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…
WHO’s Dr. Fukuda still isn’t making sense, only now he is discussing WHO’s work getting vaccine to poor nations. Swine flu cases began falling rapidly in the US in October. Countries have been trying to give away much of their vaccine stockpile since December. Yet WHO has only managed to get vaccine to two countries….
Here’s a big yawn from the Infectious Disease News: Mandatory policy increased influenza vaccine uptake among Health Care Workers. The article claims that the program’s “success” was supported by “consistent communication emphasizing patient safety and quality of care, coordinated campaigns, leadership support and medical director support to talk with any employee with concerns about the…
From PharmaTech comes the following paragraph, which implies that once a pandemic is identified, the WHO’s Pandemic Plan goes into effect. An evaluation of severity is missing from this scenario. Somehow, the assumption seems to be that pandemics (all pandemics, especially those associated with influenza viruses) are dire events with high mortality rates. Yet the…
GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization has rejected as “irresponsible” allegations that swine flu is a fake pandemic. WHO also dismissed claims it colluded with drug companies to bring economic benefit to the industry by playing up the danger of the new H1N1 influenza strain. WHO officials met Tuesday with the Parliamentary Assembly of…
CDC called a few thousand random phone numbers and asked people whether they had been vaccinated. CDC said the response rate was poor. From this admittedly poor quality dataset, CDC told the world that 20% of Americans had been vaccinated against swine flu. But CDC had a high quality dataset telling it exactly how many…
From Niko Kyriakou at Truthout, excerpts: Wow, what a year 2009 was for makers of the swine flu vaccine. CSL Limited‘s profits rose 63 percent above 2008 levels, while in the third quarter of 2009 – just about the time H1N1 contracts picked up steam – GlaxoSmithKine enjoyed a 30 percent jump in earnings to…
The Jan. 24 WSJ ran an Op-Ed on the anthrax letters investigation and meaning of 1.4% silicon in the letter anthrax, by Edward Jay Epstein. Subtitled “The FBI disproved its main theory about how the spores were weaponized,” excerpts from the article follow: The investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks ended as far as the…
The Chilcot Inquiry into the facts surrounding the decision for Great Briitain to enter the Iraq War has now been lobbed a ball it probably can’t duck. A group of physicians have asked for release of data–including autopsy reports–on the death of David Kelly. Kelly, a WMD expert, told the BBC that Blair’s government had…
ZURICH (from Jan. 20, 2010: Reuters) – Switzerland’s medical regulator recommended patients with seriousautoimmune diseases should not use an H1N1 flu vaccine fromNovartis, saying there were no studies assessing the innoculation in thatpopulation. Swissmedic said on Wednesday it could not be ruled out that either or boththe adjuvant — which can enhance the immune response…
Snippets from Deutsche World online: Amid criticism that it exaggerated the dangers of swine flu, the World Health Organization (WHO) has begun a week long meeting in Geneva. Critics accuse the organization of having been too quick to proclaim a pandemic. British member of parliament Paul Flynn wants an investigation into exactly how the pandemic…
From the NY Times, Sept. 21, 2005 – Just as governments around the world are stockpiling millions of doses of flu vaccine and antiviral drugs in anticipation of a potential influenza pandemic, two new research papers published today have found that such treatments are far less effective than previously thought. “The studies published today reinforce…
The Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP) calls for an investigation ofconflicts of interest at Federal Agencies which spearheaded the excessive,expensive, and unjustifiable federal expenditure in response to the false SwineFlu “pandemic” in the U.S. Indeed, “off the record”, CDC even stage-managed media coverage of the epidemic. Issues requiring investigation: 1. BARDA (the Biomedical Advanced…
WHO’s Strategic Group of Experts Working Group on Avian Flu (H5N1) Vaccine is working on “evidence-based recommendations” for using up stockpiles of avian flu vaccine that are reaching their expiration date. From WHO’s website: “Facilitate a SAGE review and decision on potential evidence-based recommendations on the use during the current inter-pandemic period of: H5N1 influenza…
CDC does not just award grants, it also obtains research grants from other federal agencies and industry. Here is one grant CDC got from an Australian biotech company to advance research on the company’s pandemic flu vaccine. How might such relationships affect CDC’s impartiality in fulfilling its mission to recommend vaccines for general use in…
Real data is important, and anecdotes are just anecdotal. Yet during the past 3 weeks I have been personally involved with 3 events that have me concerned. I am a doctor on an island of 13,000 people, where hundreds received swine flu vaccine. Coincidence 1: several hours after getting the swine flu vaccine, a man…
The BBC today notes that: The Council of Europe is planning an investigation, to begin later this month, into whether pharmaceutical companies influenced public health officials to spend money unnecessarily. In Geneva, a WHO spokeswoman acknowledged there were questions to be answered. She said the review of its management of the pandemic would be conducted…
Let’s draw a stupid line in the sand. Let’s fire employees who refuse a seasonal flu vaccine made up of antigens for 3 strains of flu that do not happen to be circulating in the US right now, and may never circulate. Check out the CDC’s graph detailing the flu strains found in the US…
I told readers in November that I would be discussing the expanding vaccine industry at more length. Fortunately, the media have obliged with excellent articles explaining the financial forces driving development of increasing types and numbers of vaccines. Articles like the one below also hint at why physicians are being pressured to vaccinate more and…
From SwissInfo: … Western European countries, including Switzerland, are queuing up to shift surplus stocks of the H1N1 flu vaccine after low public demand. … Sales of H1N1 vaccines have been a windfall for pharmaceutical companies. GSK is expected to be the single biggest beneficiary with anticipated sales of SFr3.7 billion by the end of…
From the famous Pharmalot blog by Ed Silverman (formerly a reporter at the Newark Star Ledger): That’s the contention by more than a dozen members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which reportedly plans to conduct an inquiry into the influence that drugmakers may have had on the World Health Organization, scientists…
from the BBC: Germany and The Netherlands announced similar sales late last year… The government bought 94 million swine flu vaccine doses – more than one for every French person – and started vaccinating in October. Only about five million people are recorded as having been vaccinated in France so far, AFP reports…
The map I previously posted disappeared off this website. However, WHO updates the map weekly. To see the current week’s map (and you may click to compare it with previous weeks) please go to the WHO site.
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,…
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