Now the FDA Is Going After Vitamin C!

January 19th, 2011

Alliance for Natural Health

The FDA has just notified one pharmacy that it will no longer be allowed to manufacture or distribute injectable vitamin C—despite its remarkable power to heal conditions that conventional medicine can’t touch. Please help reverse this outrageous decision!

Let’s get this straight. The government acknowledges the risk of a worldwide flu pandemic. It acknowledges that conventional drugs cannot cure big viruses-like the mononucleosis and hepatitis viruses, many influenza viruses, and many others. It acknowledges that many bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics and are killing increasing thousands. It acknowledges the risk of a worldwide drug-resistant TB pandemic.

Despite acknowledging all this, it now insists on wiping out one of the best potential treatments for these conditions and for certain cancers as well. And why is this being done? What possible rationale is offered? Because it’s dangerous? No. Because it can’t be patented and therefore won’t be taken through the standard FDA approval process. No matter that vitamin C is one of the least toxic components of our food supply and liquid forms of it have been used safely for decades.

By the way, here is what is not safe. Don’t substitute home-made vitamin C solution for pharmaceutical grade liquid. That is not safe for injection. If the FDA action leads someone to do that, the FDA should be held responsible for the results.

The government, instead of banning intravenous vitamin C, should instead be supporting research into it. Even though IV C is being used in burn units around the world, including in the US, and has been adopted by the military for this purpose, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) refuses to fund any studies using intravenous C in patients. There are privately funded studies currently underway, but of course these cannot continue if the FDA bans the substance.

With this pharmacy, the FDA also banned injectable magnesium chloride and injectable vitamin B-complex 100. These two substances are routinely added to intravenous C to make the “Myers Cocktail,” used especially for conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome, and infectious diseases such as hepatitis, AIDS, mononucleosis, and flu. The FDA is not going after the Myers Cocktail directly, but is rather attacking each individual substance used to make the cocktail, and may conceivably be going after injectable vitamins and minerals in general, despite such injections being given under the care of a qualified physician.

Please contact the FDA right away, and tell them to stop this foolish war on intravenous vitamin C!

Each of us reading this should think, “Intravenous C could someday save my life.” Dr. Jonathan Collin, editor of the Townsend Letter, discusses the case of a man in New Zealand who nearly died from swine flu. After developing a severe fever and upper respiratory infection, his condition deteriorated and he became comatose. Eventually even a ventilator was insufficient to keep him breathing because his lungs were so compromised by pulmonary edema. After weeks of heroic intervention, doctors decided there was no chance of survival and nothing further should be done for him.

The family asked the hospital to administer intravenous vitamin C. After much disagreement, the hospital gave him 25 grams of vitamin C every 6 hours. There was so much improvement over the next two days that the hospital decided to reinstate his intensive care—but they discontinued the vitamin C, saying that he had improved only because they had rolled him onto his side or his stomach instead of keeping him on his back! Not surprisingly, his condition once again deteriorated.

Click here for the full report from the Alliance For Natural Health

WHO Losing Public Confidence After Flu Pandemic

March 31, 2010

Guardian

By: Sarah Boseley

The World Health Organisation and other public health bodies have “gambled away” public confidence by overstating the dangers of the flu pandemic, according to a draft report to the Council of Europe.

The report, by the Labour MP Paul Flynn, vice chair of the council’s health committee, says that a loss of credibility could endanger lives.

“This decline in confidence could be risky in the future,” says the report, seen by the Guardian. “When the next pandemic arises many persons may not give full credibility to recommendations put forward by WHO and other bodies. They may refuse to be vaccinated and may put their own health and lives at risk.”

In Britain, says Flynn, the discrepancy between the estimate of the numbers of people who would die from flu and the reality was dramatic. “In the United Kingdom, the Department of Health initially announced that around 65,000 deaths were to be expected. In the meantime, by the start of 2010, this estimate was downgraded to only 1,000 fatalities. By January 2010, fewer than 5,000 persons had been registered as having caught the disease and about 360 deaths had been noted,” says his report.

The public health minister, Gillian Merron, told Flynn in a meeting for the report that a Cabinet Office investigation was looking into Britain’s handling of the outbreak and would report some time after June. Countries across Europe reacted very differently to the pandemic, says the report. Not all mounted high-profile vaccination campaigns, as did the UK.

Flynn’s draft accuses the WHO of a lack of transparency. Some members of its advisory groups are flu experts who have also received funding, especially for research projects, from pharmaceutical companies making drugs and vaccines against flu.

