Whittemore Peterson Institute’s XMRV study

WHITTEMORE PETERSON INSTITUTE

The spectrum of neuro-immune diseases including: Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), Atypical MS, Fibromyalgia and Gulf War Syndrome, share common abnormalities in the innate immune response inc, which result in chronic immune activation and immune deficiency.

We have detected the retroviral infection XMRV is greater than 95% of the more than 200 ME/CFS, Fibromylagia, Atypical MS patients tested. The current working hypothesis is that XMRV infection of B, T, NK and other cells of the innate immune response causes the chronic inflammation and immune deficiency resulting in an inability to mount an effective immune response to opportunistic infections. (See XMRV paper in Science.)

This discovery opens an entire new avenue of Neuro-Immune Disease related research and our discovery has brought to this field world-renown immunologists and retrovirologists building our team of collaborators to translate our discoveries into new treatments as soon as possible.

Because retroviruses are known to cause inflammatory diseases, neurological disease immune deficiency and cancer the discovery of XMRV has far reaching implications for the prevention and treatment of not only lymphoma, one of the potentially devastating complications of ME/CFS but prostate cancer and perhaps many others.

As National Academy of Sciences member and expert retrovirologist, John Coffin wrote in the commentary accompanying our landmark publication in Science "One New Virus-How many Old Diseases". We look forward to translating this discovery into treatment options!

Reeves out- cause of celebration for CFS patients

Cinder Bridge Blog wrote:

William C. Reeves, head of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research Program at the CDC, is moving on. Effective February 14, he'll become senior advisor for a another department within the agency. Dr. Elizabeth Unger will temporarily replace him.
Those of you who have ME/CFS have probably heard about this already, and almost certainly know why it's cause for celebration. For everybody else, here's the deal.
Reeves has led the CDC's CFS program for around a decade. During that time, he has done nothing to bring us closer to a cure, or even marginally effective treatment. Instead ...

• He has diluted the definition of ME/CFS to include people who instead suffer from clinical depression.
• Armed with the new, diluted definition, he has promoted the belief that childhood trauma and sexual abuse are linked to ME/CFS. The 2009 paper supporting this assertion fails to cite an earlier study, which found that people with ME/CFS are less likely to report such abuse.
• He has championed cognitive behavioral therapy and graded exercise therapy, which may have small benefits for people with clinical depression, but do nothing for people with ME/CFS. In fact, graded exercise therapy can actually harm people with the disease.

In October of last year, the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro Immune Disease announced that it had found a strong link between ME/CFS and a retrovirus called XMRV. The discovery shone a bright light on Reeves' biases. Immediately following the announcement, he told the New York Times that "We and others are looking at our own specimens and trying to confirm it. If we validate it, great. My expectation is that we will not."
Will Reeves' move represent a significant change in the way the CDC deals with the disease? Will they take the program in a different direction? No idea.
It's possible that the CDC saw which way the wind was blowing in the wake of the XMRV discovery and decided to make Reeves the fall guy. Maybe they intend to go back to business as usual after he leaves, hoping that his removal alone will appease angry sufferers and advocates.
If that's the case, they're very wrong. It won't appease us. But it is still cause for celebration.
I like the way the wind is blowing.

THE MMR VACCINE IS NOT HOLY WATER

Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, DO
February 17, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

For nearly a decade, the British General Medical Council (GMC), the equivalent of a U.S State Medical Board on steroids, has been taking Dr. Andrew Wakefield to task for daring to suggest that autism could be caused by the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. This week proved that the inquisition continues. The Times UK published a report written by commissioned journalist, Brian Deer, claiming that “confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses” have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data.[1] Deer claims that Dr. Wakefield’s “misleading and inaccurate” research about the MMR has lead to reduced vaccination rates and a resurgence of measles. And while the bickering about the MMR continues, the number of children who have been lost to autism continues to soar.

Before the 1990s, U.K. researchers estimated four to five cases of autism per 10,000 people in their country. By 2006, the number with autism had escalated to 39 per 10,000 and the number with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) stood at 77 per 10,000, making the total prevalence of all types of ASD 116 per 10,000, or one in every 86 children.[2] Barely one year later (2007), researchers at the Cambridge University's Autism Research Center in London released a report estimating that one in every 58 children in the U.K. (not just boys) suffers from "some form of autism disorder."[3]

The current population of the United Kingdom is estimated to be nearly 61 million.[4] One in every 58 equates to 1.7 percent of the population. The reality of that statistic should make one gasp: more than 1,000,000 citizens in the U.K. will become mentally handicapped adults, living on drugs and in group homes to manage their behavior. In twenty years, more than a million persons will be absent from the ranks of engineers, shop owners, doctors, lawyers, policemen, firemen and teachers. In addition, a significant portion of the population will be needed to care for adults who will be incapable of self care. Who will pay these costs?

Adults with severe autism could live very long lives. Some may have asthma and others bowel disorders, but unlike children with a true genetic disorder such as Down's syndrome, autistic adults could live well into their 70s or 80s. Who will care for them? Feed them? Bathe them? Who will wipe their bottoms? Persons with severe regressive autism have not lost their health; they have lost their minds. What if one in 58 children were suddenly going blind or becoming deaf? If vaccines were the suspected cause, would doctors continue to robotically vaccinate and explain away the travesty -- blaming genetics -- then try to fix the problem by increasing the number of seeing-eye dogs and cochlear implants? How much destruction of human life is necessary before the medical profession stops genuflecting to a methodology that should have become a relic of history, similar to bloodletting and skull trephination to release evil spirits?

The United Kingdom is a relatively small country. What will this society look like, with one million autistic adults in its midst? Imagine this as the opening scene of a movie, set in 20 years from now in 2029:

…The opening camera shot scans a British street, typical and narrow, bustling with activity. As the camera zooms in, it becomes apparent that something is disturbingly wrong. Dozens of adults with blank stares are wandering aimlessly through the streets flapping and shouting frequent, unintelligible words. Shopkeepers are concerned for their safety as these over-sized, unemployed adults, mostly men, bang on doors and nearly break windows, searching for food and shelter. Overwhelmed social workers do their best to keep these strong, frightened souls under control but with little success…

This science fiction story may become a reality show in a few short years. But this won’t be happening only in the UK. Autism rates across the globe are exploding. While the World Health Organization does not maintain global statistics on the prevalence of autism, reports from individual countries indicate the alarming scope of the problem.

Numerous studies have placed the rate of autism in India at approximately 1 in 500, or nearly 1.7 million autistic persons.[5] A report by China Central Television reported at least 1.8 million people (including 400,000 children) have autism in China, a number growing by nearly 20 percent per year.[6] Both of these countries have three times the population of the US but we nearly as many children with autism, nearly 1.5 million.[7] Perhaps Dr. Wakefield could see the future as he tried to stop the triple-vaccine jab from ruining the future of not only his country, but the entire world.

The recent decision on February 13, 2009 by the Special Court of Federal Claims, referred to as the “Vaccine Court,” perpetuates the travesty and once again defends the MMR as though it were Holy Water in a syringe. The ruling stated that claims connecting the MMR vaccine and autism were "speculative and unpersuasive." More than 1,500 news outlets proclaimed that the MMR did not cause autism. And while the paid mouthpiece of the vaccine industry, Dr Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia chirped, “It's a great day for science, it's a great day for America's children when the court rules in favor of science," hundreds of children are regressing daily in front of their parent’s eyes after a vaccine. How dare our government – and a doctor who took an oath to do no harm -- call them liars?

Several years ago, Dr. Wakefield and I were speakers at an autism conference in Dallas. On Saturday evening, Andy delivered the keynote speech at a dinner that doubled as a fund raiser for the sponsoring organization. I remember his words, and his stately British accent, as clearly today as the night he spoke them.

He told of his journey from a conventionally trained medical doctor into the world of autism.

Parents implored him to examine their children who had developed autistic tendencies and severe bowel disorders soon after receiving the MMR vaccine. Was there a connection? Colonoscopies were performed and the tissue samples from the each of the children surprisingly contained vaccine-strain measles virus. In 1998, he was the lead author in a paper published in The Lancet which concluded, “We did not prove an association between measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described…Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine.”[8]

The personal and professional attacks began shortly after his case report was published. It was impossible to predict that this single, observational paper would lead to years of vile phlegm being spewed at him for the mere suggestion of an association between a vaccine and autism. He concluded his story with a reflection that, had he foreseen the onslaught that was to follow, perhaps he would have treated the children without fanfare and without publishing his findings.

Undeterred by the verbal and legal assaults, his research continued. He told of a time when he hand-delivered well-designed studies to a top Merck executive, imploring him to examine the data that strongly suggested an association between the measles virus and autism. In a follow up conversation with this very senior executive, Dr. Andy asked, “Did you bother to read any of those studies I gave you?” The Merck executive flatly replied, “We don’t have to.”

We don’t have to? Does that mean Merck makes the rules about the MMR? Does that mean Merck can deny the research of Dr. Wakefield, and subsequently, many others who have seen a correlation between the MMR and autism? One thing is certain: The good doctor poked a stick in the eye of an unfriendly giant named Merck. The giant joined forces with his powerful buddies in the Public Health Department and British National Health Service. Together, they have worked every angle to ensure that Dr. Wakefield’s reputation would be destroyed and any connection between the MMR vaccine and autism would be negated. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the renewed attacks on Dr Wakefield began within days of the Vaccine Court’s proclamation that there is no connection between the MMR and autism.

At the close of his speech, Dr. Wakefield directly addressed the conference speakers and the activist parents in the room. He chose his words carefully and delivered them with laser focus. He asserted that those who work tirelessly to expose the truth about vaccines are the last hope for seriously ill, vaccine-injured children. “We must continue,” he said, “no matter how difficult the road, no matter how serious the consequences. We must fight for these children….because if we put down the flag and surrender when the going gets a little bit tough, who else will do it? Who will dare pick up the torch and carry it forward if we quit? There will be no one...not one. And the next generation of children…and the next…will be forever lost.”

The profoundness of his words hung in the air; there was no movement for a very long time. Each person knew, unequivocally, he had spoken truth directly into the heart. Our resolve was strengthened and united. The future of humanity hangs in the balance. One by one, hands slowly came together. The applause crescendoed to a roaring, well-deserved standing ovation.

