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jennyr
411 Posts |
 Posted - 05/02/2009 : 14:30:55
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Swine flu = usual load of old hog-wash. I used to work as a journalist on some of Murdoch's rags so I know what a load of old pig swill most of what appears in the media is.
Follow the money folks PLUS marvel at the type of smokescreens that appear to divert public attention from the real public issues wuch as an economy in a right mess due to ineptitude and corruption at the highest levels.
I guess it goes something like this: scientific advisors with pharmaceutical interests generate a "health scare," the media (heavily influenced by government especially with Murdoch) are only too willing to promote the scare. Usual rubbish about how there won't be enough vaccines stockpiled, blah, blah. Pharma sales rocket - at least one part of the economy is booming. Public money used to generate sales via health care systems.
Then what happens - nothing, a few people die of a flu type virus. People die every day of flu. The "swine-flu" scare is quietly forgotten. Pharmaceutical companies, medical "experts", government advisors and the rest have all had a lovely bonanza.
Did the public need the vaccine - no, but it's a nice little earner for the pharma crew. |
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Aasa
Canada
771 Posts |
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Aasa
Canada
771 Posts |
Posted - 05/03/2009 : 01:18:53
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Lessons of 1976: flu, fear, wasted millions
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090502.FLUSEVENTYSIX02ART2134/TPStory/
Governments scrambling for solutions to current outbreak risk repeating mistakes of a decades-old health-scare fiasco
LES PERREAUX
May 2, 2009
MONTREAL -- The great swine-flu scare of 1976 is remembered in the United States as a costly public-health fiasco during which more people died from vaccinations than the dreaded influenza.
In Canada, it's hardly remembered at all, though it remains vivid to Marc Lalonde, who as federal health minister in 1976 ordered some 10 million doses of vaccine.
"Ah, mon Dieu, that was the time I threw away $10-million," Mr. Lalonde said in an interview yesterday. "But that is the nature of these things. If you do too little, you are accused of negligence. If you do too much, you are wasting money and causing panic. These are very difficult calls."
Canadian and international health authorities are facing similar tough decisions as the flu continued to spread yesterday.
In Canada, the number of confirmed flu cases climbed to 55, as Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia reported several new cases each, all of them accompanied by dire warnings that additional cases were all but certain and deaths a very real possibility. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he did not "sense a panic" in the country.
The government announced an expanded prevention campaign that will target mainstream media and social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and emphasize the importance of hand-washing, covering sneezes and staying home when sick.
As the World Health Organization and public-health officials and scientists pursue a vaccine for the 2009 flu outbreak, the Canadian and U.S. experiences from 1976 offer contrasting cautionary tales.
THE POLITICS OF VACCINATION
The waste of some dollars in Canada back in 1976 was nothing next to the hysteria triggered in the U.S. by a toxic mix of flu, suspicion and politics.
When a sudden February outbreak of flu killed a single soldier at Fort Dix in New Jersey, officials in Ottawa warned Mr. Lalonde: Deadly swine flu could be on the way. With little fanfare, Mr. Lalonde ordered the vaccine and offered it to the provinces to distribute.
"There was no big announcement about it," he said. "If there was a big announcement and nothing happened, we'd be accused of throwing away money afterward. But we wanted to go on the side of prudence."
In turned out, there was no flu pandemic. Only 800,000 Canadians, mostly in Ontario, bothered to get the flu shot. The next year, Canada's nine million unused doses of vaccine expired and were eventually flushed.
In the U.S., president Gerald Ford was in the thick of primary election campaigning when the flu struck down the soldier. In March of 1976, he assembled a summit of scientists and ordered vaccinations for all 220 million Americans.
By December, 45 million Americans had received the shot but the program was in tatters. Two dozen deaths from Guillain-Barré Syndrome were blamed on the vaccine, though no conclusive link was ever proven.
The swine influenza outbreak was limited to the one death and a couple hundred sick soldiers in the barracks at Fort Dix. Scientists never solved the mystery of the outbreak's origin and limited spread.
The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control was fired and Gerald Ford lost to his Democratic opponent, Jimmy Carter, although the flu fiasco was just one factor in his defeat.
COSTLY MISTAKES
The world was due for a flu pandemic on the chilly day in February, 1976, when Private David Lewis told a superior he was feeling under the weather. The 19-year-old recruit still insisted on setting out from Fort Dix on the day's big hike.
Twenty-four hours later, Pte. Lewis was dead. Within two weeks, public-health officials announced to Americans that the swine flu, which was erroneously believed to be at the root of the catastrophic 1918 pandemic, was back.
