Deadly Hybrid Flu Possible
February 22, 2010
HealthDay News
Research in mice suggests the avian flu virus and the ordinary seasonal flu virus could combine to create a new deadly kind of flu, researchers say.
A single bit of genetic material from the seasonal virus converted the avian flu — officially known as H5N1 — into a very dangerous form, the scientists report in a study published in the Feb. 22-26 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Some hybrids between H5N1 virus and seasonal influenza viruses were more pathogenic than the original H5N1 viruses. That is worrisome,” study senior author Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in a news release.
Avian flu, also known as bird flu, has killed 262 people, according to the World Health Organization, but it hasn’t become very infectious between people.
The researchers warn that swine flu — H1N1 — could also play a role in viral combinations.
“With the new pandemic H1N1 virus, people sort of forgot about H5N1 avian influenza. But the reality is that H5N1 avian virus is still out there,” Kawaoka said. “Our data suggests that it is possible there may be reassortment between H5N1 and pandemic H1N1 that can create a more pathogenic H5N1 virus.”
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Superbugs Getting Stronger and Stronger
February 11, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
The steady medical advance against viruses and bacteria that many experts were trumpeting in the early days of vaccines and antibiotics seems to have stalled, if not reversed. The ongoing emergence of new and increasingly drug-resistant diseases is now causing many to question whether the war against microbes is one that can ever be won.
“It is a war of attrition,” said David Livermore of the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency. “There have been points where we have been advancing, and points when we have had to beat a retreat. If we were having this conversation 20 years ago, for instance, we would be celebrating the vaccine for bacterial meningitis.”
The news these days contains less of celebration and more of alarm. Even with H1N1 swine flu now appearing less dangerous than originally thought and infection rates of the superbug Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) falling in the United Kingdom, widespread antibiotic use and a globalized world have made the processes of pathogen evolution and spread faster than ever before.
The threat from the highly lethal H5N1 bird flu – a mere mutation away from a highly contagious form – has not abated, and other infectious threats thought long vanquished continue to rear their heads. China, for example, is currently battling an outbreak of pneumonic plague caused by Yersina pestis, the same bacterium that wiped out a third of Europe’s population as the Black Plague. Meanwhile, longer lifespans have encouraged the emergence of suberbugs such as Clostridium difficile, which preferentially targets elderly patients who have already been treated with antibiotics.
“Sensible prescribing is part of the answer, but we also need new antibiotics,” Livermore said. “It’s not one of the most attractive areas for pharmaceutical companies as people don’t take them for very long, unlike treatments for heart disease or cancer.”
“We will always be at war with microbes,” said Primrose Freestone of the University of Leicester. “Their genetic promiscuity is impressive.”
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WHO: H1N1 Might Take a Year to Conquer
December 29, 2009
Reuters
By Stephanie Nebehay
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan also warned that although countries have shored up their defenses against the first influenza pandemic in more than 40 years, they remain ill-prepared for mass outbreaks of the deadlier bird flu virus.
“It is still premature and too early for us to say we have come to an end of the pandemic influenza worldwide. It would be prudent and appropriate … to continue to monitor the evolution of this pandemic for the next six to 12 months,” Chan told a year-end news conference.
“The one thing we need to guard against is a sense of complacency,” she added.
Countries including Britain, Canada and the United States have passed peaks of a second wave of H1N1, but outbreaks are intensifying in India, Egypt and elsewhere, according to Chan.
H1N1 has now spread to more than 200 countries, with nearly 12,000 deaths confirmed in laboratory, but it will probably take two years to establish the true death toll, she said.
Millions of people have been infected with the virus which emerged in April, most recovering without special treatment.
But young people, pregnant women and people with underlying health conditions such as heart or lung disease are more vulnerable and often require intensive care in hospital.
Influenza viruses are notoriously unpredictable and can mutate into more severe forms, according to the WHO chief.
Chan, who admitted she had not received her own H1N1 flu shot yet but would have it soon, said: “I am a bit more relaxed, but I will never let down my guard.”
VACCINES FOR POOR COUNTRIES
Rich countries and drug companies have pledged to donate 190 million doses of H1N1 vaccine for use in some 90 developing countries, she said.