That was November, 2003. The dogged determination of many who work tirelessly to expose the damage being done by vaccines is making a difference. The world is waking up because the health problems of our children are no longer anomalies. Parents are questioning the once-size-fits-all vaccination policies dictated by the minions of pharma. They are refusing to inject their precious babies with more than 100 vaccine antigens and measureable amounts of carcinogenic chemicals as a pre-requisite for school.

Moms and dads are standing firm, resisting the pressure from White Coats to vaccinate. They have done their homework and they are not frightened by the so-called “vaccine-preventable diseases.”

They are finding caregivers who support their decisions, leaving behind the pediatrician whose primary purpose is to give shots on a schedule decided by medical bureaucrats. Parents are embracing the fact that children can be healthy with plenty of sleep, ample exercise, clean hands, fresh water, good quality food and vitamins.

Whistleblowers and brave hearts are more often executed than honored for their courage. By refusing to recant his scientific findings to save his license to practice medicine, Dr. Wakefield is facing the tyranny of medical power. Barbara Loe-Fisher, co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, described it this way: “The spectacle this British Medical Inquisition is creating for the world to see will have repercussions far beyond the martyrs it will make. People are not stupid and they will not soon forget that medical doctors inside and outside of the British government so feared one man's scientific discovery about vaccination that they felt they had no choice but to destroy him and anyone who stands with him.”

Keep up the good work, Andy. Keep going. Your bravery and tenacity is an inspiration for all of us to continue to warn others of the real culprit behind the global autism epidemic. Thanks to your steadfast determination, parents are wiser and children are healthier. And the fight must go on. To thousands around the world, you are a hero.

And as for the Vaccine Court ruling, this is not the end. In fact, the battle is just heating up. After all, if the government can’t tell us the cause of autism, they certainly cannot tell us what doesn’t cause it either.

Footnotes:

1, “MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism,” by Brian Deer. February 8, 2009.
2, “Autism rate in children has doubled, say doctors,” Sam Lister. The Times Online. July 14, 2006.
3, “New Fears Over MMR Link to Autism,” Stephan Adams. The Telegraph UK. July 8, 2007.
4, The World Fact Book. United Kingdom.
5, Action for Autism, India
6, “China has more than 100,000 autistic children,” China View. December 7, 2006.
7, “Autism and Global Human Rights,” Georga Hackworth.
8, Wakefield, AJ, Murch SH,Anthony A et al. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet 351:637-641.1998.

© 2009 Dr. Sherri Tenpenny - All Rights Reserved

 

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Sherri J. Tenpenny, D.O., is regarded as one of the country’s most knowledgeable and outspoken physicians on the negative impact vaccines can have on health. This article includes excerpts from her new book, Saying No to Vaccines: A Resource Guide for All Ages. In addition to concerns about childhood vaccinations, the book addresses vaccination issues facing adults, international travelers, healthcare workers, nursing home residents, adoptions, college students, and those in the military. A 75-minute DVD is included that discusses the history of mandatory vaccination, concerns about the HPV cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil and other information not included in the book. For more information on her many other books, DVDs, audio CDs, articles, and other materials, visitDrTenpenny.com and SayingNoToVaccines.com Learn more about her medical clinic at osteomed2.com.

Dr. Tenpenny is a regular columnist for NewsWithViews.com. Her new book and DVD "Saying No to Vaccines" and FOWL! are available through this site. Other tapes and materials are available www.DrTenpenny.com

Website: www.DrTenpenny.com

Website: www.SayingNoToVaccines.com

E-Mail: nmaseminars@aol.com

M.E or CFS ? : Clearing up the Confusion

Name-us.org

"The belief that [ME] CFS is a psychological illness
is the error of our time."

-Dr. Byron Hyde-

"...now there’s proof that inflammation occurs in the brain and there’s evidence that patients with this illness experience a level of disability that’s equal to  that of patients with late-stage AIDS, patients undergoing chemotherapy, or  patients with multiple sclerosis."

-Dr. Nancy Klimas-

"Where the one essential characteristic of M.E. is acquired CNS[central nervous system] dysfunction,
that of CFS is primarily chronic fatigue."

Dr. Byron Hyde of the Nightingale Research Foundation makes the above  very simple yet profound statement in his essay, The Complexities of Diagnosis (Chapter 3 inHandbook of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).  While just about all patients with M.E. will fit the definition for CFS, not all of those with CFS will fit the definition for M.E.  (But technically, the CDC CFS definition excludes those patients with other serious illnesses that include fatigue as a symptom.  Therefore a patient formally diagnosed with M.E., a serious neurological illness of CNS dysfunction - debilitating fatigue being merely one of MANY disabling symptoms - would be ruled out of the CFS definition.  See Dr. Hyde's comment in sidebar.) If a patient does not fit the definition for M.E. and is given a diagnosis of CFS without further investigation into the cause of the symptoms, it would be tragic if a treatable illness was missed.  And this has happened on numerous occasions (see below for examples).  For a more complete understanding, see the Definitions pages, where the various definitions list diagnostic  requirements.

ME and CFS are described by some as a "medically unexplained" illness with no biomarkers.  Do not accept this; it is far from the truth.  The research cited on our Research pages and other websites, as well as specialized and more in-depth testing as suggested in the Consensus Document (listed on the Test Abnormalities page of this website) and in the Nightingale Definition explain many of the symptoms ME and CFS-labeled patients suffer - tests that, when interpreted together, can give the patient and doctor a more complete picture of what's going on in patients' bodies.  It may also help differentiate whether the patient has M.E., or chronic fatigue arising from some other serious illness that may be treatable.

Descriptions are as individual as the patient

There are as many descriptions of this disease as there are patients, because symptom prominence varies from patient to patient.  But they all will have a common theme: crushing exhaustion that never goes away, no matter how much you rest; that the simplest things most people take for granted physically and mentally now seem like insurmountable tasks.  For example, taking out the trash has become like a march up a mountain, or deciding what you need at the grocery store makes your brain swirl like a page-long physics equation.  And once you have tackled one or two of those chores, you feel an overwhelming compulsion to lie down and rest, even though you know it will do little good.  And usually there is widespread muscle pain that seems to radiate right out of the spine and into the muscles throughout some or all parts of the body.  A severe hangover that never goes away, that varies in intensity day-to-day, even hour-to-hour, is how ME and CFS are often described, or "the flu that never goes away," year after year.  Add to that many of the symptoms on the Symptoms List of this website - some coming and going or waxing and waning, others ever-present, always aggravated by tasks you used to give barely a passing thought to - and you have a person in a state of debility that has been compared by researchers and clinicians to MS, cancer and AIDS.

Many scientists would describe ME or CFS in less personal, more technical terms. Words like "post-exertional malaise" and "neurocognitive impairment" sound fairly important, but simply do not convey what the patient is really experiencing.  But the clinicians and researchers who have collectively worked with thousands of ME and CFS-labeled patients know that, "There is no word in the the English lexicon that describes the lack of stamina, the paucity of energy, the absolute malaise and turpitude that accompanies this illness." (-Dr. Charles Lapp-)

Then what's the difference between M.E. and CFS?

M.E. experts from the U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia and many other countries who have studied this disease have stated that it's the definitions that determine the diagnosis.  The current Consensus Document and most M.E. definitions (Ramsay,Dowsett and historic) require the major criteria of severe muscle fatigue following minimal exertion with prolonged recovery time, and neurological disturbances, especially autonomic, cognitive and sensory functions, and variable involvement ofcardiac and other systems, with a prolonged relapsing course.  This is a very specific list of criteria, and a major point to note is that the CNS (central nervous system) dysfunction of M.E. can be measured.  (See below.)

Alternately, CFS definitions present the major criterion of fatigue that lasts 6 months and reduces the level of function by at least 50%.  Post-exertional malaise and neurological abnormalities are considered minor and optional criteria.  So this broad definition could encompass any of many illnesses in which fatigue plays a role.  Fatigue is not only a symptom of numerous illnesses, but it is something experienced by normal, healthy people.  And there are no reliable objective ways to measure fatigue.

Thimerosal: A vaccine ingredient’s toxic legacy

 

Written by Roman Bystrianyk   
Wednesday, 30 December 2009

http://www.healthsentinel.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2663:thimerosal-a-vaccine-ingredients-toxic-legacy&catid=5:original&Itemid=24
April, 1948 an article is published in the journal Pediatrics:

"Inspection of the records of the Children's Hospital for the past ten years has disclosed 15 instances in which children developed acute cerebral symptoms within a period of hours after the administration of pertussis vaccine. The children varied between 5 and 18 months in age and, in so far as it is possible to judge children of this age range, were developing normally according to histories supplied by their parents. None had convulsions previously."

"Twelve of the children were boys and three were girls, a sex difference also encountered in relation to other substances, such as lead, causing gross injury to the developing nervous system. At inoculation time, the children varied in age between 5 and 18 months. Developmental data were obtained in detail on all but two of the children, whose mothers simply stated that they had developed normally. Reference to the case histories showed that such objective activities such as sitting, walking, and talking had appeared in many of the children prior to the inoculations; and the regressions or failure of further development occurred after the encephalopathies [Any disease or symptoms of disease referable to disorders of the brain] in several instances. In so far as it was possible to judge none of the children were defective prior to their acute illness."

"In common with many other biologic materials used parenterally [not by mouth], an important risk of encephalopathy attends the use of prophylactic pertussis vaccine. The mechanism whereby the encephalopathy is produced is not elucidated by the present study. The universal use of such vaccine is warranted only if it can be shown to be effective in preventing encephalopathy or death from pertussis itself in large groups of children. If avoidance of the inconvenience of the average attack of pertussis is all that is expected, the risk seems considerable. Efforts to diminish the hazard by modification of the vaccine or new methods of administration seem indicated."

Fast forward 60 years to the present; parents state their children were developing normally until the time of a vaccine; boys are 3 to 4 times more likely to have autism than girls; often times sitting, walking, talking are all normal in a child until 12-30 months followed by a major regression. The parallels to the present day epidemic in childhood neurologic disorders to this 1948 article are striking and concerning. What is equally disturbing is the observation of the authors that the neurologic problem occurred near the administration of the pertussis vaccine and that the "sex difference" in the "gross injury to the developing nervous system" was similar to the heavy metal lead.

