77 Students Given Wrong Flu Shot

November 11, 2009

NBC-2.com

By Adam Freeman

They thought they were getting protected against the swine flu, but dozens of Collier County students were mistakenly given the seasonal flu vaccine instead.

Now, the health department is forced to explain what caused the error.

Though the sign outside the Community School of Naples says you can get your swine flu shots there, 77 students tried unsuccessfully.

“I was like wow, how did they mess that up,” said Zannos Grekos, a fifth grader at the school.

The boxes of H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccine don’t look much different.

The Collier County Health Department says a nurse packed the wrong one for the school clinic, as previously reported by the Naples Daily News.

On top of that, none of the nurses giving the vaccines even realized something else was in their hands.

“It is concerning to us, because these are seasoned nurses,” said Deb Millsap, with the health department.

The consent form for parents makes at least 10 specific references to the H1N1 vaccine, but it makes no mention of seasonal flu.

“No excuse. It was a mistake,” said Millsap.

A total of six nurses and two supervisors received written reprimands for the error. Fortunately, the health department says the shots pose no risks to students.

“We’ve already, starting last night, put into effect training measures that it should never happen again,” said Millsap.

It means students will have to try again on Friday.

“I’m OK with getting another shot,” Grekos said.

But he said he hopes this one turns out better than the first.

Click here for the full report.

Scientists Find Early Exposure to Flu Can Help Fight H1N1

October 27, 2009

NaturalNews 

By Sherry Baker

Despite all the panic and hype about the H1N1 pandemic and the rush to immunize people in droves against the virus, the fact is — so far — the outbreak has been fairly mild. Now University of California (UC) Davis, researchers studying H1N1, formerly referred to as “swine flu,” have identified a group of immunologically important sites called epitopes in the virus that are also present in seasonal flu viruses, which have been circulating for untold years. So what does this mean? If you were exposed to the earlier influenza viruses, you probably already have some level of immunity to H1N1.

The new study would explain why so many people over the age of 60 — whose bodies were likely exposed to similar flu viruses over the decades — have been found to carry antibodies or other kinds of immunity against H1N1. In fact, the CDC now admits pre-existing antibodies against the virus are found in about one third of H1N1 2009 patients over the age of 60, a fact that shows some natural immunity to the new H1N1 virus exists in many people.

These findings indicate that human populations may have some level of existing immunity to the pandemic H1N1 influenza and may explain why the 2009 H1N1-related symptoms have been generally mild,” researcher Carol Cardona, a veterinarian and Cooperative Extension specialist at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, said in a media statement.

Cardona and UC scientist Zheng Xing recently posted their findings online in the journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases. The study is also slated for publication in the November print edition of the journal, which is published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “Our hypothesis, based on the application of data collected by other researchers, suggests that cell-mediated immunity, as opposed to antibody-mediated immunity, may play a key role in lowering the disease-causing ability, or pathogenicity, of the 2009 H1N1 influenza,” Xing said in the media release.

Curiously, the new research suggests that although previous similar flu viruses seem to have produced antibodies in exposed people, these antibodies are not what are providing protection for those infected with the H1N1 2009 strain of influenza. Instead, Cardona and Xing theorize that instead of stimulating protective antibodies, the epitopes of the new H1N1 virus produce an immune response in a different way. The virus triggers production of cytotoxic T-cells that kill infected cells, attack the invading virus, and rev up the immune system.

Click here for the full report.

Obama Declares Swine Flu an Emergency

October 27, 2009

PrisonPlanet.com

by Paul Joseph Watson

President Obama’s declaration that the H1N1 outbreak represents a “national emergency” seems to be little more than a public relations stunt aimed at intimidating reticent Americans into taking a vaccine that is becoming increasingly unpopular and unnecessary.

Despite the fact that swine flu cases have seemingly peaked, allied to the fact that seasonal flu has proven far deadlier, on Friday night Obama declared a national emergency in order to “allow hospitals to better handle the surge in patients” by allowing them to bypass certain federal laws.