Her United Nations agency plans to start distributing the first doses in Azerbaijan and Mongolia in early January, to be followed by Afghanistan, she added.
On recalls of some H1N1 vaccine — by AstraZeneca’s MedImmune unit and Sanofi-Aventis SA — she said they were because they were not as potent as they should be but posed no risk.
“The recalls are not related to safety of vaccines,” she said, saying the issue had been dealt with in an “ethical way.”
Chan, noting the world’s financial crisis and weak health systems in some countries, said: “The fact that the long overdue influenza pandemic is so moderate in its impact is probably the best health news of the decade.”
But Chan, who fought avian flu and SARS while serving as health director in her native Hong Kong, said the world was still not ready to combat a pandemic of the H5N1 bird flu virus, noting it was “more toxic and deadly.”
“No, the world is not ready for a pandemic to be caused by H5N1,” she said.
Click here for the full report.
Thimerosal Free Vaccines Removed From Market
December 17, 2009
InfoWars.com
By Brandon Turbeville
On December 15, 2009 the CDC released a statement announcing the recall of 800,000 doses of H1N1 vaccine from the market. This was a story that should have received widespread coverage in the national media but, instead, largely died out at the local news level. Although some local stations made the recall their top story, many simply reported it as if it were no big deal and mentioned nothing else about it in subsequent broadcasts. Yet you would think that the recall of close to 1 million vaccines would spark the national interest, especially when the vaccines are for a “pandemic” that was initially supposed to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans and disrupt the entire society.
If one chooses to believe the hype about H1N1 then he/she should be quite worried about the reasons given for the recall – that it is not potent enough. The fact that the company who manufactures the vaccine is Sanofi-Pasteur is also significant because Sanofi-Pasteur made a similar mistake with the H5N1 vaccine in 2006. At the time, H5N1 was the virus that was supposed to kill us all. It seems that the lack of potency issue is a recurring theme with this particular company demonstrating, at best, a dangerous level of incompetence.
Since true independent science has never been able to find that vaccines are even effective, let alone safe, potency becomes a non-issue to those of us who do not take Big Pharma’s word as truth. However, there are two peculiar questions regarding this recall that need to be asked.
First, although Sanofi-Pasteur and the CDC cite lack of potency as a reason for the recall, they seem to cast doubt upon their own claims. The “potency” of a vaccine is merely measured by the concentration of the antigen (the active ingredient), and the CDC admits in its’ own statement that the potency of the vaccine is only “slightly below the specified range (CDC FAQ).” Yet they go on to say that “The vaccine in these lots is still expected to be effective in stimulating a protective response despite this slight reduction in the concentration of antigen (CDC FAQ).” If the media and government claim of vaccine shortage is true, it would seem illogical to recall such a large number of them if they were still effective.
Second, and perhaps most disturbing, is the fact that the vaccines being removed from the market are the preservative and thimerosal free versions. In article published by Bloomberg, Tom Randall writes, “The recalled shots are preservative-free syringes of a low-dose version made for children ages 6 months through 25 months, [Anne Shuchat, head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC] said. There are no remaining preservative-free shots available for children under 2 years old (Randall).” According to Randall, Schuchat goes on to say that thimerosal has proven safe in different studies even though some parents are leery of it.
The idea that thimerosal, aluminum, monosodium glutamate, or any of other preservatives used in these vaccines is safe is absolutely ludicrous. The fact is, thimerosal is 49.6% mercury. The EPA itself declares .1 mcg of mercury to be toxic yet there is, on average, 25 mcg in a single flu shot. The science that Shuchat refers to is the new brand of welfare science that relies on research grants from Big Pharma, vaccine makers, and eugenics foundations. True independent science has shown just the opposite of her claims.
Regardless of the lack of coverage by the mainstream media (something informed individuals should be used to by now), this is information that needs to be distributed. This recall has effectively removed all preservative-free vaccines off the market for children under two. So, for those parents who at least know to ask for thimerosal-free vaccines, the option is no longer on the table. With only the thimerosal vaccine now available, one has to wonder if potency was ever an issue at all or if the recall was merely an attempt to leave the plebs with only one option. That is, if they are uninformed enough to be vaccinated to begin with.
