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Topic: Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz (Read 8417 times) |
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Fritz
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #15 on: 2009-11-16 17:38:32 » |
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[Fritz]I plotted some numbers on the Flu virus:
Source: Google Trends
If you go to the site, you can slice and dices these number as you wish, but this year is not like any other from my eyes.
The US flu case numbers of the last several years seem to indicate something different this year is a play.
US 2009 cases
Ukraine 2009 cases
World Wide Distribution of deaths
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #16 on: 2009-11-16 22:41:51 » |
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Hmmm, does that look like the wind-up to a double-spike flu season I spy? Is that sorta like a double-dip recession? Well, if the anti-vaccine fear-mongers have their way, perhaps they should have this more agressively shoved in their face. Personally I'm all in favor of adults making up their own minds about getting vaccinated, everyone has a different immunological history and health circumstances after all, but that looks like an awfully early spike possibly followed by a second . . . we'll see how it goes . . . but screaming "propaganda" at scientifically established statistical epidemiology seems as immature as "death panel" or "birther" claims. Only the consequences are more immediate than those other two examples. 
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Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Hermit
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #17 on: 2009-11-17 00:28:55 » |
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Note that the mortality data reflects climate, population density and reporting capability as much is it does deaths. In other words, countries with too little infrastructure to determine and report morbidity data reflect similarly to those where this batch of flue has not yet reached its peak and those where summer is giving them additional time to prepare for their flue seasons.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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letheomaniac
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #18 on: 2009-11-17 13:10:05 » |
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Mo:
Quote:| . . . but screaming "propaganda" at scientifically established statistical epidemiology seems as immature as "death panel" or "birther" claims. |
[letheomaniac] I wouldn't say that I was 'screaming propaganda', I just want to know qui bono? Someone is definitely making money here, and I have (possibly incorrectly) observed that in the capitalist system people feel free to fuck each other over to make a buck and then turn around and say "Oh, it's not personal, it's just business". It is likely that the vaccine is beneficial, but the real benefit is going to be felt by the drug company manufacturing the said vaccine's bottom line. Consider this:
Brand Name: Prozac 20 mg
Consumer Price (For 100 tabs/caps): $247.47
Cost Of Generic Active Ingredient (For 100 tabs/caps): $0.11
Percent Markup: 224,973%
Source Article
I realize that Prozac is not a vaccine, but it doesn't seem likely that pharmaceutical manufacturers would employ a different pricing structure for them. What I want to know is, when your economy is in the crapper and your nation is in debt up to its eyeballs, can you really afford to bend over for the pharmaceutical firms? From what I understand, the US government doesn't get buy-in-bulk-and-save prices from them.
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #19 on: 2009-11-18 06:11:23 » |
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Quote from: letheomaniac on 2009-11-17 13:10:05 Mo:
Quote:| . . . but screaming "propaganda" at scientifically established statistical epidemiology seems as immature as "death panel" or "birther" claims. |
[letheomaniac] I wouldn't say that I was 'screaming propaganda', I just want to know qui bono? |
I was referring to the author Blunderov quoted not you of course.  We need to feel free to post things that may be BS to the BBS - we are after all collectively good bullshit detectors and I see that as part of the function of the Church. I think this is an entirely appropriate thread for us.
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Hermit
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #20 on: 2009-11-18 20:36:02 » |
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I spent a lot of time studying the "Source Article" cited by Letheomaniac, which could really do with some deconstruction as it possibly explains where some of the confusion we have seen in this thread arises. I don't have the time to provide full references for my assertions, but will try to swing a brush wildly against it in the hope of providing a sufficient general response to get others digging in the correct places. I will of course attempt to respond to specific targeted questions especially if they cite the CDC/Medical Journals/Wikipedia to support disagreements as it is quite feasible that I may be in error about some of the things I think I know.
Before I do that, let me try to address two issues more generally.
Firstly the H1N1 vaccine. Flue vaccinations work and work well. The process of developing, testing and producing them is well understood. As with any widespread process, some people will die after receiving them, others will become sick. Usually this will be quite unrelated to the vaccine. Where it is related to the vaccine it will become apparent very rapidly as every "adverse reaction" is reported and given the large numbers of people involved, statistical trends are very quick to develop. Typically governments, even in the USA, recognise the utility of a healthy workforce and so provide an insurance fund for those few people who do suffer ill-effects from vaccines. In specific regards to the H1N1 vaccine, Wikipedia provides reasonably well balanced information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H1N1_vaccine which I recommend people read and if they have further questions, support their examining the primary sources cited and asking questions here.
Secondly the administration and finances of the vaccine. I'll address the US which "is different." In most other countries, the government does a direct deal with the pharmaceutical companies to deliver a sufficient number of doses to a central distribution organization which provides the vaccines to the service delivery points as required.
To comprehend the insanity in America, it is necessary to understand that there is no argument that the US has the best government that money can buy - at least for those few calling the tune. One fascinating phenomena is that those paying the piper have little say at all, control has all been handed to as malicious a bunch as malfeasants as have ever crawled out of the woodwork, largely because the system has been structured so that politicians are insanely easily purchasable at very low prices. Currently the ratio seems to be that about $ 350,000 of tax payer money paid to a politician facilitates the transfer of the order of $3.5 million to $ 3.5 billion in government benefits to the direction of the person arranging payment. No other investment yields a similar ROI, which maybe speaks to the strong desirability of establishing government funding for political campaigning (based perhaps on signatures of support) and salaries, and the absolute banning of all other payments to politicians. A further complication is that, unlike any other country in the world, the administration is not a technocrat led civil service but a reward for political sponsors, so there is no independent source of correction to the torrent of lobby-driven information streaming in all directions. This has the effect that any nudge in any direction is converted, through positive feedback, into a mindless mass all stampeding in a single direction.
Among the major investors in and benefactors of politicians, Republican, Democrat, Quasi-independent (Ron Paul) and Indeterminate (Lieberman) alike, are the the pharmaceutical and medical insurance industries - which, along with the banking and finance (particularly, as we have seen in the "We're Fucked - The Coming Economic Crisis thread, our friends in Goldman Sachs) industries, media consortia, military suppliers and AIPAC absolutely own most of the politicians of both parties in the US several times over.This has had the strange side-effect that the great unwashed American public, those with absolutely no influence at all, have been largely persuaded in the face of all the available facts, that they are better off than the people in the rest of the world, and that the total lack of effective social services, collapsing infrastructure and diet of corn sugar, are an inseparable component of living in this the best of all possible times, in this the best of all possible countries, in this the best of all possible worlds which will continue growing forever, amen. The combination means that despite Americans paying nearly double what any other nation on the planet does for medical care, the probability of their children surviving to age five is lower than in any other industrialized country, the ratio of them reaching 65 is much lower than the rest of the industrialized world and in much of the developing world, although, if they make it that far and qualify for their government run medical-aid system, the care is good enough to ensure that their survival rates are higher than in many other countries, and this greatly distorts the life-span data unless one examines mortality per 100,000 per age group (Or Age-Specific Death Rate)
The gratuitous use of desperately poor statistical methods, together with a general failure to follow basic arithmetic let alone medical statististical methods and actuarial analysis has been sufficient to leave Americans completely befuddled. They know something is wrong, but not what, and suspect they are being lied to, but not how, and so we have an environment ripe for conspiracy theories, and quite enough bright but untutored people to supply them on an unprecedented scale.
