Gary Null on Vaccines: New York State Assembly Hearing

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October 21, 2009

The date on these is 10-13-2009:

Flu vaccines revealed as the greatest quackery ever pushed in the history of medicine

Mike Adams
Natural News
October 15, 2009

Prepare to have your world rocked. What you’re about to read here will leave you astonished, inspired and outraged all at the same time. You’re about to be treated to some little-known information demonstrating why seasonal flu vaccines are utterly worthless and why their continued promotion is based entirely on fabricated studies and medical mythology.

If the whole world knew what you’re about to read here, the vaccine industry would collapse overnight.

	Shoot up a few flu vaccines, rub your lucky rabbit’s foot, then spin around clockwise seven times and you, too, may be able to generate enough luck to avoid the flu this winter.

This information comes to you courtesy of a brilliant article published in The Atlantic (November 2009). The article, written by Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer, isn’t just brilliant; in my opinion it stands as the best article on flu vaccines that has ever been published in the popular press. Entitled Does the vaccine matter?, it presents some of the most eye-opening information you’ve probably ever read about the failure of flu vaccines. You can read the full article here: http://www.vaccineaware.com/2009/10/does-vaccine-matter.html

Perhaps its impressive narrative shouldn’t be too surprising, though, since writer Shannon Brownlee is also the celebrated author of a phenomenal book on modern medicine entitled Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer ( http://www.amazon.com/Overtreated-M…) (http://www.naturalpedia.com/book_Ov…).

While I’ve never done this before, I’m going to summarize this article point by point (along with some comments) so that you get the full force of what’s finally been put into print.

This information is so important that I encourage you to share the following summary I’ve put together. Email it to family, friends and coworkers. Or post it on your blog or website (with a link and proper credit to both NaturalNews and The Atlantic, please). Get this information out to the world. People need to know this, and so far the mainstream media has utterly failed to make this information known.

(The really good information begins after around a dozen bullet points, so be sure to keep reading…)

Does the vaccine matter?

What follows is my point-by-point summary of this groundbreaking article by Shannon Brownlee, originally published in The Atlantic. My opinion statements are shown in brackets and italics.

• Vaccination is the core strategy of the U.S. government’s plan to combat the swine flu.

• The U.S. government has spent roughly $3 billion stockpiling vaccines and anti-viral drugs.

• The CDC is recommending that 159 million Americans receive a swine flu vaccine injection (as soon as possible).

• What if vaccines don’t work? More and more researchers are skeptical about whether they do.

• Seasonal flu (that’s the regular flu) currently kills an estimated 36,000 people each year in the United States. [But most people who die are already suffering from existing diseases such as asthma.]

• Most “colds” aren’t really caused by the flu virus. As few as 7 or 8 percent (and at most, 50 percent) of colds have an influenza origin. There are more than 200 viruses and pathogens that can cause “influenza-like” illnesses (and therefore be easily mistaken for the flu).

• Viruses mutate with amazing speed, meaning that each year’s circulating influenza is genetically different from the previous year.

• The vaccine for each upcoming flu season is formulated by health experts taking a guess [a wild guess, at times] about what strain of influenza might be most likely to circulate in the future.

• The 1918 Spanish Flu infected roughly one-third of the world population and killed at least 40 million.

• In the U.S., the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology predicted that H1N1 influenza could infect up to one-half of the U.S. population and kill 90,000 Americans.

[Keep reading, the good part is coming...]

• Of those who have died from the Swine Flu in the U.S., roughly 70 percent were already diseased with some serious underlying condition such as asthma or AIDS.

• Public health officials consider vaccines to be their first and best weapon against influenza. Vaccines helped eradicate smallpox and polio. [I don't agree with that assessment. Vaccines did relatively little compared to improvements in public sanitation.]

• Each year, 100 million Americans get vaccinated, and vaccines remain “a staple” of public health policy in the United States.

Why the research is bogus

• Because researchers can’t exactly pin down who has influenza and who doesn’t, the research conducted on the effectiveness of vaccines simply calculates the death rate from all causes among those who take the vaccine vs. those who don’t. [This includes deaths from accidents, heart attacks, medications, car wrecks and everything.]

• These studies show a “dramatic difference” between the death rates of those who get the vaccines vs. those who don’t. People who get vaccinated have significantly lower death rates [from ALL causes, and herein lies the problem...].

• Flu shot propaganda cites these studies, telling people that if they get their flu shots every year, they will have a significantly reduced chance of dying. But this is extremely misleading…

• Critics question the logic of these studies: As it turns out, compared to the number of deaths from all causes, the number of people killed by influenza is quite small. According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, deaths from influenza account for — at most — 10 percent of the total deaths during the flu season (and this includes all indirect deaths aggravated by the flu).