Coal-burning power plants, use of mercury in gold mining, industrial manufacturing, incineration of municipal and medical waste, are some of the sources of heavy metals found in our modern environment. These pollutants contaminate our environment and enter our food supply and eventually our bodies. In some cases heavy metals were added to products, such as in mercury amalgam fillings, and one substance in particular, Thimerosal, has been believed by many to be a major cause of neurologic problems that we encounter today.

Thimerosal is a mercury-containing organic compound or organomercurial. In the 1930s, Eli Lily developed Thimerosal as a preservative and it has been used in a number of biological and drug products, including many vaccines. Until the removal of Thimerosal, which contains 49.9% ethyl mercury by weight, from most pediatric vaccines in 2001, the source of the largest human exposure to mercury in the US was in children under 18 months of age undergoing routine childhood immunization schedules. Before 2001, a child may have received a cumulative dose of over 200 μg/kg [micrograms per kilogram] in the first 18 months of life.

Although Thimerosal has been removed from most childhood vaccines, it is still present in the flu vaccine, which is given to pregnant women, the elderly, and children. Also, many vaccines given to children in developing countries still contain Thimerosal.

Many still believe that Thimerosal is safe and effective and that there is little to no evidence that there is any health problems associated with this substance. According to the FDA website:

"Thimerosal has been the subject of several studies and has a long record of safe and effective use preventing bacterial and fungal contamination of vaccines, with no ill effects established other than minor local reactions at the site of injection."

The article references eight studies supporting their position. But is there evidence that shows Thimerosal isn't safe?

A Material Safety Data Sheet or MSDS is a document that provides the proper procedures for handling or working with a particular substance. The information includes physical data (such as melting point, boiling point, etc.), toxicity, health effects, first aid, reactivity, storage, disposal, protective equipment, and spill/leak procedures.
The hazard rating information that appears on the MSDS is summarized on a diamond-shaped diagram that can rapidly alert personnel to substances that require special caution. Hazards are rated from 0 indicating no unusual hazard to 4 a severe hazard. The blue area of the diamond relates to health and a rating of 2 in the case of Thimerosal indicates "Intense or continued exposure could cause temporary incapacitation or possible residual injury unless prompt medical attention is given."
Here are some disturbing excerpts from the MSDS for thimerosal (trade name Merthiolate):

"Section 3: Hazards Identification - Potential Chronic Health Effects: The substance may be toxic to kidneys, liver, spleen, bone marrow, central nervous system (CNS). Repeated or prolonged exposure to the substance can produce target organs damage. Repeated exposure to a highly toxic material may produce general deterioration of health by an accumulation in one or many human organs."

"Section 6: Accidental Release Measures - Poisonous solid. Stop leak if without risk. Do not get water inside container. Do not touch spilled material. Use water spray to reduce vapors. Prevent entry into sewers, basements or confined areas; dike if needed."

"Section 11: Toxicological Information - Chronic Effects on Humans: MUTAGENIC EFFECTS: Mutagenic for mammalian somatic cells. May cause damage to the following organs: kidneys, liver, spleen, bone marrow, central nervous system (CNS). Special Remarks on Chronic Effects on Humans: May cause cancer based on animal data. No human data found."

"Inhalation and Ingestion: Repeated or prolonged exposure may cause kidney damage, and may affect the liver, and bone marrow. Chronic exposure to mercury vapors behavior/central nervous system and peripheral nervous system (depression, irritability, nervousness, weakness, ataxia, fatigue, tremor, jerky gait, limb spasms, personality changes), metabolism (anorexia, weight loss) and cause gastrointestinal disturbances which is collectively referred to as "aesthenic-vegetative syndrome." Chronic ingestion may cause accumulation of mercury in body tissues and may result in salicylism which is characterized by nausea, vomiting, gastric ulcers, and hemorrhagic strokes."

In addition Elli Lilly's 1999 MSDS contains more disturbing information:

"Section 3: Hazards Identification - ... Exposure to mercury in utero and in children may cause mild to severe mental retardation and mild to severe motor coordination impairment."

"Section 6: Accidental Release Measures - Wear protective equipment, including eye protection, to avoid exposure. This material is a mercury compound which are CERCL Hazardous Substances and SARA 313 Toxic Chemicals."

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund, was enacted by Congress on December 11, 1980. This law created a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries and provided broad Federal authority to respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment. SARA 313 requires the EPA and State Regulatory Agencies to annually collect data on releases and transfers of certain toxic chemicals from industrial facilities, and make the data available to the public through a public database called the Toxics Release Inventory, or TRI.

These data safety sheets alone are certainly a cause for concern. One has to question why would anyone use such a dangerous substance in any medical product let alone one that is injected directly into the blood stream? But in addition to the MSDS there are numerous studies from the medical and scientific literature that clearly show thimerosal is not a safe substance. The following are a few excerpts from a number of scientific journals:

1977 - Archives of Disease in Childhood

"Although thiomersal [thimerosal] is an ethyl mercury compound, it has similar toxicological properties to methyl mercury and in long-term neurological sequelae [a pathological condition resulting from a disease, injury, or other trauma] produced by the ingestion of either methyl or ethyl mercury-based fungicides and indistinguishable ... Since it is clear that treatment of exomphalos [an umbilical hernia at birth in which some abdominal organs push into the umbilical cord] by the application of alcoholic mercurial antiseptics can produce blood and tissue levels of mercury well above the threshold at which damage occurs in all other age groups, it is extremely unlikely that these infants escape neurological damage, which may be subtle. We therefore suggest that treated survivors should be examined neurologically and psychologically as a matter of urgency. Organic mercurial antiseptics should be heavily restricted or withdrawn from hospital use, as the fact that mercury readily permeates intact membranes and is highly toxic seems to have been forgotten. Equally effective and far less toxic broad-spectrum antifungal and antibacterial topical antiseptics are currently available."

2003 - Toxicological Sciences

"In clinical cases of accidental or intentional usage in high concentrations, thimerosal was administered in doses from 3 mg/kg to several hundred mg/kg. Such doses resulted in local necrosis [The death of living cells or tissues] at the application site and severe central nervous system and kidney injury ... In this paper we demonstrated that extending the time of incubation with thimerosal from 2 to 6 hours is associated with toxicity that was not seen after a shorter time of exposure. For this reason, further studies of lower concentrations and longer exposure times appear to be warranted. These results indicate that additional research is needed to fully delineate the dose- and time-dependent toxicity of thimerosal in sub-micro-molar concentrations and suggests that toxicity may occur at even lower doses than those utilized in these experiments, with longer times of exposure. Because mercury can be retained in body organs for months to years, the study of longer incubation times is warranted."

2003 - Archives of toxicology

"In conclusion, thimerosal induced strong effects in the cytochalasin B in vitro [outside the living organism] micronucleus test in human lymphocytes ... Since thimerosal was repeatedly shown to be genotoxic [damaging to DNA] in vitro and in vivo [inside the living organism], there is reason for concern about its widespread use."

2004 - Toxicology

"Both thimerosal and methylmercury increased the [Ca2+]i and oxidative stress in cerebellar granule cells. In rat cerebellar granule neurons, the increase in [Ca2+]i induces an increase in oxidative stress while the oxidative stress increases the [Ca2+]i. It is a possibility that uncontrolled and sustained elevation of [Ca2+]I increases the formation of reactive oxygen species that induce a further increase in [Ca2+]i. If so, such insults induced by thimerosal and methylmercury would lead to cell injury or death in brain neurons ... In can be concluded that the potency of thimerosal to induce cytotoxic [substances that are toxic to cells] action on brain neurons dissociated from 2-week-old rats under the in vitro conditions is similar to that of methylmercury."

2005 - NeuroToxicology

"In both cell lines, a progressive increase in cytotoxicity [decrease in viability] was observed when Thimerosal dose was progressively doubled from 2.5 μmol/L [micromoles per liter] to 5, 10, and 20 μmol/L. Viability was reduced more than 50% in both cell lines with exposure to 10 μmol/L Thimerosal and less than 10% of cells survived a dose of 20 μmol/L. Thimerosal induces oxidative stress and apoptosis [programmed cell death] by activating mitochondrial cell death pathways. A subsequent study using cultured human neuron and fibroblast cell lines similarly showed that low micromolar concentrations of Thimerosal induced DNA strand breaks, caspase-3 activation, membrane damage and cell death."

2007 - Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health

"The high order of toxicity from Thimerosal and its ethylmercury breakdown product has been known and published for decades. Nonetheless, Thimerosal remains in the drug supply, especially in various vaccines manufactured both for the United States and globally. The ubiquitous and largely unchecked place of Thimerosal in pharmaceutical products, therefore, represents a medical crisis in the modern day. Reforms in the manufacture and the licensing of vaccines and other drugs, which should have been accomplished proactively, had anyone properly assessed their mercury content, must now be conducted, reactively, under significant systemic stress. With no warning, recall, or ban of mercury in vaccines and other drugs as of yet, the victim of this mandated, unwarranted, and massive mercury exposure is still an unsuspecting public, and most especially its unborn and newborn children."

2007 - Anales de la Facultad de Medicina

"Due to the vast gaps in knowledge of thimerosal's pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, as its toxic properties over the immune system, it is required to make more studies of quantitative character in animal models as soon as possible. Nevertheless, while it is true, it is difficult to extrapolate these findings to other animal experimentation groups and over human beings, our results, as the multiple scientific evidence recently published about thimerosal, clearly indicates the toxic nature of this substance, at the same dose and the same chronology as human immunizations; therefore we suggest the employment of alternative preservatives in vaccines, especially those intended to pregnant women, neonates, and small children based in the prevention and precaution principles of all medical interventions."

2008 - Neuroendocrinology Letters

"Thimerosal has been recognized by the California Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment as a developmental toxin. This implies that Thimerosal may produce birth defects, low birth weight, biological dysfunctions, or psychological or behavior deficits that become manifest as the child grows. Maternal exposure during pregnancy may disrupt the development or even cause the death of the fetus. ... It is clear from these data that additional ND research should be undertaken in the context of evaluating mercury-associated exposures, especially from Thimerosal containing Rho(D)-immune globulins administered during pregnancy. Further studies should also be undertaken in additional databases/registries to assess the compatibility of the present results with trends in NDs in other US populations, and to observe whether Thimerosal-containing Rho(D)-immune globulins were associated with other birth defects in children. ... CONCLUSION: This study associates TCR [Thimerosal (49.55% mercury by weight) - containing Rho(D) immune globulins] exposure with some NDs [neurodevelopmental disorders] in children."