It is quite evident to me that any 100% coverage national health system, no matter how broken, would be a better idea than the current disaster, as by the results of polls, do most Americans, but we see their ideologically motivated representatives arguing against this, no doubt assisted by the persuasive effluvium of those to whom they are beholden, who can afford to establish a barrage of disinformation to a captive audience which is not effectively opposed by anyone, allegedly primarily on financial grounds even as they spend vastly more than a full coverage national insurance would cost on futile wars in far-off places and as vast numbers of Americans are laid off because work is migrating to places which do have national health systems and where employers do not have to subsidize medical services directly.
Despite all the above, sometimes even the US has to do something right. Or almost right. Vaccine production is one of those things, even if the distribution and communication has been a disaster. Even the cost of vaccines is trivial when compared against the loss of productivity caused by infection, even before taking the loss of life into account. And of course, the $ 11 million a year manager has no protection when the $22,000 secretarial worker begins sneezing, so it makes perfect sense to inoculate everyone as fast and cheaply as possible (It would make even more sense to distribute income more evenly but that is another disaster we are not addressing today). That isn't what happens.
If the government would get its act together and establish a reservation system on the Internet and a distribution system driven by the reservations the cost of distribution and amount of chaos caused by it would plummet. Instead, hospitals and doctors offices sit with refrigerators full of unused vaccines and public medical resources have lines stretching around the buildings waiting for inoculations that many in the queues won't receive because the system is too slow, the number of inoculates on hand too limited and the staff and their processes insufficient. Meantime the people standing in queues in the cold sneeze and cough at one another helping to distribute bacteria and virii more efficiently. (Yes, I speak from observation and experience.) So eventually those who really want to be vaccinated go and pay $30 for the vaccine and $50 for the 5 minutes of nurses time (questionnaire, mass, blood pressure) and 1 minute of doctors time it takes, and perhaps, for some of the patients, their insurance company pays for it, charging $40 for "administration" and taking a profit of $20 per patient. This for the vaccinations that the public system provides for free, but only when they have access to the required inoculant. Special isn't it?
Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15758 (per Letheomaniac Reply 18 supra)
The Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex: A Deadly Fairy Tale
Authors: Dr. Doug Henderson and Dr. Gary Null
[ Hermit : NB Despite the topic and the unusual use of out of field doctorates, it appears that neither author is a medical doctor. Doug Henderson has a JD and Gary Null is a holistic healer. I might not have noticed only some of the claims made were so strange as to persuade me that neither author could possibly have a relevant medical qualification. ]
Doug Henderson, JD is a legal mediator specializing in civil rights and Director of Gary Null and Associates in New York City.
Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on nutrition and natural health and a multi-award-winning director of progressive documentary films, including Vaccine Nation and Autism: Made in the USA. Dr. Null is also the plaintiff on a law suit against the FDA to prevent the launch of the swine flu vaccine until safety studies have been thoroughly conducted.
It has been a particularly bad month for the pharmaceutical industrial complex in its ongoing litigations in American courts. Among the main pharmaceutical headlines, Merck’s Gardasil vaccine for HPV, now being widely administered to pre-teens, was found to be linked to amyltrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease
[ Hermit : Based on the review of available information by FDA and CDC, Gardasil continues to be safe and effective, and its benefits continue to vastly outweigh its risks. ]
following a $1.4 billion fine in promoting one of its blockbuster drugs Zyprexa off-label, deceptive correspondence was uncovered by Eli Lilly gaming the system again by promoting another one of its drugs, Cymbalta, off-label for fibromyalgia;
[ Hermit : Off label use of drugs is common, as doctors tend to be intelligent and compassionate and seek alleviation of distress even when they have no "authorised" way to help people. In any case, in my opinion off label drug use is not a bad practice when used by the skilled, as we sometimes learn about new purposes to which our pharmacopeia can be put. ]
AstraZeneca was fined $160 million for scamming the Medicaid system in Kentucky after being fined $215 million for ripping off Alabama; Glaxo lost a Pennsylvania trial for failing to warn doctors and pregnant women of the dangers of its antidepressant drug Paxil related to birth defects; and Pfizer scored a record-breaking fine of $2.3 billion for illegally marketing several drugs over the years: Bextra, Zyvox, Geodon and Lyrica. These kinds of charges, among the many others, have become a habit for drug makers for the past dozen years.
[ Hermit : I would be amazed if these transgressions were not accidental or financially motivated, but motivated by malice. As such I am altogether sceptical that they tell us any more than that people are human, sometimes forgetful, easily frightened and often greedy. I definitely would not try to use them to tell more significant stories. ]
When we speak of the pharmaceutical industry complex, it does not refer solely to private drug manufacturers. The complex, like a Matrix that holds captive the health of the nation in medical slavery by its own design and manipulation, is a consortium, a spiders’ web woven with financial attachments throughout the medical profession. In addition to the pharmaceutical and medical device firms, this complex includes every government health agency—the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and or course the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—as well as drug lobbying firms now employing a large number of former Congresspersons, insurance and HMO companies, all of the leading professional medical associations such as the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the majority of medical schools and their research departments who are heavily funded by drug money, many of the most prestigious medical journals, and ultimately all of this filtering downward to the physicians who diagnose our illnesses and prescribe our medications and treatments.
[ Hermit : Largely true. But membership in this complex does not preclude a person from being honourable, competent or compassionate - or angry, frightened, greedy and brash. Possibly simultaneously. Humans are complex creatures and as we see in this article, not always very rational. ]
America is rightly regarded as having led much of the world in many qualitative innovations in all fields. That reputation is duly deserved. However, there is a new dynamic at work that is causing this reputation to be challenged. We are a nation that prides itself in our humanity, our sense of fairness, but today there is a growing concern that we are now being monikered as a country held hostage to a national security complex, which includes the largest military complex in the world, an obscenely expensive healthcare system and self-serving bureaucracies and private industries that serve their own financial ends. So it is not surprising that after spending this year $2.6 trillion on healthcare, we have such little health to show for it. There are second world countries where people live longer and healthier lives. And we have the worst healthcare among developed nations. So what have we received for our $2.6 trillion.