• This brings up a hugely important dilemma: If influenza only accounts for roughly 10 percent of all deaths during the flu season, how could an influenza vaccine reduce total deaths by 50 percent? (As is claimed by the vaccine manufacturers.) [It doesn't add up. Even if the vaccines were 100% effective, they should only reduce the total death rates by 10%, given that only 10% of the total deaths are caused by influenza.]

• Here’s a direct quote from the story: Tom Jefferson, a physician based in Rome and the head of the Vaccines Field at the Cochrane Collaboration, a highly respected international network of researchers who appraise medical evidence, says: “For a vaccine to reduce mortality by 50 percent and up to 90 percent in some studies means it has to prevent deaths not just from influenza, but also from falls, fires, heart disease, strokes, and car accidents. That’s not a vaccine, that’s a miracle.” [Emphasis added.]

The failure of cohort studies

• So how do the vaccine companies come up with this “50% reduction in death rate” statistic? Through cohort studies.

• Cohort studies compare the death rates of large groups of people who received the vaccine to large groups of people who did NOT receive the vaccine. But there’s a fatal flaw in this approach: People self-select for vaccinations. And what kind of people? As it turns out: People who take more precautions with their health!

• [Thus, you automatically have a situation where the more health-cautious people are getting the vaccines because they THINK it's good for them. Meanwhile all the masses of people who don't give a darn about their health tend to skip the seasonal flu vaccines. And these people tend to not take very good of their health in lots of other ways. In other words, in terms of the masses, people who get vaccines are more likely to avoid junk food and live a more health-cautious lifestyle. This explains the differences in the death rates between the two groups! It has nothing to do with the vaccine...]

• There is extreme “cult-like” peer pressure put on doctors and researchers to swallow the vaccine mythology without question. Quoted from the story: Lisa Jackson, a physician and senior investigator with the Group Health Research Center, in Seattle, began wondering aloud to colleagues if maybe something was amiss with the estimate of 50 percent mortality reduction for people who get flu vaccine, the response she got sounded more like doctrine than science. “People told me, ‘No good can come of [asking] this,’” she says. “‘Potentially a lot of bad could happen’ for me professionally by raising any criticism that might dissuade people from getting vaccinated, because of course, ‘We know that vaccine works.’ This was the prevailing wisdom.” [In other words, don't dare question the vaccine, and don't ask tough scientific questions because the vaccine industry runs on dogma, not science... and if you ask any questions, you might find yourself out of a job...].

[Here's where the really good part begins...]

• Lisa Jackson was not deterred. She and three other researchers began to study the widely-quoted vaccine statistics in an attempt to identify this “healthy user effect,” if any. They looked through eight years of medical data covering 72,000 people aged 65 or older and recorded who received flu shots and who didn’t. Then they compared the death rates for all causes outside the flu season.

The vaccine made no difference in mortality

• What she found blows a hole right through the vaccination industry: She found that even outside the flu season, the death rate was 60 percent higher among those who did not get vaccines than among those who do. [In other words, even when you take the flu season completely out of the equation, elderly people who don't get vaccines have other lifestyle factors that makes them far more likely to die from lots of other causes.]

• She also found that this so-called “healthy user effect” explains the entire apparent benefit that continues to be attributed to vaccines. This finding demonstrates that the flu vaccine may not have any beneficial effect whatsoever in reducing mortality.

• How well done were these particular studies? Quoted from the story: Jackson’s papers “are beautiful,” says Lone Simonsen, who is a professor of global health at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., and an internationally recognized expert in influenza and vaccine epidemiology. “They are classic studies in epidemiology, they are so carefully done.”

• Many pro-vaccine experts simply refused to believe the results of this study [because it conflicts with their existing belief in vaccine mythology]. The Journal of the American Medical Association refused to publish her research, even stating, “To accept these results would be to say that the earth is flat!” [Which just goes to show you how deeply ingrained the current vaccine mythology is in the minds of conventional medical practitioners. They simply cannot imagine that vaccines don't work, so they dismiss any evidence -- even GOOD evidence -- demonstrating that fact. This is what makes the vaccine industry a CULT rather than a science.]

• Jackson’s papers were finally published in 2006, in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

[And here's the really, really juicy part you can't miss...]

Vaccine shortage proves it never worked in the first place

• The history of the flu vaccine reveals some huge gaps in current vaccination mythology, essentially proving they don’t work:

• For example: In 2004, vaccine production was low and there was a shortage in vaccines (a 40 percent reduction in vaccinations). And yet mortality rates did not rise during the flu season. [Clearly, if vaccines actually worked, then a year when the vaccine wasn't even administered to 40% of the people who normally get it should have resulted in a huge and statistically significant increase in mortality. It should have spiked the death rates and filled the morgues... but it didn't. You know why? Because flu vaccines don't work in the first place.]

