Swine Flu Overestimated! (part 1 of 3)
By Dr. Mercola
I, like many others, consider 60-Minutes an excellent source of journalism. Their executive producer, Don Hewitt died earlier this year after leading the program for 41 years to one of the most successful programs in the history of television. His guiding principle was to tell a story and is actually a strategy I am seeking to implement on this site.
Last Sunday, their lead story was no exception and followed the champion strategy of telling the story of a young high school football player who was infected with the H1N1 virus...
60 Minutes on H1N1 October 18, 2009You can see the 60 minutes interview from 1977, over 30 years ago. This is in stark contrast to this segment. Admittedly it was done long after the damage was done but if you look at 4:15 you will see one of the CDC consultants clearly state he warned them of this danger and yet when the CDC head is confronted with this, he denies it.
60 Minutes Episode on H1N1 from 30 years agoDo you think much has changed in the last 30 years? If anything, conflict of interest has gotten much worse.
This past Sunday's 60 Minutes segment did ask some hard questions to the Assistant Surgeon General. However, what was missing is that they didn't ask why CDC officials persist in telling the public that this H1N1 strain of influenza is quite dangerous when the experience of those in the southern hemisphere, which just finished their flu season, is in direct conflict with what the CDC is telling the American people.
Overall 60 Minutes did a fairly good, objective piece of journalism that told the truth. They even pressured the Assistant Surgeon General about the vaccine's safety. On one hand, she's hitching her safety statements to the fact that the H1N1 vaccine is similar to seasonal influenza vaccine, and therefore "safe," even though she realistically CAN'T say that the new H1N1 swine flu vaccine is safe, or that it has been thoroughly tested because it only has been tested for a few weeks.
On the other hand CDC officials are screaming that H1N1 is so different from the seasonal influenza strains that have circulated in the past few decades that a national alarm must be sounded and everyone needs to be so afraid that we all should get vaccinated to prevent a deadly pandemic. This is completely inconsistent and irrational logic.
Come on CDC, you simply can't have it both ways.
Questions that Were Are Not Being Asked
The interviewer on the 60 Minutes segment did ask some hard questions, but he, like most of the mainstream media did not ask important questions that are absolutely essential to understand precisely what is going on with this "pandemic"
There have been 81 children who have died from H1N1 in the US. These of course are tragic.
How many pediatric deaths occurred in children who:
Were positively lab confirmed as H1N1;
Had underlying chronic immune and brain dysfunction
Were fully vaccinated according to CDC recommendations
Had received influenza vaccine this year
Had received seasonal influenza vaccine in previous years
Received Tamiflu or another anti-viral prior to death
Had a coinciding bacterial infection with H1N1
Were never vaccinated - totally unvaccinated
Other Important Observations on the Segment
It is quite clear from the video that Luke did not get worse until after he visited the physician and was given an antipyretic and possibly Tamiflu. Certainly it could have been coincidence but it is an interesting observation.
No mention was made if Luke had been vaccinated for seasonal or H1N1?
Additionally there was no reference made to the last swine flu epidemic in the US when 50 million people got the swine flu vaccine and more people died from the vaccine than the swine flu itself -- and that's not counting all those that developed permanent neurological damage.
Why is no one reminding the public of this well documented and vitally important part of vaccine history?
Your Immune System is Perfectly Capable of Fighting H1N1
Additionally what the 60 minutes segment failed to mention is that it is relatively easy to improve your immune response to fight this infection.
If 99.9% of the people are not having any serious complications from the infection, it would seem perfectly rational to believe that minor lifestyle changes could have dramatic effects on fighting this infection, and none of these involve taking potentially dangerous and unproven vaccine interventions.
Simple Measures That Can Help You Fight Illness
Vitamin D has been well documented to increase the production of over 200 anti microbial peptides that fight infection.
Eliminate sugar from your diet as that will impair your immune response
Get plenty of rest
Exercise appropriately
Take appropriate supplements like oil of oregano extract, propolis, olive leaf extract, elder flower extract, acerola, DMG.
However you will need to know the above BEFORE you purchase any supplements on that list. Any company that informs you of the above will be in violation of US Federal law and a newly created Swine Flu Task Force has been given the authority to shut the business down and even throw owners in jail.