[ Hermit : All very true. ]
As the current healthcare debate continues to rage over in sundries—the $200 billion net profit health insurance industry—the entire deliberation over disease prevention and treatment has been overshadowed. And amidst this partisan and ideological anarchy, perpetuated by our elected officials, the media, and fueled by the pharmaceutical complex, two other areas America excels as a leader above all other developed nations is in being the premier breeding ground for the pharmaceutical industrial complex’s greatest profits and, second, as the world’s exemplar in medical fraud and corruption. The fairy tale of America’s health as being best served by drugs is a creation of this complex, a lullaby that brings ill citizens repeatedly to their doctors and hospitals for diagnosis and treatment, or simply to deny healthcare altogether to the uninsured.
[ Hermit : Indeed. ]
The country is pacified by a blind belief that the drugs being prescribed to them have been proven safe because our government health agencies have our physical health and well-being in their best intentions. This is a lie, an extraordinarily deadly lie. Iatrogenesis, medically induced injury and death, is the number one cause of death in American medicine annually, since only a small percentage of these deaths are actually reported. Each year more Americans die from preventable deaths due to our medical system than all military causalities in the two world wars combined. This is tantamount to medical genocide. One of the major causes of these deaths is the overmedication of Americans in all ages. The constant need for profits has created an environment that allows the pharmaceutical industrial complex to use their enormous financial and political clout to literally make normal life experiences into new diseases, such as social anxiety disorder, in order to sell its drugs.
[ Hermit : Incorrect implication due to invalid statistical approach. The authors should not be looking at the number of deaths, but the rate of death. Americans are older, unhealthier and need more drugs than many other groups. Which creates more latrogenic incidents amongst Americans. The question, which I cannot answer as it would take a wide ranging and expensive study, is whether patients would be healthier without the drugs. My feeling is that in some cases yes, in other cases no. However, it is indubitably the case that the patients would be much better served if they had a single payer medical system with the ability to negotiate aggressively on costing, and if US drug companies refuse to price appropriately, to import drugs at competitive prices. ]
The pharmaceutical industry has been given the authority to pathologize life, with the drugging of our children, seniors, etc.
[ Hermit : This assertion desperately requires context. Americans are not healthy. The corn industry is largely responsible for that as it is almost impossible to buy any canned or bottled item that is not laced with sweeteners derived from corn. They are also couch potatoes, glued to TV with the consequence that American children are hyperactive, neurotic and drugged to the gills, which is not a good thing. In addition, large numbers of Americans are medically horribly under served until they become eligible for Medicaid/Medicare, if they live that long. Which means that many seniors enter the system carrying chronic conditions and are taking a massive number of drugs which may well be required by that point, even if earlier intervention may have prevented the requirement. Again this would require a very large study to prove or disprove. A study that to the best of my knowledge has not been performed and thus the authors are basing their assertions on no more than anecdotal evidence - which is worse than useless, ]
For example, the leading cause of AIDS deaths today is a result of liver failure. This is not a condition of HIV infection, but a direct result of the anti-HIV drug AZT.
[ Hermit : Without a cocktail of anti-viral and anti-infection drugs, the HIV positive patients would not live long enough to develop liver failure. The drugs are not perfect, but they are far better than the natural disease progression to AIDS and a painful death of associated complexes. ]
Is it little wonder then that we are being intimidated and frightened into believing that mandatory vaccination is being touted even though the science of efficacy and safety, even the need, for these new swine flu vaccines is patently unproven. It is perhaps one of the largest falsehoods ever perpetuated on humanity that dwarfs the sleaze on Wall Street.
[ Hermit : Blatantly false. Review my responses above. The influenza virus, its distribution, infection pathways, morphology, etiology, epidemiology and immunological process are well understood. The science behind this is not exclusive to the US. While the CDC is an important resource, WHO deals with many medical resources around the world, and there is broad agreement that the best defence against flue pandemics is good immunization of the greatest number of people possible, not only to prevent illness, but more importantly to minimize the population where the virus can mutate while in human hosts. ]
If any one of us committed manslaughter, we would be behind bars instead of walking a crimson carpet into the offices of our elected officials in the Congress and Senate or past the gates guarded by the nation’s Cerberus, Rahm Emmanuel, to lobby the White House. Yet if we are a pharmaceutical executive, or a lobbyist representing a drug company who has collected a litany of charges including medical fraud, criminal salesmanship, gaming the insurance industries, repeated lying to federal officials, and manipulation of data regarding life-threatening adverse effects of drugs that have killed so many people, we can walk away with a fine, a surge in the stock market after a settlement, a financial bonus, and the personal satisfaction in not having to apologize so we can continue business as usual. This is the power the pharmaceutical industrial complex possesses and its usurped right to distain every noble principle in the Hippocratic Oath that every physician dedicates her or himself to live by, “That I will exercise my art solely for the cure of my patients, and will give no drug and perform no operation for a criminal purpose.”
[ Hermit : Hyperbole. The drug companies are guilty of being greedy bastards, in large part because they are present in a country which has been built from the word go to enable greedy bastards and missed the opportunity to develop a social conscience like the rest of the industrial world. Fix the environment and the situation will likely rectify itself. ]
Every American who is prescribed a drug by a physician has the belief that that pill has undergone rigorous trials to scrutinize its safety. And when there are known potential adverse effects, we blindly assume these are known to the attending physician. However, this is a myth perpetuated not only by drug makers, but by our own federal health agencies. A 2003 investigation published in The Independent in the UK reported that “under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA routinely conceals information it considers commercially sensitive, leaving medical specialists unable to assess the true risks [of approved drugs].” One case involved a very popular over-the-counter drug, the painkiller ibuprofen. The investigators’ search uncovered concealed data showing that ibuprofen increased heart attack risks by 25 percent. Even Freedom of Information (FOI) filings to the FDA do not produce all the information being requested. For example, a group of Swiss investigators filed an FOI to procure trial data about the musculoskeletal pain drug Celecoxib and received back only 16 of the 27 trials conducted on it. A separate FOI concerning a similar drug, Valdecoxib, had pages and paragraphs deleted because sections of the document were marked as “trade secrets.” An even worse case involving a leaked report concerning internal memos and secret FDA reports provided detailed evidence that the FDA approved 9 different antidepressants, representing a total of 22 studies enrolling 4,250 children, while knowing full well that the risk of “suicide-related events” was twice as high as children taking a placebo. These are just several examples among numerous others.