What “surge in patients”? Swine flu has killed just 0.2 people per thousand who have caught the virus, a far lower potency than the annual flu virus which kills one patient per thousand, meaning swine flu has proven to be around 400% less deadly than the regular flu.

Either the government is preparing for an engineered pandemic of which they have prior knowledge, or Obama’s announcement is a flagrant abuse of executive power and a ruse to coerce more people into taking the vaccine.

As we have exhaustively documented, polls out of the U.S., as well as globally, show that a rapidly growing number of health professionals and the general public are refusing to take the vaccine because they either think it is unnecessary or they are concerned about potential side-effects.

Despite a desperate $16 million media propaganda campaign on behalf of the federal government that is trying to brainwash Americans into rolling up their sleeves and taking the shot, a majority of people aren’t buying the hype.

The purpose of Obama’s declaration is to heighten fears surrounding swine flu and create the artificial impression that the vaccine is in demand, when the opposite is the true. The government hopes this will create a herd-like rush to take the shot amongst the general public.

Early indications are that the ruse may be working.

“I’ve already gotten a couple of calls from people today asking, ‘Where can I get the vaccine?’ whereas yesterday it was, ‘I don’t want that vaccine,’ ” said Arthur Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania bioethicist. “I’m worried about people getting panicky and the vaccine being diverted away from those who need it most.”

Dr. Peter Hotez, a research professor and chairman of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Tropical Medicine at George Washington University, admitted that the term, “emergency declaration sounds more dramatic than it really is.”

The government has already emphasized the notion that the vaccine is now in short supply, despite the fact that they previously assured the public there would be enough batches to cover the entire population by September. By combining this artificial scarcity with the scary notion that the situation now represents an “emergency,” more of the sheeple will be intimidated into lining up and taking the toxic shot so as to soothe the underlying fear that a pandemic is around the corner and they might not be protected against it. That way the pharmaceutical giants get to inflate their already record profits to new levels of greed and the government gets to inject its otherwise worthless stockpile of vaccines into the idiot public.

Additionally, as Mike Adams and others have pointed out, classifying the situation as a national emergency triggers all kinds of tyrannical provisions that the feds have been waiting to unleash, while also empowering FEMA to lock down American cities under a state of medical martial law. Mandatory vaccinations, quarantines, curfews, involuntary kidnap, and warrantless searches and seizures are now just a heartbeat away because Obama’s order has in effect nullified the bill of rights.

We can only hope that this is not a precursor to a major biological attack or pandemic outbreak, but it would hardly be a surprise if it was. The government has been preparing to unleash full-scale martial law upon the American public for years but whether swine flu will be enough to realize that agenda remains to be seen.

At best, Obama’s Friday night declaration was a crude propaganda stunt designed to whip up fervor behind the H1N1 vaccine and corral millions of reluctant Americans into allowing their bodies to become a dumping ground for mercury, squalene, cancerous animal cells and God knows what other additives are in the shot, while the elite rest easy in the knowledge that they have privileged access to a clean version of the vaccine that contains none of these dangerous adjuvants.

Click here for the full report.

Drug Companies and Doctors Make Billions on Swine Flu

October 14, 2009

ABC News

By Dalia Fahmy

Americans are still debating whether to roll up their sleeves for a swine flu shot, but companies have already figured it out: vaccines are good for business.

Drug companies have sold $1.5 billion worth of swine flu shots, in addition to the $1 billion for seasonal flu they booked earlier this year. These inoculations are part of a much wider and rapidly growing $20 billion global vaccine market.

“The vaccine market is booming,” says Bruce Carlson, spokesperson at market research firm Kalorama, which publishes an annual survey of the vaccine industry. “It’s an enormous growth area for pharmaceuticals at a time when other areas are not doing so well,” he says, noting that the pipeline for more traditional blockbuster drugs such as Lipitor and Nexium has thinned.

As always with pandemic flus, taxpayers are footing the $1.5 billion check for the 250 million swine flu vaccines that the government has ordered so far and will be distributing free to doctors, pharmacies and schools. In addition, Congress has set aside more than $10 billion this year to research flu viruses, monitor H1N1′s progress and educate the public about prevention.

