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 |  Subject: yellow fever jab  Fri 29 Jun 2012, 21:18 | |
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yellow fever jab
BBC's Man in Greece became psychotic and believed he was Jesus after yellow fever jabThe
terrified wife of veteran reporter Malcolm Brabant is now campaigning
for a pharmaceutical giant to reveal the results of its investigation
into the case.
He is one of the BBC’s most respected reporters and the broadcaster’s Athens correspondent.
So viewers were perplexed when there was no sign of Malcolm Brabant during the riots provoked by the Greek economic crisis.
Well respected: Malcolm Brabant was the
BBC's Athens correspondent - but was unable to report on rioting in the
Greek capital due to his illness
The Mail on Sunday can now
reveal that his absence from the screen earlier this year was due to an
extreme illness after receiving a yellow fever vaccination. Within
hours of receiving the injection Mr Brabant’s temperature had spiked and
his condition deteriorated rapidly.
He
became psychotic, sobbed and saluted at television pictures of
military uniforms during the Royal Wedding and believed he was Jesus.
He and his family now believe that the Stamaril inoculation he received
was contaminated.
Mr
Brabant, 55, an award-winning veteran of the siege of Sarajevo, is
currently in hospital in Copenhagen, the home town of his wife,
best-selling Danish writer Trine Villemann.
Petition: Mr Brabant's wife, Trine Villemann is now trying to obtain the findings of an investigationHe
had the inoculation in April at the East Attica Vaccination Centre in
Athens in preparation for a working trip to the Ivory Coast in West
Africa. Within hours of the injection, his temperature rose to 104F.
Ms Villemann said: ‘Within two or three
hours, he was shaking and shivering. The whole bed was rocking
backwards and forward. It was awful.’
He developed insomnia and grew
irritable and anxious. After seven days, he was admitted to a private
hospital in Athens, where he began to suffer delusions.
‘He became psychotic,’ said his wife.
‘It began when doctors couldn’t knock the fever down. He slid into a
place where he didn’t connect with reality. We were watching the Royal
Wedding in hospital on April 29 and he started sobbing and saluting
whenever he saw a military uniform.’
The next evening, Ms Villemann received a call from her husband, who was crying and convinced he was Jesus.
‘I was absolutely terrified,’ she said.
‘I was trying to keep him on the phone while texting our translator to
call the ward and have someone go into his room straight away.’ All
this was witnessed by the couple’s 12-year-old son, Lukas. ‘He knew
now that Daddy was seriously ill,’ she said. ‘My husband never had any
mental illness before this. There is no history of mental illness in
his family. I have checked.’
Mr Brabant has had two further
psychotic episodes since April. He recovered and returned to work, but
had a relapse in July and was flown to a psychiatric hospital in
Britain.
The BBC paid his medical bills for his
treatment in Athens, but he has been able to record only occasional
reports over the past few months.
He and his family relocated to
Copenhagen in the autumn when a new BBC correspondent, Mark Lowen, was
dispatched to report from Athens. Mr Brabant was taken to hospital
again on November 8. In the past two months he has also had several
blood clots on his lungs.
Bad reaction: The Stamaril vaccine that Mr Brabant took
Last week, Ms Villemann started an
internet petition in an attempt to draw attention to her husband’s
plight and persuade Sanofi Pasteur, the French pharmaceutical giant
that makes Stamaril, to share the details of its internal investigation
into the case. Ms Villemann, who met her husband during the siege of
Sarajevo when she was a TV producer, said: ‘They ignored me for months
until I started this internet campaign and petition. They just said
the vaccine was fine.’
The case raises disturbing
questions for the tens of thousands who have the yellow fever jab every
year. It is a visa requirement for many countries, including most of
Africa.
‘They ignored me for months until I started this internet campaign and petition. They just said the vaccine was fine.’
Ms
Villemann first wrote to Sanofi Pasteur in May. On May 19, she
received an email assuring her that the batch of vaccine had
‘successfully passed all the technical quality controls prior to its
release in Greece’. The company asked Ms Villemann for her husband’s
medical details and she gave it permission to contact his Greek
doctors.
The company issued a statement last
month saying: ‘Carefully investigating all the medical information that
was disclosed to us up to July 2011, we have been unable to establish
evidence for a causal relationship between the administration of the
yellow fever vaccine Stamaril and the reported medical conditions.’
But Mr Brabant’s Athenian doctor left
his family in no doubt that he thought his condition was a result of
the vaccine. Ms Villemann said: ‘What has Sanofi Pasteur actually
investigated? And why won’t they share it with us? Was it stored
properly? Was it administered properly? Malcolm cannot remember the
vaccine being taken from a fridge.’
As a result of her petition, Sanofi Pasteur has asked for the latest medical records for Mr Brabant.
‘We are sympathetic to the situation
but in order to make that investigation we need consent to approach Mr
Brabant’s physicians,’ said Paul Hardiman, UK communications director,
who was unaware that the company had already seen Mr Brabant’s records
up to July. Sanofi Pasteur says more than 300million doses of Stamaril
have been distributed over the past 25 years.
Ms Villemann said: ‘All I want is my happy, healthy husband back.’ A BBC spokesman said: ‘We wish Malcolm a speedy recovery.’
*The petition can be found at www.change.org/petitions/sanofi
Source:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069712/BBCs-Man-Greece-psychotic-believed-Jesus-yellow-fever-jab.html | |
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