Senior Issues

Swine Flu Deaths Due to Lung Infections

Valerie — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:39:43 +0000

Bacteria Had Role in Some H1N1 Deaths

By Michael Smith, North American Correspondent, MedPage Today
Published: September 30, 2009

Bacterial lung infections were common among 77 people who died because of the 2009 H1N1 flu, a finding similar to past pandemics, the CDC said.

In a subset of the 600 U.S. deaths associated with the current pandemic, 29% had a bacterial coinfection, the agency said in a early release from the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The most common pathogen found was Streptococcus pneumoniae, identified in 10 of the 22 cases of coinfection, the agency said.

The finding underscores the need for vaccination against pneumococcus, according to CDC epidemiologist Matthew Moore, MD, one of the report’s co-authors.

“Our influenza season is off to a fast start, and, unfortunately, there will be more cases of bacterial infections in people suffering from influenza,” Moore said in a statement.

“It’s really important for people, especially those at high risk for the serious complications from influenza, to check with their provider when they get their influenza vaccine about being vaccinated against pneumococcus,” he said.

In previous pandemics, the agency said, most deaths blamed on the flu have occurred concurrently with a bacterial coinfection, but that had not been shown so far in the current outbreak.

Indeed, two early reviews of severe cases had shown no bacterial coinfections among 40 H1N1 inpatients, 10 of whom were in intensive care.

“These reports might have led to a perception that bacterial coinfections are playing a limited role or no role in influenza deaths during the current pandemic,” the CDC said.

But the CDC said such an absence of evidence might simply reflect the difficulty of identifying pathogens.

Although the current report established that bacterial coinfection is playing a role, the results don’t give information about the rate of bacterial pneumonia among H1N1 patients, the agency said.

The cases studied for the report are not a systematic sample and might not be representative of all serious H1N1 cases, the CDC said.

Along with the 10 cases of pneumococcus infection, analysis found:

Seven cases of Staphylococcus aureus
Six of Streptococcus pyogenes
Two of Streptococcus mitis
And one of Haemophilus influenzae

Four cases involved multiple pathogens.

No information was available on the vaccination status of the 22 patients, but one was younger than five years and was therefore a candidate for the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (Prevnar).

Fifteen others had underlying medical conditions that were indications for the 23-valent polysaccharide vaccine (Pneumovax or Pnu-Immune).

Primary source: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
Source reference:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “Bacterial coinfections in lung tissue specimens from fatal cases of 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) — United States, May–August 2009″ MMWR 2009; 58: 1-4.

Unknown Risks to Swine Flu Vaccine

Valerie — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:59:02 +0000

From LewRockwell.com:

By: Dr. Joseph Mercola Oct 22 09

Every day Americans wake up to news reports that warn us about the dangers of influenza, especially the new H1N1 “swine flu.”

But swine flu is mild for most people and the virus is not mutating into a more serious form.

Millions of people around the world have recovered from swine flu, and millions more will get sick with fevers, body aches, nasal congestion, cough and sometimes diarrhea and vomiting and recover from it this year and next year without any complications.

Nonetheless, wide-scale vaccination is being encouraged – even though swine flu vaccines have been tested on only a few thousand healthy Americans for a few weeks. There is little or no information about how safe the vaccine is for pregnant women and chronically ill or disabled children.

If you or your child are injured from getting a flu swine flu shot, you are on your own. Congress has shielded the vaccine manufacturers and any person giving swine flu shots from lawsuits if people get hurt.

There is no funded government vaccine injury compensation program for swine flu vaccine.

Do NOT let a doctor or anyone else tell you that a serious health problem you or your child experiences after vaccination is a coincidence and allow more shots to be given until you know for sure.

The most tragic cases of vaccine injury occur when vaccine reaction symptoms are dismissed as a “coincidence” and more vaccines are given that result in more severe symptoms – and sometimes end with permanent brain and immune system damage or death.

But while Americans are still debating whether to roll up their sleeves for a swine flu shot, companies have already figured it out: vaccines are good for business.