• In the history of flu vaccines, there were two years in which the formulated flu vaccine was a total mismatch to the widely-circulating influenza that made people sick. These years were 1968 and 1997. In both of these years, the vaccine was a completely mismatch for the circulating virus. In effect, nobody was vaccinated! [Knowing this, if the vaccine itself was effective at reducing death rates, then we should have once again seen a huge spike in the death rates during these two years, right? Seriously, if the vaccine reduces death rates by 50% as is claimed by vaccine manufacturers, then these two years in which the vaccine completely missed the mark should have seen huge spikes in the winter death rates, right? But what really happened was... nothing. Not a blip. Not a spike. Nothing. The death rates didn't rise at all.]

• If vaccines really worked to save lives, then the more people you vaccinate, the lower death rates you should see, right? But that’s not the case. Back in 1989, only 15 percent of over-65 people got vaccinated against the flu. But today, thanks to the big vaccine push, over 65 percent are vaccinated. And yet, amazingly, death rates among the elderly have not gone down during the flu season. In fact, they’ve gone up!

• When vaccine promoters (and CDC officials) are challenged about the “50 percent mortality reduction” myth, they invoke dogmatic language and attack the messenger. They are simply not willing to consider the possibility that flu vaccines simply don’t work.

• Scientists who question the vaccine mythology are routinely shunned by the medical establishment. Tom Jefferson from the Cochrane Collaboration is an epidemiologist who questions the claimed benefits of flu vaccines. “The reaction [against Jefferson] has been so dogmatic and even hysterical that you’d think he was advocating stealing babies” said a colleague (Majumdar).

• Jefferson is one of the world’s best-informed researchers on the flu vaccine. He leads a team of researchers who have examined hundreds of vaccine studies. To quote directly from the article: The vast majority of the studies were deeply flawed, says Jefferson. “Rubbish is not a scientific term, but I think it’s the term that applies [to these studies].”

[And here's the real kicker that demonstrates why flu vaccines are useless...]

Flu vaccines only “work” on people who don’t need them

• Vaccines supposedly “work” by introducing a weakened viral strain that causes the immune system to respond by building influenza antibodies. However, as Jefferson points out, only healthy people produce a good antibody response to the vaccine. And yet it is precisely the unhealthy people — the ones who have a poor immune response to the vaccine — who are most at risk of being harmed or killed by influenza. But the vaccines don’t work in them!

• [In other words -- get this -- flu vaccines only "work" in people who don't need them!]

• [At the same time, it's also accurate to say that vaccines don't work at all in the very people who theoretically could benefit from them. They only produce antibodies in people who already have such a strong immune response that they don't need the vaccine in the first place.]

• Jefferson has called for randomized, placebo-controlled studies of the vaccines. But vaccine pushers are resisting these clinical trials! They call the trials “unethical” [but, in reality, they know that a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study would reveal the complete failure of flu vaccines, and they will do anything to prevent such a trial from happening. Don't you find it amazing that drug pushers and vaccine advocates claim they have "science" on their side, but they won't submit their vaccines to any real science at all?]

• [No placebo-controlled studies have ever been conducted on flu vaccines because the industry says they would be "unethical." So where do these people get off claiming their vaccines work at all? The whole industry is based on fabricated statistics that are provably false... and the injections continue, year after year, with absolutely no benefit to public health whatsoever...]

Why anti-viral drugs don’t work either

• On the anti-viral drug front, hospitals are urged to hand out prescriptions for Tamiflu and Relenza to almost anyone who is symptomatic, whether they actually have swine flu or not. Concern is growing about the emergence of drug-resistant strains of swine flu. ” Flu can become resistant to Tamiflu in a matter of days…” says one researcher.

• In 2005, the U.S. government spent $1.8 billion to stockpile antiviral drugs for the military. This decision was made during the time when Donald Rumsfeld was Defense Secretary. Rumsfeld also held millions of dollars worth of stock in Gilead Sciences, the company that holds the patent on Tamiflu. That company saw its stock price rise 50 percent following the government’s stockpiling purchase of Tamiflu.

• The evidence supporting Tamiflu’s anti-viral benefits is flimsy at best. Even worse, as many as one in five children taking Tamiflu experience neuropsychiatric side effects including hallucinations and suicidal behavior. [In other words, your kid might be "tripping out" on some bad Tamiflu...]

• Tamiflu is already linked to 50 deaths of children in Japan. Cause of death? Heart failure.

• The evidence supporting Tamiflu is based on cohort studies, just like the vaccines, which may distort or exaggerate the apparent benefits of the drug.

• Even supporters of Tamiflu admit it’s never been proven to help. A CDC official says that randomized trials to determine the effectiveness of Tamiflu would be “unethical.”

• In all, neither vaccines nor anti-viral drugs have any reliable evidence that they work against influenza at all. Both are being promoted based entirely on pure wishful thinking, not hard science.

