According to Dan Tuohy at the Manchester, New Hampshire Union-Leader, The state is encouraging more than 80 people to take antibiotics and anthrax vaccine after an environmental sample at the United Campus Ministry in Durham tested positive for anthrax. The announcement today comes after a young woman remains in critical condition with gastrointestinal anthrax. She…
Paul Waldie and Grant Robertson of the Globe and Mail, Canada have published a detailed investigative piece on how vaccines have been transformed into a huge industry in the space of a few years. Thirty-two percent growth per year has followed the expanding use of yearly flu vaccines (and the expanding population groups for whom…
From the BBC: Dr Margaret Chan says avian flu is more of a problem than swine flu The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned the global swine flu pandemic is not yet over and the virus could still mutate…. However she admitted she had not yet had a vaccine but said she…
Per CDC’s MMWR, as of November 24, VAERS data indicated 82 adverse event reports per 1 million H1N1 vaccine doses distributed, compared with 47 reports per 1 million seasonal influenza vaccine doses distributed. Adverse events designated serious were 50% higher (based on doses distributed, not doses used) for swine flu compared to seasonal flu. Monitoring…
Egypt’s health ministry has confirmed an H5N1 avian influenza infection in a 21-year-old woman, the country’s third case since late September, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported today. She received Tamiflu. An investigation into the source of her infection revealed that the woman had close contact with dead poultry and had helped slaughter sick birds….
December 21, 2009 07:15 CET/ Novartis press release: Basel, Switzerland All three Novartis A(H1N1) 2009 influenza vaccines prequalified (read that as untested or inadequately tested for third world distribution) by World Health Organization (WHO) for use in developing world · First prequalification from WHO for multiple influenza A(H1N1) 2009 vaccines from a single company: Celtura®…
I will be talking more about how the H1N1 pandemic was exploited to greatly expand the use of vaccines, in the near future. This January 28, 2007 article by Daniel Costello in the LA Times provides important background on this whole issue, and begins to unravel the interconnected roles of large charitable organizations and big…
Here is a typical piece of industry hype on the dangers of a future pandemic, the need to build a bigger industrial base for vaccine production and the need to stockpile Tamiflu. But it didn’t appear in an industry publication; instead it was published in Science, the US’s premier scientific journal. The title is INFLUENZA:…
From Martin Enserink in the Oct. 16 Science, excerpts regarding claims of financial conflict of interest and fear-mongering on the part of Holland’s leading flu scientist, Albert Osterhaus: … fellow scientists have accused Osterhaus of fear-mongering. Luc Bonneux, an epidemiologist at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, says Osterhaus is part of a “flu mafia” and…
Millions more doses of swine flu vaccine were recalled this week after routine tests found they weren’t strong enough to meet minimum public health standards for protection against the virus. In a previous post, I cited literature that showed the nasal vaccine had been only 29% effective in adults in a previous year, even when…
MUST_READ from NPR (thanks to Marc Crispin Miller) … armed with the firm conviction that he was about to do good in the world, and coincidentally sell a ton of drugs for Merck, Jeremy Allen set out to completely rework the way that bone was measured in America. Now, to do this, he figured, the…
From 3/2008 CIDRAP: Until now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is advised by the ACIP, recommended flu vaccination for children from 6 through 59 months old. The new ACIP recommendation expands the target groups to include children from ages 5 through 18 years. That adds about 30 million children to the…
verbatim from National Public Radio: … [Gerberding] came to the CDC in 1998, and was credited with smoothly handling the media after the mysterious anthrax attacks that followed the World Trade Center attack. Merck is one of the largest vaccine makers in the world; Gerberding will be overseeing a $5-billion-a-year business starting in late January……
photo of Julie Gerberding, Reuters From Reuters’ Maggie Fox, we learn that the swine flu “pandemic” has opened avenues for increasing vaccine uptake in the US… by grabbing children in schools, which might reduce the impact of seasonal influenza. (Let’s experiment on tens of millions of American children to find out.) The vaccine spin doctors…
According to David Brown, 111 million doses of swine flu vaccine have been released to the cities and states by now. CDC estimated that in the second week of December 46 million Americans had received the vaccine. And I saw a new case of Bell’s palsy this week in someone a week after receiving both…
Does Taiwan allow law suits against the government for possible swine flu-related deaths? US law does not. Nor can you sue the manufacturer. Instead, you must apply to DHHS and only if a medical officer employed by DHHS says the vaccine caused the death can you be compensated by DHHS. About $300,000 is the maximal…
According to Reuters via the One Click Group, alternatively these countries could resell vaccine to other countries if manufacturers will not accept vaccine back. “… The Geneva-based WHO is coordinating efforts to encourage rich countries toshare vaccines with poorer nations who had little or no access to supplies.Fukuda said six manufacturers and 12 countries had…
Thanks to website “The Flu Case” we have a story in English derived from reports in two German newspapers, Zeit and Tages Spiegel: Wolfgang Wodarg , former SPD member of parliament, and chairman of the European parliament’s health committee, initiated the inquiry. The motion was passed unanimously by his colleagues in the European parliament‘s health…
from NPR: … In the U.K., under two percent of the population has stepped up, and only 17 percent of those at special risk of flu complications, according to Bloomberg News… Ah, but look at the Scandinavians. They are Europe’s model citizens when it comes to doing what public health officials want. According to Andrea…