Click here for the full report
Mutated Flu Comes to China
November 30, 2009
Reuters
By Stefanie McIntyre
China must be alert to any mutation or changes in the behavior of the H1N1 swine flu virus because the far deadlier H5N1 bird flu virus is endemic in the country, a leading Chinese disease expert said.
Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in China’s southern Guangdong province, said the presence of both viruses in China meant they could mix and become a monstrous hybrid — a bug packed with strong killing power that can transmit efficiently among people.
“China, as you know, is different from other countries. Inside China, H5N1 has been existing for some time, so if there is really a reassortment between H1N1 and H5N1, it will be a disaster,” Zhong said in an interview with Reuters Television.
“This is something we need to monitor, the change, the mutation of the virus. This is why reporting of the death rate must be really transparent.”
The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that H5N1 had erupted in poultry in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, posing once again a threat to humans.
“First, it places those in direct contact with birds — usually rural folk and farm workers — at risk of catching the often-fatal disease. Second, the virus could undergo a process of “reassortment” with another influenza virus and produce a completely new strain,” it said.
“The most obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic … (H1N1) virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter.”
Zhong told the Chinese media last week that China may have had more H1N1 flu deaths than it has reported, with some local governments possibly concealing suspect cases.
The doctor is known for his candor and work in fighting Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003, when nationwide panic and international alarm erupted after it emerged that officials hid or underplayed the spreading epidemic.
Cover-ups by local governments in 2003 during the SARS epidemic led to the sackings of several officials. More than 300 people died in that outbreak.
China, the world’s most populous country, has reported around 70,000 cases of H1N1 and 53 death from the virus.
While some regions simply lack the technology to test for H1N1, other areas have been treating deaths as cases of ordinary pneumonia without a question, Zhong said.
“Some local healthcare authorities are reluctant, unwilling to test patients with severe pneumonia because there’s some latent rule which says the more H1N1 deaths, the less effective the control and prevention work in your area,” Zhong said.
Zhong said China’s health minister Chen Zhu rang him up last week and agreed with his views. A notice then appeared on the ministry’s website threatening severe punishment for officials caught concealing deaths from H1N1 swine flu.
WHO reported more than 526,060 laboratory confirmed cases of H1N1 worldwide on November 15, with at least 6,770 deaths. However, it has stressed for months now that the figures were only the tip of the iceberg.
It urged countries to place more resources on mitigating the disease rather then on costly prevention measures or testing everyone. All WHO and the U.S. CDC will say is that “millions” have been infected.
Click here for the full report.
China Concerned H1N1 Might Combine with H5N1 Bird Flu
November 30, 2009
Reuters
By Stefanie McIntyre
China must be alert to any mutation or changes in the behavior of the H1N1 swine flu virus because the far deadlier H5N1 bird flu virus is endemic in the country, a leading Chinese disease expert said.
Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in China’s southern Guangdong province, said the presence of both viruses in China meant they could mix and become a monstrous hybrid — a bug packed with strong killing power that can transmit efficiently among people.
“China, as you know, is different from other countries. Inside China, H5N1 has been existing for some time, so if there is really a reassortment between H1N1 and H5N1, it will be a disaster,” Zhong said in an interview with Reuters Television.
“This is something we need to monitor, the change, the mutation of the virus. This is why reporting of the death rate must be really transparent.”
The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that H5N1 had erupted in poultry in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, posing once again a threat to humans.
“First, it places those in direct contact with birds — usually rural folk and farm workers — at risk of catching the often-fatal disease. Second, the virus could undergo a process of “reassortment” with another influenza virus and produce a completely new strain,” it said.
“The most obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic … (H1N1) virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter.”
Zhong told the Chinese media last week that China may have had more H1N1 flu deaths than it has reported, with some local governments possibly concealing suspect cases.
The doctor is known for his candor and work in fighting Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003, when nationwide panic and international alarm erupted after it emerged that officials hid or underplayed the spreading epidemic.
Cover-ups by local governments in 2003 during the SARS epidemic led to the sackings of several officials. More than 300 people died in that outbreak.
China, the world’s most populous country, has reported around 70,000 cases of H1N1 and 53 death from the virus.