• The history of pharmaceutical medicine is littered with other examples of drugs that doctors “knew worked” but which later turned out to harm or kill patients. [All along, the proper scientific studies were avoided because, hey, if you already know everything, why bother conducting any actual science to prove anything?]

• The hype about vaccines provides a false sense of security, taking away attention from other things that really do work to prevent influenza deaths. That’s why, except for “hand washing,” virtually no advice has been offered to the public on preventing influenza beyond vaccines and anti-viral drugs.

• Concluding quote from the author: “By being afraid to do the proper studies now, we may be condemning ourselves to using treatments based on illusion and faith rather than sound science.”

A recap of these astonishing points

Let’s recap what we just learned here (because it’s just mind-boggling):

• There have been no placebo-controlled studies on flu vaccines because the vaccine pushers say such clinical trials would be “unethical.” Thus, there is actually no hard scientific evidence that they work at all.

• The “50 percent reduction in mortality” statistic that’s tossed around by vaccine pushers is a total fabrication based on “rubbish” studies (”cohort” studies).

• Scrutinizing the existing studies that claim to support vaccines reveals that flu vaccines simply don’t work. And when vaccines aren’t available or the formulation is wrong, there’s no spike in death rates, indicating quite conclusively that these vaccines offer no reduction in mortality.

• Flu vaccines only produce antibodies in people who don’t need vaccines. At the same time, they fail to produce antibodies in people who are most vulnerable to flu. Thus, vaccines only work in people who don’t need them.

• The entire flu vaccine industry is run like a cult, with dogma ruling over science. Anyone who asks tough, scientific questions is immediately branded a heretic. No one is allowed to question the status quo. (So much for “evidence-based medicine,” huh?)

As you can see from all this, the flu vaccine is pure quackery. Those who administer vaccines are, by inference, QUACKS. They claim to have scientific minds, and yet they are the most gullible of all: They will believe almost anything if it’s published in a medical journal, even if it’s complete quackery.

Today, countless doctors, nurses and pharmacists across North America and around the world are pushing a medically worthless, scientifically-fabricated chemical injection that offers absolutely no benefit to public health… and yet they’re convinced it’s highly effective! It just goes to show you how easy it is to brainwash people in the field of conventional medicine.

They’ve abandoned real science long ago, you know. Now the whole industry is just run on the momentum of dogmatic arrogance and the illusion of authority. From the CDC and FDA on down to the local pharmacist at the corner store, the American medical system is run by some seemingly smart people who have been brainwashed into become full-fledged members of the Cult of Pharmacology where vaccine mythology overrules real science.

The vaccine industry is perhaps the greatest medical scam ever pulled off in the history of the world. Don’t fall for it.

And don’t forget to read the full article in The Atlantic by Shannon Brownlee: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/2009…

Why people get vaccinated: Superstition

Reading everything you’ve read here, you might wonder: Why do people get vaccinated at all?

The reason is because no one knows whether they work or not, so people keep on taking them “just in case.” It’s exactly the kind of superstitious ritual that “science-minded skeptics” rail against on a regular basis… unless, of course, it involves their vaccines, in which case superstition is all okay.

People take vaccines for the same reason they rub a rabbit’s foot. It’s a good luck ritual that may or may not work, but no one really knows. And besides, what’s the harm in it? (They think…)

Personally, I’d rather get some vitamin D and have a healthy, functioning immune system. But for those who prefer to play the lotto, gamble in Vegas or bet their lives on medical superstitions, flu vaccines are readily available.

So what are you waiting for? Shoot up a few flu vaccines, rub your lucky rabbit’s foot, then spin around clockwise seven times and you, too, may be able to generate enough luck to avoid the flu this winter.

Does the Vaccine Matter?

Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer
The Atlantic
October 14, 2009

Drive too fast along Red Lion Road, beside Philadelphia’s Northeast Airport, and you will miss the low-rise cement building where the biotech company MedImmune has been quietly pumping out swine flu vaccine at about a million doses a week. Through the summer and fall, workers wearing protective gear that covered them from head to toe brewed up batches of live, genetically modified flu virus. Robots then injected tiny doses of virus-laden fluid into glass vials, which were mounted into nasal spritzers, labeled, and readied for shipment at the direction of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, which is helping to coordinate the nation’s pandemic-preparedness plan. In the most ambitious vaccination program the nation has mounted since the anti-polio campaign in the 1950s, the federal government has commissioned MedImmune and four other companies to produce enough vaccine to cover the entire U.S. population.

Vaccination is central to the government’s plan for preventing deaths from swine flu. The CDC has recommended that some 159 million adults and children receive either a swine flu shot or a dose of MedImmune’s nasal vaccine this year. Shots are offered in doctors’ offices, hospitals, airports, pharmacies, schools, polling places, shopping malls, and big-box stores like Wal-Mart. In August, New York state required all health-care workers to get both seasonal and swine flu shots. To further protect the populace, the federal government has spent upwards of $3billion stockpiling millions of doses of antiviral drugs like Tamiflu—which are being used both to prevent swine flu and to treat those who fall ill.

