Thinking for a Change: H1N1 deaths

Modern medicine has been credited with saving many a life over the past couple hundred years, with the development of medications, diagnostics, and surgical procedures making life possible for innumerable individuals who simply would have great difficulties surviving in earlier eras.

Yet with many blessings there often comes a curse.

He who wields the scalpel and the prescription pad is capable of doing as much damage as he is good. Men (and women) are fallible creatures, and the same goes for our human friends in the medical field.

Deaths due to medical negligence occur frequently throughout the world, and the United States is certainly no exception. And even in modern medicine's relatively short history, we have already seen how a few individuals in power can use the technology of modern society and medicine to cause harm to unsuspecting innocents, sometimes even intentionally.

With all the hoopla surrounding the swine flu and its vaccine, I wanted to take a look at the controversy of its preported safety as well as the trustworthiness of those who assure us it is "safe and secure." (1)

Do the benefits of the swine flu vaccine outweigh the risks for you personally? Should you trust the WHO and CDC when they assure us that this vaccine is totally safe? Is it really ever a good idea to blindly trust another person (however good their intentions and however impressive their credentials) when it comes to your body? After all, you only get one body in this life, and the man who completely abdicates the responsibility to care for his own body to another is a fool!

In Part 1 of this series, I gave 10 reasons I would not be getting the swine flu vaccine. In Part 2, I outlined 4 criteria that, if met, would justify our government's reaction to the swine flu and its vaccine and expound on the first. Criteria #1 -- we would need to see massive amounts of suffering and death from the swine flu (more than the seasonal flu, more than most other communicable illnesses). In Part 3, I expound on Criteria #2 -- there must be a vaccine available that will prevent illness and death in those who would otherwise suffer tremendously and/or die.

So far, we are 0 for 2.

Before I outline some of the potential risks associated with the swine flu vaccine, I just want to address my comments to anyone reading this who has never considered the possibility that their doctor might not be right about everything.

Some of the most common comments I hear any time I challenge the status quo in medicine and health are these -- "But my doctor is a good person and would never tell me to do something that would harm me." "If such-and-such wasn't good for us, then why do doctors everywhere recommend it? I can't believe that they are all in a conspiracy together to hurt us."

I have to agree -- most doctors are good people, and it is preposterous to imagine that each day when the patients are gone, doctors all over the nation get together on the internet late at night to think up ways to damage peoples' health.

But the thing is, it's not your doctor who develops policy for the country or the world. Your family doctor is also part of a system -- one that they have been trained to dutifully follow.

History proves time and time again that it only takes one or two nut jobs (or incompetents) in power to cause tremendous harm -- whether the nut job is a leader of a nation, in charge of developing policy for the military, or conducting a clinical trial on a drug or vaccine. Most of the rest of us are underlings, either too busy or distracted to take the time to research things. Or even if we take that time and discover something amiss, we may have limited power in enacting any sort of change to the status quo.

Here are just a few disturbing examples of government or medical policies in recent years that have hurt countless people --

The Tuskegee "bad blood" syphilis experiment of 1932-1972, in which almost 400 poor sharecropping African-American males in Alabama with syphilis were purposely denied proper medical treatment for the illness in order to see what would happen if the disease progressed unchecked. Unfortunately, the main outcome was misery and death for these unsuspecting men, and infection of their partners and children was common. (2)

During WWII, some U.S. Air Force pilots had the unlucky job of flying into mushroom clouds of detonated atom bombs to test radiation levels in the air. Though "no-one keeled over" immediately and everything seemed fine at the time, radiation poisoning and a lifetime of health problems resulted for many of these young men. (3)

Agent orange in Vietnam. Need I say more?