[ Hermit : Another cocktail of statements based on isolated incidents which cannot be generalized into an industry wide indictment. Massive study that as far as I know do not exist would be needed to determine the validity of the accusations todded about here, and the money and energy might be better employed addressing the deficiencies at the political and regulatory level. ]
The pharmaceutical industrial complex is perhaps the largest, most influential cartel in the world. This becomes evident after considering the billions of dollars and other currencies drug companies have been forced to pay for a wide variety of corruption charges. Our analysis of 724 legal settlements from a random sampling among the over one hundred thousand by pharmaceutical corporations totally $87 billion is just a small indication about how pervasive Big Pharma’s criminality since the vast majority of settlements are concluded outside of court and remain confidential.
[ Hermit : The military-industrial-media cartel is much bigger, much greedier and much better at not getting caught. I do agree that confidential settlements are a bugbear, but that is perhaps a consequence in part of a legal system that has its own problems. It would not take much to fix this situation, only political will. Unfortunately, that cannot be established in the current political system. ]
It is extremely difficult to comprehend why the United States principle federal health agencies, particularly the FDA and National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the specific mandate to provide oversight on all pre-approved drug applications and delegated with the task to assure drugs are safe or at least specify clearly their known dangers, are so reprehensible and inept. There is only one rational answer and that is the pharmaceutical industry is the FDA’s largest client, and this relationship goes much deeper than the FDA functioning as an objective regulator investigating pharmaceutical products before being released upon the American population. It is not to far afield to suggest that as it stands now the US regulatory agencies are an extension of corporate America.
[ Hermit : Perhaps, but it is not proven. Most researchers and even most regulators are not corrupt, it appears to me to be the system that has problems. ]
As serial offenders of product safety cover-ups for over a decade, drugs have injured and killed millions. In the case Merck’s Vioxx, this one drug has killed 44,000 people and injured 120,000 others. Only in America could you kill 44,000 and not go to jail and get a raise. Should we assume, therefore, that the pharmaceutical complex should be trusted without challenge? We have also been asked to believe that the manufacturers were guided by a sense of public service. But when examining the top ten drugs sold, the facts reveal otherwise. In one example, manufacturers marked up a drug an astounding 500,000% over its equivalent generic version. Six other drugs were marked up 2000%. Pharmaceutical companies make profits higher than oil companies.
[ Hermit : As above. The questions are complex and many and this paragraph mixes morphology, politics and money in a way that does nothing to to illuminate any of them. Are people better off or worse off with and without the drugs. What would the death rate be with alternate treatments. These cannot be answered without study or, if needed, addressed without addressing the widespread systematic failure of the US political system. ]
Big Pharma’s impact is felt almost everywhere. But nowhere is it felt more than in the legal system. In a recently concluded, short-term study, we found 724 cases involving Big Pharma in which either the case ended in a verdict against the pharmaceutical company or the company settled. The number of cases is staggering, as are the dollar amounts. These cases cover practically every type of civil and criminal case. From products that kill, harm and maim, to false claims, to not paying taxes, to patent infringements, to bribery, to publishing false scientific journals. Yet, in spite of the tens of thousands of lawsuits won against Big Pharma, it still conducts business as usual.
[ Hermit : Without the source data and context it is difficult to argue over assertions like this. Equally it ought to be difficult to accept what is asserted here. The most important questions are how many companies this represented, how many of the total number of cases, and how many verdicts represented the outcome of a deliberate plea bargaining process intended to minimize cost and risk, rather than to establish strict liability. If, like the rest of the US criminal injustice system, the vast majority were the result of pleas or settlements. Which would mean that the foundation of the study is flawed as it is using data generated from a process intended to establish one outcome as input to a different study based on an incorrect presumption about what the input constitutes. ]
Eli Lilly flooded state Medicaid programs with Zyprexa: its superstar, antipsychotic drug. In 2003, worldwide sales of Zyprexa grossed $4.28 billion, amounting to almost one third of Lilly’s total sales. In the United States, during the same year, Zyprexa grossed $2.63 billion. A whopping 70 percent of these sales were directly related to government agencies—principally Medicaid. Fast-forward six years to 2009, Eli Lilly pleaded guilty for having illegally marketed Zyprexa for an unapproved use to treat dementia, and will pay $1.42 billion to settle civil suits and end the criminal investigation. Lilly agreed to pay $800 million to settle civil suits. It will pay $615 million to resolve the criminal probe, and plead guilty to a misdemeanor in violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for promoting Zyprexa as a dementia treatment.
Did Lilly also know of the possibility that Zyprexa could cause diabetes, which was also kept concealed under the protection of the FDA? They most certainly did, which makes their behavior all the more reprehensible. In 2002, British and Japanese regulatory agencies issued a warning that Zyprexa may cause diabetes. In addition, even after the FDA issued a similar warning in 2003, Lilly did not pull Zyprexa from the market. This becomes all the more understandable after it is taken into consideration that Lilly is also the largest maker of diabetes medications.
[ Hermit : All very interesting, but the same questions as I raised above need to be asked before one can begin drawing conclusions. And this article does not ask, let alone answer them. ]
An article by Mike Adams, the Natural News editor, states that Merck employees had a “hit list” of doctors they sought to “neutralize.” This allegation was confirmed when documents that had been secret were revealed during a Vioxx court case. The Australian revealed that the documents surfaced in the Federal Court in Melbourne and exposed the criminal intent of Merck employees who admitted they were going to “stop funding to institutions” and “interfere with academic appointments.” One Merck employee testified (about the doctors on the hit list), “We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live.” Merck threatened or intimidated at least eight clinical investigators, testimony in court revealed. There are other, similar stories in which Merck deals with dissent by attempting to destroy the lives and careers of academics who don’t review their drugs favorably.
[ Hermit : This sounds like a perfect description of scorched earth business practice as taught and celebrated in every US MBA program. The idea that it would not be practised or exported displays hair raising naivety. ]
Merck is steeped in a well-documented record of criminality. Such actions include, but are not limited to, intentionally hiding the liver-damaging effects of its cholesterol drug, intentionally withholding the release of clinical data that revealed the failures of another cholesterol drug; it has dumped vaccine waste and manufacturing chemicals into water supplies; it opened up offshore banking accounts to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. taxes, and it was caught in a huge scheme of scientific fraud when it was discovered that the company used in-house writers to secretly write so-called “independent” studies that were published in peer-reviewed medical journals.
[ Hermit : And? These are merely additional examples of the ruling business practices. Interfering with them would cause "the end of capitalism as we enjoy it". If anyone seeks to change them, they would first need to address the political and administration system that has encouraged the development of this half-baked monstrosity. ]
Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC enforce, it is illegal to bribe a foreign government official in order to obtain or retain business. Apparently, Bristol-Myers and Schering Plough were unaware of this law. According to the Associated Press, both drug makers were engaged in influencing government officials in Germany and Poland respectively.