2008 - International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine

"Biological findings in autism that are consistent with mercury poisoning include elevated oxidative stress, depleted levels of glutathione, neurochemical irregularities, gastro-intestinal distress, immune dysregulation and generalized and neural inflammation. All of these are also well documented effects of
mercury poisoning and, specifically, mercury poisoning in infants ... Autism is a modern disease. It was first identified in the late 1930s and reported in 1943 by Kanner. It is important to place the arrival and subsequent epidemic growth of autism into the historical context of environmental exposure to mercury. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge that the commencement of widely available vaccinations (containing mercury) commenced in the 1930s. Additionally, the early 1900s saw the increasing availability and popularity of dental care where mercury amalgam fillings were the dominant restorative material ... The existing scientific literature provides grounds for strong suspicion that mercury plays a causal role in the development of autism. Given this suspicion, and the severe nature, devastating lifelong impact and extremely high prevalence of autism, it would be negligent to continue to expose pregnant and nursing mothers and infant children to any amount of avoidable mercury. Health authorities worldwide should move without hesitation to ban and remove all mercury in all medical products at the earliest possible date."

2009 - Behavioral and Brain Functions

"A disruption of the GSH (glutathione) system by mercury leads to GSH depletion and cell destruction. An in vitro study of Jurkat T cells exposed to thimerosal demonstrated concentration-dependent apoptosis. It was found that the mercury moiety [part of the molecule], not the thiosalicylic acid moiety, of thimerosal was responsible for glutathione depletion. GSH depletion is linked to several neurodegenerative disorders."

2009 - NeuroToxicology

Our study design does not enable us to determine whether it is the vaccine per se, the exposure to Th [thimerosal], or a combination of both that is causing the observed effects. None-the-less, the developing brain is considered the most vulnerable organ to mercury exposure, and experimental studies suggest that the brainstem - whose function is central to the reflexes described herein - may be one of the more sensitive targets ... Since the acquisition of motor reflexes is controlled by the brainstem, it is possible that very early exposure to ethyl mercury may adversely affect the emerging brainstem function ... this study provides preliminary evidence of abnormal early neurodevelopmental responses in male infant rhesus macaques [type of monkey] receiving a single dose of Th-containing [Thimerosal containing] HB [Hepatitis B] vaccine at birth and indicates that further investigation is merited."

There are still more studies not included in this article simply because the volume of information would be overwhelming, but the Material Data Safety Sheets and these scientific excerpts speak for themselves - Thimerosal is clearly a dangerous substance.

What the authors of that 1948 study probably didn't know when they said "If avoidance of the inconvenience of the average attack of pertussis is all that is expected" was that the historical data shows the death rate from pertussis had already fallen by 99% by the time they were writing their article and that their call to "diminish the hazard" of the vaccine would be apparently largely unheeded.

---

Sources:

Randolph K. Byers, M.D. and Frederic C. Moll, M.D., Encephalopathies Following Prophylactic Pertussis Vaccine, Pediatrics, April 1948, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 437-456

FDA website Thimerosal in Vaccines: http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/ucm096228.htm

Thimerosal Material Safety Data Sheet - http://www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-Thimerosal-9925236

Thimerosal Material Safety Data Sheet - Elli Lilly and Company, 22-Dec-1999

Fagan DG, Pritchard JS, Clarkson TW, Greenwood MR., Organ mercury levels in infants with omphaloceles treated with organic mercurial antiseptic. Archives of Disease in Childhood. 1977 Dec;52(12):962-4.

David S. Bakin, Hop Ngo, and Vladimir V. Didenko, Thimerosal Induced DNA Breaks, Caspase-3 Activation, Membrane Damage, and Cell Death in Cultured Human Neurons and Fibroblasts, Toxicological Sciences, Aug 2003, pp. 361-8.

WESTPHAL Götz A.; ASGARI Soha; SCHULZ Thomas G.; BÜNGER Jürgen; MÜLLER Michael; HALLIER Ernst; Thimerosal induces micronuclei in the cytochalasin B block micronucleus test with human lymphocytes, Archives of toxicology, 2003, vol. 77, no1, pp. 50-55

Toshiko Ueha-Ishibashi, Yasuo Oyama, Hiromi Nakao, Chisato Umebayashi, Yasutaka Nishizaki, Tomoko Tatsuishi, Kyoko Iwase, Koji Murao and Hakaru Seo, Effect of thimerosal, a preservative in vaccines, on intracellular Ca2+ concentration of rat cerebellar neurons, Toxicology, Volume 195, Issue 1, 15 January 2004, Pages 77-84

S.J. James, William Slikker III, Stepan Melnyk, Elizabeth New, Marta Pogribna, Stefanie Jernigan, Thimerosal Neurotoxicity is Associated with Glutathione Depletion: Protection with Glutathione Precursors, NeuroToxicology, Vol. 26, 2005, pp. 1-8

David A. Geier, Lisa K. Sykes, Mark R. Geier, A REVIEW OF THIMEROSAL (MERTHIOLATE) AND ITS ETHYLMERCURY BREAKDOWN PRODUCT: SPECIFIC HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING SAFETY AND EFFECTIVENESS, Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, 10:575-596, 2007

Jonny Laurente, Fany Remuzgo, Betthina Ávalos, Johnnie Chiquinta, Bladimir Ponce, Ronald Avendaño, Luis Maya, Neurotoxic effects of thimerosal at vaccine doses on the encephalon and development in 7 day-old hamsters, Anales de la Facultad de Medicina, 2007; 68(3), pp. 222-237

David A. Geier, Elizabeth Mumper, Bambi Gladfelter, Lisa Coleman, and Mark R. Geier, Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Maternal Rh-Negativity, and Rho(D) Immune Globulins: A Multi-Center Assessment, Neuroendocrinology Letters, Volume 29, No. 2 2008

David Austin, An epidemiological analysis of the ‘autism as mercury poisoning' hypothesis, International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, 20 (2008) pp. 135-142

Renee Dufault, Roseanne Schnoll, Walter J Lukiw, Blaise LeBlanc, Charles Cornett, Lyn Patrick, David Wallinga, Steven G Gilbert and Raquel Crider, Mercury exposure, nutritional deficiencies and metabolic disruptions may affect learning in children, Behavioral and Brain Functions, 2009, 5:44

Laura Hewitson, Lisa A. Housera, Carol Stottc, Gene Sackett, Jaime L. Tomko, David Atwood, Lisa Blue, E. Railey Whited and Andrew J. Wakefield, Delayed acquisition of neonatal reflexes in newborn primates receiving a thimerosal-containing Hepatitis B vaccine: Influence of gestational age and birth weight, NeuroToxicology, October 2009 Written by Roman Bystrianyk   Wednesday, 30 December 2009 02:28

Historic Data Shows Vaccines Not Key in Declines in Death from Disease5

Sweden stops the vaccine

We ordered 19 million doses - but only need half. Now the authorities have managed to stop the deliveries temporarily.

Vaccine deliveries to Sweden are stopped.

The delivery of the vaccine against swine flu are to be stopped from early January. That is the outcome of an agreement between several Swedish authorities and the vaccine manufacturer Glaxo Smith Kline, says Sveriges Radio Ekot.
Sweden was one of the few countries that made a deal with Glaxo Smith Kline for complete coverage and ordered 18 million doses of vaccine. When the recommendations were changed later from two to one dose per adult, it was clear that Sweden would have a large surplus of the vaccine.
But now, Swedish authorities have managed to stop further deliveries temporarily. In January,by which time 10 million doses will have been delivered, no further deliveries will be made.

Original article
Furthermore, the article states that the vaccination campaign will not stop and everyone that would like to get the vaccine should be able to. It also states that 60% of the Swedish people have received the shot and that another 20% would like to. These numbers need to be confirmed by going through all data after the holidays to know exactly how many in Sweden actually received the poisonous Pandemrix "swine flu" vaccine.

The wording of the article is interesting since the politicians are presented as if they are proud they managed to stop the deliveries. This gives the impression that the pharmaceutical companies are much more powerful than individual governments and countries. If this is true, it certainly explains a few things about the massive pandemic scare and vaccination campaign.

The temporary stop will be reevaluated in February.
Since Swedish citizens have a tendency to trust their government and authorities, especially "science", very many actually believed they would be better off having the vaccination and therefore large numbers in Sweden got the shot. This will result in very large amount of damages, something the Swedish authorities and media openly reported for about one week until it became clear the coverage of the damage was stopping the massive vaccination campaign.
After that, very few reports have appeared about damages from the vaccine. Judging from the initial data, more than 150 people can be assumed to have died from the poisonous Pandemrix "swine flu" shot and several hundred abortions can be assumed to have been triggered by the same vaccine. It is uncertain if the damages will ever be properly investigated and even if they were, if they ever will be made public.
Other severe cases of damages, judged from the initial reports, should be in the number of thousands. The standard tactic to deal with these are either to declare them as "expected and normal" and in that way ignore them or to claim they had nothing to do with the vaccination.

That Sweden have "managed" to get out of the contract with GSK should inspire other countries to do the same with their respective vaccine suppliers.

Sweden have been hit by the largest medical scandal in modern times and for many years this massive mass vaccination will result in hundreds of thousands of severely damaged and sick individuals, suffering from a wide variety of symptoms as seen in the Gulf War Syndrome cases.

Johan Niklasson

BIOLOGICAL ATTACK PLANNED IN US IN JANUARY?

According to a man claiming to be a US army colonel, massive amounts of mutated swine flu and bird flu H1N5 viruses are being transported in refrigerated trucks to Texas and New Mexico for storage in military installations with air craft facilities ready for being released in January.

http://video.aol.co.uk/video-detail/h1n5-mutated-virus-to-be-released-early-january/2508251138

DANISH BOARD OF PHARMACEUTICALS MUZZLES A MEDICAL DOCTOR

By Louise Voller, Kristian Villesen

December 20, 2009

AFTER CRITICAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE DANISH GOVERNMENT’S PURCHASE OF TAMIFLU, A MEDICIAL DOCTOR FROM THE GOVERNMENT INSTITUTE FOR RATIONEL PHARMACOTHERAPHIA (IRF) HAS BEEN MUZZLED.