Drug companies have sold $1.5 billion worth of swine flu shots, in addition to the $1 billion for seasonal flu they booked earlier this year. These inoculations are part of a much wider and rapidly growing $20 billion global vaccine market.

“The vaccine market is booming,” says Bruce Carlson, spokesperson at market research firm Kalorama, which publishes an annual survey of the vaccine industry. “It’s an enormous growth area for pharmaceuticals at a time when other areas are not doing so well,” he says, noting that the pipeline for more traditional blockbuster drugs such as Lipitor and Nexium has thinned.

As always with pandemic flus, taxpayers are footing the $1.5 billion check for the 250 million swine flu vaccines that the government has ordered so far and will be distributing free to doctors, pharmacies and schools. In addition, Congress has set aside more than $10 billion this year to research flu viruses, monitor H1N1′s progress and educate the public about prevention.

Drugmakers pocket most of the revenues from flu sales, with Sanofi-Pasteur, Glaxo Smith Kline and Novartis cornering most of the market.

But some say it’s not just drugmakers who stand to benefit. Doctors collect copayments for special office visits to inject shots, and there have been assertions that these doctors actually profit handsomely from these vaccinations.

Sources:

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

The vaccine market is booming right now. Already, drug companies have sold $1.5 billion worth of swine flu shots, in addition to the $1 billion for seasonal flu they booked earlier this year. In addition to that, Congress has set aside more than $10 billion this year to research flu viruses, monitor H1N1′s progress and educate the public about prevention.

ic cases of vaccine injury occur when vaccine reaction symptoms are dismissed as a “coincidence” and more vaccines are given that result in more severe symptoms – and sometimes end with permanent brain and immune system damage or death.

But there is still some good news in the midst of all this, and that is that more people than ever before are finally beginning to sit up and take notice, and are beginning to consider the risks versus benefits of flu vaccinations.

As I recently reported, a new poll by Consumer Reports shows that nearly 2/3 of American parents plan to either hold off on vaccinating their children against the H1N1 (swine flu) virus, or won’t vaccinate them at all.

In fact, quite a number of surveys, polls and studies are showing that more and more people are refusing the swine flu shot for themselves or their children over health and safety concerns.

And even a recent New York Times article acknowledges this site as playing an important role in educating the public about vaccine safety concerns, which has contributed to a less than wholehearted embrace of the government’s recommendation to rush out and get vaccinated.

The NY Times reports that, “The popular Web site Mercola.com is urging parents not to get the flu vaccine …”, with the result that the majority of parents are now planning to refuse to let their children get these shots.

Largely as a result of this Web site’s posting the information, and your sharing it with your friends and relatives, we have together created MAJOR doubt in the minds of many consumers about the value of these vaccinations. Many people are now coming to the realization that flu vaccinations can cause serious health problems.

Together, we are making a difference! A difference that is likely saving people’s lives and preventing permanent and irreversible health consequences.

Have You Thought About This?

Barbara Loe Fisher with the National Vaccine Information Center brings up several important points to consider in her blog, Vaccine Awakening. I highly recommend you read her article in its entirety, but here are a few of the highlights:

Getting vaccinated in a non-medical setting can be very dangerous.

The swine flu vaccine is now being offered all over the place; in pharmacies, stores, schools, and even drive-by kiosks. Getting vaccinated in a non-medical setting like this can be very risky. For example, if you drive away immediately after getting vaccinated and suffer an unexpected allergic reaction or collapse, it could be deadly, not only for you but also for innocent bystanders and others sharing the road with you.

These places also do not have the ability to properly evaluate your medical history, nor perform the necessary follow-up, should you have any adverse reactions.

If you get vaccinated and suffer health complications, REPORT IT!

This is a crucial element of vaccine safety, and diligent reporting of all adverse reactions can help save the lives of others. As Fisher recommends, insist that the health care worker who gave you the vaccine immediately files a report with the US federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). If they, for whatever reason, won’t do it, you CAN file it yourself!

To file a report yourself, simply go to www.vaers.hhs.gov and follow the instructions.

Don’t accept “coincidences” when it comes to vaccine reactions.

