Saturday 17 July 2010

Clarification needed about BQ Mourani's statement on "TB inoculation".

At the 4:53 mark here, Kady O'Malley says:
I think it's safe to say that Mourani's allegation that some detainees were vaccinated against their will managed to wake up the media table. For tuberculosis, apparently. Not heard that one before.
Later, the Toronto Star also reported:

Conservative members of the Commons public safety and national security committee talked out the clock preventing a motion to review controversial security matters, arguing it would only lend a voice to the thugs, hooligans and anarchists who traumatized Toronto last month during the gathering of world leaders. [...]

An impassioned Bloc Québécois MP Maria Mourani emphasized that if and when the probe happens it must be a thorough airing, given the unsubstantiated reports she is hearing about the conduct of police, including threatening women with rape, to involuntary vaccination of some protesters and others who were rounded up.

DJ! co-blogger fern hill shared the following with me:
Just now on Facebook, someone reported a private email from a mother of one of the people claiming to have been given a shot. The kid is from Quebec and he told his mother that the people were speaking in English so fast that he didn't understand, but after it was done, he's pretty sure someone said 'tuberculosis'. He also told his mother that only francophones were getting this special treatment.
I spoke to my daughter who is a physician in Toronto. There are some serious concerns involved because:
  1. There's no effective vaccine against TB.
  2. A mandatory test is given to all health care workers, teachers, etc. in order to detect TB antibodies and it ressembles a vaccine injection but anyone who receives that must have the spot examined to determine if there's a reaction, 48-72 hours later.
  3. A professional health care worker in Ontario - RN, RPN, MD - would refuse to administer any kind of injection without the patient's consent.
So it's unlikely to have anything to do with TB and whoever administered it to the detainees was doing so against the ethical rules of their profession, if indeed it was a regulated health care worker.

La Presse and Le Devoir (not available online) have all provided first-person accounts of young Québecois activists who were rounded up in the gymnasium of the University of Toronto and detained for days in the most rudimentary conditions that barely met the standard set by the Geneva Convention for military prisoners.

But no substantiation yet regarding this mystery medical procedure.

So DAMMIT JANET! is asking faithful readers to supply credible information regarding the claim advanced by Mourani, as this is an outrage that should be investigated.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

No no no, I'm the person who got the private email - she did NOT say it was only francophones getting vaccinated. She said that her son was, and that not everyone was receiving it. Here is the text:

Bonjours Jenny
Je peux te dire que oui ces vrai,mon fils à eu cette piqure,sans savoir ce que c'étais,il parlais tellement vite en anglais qu'il n'a pas compris,après il leur à demander mais ces quoi cette piqure! et là y'a compris tuberculose..
mais mon fils m'a dit que ces pas tout le monde qui là eu (pourquoi lui) comment savoir que c'étais vraiment cela? on t'il garder sa fiche médicale où ça pourrais être indiquer...mais cette piqure... fait simplement partie des horreur,et humiliation qu'il à vécu dans les 78 heures qui l'on marquer à vie.

--- now for my rough translation ---
Hello Jenny,

I can tell you that it's true, my son was given this shot, without knowing what it was, they were speaking so fast in English that he didn't understand, afterward they asked what was that injection! and then he understood it was tuberculosis..
but my son told me that not everyone received the shot (why him) how do we know it was really for that? did they keep his medical chart where that could be noted ... but this shot ... it was imply part of the horror and humiliation that he lived through during the 78hrs that have marked his life.

* * * * * * * * *
And there you have it! The only reports I've heard of have been in French (from the Bloc, then from this woman) so I can only *speculate* that perhaps this happened to the group grabbed at UofT who were by-and-large Quebecois. This is JUST conjecture on my part - I'm not claiming this fact.

Also just to clarify, the reason I was sent that email is that I had posted this message on the French g20 inquiry board:
Est-ce qu'il y a des gens ici qui on entendu dire que les francophones a été "force immunized for tuberculosis" ??? C'est vrais ??

Anonymous said...

ps Here's the link to the reference thread:
http://www.facebook.com/g20inquiry#!/group.php?gid=135629036463012&v=wall&story_fbid=140604679298781

:) - Jenny

deBeauxOs said...

Grand merci for that, Jenny. My daughter was very disturbed when she heard that information.

Alison said...

The audio link to Mourani's reference to vaccinations is here - SECU July 12. About midway as I recall.
Please don't ask me to listen to that dreadful committee meeting again. I listened to it last Monday but in English translation and I do remember the translator mentioning vaccinations given as part of Mourani's list of reasons to have a public inquiry.
It went unremarked in committee and SECU has not yet put up a transcript, supposing they ever intend to.

ck said...

When I was at the CLAC meeting almost 2 weeks ago, I overheard some concerns from some of the detainees who believed to have received TB tests and didn't know if they contracted it or not. I remember someone who was a medic explaining to them what to look for. But the rest wasn't clear because he took them aside. There were over a hundred people at that meeting.

CLAC is supposed to be having another meeting this week. I wasn't planning to go, but after reading your post, I'll try to squeeze in an appearance and attempt to get someone aside and get more info and I will get back to you.

deBeauxOs said...

Grand merci, CK. I'm hoping that the activists who got shots filed reports and got that injection spot examined and documented by health care workers.

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