On 23 August, Marie and Søren flew to Amsterdam to attend the 2010 International Immunology Congress. They had gone through their plan of action countless times and barely spoke on the trip. Stig Heller and Paul Smith, the British head of the WHO’s Epidemiology Task Force, sat further down the plane; both had been updated and briefed to the hilt. Everyone was ready for their joint mission.
Tim was meant to have been with them, but had cancelled at the eleventh hour. The reorganisation of the Belem Health Project was taking up all his time, he had explained to Marie on the phone. The head of Statens Serum Institute had visited him in July, and since the WHO had announced their arrival in September, Tim and his team were busy getting everything ready. Tentatively, Marie had asked if Tim could possibly delegate some of the work. Belem now had two Danish and three Guinean PhD students and they were all dedicated and highly skilled – he had told her so himself.
‘I can’t come,’ Tim had burst out. ‘It’s too painful.’
*
When they landed in Amsterdam, they were met by Søren’s Dutch colleagues, who escorted the small group to the congress venue outside Amsterdam. Marie and Søren were admitted through a side entrance, while Stig Heller checked out the venue itself.
‘Peter Bennett has arrived,’ Heller said, when Marie and he met backstage, five minutes before his allocated slot at the podium. ‘He’s in the middle of a packed group in the foyer and they all have seats in the centre of the auditorium, row nine.’
Marie nodded. She was starting to get nervous.
‘Ready, Mr Heller?’ the co-ordinator said, and attached a clip-on microphone to his lapel. They could hear applause from the hall as the previous speaker left the stage and exited through the wings.
‘Ready, Miss Skov?’ Heller whispered, and winked at Marie. ‘We’re on.’
Stig Heller strode onto the stage and Marie positioned herself so that she had a full view of the audience through a gap in the curtain. Peter Bennett was sitting in the middle, dressed in black, his hair neatly swept back. Her knees were shaking.
‘Honoured colleagues from across the globe,’ Heller began, when he had arranged Marie’s papers on the lectern and connected her laptop to the video cable.
‘My name is Stig Heller, and I research nutrition at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Before I commence my presentation, I would like to take the opportunity – now that I have your attention – to remember a good colleague and friend, Kristian Storm, professor of immunology at the University of Copenhagen, whom we lost in March. It is said that an anonymous allegation to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty triggered his suicide.’ A controlled hush rippled through the gathering and was followed by a reverent silence.
‘Allow me to introduce Kristian Storm’s closest colleague, biologist and PhD student Marie Skov, who has come here today to say a few words about her mentor. Miss Skov?’
Marie stepped onto the stage. She had Storm’s wooden swallow in her pocket. Stig Heller attached the microphone to her blouse and took a step back.
Marie began her PowerPoint presentation. The first slide was a picture of Kristian Storm and Olof Bengtsson in front of a health centre in Bissau in 2004. The hall was deathly quiet.
‘It began with a single unplanned observation,’ Marie said.
She managed another ten sentences before the first protest rang out from the audience.
‘Excuse me, but I’m here to listen to Stig Heller talk about the link between nutrition and infant mortality,’ someone shouted out. ‘And are you even allowed to present results currently being investigated by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty?’
‘We’ve been cleared,’ Marie said, and clicked on the acquittal letter from the DCSD. ‘Two weeks ago.’
A woman was making a noisy and dissatisfied shuffle down the row of seats to the exit and Marie quickly clicked on her article.
‘Not only were we cleared,’ she said, ‘but Kristian Storm’s and my article on the non-specific effects of vaccines and the adaptive ability of the immune system will be published in the journal Science this Monday.’
At this the hall fell silent and Marie hastened to continue: ‘Vaccines are an amazing discovery and save millions of lives every day. However, that doesn’t change the fact that there are problems with the DTP vaccine.’ Marie slowly clicked through four graphs showing the correlation between the vaccine and mortality rates so that no one could any longer be in doubt.
‘Since 2006, Kristian Storm has repeatedly drawn the WHO’s attention to his observations, but he was never taken seriously. Why? Because the WHO’s vaccination programme has become global politics, and how can you criticise something that has been in place for years? But Kristian Storm’s research results didn’t care about politics or practice, and his figures tell us everything we need to know. The DTP vaccine, which is given to more than a hundred million children across the world every year, is linked to severe health issues and death. Professor Kristian Storm’s figures must be taken seriously. Now.’