[ Hermit : Yesterday's bribe is today's market loyalty incentivisation program - or donations to a re-election campaign. Bribes are only disliked when they go to the wrong people. ]
Earlier this year, an article in the Boston Business Journal reported that a former drug company sales executive pleaded guilty in Boston federal court to telling the roughly 100 representatives she supervised that they should promote a pain drug for uses she knew had been rejected by the FDA. Bextra was the drug she pleaded guilty to inappropriately selling. Pfizer has since pulled it from the market. According to a press release from U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan's office, “Holloway was aware of the FDA's safety concerns, but...she nonetheless had her sales staff of approximately 100 employees sells Bextra for precisely the uses that the FDA refused to approve.”
[ Hermit : Poor woman got caught and fell on her sword. Perhaps she had a family to feed or other weakness that could be exploited by either the company or the prosecutor or both. These authors really appear to be overly cynical about the drug industry and totally trusting that the US legal system delivers truth and justice. It would do them good to spend as much time looking as hard at the court system as they have at the pharmaceutical industry. Though hoppefully a little more rationally. ]
The pharmaceutical complex has also infiltrated the majority of American medical schools and medical research departments. A recent survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association discovered that 60% of academic department chairs have personal ties to industry (as consultants, board members, or paid speakers), while 66% of the academic departments had institutional ties to industry. Researchers who receive funding from drug and medical-device manufacturers are up to 3.5 times as likely to state their study drug or medical device works than are researchers without such funding.
[ Hermit : Again, this is totally unsurprising. Whereas in the distant past and the rest of the world before Thatcher and Reagan were done with them, Universities tended to be government funded, today the American model predominates and industry sponsors and feeds upon Universities, and Universities support and feed upon industry in a perfectly Orobosian synchronicity. Do the authors really anticipate that the Pharmaceutical academics would come from the agricultural or zoology departments or that academics would bite the hands that feed them? Again this weird combination of extreme cynicism about the medical industry and profession of trusting faith that other institutions are not subject to similar forces. ]
In America, one can hardly turn on the television or pick up a newspaper without reading about the hot button issue of health care reform. Why such emotion? Why are, seemingly, rational people so intransigent and unwilling to budge from their positions? Could lobbyists have anything to do with this? According to OpenSecrets.org, there are 3093 lobbyists in the health field and Big Pharma now spends approximately $1.2 million daily to persuade Congress to act according to their script. An investigation conducted by Medical Verdicts & Law Weekly found that 30 key lawmakers are involved in health legislation totaling $11 million in health investments. Three of every four major health firms have at least one lobbyist who worked for a congressman. Startlingly, nine lobbyists employed by Big Pharma are former congressional staffers who are still well-connected to Capitol Hill. The conflicts of interest are everywhere. Judd Gregg (R-NH), the Obama nominee for Commerce Secretary, who withdrew because of opposition to the Administration's agenda, is a senior member of the Health Committee. He revealed that he has $254,000-$560,000 in health stocks."
[ Hermit : This appears to be an accurate portrayal of the situation. The right to buy the US government has been enshrined by precedent for practically as long as it has existed. After all, it was the merchant class that instigated and motivated the insurrection leading to the founding of the USA. ]
In 2000, Mylan Labs settled a case for $100 million. What the numbers don’t tell you is the story behind the numbers. In 1998, Mylan raised the wholesale price of clorazepate, a generic tranquilizer, to $377.00 (for 500 tablets) from $11.36 in one year. This represents a 3000% increase on a generic drug.
It was subsequently revealed that Mylan conspired with the main manufacturer of the active, indispensible ingredient to have an exclusive agreement. The agreement prevented any other manufacturers from producing the drug, for without the active ingredient, the drug could not be made. Mylan’s deception was uncovered and it had to pay $100 million to settle an FTC antitrust case. But Mylan represents only an infinitesimal percentage of such examples. In all likelihood, the vast majority of similar cases remain undetected. The FDA’s under-regulation and erroneous oversight encourages this type of corruption.
[ Hermit : Another story that could come right out of a "business case study example" in practically any MBA program world wide. Business has largely adopted American tactics and ethics. It is only the unfortunate who get caught. Even so, for these authors to hint that there was something wrong with one of the few companies to be caught by one of the very rare, honoured-more-in-the breach antitrust regulations, and then suggest that this means that everyone does it is yet another example of them invalidly arguing from anecdotal evidence to general rules. ]
Another case included in our study states, “TAP [Taketa-Abbott Pharmaceutical] Pharmaceutical Products Inc. -- $875,000,000 under the False Claims Act.” TAP agreed to pay $875 million to resolve criminal charges and civil liabilities in connection with its fraudulent drug pricing and marketing conduct regarding the drug Lupron, according to a press release from the Department of Justice. Lupron is used by male cancer patients to suppress the production of testosterone. Another drug worked as well, so to make Lupron the drug of choice for this condition, TAP played dirty by giving kickbacks to physicians prescribing the drug, thus ensuring its ridiculously high price would be maintained. Even though criminal indictments were filed against TAP Pharmaceutical officials, Lupron’s price remains overly inflated.
[ Hermit : The intent having been profit at any cost, the system has res ipsa loquitur succeeded beyond the most optimistic dreams of avarice. I think that the authors are tying to say that they don't much like the US that the people of the US thought they wanted? ]
Ever wonder why Big Pharma would engage in all manner of illegal activity? In light of the steady stream of articles detailing how the elderly are oftentimes forced to choose between purchasing their medication and buying food, a good place to begin is to examine what it costs to make a drug and what Big Pharma sells it for. Life Extension magazine conducted an original investigative report in which it compared the actual price of a popular drug and how much the generic version of its active ingredients costs.
[ Hermit : I do not see how obscene profits dictate "engagement in all manner of illegal activity" which is what the authors appear to be trying to suggest here. ]
Examine these figures:
In order to understand how we can spend 2.6 trillion this year on healthcare, but not reduce the incidence of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, mental conditions, arthritis, etc., we must realize this is a game. With each piece of the puzzle, feeding into a single picture of a massively corrupt, unethical, and frequently illegal system controlled by relatively few corporations within the pharmaceutical complex and the health insurance industry, are the ring leaders. They in turn influence thousands of lobbyists, paid-off scientists and academicians, and policymakers, especially those who rule on important health oversight committees. Health officials and legislators in turn solicit expert witnesses, preselected by the cartels, to position their drug agendas in the most favorable manner. The pharmaceutical cartel also has direct connections with its supporting scientific advisory boards and key foundations. These foundations, supported by policy think tanks who supply the so-called independent experts, then lobby the upper echelon within the FDA, NIH, CDC, NIMH, HHS. Ideally they hire former health commissioners and legislators previously players in the game to assist those same federal agencies to see their drugs guided through the regulatory process. Public relations and advertizing firms are contracted to give the public impression that these drugs are effective and safe for the sole reason they have received official licensing. In addition, the cartel creates front organizations with consumer-friendly titles whose representatives appear at national conferences and seminars beholden to special drug interests. Finally, the drug corporations set money aside to be paid out in settlements. With the exception of class action suits, the majority of cases for injury and death are accompanied by confidentiality clauses to prevent public disclosure of data the companies wish to remain secret.