But what if everything we think we know about fighting influenza is wrong? What if flu vaccines do not protect people from dying—particularly the elderly, who account for 90 percent of deaths from seasonal flu? And what if the expensive antiviral drugs that the government has stockpiled over the past few years also have little, if any, power to reduce the number of people who die or are hospitalized? The U.S. government—with the support of leaders in the public-health and medical communities—has put its faith in the power of vaccines and antiviral drugs to limit the spread and lethality of swine flu. Other plans to contain the pandemic seem anemic by comparison. Yet some top flu researchers are deeply skeptical of both flu vaccines and antivirals. Like the engineers who warned for years about the levees of New Orleans, these experts caution that our defenses may be flawed, and quite possibly useless against a truly lethal flu. And that unless we are willing to ask fundamental questions about the science behind flu vaccines and antiviral drugs, we could find ourselves, in a bad epidemic, as helpless as the citizens of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

The term influenza, which dates back to the Middle Ages, is taken from the Italian word for occult or astral influence. Then as now, flu seemed to appear out of nowhere each winter, debilitating or killing large numbers of people, only to vanish in the spring. Today, seasonal flu is estimated to kill about 36,000 people in the United States each year, and half a million worldwide.

Yet the flu, in many important respects, remains mysterious. Determining how many deaths it really causes, or even who has it, is no simple matter. We think we have the flu anytime we fall ill with an ailment that brings on headache, malaise, fever, coughing, sneezing, and that achy feeling as if we’ve been sleeping on a bed of rocks, but researchers have found that at most half, and perhaps as few as 7 or 8 percent, of such cases are actually caused by an influenza virus in any given year. More than 200 known viruses and other pathogens can cause the suite of symptoms known as “influenza-like illness”; respiratory syncytial virus, bocavirus, coronavirus, and rhinovirus are just a few of the bugs that can make a person feel rotten. And depending on the season, in up to two-thirds of the cases of flu-like illness, no cause at all can be found.

Nobody knows precisely why we are much more likely to catch the flu in the winter months than at other times of the year. Perhaps it’s because flu viruses flourish in cool temperatures and are killed by exposure to sunlight. Or maybe it’s because in winter, people spend more time indoors, where a sneeze or a cough can more easily spread a virus to others. What is certain is that influenza viruses mutate with amazing speed, so each flu season sees slightly different genetic versions of the viruses that infected people the year before. Every year, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collect data from 94 nations on the flu viruses that circulated the previous year, and then make an educated guess about which viruses are likely to circulate in the coming fall. Based on that information, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issues orders to manufacturers in February for a vaccine that includes the three most likely strains.

Every once in a while, however, a very different bug pops up and infects far more people than the normal seasonal flu variants do. It is these novel viruses that are responsible for pandemics, defined by the World Health Organization as events that occur when “a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity” and which can sweep around the world in a very short time. The worst flu pandemic in recorded history was the “Spanish flu” of 1918–19, at the end of World WarI. A third of the world’s population was infected, with at least 40million and perhaps as many as 100million people dying—more than were killed in World Wars I and II combined. (Some scholars suggest that one reason World WarI ended was that so many soldiers were sick or dying from flu.) Since then, two other flu pandemics have occurred, in 1957 and 1968, neither of which was particularly lethal.

In August, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology projected that this fall and winter, the swine flu, H1N1, could infect anywhere between one-third and one-half of the U.S. population and could kill as many as 90,000 Americans, two and a half times the number killed in a typical flu season. But precisely how deadly, or even how infectious, this year’s H1N1 pandemic will turn out to be won’t be known until it’s over. Most reports coming from the Southern Hemisphere in late August (the end of winter there) suggested that the swine flu is highly infectious, but not particularly lethal. For example, Australian officials estimated they would finish winter with under 1,000 swine flu deaths—fewer than the usual 1,500 to 3,000 from seasonal flu. Among those who have died in the U.S., about 70 percent were already suffering from congenital conditions like cerebral palsy or underlying illnesses such as cancer, asthma, or AIDS, which make people more vulnerable.

Public-health officials consider vaccine their most formidable defense against the pandemic—indeed, against any flu—and on the surface, their faith seems justified. Vaccines developed over the course of the 20th century slashed the death rates of nearly a dozen infectious diseases, such as smallpox and polio, and vaccination became one of medicine’s most potent weapons. Influenza virus was first identified in the 1930s, and by the mid-1940s, researchers had produced a vaccine that was given to soldiers in World WarII. The U.S. government got serious about promoting flu vaccine after the 1957 flu pandemic brought home influenza’s continuing potential to cause widespread illness and death. Today, flu vaccine is a staple of public-health policy; in a normal year, some 100 million Americans get vaccinated.

