From the Medscape report from the American Thyroid Association Meeting: Multiple genetic and environmental risk factors can trigger autoimmune thyroid disease in humans, according to experts here at the American Thyroid Association (ATA) Spring 2010 Meeting. Gregory A. Brent, MD, professor of medicine and physiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University…

The local Frederick News-Post filed a FOIA to learn the number and type of infectious incidents and injuries that had been reported over the past few years.  Last November an employee was sick with tularemia for 3 weeks before being diagnosed,  Most likely she inhaled the bacteria. Examples incllude the following: Of the 16 reports…

From the NY Times:  Both BP and multiple government spokespersons told the world this am that the top kill procedure was going well.  Not until late afternoon was the truth told:  the process had been aborted the night before: As hour after hour passed after the top kill began early Wednesday afternoon, technicians along with…

Over the past months, I have been dismayed, and then alarmed, by the continuing erosion of civil liberties in the United States.  My recent op-ed noted that of the ten guaranteed freedoms granted by our Founders in the Bill of Rights, at least four have been regularly trampled (if not completely trashed) by the federal…

From Haaretz: The (Israeli) Defense Ministry has recognized a former soldier who participated in the army’s experiments on an anthrax vaccine as a disabled veteran after he developed Crohn’s disease. For two years, it denied similar recognition to another veteran who has the same disease, which causes severe bowel infection (sic), and participated in the…

Here are some anomalies in CDC’s reported data.  Note that all the data come from information provided by CDC on April 1-2, 2010 (using the same dataset) and were said to reflect information through January (MMWR) or February (per Schuchat) 2010. 1.  Local reporting (May 18) has it that New Jersey used 1.14 million doses…

The BBC (Imogen Foulkes) asks, ” Was the WHO right to declare a global swine flu pandemic?  Who made the key decisions that led to countries buying millions of doses of vaccine?” In June 2009 the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared swine flu a global pandemic. Governments around the world sprang into…

From tha Associated Press and Washington Post: GENEVA — An expert panel investigating the World Health Organization’s response to last year’s swine flu outbreak said Wednesday it wants to see confidential exchanges between the U.N. body and drug companies. The 29-member panel will seek WHO records and correspondence from before and after the H1N1 strain…

The London Times – May 11, 1987   The BBC, 2010: Smallpox demise linked to spread of HIV infection.  Both (directly opposed) conclusions came from studying the same phenomenon:  smallpox vaccinations used widely in Africa in the mid 1970s, followed by an explosion of AIDS a few years later. Smallpox vaccinations followed a ‘ring’ strategy,…

From the May 7 BMJ Online, authored by Peter Collignon, Peter Doshi, Tom Jefferson There have been large numbers of major adverse reactions to this year’s seasonal influenza vaccine in Australia, and the vaccine has been suspended for use in children aged five and under… Assuming all convulsions were in children, about one child in…

Prepandemic vaccinations have been discussed for years, quietly, by the international flu elite.  They were a “win-win” approach:  the elite recommending them would be viewed as heroes when the pandemic came (just as our public health officials assumed that the patina of a Salk or Sabin would rub off on them for saving us from…

From today’s Independent: … Against a background death toll from seasonal flu of up to 500,000 [worldwide], the new H1N1 strain was invisible [18,036 documented deaths through May 9, per WHO]. Professor Ulrich Keil, a World Health Organisation (WHO) adviser on heart disease, said the decision to declare a pandemic had led to a “gigantic…

Helen Branswell reports on “a bold proposal on how to circumvent too-slow production and too-little output of influenza vaccine during a pandemic.” You saw it here and here first, when I blogged about what pandemic “experts” talk about when they don’t have a pandemic: so-called “pre-pandemic” vaccinations.  It would be a great idea if we…

<img width=”1″ height=”1″ src=”http://s.clickability.com/s?19=990&14=0&6=92807664&7=400599&18=0.3629032722800133″> From Helen Branswell at the Canadian Press: It might seem counterintuitive but it also appears to be true:  Parents with more education were less likely to get their daughters vaccinated against HPV during the first year of British Columbia’s free school-based program, a new study shows.   The finding of the study,…

Both the US government and BP have refused to explain the math behind their spill calculation; and methods for a more accurate estimate of the flow rate have not been applied, according to the NY TImes.  Experts suggest the actual rate may be 5 times as great as the stated rate, 5,000 barrels per day….

According to Kalorama Information (which will sell you their research compilation for $1200): Makers of H1N1 vaccines reported sales of $3.3 billion in 2009, according to company reports reviewed for its title, “H1N1 ‘Swine Flu’ Vaccine Market Review.” Kalorama believes the contracting, production and distribution of this vaccine will be a model for future pandemic…

Many reports in the past week have claimed that 71 million doses of H1N1 vaccine are being wasted in the US.  Earlier reports, based on telephone surveys, said 70-80 million doses had been used already. The Wall Street Journal, quoting CDC offical Anne Schuchat, M.D., earlier claimed (along with other media outlets) that 251 million…

From the Mail Online: The NHS is being forced to cut services because of the huge costs of the swine flu scare that proved unfounded. A survey has found that as many as one in six health trusts may have to slash services – or already have done so – to recoup costs. The cuts…

From The Parliament.com More than 200 deputies have signed a proposal calling for a special committee on the H1N1 pandemic. The members, who come from across the political divide, said one of its aims would be to evaluate the EU’s dependence on the World Health Organisation. Speaking at a news conference in parliament on Wednesday,…

77 second video (online) from Frederick NewsPost

From the SMH (Good on ya, Ozzies, for taking this seriously’): The West Australian government has launched an inquiry into the flu vaccinations that caused adverse reactions in hundreds of children across the nation. WA Health Minister Kim Hames said the inquiry would scrutinise systems used to identify public health risks, including vaccine side-effects and…

Press Release from Senator Grassley, asking many previously unasked questions about the vaccine supply; its cost; safety studies; efficacy data; and government oversight, given the PREPA liability shield: WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley has asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services for additional information about the government’s supply of the H1N1 vaccine, based on…

 According to the April 9, 2010 Frederick NewsPost: An Army lab at Fort Detrick said Tuesday it did not follow proper procedures last November when a researcher infected herself with the tularemia bacteria. The researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases was exposed to the bacteria between Nov. 13 and 17,…

While millions of gallons of oils are spewing from under the earth’s mantle in the Gulf of Mexico, and no one has a sure-fire idea of how to stop the river of oil, we have the perfect backdrop for a discussion of Boston’s Highest-Containment (BL-4) biodefense lab. The lab has been built but is still…