Yesterday I was faced with a choice -- to sleep in and enjoy another hour or two of blissful slumber, cozying up in my flannel sheets and favorite down pillow, or to get up early and clean my apartment in preparation for a busy day.
One choice would give me instant gratification -- more sleep, even as the rest of the world is busy driving to work, grabbing a cup of coffee anywhere possible so as to shake off their fatigue and participate in the daily grind.
The other choice would give me the satisfaction that I had conquered the flesh, if only for a morning, and I would have a sparkling clean apartment to show for it!
We live in a world where each of us is constantly making similar choices -- choices between what we want now and what we ultimately want, between the pain of regret or the pain of discipline.
Should I go for a run today, or stay in and watch T.V.? Shall I have a shake with that burger and fries, or would I be better off going home and making an organic smoothie?
Day to day, moment to moment, the truth is -- we cannot have it all! If I have a low metabolism, I can't consistently choose that chocolate shake and expect to enjoy my optimal weight. I can't both sleep in and have the clean apartment on any given morning, unless I find another solution such as cleaning my apartment the night before!
Similarly, governments and societies grapple with the fundamental battle of freedom vs. rights. Just as it is impossible for any individual to enjoy boundless success in any area of their life while concurrently practicing a limitless lack of restraint and discipline, the more that a government emphasizes rights for its populace, the more the peoples' freedom is curtailed.
In other words, there is a limit to the rights that can be guaranteed to individuals if they wish to enjoy wide-ranging freedom.
On the other hand, it may be wise to limit some freedoms in the name of guaranteed rights in order for any given society to be successful. For instance, I may decide that I want to exercise my freedom of choice to murder someone.
Thankfully, the Founding Fathers of the United States crafted a document -- the Constitution -- that limits certain freedoms to allow a set of rights to American citizens. The accused murderer, though provided with the right to an attorney and a trial by jury, will suffer for his crime if found guilty. He does not have the right to infringe on the life of another and get off scott-free.
American society was built on the ideals of providing all citizens with protection of a few, but precious inaliable rights and at the same time, providing an environment of freedom in which individuals could choose for themselves how to live their lives. Some would likely choose to make great sacrifices to be successful in business. Others might choose to push their physical limits to become an elite athlete. Some may choose to live a life of abject laziness, financial irresponsibility, or moral debauchery. And as statistics go, the majority would likely fall somewhere in between these two extremes.
But whatever an individual's successes or failures, in such a society as our nation was intended to be, more so than in any other type of societal framework that I am aware of, individuals are held accountable for the choices they make by the types of results they get in return. The natural law of "you reap what you sow" reigns superior.
I have recently come across a number of articles discussing President Obama -- is he a Socialist? Is he a Communist? And does it even matter??
There is no one definition for Socialism, but it is safe to say that Socialism favors rights more than Libertarianism, Conservatism, and even Liberalism does. Socialism leans toward the guarantee of rights such as the following -- the right to have food to eat, the right to having a job, the right to affordable health care, the right to being provided for when you are retired, the right to have a roof over your head . . .
In the pursuit of providing rights to the people in its care, however, Socialism by its very nature must rob freedom. Socialism says -- "I will guarantee you many or most of the things you need to live your life and be happy." Understandably, this sounds like a great idea to many! But what Socialism fails to be clear about is the downside -- "I have to create laws, regulations, and taxes that will limit your freedom in some ways in order to deliver what is promised."
Whether you like the idea of the government caring and providing for the people, or are disgusted by its implications, there is no getting around the fact that President Obama is clearly one of the most Socialist-leaning presidents this nation has ever seen.
Those who favor the government caring for the masses should view President Obama being labeled a Socialist as a compliment!
I should also mention that Obama would find good company in the presence of FDR, JFK, and virtually every modern U.S. President. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, welfare, food stamps, and countless other government programs are clearly more of a Socialist persuasion (even such things as public education and our modern tax system are Socialist-leaning).
Whether you like the idea of every man, woman, and child guaranteed all things for a reasonably comfortable existence, or you prefer that natural law determine who has the comforts of life; whether you are the type to get up early to clean your house or you are happier slurping on your chocolate shake, just remember that everything has a cost.
What does that have to do with my previous post about Vanity Fair's incessant publishing of pictures featuring skinny chics? The implication that Vanity Fair should be compelled to publish photos that don't cater to its demographic just to make other people feel good about themselves, makes me raise my eyebrows about as much as guaranteeing every human being a right to an MRI.
Stay tuned for my next article -- Why I Believe Socialism and Christianity Are Wholly Incompatible . . .
Yesterday evening I was browsing the news on my Yahoo home page when I came across an article condemning Vanity Fair magazine for their too-frequent featuring of young, skinny white chicks on their cover.
The article suggested that in the name of fairness, Vanity Fair might instead choose to feature more diverse individuals – those of different races, body types, and ages.
Don’t get me wrong – I am all for diversity! Living in Utah, which seems to me sometimes to be overrun by skinny blondes, I miss being around my brothers and sisters of soul. Particularly at events where dancing is involved. No – what I just implicated was not politically correct, but it’s true – trust me!! Last Halloween I was at a large, awkward function involving about 500 white singles in their 30’s and 40’s, with about 2 black people in attendance. When Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was played, it was not pretty!