[ Hermit : This appears reasonably accurate, but, even though this seems to be presented as a summary, I do not think that it follows from what came before, but rather an introduction to further paragraphs which the authors appear to have forgotten to include. Noticing how they spelled "advertizing" perhaps they were interrupted before they completed the artlicle and proof-read it. ]
This is how the medical system is rigged and it is why we can watch 60 Minutes or read the New York Times serving as pharmaceutical shills to encourage vaccination, yet refusing to air or print the dissenting voices who have the scientific evidence to show it is a massive fraud. Therefore, the public is misled every step of the way. Victims of injury, such as the tens of thousands of children, now at 1 in 91 children, with autism spectrum disorder, are forced to fend for themselves. Parents know far better than the FDA and CDC, when their perfectly normal child after a vaccination or a series of vaccines shortly thereafter is lost, withdrawn into the dark corners of autism. And yet the pediatrician and psychologist will say the child must have had a genetic defect. The CDC, FDA and NIH, with an orchestrated voice, say it is not the vaccine. Everyone within the pharmaceutical industrial complex denies the truth. Only now, during the healthcare debate, are we seeing clearly the rampant politics of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. The veils are finally being removed. If it were not for the healthcare debacle, we might still not know how the game is rigged and why our politicians and health officials will not tolerate any real reform and accountability at any level.
[ Hermit : Given that one of the two authors was allegedly involved in suing the FDA to attempt to prevent distribution of the H1N1 vaccine, this may in fact be the crux of the article. "Autism spectrum disorder" has not ever been successfully connected to vaccination, although some of the tinfoil wearing outer fringes of the conspiracy theory brigade have adopted it as a rallying cry. Given the vast numbers of people innoculated and the tiny number of people (1–2 per 1,000 for autism and close to 6 per 1,000 for ASD Wikipedia) diagnosed with the portmanteaux of symptoms thought to indicate one of the broader autism phenotype indicators, I don't think that the authors' unsupported assertions in this matter can be relied upon. As I see it, the alleged phenomenon is a figment of overheated imaginations and supported, as here, only by frantic hand waving, probably best ignored as being somewhat embarrassing, like the funny smell around people whose sphincter control becomes less than perfect as they age. ]
If we want to clean up American medicine, the corporate shield must be removed and politicians, health officials and pharmaceutical executives must be held accountable. If they are threatened with jail time for manslaughter by pushing dangerous drugs, then we will see less life-threatening drugs go to market.
[ Hermit : Possibly somewhat true. Who decides which "dangerous drugs" do more good than harm and which dangerous drugs do more harm than good? After all, corn syrup may be the most addictive and dangerous drug in the world, leading even tobacco as a killer. And nobody has been prosecuted for that even though it certainly kills more people per year than the medical industry and tobacco suppliers combined.
A more sensible question might be whether anyone is "pushing dangerous drugs" with the intent of harming people? I think it more likely that those promoting drugs for profit are perfectly competent to persuade themselves that they are only out to do good. So disengaging the for profit manufacturers from the medical industry might be a better way to address this problem than threatening to throw yet more people into jail in a country that leads the next most totalitarian state by nearly 7:1 in their incarceration rate. Comparing the USA's 737:100,000 (Federal data) with China's 111:100,000 and Denmark's 59:1 rate (Source Wikipedia) I am forced to wonder if Americans really are such evil people as their incarceration rates reflect, or whether, as the most religious nation in the industrial world, it has something to do with their religion? ]
We are in a perfect storm without a life raft. We much take back our freedoms of choice and demand legal accountability or nothing will change.
[ Hermit : My what an impressive sounding paragraph. But what, pray, does it have to do with what went before? ]
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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letheomaniac
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #21 on: 2009-11-25 06:17:36 » |
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Mo:
Quote:| I was referring to the author Blunderov quoted not you of course. We need to feel free to post things that may be BS to the BBS - we are after all collectively good bullshit detectors and I see that as part of the function of the Church. I think this is an entirely appropriate thread for us. |
[letheomaniac] Got hold of the wrong end of that stick - apologies! 
Hermit:
Quote:| "Autism spectrum disorder" has not ever been successfully connected to vaccination, although some of the tinfoil wearing outer fringes of the conspiracy theory brigade have adopted it as a rallying cry. Given the vast numbers of people innoculated and the tiny number of people (1–2 per 1,000 for autism and close to 6 per 1,000 for ASD Wikipedia) diagnosed with the portmanteaux of symptoms thought to indicate one of the broader autism phenotype indicators, I don't think that the authors' unsupported assertions in this matter can be relied upon. |
[letheomaniac] I'm sure that South African kids are given the very same vaccinations that American kids are and autism is rare here to the point of being unheard of. My feeling is that the large number of American children suffering from Autism spectrum disorder must be connected to some kind of environmental factor that is common in the States and rare in the backwoods of African, probably pullution related. I in no way agree with the authors of the article on their theories regarding Autism, I rather just wanted to use their table of drug-price mark-ups as an example. I must point out that there has been no national roll-out of H1N1 vaccine here in SA, and as yet there have only been two reported deaths from swine flu, neither of which could actually be conclusively linked to the H1N1 virus - perhaps a less virulent mutation of the virus is the one that ended up on our shores?
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Hermit
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #22 on: 2009-11-25 11:08:34 » |
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[Hemit] Letheomaniac, you might want to delete one of the two replies above and look at your posts in Serious business too. It seems that you or the server stuttered last night. Perhaps whichever of you was responsible might practice singing:Sannie s^e Sannie sal sewe sakke sout sleep
Sannie s^e sy s^e Sannie sleep swaar
Sannie s^e Sannie sal sewe sakke sout sleep
Sewe sakke sout is swaar sowaar From memory so it may be wrong. In the word "s^e", where the circonflexe should be over the "e", the "e" is pronounced much as it is in "heir", only somewhat flatter. Here is a somewhat poetic translation attempt:Sannie says Sannie will schlep seven sacks of salt
But schlepping seven sacks of salt is serious stuff
Sannie says Sannie will schlep seven sacks of salt
But schlepping seven sacks of salt is strenuous enough. [Letheomaniac] I'm sure that South African kids are given the very same vaccinations that American kids are
[Hermit] If not identical (there are 5 vaccine developers world wide), then very close in composition (they all use the same method for development and production).