THE EXPLANATION IS THAT PURCHASES FOR FLU EMERGENCIES LIES BEYOND THE COMPETENCES OF THAT INSTITUTION, EXPLAINS THE DIRECTOR OF THE DANISH BOARD OF PHARMACEUTICALS

After critical remarks about the Danish government’s purchase of the flu remedy, Tamiflu, medical doctors from the Institute for Rationel Pharmacotheraphia are no longer allowed to talk to the press on this subject.

The order was issued by the director of Danish Board of Pharmaceuticals (Laegemiddelstyrelsen), Jytte Lyngvig.

In a news item in the Danish daily newspaper, Information, on December 8, several experts, among them Niels Heebøll-Nielsen, from the Institute for Rationel Pharmacotherapia critisized the Danish government’s purchase of significant quantities of Tamiflu.

Simultanously the daily Information and British Medical Journal published a new and extensive evaluation of scientific data concerning Tamiflu. The study made it clear, that Tamiflu has “a very limited effect” on the sickness accompanying swine flu and at best, might “suppress the symptoms one day”.

In Denmark one million doses has been purchased at a cost of 65 million Danish crowns.

REASONABLE

The Institute for Rationel Pharmacotheraphia gives advice concerning appropriate use of medicine, which would, so one might think, qualify medical doctor Niels Heebøll-Nielsen to give an opinion as to whether the state has acted irrationally and purchased too much.

To Information, he said among other things that the purchase was characterized by the atmosphere of panic prevailing after the outbreak of SARS:

“When fear arises and an atmosphere of doom and disaster is spreading then at the same time an expectation occurs that something will be done. It is understandable. And they must have believed in Tamiflu having an effect”.

Furthermore he criticised the foundation for the purchase:

“When you buy great quantities of medicine, it would be convenient if you knew more about what you get for the money. That knowledge it seems has been insufficient concerning Tamiflu. But they must have trusted that it was efficient. There were no alternatives,” he says.

RATIONEL

The Institute for Rationel Pharmacotherapia belongs to the Board of Pharmaceuticals, and in Board of Pharmaceuticals they don’t hold opinions at all concerning the handling of the emergency, explains the director of that institution, Jette Lyngvig.

“The Board of Pharmaceuticals has absolutely nothing to do with this. It is Danish Board of Health who is the purchaser” says Jytte Lyngvig.

Accordingly, Niels Heebøl-Nielsen as an employee of Institute for Rationel Pharmacotheraphia is not allowed to express opinions concerning the pandemic emergency.

“He may say whatever he wants as a private person. But this one is the decision of Danish Board of Health. Therefore it is only reasonable, that it is up to them to comment on this matter.”

It would be reassuring to know there are experts who are able to give a critical evalunation?

“Then you will have to speak to medical doctors at the hospitals”.

„Is Institute for Rationel Pharmacotheraphia generally allowed to be critical about the way we use medicines?

“Yes but only the daily use of medicine. Not in relation to a pandemic. The institute has no role to play in a pandemic. When he speaks on behalf of the institute, it has to fall inside the limits of the activities of this institute. When one profits by the name, people could get confused because the Institute for Rationel Pharmacotherapia holds an opinion about this matter.”

But he usually evaluates what is a proper use of medicine?

“No, for he has never been part of the purchasing for an emergency. If he criticises the efforts of Danish Board of Health, he must do so as a private person”.

Do you think he would like to do that in the future?

“I don’t know. But I could well image that he would”.

Inside the Labyrinth- CFS/ME and the research- or lack thereof

OSLERSWEB.COM Hillary Johnson December 5, 2009

When did it stop being about you and become all about them?
Was it when they decided to pull their funding from a scientist who found evidence for a retrovirus, once she was thoroughly ground up in the cannibalistic maw of the Centers for Disease Control in 1991?
Marc Iverson, the North Carolina scion of the Nucor Corporation who founded the CFIDS Association--purportedly a patient advocacy organization--said he decided to pull the plug because Elaine DeFreitas had been so tarnished by CDC that even if she ultimately nailed down the causative virus, no one would believe her after the government mauling.

In 1995, David Bell told me, "Three years ago I came to understand that the CFIDS Association offered [DeFreitas] up. They said, 'We need to be on the good side of the CDC and the NIH.' Basically, there was a certain point at which the politics came up and the money thing came up, and they decided it was time to dump her," Bell added. "I'm stunned that somebody could be hurt so much."
Maybe that's when it stopped being about you. Eighteen years ago. When it was clear that instead of fighting for patients, or scientists who were trying to help patients, their ultimate goal was to get cozy with the CDC and the NIH.

When did it stop being about you and start becoming all about them?
Was it in 1994, when editors of the CIFDS Association's newsletter, its primary communication conduit with its members, were increasingly prone to submitting articles containing even mild criticism of federal researchers and policymakers directly to those researchers and policy makers for review prior to publication? Late that year a former college instructor, sick for thirteen years, proposed an article about the "paltry response" of the government to the epidemic. She reported that she was told that her article "might have to be cut, because the CFIDS Association (was) trying to work with the government."

Was that when it stopped being about you and started becoming about them?
To a disgruntled member of the group's Public Policy Advisory Committee, executive director Kim (Kenney) McCleary wrote that same year, "[You] want the Association to discontinue its present style of advocacy and employ 'rage' tactics similar to those employed by Act-Up and aggressive activist movements in the breast cancer movement...While I agree that we have a great deal to learn from the successes achieved by AIDS and breast cancer activists, there are several barriers to the Association adopting an advocacy style that depends so heavily on these strategies. First CFIDS is not accepted by the general public as a serious, threatening illness, like AIDS and breast cancer are. Second, there are no well-funded public education campaigns to provide a foundation for enlisting the general public in our efforts at this time. Third, rage, while powerful, is a volatile emotion that requires and consumes tremendous amounts of energy (and political capital) to sustain. It is difficult to control and can easily backfire. It erupts spontaneously in response to an incident or crisis and then peaks and subsides quickly. We must use it judiciously."
Kenney advised that in the years to come, "the Association will continue to build on [a] moderate, essentially mainstream, approach to advocacy."

At the time, Paul Cheney found a certain irony in the group's newfound compliance with NIH and CDC administrators. "It's an aspect of institutional growth," he told me. "They now see themselves as part of the establishment, and they're adopting the methods of the establishment."
Maybe that's when it stopped being about you, in 1994--fifteen years ago--and started being about them.
Was it the day Osler's Web, the first and only major book, nine years in the writing, about the government's negligent history in your disease, was published in April of 1996? That day, shortly after I appeared on Good Morning America, an unidentified person called my publisher's publicist, reached an inexperienced secretary, told her a tall tale about who they actually were and persuaded the secretary to fax them a copy of my nine-day, seven city book tour schedule, which outlined in detail every radio interview, every television appearance, every newspaper interview and every bookstore appearance I would be making.
For the next nine days, I was haunted in interview after interview by the specter of retired NIH scientist Paul Levine, who in apparent obesience to the CFIDS Association, interfered with my ability to discuss with my interviewers the news and information that was actually in the book. Levine just happened to phone into every radio show in every city I was booked on, throwing around his weight as a former government scientist to get on the air and engaging me in one hysterical debate after another about whether "CFS" was infectious. In the press biz, that's what you call a "Truth Squad."

When I covered Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden for Life magazine in the late 1970s while they campaigned, they were met everywhere by truth squads, too; nerdy-looking guys holding up signs that read, "Nuclear Energy Never Hurt Anyone." But why would a patient advocacy organization sick a Truth Squad on an author who was trying to publicize an important book on the complex and highly politicized nature of the federal research on that disease? A book that offered the first hard evidence of fiscal malfeasance and scientific fraud at the Centers for Disease Control?

Was that when it stopped being about you--patients--and started being about them? Fourteen years ago?
Or was it when the CIFDS Association trashed the book in their newsletter, causing my incredulous publisher to ask, "But why would a patient organization do that?"
Was it when the CFIDS Association called up the organization known today as the IACFS to ask its members to issue a press release attacking the credibility of Osler's Web? Dutifully, the members of this organization engaged in a round of hasty faxes (I have their correspondence), to arrive at their condemnation of Osler's Web and its author. Exactly one member dissented and refused to sign on to the press release: Dan Peterson, who remarked that instead of attacking Osler's Web, members should celebrate the occasion of the book's publication as the first real opportunity to engage the public in a conversation about the serious nature of this disease and the changes that needed to be made inside the federal health agencies. Peterson's proposal was overruled.

A press release was distributed. It's gist: journalists didn't have the right to write about science; only scientists had the right to write about science. Interesting--since virtually every member of this organization had agreed to countless lengthy interviews with me over the years and were fully aware that I was a journalist, not a scientist. I guess these folks think journalists should write about science as long as they function as stenographers. (The press release remained on this organization's website for the next eleven years, until the site underwent a redesign in time for the organization to request donations from patients, at which point they removed it.) Fortunately, no one in the media paid any attention to this document; Osler's Web received wonderful reviews from professional book reviewers, but what does this episode say about the ethics and motives of the CFIDS Association? What about my book scared them so much? Did it expose, unintentionally, their failure to advocate for patients?

Early on in my reporting for Osler's Web, long before the CAA was a national organization, it's founder Marc Iverson paid my airfare and hotel expenses so that I could attend three medical conferences related to "CFS." In return, I wrote three stories for the fledgling newsletter describing those conferences in some detail, helping their members stay abreast of scientific developments. It seemed a reasonable exchange: I had no money, they needed a writer. Had I been working for a magazine, I would have been paid for my writing, too, but I was repsectful of their non-profit status, and they left my reporting alone. Years later, when my book came out, I thanked them along with the Fund for Investigative Journalism, which gave me a grant (and asked for nothing in return) in the frontspiece of my book. Apparently--perhaps because the book was not all about them--their impulse was to manufacture an ad hominem assault in tandem with the rest of their frantic activities described above. It's demonstrative of one of the organization's major failings: They have no real concept of a free press, or of what journalists actually do; they apparently fail to distinguish between journalism and public relations.