But while vaccines for, say, whooping cough and polio clearly and dramatically reduced death rates from those diseases, the impact of flu vaccine has been harder to determine. Flu comes and goes with the seasons, and often it does not kill people directly, but rather contributes to death by making the body more susceptible to secondary infections like pneumonia or bronchitis. For this reason, researchers studying the impact of flu vaccination typically look at deaths from all causes during flu season, and compare the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.

Such comparisons have shown a dramatic difference in mortality between these two groups: study after study has found that people who get a flu shot in the fall are about half as likely to die that winter—from any cause—as people who do not. Get your flu shot each year, the literature suggests, and you will dramatically reduce your chance of dying during flu season.

Yet in the view of several vaccine skeptics, this claim is suspicious on its face. Influenza causes only a small minority of all deaths in the U.S., even among senior citizens, and even after adding in the deaths to which flu might have contributed indirectly. When researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases included all deaths from illnesses that flu aggravates, like lung disease or chronic heart failure, they found that flu accounts for, at most, 10 percent of winter deaths among the elderly. So how could flu vaccine possibly reduce total deaths by half? Tom Jefferson, a physician based in Rome and the head of the Vaccines Field at the Cochrane Collaboration, a highly respected international network of researchers who appraise medical evidence, says: “For a vaccine to reduce mortality by 50 percent and up to 90 percent in some studies means it has to prevent deaths not just from influenza, but also from falls, fires, heart disease, strokes, and car accidents. That’s not a vaccine, that’s a miracle.”

The estimate of 50 percent mortality reduction is based on “cohort studies,” which compare death rates in large groups, or cohorts, of people who choose to be vaccinated, against death rates in groups who don’t. But people who choose to be vaccinated may differ in many important respects from people who go unvaccinated—and those differences can influence the chance of death during flu season. Education, lifestyle, income, and many other “confounding” factors can come into play, and as a result, cohort studies are notoriously prone to bias. When researchers crunch the numbers, they typically try to factor out variables that could bias the results, but, as Jefferson remarks, “you can adjust for the confounders you know about, not for the ones you don’t,” and researchers can’t always anticipate what factors are likely to be important to whether a patient dies from flu. There is always the chance that they might miss some critical confounder that renders their results entirely wrong.

When Lisa Jackson, a physician and senior investigator with the Group Health Research Center, in Seattle, began wondering aloud to colleagues if maybe something was amiss with the estimate of 50 percent mortality reduction for people who get flu vaccine, the response she got sounded more like doctrine than science. “People told me, ‘No good can come of [asking] this,’” she says. “‘Potentially a lot of bad could happen’ for me professionally by raising any criticism that might dissuade people from getting vaccinated, because of course, ‘We know that vaccine works.’ This was the prevailing wisdom.”

Nonetheless, in 2004, Jackson and three colleagues set out to determine whether the mortality difference between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated might be caused by a phenomenon known as the “healthy user effect.” They hypothesized that on average, people who get vaccinated are simply healthier than those who don’t, and thus less liable to die over the short term. People who don’t get vaccinated may be bedridden or otherwise too sick to go get a shot. They may also be more likely to succumb to flu or any other illness, because they are generally older and sicker. To test their thesis, Jackson and her colleagues combed through eight years of medical data on more than 72,000 people 65 and older. They looked at who got flu shots and who didn’t. Then they examined which group’s members were more likely to die of any cause when it was not flu season.

Jackson’s findings showed that outside of flu season, the baseline risk of death among people who did not get vaccinated was approximately 60 percent higher than among those who did, lending support to the hypothesis that on average, healthy people chose to get the vaccine, while the “frail elderly” didn’t or couldn’t. In fact, the healthy-user effect explained the entire benefit that other researchers were attributing to flu vaccine, suggesting that the vaccine itself might not reduce mortality at all. Jackson’s papers “are beautiful,” says Lone Simonsen, who is a professor of global health at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., and an internationally recognized expert in influenza and vaccine epidemiology. “They are classic studies in epidemiology, they are so carefully done.”

The results were also so unexpected that many experts simply refused to believe them. Jackson’s papers were turned down for publication in the top-ranked medical journals. One flu expert who reviewed her studies for the Journal of the American Medical Association wrote, “To accept these results would be to say that the earth is flat!” When the papers were finally published in 2006, in the less prominent International Journal of Epidemiology, they were largely ignored by doctors and public-health officials. “The answer I got,” says Jackson, “was not the right answer.”

VeriChip shares jump after H1N1 patent license win

Reuters
October 12, 2009

Shares of VeriChip Corp (CHIP.O)
tripled after the company said it had been granted an exclusive
license to two patents, which will help it to develop
implantable virus detection systems in humans.

The patents, held by VeriChip partner Receptors LLC, relate
to biosensors that can detect the H1N1 and other viruses, and
biological threats such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus, VeriChip said in a statement.

