air force vaccines caused my medical condition, but later refused to document it. So to obtain that confirmation from TGA the department of veterans’ affairs committed to assist, but then they later refused also.

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Numerous air force personnel and units illegally refused to investigate.

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Many air force sections merely collected information and sent it back to the people in air force headquarters who were busily hiding (or burning?) the information. For example, Defence Equity Organisation admitted that they do not investigate problems, they merely inform air force headquarters.

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Air force headquarters refused to investigate, and refused to explain the major inconsistencies in the decision making and the explanations for those decisions. Instead of admitting the numerous regulatory breaches, they palmed off the job to the medical review board (MECRB).

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The medical review board followed suit: palming the job off to Air Commodore Tony Austin’s investigation / review, and making very clear that they would ‘review the original decision’ only on the basis that nobody discusses any of the illegal foundations of that decision or any other associated ‘process concerns’.

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Thus, air force headquarters palmed off all the ‘inconsistencies’ to Air Commodore Tony Austin, the Director General of Defence Health Services.

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Tony Needham, DPO-AF in air force headquarters, refused to investigate my case. Instead he passed the buck to my commanding officer, Alan Holtfreter.

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Alan Holtfreter committed to investigate my case. He found that the air force failed in its legal responsibility to provide me with explanations for those medical decisions that negatively affected me.

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Holtfreter then did nothing, but pass the job back to air force headquarters and to defence health services.

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Holtfreter threatened I would be imprisoned if I told anyone about the air force’s dodgy investigation. Five years later (and now no longer under Prime Minister John Howard) parliament admitted that Holtfreter’s threat to imprison me had no legal standing or applicability.

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So, what of the investigations by air force headquarters (AFHQ) and defence health services (DHS)?

The last I heard from Tony Needham (DPO in AFHQ) was that he wanted Holtfreter to be responsible for it, and that he planned to do nothing.

Tony Austin (boss of DHS) personally committed to investigating my case. I have seen no evidence that he ever kept his word. The air force still fails to produce any report from him.

Similarly, Angus Houston, then Chief of Air Force, also personally committed to investigating my case.

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I have seen no evidence that he ever kept his word. The air force still fails to produce any report from him.
So what happened?

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Ladies and gentlemen, that is how the air force tries to hide its illegal practices.

And what remains?

With a science aviation degree, a commercial pilot’s licence, and a permanent medical injury, I am no longer permitted to fly. What does the aussie government do about the illegal practices that resulted in my permanently incapacitating dizziness (technically: ‘chronic recurrent vertigo, requiring medication’)? They refuse to investigate, to apologise, to compensate, to rehabilitate, or to assist in any way.
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© Benjamin May

2010 All rights reserved.