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…

But many of the parents had trouble getting their children’s reactions reported to the authorities and followed up.  Asking parents to report directly to government should reveal much more about adverse events following this vaccine.  Hopefully, the system developed to receive reports will remain in place after this flu season, so that enhanced adverse event…

Chicago Tribune blogger Eric Zorn wondered what was up with a “shock radio” commercial for swine flu vaccine this month.  So he investigated.  Apparently the US Government is not sufficiently in debt:  it made grants to all the states to educate us about swine flu.  Is there anyone left who needs to be educated?  Zorn…

The US and UK won’t tell what they spent.  But the US bought vaccine from 5 different manufacturers (Glaxo, Novartis, CSL, Astra-Zeneca (MedImmune was acquired by A-Z in 2007 after passing through multiple owners) and Sanofi-Pasteur, and bought antiviral drugs from 3 (Tamiflu (Roche), Relenza (GSK also) and Peramivir (BioCryst)).  They will have to report…

Why so many reactions following seasonal flu vaccination?  Some have suggested it is due to children who had had earlier, subclinical flu infections.  Such silent infections would have left them with robust immunity.  They may then have responded to vaccination with an excessive response, triggering fever, convulsions and potentially death.  This idea remains a theory at…

Launch Party:  ANTHRAX WAR By Bob Coen and Eric Nadler May 3,   7pm Melville House Bookstore Come celebrate the paperback release of Anthrax War: Dead Silence . . . Fear and Terror on the Anthrax Trail by Bob Coen and Eric Nadler. An in-depth look into the new biological arms race, Dead Silence conveys the…

Rob Stein at the Post discusses a “hint” that swine flu vaccine may have caused increased cases of Guillain Barre Syndrome, Bell’s Pallsy and thrombocytopenia. The US CDC, unlike its counterpart in Australia, manages the news on vaccine adverse events closely, especially for swine flu.  Remember that CDC hosted a meeting for invited journalists and…

Australia’s chief medical officer halted seasonal flu vaccinations for children under five, due to a high number of children in Western Australia experiencing fever and convulsions after the shot.  This will give the country time to ascertain whether the problem is due to “bad batches” or whether the makeup of the immunization itself is the…

The New York Times’ Scott Shane reports on the testimony of Henry E. Heine, former Ivins colleague, at the National Academy of Sciences panel reviewing the FBI’s science at its meeting today. … Asked by reporters after his testimony whether he believed that there was any chance that Dr. Ivins, who committed suicide in 2008,…

Bobcast radio show in Frederick, MD

Op-Ed piece by Col. Lawrence Sellin, Ret. …Reinforced by a number of armchair detectives from academia, the FBI produced a profile of the anthrax mailer who was described as a lone person living within the United States, who had experience working in labs and was smart enough to produce a highly refined and deadly product. …

From AFP: But a year on, questions linger as to whether a decision by the World Health Organization to declare swine flu a pandemic, thereby unleashing the slew of health measures, was over-dramatic or even tainted by commercial interests “It’s a decision which costs huge amounts of money, which frightened people throughout the world unnecessarily,”…

From Glenn Greenwald’s blog at Salon.com: … It requires an extreme level of irrationality to read what happened to Hatfill and simultaneously to have faith that the “real anthrax attacker” has now been identified as a result of the FBI’s wholly untested and uninvestigated case against Bruce Ivins.  The parallels are so overwhelming as to be self-evident….

Steve Nissen, head of Cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic, authored an editorial in JAMA last month on the means by which GlaxoSmithKline tried to cover up increased cardiac events in patients on its drug Avandia (Rosiglitazone).  JAMA’s editor, Catherine DeAngelis, wrote her own editorial on this issue, noting: According to the article by Nissen,1 the…

Men enter the Arlington Convention Center to receive their H1N1 flu vaccinations in Arlington, Texas November 24, 2009. Credit: Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi From Reuters: Doctors and minorities still have a dangerous mistrust of vaccines that became painfully clear during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on Monday… In…

From Politico, this story of how over $100,000 was spent to dig up dirt on the head of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research: For more than two months in late 2008, private investigators working for a drug company gathered information on a high-ranking official at the Food and Drug Administration — unearthing details about…

David Brown, M.D., described the most recent Institute of Medicine report on Gulf War Illnesses this week.  Brown tried to deny the existence of the illness back in 2006, with reporting that was either uninformed or misleading.  Here’s what he wrote in 2006: As recently as September, a panel of the National Academy of Science’s Institute…