The technology will combine with VeriChip's implantable
radio frequency identification devices to develop virus triage
detection systems.

The triage system will provide multiple levels of
identification -- the first will identify the agent as virus or
non-virus, the second level will classify the virus and alert
the user to the presence of pandemic threat viruses and the
third level will identify the precise pathogen, VeriChip said
in a white paper published May 7, 2009.

Shares of VeriChip were up 186 percent at $3.28 Monday late
afternoon trade on Nasdaq. They had touched a year high of
$3.43 earlier in the session.

Microchip Implant to Link Your Health Records, Credit History, Social Security

Bnet
October 11, 2009

Novartis and Proteus Biomedical are not the only companies hoping to implant microchips into patients so that their pill-popping habits can be monitored. VeriChip of Delray Beach, Fl., has an even bolder idea: an implanted chip that links to an online database containing all your medical records, credit history and your social security ID.

As this presentation to investors makes clear, the chip and its database could form the basis of a new national identity database lined to Social Security and NationalCreditReport.com. The VeriMed Health Link homepage describes the chip:

… a tiny, passive microchip (the nation’s first and only microchip cleared for patient identification by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration) and a secure, private online database that links you to your personal health record. Your Health Link is always with you and cannot be lost or stolen.

That database can be accessed by doctors and nurses:

About the size of a grain of rice, the microchip is inserted just under the skin and contains only a unique, 16-digit identifier. The microchip itself does not contain any other data other than this unique electronic ID, nor does it contain any Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking capabilities. And unlike conventional forms of identification, the Health Link cannot be lost, stolen, misplaced, or counterfeited. It is safe, secure, reversible, and always with you.

But VeriChip’s ambitions don’t end there, as this diagram indicates:

(Click to enlarge.)

Yes, it shows your Health Link chip linked to Google, Microsoft, employers and insurers. The company also sees the VeriMed Health Link linked to your “identity security services,” through a separate VeriChip product, PositiveID. This slide show states:

PositiveID puts people in control of their personal health records and financial information, bridging the gap between secure medical records and identity security

PositiveID dovetails with Health Link:

Cross marketing opportunities: cross-sell the NationalCreditReport.com customer base the Health Link personal health record and vice-versa

Differentiates PositiveID as the only personal health record that offers identity theft protection

It’s a future in which your doctor tags you like a dog with a microchip that allows anyone with the right privileges to look at your medical records, credit history, social security number (see slide 6), and anything else that stems from that.

Suddenly, storing medical records on paper in locked cabinets inside a single doctor’s office starts to look like something we may not want to rush to give up.

Image: The VeriMed Health Link chip from VeriChip’s web page.

Military to Get Mandatory Swine Flu Shots

MSNBC
October 8, 2009

Excerpt: "Because I can compel people to get the shots, larger numbers will have the vaccine," said Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command. "They will, as a percentage of the population, be vaccinated more rapidly than many of us. So we may see some objective results, good or not, of the vaccinations."

U.S. military troops will begin getting required swine flu shots in the next week to 10 days, with active duty forces deploying to war zones and other critical areas going to the front of the vaccine line, a top military commander said Tuesday.

Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart also told The Associated Press that as many as 400 troops are ready to go to five regional headquarters around the country to assist federal health and emergency management officials if needed as the flu season heats up.

The Pentagon has bought 2.7 million vaccines, and 1.4 million of those will go to active duty military. National Guard troops on active duty are also required to receive the vaccine, as are civilian Defense Department employees who are in critical jobs.

As a result, the military is expected to provide health officials with an early assessment of the vaccine.

Read the Full Article

GlaxoSmithKline Continues Vaccine Trial Even After 12 Babies Die

Natural News
July 21, 2008

According to an article at TradingMarkets.com, at least a dozen babies have died in a pneumonia vaccine trial conducted by GlaxoSmithKline in Argentina. The Argentina Federation of Health Professionals (Fesprosa) asserts that children of poor families are being used for the trials, and parents are bullied into signing consent forms. The trials are still continuing, even though at least 12 infants have already died.

Fesprosa maintains that there is no state control and that there are no ethical requirements. This doesn't come as any surprise to those who know how these kinds of human trials usually occur. Generally speaking, vaccine trials are conducted in Third World countries on poor people who often feel trapped into participating in human health experiments in order to receive medical care or other necessities.

One doesn't find these kinds of experiments going on in places like the United States or Europe, where names and faces of victims would surely get out into the media and cause a big stir. Instead, the infants of impoverished people, who often can't even read or write, are used in the trials. Apparently, the lead investigator of the trial didn't think it was any big concern that over 12 babies have already died since deaths from respiratory illnesses caused by the pneumococcal bacteria kill even more people. Of course, this is no comfort to the poor mothers whose babies are sacrificed for the monetary gains of a pharmaceutical giant.