But should one person’s (or group’s) desire to see something portrayed a certain way impact the marketing strategy of a business entity? What if Vanity Fair’s constituency is young, skinny white chicks and people who like them, as I suspect it is? Don’t they have the right to market their magazine to that group unimpeded?
What if the trashy magazines were required to feature models from the Dove “Beauty Campaign” on their cover just so most of us regular-looking women didn’t feel left out?
I hate porn magazines almost with a passion, and I hate how modern media has contributed to the poor self-esteem of millions of girls and women the world over through the constant parading of air-brushed and digitally-tweaked images of impossibly beautiful females.
But in spite of the damage perpetrated by Playboy, Seventeen Magazine, or even Vanity Fair, I will support their right to portray whatever they want.
Yesterday, I came across another article on my Yahoo home page that addressed the question of whether or not President Obama is Socialist, and whether or not that was a good thing.
What does the stink about Vanity Fair have to do with Obama and Socialism? Stay tuned until my next post . . .
(Published Wednesday, January 20, 2010, by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, editor of NaturalNews)
The great swine flu hoax of 2009 is now falling apart at the seams as one country after another unloads hundreds of millions of doses of unused swine flu vaccines. No informed person wants the injection anymore, and the entire fear-based campaign to promote the vaccines has now been exposed as outright quackery and propaganda.
Even doctors are now calling the pandemic a complete hoax. As reported on FoxNews, Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, a leading health authority in Europe, says that drug companies "organized a 'campaign of panic' to put pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic. He believes it is 'one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century,' and he has called for an inquiry." (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933...)
H1N1 swine flu was never dangerous, and it never should have been escalated to a level-six pandemic in the first place. It was all a big marketing scam whose purpose was to simply sell vaccines. (And the CDC and WHO were in on it...)
And it worked! Big Pharma made out with billions of dollars in profits for a useless vaccine that's now being dumped by the truck load. These vaccines were, of course, paid for with taxpayer dollars, making the Great Swine Flu Hoax of 2009 nothing more than an elaborate financial scam whose goal was to transfer wealth from the People to the shareholders of Big Pharma.
That's $1.4 billion worth of taxpayer dollars, by the way. Dollars that could have been spent on nutrition or real health education. $1.4 billion worth of free vitamin D supplements would have done far more to protect public health than vaccines could ever hope to accomplish.
A bailout for Big Pharma
Wall Street hucksters have nothing on Big Pharma, the CDC and the WHO, all of which conspired to mislead the public and generate irrational fear in order to make money selling people vaccine shots they never needed in the first place.
The drug companies raked in billions of dollars in revenues while providing a product that offered absolutely no net reduction in mortality. In fact, as the long-term side effects of the vaccines remain unknown, it could turn out that the vaccines actually result in a net increase in mortality.
Meanwhile, countless people were harmed by the swine flu vaccine frenzy (it's "countless" because nobody's counting). In addition to those who were nearly paralyzed after receiving the vaccine shots, grade school students in Massachusetts who lined up to receive swine flu vaccine shots were instead injected with insulin. (Insulin injections can put you into a coma.) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...)
The school sent a letter home to students blaming the mishap on the school nurse. But if they weren't injecting these kids with a useless vaccine for a non-pandemic, none of this would have happened in the first place.
Total swine flu deaths for 2009 were far lower than the number of deaths from regular seasonal flu. And yet it turns out that thousands of Americans who died from the swine flu had been previously injected with the vaccines (http://www.naturalnews.com/027956_H...). In fact, according to calculations derived from official CDC estimates, thousands of vaccinated Americans died from swine flu anyway. The vaccines, it seems, don't really work after all. You're just as safe doing nothing.
Actually, getting the vaccine may harm your health. Outspoken Dr. Wodarg even says that the full extent of the damage from the insufficiently-tested vaccines may not be known for years. "The vaccine developed by Novartis was produced in a bioreactor from cancerous cells, a technique that had never been used until now," he says.
Just what we need, huh? Cancer cells being injected into the population as part of a vaccine campaign.
Cancelling vaccine orders
The Swine Flu hoax has fizzled out, and countries like Greece, France and the UK have cancelled orders for vaccines that they now realize won't be needed (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS...) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8...). But even the fizzling of this hoax doesn't mean it was a failure from the point of view of Big Pharma.
The swine flu hoax was a huge success not only for drug company profits, but also for certain influential individuals including Dr Julie Gerberding, former head of the CDC who has now accepted a high-paying job
as the president of Merck's global vaccine operations. (http://www.naturalnews.com/027789_D...)
One minute you're running the CDC, warning the country about a pandemic while urging everybody to get vaccinated, and the next minute you're running the for-profit vaccine division of the world's largest drug company. Amazing how that works, huh?
As I stated in the song lyrics, which were written in early August, 2009:
The truth is outrageous
Don't you know the drug companies made this flu
Don't you know the swine flu is made by man
Pharmaceutical scam
It's all part of the Big Brother population plan
They don't want you to see the remedies
you can stop influenza with vitamin D for free
Herbal medicine is all that you need
But they can't charge a fifty dollar fee
Unless
They inject you
The big drug companies are makin' a killing
Collectin' the billions and gettin' away like a James Bond villain
Cuz' they're willin' to do almost anything
Just to make money with the flu vaccine
Many clueless critics thought this song was some sort of outrageous conspiracy rant at the time. Turns out it was a spot-on prediction of the truth behind The Great Swine Flu hoax of 2009.
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)
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.