This article from the Bucks County Courier Times doesn’t address how the 25 mcg. mercury-containing doses (in multidose vials) will be handled, since release into landfills and rivers is not safe or acceptable. Most swine flu vaccine used in the US was packaged in multidose vials, including a mercury preservative, with small stocks of single…

From the April 5 Medscape: … The testimony repeated charges that Dr. Nicholas made in a letter last December to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and FDA Commissioner Hamburg. He disclosed that he had sought an FDA warning label on the CT scanner in question that would highlight the risk for radiation-induced cancer, noting that between…

From Infectious Disease News: ATLANTA, March 18, 2010 — Mandatory vaccination policies increased the number of health care workers who received the influenza vaccine during the 2009-2010 influenza season, according to results from two studies presented here at the Fifth Decennial International Conference on Healthcare-Associated Infections… Researchers in the first study analyzed the outcomes of…

According to DNAIndia, … The programme was marred by controversy after four deaths and complications among 120 girls were reported after vaccination. The girls complained of stomach disorders, epilepsy, headaches and early menarche… More from The Hindu: Dr. Katoch said a memorandum was signed with PATH-International in February 2007 for a project allotted to it…

Excerpts from interview with Dr. Heine interview on wfmd and Lew Weinstein’s “Case Closed” blog: “It was clear that they were focused on a small group of us at USAMRIID, one of which was Bruce.   Of the 4 or 5 of us they were focused on, one of them was Bruce. Dr. Heine says…

The traditional seasonal flu vaccine may have increased the risk of infection with pandemic H1N1 swine flu, according to the results of four new studies by Canadian researchers, published in PLOS Medicine. If accurate (and now there are at least 6 studies that agree with this conclusion), this is not an anomaly.  Licensed vaccines have…

The UK government originally contracted for 120 million doses of swine flu vaccine; it was able to cancel some contracts (by agreeing to buy bird flu vaccine for an epidemic that does not exist, and buying extra flu drugs from GSK), but still purchased 44 million doses. Only 6 million doses were actually used.  The…

Professor Peter Collignan provides us with facts (finally we get to see some unvarnished information) on how bad the H1N1 virus was for healthy people, as well as learning of much higher adverse event rates for the vaccine than have been previously reported.  However, the CSL vaccines used in Australia were almost certainly different than…

From the Daily Mail, excerpts follow: The investigation into the death of Dr David Kelly would be re-opened under a Tory government, according to a senior Conservative.  Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve said the public has ‘not been reassured’ that the Whitehall scientist took his own life. Mr Grieve said that, if the Tories take…

Op-Ed written by Meryl Nass, published April 6: A surprising tug of war has erupted between the Obama administration and Congress over transparency and oversight of the intelligence agencies.  In September 2009, the Senate passed the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act, and on Feb. 26 the House passed a similar bill. They were about to be…

Recall that FDA’s Device Center was recently shown to make political decisions re medical device approvals, and to grandfather in devices on the basis of earlier approvals of very different devices.  GAO wrote several damning reports including this one from June 2009: Shortcomings in FDA’s Premarket Review, Postmarket Surveillance, and Inspections of Device Manufacturing Establishments. …

In 1993 the US Government knew that silicon was used to enhance dispersal of powdered microbial agents and toxins.  OTA produced some very useful research, but the agency no longer exists. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Technologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction, OTA-BP-ISC-115 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 1993). CHEMICAL ADDITIVES The…

This show was broadcast March 29, 2010. It is now archived here  (But note that the linked website has an annoying “radio” in the upper right corner that turns itself on several times during the radio interview, and must be turned off immediately so the interview can be heard.)