Violations of these new rules are being prosecuted even more aggressively than alternative cancer treatments. Earlier this week, Dr. Andrew Weil actually received an FDA/FTC warning letter that threatens jail time for failure to comply with the rules.
3) The Canadian preliminary study is provocative in that it suggests those who have gotten seasonal influenza vaccine in the past may be at greater risk for getting H1N1 and having complications. This reinforces NVIC's call for a comparison of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated individuals for all health outcomes.
Notice When Things Don't Add Up...
Interestingly, the 60 minutes segment acknowledges that many people born before 1950 have antibodies to the new H1N1 influenza and are naturally protected.
WAKE UP AMERICA, this is before ANY vaccine was available!
If influenza vaccines are so effective, then why don't they work to protect people that have been getting their flu shots all these years?
(There is a new Canadian study that suggests those who have gotten seasonal influenza vaccines in the past may be at greater risk for getting H1N1 swine flu. This information reinforces NVIC's call for a comparison of the long term health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated children).
The answer is, of course, that vaccines do not offer long term immunity. Natural immunity is what you gain when you recover from influenza and natural immunity is what is protecting older Americans, who have recovered from exposure to H1N1 strains of influenza in the past.
What is unknown is whether the massive amount of vaccine exposure in the US population has critically weakened people's ability to mount an effective immune response to novel infections like H1N1.
It was discouraging to see 60 Minutes end their segment on H1N1 influenza vaccine with an encouragement to go to their website to find out where to get a swine flu vaccination...
Fighting Back in the Courts -- and Winning!
Last week the New York state Supreme Court judge issued a restraining order against the state from enforcing mandatory vaccination.
This came about as a result of a lawsuit by the Public Employees Federation, the New York State United Teachers, and an attorney representing four Albany, NY nurses, who sought to reverse the policy that required New York hospital workers to get the swine flu vaccine or face termination. The suit argued that NY state Health Commissioner Richard Daines had overstepped his authority.
The Supreme Court ruled that the vaccination for nurses, doctors, aides, and non-medical staff members who might be in contact with patients, remain voluntary.
This is an incredible victory, and a vital one. And it shows that there are still ways to oppose the complete disintegration of human rights, choice, and freedom.
In addition to that, on October 15, another group of health freedom advocates, including Dr. Gary Null and other New York health care workers, filed an emergency injunction in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the distribution of the swine flu vaccine, and to void the FDA swine flu vaccine approvals already granted on September 15.
The complaint alleges that the government failed to follow its own rules and applicable legislation in rushing the vaccine approvals in the absence of any of the requisite minimum scientifically sound and appropriate testing for both safety and effectiveness as required by law since 1964.
I will keep you posted on the progress of that injunction.
Criticism is Par for the Course When Advocating Non-Conventional Views
It's impossible to take a stance against such an ingrained medical paradigm as vaccines without taking some hits, and I've taken my fair share lately. Some bloggers and doctors are naturally unhappy with what I'm disseminating, so I'd like to take a moment to clarify my own views.
First of all, I'm glad that people from both sides of this debate are available to discuss it because that is what we desperately need -- discussion. Conventional medicine has routinely ignored and ridiculed the voices speaking up for a "safety first" approach. We need to have an open, public discussion about the realities and dangers of what we're doing, and whether or not vaccination is the safest approach to preventing chronic illness and maintaining health.
So I'm actually pleased that the opposition is taking the time to read my material, as are millions of others who already agree and have looked deeply enough into the matter to understand my position.
The fact of the matter is that vaccinations do not optimize immune function and there is way too little information about what else they do in the human body that may contribute to poor health. My main point is that there are ways to prevent illness and maintain health that are so much more natural, easier, less expensive and more effective than routine use of multiple vaccines in childhood and throughout life.
So in many ways I am grateful for the swine flu challenge that we are now going through, because it allows us the opportunity to expose flaws in vaccine system and the way mainstream medicine thinks about health and wellness.
Is the Swine Flu "Deadly," or Not?
There are far too many points of criticism to respond to them all, but let's review one point that has come up -- a point that is commonly heralded by mandatory vaccination advocates.
Many of them take serious issue with my claiming that the swine flu vaccine is not deadly, and use that to insinuate that I'm spitting on the graves of the children who have died.
Nearly all of them, just like the CDC and mainstream media, use the statistic that 36,000 people die from the influenza every year. I actually wrote an article about this fallacy more than five years ago.
