Most of us are sick of hearing about it, but it's time for me to resume beating the dead horse of discussing the U.S. government's handling of the swine flu "pandemic" and the promotion of the swine flu vaccine as the only way to prevent the deaths of thousands and the misery of tiny babies, helpless children, adolescents, and young adults the nation wide.
To date (November 28, 2009), Wikipedia reports that there are 2,353 swine flu deaths confirmed in the U.S. (1), still far below the average yearly number of deaths attributed to the seasonal flu -- 36,000. The swine flu national emergency declared by President Obama in October, however, is still in full force.
In Part 1 of this series, I outlined ten reasons I would not personally partake of the swine flu vaccine. In Part 2, I gave four criteria that would have to be met in order to justify our government's handling of the swine flu and swine flu vaccine. I focused on the first point -- namely that we would need to see suffering and death on a massive scale -- superceding the misery caused by seasonal flu and any number of other diseases and conditions that afflict mankind.
Even looking at the swine flu stats on the high end, it is obvious that this point has (thankfully) not been met.
Whether we "got lucky" as a people and dodged a bullet, or CDC and WHO officials are guilty of hyping the up the risks of a supposed deadly global pandemic, over 4 1/2 times more people in the United States die by falling each year (14,900 to be more precise) than have died from the swine flu in 2009. Where's the national "falling down" emergency?
In this portion of the ongoing discussion on the swine flu, I will discuss point 2.
2) Is there a vaccine available that will prevent illness and death in people who would otherwise suffer tremendously or die?
This is an interesting question to answer. The swine flu vaccine was rushed through development and production this spring and summer, with minimal testing. Swine flu vaccine testing took place to determine that 1) people wouldn't immediately keel over after receiving the shot, 2) people wouldn't keel over after receiving both the swine flu and seasonal flu vaccines together, and 3) people actually launched an immune response to the vaccine (3).
The studies carried out by the National Institutes of Health discovered the following:
"Healthy adults who received a single 15-microgram dose of 2009 H1N1 vaccine had robust immune responses 8 to 10 days following the first dose of vaccine.
Healthy children older than 9 years had a robust immune response following a single 15-microgram dose of 2009 H1N1 vaccine. Children younger than 9 are likely to need two doses of vaccine to be protected.
In healthy adults, co-administration of the seasonal and 2009 H1N1 flu vaccines did not impair the immune response to either one.
Early results from a trial in healthy pregnant women showed that one dose of 2009 H1N1 vaccine elicits a strong immune response." (emphasis added) (3)
On first glance, it may appear that the testing shows that the swine flu vaccine would save lives and days missed from school and work. But the next question is this -- does the production of a robust or strong immune response to a vaccine in healthy individuals mean that the vaccine will be effective for those who would actually be at risk of suffering complications or death from the swine flu? Do healthy people even need the vaccine to begin with, or is it the ones with underlying health problems who are most at risk of experiencing extreme symptoms and/or dying from something like the swine flu?
This is an important question to answer, as early data on swine flu hospitalizations and deaths showed that the majority of casualties were individuals with underlying health conditions, such as obesity, asthma, heart disease, and immune dysfunction. In fact, data from late summer showed that 75% of those who died from the swine flu in Canada had some pre-existing condition (4).
The National Institutes of Health is running trials on the swine flu vaccine with individuals with asthma and HIV. These trials are ongoing, and no preliminary results are posted on their website. The results of these trials will be interesting to see when they become available.
We have very minimal data to look at to determine the real effectiveness of the swine flu vaccine. Perhaps we might take a look at the seasonal flu vaccine through the years to get an idea of how effective the swine flu vaccine may or may not be.
This is where things start to get a bit tricky. If you are among the millions of Americans who have believed the official line that "the single best way to protect against the flu is to get vaccinated every year," (5) then I invite you to open your mind to consider the possibility that the actual science on the flu vaccine may not support such a blanket statement.
The public is accustomed to so-called conspiracy theorists casting doubt on the effectiveness of flu vaccines, and even accusing vaccine makers and government officials of harming the masses by promoting vaccines that contain dangerous ingredients. It is understandable that the average citizen wouldn't jump on the anti-vaccine bandwagon when their trusted family doctor, national and international health bodies, and the mainstream news media tout their effectiveness, and aren't subtle in their urgings to go ahead -- get the flu jab and be a "flu fighter"!
But how did the majority of Americans feel about a military invasion of Iraq after 9/11/2001? Most of the populace (myself included) backed our government's actions at the time, only to realize later that the connection between Al Qaeda terrorists accused of downing the twin towers and Saddam Houssein's admittedly brutal regime were practically non-existent. A crisis had been used to sell the American population on taking an extraordinarily costly action that, in fact, would do little to nothing in preventing future terrorist threats from Al Qaeda.
Similarly, it appears that we as a population have been had, once again, concerning the flu vaccine. Recently, renowned vaccine researchers Lisa Jackson, MD and Tom Jefferson, MD have found that previous research on the flu vaccine used blatantly flawed methodology in finding any evidence that the flu shot reduces mortality due to the flu.
Past flu vaccine research has boasted that the elderly who get the flu shot in the fall are 50% less likely to die that winter. But flu only accounts for 10% of winter deaths of the elderly. Tom Jefferson, MD remarked: “For a vaccine to reduce mortality by 50 percent and up to 90 percent in some studies means it has to prevent deaths not just from influenza, but also from falls, fires, heart disease, strokes, and car accidents. That’s not a vaccine, that’s a miracle.”
Further, the data shows that between half to over 2/3 of flu-like illnesses each year are NOT due to influenza, but to any number of other types of viruses. A flu vaccine would do nothing to mitigate illness and death from 2/3 of all flu-like infections!!