SOFIA, Bulgaria, April 2 (UPI) — Bulgarian Health Minister Bozhidar Nanev resigned after being charged with corruption in the purchase of unnecessary H1N1 flu vaccine doses. Nanev, 57, was charged with overspending on 200,000 doses of vaccine from the highest bidder weeks after a flu epidemic had ended, The Sofia Echo reported. Prosecutors allege Nanev…

Science 19 March 2010: Vol. 327. no. 5972, p. 1435 News of the Week Yudhijit Bhattacharjee What about the silicon? That question has confounded investigators throughout the probe into the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, which the U.S. government formally concluded in February. Scientists inside and outside the government say there is clear evidence that the…

From the WaPo: Despite months of dire warnings and millions in taxpayer dollars, less than half of the 229 million doses of H1N1 vaccine the government bought to fight the pandemic have been administered — leaving an estimated 71.5 million doses that must be discarded if they are not used before they expire…(and 25 million…

by: Paul Sullivan and Anthony Hardie, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed.  Excerpts follow: Last week, the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officially recognized several diseases as linked with deployment to the 1991 Gulf War… As Gulf War veterans, we applaud the VA’s proposed new regulations that streamline access to…

From the Washington Examiner:  Cervical cancer accounts for less than 1 percent of all cancer deaths, so it was somewhat surprising when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration fast-tracked approval of Gardasil, a Merck vaccine targeting the human papilloma virus (HPV) that causes the disease, in 2006. As of Jan. 31, 2010, 49 unexplained deaths…

Officials with the CDC are continuing to urge people to get the H1N1 vaccine, as a small uptick in H1N1 cases has been reported in the Southeast. Anne Schuchat, MD, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases said seasonal influenza activity is low this season, with H1N1 reported as the predominant…

From YNet News Dozens of soldiers who took part in experiment in early 1990s aimed at determining efficacy of Anthrax vaccine demand $80,000 each in damages. ‘Physical harm was passed down to our children,’ plaintiff says. There is no description in this article of the types of adverse reactions resulting from the vaccine, which may…

Today’s Guardian discusses a draft report by UK MP Paul Flynn on the European response to the swine flu epidemic.  Titled “WHO accused of losing pubic confidence over flu pandemic,” it includes the following: In Britain, says Flynn, the discrepancy between the estimate of the numbers of people who would die from flu and the…

The U.S. Senate must help America get to the bottom of the post-9/11 anthrax attacks. The FBI hasn’t produced convincing answers. It had to pay damages to former government scientist Dr. Stephen Hatfill for wrongly labeling him a “person of interest.” It can’t convict the government scientist it now blames, Dr. Bruce Ivins, because he…

Writing at FireDogLake, Jim White discusses the role of silicon in the anthrax spores.  Apparently, the mechanism for 2 liter cultures of anthrax available to Bruce Ivins did not require an antifoaming agent, and he did not use one.  OTOH, large volume fermenters with compressed air (or a gaseous mixture) pumped into the culture medium…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 18, 2010 Contact: Zach Goldberg 202-225-5801 (office) HOLT DEMANDS OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SUPPORT FURTHER AMERITHRAX INVESTIGATION Also Urges Administration to Reconsider Position on Videorecording of Detainee Interrogations (Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (NJ-12), Chair of the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel and a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on…

Science Magazine asks, “What about the Silicon?”  The 19 March 2010 issue contains an article by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee detailing all we don’t know about the silicon in the anthrax spores sent to Senators Daschle and Leahy and to the NY Post, and the absence of spores containing silicon in Ivins’ flask.  Excerpts follow: That question…

Here is the letter from OMB detailing the Obama Administration’s objections to the Intelligence Authorization Act passed by the House on February 26, 2010. (Thanks to Steven Aftergood at the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists for posting it, and for his insightful discussion.)

from Vaccine News Daily: … Besides the H1N1 vaccine, countermeasures currently covered by the CICP (Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program of the DHHS’ Health Resources and Services Agency) program include vaccines and drugs for anthrax and smallpox, under HHS declarations made in 2008, according to Bowman. Many members of the U.S. military receive anthrax and smallpox…

fyi, here is a link to the MP3 of a 55 minute interview with Michael Levine and Mark Marshall on the March 15 ExpertWitness radio program.

The ABC News blogger Jacob Tapper  (“Political Punch“) provides more detail about what the administration is complaining about in the intelligence bill, and its anthrax issue.  Yet Tapper points out,  In addition, the Intelligence Authorization bill would commission an agency inspector general to investigate the anthrax attacks, which the FBI has concluded were planned and…

Glenn Greenwald was a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York before becoming a writer on political affairs and constitutional law.  He is arguably the most perspicacious journalist offering political commentary today.  His comments on Obama’s threatened veto of the intelligence authorization bill follow. One of the principal weapons used by the Bush…