Did it stop being about you in 1998, when Kim Kenney and her lobbyist Tom Sheridan took Bill Reeves under their wing and helped him obtain Federal Whistleblower status? Even though, two years earlier, Osler's Web had provided abundant evidence that Reeves and his agency were the PROBLEM? It wasn't even necessary to have read the book. By 1998, anyone with the most minimal understanding of what was going on was aware that the Centers for Disease Control were dissembling, stalling and hurting patients, depriving them of their civil rights and impeding their access to medical care. Kim and Tom made sure Bill Reeves would be in charge of your disease for years and years to come; they cemented him down, providing him immunity even from being fired by his own superiors.

Was that when it stopped being about you and started being all about them? Eleven years ago?
Did it stop being about you, and start being all about them, when, having revealed themselves to be supporters of the very agency that had hurt patients so profoundly, they signed on as a government contractor to the Centers for Disease Control in return for $4.5 million? And what did they agree to do for the CDC in return for that money? "Brand" the agency's false construct "chronic fatigue syndrome" into the mainstream through websites, TV ads, and a collection of photographs by an expensive fashion photographer, which is still traveling the malls of America. And that's been helpful, hasn't it?
In 2006, they spent about $3.5 million on public relations for CDC, and less than $200,000 on lobbying for your disease in Congress. How did your life improve as a result of the CAA's multi-million contract with CDC? Did the NIH start funding research? Did the CDC start doing epidemiology? Did anyone in Congress stand up and demand an investigation into the shady activities going down in Atlanta? Were you, or your loved ones, aided in ANY palpable way at all?

Is a patient advocacy organization still a patient advocacy organization when it becomes a contractor to the very federal agency responsible for the desperate plight of patients?
How about NIAID director Anthony Fauci's 2001 decision to stuff your disease into the Office of Research on Women's Health, a virtual janitor's closet at the NIH, where, along with the brooms and mops, your disease was effectively disappeared when the door slammed shut? Exactly where was the CAA when this went down? Hobknobbing with the executives in this office, forging ever more cozy ties while the ORWH made sure the NIH continued its policy of failing to pay for research into your disease. Why wasn't there instead a demand by CAA for a Congressional investigation into the NIH's handling of a devastating, likely infectious disease of, by then, one million people?

Is that when it became all about them, and not about you? Eight years ago?
Did it become all about them, and not about you, in 2006, when Kim McCleary, her organization under contract with CDC, played hostess and enabler to the CDC's roll out of its theory of causation at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.? Suzanne Vernon and her boss Bill Reeves presented their eugenicist explanation of the disease and the stenographer-reporters ate it up: genetic predisposition to being unable to handle stress + childhood abuse = CFS. Oh, and by the way, as many as ten million people had this "illness," and most of them had yet to be diagnosed, they added. Remember: “Get Informed, Get Diagnosed, Get Help”? The headlines went viral. Twenty-one years after Tahoe, and after hundreds of millions of dollars wasted by CDC on Abt Associates and the CFIDS Association, and the message was the same: chronic fatigue syndrome was not a medical disease, it was a lot of stressed-out, traumatized people. CAA faciliated, enabled, this gargantuan lie, yet again selling out patients. And why? For money and for the self-aggrandizing appearance of power?
Is that when it started to be about them, and not about you?

A few months later, I encountered Suzanne Vernon at a medical conference and asked her about that lie, the one about the number of people with CFS and CDC/CAA's emphatic insistence that eighty percent of them weren't diagnosed. After fifteen minutes of heated discussion, Vernon finally admitted none of it was true; she admitted to the lie. "But Hillary," she said, as if she actually knew me, "aren't you happy that CDC is finally doing something about this disease?" And I was left speechless. This person calls herself a scientist? She admits CDC is lying to the press, to patients, but wonders why anyone would fail to be less than happy about it? Haven't there been enough lies? I am, we are, supposed to be "happy" that this CDC/CAA hybrid Medea is spending millions of dollars to market yet another lie?
And where does happiness enter into this equation? Is anyone seeking happiness from CDC? I don't know about you, I used to seek science from CDC. On top of the lies, it's that kind of condescension, that smarmy "poor you" mentality that pervades the leadership the CFIDS Association, that's so nauseating, that has that fingernails-on-the-chalkboard quality. In person, and in their literature, they inevitably sound like they're addressing the newly-lobotomized.

Did it become all about them, and not about you, when the CDC's Suzanne Vernon moved over to the CAA shop? Vernon, who told someone I trust that during the decade she worked alongside Bill Reeves manufacturing abnormal science that the remarks, the activities, the jokes, the attitudes about you and your disease among her colleagues was so appalling that she could not discuss that history in any detail, she was just so ashamed to have been part of it? With Suzanne Vernon's leap from Atlanta to Charlotte, CDC DNA was fully co-mingled with CFIDS DNA. One could employ the Trojan horse analogy about Vernon, but I think its worse than that. It’s not that one of the top “scientists” in the fraudulent CFS program at CDC has surreptitiously invaded a patient organization. Matters have progressed much farther than that. The CDC and CAA actually became one, as in “co-mingled,” ages ago. At this point, it's an inextricable mess. Anyone see Jeff Golblum in the 1989 remake of "The Fly"? You know--what's Brundle (the mad scientist), what's fly? In the end, Brundle was pretty much all fly.

Did it become all about them, and not about you, when the CFIDS Association sought to position itself as a kind of mini-research institute, a provider of grants to scientists, with former CDC scientist Suzanne Vernon the arbiter of what was and was not worthy science? Was it about them, or about you, when Vernon and McCleary turned down no fewer than six grant proposals from the Whittemore Peterson Institute?
This litany is hardly complete--in fact, it's woefully inadequate, because I've left out all the backroom wheeling and dealing on Kim McCleary's part, the years and years of brokering partnerships, kissing up to and making friends with, enabling and facilitating, the very people in government whose activities prevented you from getting appropriate medical help, which has been the true legacy of the CFIDS Association. McCleary’s brand of “moderate, essentially mainstream” advocacy has amounted not to advocacy but instead to McClearly’s having a voice at major CDC conclaves on this disease, like the agency’s “Blue Ribbon” committee a few years ago to evaluate the CFS program in the agency.
She has failed to use her access, her voice, in any way that might have been helpful; instead, she has identified with government officials and their problems instead of your problems; she’s made it easy for them to keep you quiet and (and sick), all the while assuring you in that unctuous, phony PR patter that she’s on top of things.

But, I'll just jump to the critical present moment. Since October 8, 2009, the CFIDS Association appears to have been awash in a truly absurd jealousy over the WPI discovery of XMRV in "CFS." And isn't that more about them than about you?
Instead of hailing the finding of XMRV as the long-overdue solution to this disease, Vernon and McCleary mimicked the Centers for Disease Control, an entity with more reason than any to cast this unimpeachable finding into the Waring blender of obfuscation, but then, as I've suggested, the CFIDS Assocation is CDC, and vice versa. Vernon and the CFIDS Association fell all over themselves in an effort to caution that XMRV will probably apply only to a "sub-set;" it may be a "passenger;" the patients weren't well characterized; there must be co-factors, in other words, it's multi-factorial. A patient advocacy organization that knew what it was doing would jump all over XMRV, using this discovery to advocate for patients at the highest levels of government; why, instead, did the CFIDS Association just echo the CDC?
Their sister agency CDC, would like you to believe the same about XMRV: multi-ignorance. I suspect thats what Anthony Fauci at NIAID hopes you believe, too; it gives NIAID a reason to do NOTHING. (Watch NIAID carefully; by the way. Will Dr. Fauci, NIAID's Napoleonic chief, take on this major infectious disease, or will he continue to insist it's mental illness?) Without appropriate political pressure from patient advocates, National Cancer Institute scientists--who are the best you've got--may find a reason to move off XMRV and CFS, too, and move instead onto XMRV and other diseases it might cause, especially and, in fact probably exclusively, cancer.

The CFIDS Association wants you to get behind THEM, as usual, not XMRV. They didn't discover XMRV--and how could they? They're not scientists. XMRV did nothing to advance their hegemony, which made it virtually useless to them. (Until they figure out a way to harness the discovery to lend them prestige or the appearance of authority.) Besides, XMRV is an infectious, cancer-causing retrovirus, and we know how they hate infectious diseases.
Mikovits et. al. have moved this disease out of the muck and into the world of white glove science. Will the CFIDS Association be able to get away with its pretense of patient advocacy much longer? Or will it finally be recognized as a government public relations agency paid to keep the status quo? A lot depends on you.
HIV was hailed as the cause of AIDS in the U.S. in the spring of 1984, after the NCI found isolates in fewer than fifty patients. A few weeks later, an NCI scientist isolated the virus from the blood of a nurse in Los Angeles who fell ill with AIDS after a blood transfusion and the virus was found in the donor blood. That's all it took. Less than a year later, on March 2, an FDA-approved commercial antibody test from Abbott Labs became available to search for the virus among blood donors. Meanwhile, AIDS advocates demanded that drug development begin immediately, and so it did.

Kim McClearly appears to have learned nothing about the tactics used by AIDS activists, or breast cancer activists, though she admitted in 1994, fifteen years ago, she had much to learn. I suggest she is completely uninterested in those tactics; she is instead interested in nurturing her good relationships with administrators at federal agencies who have done nothing to help, and everything to hurt, patients. Nancy Klimas' AIDS patients are "hale and hearty," in Klimas' words; her CFS patients have been sick as dogs for years and years. Imagine a parallel universe where AIDS patients in 1984 gave up their collective power and agreed to be represented in Washington, D.C. by a "patient advocacy" group with the flawed agendas of the CFIDS Association! Where would they be now? Where we are now?

If the CFIDS Association was the patient advocacy group you deserved, it would not be playing politics with you or with XMRV, it would be taking this finding and running with it instead of suggesting it's a passenger, a co-factor, a sub-set or part of some multifactorial multi-ignorance. With one hand it would be demanding to know why it took 26 years, and a private philanthropic effort, to find XMRV. With the other hand, it would be demanding clinical trials and drug development at FDA, instead of warning you it might take years for therapies to be developed. (If you accept that lying down, it’s virtually guaranteed it will take years.) It would be asking why CDC is wasting time trying to replicate the finding in CDC-selected patients instead of turning the agency's full capabilities toward determining the presence of XMRV in the population. It would be calling for Anthony Fauci's resignation from NIAID.