Marie let the information sink in before she went on. ‘The WHO is used to having a monopoly on the truth and they are obviously scared to lose face. The WHO is a conservative institution resting on the dogmatic assumption that one must never criticise global immunisation. After all, it’s the greatest success of medical science to date. The saviour of mankind. A paradigm shift is a difficult process and that’s exactly as it should be. That’s why I’m even more excited that the WHO is finally ready to broaden its view of immunisation. I’m delighted to hand over to the head of the WHO’s Epidemiology Task Force, Paul Smith.’
Paul Smith stood up in the middle of the hall. ‘Thank you, Marie,’ he said, in a clear voice so that the whole assembly could hear him. ‘The WHO has set up a working group, which we have named Storm, whose sole purpose from the first of September 2010 will be global research into the non-specific effect of vaccines. I would like to take this opportunity to announce that the Bill Gates and Melinda Gates Foundation has just granted us fifty million dollars to extend the study of vaccine effects in developing countries. We are many who have come to realise that we can no longer afford to ignore the research of Kristian Storm and Marie Skov. Thank you.’
Paul Smith nodded to Marie and sat down again.
You could have heard a pin drop.
‘Scepticism towards a paradigm shift is reasonable and, ultimately, it benefits us all. However, killing innocent children through individual greed is not.’ Marie was now looking directly at Peter Bennett as she clicked on the next slide. It showed two photographs, one of Midas Manolis and one of Silas Henckel.
‘Someone in this room murdered these two men,’ Marie said. ‘Midas Manolis and Silas Henckel: two scientists who were separately researching the negative effects of the DTP vaccine. Both were on the brink of a scientific breakthrough when they died. Furthermore, Silas Henckel was Professor Kristian Storm’s PhD student.’
‘So what are you really saying?’ someone cried out from the back of the hall, but he was immediately hushed.
Marie clicked on a slide of Ébano Salomon and watched Bennett’s reaction, but there was none. ‘This man,’ Marie said, ‘is called Ébano Salomon and he worked as a security guard and odd-job man for Kristian Storm at the Belem Health Project. Danish police can prove that Ébano Salomon was paid on several occasions in 2008 and 2009 to sabotage Kristian Storm’s research, and they can also prove that, on the seventeenth of March this year, Ébano Salomon murdered Professor Kristian Storm in his office in Copenhagen and made it look like suicide.’
Still no reaction from Bennett.
‘In February 2009,’ Marie continued, now changing tactic, ‘an American scientist and Nobel Prize winner known to all of us stepped down from the board of a Japanese pharmaceutical company.’ Marie clicked onto the letter of resignation stating that Peter Bennett was resigning from the board of Sixan Pharmaceuticals. Marie had Tippexed out Bennett’s name but Sixan Pharmaceuticals’ was left untouched; a murmur of surprise spread through the audience.
‘This person had resigned from the board of Sixan Pharmaceuticals; the whole world could see that. However, no one noticed that someone else joined Sixan’s board at the same time. This man –’ Again Marie clicked and the photograph of Ébano Salomon appeared – ‘the odd-job man from Kristian Storm’s research station in Bissau. According to Ébano Salomon’s contract of appointment to the board, he would receive an annual fee of twenty thousand dollars for attending Sixan Pharmaceuticals’ board meetings plus an annual bonus linked to the company’s turnover.’ Marie clicked on the section of the contract that related to remuneration. ‘Not a bad deal, is it? Sixan Pharmaceuticals is the eighth biggest pharmaceutical company in the world. It specialises in vaccine constituents and has shown healthy profits every year since 1991. So why did Ébano Salomon never receive one cent? Because the money was transferred to a trust-fund account with the American National Bank where, once a year, it was used for paying tuition fees to Stanford University.’ Marie clicked again and another slide appeared. ‘Here’s the lucky recipient. A promising young medical student by the name Louise Bennett.’
At this, Bennett shot up and started edging his way violently past his colleagues in row nine. Three hundred people stared at him, and at the end of the row, Søren Marhauge and two Dutch police officers were waiting for him.
‘The time is eleven forty-eight,’ Søren said in English. ‘I am arresting you and charging you with commissioning three murders and the fraudulent use of board funds.’
‘Get your hands off me,’ Bennett sneered.
But Søren put him in handcuffs.