[Letheomaniac] and autism is rare here to the point of being unheard of.
[Hermit] I suspect that it may be an issue of diagnosability. In other words, the more people who are seen by psychiatrists, the more people diagnosed with Autism. The US has *many* psychiatrists and a school system that sends children to them so that they can be given drugs to deal with issues that are regarded as behavioural and treated with a cane in South Africa (and of course a cane triggers the release of multiple hormones that may well have similar results to administering stimulants).
[Letheomaniac] My feeling is that the large number of American children suffering from Autism spectrum disorder must be connected to some kind of environmental factor that is common in the States and rare in the backwoods of African, probably pullution related.
[Hermit] Could be. This entire North American continent is swimming in rocket fuel and nitrates. My own suspicion, triggered and bolstered by my mother, who is very good at picking up correlations of this sort, is that TV has more than a little to do with it.
[Letheomaniac] I in no way agree with the authors of the article on their theories regarding Autism, I rather just wanted to use their table of drug-price mark-ups as an example.
[Hermit] Would have saved me a lot of time if you had mentioned that :-(
[Letheomaniac] I must point out that there has been no national roll-out of H1N1 vaccine here in SA, and as yet there have only been two reported deaths from swine flu, neither of which could actually be conclusively linked to the H1N1 virus - perhaps a less virulent mutation of the virus is the one that ended up on our shores?
[Hermit] More likely that, as I noted in Reply 17 Supra, "Note that the mortality data reflects climate, population density and reporting capability as much is it does deaths. In other words, countries with too little infrastructure to determine and report morbidity data reflect similarly to those where this batch of flue has not yet reached its peak and those where summer is giving them additional time to prepare for their flue seasons."
Love
Hermit&Co
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Fritz
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #23 on: 2009-11-27 16:28:46 » |
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[Fritz]Always the element of some risk though ....
Source: BBC News
Author: n/a
Date: Wednesday, 25 November 2009
GlaxoSmithKline has advised doctors in Canada to stop using a batch of its swine flu vaccine, amid reports of severe side-effects in some patients.
The batch of some 170,000 doses was put on voluntary hold because of a reported higher than usual number of patients having anaphylactic reactions.
This may include breathing problems, raised heart rate and skin rashes.
The pharmaceutical company said it had advised that one lot of the Arepanrix vaccine should not be used.
Reports said one in 20,000 people suffered adverse reactions to the batch.
This is five times the expected number. None of the patients reportedly suffered long-term ill-effects.
Voluntary hold
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the company said that following discussions with Canadian health authorities, it was advising a batch of the Arepanrix vaccine with the lot number A80CA007A to be put on hold as a precautionary measure.
GSK said it was taking this action "as a result of a higher than expected rate of serious allergic reactions related to this lot number compared to other lots".
The company said no such reactions had been seen with other lots and that they were unaffected by the voluntary hold.
To date some 15 million doses of Arepanrix have been distributed across Canada and overall the frequency of severe allergic reaction following immunisation was less than one event per 100,000, GSK's statement said.
"This rate does not exceed the rates typically reported for other vaccines," GSK said.
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Fritz
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #24 on: 2009-11-29 10:32:19 » |
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The OMA has some interesting preventative advise for doctors to pass along in Ontario to ward off H1N1. Note worthy as well is, when I asked to have my vitamin D levels tested I was told everyone north of Washington DC is deficient in Vitamin D so just take the supplements.
I have been taking vitamin D3 now for over 6 months and when tested last month my levels were just reaching acceptable level even after a summer at a cottage in the sun.
Cheers
Fritz
Dear Colleagues
Please click on the below hyperlink to view an important document which we acquired through Gerry Schwalfenberg, MD CCFP, Clinical lecturer in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.
Source: http://www.oma.org/edf/NIHVitaminDImmunity2008.pdf
Dr. Schwalfenberg's articles on vitamin D published in the Canadian Family Physician may be familiar to you. http://www.cfp.ca/cgi/content/short/53/5/841
This document, an NIH Public Access Author Manuscript, lays out the explanation for the rationale of providing adequate levels of vitamin D to improve host resistance against H1N1.
Our Pandemic Planners have offered the public either barrier defences (wash hands, sneeze in your sleeve) or vaccines as the only means to protect oneself from the virus. There has been no official mention of improving host resistance by means of healthy eating, increased rest, exercise or, perhaps most importantly, taking adequate doses of vitamin D.
It is safe to take 10,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily [Hathcock JN, Shao A, Veith R, Heaney R. Risk assessment for vitamin D. 2007 Am J Clin Nutr;85(1):6-18] and at least one study has shown no hypercalcemia (the marker for vitamin D toxicity) with doses of 40,000 IU per day [Kimball SM, Ursell MR, O'connor P, Vieth R. Safety of vitamin D3 in adults with multiple sclerosis. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Sep;86(3):645-51.]
Dr. Schwalfenberger and others are recommending 10,000 IU q12 h of vitamin D for five doses and 10,000 IU daily for a week in patients who acutely come down with viral symptoms. He does not use as much if they already use vitamin D daily and if one knows the individual's 25OHD level is above 100 nmol/L, the loading dose would not seem to be as necessary.
Please consider this information with respect to advising your patients who are anxious to protect themselves and their loved ones from influenza and pass this information along to whomever you know who can assist in its dissemination.
Thank you.
Yours truly,
Linda M. Rapson MD
President, Ontario Society of Physicians for Complementary Medicine
Chair, OMA Section on Complementary Medicine
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Blunderov
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #25 on: 2009-12-31 07:58:41 » |
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[Blunderov] Interesting. Let the running for cover begin...
European Parliament to Investigate WHO and “Pandemic” Scandal
Author: F. William Engdahl
Dated; December 31, 2009
Global Research
The Council of Europe member states will launch an inquiry in January 2010 on the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign, focusing especially on extent of the pharma‘s industry’s influence on WHO. The Health Committee of the EU Parliament has unanimously passed a resolution calling for the inquiry. The step is a long-overdue move to public transparency of a “Golden Triangle” of drug corruption between WHO, the pharma industry and academic scientists that has permanently damaged the lives of millions and even caused death.