“The neutrality of their advice could be contested,” says the report. “To date, WHO has failed to provide convincing evidence to counter these allegations and the organisation has not published the relevant declarations of interest. Taking such a reserved position, the organisation has joined other bodies, such as the European Medicines Agency, which likewise, have still not published such documents.”

Flynn’s report was commissioned by the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly, which is holding an inquiry into the handling by European bodies and governments of the flu pandemic. The second evidence session will be held in Paris tomorrow. The witnesses will include the Polish health minister, Ewa Kopacz, who will explain why her government decided not to order any H1N1 vaccines.

At the first evidence session, in January, some experts criticised the dramatic comparisons made last year between the novel strain of H1N1 circulating in Europe and the devastating Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Professor Ulrich Keil, epidemiologist and director of the WHO collaborating centre on epidemiology of the University of Münster in Germany pointed out in evidence that the Spanish flu broke out in the very different circumstances of the first world war, where infections were easily transmitted by undernourished soldiers and there was an absence of medicines such as penicillin.

One of the central questions of the Council of Europe inquiry, says Flynn, “concerns the possibility for representatives of the pharmaceutical industry to directly influence public decisions taken with regard to the H1N1 influenza, and the question of whether some of their statements had been adopted as public health recommendations without being based on sufficient scientific evidence”. He cites as an example the decision to recommend two doses of flu vaccine for children, which was later questioned.

“Various factors have led to the suspicion that there may have been undue influence by the pharmaceutical industry, notably the possibility of conflicts of interest of experts represented in WHO advisory groups, the early stage of preparing contractual arrangements between member states and pharmaceutical companies as well as the actual profits that companies were able to realise as a result of the influenza pandemic,” says the draft report, which will be finalised when all the evidence has been taken, at the end of April.

Click here for the full report.

The Great Swine Flu Cover Up

November 20, 2009

Foreign Policy

By Alan I. Sipress

As swine flu was spreading around the globe this spring, a senior disease specialist from the World Health Organization (WHO) held an urgent conference call with top British health officials. In the conversation this May, later described as “aggressive” by sources familiar with the discussion, the WHO official accused the British of concealing the extent of their country’s swine-flu outbreak. Among those with swine-flu symptoms, Britain was only counting people who had traveled to places that, like Mexico, had already confirmed an outbreak of the virus, known to scientists as H1N1. Their method left much to be desired in a country where the virus was already spreading fast. Countless Britons fell sick and were intentionally left uncounted.

 
 More… Governments, of course, have a long history of concealing outbreaks, and this year’s flu pandemic, while the first of this particular century, was certainly not the first to be brushed under the rug. The consequences of cloaking swine flu weren’t disastrous on this occasion, but the result will not always be so benign. In fact, at this very moment, another virus — with the potential to be far more devastating — is continuing to seed infections, frustrating efforts to root it out. That virus, H5N1, or avian flu, is a far more lethal strain. And you guessed it: front-line countries’ records in candidly reporting the disease’s spread don’t bode well.

If there’s one thing past pandemics have taught, it’s that curing the world of flu is impossible unless countries are upfront about their outbreaks. Armed with that vital information, health officials can take steps to slow the spreading infection and, if containment fails, ramp up emergency medical care and other vital services. Without timely disclosures, it’s much harder for virus hunters to discover how an emerging disease attacks its victims and transmits to others; it’s also much tougher to get virus samples for study in the lab.

Given all this, why would governments try to keep down their official infection tallies? Most likely, fear of stigma and all the economic consequences that follow. When the WHO placed its call to London last spring, the agency was still weighing whether to raise its state of alert and declare that the swine flu epidemic was a full-blown pandemic, a dramatic step that would signal all countries to ready themselves for the brunt of the new virus. It was clear that the virus was spreading in the Western Hemisphere, especially in the United States and Mexico. But under the agency’s criteria, a pandemic could be declared only if “community-level outbreaks” were confirmed in more than one region of the world. If Britain acknowledged that the virus was spreading widely, that would add Europe to the list and push the outbreak across the pandemic threshold.

Click here for full report

Ukraine Swine-Flu Panic: Crisis or Political Ploy?

November 06, 2009

Time

By James Marson

Ukraine is in the midst of what some might call swine-flu hysteria. The country is in virtual lockdown mode, with the government closing schools, universities and movie theaters and banning all public gatherings until the end of November. Pharmacies have run out of protective masks; those who missed the rush are improvising with scarves or homemade facsimiles. And rumors are running rampant, much as they did during Soviet times when the authorities tried to cover up disasters like the Chernobyl nuclear-plant meltdown. “We are worried that the swine flu has mutated and is killing scores of people,” says Nina Sokolovska as she stands in line at a pharmacy.