Mr. Ford, fighting Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination and desperate to show he was a man of action, quickly convened experts, including Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, the men behind the polio vaccine.
Time was pressing. The full brunt of any influenza epidemic was expected with flu season the following autumn, and several months would be needed to produce enough vaccine. In an added twist, the flock of specialized chickens whose eggs were used to produce the annual flu vaccine was about to be slaughtered.
One month after Pte. Lewis's death, President Ford, with Dr. Salk and Dr. Sabin sharing the stage, announced on national television that the government would spend $135-million to "inoculate every man, woman and child in the United States."
Mr. Ford tried to walk the now-familiar line between warning citizens and provoking panic.
"There is a very real possibility that unless we take effective counteractions, there could be an epidemic of this dangerous disease next fall and winter here in the United States," President Ford said. He then added that the "facts suggest there is no cause for alarm."
U.S. health authorities added to the anxiety, airing ominous public-service announcements warning how easily death could be spread. One TV sample is now the butt of jokes on YouTube.
In 1976, Ronald St. John was a public-health foot soldier mesmerized by the battle plan on the wall of his boss's office at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. The chart mapped out how the government would implement President Ford's plan. But there were unexpected pitfalls.
DEATHS AND LAWSUITS
The vaccine got a serious image problem after pharmaceutical companies loudly demanded and received immunity from civil suits that might arise from complications. And arise, they did. Within months, a spike in cases of paralysis from Guillain-Barré Syndrome - a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system - was reported, including 25 deaths. The cases were quickly pinned on the vaccine and the U.S. government spent $90-million settling lawsuits. (Reports later surfaced later of a few mild cases of GBS in Canada.)
In the wake of Watergate and the Vietnam War, many U.S. citizens were prepared to believe that officials were trying to hide serious complications when they insisted the vaccine was safe.
"The deaths were never definitively proven to be caused by the vaccine ... but nobody trusted the federal government with anything," said Howard Markel, a physician and medical historian at the University of Michigan.
With no new flu cases, the U.S. vaccination program was halted in mid-December of 1976. Canada also mothballed the vaccine.
Dr. St. John, who had a 30-year career at the CDC before moving to Health Canada and eventually taking charge of pandemic preparedness, said it's too simplistic to write off the 1976 experience as a pointless fiasco.
"You had a difficult dilemma, making decisions with uncertain and incomplete information," said Dr. St. John, who retired from Health Canada in 2006. "There was a possibility of a very high mortality rate and there were a lot of unknowns. The reaction cost the director of the CDC his job and it wasn't fair. Too late, too early, it's a tough decision."
Dr. Markel said his research has convinced him the 1976 U.S. program was far from a misguided disaster.
"The words 'fiasco' and 'failure' were attached to it forever, but political theatre is different from medical science, even if they sometimes collide in the field of public health," he said.
"If I had been in the room, I would have done the same thing. And I suspect officials today will be making the same decision soon."
***
Flu: the numbers
At the latest count, 14 countries have confirmed cases of the swine flu, with those and others around the world also reporting suspected cases.
COUNTRY DEATHS CONF. SUSP.
Mexico 176* 358 2,500
United States 1 141 0
Canada 0 55 0
Britain 0 13 642
Spain 0 13 108
Germany 0 5 12
New Zealand 0 3 149
France 0 2 41
Israel 0 2 2
Switzerland 0 1 16
Austria 0 1 2
Denmark 0 1 0
Netherlands 0 1 0
Hong Kong 0 1 0
Australia 0 0 114
South Korea 0 0 21
Chile 0 0 16
Colombia 0 0 10
Argentina 0 0 9
Venezuela 0 0 9
Brazil 0 0 7
Peru 0 0 7
Guatemala 0 0 3
Costa Rica 0 0 2
El Salvador 0 0 2
South Africa 0 0 2
Benin 0 0 1
Finland 0 0 1
Norway 0 0 1
*NOTE: Mexico has reported 176 deaths which are based on symptoms and initial tests, with 7 deaths so far confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Sources: Reuters/WHO/CDC/HPA
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Truth Seeker
United Kingdom
978 Posts |
Posted - 05/03/2009 : 09:32:00
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I notice that those who complained about the media MMR scaremongering are silent when it comes it comes to media and corporate terrorism over Sars, Bird Flu and Swine Flu just to sell more vaccines and drugs.
They are the ones who gain out from this terrorism.