- Past flu studies have determined that the flu vaccine reduces mortality by cohort studies -- comparing death rates of those who got the flu shot vs. those who didn't. Again, at first glance this may seem an appropriate way to determine the effectiveness of the vaccine. But Jackson and Jefferson show quite convincingly that this difference in mortality may be the result of the "healthy-user effect". In other words, those individuals who get the flu shot are also more likely to take vitamin C, get their exercise, and eat their veggies.
- The very individuals who are most at risk at dying of the flu (the very young, the very old, and the sickly) have a much weaker immune response to the flu vaccine, that is, the vaccine doesn't work as well for them. Those who are healthy and therefore may not be at a high risk of dying of the flu are the ones for whom the vaccine produces a strong immune response. So the ones who need an effective flu vaccine the most aren't getting nearly the protection from the flu as the ones who need it the least!
- A double-blind placebo study on the flu vaccine would provide more clues as to whether or not the flu vaccine actually reduces the rates of illness and death due to the flu. Strangely, CDC and other health officials refuse to subject the flu vaccine to such scrutiny, claiming instead that a double-blind placebo study would be "immoral". This is incomprehensible to me -- sign me up to be part of the placebo group!!!
- Flu vaccines are made based on "best guesses" of which flu strains will circulate the following year. If the flu vaccine really prevented deaths, one would expect spikes in flu deaths in years when those guesses were wrong, such as in 1968 and 1997. Hard data shows that this is not the case -- no more people died of the flu in those years when the flu vaccine was a mis-match to the strains that ended up in wide circulation.
Whether you are open to considering the possibility that our government's response to the swine flu is out of line with reality or not, stay tuned for the final two installments of "Swine Flu Vaccine -- WHO do you Believe?"
Thousands dead, millions sick, school cancelled for children nationwide – a national emergency ensues as swine flu holds the U.S. hostage in its death grip.
Whether this scenario is actual or an overblown fantasy perpetuated by a convenient marriage between the CDC, the pharmaceutical companies, and the media, no-one can deny that the swine flu and its hastily-conjured vaccine have provided ample material for debate amongst reporters, scientists, and inquisitive citizens.
Earlier, I shared ten reasons I would not be lining up for the swine flu jab.In my opinion, there are four questions that need to all be answered in the affirmative in order to justify the response we’ve seen to the swine flu from our government and governmental agencies.
Are there significant levels of suffering and death due to the swine flu?
Is there a vaccine available that will prevent illness and death in people who would otherwise suffer tremendously or die?
Does this vaccine come with little risk of significant side effects?
Are there no other viable options to prevent suffering and death from the swine flu?
I will address the first question in this article, and others in subsequent posts:
1)Are there significant levels of suffering and death due to the swine flu?
Obviously, this question raises two more basic questions – First, how many people have actually sickened and died due to the swine flu; and second, how many people would need to be sick and die before it could be considered significant?
Americans were told that 1,000 Americans had died of the swine flu as of late October (1).But that very day The Christian Science Monitor revealed that this statistic was inflated – less than half of these deaths were confirmed to be correlated with the swine flu – just 411 (2).
On the other hand, as of this date (November 9), Wikipedia reports 1,702 swine flu deaths in America (3).
Verifying any of these statistics has proven time-consuming and nearly impossible, so I gave up.
A recent CBS investigative report, however, revealed that in some states (Georgia and Alaska, for instance), the CDC found that only 1-2% of flu-like illness could actually be attributed to the swine flu.In other states the rate was higher, but still a minority of flu-like illness was verified to be caused by H1N1 (4).
The CDC discontinued testing in July, and ignoring the data showing that H1N1 was not as prevalent as thought, continued feeding the H1N1 pandemic scare and prepared for a massive vaccination campaign while the mainstream U.S. media continuously reports on the deaths supposedly due to H1N1 without specifying that no-one really knows how many of those who died were actually confirmed to have swine flu because they haven’t been tested.
State reports as of July 2009 reveal enormous over-diagnosis of H1N1 – as many as 83-99% of suspected H1N1 cases were found to either be the seasonal flu, or altogether not even influenza.Could there have been a lot of false negatives in this testing?It’s possible, but it seems dishonest to me that this data has been hidden from the populace.
To illustrate how senseless this is, can you imagine if every case of fatigue with fever, joint pain, and swollen glands (all symptoms of HIV infection) were assumed to be HIV without any testing, and reported to the public as new HIV cases?!?
If the CDC claims the higher ground with their Western scientific methods, then ought they not actually USE those methods?
Regardless, let's consider that there have been 411-1,702 deaths due to the swine flu in the U.S. Is this grounds for treating the disease as a pandemic? According to the CDC, “more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from seasonal flu-related complications, and; about 36,000 people die from seasonal flu-related causes” each year (5).
Hmm – 36,000 deaths annually due to the seasonal flu (estimated) vs. 411-1,702 deaths due to swine flu in the U.S.Even supposing that the 36,000 seasonal flu deaths stat is inflated (as I am inclined to believe), and that 1,702 people really have died of the swine flu, H1N1 is clearly no match for the seasonal flu in terms of deadliness!
For comparison's sake, let's look at the top 15 causes of death in America, and the number of people who die each year because of them (6):
Heart disease: 631,636
Cancer: 559,888
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
Diabetes: 72,449
Alzheimer's disease: 72,432
Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
Septicemia: 34,234
Whether 411 or 1,702 people have died from the swine flu so far this year in our nation, it doesn't make a hill of beans of a difference for those who died or lost loved ones. But so far, I am completely unconvinced that the relatively low mortality rate of the swine flu justifies a massive vaccination campaign with an untested and fast-tracked vaccine, and the declaration of a national emergency.