Over the last quarter century, the question has arisen again and again: why are “CFS” patients so "passive"? Why have they allowed this organization to speak on their behalf and negotiate their relationship with federal health agencies for them? Arguments advanced have included, they’re too sick, which, to me, has always had legitimacy, and, “They’ve got Stockholm Syndrome,” which to me does not have legitimacy, maybe because my life experience has made me leery of nearly every psychologically-based theory of behavior. I think people with this disease have had enough contemptuous armchair psychology thrown at them. I do wonder if people are intimidated, however; if people who have already been so marginalized and abandoned might be more than unusually sensitive to fears of reprisal and dismissal. To have this disease, almost by definition, is to feel disenfranchised, alone, discarded. Does that make it infinitely harder to rock the boat?
Even the CFIDS Association appears to realize it finally may have gone too far this time. Yet, the best the CFIDS Asociation has been able to come up with is a muted apology for its lack of enthusiasm for the fact that an oncogenic retrovirus—hints of which have been present for the last twenty-five years—has been isolated in patients. Tellingly, the apology seems to be more about failing to adopt the right "tone" and craft the "message" properly than about anything else:

"Content, tone and timing are all important and, at times, we acknowledge that we have gotten only one of the three completely right. And we recognize that these missteps have created some questions and strong feelings about our response to the XMRV study. Be assured that we share the hope and anticipation that these important findings will lead to immediate advances in diagnosis and treatment. And know that we're listening to feedback, shared both directly and indirectly, with us. We're constantly working to refine our messages to ensure that we deliver the factual, focused communications you count on."
To which I would say, Stop refining already! Seeking to craft and manipulate reality is just another way to mislead, not far removed from lying.

Where is the ADVOCACY? Where are the DEMANDS? What is the STRATEGY?
The discovery of XMRV's powerful association with "CFS" is a defining moment; it's the paradigm change that was so desperately needed. I've heard a number of scientists say, "We're where we were when HIV was discovered." I think in terms of patient advocacy, one could say the same. But Kim McCleary's CIFDS Association isn't up to the job; it sold out years and years ago. The organization has a bright future as a public relations firm for corporate entities wishing to curry favor with CDC and NIH. It's beautifully-positioned to do that. Two decades after it began making deals with the devil, is it too soon to say good luck and good bye to the CAA?
Like CDC, the CAA is unlikely to go away, of course. As individuals, they're deeply entrenched and invested, as is their brand. They make their counterparts in government feel comfortable. But we need some uncomfortable voices now.

I suggest that it is time to start asking what actions need to be taken to advance XMRV down the court. It’s time for new organizations to be forming. Time for the advocates who are ready to make the right demands of the right people to stand up and let the CDC and NIH know that the CFIDS Association of America isn't the only game in town. It’s time for advocacy organizations that focus on political strategy exclusively instead of attempting to conduct research, the government's job; time for an organization that refuses to become party to the government for millions of dollars in remuneration, selling out patients in the process. Time for an organization with an effective media strategy, one that includes pushing stories about the government's history of scientific fraud and corruption in the realm of this disease instead of weepy human interest stories that promote poster children instead of scientific understanding.
If none of what I've written here rings true, then I am obviously alone in this matter. Certainly, I've been on the receiving end of the CAA's wrath, which gives me some added oomph, but my point here is that every one with this disease has been on the receiving end of the CAA's passive aggressive representation, everyone has been sold out, again and again. And so I continue to suggest it's time to at least consider that it's all about them, and not about you.

###

Addendum: I wrote this two weeks ago, and then decided not to publish it. Why bring people down at what is certainly the most promising moment in the history of this disease? But I recently looked at the CAA website and read the latest comments by Suzanne Vernon. Hewing to the CAA’s imperative of self-promotion and self-congratulation in every word and deed, Vernon actually touts the fact the CAA provided seed money to Elaine De Freitas, apparently in an effort to demonstrate that the CAA was first on the block in the retrovirus hunt and actually moved the science forward.
Vernon keeps the CAA ethos alive. Ever eager to whitewash history, the imperative being to promote the CAA regardless of the truth, she and her organization seek to twist the reality of what it did in 1992, presumably in case anyone reads the real history and realizes the extent of the CAA’s duplicity. In the CAA cosmos, spin is everything.
Vernon fails to mention that in fact CAA withdrew its support of DeFreitas at the most crucial moment imaginable, a move that allowed the scientist’s findings, and her reputation, to crash and burn. CAA “enabled” CDC to further disappear your disease. CAA’s withdrawal of support meant that for the next twenty years, the search for the viral cause of this disease languished while psychiatrists defined the disease and the cause—a process in which Vernon was intimately involved by virtue of her work with Bill Reeves at CDC. And that’s just another way the CAA has hurt you over the years.
If you add up McCleary's and lobbyist Tom Sheridan’s salaries over the last twenty years—say $100,000 each per annum, a generous underestimate—you get $4 million. That’s how these two profited off this disease, at a time when a million very sick people lost their incomes.
What more can one say about this slick, overblown operation? It exists to keep McClearly, Sheridan and now Vernon, comfortably employed. What else it does that is actually helpful to you, I cannot say.

Dr. Julie Gerberding Named President of Merck Vaccines

This is the most disgusting and BLATANT example of the revolving door between the CDC, the government and vaccines. We really must revolt. Today, Merck announced that Dr. Julie Gerberding has been named president of Merck Vaccines, effective January 25, 2010. Dr. Gerberding was the director of the CDC from 2002 to 2009.

 

Merck NEWSROOM

Dr. Julie Gerberding Named President of Merck Vaccines

WHITEHOUSE STATION, N.J. – Dec. 21, 2009 – Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK) today announced that Dr. Julie Gerberding has been named president of Merck Vaccines, effective January 25, 2010.

Dr. Gerberding led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as director from 2002 to 2009. During her tenure at CDC, Dr. Gerberding led the agency during more than 40 emergency response initiatives for health crises including anthrax bioterrorism, food-borne disease outbreaks, and natural disasters, and advised governments around the world on urgent public health issues such as SARS, AIDS, and obesity.

“Vaccines are a cornerstone of Merck's commitment to health and wellness," said Richard T. Clark, chairman and chief executive officer, Merck & Co., Inc. "We are delighted to welcome an expert of Dr. Gerberding's caliber to Merck. As a preeminent authority in public health, infectious diseases and vaccines, Dr. Gerberding is the ideal choice to lead Merck's engagement with organizations around the world that share our commitment to the use of vaccines to prevent disease and save lives."

"I’ve had the privilege in my previous work in academia and in the federal government to be a passionate advocate for public health priorities such as vaccines, which are an imperative component of global health development," said Dr. Gerberding. "I am very excited to be joining Merck where I can help to expand access to vaccines around the world."

Dr. Gerberding will lead the company's $5 billion global vaccine business. Merck currently markets a broad range of pediatric, adolescent and adult vaccines and is a leading provider of vaccines in countries around the world; in the U.S., Merck markets vaccines for 12 of the 17 diseases for which the U.S. Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices currently recommends vaccines. She will be responsible for the commercialization of the current portfolio of vaccines, planning for the introduction of vaccines from the company's robust vaccine pipeline, and accelerating Merck's on-going efforts to broaden access to its vaccines in the developing world. Dr. Gerberding will also collaborate with leaders of Merck Manufacturing Division and Merck Research Laboratories to manage the critical linkages between basic research, late-stage development and manufacturing to expand Merck's vaccine offerings throughout the world.

She received her undergraduate degree and her M.D. from Case Western Reserve University. Her internship, residency, and clinical pharmacology training were all at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she worked in a range of clinical, research and teaching roles prior to joining the CDC in 1998. Dr. Gerberding received her Masters of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.

She is a member of the Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American College of Physicians, and is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. She is also a Clinical Professor of Infectious Diseases at Emory University and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine in Infectious Diseases at UCSF.

Dr. Gerberding has received more than 50 awards and honors, including the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Distinguished Service Award for her leadership in responses to anthrax bioterrorism and the September 11, 2001 attacks. She was named to Forbes Magazine's 100 Most Powerful Women in the world in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 and was named to TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2004.

About Merck
Today's Merck is working to help the world be well. Through our medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies, and consumer and animal products, we work with customers and operate in more than 140 countries to deliver innovative health solutions. We also demonstrate our commitment to increasing access to healthcare through far-reaching programs that donate and deliver our products to the people who need them. Merck. Be Well. For more information, visitwww.merck.com.

Forward Looking Statement
This news release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements may include, but are not limited to, statements about the benefits of the merger between Merck and Schering-Plough, including future financial and operating results, the combined company’s plans, objectives, expectations and intentions and other statements that are not historical facts. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of Merck’s management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.

The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements: the possibility that the expected synergies from the merger of Merck and Schering-Plough will not be realized, or will not be realized within the expected time period, due to, among other things, the impact of pharmaceutical industry regulation and pending legislation that could affect the pharmaceutical industry; the risk that the businesses will not be integrated successfully; disruption from the merger making it more difficult to maintain business and operational relationships; Merck’s ability to accurately predict future market conditions; dependence on the effectiveness of Merck’s patents and other protections for innovative products; the risk of new and changing regulation and health policies in the U.S. and internationally and the exposure to litigation and/or regulatory actions.

Merck undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additional factors that could cause results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found in Merck’s 2008 Annual Report on Form 10-K, Schering-Plough’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended September 30, 2009, the proxy statement filed by Merck on June 25, 2009 and each company’s other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) available at the SEC’s Internet site: www.sec.gov.

Is WHO covering up a tuberculosis epidemic with fake H1N1 panic?

By F. William Engdahl, 18 November 2009

What is clear around the world to date is the fact that despite declarations of public health emergency in the United States, Ukraine and despite the groundless WHO designation of an alleged H1N1 Influenza A “pandemic” situation, despite reckless government decisions to allow “fast track” production of vaccines for an H1N1 virus whose existence nowhere to date has been scientifically and verifiably proven to exist, the feared H1N1 is proving to be little more than the typical seasonal flu wave that inevitably comes with cold weather.

Yet there are reports, notably most recently in Ukraine, of deaths of people attributed to H1N1. Increasing evidence suggests that what is causing deaths is not at all some Swine Flu of pandemic proportions.

