Still no news about narcolepsy or any other specific adverse effects from the US and Canada, who used the most  swine flu vaccines in 2009 and 2010.  So much for claims that the US put into effect special monitoring programs for this vaccine! Ireland is finding increased narcolepsy cases in the vaccinated 4-19 age group…

Noah Schactman has an extremely detailed, useful piece on the anthrax mailings in Wired.  Noah did his homework.  The 72 comments are also interesting. UPDATE:  Podcast with Noah here.  Extracts of the magazine story follow: In February 2003, anthrax became part of the rationale for invading Iraq. Colin Powell went to the United Nations Security…

From the BBC: A group of doctors campaigning for a full inquest for Dr David Kelly have appealed to Prime Minister David Cameron to intervene on their behalf… And, addressing the prime minister directly, they caution: “If an inquest is denied, despite all the evidence carefully provided to the attorney general, there is a real…

A group of psychiatrists [UPDATE:  See Dr. Jeffrey Kaye’s analysis of the panel composition] offered their forensic expertise in solving the anthrax criminal investigation, by using their insight into the criminal mind.  Somehow DC Judge Royce E. Lamberth blessed them, and FBI paid the $38,000  bill.  The group only had one suspect, whose confidential medical…

From San Diego’s station KPBS: SAN DIEGO — A KPBS investigation has found that nearly two out of three people diagnosed with whooping cough in San Diego County this year were fully immunized. California is in the midst of the worst whooping cough epidemic in 50 years. The numbers raise questions about how well the…

The “Review Committee on the Functioning of the International Health Regulations (2005) and on Pandemic Influenza A (H1N1) 2009”  was charged with assessing the usefulness of existing International Health Regulations in light of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, improving preparedness, and evaluating WHO’s response to the swine flu pandemic.  Thus much of its draft report…

Data suggest that children may have been hospitalized for post-swine flu vaccination seizures at a rate 2-6 times greater than their rate of hospitalization for swine flu disease.  Data are lacking on other post-vaccination side effects that might also occur.  I suggest you read this short BMJ piece by authors Peter Collignan, Peter Doshi and…

Professor David Salisbury, the Director of Immunisation for the UK Department of Health, wrote to colleagues/stakeholders on March 16 suggesting that routine pneumococcal immunisation in the over-65 age group be ended, and asking for their views before making a final decision on the program.  Ending routine vaccinations in the elderly is the recommendation of the…

UPDATE:  I just learned that in 2008 GSK obtained European regulatory approval to market a so-called “Prepandemic” Vaccine for H5N1 avian flu.  This virus is not circulating in humans.  The theory behind the vaccine is that if a bird flu virus emerged to cause a pandemic, the GSK vaccine is likely to be somewhat similar to it,…

An excellent piece was published by Agence France Presse.  The article below is by MARIA CHENG, The Associated Press-Washington Post, March 10, 2011: LONDON — An expert panel commissioned by the World Health Organization to investigate its handling of the swine flu pandemic has slammed mistakes made by the U.N. body and warned tens of…

UPDATE:  Australia has banned 4 flu vaccines and approved 2 for children under age ten, on March 11, 2011.  The 2011 flu vaccine in Australia has identical antigens as last year.  According to The Australian, up to 1 in 100 children under five vaccinated with the CSL vaccine last year suffered a seizure, more than the ninefold…