While some regions simply lack the technology to test for H1N1, other areas have been treating deaths as cases of ordinary pneumonia without a question, Zhong said.
“Some local healthcare authorities are reluctant, unwilling to test patients with severe pneumonia because there’s some latent rule which says the more H1N1 deaths, the less effective the control and prevention work in your area,” Zhong said.
Zhong said China’s health minister Chen Zhu rang him up last week and agreed with his views. A notice then appeared on the ministry’s website threatening severe punishment for officials caught concealing deaths from H1N1 swine flu.
WHO reported more than 526,060 laboratory confirmed cases of H1N1 worldwide on November 15, with at least 6,770 deaths. However, it has stressed for months now that the figures were only the tip of the iceberg.
Click here for the full report
Expert Warns of Pandemic Flu Mutation
November 25, 2009
Reuters
By Stefanie McIntyre
China must be alert to any mutation or changes in the behavior of the H1N1 swine flu virus because the far deadlier H5N1 bird flu virus is endemic in the country, a leading Chinese disease expert said.
Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in China’s southern Guangdong province, said the presence of both viruses in China meant they could mix and become a monstrous hybrid — a bug packed with strong killing power that can transmit efficiently among people.
“China, as you know, is different from other countries. Inside China, H5N1 has been existing for some time, so if there is really a reassortment between H1N1 and H5N1, it will be a disaster,” Zhong said in an interview with Reuters Television.
“This is something we need to monitor, the change, the mutation of the virus. This is why reporting of the death rate must be really transparent.”
The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that H5N1 had erupted in poultry in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, posing once again a threat to humans.
“First, it places those in direct contact with birds — usually rural folk and farm workers — at risk of catching the often-fatal disease. Second, the virus could undergo a process of “reassortment” with another influenza virus and produce a completely new strain,” it said.
“The most obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic … (H1N1) virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter.”
Zhong told the Chinese media last week that China may have had more H1N1 flu deaths than it has reported, with some local governments possibly concealing suspect cases.
The doctor is known for his candor and work in fighting Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003, when nationwide panic and international alarm erupted after it emerged that officials hid or underplayed the spreading epidemic.
Cover-ups by local governments in 2003 during the SARS epidemic led to the sackings of several officials. More than 300 people died in that outbreak.
Vaccines Tested on Homeless
November 20, 2009
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
Three doctors and six nurses from the town of Grudziadz, Poland, are being investigated on charges that they recruited 350 homeless people into a clinical trial of a vaccine for the H5N1 flu virus without informing them what the study was really about.
Twenty-one people died during the course of the study, significantly higher than the average influenza death rate, which would have led to eight deaths.
“It is in the interests of all doctors that those who are responsible for this are punished,” said Poland’s health minister, Ewa Kopacz. She said that while no direct link has been proven between the experimental vaccine and the deaths, she does not believe that any of the health care workers implicated should be allowed to practice medicine further.
Prosecutors claim that the participants – from a homeless shelter – were recruited into the study by being offered £1-£2 ($1.65-$3.00) to undergo a test of a new vaccine for standard, seasonal influenza. Instead, however, the study was meant to test a vaccine of the far more lethal H5N1 virus, which has a death rate of more than 50 percent.
Novartis Vaccines, the pharmaceutical company involved in the trial, claims that it was deceived about the consent procedures that the researchers intended to use.
The scandal is only the latest to hit Poland’s health care sector. In 2002, several ambulance medics were convicted of murdering patients in order to gain kickbacks from funeral homes.
Poland is a global center for health care research, due to a well-trained medical staff, large population and good infrastructure. It also tends to be easy to find patients willing to undergo experimental therapies, as the public health care system tends to pay only for the cheapest, most well-proven generic treatments.
Monika Stefanczyk, a senior pharmaceutical market analyst at the consulting firm PMR, predicted that unless some of these factors change, Poland’s medical research industry will remain largely unaffected by the scandal.
Click here for the full report
Ukraine Swine Flu Scare Used As Political Leverage
November 18, 2009
Info Wars
By F. William Engdahl
Latest reports of what is being called a deadly Swine Flu outbreak in Ukraine according to on sight reports appear to be a political concoction by a threatened government to avoid election defeat and possibly declare martial law. The details indicate how convenient the current WHO “Swine Flu” H1N1 “pandemic” scare is for regimes in trouble.
