The Swine Flu Pandemic

You gotta love the media. We live in an era now where it is hard to filter the information that comes our way because we are bombarded. The media loves to go crazy with the story of the week causing us to panic even further. I wonder how much of our economic situation was brought about by media coverage??

So the flavor of the week is the swine flu pandemic. Every time I open the internet or turn on the news I see people walking around with masks on with the big pandemic headline running across the screen. You can't help but feel a bit nervous. However, I'm much more skeptical than I used to be...maybe being with Steve so many years has rubbed off on me!

Most people know that I'm not a fan of MOST vaccinations. There are a few I feel are necessary, but for the most part I feel that the majority are not needed and are actually harmful for us. So this current issue grabbed my attention as soon as they started talking about rushing vaccinations out.

I found a most interesting article on the current situation. The link to the article is
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine-Flu.aspx

I suggest you print out the article and read it when you have a few minutes. It is very intriguing.

I will pull out some key elements from this article for your quick reading. Everything below comes straight from the article above found on mercola's website.

---On April 27, Time magazine published an article which discusses how dozens died and hundreds were injured from vaccines as a result of the 1976 swine flu fiasco, when the Ford administration attempted to use the infection of soldiers at Fort Dix as a pretext for a mass vaccination of the entire country.

---This is NOT the First Swine Flu Panic

My guess is that you can expect to see a lot of panic over this issue in the near future. But the key is to remain calm -- this isn't the first time the public has been warned about swine flu. The last time was in 1976, right before I entered medical school and I remember it very clearly. It resulted in the massive swine flu vaccine campaign.

Do you happen to recall the result of this massive campaign?

Within a few months, claims totaling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the vaccine. The vaccine was also blamed for 25 deaths.
However, several hundred people developed crippling Guillain-Barré Syndrome after they were injected with the swine flu vaccine. Even healthy 20-year-olds ended up as paraplegics.
And the swine flu pandemic itself? It never materialized.

More People Died From the Swine Flu Vaccine than Swine Flu!

---As of Monday April 27, the worldwide total number of confirmed cases was 82, according to WHO, which included 40 cases in the U.S., confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control. But does that truly warrant the feverish news headlines?
To put things into perspective, malaria kills 3,000 people EVERY DAY, and it's considered "a health problem"... But of course, there are no fancy vaccines for malaria that can rake in billions of dollars in a short amount of time.

---Just a couple of months ago, scientists concluded that the 1918 flu pandemic that killed between 50-100 million people worldwide in a matter of 18 months -- which all these worst case scenarios are built upon -- was NOT due to the flu itself!4
Instead, they discovered the real culprit was strep infections.

---Please remember that, despite the fantastic headlines and projections of MILLIONS of deaths, the H5N1 bird flu virus killed a mere 257 people worldwide since late 2003. As unfortunate as those deaths are, 257 deaths worldwide from any disease, over the course of five years, simply does not constitute an emergency worthy of much attention, let alone fear!
Honestly, your risk of being killed by a lightning strike in the last five years was about 2,300 percent higher than your risk of contracting and dying from the bird flu.6 I'm not kidding! In just one year (2004), more than 1,170 people died from lighting strikes, worldwide.7
So please, as the numbers of confirmed swine flu cases are released, keep a level head and don't let fear run away with your brains.

---According to the World Health Organization's Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response site; as of April 27, there are:
64 laboratory confirmed cases in U.S. -- 0 deaths (reported by CDC as of April 29)
26 confirmed cases in Mexico -- 7 deaths
6 confirmed cases in Canada -- 0 deaths
1 confirmed case in Spain -- 0 deaths
Additionally, nearly all suspected new cases have been reported as mild.
Personally, I am highly skeptical. It simply doesn't add up to a real pandemic.
But it does raise serious questions about where this brand new, never before seen virus came from, especially since it cannot be contracted from eating pork products, and has never before been seen in pigs, and contains traits from the bird flu -- and which, so far, only seems to respond to Tamiflu. Are we just that lucky, or... what?

---Your Fear Will Make Some People VERY Rich in Today's Crumbling Economy
As soon as Homeland Security declared a health emergency, 25 percent -- about 12 million doses of Tamiflu and Relenza treatment courses were released from the nation's stockpile. However, beware that the declaration also allows unapproved tests and drugs to be administered to children. Many health- and government officials are more than willing to take that chance with your life, and the life of your child. But are you?

---Remember, Tamiflu went through some rough times not too long ago, as the dangers of this drug came to light when, in 2007, the FDA finally began investigating some 1,800 adverse event reports related to the drug. Common side effects of Tamiflu include:
Nausea
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Headache
Dizziness
Fatigue
Cough
All in all, the very symptoms you're trying to avoid.
More serious symptoms included convulsions, delirium or delusions, and 14 deaths in children and teens as a result of neuropsychiatric problems and brain infections (which led Japan to ban Tamiflu for children in 2007). And that's for a drug that, when used as directed, only reduces the duration of influenza symptoms by 1 to 1 ½ days, according to the official data.

But making matters worse, some patients with influenza are at HIGHER risk for secondary bacterial infections when on Tamiflu. And secondary bacterial infections, as I mentioned earlier, was likely the REAL cause of the mass fatalities during the 1918 pandemic!

---Just last month I reported on the story that the American pharmaceutical company Baxter was under investigation for distributing the deadly avian flu virus to 18 different countries as part of a seasonal flu vaccine shipment. Czech reporters were probing to see if it may have been part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic; as such a "mistake" would be virtually impossible under the security protocols of that virus.

But there seems to be no repercussions or hard feelings when industry oversteps the boundaries of morality and integrity and enters the arena of obscenity. Because, lo and behold, which company has been chosen to head up efforts, along with WHO, to produce a vaccine against the Mexican swine flu?
Baxter!11 Despite the fact that ink has barely dried on the investigative reports from their should-be-criminal "mistake" against humanity.

---I've written extensively about the numerous dangers (and ineffectiveness) of flu vaccines, and why I do not recommend them to anyone. So no matter what you hear -- even if it comes from your doctor -- don't get a regular flu shot. They rarely work against seasonal flu...and certainly can't offer protection against a never-before- seen strain.

---Topping the whole mess off, of course, is the fact that if the new vaccine turns out to be a killer, the pharmaceutical companies responsible are immune from lawsuits -- something I've also warned about before on numerous occasions

Bottom line...don't let fear from the media get the best of you.