Given the persistent rumors and the country’s volatile political situation, however, some Ukrainians have suggested that the gravity of the situation is being exaggerated by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko for political gain ahead of the January presidential elections. “What has happened is hysteria and panic, which is being provoked,” says Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a presidential candidate currently running third in the polls. He accused Tymoshenko of whipping up a frenzy to distract people from the government’s failings. “Is anyone talking about wages? No. Is anyone talking about the 4 million unemployed? No. Is anyone talking about the gas we haven’t paid for? No,” he says. The media have also questioned Tymoshenko’s motives. A headline on one Ukrainian news website, Ukrayinska Pravda, read: “Who needs swine flu and who needs a high rating?”

Others are taking the flu pandemic more seriously and are blaming Tymoshenko for mishandling the government’s response efforts. Viktor Yanukovych, the leader of the opposition and front-runner in the presidential race, has called for the Health Minister to be fired and accused Tymoshenko of putting people’s health at risk by launching her own presidential campaign with a rally just six days before the ban on public gatherings was announced. “Tymoshenko knew she shouldn’t bring such a large number of people to Kiev. It was a feast at the time of a plague,” he says. Current President Viktor Yushchenko — Tymoshenko’s former partner in the 2004 Orange Revolution and now her bitter rival — also attacked her for holding a campaign rally, saying it was “criminal irresponsibility” if it allowed the disease to spread.

But Tymoshenko has also been praised by many for implementing sweeping measures to try to stop the spread of flu. She has made every effort to appear on top of the situation, personally going to meet a shipment of the H1N1 vaccine Tamiflu at Kiev’s airport on Monday. One doctor who asked not to be named in the hard-hit Lviv region praised the Prime Minister’s actions. “Politicians are aggravating the situation by making so much noise,” she tells TIME. In addition, Glenn Thomas, a spokesman for the WHO team that’s been dispatched to Kiev to assist Ukrainian authorities, says the government’s response had been “transparent and rapid.”

Taras Berezovets, an adviser to Tymoshenko, tells TIME that Yushchenko and the other presidential candidates are using the swine-flu epidemic as an opportunity to attack the Prime Minister. “The media are to blame for the panic. From the beginning, the government has told people to remain calm and follow some simple rules,” he says.

Tymoshenko has been guilty of one thing: sending mixed messages. The closing of schools and banning of public gatherings are among the harshest measures in Europe against the H1N1 virus. Yet Tymoshenko has not forcefully advocated for people to get vaccinated against the virus. “I am not vaccinated,” she said in a television address this week. “I am protecting myself like everybody, with lemon, onion, garlic, everything that is needed. I think the best way is simply to protect your health through well-known means.” Yushchenko, meanwhile, has urged people to get vaccinated immediately.

Click here for full report

Swine Flu Deaths are “Just a Coincidence”

November 4, 2009

Telegraph.co.uk

By Rebecca Smith and Kate Devlin

With millions of people being vaccinated against the virus there is a real risk that coincidental events will be seen as reactions to the jab, a paper in The Lancet said.

Experts at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in America calculated the background rate of conditions that may be mistaken for vaccine reactions and warned that there is a risk people will shun the jab needlessly.

Only if these background rates are exceeded will it point to a potential problem with the vaccine.

Medical experts have been told to watch for any cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome during the flu pandemic as some research suggested there was a link between a flu vaccine used in America in 1976 and the condition, in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks part of the nervous system and can be fatal in rare cases.

However flu itself it also linked to the condition and about one in every 100,000 people a year.

Dr Steven Black and colleagues calculated that if 10 million people in Britain were vaccinated there would be around 22 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome and six cases of sudden death would be expected to occur within six weeks of vaccination as coincident background cases.

Just over nine million people in priority groups, such as pregnant women and those with long-term illnesses, and another two million front line health and social care workers will be offered the vaccine in Britain over the next two months.

Decisions will be taken soon over whether to offer the vaccine more widely.

The research also suggested that 397 per one million vaccinated pregnant women would be predicted to have a spontaneous abortion within one day of vaccination.

But this is the rate of spontaneous abortion that would occur on any given day out of a group of one million pregnant women during a vaccination campaign or not.

Dr Black wrote: “Misinterpretation of adverse health outcomes that are only temporally related to vaccination will not only threaten the success of the pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccine programme, but also potentially hinder the development of newer vaccines.

“Therefore, careful interpretation of vaccine safety signals is crucial to detect real reactions to vaccine and to ensure that temporally related events not caused by vaccination do not unjustly affect public opinion of the vaccine.

“Development and availability of data banks that can provide locally relevant background rates of disease incidence are important to aid assessment of vaccine safety concerns.”