New York Times Article, October 23, 2009, By Anand Giridharadas
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS — The American economy is having what doctors call an acute episode.
Employment won’t throb. The circulation of capital remains weak. Industry is breathing, but barely. And if we can agree on anything one year into this mess, it is that there is little we can do when the patient arrives already this bad.
That is why the talk now is so often of prevention. Prevent the next crisis through health insurance and a green-energy sector, the American president says. Prevent it by cutting spending and nurturing personal responsibility, American conservatives retort.
But the truth is that politicians, and not just in the United States, are rarely willing to invest in a problem that hasn’t occurred. Consensus and action are easier to come by after a 9/11 or a Lehman Brothers than before. Problems in the embryonic, soluble phase don’t interest us; and those that do interest us are often too big to solve.
Which is where acupuncture comes in.
Western medical practices have attracted similar criticisms in recent years, for an emphasis on intervening in disease rather than preventing it beforehand and promoting quotidian well-being. But in health, unlike politics, an alternative approach called wellness has emerged, focused on investing in health before it breaks down.
What can wellness tell us about our present economic malady? As it moves from fringe to mainstream — with wellness programs in the health care reform proposals now in Congress, wellness manifestos on the best-seller lists and a U.S. Army wellness program that asks soldiers to introspect and meditate — I asked experts about the approach’s core tenets and how they might be applied to the body politic.
Nip it in the bud. Wellness argues for cultivating health a little every day, not just restoring it during calamities. We increasingly accept that it is better to monitor a diabetic’s blood sugar with regular clinic visits than to amputate her limbs. We accept that businesses can avoid costly cancer treatments by encouraging workers to stop smoking. But in our political life, we prefer to wait until things reach the emergency room.
We barely regulate financial markets for years, thinking regulation oppressive, until we are compelled to nationalize private firms. We avoid expensive investments and controversial new methods in public education, then pay the price in lower social mobility and vast prison populations. We neglect building roads and bridges and Internet highways, fearing the cost, and then reap the much greater costs of whole regions falling off the economic grid.
“With a lot of social problems, we’re not sure how to prevent it, and therefore we don’t spend money on it, because we always have a lot of other priorities,” said David Cutler, a Harvard economist who has advised both the Clinton and Obama White Houses on health care.
Go to the roots. Western medicine tends to fight symptoms, whether suppressing coughs or flooding the brains of the depressed with serotonin. Wellness is interested in underlying causes. It is inclined to see an infertile woman, for example, as a stressed woman rather than a woman with defunct ovaries, and may suggest that she eat and work differently rather than take ovary-manipulating pills.
In public policy, a symptom bias rules. A housing crisis? Enact a tax credit! Bank failures? Bail them out!
There is nothing wrong with such steps — except for what they leave out, as most economists will tell you.
Even amid all this action, we have virtually ignored the complex weave of issues beneath the issues: meager savings, a debt addiction, a congenitally spendthrift political system, an almost pathological craving for stuff. And, with our topical cures, we should not be surprised to see new symptoms of the old maladies appearing: insurance again being packaged into derivatives, bonuses again soaring on Wall Street.
“We treat symptoms, and we do not look at the causes of the symptoms,” Deepak Chopra, the famed alternative-medicine and wellness guru, said when asked to extend the wellness metaphor to the economy. “We are totally at this moment looking at it in a reductionist manner. The reductionist manner is a bailout. And somehow that’s supposed to solve the problem, whereas the problem occurred because we were thinking reductively.”
Look within. Wellness sees the causes of and remedies for ailments as lying within us. Avoid infection by building immunity. Defeat disease by eating foods that help the body heal itself.
With the economy, we look everywhere but within. It’s the fault of greedy Wall Street bankers. It’s Washington’s fault. Bush’s fault. Obama’s fault. Greenspan’s fault. Somebody fix it!
But what about us? Why can’t we acknowledge that it was us who bought all those unaffordable houses, us who listened to that zero-gravity financial “advice,” us who bought and bought and never kept a rainy-day fund? And why, in solving the problem, do we expect the state to create substitute dynamism instead of renewing the culture of decentralized dynamism that made the U.S. economy so vital to begin with?
“Conventional medicine is very unbalanced in placing all its emphasis on external interventions rather than looking to advance that internal capacity to maintain healing,” said Andrew Weil, founder of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and the author of several books on wellness. Likewise with the economy, he said: “Instead of simply identifying external threats and developing weapons and strategies against them, we should instead identify and strengthen immunity and resistance.”
A politics of wellness would transcend party. It would emphasize the up-front investments that Democrats like in order to achieve the long-run fiscal solvency on which Republicans insist. It would fulfill the liberal belief in a positive role for government in maintaining well-being but would honor the conservative conviction that government’s chief role is to help the social organism heal itself. It would acknowledge, with the left, the complex lattice of cultural and institutional influences that govern a society’s well-being, while emphasizing, with the right, the limits of what any external healer can do.
Think wellness in these hard times. The most urgent problems, after all, may be the ones we haven’t had yet.
In Part 1 of this article, I expressed the desire to take an objective view at the health care systems of different nations to see if I could find a good example of a country who was pulling off a healthy population, a high life expectancy, and a quality health care system without breaking the bank.
In Part 2, I discussed the shining example of Singapore in doing just that – Singapore has the 4th highest life expectancy in the world (people live to age 82 on average), has the 6th best health care system, and the government of Singapore spends only 3.7% of its GDP on health care!For the details on how they accomplish this, read here.
In this final section I wished to contrast Singapore, who literally is getting the job done, to that of another part of the world.In this part of the world, government leaders decided that instead of finding a way to focus on having healthy citizens while cutting unnecessary costs, they would instead focus on making sure the entire population had health insurance.Health insurance, they surmised, was the key to the population’s health, as well as the key to keeping down the health care costs for both the government and the citizenry.