Worldwide media reports in recent days have painted a picture of Ukraine as being under the Black Plague or worse. Pittsburgh Swine Flu “mapper” Dr Henry Niman had earlier predicted that H5N1 Avian Flu would mutate into a deadly human-to-human pandemic. It didn’t.
Niman’s map of the spread of alleged H1N1 Swine Flu since April has given the WHO, the US Government and CNN and major media a convenient graphic to create the image of a new type of “bubonic plague” threatening mankind unless we react with massive doses of untested vaccines from Big Pharma. .
Early on Niman reported about events in Ukraine: “The rapid rise in reported infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in the past few days raise concerns that the virus is transmitting very efficiently…the spike in fatalities and the frequency in hemorrhagic cases in Ukraine have raised concerns.” Niman added the alarming note, “The number of infected patients has almost doubled to just under ½ million, compared to the report two days ago.”
That’s pretty scary stuff. It conjures images of the reports of the Black Death in 1348 which is said to have killed up to 60% of Europe’s population. Though that history has been challenged, the image as well as the equally terrifying if incorrect panic image of the so-called Spanish Flu of 1918, are being applied in Ukraine.
Exact information about what is really taking place in Ukraine is far from easy. The country is one of the most politically complex and economically distressed states in Europe. One possible hypothesis, yet to be verified, emerges from the writings of Dr Lawrence Broxmeyer MD.
Broxmeyer suggests that the WHO and CDC wish to divert attention from a worldwide epidemic of tuberculosis, while focusing attention on flu instead. Indeed recently the WHO changed its categories of causes of death to lump death from influenza in the same group as death from tuberculosis and other pulmonary disease. Given the present Swine Flu hysteria, any pulmonary death seems to be reported as “death from H1N1 influenza.” In a passing note the report typically notes the patient also suffered from lung problems.
Broxmeyer states, “Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are fully aware of a far more serious and ongoing tuberculosis Pandemic in the world today. Yet they choose to downplay the link, disregarding the similar flu-like symptoms tuberculosis often begins with. WHO freely admits that there were approximately 1.8 million deaths from tuberculosis in 2007, the most recent year for which data are available as well as that presently about one-third of the world’s population, or two billion people, carry the TB bacteria.”1
German Soldiers Get Mercury Free Swine Flu Vaccine
October 13, 2009
PrisonPlanet.com
By Paul Joseph Watson
According to a report out of Germany, German soldiers have been given an additive-free swine flu shot that doesn’t contain mercury, squalene, or any of the other dangerous adjuvants associated with the vaccine, raising questions as to why this version of the shot has not been made available to the general population.
An article that when translated is entitled, German soldiers gets non poisonous vaccine, explains how 250,000 German troops have been given a “friendly” vaccine made by Baxter that does not contain “controversial mercury-containing additives or preservatives”.
It appears that there are two versions of the swine flu shot, one for those in the know and another for the general population who trust the government to shoot them up with dangerous toxins that have been linked to autism and other neurological disorders.
Despite concerns about thimerosal and mercury, thimerosal is an ingredient of the swine flu vaccine which is currently being rolled out globally.
“Some of the vaccine will be stored in multi-dose vials containing thimerosal, an antibacterial additive that contains mercury,” reported the Washington Post in an article about which groups will receive the swine flu vaccine first.
Indeed, the swine flu vaccine contains no less than 25,000 per cent the amount of mercury considered safe.
Mercury is classified by The Department of Defense as a hazardous material that could cause death if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin, and the EPA is now limiting mercury emissions from factories because the toxin “can damage the brain and nervous system and is especially dangerous to fetuses and small children,” but according to the CDC it’s perfectly safe to inject into your child’s bloodstream.
As we previously highlighted, many people are choosing to take the nasal spray version of the vaccine in the false assumption that it is safer than the injectable version. In reality, the nasal spray contains live H1N1 virus, which has led many doctors and health professionals to express concerns that it could spread the swine flu virus amongst those with weakened immune systems.
“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.”
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.
Click here for the full report.