From the March 12, 2010 Spiegel (my thanks to Jane Bryant’s “OneClick” website for posting the story and to Digital Journal for covering it) What the Spiegel does is to confirm that it was WHO’s decision to move to Pandemic Phase 6 that caused preexisting contracts between nations and large vaccine manufacturers to become active,…

From an Editorial in the December 1, 2008 Washington Post: …The new attorney general also should ensure that an independent commission or the inspector general review the anthrax investigation. In the summer, the FBI identified Fort Detrick scientist Bruce E. Ivins as the lone suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five and sickened…

Tom Waytes, vice president of Emergent BioSolutions, the manufacturer of anthrax vaccine, spoke at a meeting of Emergency Services Personnel at which he suggested that expiring doses of vaccine should be given to Emergency Services personnel for *free* by DHHS: “But with unused doses of already purchased anthrax vaccine sitting in the Strategic National Stockpile…

In terms of the strength of the FBI’s case against Ivins, I would break down an analysis in the following way: 1. To prove that a person committed a crime, they must be shown to have all three of the following: means, motive and opportunity. Has the FBI proven that Ivins had all three? a)…

Jean Duley gave Anderson Cooper the scoop (watch the video!) on Bruce Ivins. Not to put too fine a point on it, but a few facts are in order. Ms Duley was well known to the Maryland police. Her past charges included possessing narcotics paraphernalia, battery, and many DUIs, including a guilty plea 3 months…

Excerpts from Global Security Newswire: The U.S. Army should fine-tune its procedures for determining safety risks in its projects following slip-ups in plans for the new site of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., a National Academy of Sciences committee said in a report issued Thursday (see GSN,…

By Maggie Fox, Reuters. Excerpts: WASHINGTON – First, people were clamoring for H1N1 vaccines, but there were not enough to go around. By the time vaccines were available in any quantity, most of the public had lost interest. And no one knew just how unpredictable the production of vaccines would turn out to be, top…

Thursday, 04 March 2010 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, reiterated his call for an independent investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks which killed five people and sickened 17. He issued the following statement: “Despite the FBI’s assertion that the…

March 3 Letter from Congressman Holt asking for a Congressional Investigation into the government’s handling of the anthrax letters investigation. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett supports this also. A brief excerpt follows, addressed (respectively) to the chairs of the House Homeland Security, Judiciary, Select Intelligence and Oversight and Government Reform Committees: Dear Chairmen Thompson, Conyers, Reyes, and…

From the February 27 NY Times … More problematic is the investigative work that led the F.B.I. to concludethat only Dr. Ivins, among perhaps 100 scientists who had access to the sameflask, could have sent the letters. The case has always been hobbled by a lack of direct evidence tying Dr. Ivins to the letters….

In a hearing today, Feb. 26, VA Secretary Shinseki said he would be reviewing disability claims for Gulf War-related illnesses to be sure they were handled correctly. How this will be done was not specified. New training for personnel re how to evaluate claims is needed. New training and guidelines for doctors treating ill veterans…

From the Baltimore Sun: A measure requiring further federal investigation into the 2001anthrax attack that killed five people was approved Thursday by the House of Representatives. It was proposed by two skeptics of a recently closed FBI probe that blamed the deadly attacks on Bruce Ivins, a microbiologist at the Army biodefense lab at Fort…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxVpMBK54aY&feature=youtube_gdata

From WJZ and the Associated Press: WASHINGTON (AP) ― The House of Representatives is seeking further review of the 2001 anthrax mailings that killed five people. House members approved an amendment to an intelligence authorization bill Thursday that would require the government to look for credible evidence of foreign involvement in the attacks that killed…

The LA Times reports that what I expected to occur has now happened. The CDC’s ACIP used the swine flu pandemic to gin up flu anxiety and activity. They don’t seem to care that Tamiflu was found to be an “Emperor’s New Clothes” story, nor that the data to support vaccinating everyone (let alone the…

The Frederick News-Post has posted a long memorandum by Attorney Barry Kissin, a resident of Frederick, Maryland on its website. Attorney Kissin has no professional connection to USAMRIID or Dr. Ivins. Yet he has followed the anthrax letters story closely, and has written a cogent and thoroughly documented though controversial paper discussing what various people…

Audio and Text from the National Academy of Engineering Anthrax Close-up, Part 2 12/14/2008 The FBI says spores from the anthrax attack letters are genetically linked to spores in a flask controlled by Fort Detrick researcher Bruce Ivins. But high-tech microscopic analysis shows what might be a key difference. Listen Randy Atkins: The chemical element…