What have been the results?Did this government achieve its objective of insuring the masses?And if so, has this brought the desired curb in health care costs?Are the previously uninsured better off now that they have this insurance?Is everyone enjoying the fruits of this initiative?
I am sad to say that this experiment took place in our very own state of Massachusetts, and so far, it doesn’t look good.
According to a March 2, 2009 article in the Boston Globe, healthcare reform in Massachusetts
has:
Failed to achieve universal coverage (200,000 are still without health insurance),
Failed to address the problem of health insurance being tied to ones’ employment,
Failed to make health insurance affordable for many citizens (including middle and low-income individuals and families),
Failed to shore in costs for the state (healthcare costs for the state of Massachusetts have doubled from $630 million in 2007 to an estimated $1.3 billion for 2009),
There may be some residents of Massachusetts who are happy with the results of the healthcare reform that have been enacted there, but the problems remain paramount.
If Massachusetts is, at best, no better off for its healthcare reform that has doubled healthcare expenses for the state, then should we not take some heed as our entire nation appears ready to plunge onto a similar course?
Should our main focus as a nation be universal health insurance?Shouldn’t we find a way follow the example of Singapore and focus on:
Population wellness through disease prevention,
Enacting policies that put more healthcare decisions into the hands of individuals, and fewer into the hands of the government?
For a brilliant essay on healthcare reform by a Democrat who has come to some of the same conclusions that I have in my cursory research, check out -- http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care .
In the meantime, I suggest each of us take actions to give us the best chances of having good health -- eating a balanced diet low in processed foods and high in minimally-processed plant-based foods, drinking plenty of clean water, getting adequate exercise and sleep, and using low-cost and oftentimes effective holistic means for taking care of problems when they first arise (such as herbs, essential oils, massage, acupuncture, reflexology, etc...), thus potentially using more expensive Western modalities more sparingly as a result.
In honor of last Thursday's tax deadline, I thought I would post a link to an interesting blog article I just came across depicting the harsh, Sovietesque consequences of tax evasion experienced by a couple in New Hampshire in 2007.
A thought-provoking juxtaposition is brought to the forefront in how Timothy Geithner, in the hearings for him to be instated as Secretary of Treasury earlier this year, received hardly a slap on the hand for his neglecting to pay Medicare and Social Security taxes for several years. Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (ironically, the very entitee that oversees the taxation of the American populace) neglected to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income from properties he owns in the Caribbean. Was Rangel unaware that this income was taxable according to the IRS code?
I can't say I am an advocate of tax evasion, and the Brown's of New Hampshire surely could have anticipated severe government action against them (especially after the infamous attack on armed American citizens at Waco, TX in 1993) for their acts of non-compliance and out-right disobedience.
But why is it that we hear account after account of government officials, including cabinet members selected by President Obama, with "inconsistencies" in their histories of paying taxes, with no such harsh reprimands being levied? Why are raids, jailings, and seizure of property reserved for everyday Americans while those with connections are given the benefit of the doubt?
For some possible answers to these and more questions, I suggest you take some time to view the documentary America: Freedom to Fascism made by acclaimed filmmaker Aaron Russo.
Lastly, as I ponder the personal financial life of Congressman Rangel in all its fraudulent (and/or negligent) glory, I am not comforted in the least that he is the one of the very individuals overseeing the monetary aspects of the health care reform bill.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is a devastating illness that affects more than 1 million Americans to this day, and though I have never seen any statistics showing how many people have recovered, I have read that a complete recovery is rare. Check out my previous blog post on how I had a complete recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome four years ago. Though the exact things that worked for me may not be a complete answer for everyone, I believe the principles I outline here are applicable to many.
And although I support continued research on the link between XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome, it is my hope that sufferers won't hold their breath waiting for an anti-retroviral drug to solve all their problems, but focus on receiving healing to their mind, body, and spirit with less expensive and less toxic means.
The debate on health care reform in Congress continues. Who’s right and who’s wrong? Are those who oppose some of the proposed reforms evil, selfish people who delight in seeing their fellow man suffer? Are those who staunchly support the proposed reforms living in a dream-world?
I am not qualified to give a definitive answer. But what I am qualified to do is poke around online and see who in the world is achieving the objective of health care reform explicitly laid out by President Obama – providing a way for all individuals to receive health care without fear that they are “one illness away from bankruptcy”, and reducing costs in the process.
So, who is doing the best job in the world achieving this goal?
The answer might surprise you.
In this relatively small island-nation, you can be treated to views of towering skyscrapers, mosques and temples of ancient Malay and Hindu civilizations, as well as innumerable Western-style shopping malls. Welcome to Singapore!
Singapore boasts the 6th best health care system in the world with an infant morality rate almost 1/3 of that of the U.S. (there are just 2.3 deaths per 1,000 live births in Singapore as opposed to 6.4 deaths per 1,000 live births in the U.S.). Its populace is the fourth longest-lived in the world, with an average life expectancy of 81.98 years.
And Singapore accomplishes this by spending only 3.7 percent of its GDP (only $381 per capita) on health, as opposed to America’s 15.4 percent expenditure!
What can account for Singapore being a shining example of a functional, frugal health care system? How does this system work?
In Singapore, individuals are required to set aside 6-8% of their income into what is essentially a health savings account (employers contribute to these accounts as well). This money earns interest, is tax-free, and can be withdrawn at any time to cover the health care expenses of ones’ self or family members. Unspent money accrues and rolls over from year to year. This program is called Medisave.
Citizens of Singapore may purchase additional coverage for catastrophic events with Medishield (or Medishield Plus which offers even more coverage), and their premium payments may come out of their Medisave accounts.
