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Community Newspaper uses FoI Act
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12/7/05: Interesting story in Press Gazette (20/05/05) about the Armthorpe Community Newsletter, which goes out free to 6,000 households in Armthorpe, Doncaster. Jim Oldfield, the editor, used the Freedom of Information Act to get background information on the Creutzfeldt-Jacobs disease, which led to the deaths of four victims in the area five years ago.
The paper dedicated eight pages to the investigation, and branded the official public inquiry into the outbreak ‘an astonishing sham of an investigation’.The Newsletter discovered that one of the CJD victims was a blood donor, but seven people who were given his blood were unaware of the fact until last September. A public inquiry was originally launched by the old Doncaster Area Health Authority (now the East Doncaster Primary Care Trust) to establish the source of the outbreak. It failed to track down the butcher linked to the outbreak as the business has ceased trading. The Newsletter claimed to find the butcher in five minutes by calling a local historian.
Editor Jim Oldfield adds, ‘They also said they couldn’t trace the meat supply back to the abatoir as they had gone out of business.’
Seems like good old-fashioned journalism, backed up by the FoI Act, is alive and well in Armthorpe.
Last modified: Monday, August 15, 2005
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