Drugmakers pocket most of the revenues from flu sales, with Sanofi-Pasteur, Glaxo Smith Kline and Novartis cornering most of the market.

But some say it’s not just drugmakers who stand to benefit. Doctors collect copayments for special office visits to inject shots, and there have been assertions that these doctors actually profit handsomely from these vaccinations.

It is a notion that Dr. Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Practitioners, says is simply not true.

“According to most of the physicians I have talked to, the administration of these vaccines is done for the community’s benefit as opposed to anything that helps profit,” she says. Heim adds that even though doctors will not have to shell out for the H1N1 vaccine, they will bear the usual costs associated with storage and administering the shots.

“There is an administration fee, for the costs that you can’t get reimbursed through Medicare or Medicaid,” she says. “This is usually less than, or right at the break-even point.”

Still, pharmacies also charge co-payments or full price of about $25 to those without insurance and often make more money if patients end up shopping for other goods.

“Flu shots present a good opportunity to bring new customers into our stores,” says Cassie Richardson, spokesperson for SUPERVALU, one of the country’s largest supermarket chains. Drawing customers to the back of a store, where pharmacies are often located, offers retailers a chance to pitch products that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Even companies outside of the medical industry are benefiting: the UPS division that delivers vaccines in specially designed containers, for example, has seen a bump in business.

New Entrants in Flu Shot Business

The intensifying competition has irked some doctors.

“Retailers and other non-medical professionals have siphoned off the passive income that once helped to cover medical overhead,” says Dr. Caroline Abruzese, an internist in Atlanta. “The larger retail chains can invest up front in large volumes of vaccine at low prices, and market to customers already in their stores.”

The promise of profits has attracted new players into the business. Some of the world’s largest drugmakers, who in the past avoided the vaccine market because of its limited scope — its not easy to convince healthy adults to get a shot for measles — are now jumping into the fray.

Last month alone saw three large vaccine deals. Abbott Labs bought a Belgian drug business, along with its flu vaccine facilities, for $6.6 billion. Johnson & Johnson invested $444 million in a Dutch biotech firm that makes and develops flu vaccines. Merck, which already makes vaccines for shingles and other diseases, struck a deal to distribute flu shots made by Australian CSL.

Smaller biotechs are also angling for a slice of the action, making vaccines one of the fastest-growing areas of research in the biotech industry.

Large and small drugmakers are drawn to the business largely because of scientific advances that promise to radically expand the range of health problems that vaccines can address. In addition to preventing childhood diseases such as measles and polio, vaccines can now also ward off cervical cancer, and researchers are working on vaccines for HIV and tuberculosis.

Scientists believe they can create therapeutic vaccines than treat diseases such as Alzheimers and diabetes after they have set in. (At least one company is betting on a vaccine that helps cigarette smokers quit.)

“These innovations broaden the market potential for vaccine makers and partly explained the renewed interest by drugmakers,” says Anthony Cox, a professor at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business who specializes in the marketing of medical products.

But Mark Grayson, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents the country’s leading pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies, says that drugmakers are also compelled by the government to join efforts to ensure that there is enough vaccine to go around.

“Because of national security implications, the government felt that they needed to encourage and ask [vaccine manufacturers] to move much quicker,” he says. Grayson adds that vaccine manufacturers also face significant costs; aside from the expense of fitting a new vaccine into a tight production schedule, drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur were forced to acquire new vaccine production facilities in recent years to keep up with demand.

Alternatives to Vaccines Are Few

While this promise of new treatments for painful diseases brings hope to many, vaccines continue to attract critics. The National Vaccine Information Center, a non-profit advocacy group, is at the forefront of a movement demanding that vaccines be tested more thoroughly before hitting the market. Although there has been little evidence to support their claim, detractors — including the comedian Jim Carrey — believe that vaccines are at least partly to blame for the sharp rise in autism in recent decades.

The swine flu vaccine has also attracted its share of critics. Frank Lipman, a New York-based doctor who specializes in a mix of Western and alternative medicine, points out that the swine flu is rarely fatal and that it’s too early to tell if it’s safe because it hasn’t been widely tested.