The government subsidizes the health care of those who cannot cover their expenses with either Medisave or Medishield through the Medifund program. For the elderly and disabled, government-subsidized ElderShield pays for health care expenses that the individual cannot cover himself.
• Singapore’s vision as a state is “adding years of healthy life,” by focusing less on healing sickness, and in the words of the Singapore Health Ministry, more on “the more difficult but infinitely more rewarding task of preventing illness and preserving health and quality of life.”
• The people of Singapore willingly take responsibility for their own health by spending their own money to fund most of their health care costs.
• “The reason the system works so well is that it puts decisions in the hands of patients and doctors rather than of government bureaucrats and insurers. The state’s role is to provide a safety net for the few people unable to save enough to pay their way, to subsidize public hospitals, and to fund preventative health campaigns.”
• Complementary medicine is widely accepted by the medical community at large as an important contributor to the nation's health.
Phua Kai Hong, associate professor of health policy and management at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore gives the following reasons for Singapore's successful health care system:
• "the creation of incentives for responsible behavior and the efficient delivery of services;
• the discouragement of overconsumption through cost-sharing;
• the regulation of hospital beds, doctors, and the use of high-cost medical technology;
• the promotion of personal responsibility;
• targeted government subsidies;
• and the injection of competition through a mix of public- and private-sector providers.’”
What can we in the United States of America learn from Singapore? Why don't we try to emulate some of the things that have worked in Singapore in our own health care reform?
Before I discuss this in a subsequent post, in my next post I will outline the health care system of a part of the world where a push to give health insurance to all is doing just that, but costs are continuing to skyrocket and hardships for middle class citizens in obtaining health care continue in full force.
Unfortunately, the latter is the system we are emulating, and it appears that almost no-one is paying attention!
The WHO (World Health Organization) is urging people to get their Swine Flu vaccine as soon as it becomes available in their area. Ignoring the fact that safety testing on this vaccine has been minimal at best, officials are calling this vaccine their "most important tool" against a pandemic. Pregnant women and small children are to be the first in line for the vaccine.
So if the WHO is so sure that this vaccine is the answer, why would someone like me who has at least a reasonable level of intelligence and personal responsibility choose to decline?
Here are Ten Reasons I Won't Be Lining Up For the Swine Flu Vaccine --
10. While the Swine Flu appears to be more contagious than many other bugs running around out there, and certain populations may be at greater risk of catching it, it is no deadlier than the seasonal flu on the public at large. Actually, you have a 293% greater chance of dying in a car crash this fall/winter than you do of dying of the Swine Flu (1.2 million people worldwide die each year in car accidents. So far, 4,100 people worldwide have died of the Swine Flu).
9. Vaccine companies now have legal immunity against lawsuits should their vaccines be found to have caused injury, giving them little incentive for rigorous safety testing.
8. Vaccine companies have a HUGE profit incentive to rush vaccines to the market regardless of how much safety testing has been completed (and by the way, I've always wondered who in the world would volunteer to be a first-round guinea pig in these tests!!).
7. Look what happened with the Swine Flu vaccine debacle of 1976! Four thousand Americans sued the government because of damages from this vaccine, two-thirds of which were neurological in nature, and some quite severe --
6. Don’t think things like this happen today?Take a look at what has happened with Gardasil, the vaccine for HPV given to young girls to protect against some types of cervical cancer. Paralysis and death, two of its "minor" side effects, have impacted real Americans --
5. Chemicals such as thimerosal (which has mercury in it), squalene (causes severe autoimmune response when injected into rats), and ethylene glycol (anti-freeze) are in the vaccines as preservatives and "adjuvants", which are to shock the immune system into creating antibodies against the microbe. But what else do these chemicals do when injected into the body, especially that of a small child or pregnant woman??
Check out the following lovely assortment of potential side effects, and remember -- if you happen to be one of the unlucky who gets one of the more serious side effects, you will have no legal recourse --
*Local injection site reactions (including pain, pain limiting limb movement, redness, swelling, warmth, ecchymosis, induration) *Hot flashes/flushes *Chills *Fever *Malaise *Shivering *Fatigue *Asthenia *Facial edema. *Immune system disorders *Hypersensitivity reactions (including throat and/or mouth edema) *In rare cases, hypersensitivity reactions have lead to anaphylactic shock and death
*Cardiovascular disorders *Vasculitis (in rare cases with transient renal involvement) *Syncope shortly after vaccination *Digestive disorders *Diarrhea *Nausea *Vomiting *Abdominal pain. *Blood and lymphatic disorders *Local lymphadenopathy *Transient thrombocytopenia. *Metabolic and nutritional disorders *Loss of appetite. *Arthralgia *Myalgia *Myasthenia *Nervous system disorders *Headache *Dizziness *Neuralgia *Paraesthesia *Febrile convulsions *Guillain-Barré Syndrome *Myelitis (including encephalomyelitis and transverse myelitis) *Neuropathy (including neuritis) *Paralysis (including Bell’s Palsy) *Respiratory disorders *Dyspnea *Chest pain *Cough *Pharyngitis *Rhinitis *Stevens-Johnson syndrome *Pruritus *Urticaria *Rash (including non-specific, maculopapular, and vesiculobulbous) .
(*These are listed as potential side effects in the insert for the influenza A (H1N1) 2009 Monovalent Vaccine manufactured by Novartis.)
4. The swine flu vaccine (and many other vaccines, for that matter) also contains foreign genetic material from chicken embryos, since the H1N1 for the vaccine is cultured inside fertilized chicken eggs.The potentially negative effects of having foreign genetic material injected into your body are unknown, but even industry insiders have expressed concerns about this (see my previous blog post for details).