The researchers said although scientists know that events connected only be time does not prove cause and effect, the cases ‘nonetheless raise public concern’.

Prof David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, University of Cambridge and Co-Director of Straight Statistics, said: “What a fine paper. If millions of people are vaccinated then just by chance we can expect bad things to happen to some of them, whether it’s a diagnosis of autism or a miscarriage.

“By being ready with the expected numbers of chance cases, perhaps we can avoid overreaction to sad, but coincidental, events. And why don’t we ever see a headline ‘Man wins lottery after flu jab’?”

Professor Robert Dingwall, University of Nottingham, said: “The difference between cause and coincidence is difficult enough for specialists to grasp, let alone the wider public.

“However, this paper is very important in spelling out the fact that just because two events happen at the same time, they are not necessarily related. There is a background rate of death, disease and accidents that happen all the time regardless of what medical interventions are going on.

“Confusing cause and coincidence may lead to serious policy mistakes that put people unnecessarily at risk.

“I am sure that some coincidences will emerge from a high-profile vaccination campaign and we must be careful not to be misled by them.”

Meanwhile the World Health Organisation said that pregnant women could be immunised with any of the vaccines licensed for use against swine flu.

Dr Marie-Paule Keiny, from the WHO, said: “ Sage (the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts) has concluded that the safety profiles are good and recommend that pregnant women can be immunised with any of the licensed vaccines.”

The WHO also recommended that one dose was sufficient to immunise children.

Click here for the full report.

H1N1 Virus Resistant to Tamiflu

October 12, 2009

About.com

By Kristin Hayes

The World Health Organization (WHO) is reporting 31 strains of the H1N1 virus which have mutated and are now resistant to the anti-viral drug Tamiflu (oseltamivir). Since the outbreak of the current H1N1 pandemic Tamiflu has been at the front line of defense. Tamiflu is an antiviral drug which is capable of preventing someone from catching H1N1, (if taken within the first 48 hours after an individual has been exposed), reducing the duration and severity of the illness, and decreasing the risk of passing H1N1 on to others. Many health care workers have been taking Tamiflu to prevent catching H1N1 themselves.

Fortunately all 31 strains show a similar mutation and are still susceptible to another antiviral drug called Relenza (zanamivir). As of October 4, 2009 the WHO has reported 4,500 deaths worldwide. They also state that many countries have stopped documenting individual cases because many are mild and require no medical intervention. To date they are estimating 350,000 cases of H1N1 worldwide but state that this number is significantly lower than the actual number of cases occurred.

Click here for full report

H1N1 Vaccine Revolt!

October 12, 2009

Natural News

By Mike Adams

Public support for the swine flu vaccine is evaporating by the day as the rationale for the vaccine appears increasingly ludicrous to anyone paying attention. Moms, nurses, day care workers and members of the general public are increasingly realizing that Big Pharma’s rationale for swine flu vaccination just doesn’t add up.

Recent polls conducted by the mainstream media indicate that more than fifty percent of moms are refusing to expose their children to the swine flu vaccine, and nurses and health practitioners across the US and UK are going vocal with their opposition to the vaccine.

Legal action against the FDA’s approval of the swine flu vaccine is already underway , and public protests are gaining momentum in raising awareness about the primary objections to the swine flu vaccine. Intelligent, informed people everywhere are saying NO to this vaccine!

Popular support for the vaccine is crumbling by the day, and health authorities are now turning to exaggerated scare stories to try to drum up demand for their vaccines. Where scientific credibility is lacking, fear is being invoked in its place.

Why the swine flu vaccine doesn’t add up

So why is the justification for the swine flu so flimsy? It all comes down to these crucial reasons being pushed by the vaccine industry… but as you’ll see below, each of these reasons is demonstrably false!

Reason #1) The H1N1 swine flu pandemic is dangerous and deadly!

Why it’s flimsy: While the infection rate of H1N1 is currently high, the fatality rate is remarkably low. In fact, it’s no higher than a normal, seasonal flu.

Reason #2) The vaccine protects you from the virus!

Why it’s flimsy: There is absolutely no scientific evidence demonstrating that the swine flu vaccine offers real-world protection against the circulating H1N1 virus. While there is evidence showing that it produces antibodies, as people who have studied vaccine effectiveness already know, the mere existence of vaccine-induced antibodies doesn’t directly translate into functional, real-world immunity! Vaccines are often, in effect, fabricated immunity that often don’t provide practical immune defense in the real world.

Reason #3) The vaccine is perfectly safe, even for kids!