Others argue that Americans have little choice. The cost of a widespread pandemic, similar to Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918, which killed 675,000 Americans (and 50 million worldwide), would be devastating. The Trust for America’s Health, a Washington-based non-profit organization, estimates that a severe pandemic could push down GDP by more than 5 percent and cost Americans $683 billion.

“We’re not seeing a pandemic that’s this severe,” says Jeff Levi, director of Trust for Americas Health. “We’ve dodged a lot of bullets.”

Click here for the full report

CDC Downplays Vaccine Risks

October 12, 2009

MyWay

By Associated Press

A top U.S. health official says the risks from not getting the swine flu vaccine are greater than any potential risks associated with the vaccine.

Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says she’s surprised by all the misinformation going around about the new vaccine. She says a good safety record from past vaccines bodes well for the swine flu vaccine now becoming available.

Schuchat says there’s no problem associated with getting shots for both the swine flu and seasonal flu on the same day. But health officials recommend a three-week period between receiving the nasal versions of the vaccines.

Schuchat says vaccines remain the best way to protect children and adults from both strains of flu.

She appeared Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Click here for the full report.

Drive-Thru Flu Shot Clinics Planned in Utah

September 15, 2009

Fox News

The Southwest Utah Public Health Department will offer drive-through flu shots later this month in three southern Utah towns.

Drivers will line up, then roll down their windows and roll up their sleeves in Cedar City, Beaver and St. George on Sept. 26. A drive-thru clinic also will be held on Oct. 1 in Panguitch.

The drive-thru shot costs $25 or is free under certain medical plans.

The “Flu Shoot-Out” also lets emergency responders practice skills that would be needed during a mass vaccination.

The events are for the seasonal flu vaccine only, not a swine flu vaccine.

Click here for the full report from Fox News

Swine Flu Campaign Waits on Vaccine

August 24, 2009

The Washington Post

By Rob Stein

Government health officials are mobilizing to launch a massive swine flu vaccination campaign this fall that is unprecedented in its scope — and in the potential for complications.

The campaign aims to vaccinate at least half the country’s population within months. Although more people have been inoculated against diseases such as smallpox and polio over a period of years, the United States has never tried to immunize so many so quickly.

But even as scientists rush to test the vaccine to ensure it is safe and effective, the campaign is lagging. Officials say only about a third as much vaccine as they had been expecting by mid-October is likely to arrive by then, when a new wave of infections could be peaking.

Among the unknowns: how many shots people will need, what the correct dosage should be, and how to avoid confusing the public with an overlapping effort to combat the regular seasonal flu.

To prepare, more than 2,800 local health departments have begun recruiting pediatricians, obstetricians, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics and even dentists, along with a small army of volunteers from churches and other groups. They are devising strategies to reach children, teenagers, pregnant women and young and middle-aged adults in inner cities, suburban enclaves and the countryside.

“This is potentially the largest mass-vaccination program in human history,” said Howard Markel, a professor of medical history at the University of Michigan who is advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as it spearheads the effort.

Public health officials describe the effort as crucial to defend against the second wave of the Northern Hemisphere’s first influenza pandemic in 41 years.

As schools reopen, the number of cases could jump sharply within weeks, sparking a second wave potentially far larger than the outbreak last spring. Although the swine flu appears no more dangerous than the typical seasonal flu, the new virus — known as H1N1 — is likely to infect many more people because most have no immunity against it.

The vaccine effort carries political risks for the Obama administration. “If the outbreak fizzles, they will be susceptible to being criticized for spending billions of dollars,” said Harvey V. Fineberg, president of the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, which advises Congress about medical issues. “On the other hand, if this outbreak is early and severe and there isn’t enough vaccine, they’ll be criticized for under-preparation.”

Officials stress that they are proceeding cautiously. A final decision to move forward will not be made until they get the results of clinical trials — testing to determine safety and dosing — and assess the virus’s threat. But officials are confident the vaccine will pass muster and expect a campaign will be launched as soon as manufacturers deliver the first vials.