Vaccinations cause chronic diseases is as fully an accurate things to say as "smoking kills" warnings on cigarette packs. |
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jennyr
411 Posts |
Posted - 05/03/2009 : 11:04:29
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| I'm booking a cheap holiday to Mexico!! Some great deals and no tourists... |
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john
United Kingdom
607 Posts |
Posted - 05/03/2009 : 18:13:32
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Great time to go to Mexico! You may have to wear a mask all day though
'The smell is so awful that I start to vomit': Is this farm the Ground Zero of swine flu?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1176741/The-smell-awful-I-start-vomit-Is-farm-Ground-Zero-swine-flu.html
Flu is a great scapegoat for hiding air pollution, along with electromagnetic pollution, while you can sell billions of drugs and vaccines.
Air Pollution Endangers Lives of Six in 10 Americans http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2009/2009-04-29-01.asp
It came out awhile back that about a third of the whole CIA budget went to media propaganda operationsit ----they had thousands of journalists in their employ. Not merely friendly, not merely agents, not merely someone you could pass a story to, but people who might have appeared to the outside world to be a reporter for CBS was in fact a CIA employee getting a salary from the CIA.. Same with FBI.
Now, you should know who runs the CIA/FBI--same folk who run the Drug industry. The drug industry income is 600 billion$ (same as narcotics trade)plus 10-20 times that for turnover. It is the main income for these people, more than arms I think, and the arms industry owns much of it now anyway http://www.whale.to/a/levin.html
So, it must be the same in the UK. |
Edited by - john on 05/03/2009 18:24:28 |
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GUS THE FUSS
United Kingdom
1465 Posts |
Posted - 05/03/2009 : 22:21:04
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Mexico here we come,,,,
MR RIP |
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Aasa
Canada
771 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2009 : 01:00:09
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Isn't there something wrong with this picture?
Just asking,
Aasa |
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Truth Seeker
United Kingdom
978 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2009 : 12:50:31
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Poor old gullible Goldacre seems to have fallen for it hook line and sinker after making a point about media reporting and scaremongering with regard to Jenny Barnett at LBC and MMR.
Any propaganda you like as long as long as its in the interests of your corporate masters aye Ben? you have to support it no matter what and if its not in the interests of your master it must be attacked.
A clear indication for all to see about Ben's motives in life and where his loyalties lie.
http://www.badscience.net/2009/04/parmageddon/
"Nobody really knows.
We face the same problem with swine flu. All people have done is raise the possibility of things really kicking off, and they are right to do so, but we don’t have brilliantly accurate information. Someone has said that up to 40% of the world could be infected. Is that scaremongering? Well it’s high, and I’m sure it’s a bit of a guess, but maybe up to 40% could be. Annoying, isn’t it, not to know.
Someone has said 120 million could die. Well I suppose they could: I’m sure it was done on the back of an envelope, by guessing how many would be infected, and what proportion would die, but I don’t think anyone’s pretending otherwise"
Yes Ben and a flying infected pig may hit your house after all it could happen LOL.
Vaccinations cause chronic diseases is as fully an accurate things to say as "smoking kills" warnings on cigarette packs. |
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jennyr
411 Posts |
Posted - 05/05/2009 : 23:12:28
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How interesting that a large plant to produce pandemic and seasonal vaccines is being built in Mexico!! Extraordinary coincidence - I think not. Fantastic business strategy: invent a health scare in order to create a new market for products. The pharmaceutical industry is incredibly aggressive when it comes to business strategy. Creating new markets, expanding existing markets - it's all good for business.