An astounding 1 in 4 veterans of the first Gulf War in the 90's developed a serious, debilitating mystery autoimmune illness called Gulf War Syndrome. Veterans had been given numerous vaccines, and researchers found that anthrax vaccine with the chemical adjuvant squalene, which has been shown to cause autoimmune symptoms in lab animals, was the likely culprit -- 100% of soldiers with Gulf War Syndrome who had received the anthrax vaccine from a particular lot of the vaccine had antibodies to squalene. (4) (5)

Tetanus shots contaminated with hGC, the pregnancy hormone, were given to millions of women and girls in the Philippines, Mexico, Nicaragua, Tanzania, and Nigeria throughout the 90's. The problem is that this causes the body to launch an immune response against the hormone, and spontaneous abortion is the result. Oops -- sorry, guys! Hope you weren't planning on ever having kids! (6)

Millions of polio vaccine doses were recently given out in Nigeria, paralyzing 124 children. Interestingly enough, I began researching for this article over a month and a half ago. The MSNBC link to this news article has since been removed. (7)

Alright -- so here are some of the clear, potential risks from the H1N1 vaccine based on its past track record as well as the ingredient lists of:

thimerosal (in multi-dose units),
squalene (in some of the European variants),
formaldehyde (a known carcinogen),
MSG (a neurotoxin),
antibiotics,
ethylene glycol (anti-freeze), and
other mystery substances including fragments of random viruses, cancer cells, and cells from various animals . . . (8)

POTENTIAL SERIOUS RISKS --

Guillain-Barre syndrome --
seizures,
other neurological problems,
miscarriages,
death
an unknown number of possible long-term ill effects difficult to trace back to vaccines . . .

An organization called "Judicial Watch" found 1,112 reported adverse reactions to the H1N1 vaccine between October 1 - November 4, 2009, including 38 serious reactions, 12 life-threatening reactions, and 6 deaths. Here are some of the more serious cases (all 100% documented) --

A 77-year-old male contracted severe back and chest pain within 30 hours of receiving the H1N1 vaccine and died of an aneurysm that very day.
A 9-year-old female with Down’s Syndrome went into cardiac arrest 6 days after receiving the H1N1 vaccine and was found dead in her home.
A 24-year-old female with cerebral palsy and epilepsy received the vaccine and went into cardiac arrest the next day due to a flu-like illness and died.
An overweight 46-year-old female took the H1N1 vaccine and called her doctor the next day complaining of feeling light-headed. She was dead the next day.
A 55-year-old male turned blue and went into respiratory distress with an elevated heart rate immediately upon receiving the H1N1 vaccine. He was taken to the hospital by ambulance. This man survived. (9)

It looks like the swine flu vaccine wasn't so "safe and secure" for these individuals.

Further, a previously healthy and athletic 14-year-old boy, Jordan McFarland, was hospitalized the day after receiving the H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines, and now he suffers from excruciating pain and paralysis due to Guillain-Barre syndrome that developed immediately after his vaccination. (10)

(Hundreds of individuals developed this rare and debilitating neurological in 1976 after receiving the swine flu vaccination.)

Scores of women have come forward to report that they miscarried their baby within a few days of receiving the H1N1 vaccine. (11)

The moral of the the story is this -- doing your own research (even if you just take 10 minutes to browse the topic online) is essential to making sure you are aware of the risks and benefits of any particular treatment or vaccine, as well as any safer alternatives. Don't count exclusively on your doctor, public officials, and the mainstream media to inform you of all possible risks and to make a proper decision about what is best for you and your family.

Interestingly enough, did you know that the Director general of the WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan "didn't get around" to getting the H1N1 vaccine, which she unabashedly promoted worldwide as the best and safest way to protect oneself from the pandemic, until December 30, 2009 after she was openly accused of hypocrisy? (12)

Interesting food for thought . . .

(1) http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091007/D9B67SCG0.html
(2) http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmtuskegee1.html
(3) http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/Into-the-Mushroom-Cloud.html?c=y&page=1

(4) http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html#6806076506901379532
(5) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12127050

(6) http://www.rense.com/general79/vaxcc.htm
(7) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32418446/ns/health-infectious_diseases

(8) http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/05/Swine-Flu-Vaccine-Ingredients.aspx
(9) http://www.judicialwatch.org/foiablog/2009/nov/over-1000-adverse-reactions-h1n1-vaccine-october
(10) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/20/earlyshow/health/main5723397.shtml

(11) http://preventdisease.com/news/09/110709_H1N1_vaccine_miscarriage_reports.shtml
(12) http://www.fleshandstone.net/healthandsciencenews/1735.html

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.

More to come . . .

(1) http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=8905230

(2) http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/10/24/america-in-the-midst-of-two-major-national-emergencies/

(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_by_country

(4) http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5405872n&tag=api

(5) http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm

(6) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/FASTATS/lcod.htm H