“There’s little doubt we’re going to vaccinate people,” said Anthony S. Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who is leading the government’s testing of the vaccine. “Who and when and exactly how — we have to figure out.”

The campaign is haunted by memories of the government’s ill-fated 1976 effort to vaccinate against swine flu. The epidemic fizzled, but the vaccine was given to 40 million people and blamed for causing a rare paralyzing disorder known as Guillain-Barré Syndrome.

Another wild card will be whether the vaccine will be delivered with an “adjuvant” to boost its effectiveness or stretch limited supplies into more doses. Adjuvants have been used in Europe, but the Food and Drug Administration has not authorized their use in the United States.

“This is an overreaction,” said Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center, which opposes many vaccine policies. “There is no national security threat here. Why are we operating like this? This is not polio. This is not smallpox.”

Fears and misinformation about the vaccine are circulating, including inaccurate claims that it will be mandatory.

“I’m very concerned about the dangers of vaccines,” said Janice Smith, 58, of Misawaka, Ind., who attended a public hearing Aug. 15, one of a series of meetings the CDC has sponsored to gauge public sentiment about the vaccine.

Authorities are adamant that vaccination will be voluntary, and they say there is no reason to think the vaccine will be any less safe than the usual flu vaccine. An adjuvant will be used only if necessary and proven safe, they say.

To address concerns of pregnant women and parents with young children, some vaccine is being produced without a mercury additive. And because the short-term studies can identify only common, immediate side effects, the CDC will step up monitoring for rarer, serious complications such as Guillain-Barré.

“We’re putting into place systems that are as good as we can have to identify problems quickly if they do occur,” CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden said.

On Friday, officials reported that no “red flags regarding safety” had emerged in the clinical trials. “We are continuing oversight on the quality and safety of the vaccine being produced, and the production process itself,” said Jesse Goodman of the FDA. “That’s going well so far, but our oversight is continuing.”

In the meantime, local officials are drafting plans tailored to their communities. The shots in the arms and squirts up the nose will happen in schools, medical offices, hospitals, public health clinics, workplaces, drug stores and at mass vaccination events, possibly including drive-through clinics in parking lots where people would stick their arms out their car windows for a stab.

“It is clearly what we would call an all hands on deck,” said James Blumenstock of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “We’re not starting from scratch, but we also don’t have everything on the shelf that we can just pull off and put in place. It’s a full-court press in moving forward to have everything in place when we’re ready to go.”

In Maryland, officials estimate that 2.9 million people fall into the priority groups for the vaccine; Virginia estimates the number at 2.5 million and the District at 225,000. The national total is about 159 million people.

Public health departments “have suffered from decades of neglect and are now facing a fiscal crisis in many places where they have had to lay staff off, or furlough staff or freeze hiring,” Frieden said. “So H1N1 has not come at a particularly good time.”

Setting priorities for delivering the vaccines will bring other complications. The elderly, usually first in line for flu shots, will not be this time because they seem more resistant to the virus. But they remain a top priority for the seasonal shots.

Schools considering giving shots to children are making plans to get permission from parents and have to determine how best to line up anxious, rambunctious students.

Everyone who gets a swine flu shot may need a booster several weeks later, potentially causing mix-ups about who got which shot when.

But Frieden and other outside observers expressed confidence that the program would be safe and successful.

The federal government has spent close to $2 billion to buy up to 195 million doses of vaccine and adjuvant, including the standard shots and the newer FluMist nasal spray vaccine made by MedImmune of Gaithersburg.

The government is prepared to buy enough to vaccinate every person — 600 million doses all together — if the pandemic or demand warrants it. That could increase the cost to $5 billion for the vaccine alone. It would cost at least $9 billion to administer the vaccine to the entire population, according to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Although five companies are racing to produce as much vaccine as possible, the first batches are not expected for two months, in part because the virus grew at about half the projected rate. Production appears to be increasing, but the first 45 million to 52 million doses — about a third of what officials were anticipating — won’t be ready until mid-October, with about 20 million doses a week expected after that to continue the campaign through the winter.