Follow the money folks $$$$$$$ |
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Rosemary
United Kingdom
2068 Posts |
Posted - 05/06/2009 : 08:25:01
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Belkin Report (Extract) May 4, 2009 -- The WHO who Cried Wolf
From Michael Belkin
The WHO who Cried Wolf
Following the Swine Flu hysteria is a little like watching an old
Keystone Cops cartoon. For those of you who have never had much
contact with public health officials -- perhaps you could benefit
from my unfortunate experience. When my daughter died after getting a
hepatitis B vaccine -- I had extensive personal exposure to CDC, FDA
and IOM and other public health officials in Congressional, CDC and
Institute of Medicine hearings. In my humble opinion, these people
are some of the biggest idiots I have ever met -- and their ignorance
is only exceeded by their arrogance. CDC and WHO (World Health
Organization) officials have made the public hysterically paranoid
about an influenza virus that is turning out to be not much different
than any seasonal flu. The WHO now suggests it will raise its
pandemic alert to its six-point maximum. This is clear evidence that
the WHO has absolutely no way to differentiate between a real and
non-existent public health threat. You should be alert for public
health statisticians who are not qualified enough to get hired into
the private sector (Merck or Wall Street) yet are now vested with the
power to create public hysteria and treat our bodies as pincushions
for experimental vaccines that haven't been proven safe. In the last
swine flu scare (1976) one death and few disease cases presented,
while hundreds of vaccine adverse reactions occurred (GBS --
paralysis and also deaths). If there was a vaccine for this strain,
health officials would undoubtedly be mandating it and ignoring the
adverse reactions. We probably have more to fear from incompetent
health officials than from would-be epidemics. Thankfully, markets
dismissed this current flu scare and kept rallying -- because the WHO
is like the boy who cried wolf, when nothing was really there. |
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john
United Kingdom
607 Posts |
Posted - 05/06/2009 : 21:59:53
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[2002] 50 years after the great smog, a new killer arises
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,850909,00.html
To cover up the true extent of the smog disaster the government invented an influenza epidemic. In fact research has shown there was no epidemic and that the thousands more people who continued to die for the next four months did so because of the air pollution. ....To maximise revenue the UK was exporting its clean coal and keeping the sulphur laden "dirty" coal for UK power stations and domestic fires. The result was a combination of soot laden air and droplets of sulphuric acid lying in a 200ft deep blanket across London, leading to the worst smog ever recorded.
Devra Davis, honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in her book When Smoke Ran Like Water - published on December 5, to coincide with the anniversary - blames Harold Macmillan, then minister for housing, for suppressing the truth about dirty coal. A later claim by the Ministry of Health that 5,655 had died of influenza in the first three months of 1953 was a fabrication to hide the smog deaths.
......Government estimates are that 24,000 people a year had their lives shortened as a result of air pollution.
...In 1950 there were 4m vehicles registered in Britain, half of them cars; now there are 28m vehicles, 85% of them cars. Coal provides only 15% of energy for home heating. ......"We have defeated one problem only to create another, and like the government of 1952 this one has yet to come to terms with the problem,"
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Rosemary
United Kingdom
2068 Posts |
Posted - 05/06/2009 : 23:33:02
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U.S. May Add Shots for Swine Flu to Fall Regimen
By Kimberly Kindy and Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
The Obama administration is considering an unprecedented fall vaccination campaign that could entail giving Americans three flu shots -- one to combat annual seasonal influenza and two targeted at the new swine flu virus spreading across the globe.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/05/AR2009050503378.html?hpid=topnews
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Rosemary
United Kingdom
2068 Posts |
Posted - 05/07/2009 : 11:33:18
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Seven - not 159 - swine flu deaths in Mexico
06 May 2009
How many people have died from swine flu so far? If you believe what you read in the newspapers, you might think around 159 people have died in Mexico from the H1N1 virus. They haven’t – it’s just seven.
Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and Mexico’s own health minister Jose Angel Cordova have confirmed the figure. The WHO’s Vivienne Allan, from its patient safety program, says: “Unfortunately that (150-plus deaths) is incorrect information and it does happen, but that’s not information that’s come from the World Health Organization. I repeat, the death toll is seven and they are all from Mexico.”
Since her announcement, the first American citizen has died, but it’s hardly the stuff of a pandemic. Nonetheless, the WHO has now elevated swine flu to a ‘phase five’ pandemic, where there has been human-to-human spread in at least two countries.
Despite the facts, the UK government’s health officials have predicted that up to 750,000 Britons could die in a flu pandemic, and its health minister, Alan Johnson, has told the House of Commons that there have been 89 deaths from the virus in Mexico, so he’s off by a factor of 12.
Unless you’re a drug company, you have to wonder why governments – and the media - are acting so irresponsibly.
If you’re interested in a conspiracy theory, look no further than Indonesia and its health minister Siti Faldilah Supari who says she has not ruled out the possibility that the H1N1 virus is man-made.
http://www.wddty.com/03363800372602779674/seven-not-159-swine-flu-deaths-in-mexico.html
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jennyr
411 Posts |
Posted - 05/07/2009 : 13:22:00
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| Well said. My experience of public health officials and the medico-legal brigade is that they behave in a manner that is counter to public health. Pompous, self-serving, arrogant. Why are these people in charge of "public health" or is it all to do with pushing their pharmaceutical agenda at whatever cost and crowing over the magnificence of vaccines and their role in how they are saving the world. |
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Swine Flu Outbreak