From Global Security Newswire, including material from the Frederick News-Post: The fact that Ivins kept very late laboratory hours in the days before the letters were mailed is not as unusual as the FBI contends, said former USAMRIID head of bacteriology Gerry Andrews. Ivins was working on multiple projects at the time could have kept…

Today’s NY Times carries an article by Richard Bernstein, “Haste Leaves Anthrax Case Unconcluded.” Edited only slightly for brevity, the article follows: … an article in Aerosol Science and Technology published in March 2008 has acquired considerable significance in light of the announcement by the F.B.I. last week that it would close its nine-year investigation…

Washington Post Editorial, September 19, 2008“Anthrax Suspicions: Why an independent look at the FBI probe is essential” THERE’S NO better proof of the need for an independent review of the FBI’s anthrax investigation than the words of Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.)… Mr. Leahy rejected the agency’s assertion that government scientist Bruce E. Ivins acted…

But FBI’s report, documents and accompanying information (only pertaining to Ivins, not to the rest of the investigation) were released on Friday afternoon… which means the FBI anticipated doubt and ridicule. And the National Academies of Science (NAS) is several months away from issuing its $879,550 report on the microbial forensics, suggesting a) asking NAS…

From Fergus Walsh, BBC Medical correspondent: By my reckoning (and this is an estimate only) around 5.25 million people have been vaccinated in Britain. That means there is an awful lot of vaccine – tens of millions of doses – going spare. I’m told an announcement is likely in around 10 days regarding what will…

Julie Gerberding moved to Merck Vaccines last month and CDC simultaneously decided to focus on cervical cancer. What a coincidence! The only cancer mentioned on CDC’s home page is cervical cancer, and a chart of cervical cancer incidence by ethnicity is the only statistical information on the home page. CDC says, “The PAP test and…

In January, the Daily Mail revealed that Lord Hutton ordered David Kelly’s post-mortem records to be barred from public access for 70 years. Hutton then responded that he would make the records available to physicians conducting a public inquiry on the death. Instead, the UK’s Ministry of Justice said the request for information would be…

Snippets from Business Week. One solution being used in Orange County is to keep vaccinating with a third dose of the same vaccine, though the MMWR editor notes that no data exist to support this approach. Isn’t the appropriate answer to develop a better vaccine? According to the MMWR, “Among patients aged 7–18 years, the…

After paying for many polls of how many people got vaccinated, you can see that all were an unnecessary waste of taxpayer dollars by CDC, here–because CDC knew how many vaccines were given on a weekly basis: The National Pandemic Influenza Plan calls for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies, specifically the…

Looks like the school-based swine flu vaccinations may have been a pilot program that CDC wants to become “routine.” Excerpts from the NYTimes article: Most Americans do not intend to get the swine flu vaccine, assume the pandemic is over and think the flu threat was overblown, according to a poll released Friday by the…

I love the Lancet. I have my own subscription, and it isn’t cheap. However, the Lancet took a cheap shot last week, when it retracted a paper on autism by Wakefield et al. immediately following a ruling by the UK’s General Medical Counsel. The Lancet has been embroiled in controversy (and repeatedly tried to extract…

I was hoping to avoid joining the Andrew Wakefield/Lancet fray, but so many inaccurate statements have been published in the last few days that I had to jump in. There is clearcut evidence for a syndrome of brain injury (and sometimes death) occurring after measles vaccine (and not after rubella or mumps vaccines). Who discovered…

From the UK’s Daily Telegraph, excerpts from a story about Australia’s new push to use up its swine flu stockpile. The multidose vaccine vials need to be used within 24 hours of opening. DOCTORS have been told to issue the swine flu vaccine throughout summer in order to deplete the Government’s stockpile before millions of…

A report claiming “dangerously low” adult levels of vaccinations just came out, sponsored by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). TFAH focused on “emergency preparedness” and “pandemic preparedness” as the first two subjects covered in its last 2 annual reports (2005 and 2006)…

From the Council of Europe’s website: “Are decisions on pandemics taken on the best scientific evidence only?” was the question asked today at a public hearing of PACE’s Committee on Social, Health and Family Affairs into the handling of the H1N1 pandemic. The World Health Organisation’s flu chief defended his organisation, saying its advice was…