From Theresa Boyle at Healthzone, Canada: Public health officials are misleading Canadians by continuing tocharacterize the H1N1 virus as a threat in the hopes of unloading millions ofdoses of unused vaccine, charges Ontario’s former chief medical officer ofhealth. They are trying to save face because of an expensive overreaction, Dr.Richard Schabas said Thursday as lineups…
According to FDA, “while no safety concerns have been identified to date, a project will be initiated this fall to focus on the safety of the pandemic (H1N1) influenza vaccine and of antiviral medicines for pregnant women and their newborns…” [a.k.a. the ‘Shoot first, answer questions later’ principle–Nass] “FDA is collaborating with CDC, HHS, private…
FDA’s website provides the following somewhat contradictory information on swine flu drugs in pregnancy: Yes, they are approved, and CDC recommends their use… but No, they have not been studied in pregnant women. Treatment of Influenza During Pregnancy The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends women in any trimester of their pregnancy who…
Excerpts from the AP’s Mike Stobbe: The recall is for about 800,000 pre-filled syringes intended for young children, ages 6 months to nearly 3 years. The shots, made by Sanofi Pasteur, were distributed across the country last month and most have already been used, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Doctors were…
From the Nov. 25 WSJ: Cell culturing vaccines is not a well-developed technology, and may not shave much time off vaccine production. Nor will the plant’s cutting-edge technology do much to solve one of the biggest problems vaccine makers have faced in churning out this year’s swine-flu vaccine: a slow-growing virus. High-speed techniques that bypass…
From Infectious Disease News. It may be that media-induced fears and intellectual arguments have ‘maxed out’ the number of Americans choosing to be vaccinated. Perhaps the only way to increase vaccine ‘demand’ in future will be through mandatory vaccinations. School mandates make vaccines a requirement for children, but so far there are no adult mandates,…
per CDC: Dropping from a peak of over 50% positive swine flu tests, we had only 2% positive the week of Dec 1,2009. Approximately 98% of those with respiratory infections who were tested then for swine flu had something else. And since CDC has only advised testing severe cases, we can safely assume that under…
From Jacob Goldstein at the WSJ blogs: Swine-flu shots are going begging in Germany, and the government is selling some of its vaccine on the foreign market, NPR’s Shots blog notes. Only 5% of the overall population and 15% of doctors have gone to the trouble of getting vaccinated.
from the UMinn’s CIDRAP: “… It will be several more years before we are able to wean ourselves away from egg-based vaccine, but we are committed to moving ahead with 21st century vaccine development,” Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a taped opening statement. Federal investments made since 2005 should improve…
BEIJING (Reuters) – “China’s vaccination campaign against the H1N1 flu strain is not proceeding as fast as it should be partly because people are needlessly worried about the safety of the vaccine, officials said on Friday…”
The profligate use of public health resources has not been confined to the billions spent on Tamiflu and swine flu vaccines. The Wall Street Journal points out that public health staff around the US have been “forced to cut back on childhood immunization clinics, restaurant inspections and planning anti-obesity programs to get the H1N1 job…
David Kelly was the British scientist and WMD expert (I met him once at an anthrax meeting in 1998) who leaked information to the BBC that Tony Blair’s government had “sexed up” (read “made up”) its report on Iraqi WMD. Soon he was found dead in the woods near his home. The Telegraph explains that…
Sir Liam Donaldson, the UK’s chief medical officer, reports the swine flu pandemic is “considerably less lethal” than feared, according to the BBC. A study led by Sir Liam found a death rate of just 0.026% in those infected, the British Medical Journal reported. In the US, approximately 2,000 lab-confirmed deaths have occurred from swine…
From FOX: a story about a young marine who nearly died after receiving smallpox vaccine. But when deploying soldiers get so many vaccines at once, including anthrax vaccine, how did the military manage to identify smallpox vaccine as the single cause? Lance Cpl. Josef Lopez still suffers from injuries he began experiencing in Iraq three…
From Dr. Sherri Tenpenny in the Dec. 8, 2009 Huffington Post: On November 24, 2009, Novartis officially opened its first, large-scale vaccine manufacturing facility in the U.S. Located in Holly Springs, North Carolina. The project is a collaborative effort between Novartis and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which contributed $457M for the…
The vaccine/bioterrorism industry is expert at making silk purses out of sows’ ears. Novartis, the company that failed to get its 50% share of swine flu vaccine out in a timely manner, and has a long history of vaccine failures, received a $400 million grant to open a vaccine plant in the US.However, the University…
The NY Times reports that after 2 months of wide use, there are no worrying patterns of adverse reactions found for swine flu vaccine, according to CDC. No increase in Guillain Barre cases has been identified. However, 5 children did die soon after vaccinations; the deaths are being investigated.
“We had to do something about swine flu!” And so the makers of Tamiflu (oseltamvir) are several billion dollars richer. As the BMJ (a.k.a. British Medical Journal) put it in 2005: “From a bit of a dud to the world’s most sought after drug in the space of six months, surely Roche cannot believe its…
According to HHS, BARDA “determined that none of the vaccine developers submitting proposals could meet the Project BioShield statutory requirements of having a product ready for licensure within 8 years. In response to this development, BARDA will modify its approach to the advanced development of a next-generation anthrax vaccine.” It is unclear why this happened,…
End of content
End of content