Thanks for telling us, BBC.  But this is no surprise.  You should be investigating why England denied having an increase in cases earlier.  Furthermore, the 10-16 fold increased risk of narcolepsy within 6 months will lowball the actual risk–as recent studies show some victims taking much longer than 6 months or a year to be diagnosed….

From CDC’s Fluview:

You read it here 3 days ago.  Just because Pandemrix caused a 700%-1300% increase in narcolepsy cases in children did not mean that cases of the vaccine-induced illness were confined to children.  And now we see they were not.  Grownups also get it.  And what else was caused by Pandemrix that did not shout out…

An estimated 30-60 lives may have been saved in Sweden due to use of Pandemrix, but more than 200 Swedish children developed narcolepsy due to the Pandemrix vaccine. So now Pandemrix, with the ASO3 adjuvant, won’t be used in children.   But the more important issue imho is why will it continue to be used…

Finally, a major US network, CNN, tells the truth about flu vaccine policy: The flu hasn’t hit Europe as hard as it has the United States, health officials say, but when and if it does, don’t expect a call for vaccination of the entire population.  Only the U.S. and Canada actually encourage everyone older than…

from CDC’s FluView

You have to give credit to the two federal advisory committees tasked with advising the government on a trial of anthrax vaccine in children. THEY KNOW THE SCORE, whether they acknowledged it, or not. The members knew this was one issue that could really burn them. They understood that this is a dangerous vaccine with…

An excellent piece discusses how turning over aspects of healthcare to private industry led to greater costs without accompanying benefits, and compares the US with other first world countries.

Today’s NY Times’ front page says, “Sales of Guns Soar in U.S. as Nation Weighs Tougher Limits.   The Times’ Quotation of the Day is:  “If I had 1,000 AR-15’s I could sell them in a week.” The quote is from Jack Smith, a gun dealer in Des Moines, Iowa, referring to a popular style…

CDC posts its latest stats for flu on Fridays.  See how, despite the pandemonium over flu, things are improving, and it looks like this season is less severe than 2003-4, 2007-8, and 2009-10. UPDATE #1:  January 12:  Aetna said this week it has seen a spike in flu cases this year but it is not…

What exactly is a “state of emergency”? According to Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), state declarations “may also identify state rules and regulations that are waived or suspended during the emergency…  They can include: Activation of statutory immunities and liability protections for those involved in response activities. Suspension and waiver of rules…

CDC’s weekly flu data with tables and graphs is here.  This flu season looks ho-hum, occurring earlier than usual but following a standard trajectory.  CDC, why the barrage of disinfo?  Can this really be only about the flu, or is it about encroaching on our civil rights and our bodies? Here are even earlier flu seasons…

Puh-Leeze.  A State of Emergency?  I’d laugh except declaring an emergency gives states new political powers.  Powers designed by CDC and Lawrence Gostin.  Begun by 1999, before the anthrax letters or comparable public health emergencies existed, CDC “called for strengthening the legal foundation for public health practice.” The Model Emergency Health Powers Act was only…

From UpToDate, the highly regarded online textbook of medicine, on flu vaccine: It has been difficult to demonstrate an improvement in survival after influenza vaccination in elderly patients in randomized controlled trials because mortality is a rare end-point. The systematic review cited above found a significant reduction in death from influenza or pneumonia [46], but…

The May 2012 updated anthrax vaccine package insert (a.k.a. label) provides cause for concern.  Would you give this vaccine to your dog, let alone your child?  Next week the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues will have their final meeting to discuss giving anthrax vaccine to children.  Whose children would be sacrificed? 1….

You can’t make this stuff up.  Conflicts of interest abound at the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues with respect to anthrax vaccine.  Coincidence or forethought? Before Emergent Biosolutions made anthrax vaccine, the vaccine was made by the Michigan Department of Public Health.  Before Michigan, it was made by Merck. Might Merck Vaccine’s President…

Poland served as “faculty” for this little paper, whose goal was to push flu vaccinations beyond the end of flu season, helping to use up the oversupply: Access to influenza vaccination is no longer constrained by problems in supply and distribution, as more manufacturers are providing more influenza vaccine to the US market than ever before….