3. I have already personally experienced negative reactions to vaccines -- a tetanus shot at age 15 that led to pain, heat, and swelling in my arm and has caused a loss of range of motion in my left shoulder that persists to this day, as well as sickness after receiving a few vaccines before moving to Russia years ago. Did these vaccines protect me from illness or death? It is possible. But I subsequently had an autoimmune illness for 6 years and now I don't need any more shocks to the system. I'll take my chances with the Swine Flu.
2. Speaking of which, I did take my chances with the Swine Flu because I had it back in July. Although some have not been as fortunate as I have and the truth is some people have gotten quite sick and died, my experience with the Swine Flu involved a half a day of fatigue, fever, malaise, and cold chills. I got myself to my ND (naturopathic doctor) that day, and within 1 minute of taking the H1N1 homeopathy along with some herbal tinctures for the immune system, I was about 75% better. I went home, took it easy, used some of my anti-viral essential oils, and was up and running the very next day.
A healthy lifestyle and effective, natural remedies are the foundation of my healthcare plan. In my book, I'll reserve the doctors and the drugs primarily for emergencies!
1. Until the CDC and the WHO get honest with the masses and tell them how they can do some simple, natural things to boost their immune system and prevent flu (such as get adequate sun exposure to boost Vitamin D levels), allow natural remedies with clinical results be openly promoted as effective with certain issues, and stop promoting vaccines and Tamiflu as "the way, the truth, and the life", it's hard for me to believe that their close ties with the pharmaceutical industry are completely innocent.
When government authorities open their eyes to see the damage being done by a purely pharmaceutical approach in public health, and stop blackballing those things that have been used effectively for thousands of years, they will have my ear! Until that time, I'll get my health information elsewhere.
Are you familiar with the saying that if you want to become successful at something, find someone who has what you want and do what they do?
Applying this simple wisdom to the healthcare debate, I decided to see what I could turn up.Out of all the countries in the world, which nations have the populations with the best health measured by the highest life expectancy, and how is this accomplished?
I was hoping to come across a comprehensive study by some think-tank or prominent university giving detailed statistical analyses of factors affecting life expectancy and health, showing which nations around the world have the healthiest populations, and how they accomplish this, but I couldn’t find anything substantial.
I will attempt to provide some rudimentary findings in this article.
I started with searching for life expectancy rates in the different nations.I figured that life expectancy was the simplest measurement of the health of a populace.Here is the Top 10 List:
Countries with Highest Life Expectancy
Macau (part of China) -- 84.36
Andorra -- 82.51
Japan-- 82.12
Singapore-- 81.98
San Marino-- 81.97
Hong Kong-- 81.86
Australia-- 81.63
Canada-- 81.23
France (metropolitan)-- 80.98
Sweden80.86
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50. United States78.11
Why do people living in these countries on average outlive the rest of the world?Does universal health care coverage play a key role?What about the lifestyle of these groups?What about factors that can’t be changed, but still play a role such as wealth and demographics of the populations?
Wouldn’t it be important to have an in-depth understanding of why these populations are so long-lived before undertaking any expensive, extensive, and potentially revolutionary changes to our own health care system?
As it turns out, each of the nations that made the top ten are relatively wealthy when compared with many other parts of the world, but those with the highest life expectancy are certainly not the wealthiest.From this, I must conclude that wealth may play a role in life expectancy, but there are clearly other factors involved.
Japan is noted for its extraordinarily low obesity rate – only 3% of Japanese citizens are obese (while in the United States, a full 32% of the populace is obese)!Since several of the top killers of Americans are chronic illnesses that occur with a significantly greater prevalence in the obese (heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes), it would make sense that America’s portly and out-of-shape populace is a literal drag on the nations’s life expectancy.Japan’s relatively lower rates of these chronic diseases gives further credence the significant role of obesity in life expectancy.
An interesting side note about Japan’s low obesity rate is how they avoid this modern plague – Japanese children are taught to eat only until 80% full, fresh vegetables and fish are eaten in abundance, sweets are eaten occasionally, and more people in Japan get exercise in their daily lives than in America.I think we can learn a lot about a healthy lifestyle from the Japanese!
In terms of demographics, some of the countries in this top-ten list have a tiny population size with a racially homogenous populace (such as San Marino, Andorra, Macau, and even Sweden).Others have larger populations, but still a very homogenous population such as Japan and Australia (92% of the Australian population is of European descent).But Canada, France, and Singapore all have a good degree of racial diversity.
A quick look at demographics reveals that having a small, homogenous populations may be positively associated with higher life expectancy, but it is clearly not the main player in the life expectancy game.
Next I wanted to look at the health care systems of each of the countries on this top-ten list.
Unfortunately, a complete statistical analysis of the health care systems of nations with high life expectancies is beyond the ability of my poor little brain, and beyond the scope of a blog entry. But here's what I can say so far:
Each of the nations and nation-states with the highest life expectancies appear to give access of at least basic health care to even the poorest of their citizens.If someone is having a heart attack, they won’t be turned away.If someone is mauled in an accident of some type, they will receive care.Any person with a chronic illness will receive at least basic care in a public clinic of some kind.
I have much more research to do to compare how this differs from what is currently offered to the poor in the United States under the Medicaid and Medicare program.I’m sure there are may be some significant differences, and I would like to know what they are.
In my research on health care systems, I made a very surprising find that I want to share.Did you know that in the list of countries with highest life expectancies that there is a country that is less affluent than the U.S. that has an infant mortality rate one-third less than that of the U.S., that spends one-seventh of what the U.S. government spends on health care for its populace, and its population lives an average of almost four years longer?
What country is this, and what are they doing right?