Evidence suggests people are dying from tuberculosis. According to Wikipedia on tuberculosis, “Most infections in humans result in asymptomatic, latent infection, and about one in ten latent infections eventually progresses to active disease, which, if left untreated, kills more than half of its victims. The classic symptoms are a chronic cough with blood-tinged sputum, fever, night sweats, and weight loss.”

TB is a disease that is associated with poor living conditions, malnutrition and poverty.  In 2007 there were an  estimated 13.7 million chronic active cases, 9.3 million new cases, and 1.8 million deaths, mostly in developing countries. About 80% of the population in Asian and African countries test positive in tuberculin tests, while only 5-10% of the US population test positive.1

The WHO states about TB, “Tuberculosis (TB) is a contagious disease…Now, strains that are resistant to a single drug have been documented in every country surveyed; what is more, strains of TB resistant to all major anti-TB drugs have emerged. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the largest number of new TB cases in 2005 occurred in the South-East Asia Region, which accounted for 34% of incident cases globally. However, the estimated incidence rate in sub-Saharan Africa is nearly twice that of the South-East Asia Region, at nearly 350 cases per 100 000 population.”

The highest mortality from TB per capita according to WHO are in the Africa Region. Africa also happens to have some of the world’s most impoverished populations ravaged from wars, drought, IMF conditionalities, economic privations, lack of water sanitation.

Notably, in recent years since the 2004 Orange Revolution, the economic living conditions in Ukraine have approached that of a Third World country in many parts of the country.

Viral Pneumonia or TB?

Four men and one woman have died from the flu in Lviv, said emergency hospital chief doctor Myron Borysevych. Two of the dead patients were in the 22-35 age group, with two others over 60. He diagnosed the disease as viral pneumonia. “We have sent the analyses to Kiev. We don’t believe it’s H1N1 swine flu. Neither do we know what kind of pneumonia it is.” A doctor in Western Ukraine who did not want to be named, told a British paper, “We have carried out post mortems on two victims and found their lungs are as black as charcoal. They look like they have been burned. It’s terrifying.”2

Curiously, after days of receiving samples from patients believed to have H11N1 in Ukraine, the WHO Reference Lab in the UK has yet to make a statement confirming or denying H1N1 presence.

One alternative explanation for the deaths and the ghastly lung conditions of the dead in Ukraine comes from an American medical researcher, Dr. Lawrence Broxmeyer, MD, of the New York Institute of Medical Research. Broxmeyer is convinced that the H1N1 Influenza A is no flu at all.

The current Swine “flu” pandemic began in La Gloria, a pig-farming village in the Veracruz mountains of Mexico. As Broxmeyer points out, “Surely, if any place could unlock the true nature of the cause of the 2009 Pandemic, it would be found in La Gloria, whose villagers were certain that they were sickened by the surrounding pig farms, which they accused of polluting their air and water with pig waste. This is much like what happened in Haskell County, Kansas in 1918, original site of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918.”

He notes revealingly that Enrique Sanchez, top official from Mexico’s Agriculture Department, could not find H1N1 in mucous samples taken from the pigs several weeks later, on April 30th. Common bacteria were also tested for.

“However, Broxmeyer states, “no studies were done to rule out Swine tuberculosis which is predominantly avian and to a lesser extent bovine, and could have also accounted for the wholesale “respiratory” problems the villagers were experiencing.”

Soon, more than half of La Gloria’s 3,000 residents fell ill with FLU-LIKE illness, type unknown. More than four hundred of the sickest of these where treated with antibiotics and masks. The diagnosis? “Acute respiratory infections.” By the time the mucous test results came through in early April, most of the villagers had recovered, the more serious cases on antibiotics alone. The “virus” seemed to have left their systems. As Dr. Broxmeyer notes, “since antibiotics don’t cure ‘viruses’ what infectious disease in these purported “Influenza” victims had been cured by the antibiotics given?”

Broxmeyer cites my article of June 2009 which appeared inKopp Exclusive entitled “Sarkozy’s Secret Plan for Mandatory Swine Flu Vaccination.” He notes, “Engdahl plainly stated there that, “The only problem with the Swine Flu (H1N1) Vaccine, is that to date, neither WHO nor the US Government’s Center for Diseases Control (CDC) have succeeded to isolate, photograph with an electron microscope, or chemically classify the H1N1 Influenza A virus.” Furthermore there was no scientifically published evidence that French virologists have done so either. Therefore, mentioned Engdahl, “To mandate a vaccination for a putative (supposed or assumed to exist) disease that has never been characterized, is dubious to say the least.”

Broxmeyer continued, “Engdahl had done his homework. When questioned regarding the electron pictograph of H1N1 that the CDC recently came up with on their website, he revealed his source, German virologist Dr Stefan Lanka, an expert on the documentation of viruses, attesting to the fact that the H1N1 picture was bogus. The virologist wrote that he had “written the CDC many times as to who made the H1N1 photo’s and whether they where scientifically documented as to chemical characteristics and other properties.” There was never any reply. He concluded “If CDC refuses to cite the source of the photos,  they are fake.” Worse yet he said “The photos are merely liposomes, microscopic artificial sacs whose walls are a double layer of phospholipids, used to carry substances such as drugs, vaccines, and enzymes to specific cells or organs of the body. These have been artificially presented by a process where chick embryos or cell cultures are killed, reduced and then centrifuged with some solvent, to then, in a vacuum, be nanofiltered.” As if this wasn’t enough, the virologist testified that “Such a structure has never been characterized in either an organism or its fluids. Furthermore, if there wasn’t for the centrifuge/solvent/nanofiltration manipulation, not to mention the precipitation procedure, such particles could never be presented under the electron microscope. In conclusion, without the isolation of the H1N1, there is no H1N1 infecting virus”

Engdahl wasn’t finished. “Even more bizarre is the admission by the US Government’s Food and Drug Administration, an agency responsible for the health and safety of its citizens, that the ‘test’ approved for premature release to test for H1N1 is not even a proven test. More to the point”, continues F. William Engdahl, “there is no forensic evidence in any of the deaths reported to date that has been presented that proves scientifically that any single death being attributed to H1N1 Swine Flu virus was indeed caused by such a virus.”

The case for TB

Broxmeyer, who has researched the problem for years is convinced what is appearing is what appear as “virus-like particles.” He states, “’Virus-like particles’ do not mean virus. Viral-like, cell-wall-deficient forms of tuberculosis, for example, also appear virus-like and apparently so also did non-infectious liposomes.”

Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are fully aware of a far more serious and ongoing tuberculosis Pandemic in the world today. Yet they choose to downplay the link, disregarding the similar flu-like symptoms tuberculosis often begins with.

WHO freely admits that there were approximately 1.8 million deaths from tuberculosis in 2007, the most recent year for which data are available as well as that presently about one-third of the world’s population, or two billion people, carry the TB bacteria.

But in the USA the Government’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ignores everything but “The Virus”. Significantly, deaths from TB and viral pneumonia were recently lumped together with deaths from influenza by the WHO, meaning WHO can falsely claim all TB deaths as “H1N1 Influenza and related” deaths and apparently does so. The extent of political manipulation and deception in the WHO in recent years rivals that of the CIA for deviousness by all indications.

Broxmeyer also recalls that there was much the same “Influenza” talk in 1990, when a new multi-drug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis outbreak took place in a large Miami municipal hospital. Soon thereafter, similar outbreaks in three New York City hospitals left many sufferers dying within weeks. By 1992, approximately two years later, drug-resistant tuberculosis had spread to deadly mini-epidemics in seventeen US states, and was reported, not by the American, but the international media, as out of control. Viral forms of swine, avian and human TB can be transmitted from one species to another. By 1993 the World Health Organization (WHO), proclaimed tuberculosis a global health emergency.”3

1918 and now

One of the most terrifying images that has been used by spokesmen for WHO, by the pharma industry and various beneficiaries of the current “swine flu” panic is that of the 1918 “Spanish Flu” which is said to have resulted in more deaths than all World War I. Was it really a flu? Broxmeyer is convinced as others that it wasn’t. A Press Release, issued on August 19, 2008, by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), contains a striking finding and conclusion: The 20 to 40 million deaths worldwide from the great 1918 Influenza (”Flu”) Pandemic were NOT due to “flu” or a virus, but to pneumonia caused by massive bacterial infection.”4

A study published in the US Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2000 showed that Mexican immigrants to the US have the highest case rates for tuberculosis among foreign born persons. Mexico is the country where Swine Flu deaths were first documented.

Lawrence Broxmeyer believes that the 1918 pandemic was due to bacteria, particularly mutant forms of flu-like fowl, swine, bovine, and human tuberculosis (TB) bacteria. “These forms of tuberculosis are often viral-like, mutate frequently and can “skip” from one species to another. Moreover the antibodies from such viral TB forms react in the compliment fixation and later “viral” assays. They also grow on cultures which are supposed to grow only viruses,” he notes.

University of California demographers Andrew Noymer and Michael Garenne came up with convincing statistics showing that undetected tuberculosis may have been the real killer in the 1918 flu epidemic.

Dr. Robert Donaldson, of the Pathological Society of Great Britain has concluded that there wasn’t “the slightest shred of evidence” that the 1918 disease was due to a “virus” or influenza.

As Professor Hans Rosling has pointed out, during the initial 13 days that WHO started gaining data on Swine Flu Deaths, April 24-May 06, 2009, 31 people died of Swine Flu. 29 of these were in Mexico and 2 in the US. During this same 13 days, 63,000 people, around the world died of tuberculosis. What we have today, is a pandemic with “flu-like” symptoms. And flu-like symptoms doesn’t mean “Influenza” is its underlying cause.

---

1 Vinay Kumar, et al, (2007). Robbins Basic Pathology (8th ed.). Saunders Elsevier. pp. 516–522.

2 Greg Miskiw, MILLION HIT BY 'PLAGUE WORSE THAN SWINE FLU', London Daily Express, November 15, 2009.

3 F Talay, et al, Factors associated with Treatment Success for Tuberculosis Patients: a Single Center's Experience in Turkey , Japan. Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol. 61,pp. 25-30, 2008.

4 D.M. Morens et al. Predominant role of bacterial pneumonia as a cause of death in pandemic influenza: Implications for pandemic influenza preparedness. The Journal of Infectious Diseases DOI: 10.1086/591708 (2008).