The parliament motion was introduced by Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, former SPD Member of the German Bundestag and now Chairman of the European Parliament Health Committee. Wodarg is a medical doctor and epidemiologist, a specialist in lung disease and environmental medicine, who considers the current “pandemic” Swine Flu campaign of the WHO to be “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the Century.”[1]
The text of the resolution just passed by a sufficient number in the Council of Europe Parliament says among other things, “In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards to alarm governments worldwide and make them squander tight health resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly expose millions of healthy people to the risk of an unknown amount of side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines. The "bird-flu"-campaign (2005/06) combined with the "swine-flu"-campaign seem to have caused a great deal of damage not only to some vaccinated patients and to public health-budgets, but to the credibility and accountability of important international health-agencies.”[2]
The Parliamentary inquiry will look into the issue of „falsified pandemic“ that was declared by WHO in June 2009 on the advice of its group of academic experts, SAGE, many of whose members have been documented to have intense financial ties to the same pharmaceutical giants such as GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Novartis, who benefit from the production of drugs and untested H1N1 vaccines. They will investigate the influence of the pharma industry in creation of a worldwide campaign against the so-called H5N1 “Avian Flu” and H1N1 Swine Flu. The inquiry will be given “urgent” priority in the general assembly of the parliament.
In his official statement to the Committee, Wodarg criticized the influence of the pharma industry on scientists and officials of WHO, stating that it has led to the situation where “unnecessarily millions of healthy people are exposed to the risk of poorly tested vaccines,” and that, for a flu strain that is “vastly less harmful” than all previous flu epidemics.
Wodarg says the role of the WHO and its the pandemic emergency declaration in June needs to be the special focus of the European Parliamentary inquiry. For the first time, the WHO criteria for a pandemic was changed in April 2009 as the first Mexico cases were reported, to make not the actual risk of a disease but the number of cases of the disease basis to declare “Pandemic.” By classifying the swine flu as pandemic, nations were compelled to implement pandemic plans and also the purchase swine flu vaccines. Because WHO is not subject to any parliamentary control, Wodarg argues it is necessary for governments to insist on accountability. The inquiry will also to look at the role of the two critical agencies in Germany issuing guidelines on the pandemic, the Paul-Ehrlich and the Robert-Koch Institute.
Bravo!
F. William Engdahl is author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order. He may be contacted through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.
Notes
1. Rainer Woratschka, Schweinerei mit der Grippe, Der Tagesspiegel, 16 December, 2009, accessed in http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/international/Schweinegrippe-Europarat;art123,2976433.
2. Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, Motion for a Resolution and a Recommendation: Faked Pandemics - a threat for health, accessed in http://www.wodarg.de/english/2948146.html.
F. William Engdahl is a frequent contributor to Global Research
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Fritz
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #26 on: 2010-01-11 22:28:08 » |
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FYI ...
Cheers
Fritz
Source: email
Author: Ontario Medical Association
Date: 2010.01.11
OMA President's Update
Volume 14, No. 20
H1N1 Update
The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has issued another Important Health Notice on H1N1. A summary of changes is provided below, and a direct link to the update is available at: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/providers/program/emu/ihn.html
H1N1 has been confirmed as the predominant circulating influenza strain in many communities and there is little utility for routine testing once the virus is widespread in the community.
Clinical Guidelines for Ambulatory Settings & Emergency Departments have been revised as follows:
Laboratory testing for patients with mild symptoms of influenza-like illness (ILI) is not currently recommended.
Laboratory testing related to clinical management should only be performed on patients requiring hospitalization and on patients at high risk for complications from influenza (e.g., immunocompromised, pregnant, persons under the age of 2 years and over 65 years of age).
Treatment with antiviral drugs should be based on clinical features and risk assessment only. The diagnosis of an influenza-like illness can be made on a clinical basis and testing does not alter treatment recommendations.
Complete Clinical Guidance documents can be accessed from the Ministry‚s Health Care Providers webpage at: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/updates/archives/hu_09/provider/default.html
Dr. Suzanne Strasberg
OMA President
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #27 on: 2010-02-08 09:22:09 » |
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Hermit:
Quote:| Letheomaniac, you might want to delete one of the two replies above and look at your posts in Serious business too. It seems that you or the server stuttered last night. |
[letheomaniac] Sorry Hermit - the limitations of 3rd world tech you know. I'll make sure everything gets nicely tidied up.
<snip>
WHO alters definition of pandemic
In her June 11th declaration Chan said that she had come to her decision to declare a pandemic because 'on the basis of available evidence, and these expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met'. What she didn't say was that the WHO had previously adjusted the criteria for a pandemic downward. In May the headline of a small Reuters article read: 'WHO rethinks criteria for Phase 6 pandemic flu'.
What's clear is that in 2005 it was still necessary for a new influenza subtype to surface before it could satisfy the criterium for a pandemic. Since May of 2009, it is sufficient for an influenza virus to mutate relative to the original subtype. 'Under the new meaning, a pandemic does not need to cause high numbers of death or illness', writes Truthout. 'A month after changing the definition, with just 144 people dead from H1N1, the flu was given the WHO's highest threat classification: a "stage-six pandemic alert." By comparison, the mildest 20th century pandemic killed a million people'.
Epidemiologist Tom Jefferson says on Swedish television: 'What they [WHO] have done, is that they have taken out the part that referred to simultaneous outbreaks, high morbidity - that is a very high number of severe cases - and mortality. So now, this 2009 definition, could very well fit seasonal influenza. So I don't understand what the difference is anymore. The new definition lowers the threshold. It makes [it into] a pandemic now and possibly a pandemic going on for some time'. Phase six is still in effect to this day . Jefferson goes on to say: 'And it obviously favours those who have to sell products'.
The new classification has implications for the future, for 'according to the new definition, almost any influenza virus that mutates from the original subtype (a process known as "drift") would qualify as a pandemic strain if it spread readily from human to human'. The meaning of the term 'pandemic' has been considerably deflated by the new criterium. It's a cosmetic change that in practice is making a big difference.
WHO income streams
With an influential organization such as the WHO, independence is crucial. It's therefore justifiable to examine its sources of income. From an extensive article in the weekly Austrian magazine Profil it's evident that in 1998, the majority of the WHO's income came from governments. After the WHO entered into 'partnerships' in 2004, most of the money came from 'voluntary contributions', some of those of course coming from industry. According to last year's budget, those contributions amount to 2.3 billion euros, and that amount is about three times as much as what the countries of the UN contribute. Profil: 'The vaccine producers were invited - naturally - to all of the discussions on the pandemic'.
<snip>
Source article
[letheomaniac] Sorry guys, but I still think that the swine flu was a scam. The WHO is bought and paid for just like the US government. Hope the vaccinations were free...
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #28 on: 2010-06-08 04:43:55 » |
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Interesting article here: British Medical Journal
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Fritz
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Re:Obama Administration Launches Deceptive Swine Flu Propaganda Blitz
« Reply #29 on: 2010-06-08 09:46:41 » |
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Quote from: letheomaniac on 2010-06-08 04:43:55
I wonder if the actual flu vaccines and the prophylactic drugs like Tamiflu have different stories ?
Cheers
Fritz
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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