The great aunt of one of the victims alleges that once children begin to participate in these trials, there is no way out. Mothers who try to remove their children from the trials are browbeaten into submission, being told that their children will never receive any other vaccines if removed before a trial is completed. Imagine being a poor, uneducated mother and having to make such a choice. (Remember, too, that some can't even read the consent forms they are signing!)

Anyone who hasn't seen The Constant Gardener, a film starring Ralph Fiennes, truly needs to do so. While the story is fictional, the viewer is able to get a better feel for how drug and vaccine trials are conducted. Some particularly touching words are spoken in the movie by the character "Ham," who is discussing the deaths that happen in trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies when he states: "And from those deaths we derive the benefits of civilization, benefits we can afford so easily... because those lives were bought so cheaply." Unfortunately, all consumers of drugs and vaccines share some of the responsibility for the deaths and injuries of these drug trial victims. While it isn't always easy to do the right thing, sometimes one just has to make the moral choice to stand up for these innocent children and say "no" to Big Pharma.

Doctors Concerned FluMist Vaccine Could Spread Live H1N1 Virus

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Doctors and hospitals are expressing concern that the FluMist vaccine could endanger people because it contains live H1N1 virus, unlike the injectable shot that contains antibodies. With no less than 60 per cent of the U.S. population immunodeficient in one way or another, could FluMist be a pandemic waiting to happen?

Hospitals in Colorado and elsewhere are shunning the FluMist H1N1 vaccine, a nasal spray that contains live swine flu virus, because of fears it could infect people with weakened immune systems and underlying health conditions.

“Several metro area hospitals said they won’t be taking the FluMist because they don’t want to endanger patients,” reports TheDenverChannel.com.

Lois VanFleet, infection prevention specialist at Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette, expressed concern that doctors and nurses who inhaled the live virus could infect patients whose immune systems are compromised.

However, H1N1 FluMist is being rolled out nationwide from this week, including at “drive-through clinics” across the country where the nasal spray is administered while people sit in their cars with their window wide open (see top picture).

The live virus contained in the nasal spray is weakened but it can be transmitted from person to person for up to three weeks.

According to studies, “the odds of transmitting the virus after receiving the nasal spray are about 2.5 percent,” with children the most susceptible.

The nasal spray is being rolled out on a mass scale before the widespread introduction of the injectable vaccine. Some fear that the nasal spray will contribute to a wider pandemic, which will then provide governments with the crisis they need to make the injectable vaccine mandatory.

“This would accelerate the move to a state of emergency, cripple the US health care system, and would result in the “need” to have military, eventually UN troops, take control,” notes TheFluCase.com.

“Also, all public assemblies, including courts, would be prohibited, thereby satisfying a condition for the imposition of martial law, mass quarantines, and forced vaccinations for the rest of us.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, the swine flu scandal of 1976, when more people died from the vaccine than the actual virus, was what caused the live virus to be removed from future vaccines. However, it is admitted that FluMist contains the live virus.

“It has been documented that the live viruses from the vaccine can be shed (and potentially spread into the community) from recipient children for up to 21 days, and even longer from adults. Viral shedding also puts breastfeeding infants at risk if the mother has been given FluMist,” writes Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, one of the most outspoken physicians in the country on the hazards of vaccines and vaccination.

FluMist’s own package insert reads as follows, “FluMist® recipients should avoid close contact with immunocompromised individuals for at least 21 days.”

“The warning is specifically directed toward those living in the same household with an immunocompromised person, but the on-going release of live viruses throughout the community may be a significant risk to everyone who has a weak, or weakened, immune system,” writes Tenpenny, pointing out that if one takes into account a plethora of health conditions that could be classified as contributing to immunodeficiency, as much as 60% of the entire population could be considered to be “chemically immunosuppressed.”

“An ever greater concern about FluMist is the contents within the vaccine. Each 0.5ml of the formula contains 10 6.5-7.5 particles of live, attenuated influenza virus. That means that between 10 million and 100 million viral particles will be forcefully injected into the nostrils when administered. The viral strain was developed by serial passage through “specific pathogen-free primary chick kidney cells” and then grown in “specific pathogen-free eggs.” That means that the culture media was free of pathogens that were specifically tested for, but not a culture that was necessarily “pathogen-free.” The risk that the vaccine may contain contaminant avian retroviruses still remains,” warns Tenpenny.

One of the pharmaceutical companies developing nasal spray vaccines is Baxter International, who were caught earlier this year releasing batches of vaccines from a lab in Austria that were contaminated live bird flu virus, otherwise known as H5N1.

The video below outlines further concerns regarding FluMist and the nasal spray vaccine in general.

The Effects Of Mercury On The Brain

The Fast-Tracked H1N1 Novel Influenza / Swine Flu Vaccine

Dr. Sherri Tenpenny
Pandemic Flu Online
October 5, 2009