Interestingly that number has remained static as if carved into stone all these years.
However, the truth is that less than 1,000 people actually died from type A or type B influenza. The other 35,000 died from pneumonia. This is actually clearly listed on the CDC's own website, yet virtually everyone ignores this fact.
Dr. David Rosenthal, Director of Harvard University's Health Services, brings further clarity to this confusion.
Most of these so-called influenza deaths are in fact bacterial pneumonias -- not even viral pneumonias -- and secondary infections. Furthermore, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Academy shows that many of these deaths are a result of pneumonias acquired by patients taking stomach acid suppressing drugs.
So, for example, if we are to take the combined figure of influenza and pneumonia deaths during the flu season of 2001, and add a bit of spin to the figures, we are left believing that 62,034 people died from influenza.
The actual figures are 61,777 died from pneumonia and only 257 from influenza.
Even more amazing, in those 257 cases, only 18 were lab confirmed as positive for the influenza virus!
In my opinion, there's a vast difference between 257 deaths and 36,000 deaths from influenza..
A separate study conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics for seasonal influenza seasons between 1979 and 2002 reveals that the range of annual influenza deaths were between 257 and 3,006, for an average of 1,348 influenza deaths per year.1
Again, nowhere near the 36,000 mortality mark that has been etched into stone by those who are advocating annual flu shots.
Although the loss of even a single life is tragic, I don't think anyone would look at these numbers and say that a mortality rate of less than 1,350 is cause to label influenza a "deadly disease" that requires mandatory influenza vaccination.
Listen to the CDC's Own Admissions!
So, how does the CDC respond to this discrepancy reported by the Harvard scientist?
Please read carefully the CDC's own statement:
"Typically, influenza causes death when the infection leads to severe medical complications... [and as most such cases] are never tested for virus infection...
...CDC considers these figures to be very substantial undercounting of the true number of deaths from influenza. Therefore, the CDC uses indirect modeling methods to estimate the number of deaths associated with influenza."
In an earlier 2003 article JAMA, William Thompson from the CDC's National Immunization Program attempted to explain "influenza-associated mortality." He wrote,
"Based on modeling, we think it's associated. I don't know that we would say that it's the underlying cause of death."2
In summary, the CDC is admitting:
Deceased are not tested to determine the presence of the flu virus, and
They do not directly perform any direct testing to determine the exact cause of death. "Indirect modeling methods" is a professional way of saying they use subjective mathematical equations to arrive at their figures.
The 36,000 mortality figure is nothing more than a mathematical model. The British Journal concluded that the only possible rationale for the CDC's complete disregard for scientific fact, even in face of independent research to discredit its statistics, is a public relations effort between the CDC and the vaccine manufacturer's campaigns to increase flu vaccination.
What IS a "Deadly Disease"?
As of October 11, 2009 the World Health Organization reported that, worldwide, there have been more than 399,232 laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1, and over 4,735 deaths.
Folks, that is 4,735 deaths in the ENTIRE world, not just the US!
Most all of these deaths occurred in immunocompromised individuals.
Now I do not want to diminish the value of any life, but what is needed here is a critical perspective.
Malaria kills ONE MILLION people EVERY YEAR, worldwide. Death is a direct result of the malaria infection.
So every DAY 2,740 people are dropping dead from malaria, whereas less than 13 people per day died from the swine flu in the past year, worldwide (if you disregard that most died not as a direct result of the swine flu virus, but from having poor immune function which led to serious secondary infections and complications).
Did you ever wonder why malaria doesn't get much press coverage? Doesn't it strike you as odd that more isn't done to clamp down on such a deadly disease if governments are talking about quarantine centers at airports and suspending personal choice and freedom over the swine flu?
Confusion and Misdirection IS at Work. But Why?
A thorough , comparative analysis of several flu pandemics has been published in the prestigious British Medical Journal, that gives evidence that the H1N1 swine flu is of "the same subtype as seasonal H1N1 that has been circulating since 1977."3 The author points out the substantial confusion between the high public attention the present H1N1 scare is receiving and the very low level of scientific certainty that H1N1 is more severe than other seasonal influenza.
With the facts at hand, it is easy to detect a pattern of misdirection and purposeful confusion.
Doesn't it make you wonder why?
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