Experts are uncertain whether they will face a shortage of vaccine because of high demand or will have plenty of vaccine but little interest.

“People’s enthusiasm will depend largely on what they see happening around them,” Fauci said. “If we get into the fall season and we don’t see an explosion of cases, people will be less enthusiastic. If they see a lot of young people and kids getting sick, people will be very enthusiastic about getting vaccinated.”

The CDC is formulating a $4.8 million multimedia campaign to encourage people to get vaccinated and help alleviate concerns and confusion, including radio and television public service announcements, print ads, and messages delivered via Twitter, RSS feeds and video podcasts on YouTube.

Although the vaccine will be free, providers could charge about $15 to administer it — a fee that will be covered by Medicare and many health insurance plans.

Experts also worry the swine flu will divert attention from the seasonal flu, which can cause serious illness. Officials will launch the seasonal flu vaccine campaign Sept. 10 — about a month early in the hopes of vaccinating as many people as possible before the swine flu campaign. The more people who get both vaccines, the less likely the swine flu virus will mingle with one of the others to produce a more dangerous mutant.

“We really don’t want those ugly viruses mixing together,” said Kim Elliott of the Trust for America’s Health, a private nonprofit research and advocacy group.

Click here for the full report from the Washington Post

Makers of Swine Flu Vaccine Can’t Be Sued

July 18, 2009

Associated Press

by Mike Stobbe

ATLANTA — The last time the government embarked on a major vaccine campaign against a new swine flu, thousands of people filed claims contending they suffered side effects from the shots. This time, the government has already taken steps to prevent that.

Vaccine makers and federal officials will be immune from lawsuits that result from any new swine flu vaccine, under a document signed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, government health officials said Friday.

Since the 1980s, the government has protected vaccine makers against lawsuits over the use of childhood vaccines. Instead, a federal court handles claims and decides who will be paid from a special fund.

The document signed by Sebelius last month grants immunity to those making a swine flu vaccine, under the provisions of a 2006 law for public-health emergencies. It allows for a compensation fund, if needed.

The government takes such steps to encourage drug companies to make vaccines, and it has worked. Federal officials have contracted with five manufacturers to make a swine flu vaccine. First identified in April, swine flu has so far caused about 263 deaths, according to numbers released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday.

The CDC said more than 40,000 Americans have had confirmed or probable cases, but those are people who sought health care. It’s likely that more than 1 million Americans have been sickened by the flu, many with mild cases.

The virus hits younger people harder than seasonal flu, but so far hasn’t been much more deadly than the strains seen every fall and winter. But health officials say the virus could mutate to a more dangerous form, or at least contribute to a potentially heavier flu season than usual.

“We do expect there to be an increase in influenza this fall,” with a bump in cases perhaps beginning earlier than normal, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration approved the regular winter flu vaccine, a final step before shipments to clinics and other vaccination sites could begin.

The last time the government faced a new swine flu virus was in 1976. Cases of swine flu in soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., including one death, made health officials worried they might be facing a deadly pandemic like the one that killed millions around the world in 1918 and 1919.

Federal officials vaccinated 40 million Americans during a national campaign. A pandemic never materialized, but thousands who got the shots filed injury claims, saying they suffered a paralyzing condition called Guillain-Barre Syndrome or other side effects.

“The government paid out quite a bit of money,” said Stephen Sugarman, a law professor who specializes in product liability at the University of California at Berkeley.

Vaccines aren’t as profitable as other drugs for manufacturers, and without protection against lawsuits “they’re saying, ‘Do we need this?’” Sugarman said.

The move to protect makers of a swine flu didn’t go over well with Paul Pennock, a prominent New York plaintiffs attorney on medical liability cases. The government will probably call on millions of Americans to get the vaccinations to prevent the disease from spreading, he noted.

“If you’re going to ask people to do this for the common good, then let’s make sure for the common good that these people will be taken care of if something goes wrong,” Pennock said.

Click here to for the full story from Associated Press.