Poland’s 2005 paper is one of those designed to pay the way to mandatory influenza vaccinations.  Back in 2005 Poland did not dare to ask for healthcare worker (HCW) firings, nor to junk philosophical exemptions, as he does now.  The paper uses Polandese to make the benefits of vaccination appear much greater than they are….

One person has been instrumental in creating flu vaccine mandates in the US, and he continues to push them overseas as well:  Mayo’s Greg Poland, MD. Poland is a scoundrel.  He enjoys throwing punches below the belt, and brags about it.  He placed on his Mayo website:  “In Dr. Poland’s war, there are no rules…

National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. Call to action: Influenza immunization among health care personnel. Bethesda, MD, 2008.  Sponsored by Sanofi. *  In the context of this document, the term “health care personnel” extends to all persons working in health care settings, including home health care, who have contact with patients. This includes not only traditionally…

Yet another just-published literature review, this time from Israel, finds mandatory healthcare worker flu vaccinations unsupported by the literature. Int J Family Med. 2012;2012:205464. doi: 10.1155/2012/205464. Epub 2012 Nov 11.  What, in Fact, Is the Evidence That Vaccinating Healthcare Workers against Seasonal Influenza Protects Their Patients? A Critical Review. Abramson ZH.  Source Department of Family Medicine, Hebrew University-Hadassah…

I did not have to look far to find the source of that meaningless little factoid used by the Goshen hospital spokesperson and the British Columbia chief medical officer:  “Influenza is the most frequent cause of death from a vaccine-preventable disease in the United States.”   It was the very first sentence in a flu vaccine…

No, the vaccinators don’t write their talking points themselves.  They get them from the same playbook. The spokeswoman for Goshen Hospital, which just fired 8 employees, justified forced vaccinations with the identical (meaningless) argument as British Columbia’s Chief Medical Officer: … hospital spokeswoman Melanie McDonald told the Elkhart Truth: “The flu has the highest death rate of…

Professor Ken Flegel, an editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, wrote an editorial last fall supporting mandatory flu shots for healthcare workers.  I blogged about his standard for vaccination last November, but did not critique many other problems with the article.  Somehow, like Perry Kendall, Dr. Flegel got his citations (and his ideas) all…

British Columbia ‘s chief medical officer pushed mandatory flu shots for healthcare workers, then backed up the policy with specious claims, showing he had not a clue what the science really said.  The Cochrane Collaboration’s Tom Jefferson, MD, a flu vaccine expert who had reviewed the world literature and coauthored several Cochrane meta-analyses on the…

Canada’s first mandatory flu shot policy, announced in August 2012 for all healthcare workers, was reversed in early December, following an uproar by nurses and other health workers. The nurses’ union, the HSA and the Hospital Employees’ Union, together representing more than 100,000 health-care workers, objected to their members being forced to have a flu…

The Lancet investigated flu vaccine effects with the following two interesting studies: 1.  Simonsen et al. showed that as rates of flu vaccination in the elderly rose in the US from 15% to 65%, there was no corresponding decrease in elder deaths from flu! 2.  Carman et al. found that:  Vaccination of health-care workers was…

The Cochrane Collaboration, the most respected organization of health professionals to evaluate the evidence behind medical therapies, studied flu vaccine of healthcare workers in 2006 and again in 2010. In 2006 they concluded: There is evidence that vaccinating the elderly has a modest impact on the complications from influenza. There is also high quality evidence…

What is up with firing workers who don’t get vaccinated for flu?  Indiana’s Goshen Hospital just fired 8 workers for refusing the shots.   Hospital spokeswoman Melanie McDonald told The Elkhart Truth the new requirements came as a recommendation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Medical Association and other major…

I missed this November article on flu shots from the NY Times blog.  Yes, it repeats material I have covered before.  But as healthcare workers continue to be fired from their jobs for refusing flu shots, I will continue to post on why their firings make no sense. Here are excerpts: It’s flu-shot season, and…