And did you know that there is a part of the world where a push to give each and every citizen health insurance has succeeded at insuring almost everyone, but has increased the cost of health care for many of its citizens while showing little or negligible increases in their actual health, while practically bankrupting its government in the process?
I don't have a lot of time this morning, but I wanted to share an article I just read on vaccines. I have researched the potential negative effects of vaccine adjuvants (additives that shock the immune system) on the body, but this article looks at another aspect of vaccines that I believe every person ought to know before they allow themselves or their children to receive another vaccine:
In the world of complex problems and economic instability we live in today, we all need a shoulder to lean on from time to time.Everyone needs help when sickness or disaster strikes.When we are down, we need reassurance from those we love that things will turn out O.K., and that we will somehow be taken care of.
In days past, families, friends, churches, and local communities in America have stepped in to help individuals and families with special needs.Thank goodness for the kindness and generosity given to us by those close to us!!And for those of us who believe in God, our gratitude toward him and the blessings he gives us in our darkest hour knows no limits!!!
These days, we have another friend in town.This is a friend who for the past several decades has come to our rescue with increasing zeal.This is a friend to whom we as a nation gave certain powers over 225 years ago – the power to protect our borders from foreign invasion, the power to regulate commerce between nations and between the states, the power to coin money, the power to appoint judges and ambassadors, the power to levy taxes.
This friend is Uncle Sam.Whether you trust this friend or not, whether you like him or not, his offers of assistance to Joe American are growing more and more frequent.He has long since looked upon the duties of families, churches, and local and state governments with jealousy.
He thinks he can do better.
You've Got Problems? We've Got Solutions!
Don’t have time to spend with your kids?No problem – America’s public school system will soon pick up the slack and baby-sit your kids from sunup to sundown so you don’t have to deal with your kids’ snotty noses, their constant need to be kept busy doing something, and those vexing questions on the meaning of life!
Don’t have any money to feed your kids because of unemployment or bills rising faster than your puny paycheck?We’ve got your back!Just send your kids to school early so they can be fed breakfast.Lunch – well, we’ve got you on that one too.And since the kiddies will soon be staying at school as late as 7 PM, we’ll throw dinner in as a bonus.You provide the kids with a place to sleep at night, and let good old Uncle Sam do the rest.
You’re sick?Poor baby!Don’t worry about your lifestyle – it’s not your fault!Soon enough, we’ll make sure you have health insurance (whether you want it or not).Because, you know, having health insurance is the key to good health!
Don’t know how to go out there and do something productive for society to bring in an income?Can’t think for yourself??GREAT!You must be a product of public schooling and mass media indoctrination!And as long as you don’t question the system, we’ll find you a job.Whether you want to work in healthcare, education, or law enforcement, we’ve got a bunch of positions opening up shortly!
And we’ll tell you about some other problems you didn’t know you had, because we have solutions for those too
We will protect you from the dread disease of Swine Flu – we have worked with a few corporations to concoct a vaccine that contains:
Swine flu virus,
Aluminium (linked with brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s),
Ethylene glycol (found in anti-freeze),
Formaldehyde (a known cancer-causing agent),
Thimerosal (which contains mercury), and
Squalene (which causes autoimmune symptoms when injected into rats).
If you are pregnant or have small children, you should be first in line for this vaccine to protect you from an illness that has killed 600 people worldwide (most of whom had underlying health problems) out of millions of people who contracted the disease.
(And we’ll just leave out the evidence that you can prevent or reduce complications with this and other types of flu with adequate Vitamin D, which can be attained for free by getting 15 minutes of sun exposure per day.)
We will protect you from Global Warming, and we will do this by levying “green” taxes on such things as your monthly utility bill, cow flatulence, and even a proposed baby tax!Didn’t you know that having babies is damaging to the environment and puts us all at risk?!?
(Not to mention all the “problems” revealed to us on the pages of grocery-store magazines with the solutions provided within their pages:get rid of cellulite now, you need a bikini-ready body, the Top 10 Sex moves you MUST know to get a guy, the latest styles and beauty products you need to make a splash, etc… ad nauseum)
Pay no attention to the man behind the green curtain . . .
Don’t worry – it’s not all about problems out there.We’ll make sure you never know about the real threats that hang over you, because a few rich Americans own Hollywood and the mainstream media, and they will promote a steady diet of:
Fast food advertising,
Immortality masquerading as all that is good, glorious, and delightful,
Blatant immorality (for those of you so desensitized that you don’t need the sugar coating),
Sports rivalries and scores,
Contentions between the false split of the political “left” and “right”,
The latest gossip on Britney Spears, AND
Everything you ever wanted to know about Michelle Obama’s wardrobe.
Don’t you fret yourself about:
Impending food shortages,
Eroding civil liberties,
A consolidation of power at the level of the Federal government, and developing draconian global government, AND
Corruption, hypocrisy, and lies in high places.
No, don’t you worry yourself about these things.Because we’ve made sure you have so many other things to worry about that you have neither the time nor the space in your brain to concern yourself.
Besides, I bet they’ll come up with a new government program to deal with any of these types of problems should they become big enough.Because we have a true friend in Uncle Sam . . .
Communism is practiced openly in just a handful of nations today, namely China, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, and Laos. Since Communism purports to bring such things as prosperity, literacy, equality to its people, I thought I would take just a little time to research how these nations compare with the rest of the world and post the stats here for all to enjoy.