Why it’s flimsy: This reason is truly laughable. None of these vaccines have been properly safety tested by the FDA or the drug companies. They were approved by the FDA with a waiver, utterly bypassing the normal process of long-term safety testing that the public expects the FDA to enforce. In fact, according to attorney Jim Turner, the FDA’s baseless approval of these swine flu vaccines is a violation of federal law.

Reason #4) There’s nothing else you can do to protect yourself from the swine flu (therefore you must take the vaccine shot).

Why it’s flimsy: This reason is an outright lie. In order to sell more vaccines, the pharmaceutical industry (and all its bureaucratic cohorts at the CDC and WHO) are intentionally keeping people ignorant of far safer and more effective options such as vitamin D and anti-viral herbal remedies.

Click here for full report

Swine Flu fears grow as NHS staff shun vaccine

October 12, 2009

guardian.co.uk

Denis Campbell

The Department of Health has ordered NHS bosses across England to ensure that frontline staff get immunised against swine flu amid growing signs that many doctors and nurses intend to shun the vaccine.

Chief executives and boards who run hospitals, primary care trusts and strategic health authorities have been told to urgently maximise the number of workers having the jab. Leading DH figures including Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, have written to them six times in the last five weeks stressing the need for action before the second wave of the pandemic causes major problems.

Ian Dalton, the NHS’s national director of flu resilience, last week warned that vaccination of nurses, doctors and other frontline staff was “absolutely critical” and that widespread take-up of the jabs “will help us to save lives”.

The DH’s letters stress that patients’ health could be put at risk and the NHS left seriously short-staffed through virus-related absenteeism if senior managers do not overcome “perceived obstacles” to the vaccination of workers. Swine flu’s threat is so great that the NHS must avoid only small numbers of personnel getting immunised, as usually happens with seasonal flu every winter, the letters add.

They stress that vulnerable patients could be endangered if staff decide not to heed repeated urgings from Donaldson and other senior figures to have the vaccine. There are growing signs that large numbers of workers will shun the jabs because they see them as unnecessary and potentially unsafe.

Dalton wrote to the chief executives of local NHS organisations in England on 10 September telling them: “We all know that uptake of the seasonal flu vaccine among NHS staff is traditionally low. It is an NHS board responsibility that we do not find ourselves in this position with the swine flu vaccine.”

But hospital chief executives have told the Guardian that they expect as few as 10%-20% of their staff to get vaccinated and cannot fulfil the DH’s demands because the jabs, which are due to begin within days, are entirely voluntary.

One chief executive of a busy urban hospital in one of the swine flu “hotspots” said: “At the moment in my hospital if nothing changes then it could be that 10%-20% of staff have the swine flu jab … Staff could have the virus and pass it on to patients, a proportion of whom will die, albeit a very small proportion.”

He added: “The other consequence is that if loads of staff go off with swine flu that will leave us short-staffed, which is dangerous to patients. That’s a bigger danger than transmission.”

Another hospital chief executive said: “Ideally it should be 100% of frontline staff having the swine flu vaccine. But it obviously isn’t going to be. I hope we’ll get at least the 50% we usually get for seasonal flu. This is important because although this strain of swine flu is mild in most people, if it’s contracted by someone with an underlying health condition that can be serious.”

One medical director at another hospital added: “The word on the street in NHS staff circles is that the vaccine is no good and you shouldn’t bother with it. Nurses in particular worry that there may be side-effects, that corners have been cut in producing the vaccine and that the generally mild nature of the virus means they don’t need to take it. As few as 10%-15% of doctors may have it because we doctors believe ourselves to be above such trivial things as infections.”

A poll by Nursing Times magazine last week showed that the proportion of nurses who do not intend to get vaccinated has risen from 31% in August to 47%, while those who definitely will has fallen from 35% to 23%.

Dame Christine Beasley, the chief nursing officer for England, responded by stressing that the vaccine is “as safe as a vaccine can be” and adding: “Nothing in life is risk-free. I can well understand people being worried. I can well understand people thinking it’s only a mild illness and why should I bother? I do understand all that, I think you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t think that.” Beasley wants directors of nursing to act as role models to allay concerns among frontline nurses.

Hospital chief executives say privately that Donaldson’s repeated reminders of the mild nature of swine flu’s effects in those who contract it, and recent claim that the UK is “tantalisingly close” to beating the virus, may be leading staff to believe that vaccination is not important.

The health department said: “Frontline healthcare workers will be absolutely crucial in the height of a pandemic – without them, patient care will suffer, and the NHS will be stretched. Getting the swine flu vaccine will protect them and their patients.”

It added: “All NHS organisations will be working hard to ensure that all eligible staff have the choice to protect themselves and their patients from swine flu by having the vaccine.”

Click here for the full report