H1N1 Swine Flu Appears Similar to 1918 Pandemic Virus; WHO Recommends Vaccines Use Live Influenza

July 14, 2009

Natural News

by Mike Adams

Two shocking bits of news about the H1N1 swine flu virus emerged this week. The first is that the widely-circulating swine flu virus may be a lot more dangerous than people have so far been told: It appears to resemble the 1918 pandemic virus in the fact that it is capable of embedding itself deep in lung tissue and causing deadly infections. This is very different from the more common “seasonal flu” which does not replicate in the lungs.

Explaining this concept, lead researcher Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin wrote in the journal Nature: “When we conducted the experiments in ferrets and monkeys, the seasonal virus did not replicate in the lungs… The H1N1 virus replicates significantly better in the lungs.”

As Reuters reports, Kawaoka also added, “There is a misunderstanding about this virus… There is clear evidence the virus is different than seasonal influenza.”

The 1918 influenza pandemic killed at least 40 million people globally (and probably many more). Also remember: That was a time when obesity was extremely rare. Today, obesity is alarmingly common among first-world nations, and obesity is now suspected of making a person highly susceptible to swine flu fatalities

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization — always a trusty friend of Big Pharma — has announced that swine flu is “unstoppable” and is now directing all the nations of the world to vaccinate their citizens against the H1N1 influenza strain. This is essentially an order for global mandatory vaccinations.

And yet, at the same time the WHO is recommending mass global vaccinations against the swine flu, it also states on its own website that such vaccines have never been proven safe. In its own words:

“Since new technologies are involved in the production of some pandemic vaccines, which have not yet been extensively evaluated for their safety in certain population groups, it is very important to implement post-marketing surveillance of the highest possible quality. In addition, rapid sharing of the results of immunogenicity and post-marketing safety and effectiveness studies among the international community will be essential for allowing countries to make necessary adjustments to their vaccination policies.”

In other words: Use the people as guinea pigs and see who dies first!

It’s not difficult to decode the WHO’s language in this case. The vaccines aren’t safe, so they’re recommending that people given the vaccines be watched closely to see what happens (who dies).

And just to make sure more people die, the WHO is also recommending such vaccines use “live attenuated influenza.”

As stated on the WHO’s website:

“In view of the anticipated limited vaccine availability at global level and the potential need to protect against “drifted” strains of virus, SAGE recommended that promoting production and use of vaccines such as those that are formulated with oil-in-water adjuvants and live attenuated influenza vaccines was important.”

Click here for the full story from NaturalNews.com

U.S. to Spend Another $1 Billion on Flu Vaccine

July 12, 2009

Reuters

The United States will spend another $1 billion on ingredients for an H1N1 vaccine, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on Sunday.

“There’ll be another $1 billion worth of orders placed to get the bulk ingredients for an H1N1 vaccination. Congress has agreed with the president that this is the number one priority, keeping Americans safe and secure,” Sebelius said on CNN.

Sebelius has said plans were on track for a mid-October vaccination program, although it was not certain Americans would be offered the vaccine for the so-called swine flu.

“We are aggressively working on, first of all, testing the virus strains to get a vaccination ready. It needs to be safe so testing and clinical trials will start this month. We’ll know a lot more by the end of the summer and it needs to be effective,” she said.

The World Health Organization may issue guidance as soon as Monday on whether an H1N1 swine flu vaccine will be offered alongside the seasonal flu vaccine.

Vaccine makers Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, Baxter, GlaxoSmithKline, Solvay and AstraZeneca’s MedImmune subsidiary have finished making seasonal flu vaccines for this year.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has scheduled a July 23 advisory panel meeting to discuss clinical trials of the vaccines against the H1N1 influenza virus and the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice wills meet July 29.

“FDA is working with the scientists at NIH (National Institutes of Health) to make sure that we have a safe and effective strain and then we’re getting ready to make sure that we have a vaccination program,” Sebelius said.

Health experts estimate at least 1 million people have been infected with H1N1 in the United States, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed 211 deaths. It often takes weeks or months to collect data on flu deaths.

About 36,000 people die each year from the seasonal flu in the United States alone, and 250,000 to 500,000 die globally.

Click here for the full report from Reuters.

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