Standard of living – 2008
(U.S. - number 15) Cuba – number 48 China – number 94 Vietnam – number 114 Laos – number 133
(U.S. – 75, behind 18 other countries) Vietnam – 71, behind 37 other countries Cuba – 70, behind 45 other countries China – 69, behind 55 other countries
North Korea and Laos unranked, over 150 nations ranked
China – 4 out of 5 (Amnesty International) North Korea – 4 out of 5 (Amnesty International& U.S. State Dept) Laos – 3 out of 5 (U.S. State Dept) Vietnam – 3 out of 5 (U.S. State Dept) Cuba -- 3 out of 5 (Amnesty International& U.S. State Dept)
Interestingly, the United States ranked at a 1 (little or no political terror) until 2001, and is now currently ranked by Amnesty International at a 3, presumably because of the tortures and renditions of "war criminals", etc…
A ranking of a 4 means: Civil and political rights violations have expanded to large numbers of the population. Murders, disappearances, and torture are a common part of life. In spite of its generality, on this level terror affects those who interest themselves in politics or ideas.
A ranking of a 3 means: There is extensive political imprisonment, or a recent history of such imprisonment. Execution or other political murders and brutality may be common. Unlimited detention, with or without a trial, for political views is accepted. http://www.politicalterrorscale.org/countries.php
Lastly, I wanted to take a look at death in the 20th Century to see if I could find some reasonably accurate numbers tallying the deaths associated with Communism. I came across an incredible website and found the following interesting stats:
- Roughly 4,126,000,000 people died during the 20th century from all causes. If 185 million of these deaths were man-made, then one out of every 22 (or 4.5%) deaths during the 20th Century have been caused by fellow humans.
- Of these 185 million man-made deaths, a full 92 million deaths were caused by Communists -- that's almost half!!
Here's the Breakdown of 20th Century Deaths due to Communists:
• Genocide & Tyranny: 44 million (including intentional famine)
• Man-made Famine: 37 million (excluding intentional famine -- ie., including only famines due to government negligence and economic miscalculation as opposed to a desire to kill its populace)
• Communist-inspired War (for example the Russian Civil War, Vietnam, Korea, etc.) - Military: 5 million -Civilian: 6 million
The remaining 96 million non-natural deaths in the 20th Century took place in wars, massacres, slaughters, and oppressions not related to Communism.
There are few political ideologies that have simultaneously aroused such indignation and fervor as Communism. Communism has been touted with promising “Peace, Bread, & Land” to the underprivileged, bringing all of humanity into a place of equality, prosperity, and Utopian bliss.
Others have viewed Communism as the ultimate evil ideology to enslave and oppress the masses while a tiny elite enjoy unchecked power and an almost god-like status.
Last week, Glenn Beck of Fox News fame did an expose in which he showed that some of President Obama's picks for advisers are Communist. Van Jones, the "Green Czar" charged with creating "green jobs" in our country has admitted to his enthusiasm for Communism.
Jones, a graduate of YaleLawSchool, spent time in an L.A. jail in 1993 after being arrested during the Rodney King riots. About his experience in jail, he reminisced that he "met all these young radical people of color, I mean, really radical -- Communists and anarchists, and it was like, this is what I need to be a part of. . . . By August, I was a Communist."
At least four other advisers to the President openly promote agendas that smack of Communism.
Regardless of Van Jones or any other of Obama's special advisers, I believe that understanding what Communism is, how it comes about, how citizens living in Communism are impacted, and what influence Communist leaders and policies have in our nation today is a MUST for every American citizen.
Let's start at the beginning. So what is Communism, really?
Communism can be defined as “a family of economic and political ideas and social movements related to the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, or stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general, as well.” (Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism) This sounds innocuous enough, but let’s try to break this down into plain English.
You know you are living in a Communist society when:
- Your government abolishes the ownership of private property, including land, homes, businesses, and etc. (and seizes the property by force if need be) in the name of uplifting the poor.
- Similarly, your government seizes control of industry and agriculture stating it is in the best interest of the people, the poor in particular.
- Your government establishes and runs a central banking system, taking this duty away from privately-owned banks, for the good of the people.
- Your government takes control of transportation and communication.
- Your government controls labor, or is in the business of creating jobs.
- Your government engages in centralized regional planning.
- Ideals of equality among the classes, races, and genders are heavily promoted, with measures taken to institutionalize equality through:
o A graduated income tax to redistribute wealth – taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
o Government-controlled, free public education (with a government-approved curriculum).
o Abolition of inheritance.
- Your government implements policies that are hostile toa belief in God and religion.
Here's how I see it: Communism preaches power to the people while bestowing absolute power on the governing elite. This elite is charged with taking care of the people. Whether they do a good job of that or not is the next question to ponder.
(Stay tuned for my next article where I discuss how well the Communist Nations' elite make good on their promises to the masses.)
Let’s now take a look at the Pro's and Cons' of Communism for the average citizen:
PROS –
- Guaranteed a place to live (though in the initial stages, if your home is too uppity it might be confiscated by the State),
- Food to eat (unless you happened to get caught in one of those nasty government-made famines. No food for you!),
- Lots of jobs available,
- Free education,
- Free health care,
- Free abortions,
- Relatively low crime rate on the streets,
- As long as you follow the status quo, don’t rock the boat, and don’t mind the CONS listed below, you can have a quite pleasant existence.
CONS –
- Much lower standard of living than Capitalist nations,
- Grossly curtailed freedoms and civil rights for the masses (ie. Free health care, but no free speech),
- If you disagree with your government and you say or do anything about it, then you may not like the consequences. Tens of millions of people with dissident beliefs (ie. against Communism) have perished (and are still perishing) under Communist regimes at the hands of their government through executions and arrests with atrocious living conditions in concentration camps housing the arrested.
Is Communism to be feared? Should we be alarmed if our current president takes advice from an avowed Communist or two, or is there a place in our government today for people of all political persuasions?
I'll let the facts I just outlined, and those that I will share in subsequent articles, speak for themselves, and you can be the judge!