I strongly agree with her concern when she says:

“Do NOT let a doctor or anyone else tell you that a serious health problem you or your child experiences after vaccination is a coincidence and allow more shots to be given until you know for sure.

The most tragic cases of vaccine injury occur when vaccine reaction symptoms are dismissed as a ‘coincidence’ and more vaccines are given that result in more severe symptoms and sometimes end with permanent brain and immune system damage or death.”

There is NO safety data or precedent for receiving 3–4 flu shots in one season.

Even though the media and government pronouncements sound confident and authoritative it’s vital to realize that the current recommendations by doctors and health officials are unprecedented, and highly experimental.

Some people, including children under the age of 10, are urged to get as many as four flu shots this year: two shots for seasonal flu and one or two more for swine flu, depending on a few different factors.

Never before have this many flu shots been given in a single season, and there is absolutely no information about the safety of doing so.

Standing up for health care workers’ right to choose could save you from mandatory vaccination down the line.

As of right now, the swine flu vaccination program is still voluntary – unless you’re a health care worker that is… New York and other states have already implemented laws that force their health care workers to get the swine flu vaccine in order to work.

According to a recent report in Time Magazine, this includes not just NY doctors and nurses who care for patients, but also administrative staff, including housekeeping and food-service personnel.

What does that tell you about the possibility of mandatory vaccinations for the rest of us?

Anti-Virals Now Pose Serious Health Threat from Environmental Sources Too

According to a Japanese study published in the September 28 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, the flu drug Tamiflu is now contaminating rivers downstream of sewage-treatment facilities.

The source? Urinary excretion from people taking Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate).

Researchers are quite concerned that birds exposed to these waterborne residues could develop and spread drug-resistant strains of various types of flu.

Science News reports:

“Once ingested, virtually all Tamiflu will end up in the environment in the active form, notes environmental chemist Jerker Fick of Umeå University in Sweden. The reason: Tamiflu becomes active once the body converts it into a carboxylate form.

Roughly 80 percent of an ingested dose becomes this OC, which your body eventually excretes. Your body sheds the remaining 20 percent of Tamiflu in its original form, but this phosphate form is immediately turned into the active, carboxylate form when it reaches a water treatment plant, he says.”

Making matters worse, previous studies have confirmed that water treatment removes ZERO percent of this drug, and appears to have a half-life of approximately three weeks, once exposed to sunlight.

I bring this up to demonstrate the long-term dangers inherent in our current drug-based paradigm.

Each time you take a drug like Tamiflu, you not only expose yourself to potentially serious health risks, you’re also contributing to a growing problem of ever more drug-resistant flu strains that can affect countless others. The willy-nilly administering of anti-virals goes far beyond just the immediate health risks – it affects the environment and every living thing in it, including the human race at the top of the food chain.

The fact remains that there are many FAR BETTER alternatives to anti-viral drugs and vaccines. These drugs are not essential for human health – nutritious food, clean water, and an overall healthy lifestyle are.

I’ve listed my top recommendations for avoiding the flu on many occasions. For a refresher, you can find that list here.

In addition, should you be forced to take the swine flu shot, please review Dr. Blaylock’s recommendations on what to do in that situation.

The Time to Act is Now

I urge you to join NVIC and become a grassroots vaccine safety and informed consent advocate in your community.

“Stand up for the human right to make informed, voluntary health care choices, including vaccine choices, today – so your children and grandchildren and all Americans will have that right tomorrow.” ~ Barbara Loe Fisher

If, like NVIC says, we don’t stand up for our rights to choose now, there is no doubt in my mind we’ll all be paying for it, both financially and physically, in the years to come.

No Republicans Needed for Health Care Vote

Valerie — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:54:24 +0000

from Investors.com:

Dems Go Nuclear

Posted 10/16/2009

Health Care: Democrats seem set to use the “nuclear option” to ram their government health takeover into law. Bipartisanship already looked dead; now it looks extinct.

The health care revolution the Democratic Congress has planned — with its inevitable medical rationing, thousands of dollars in increased insurance premiums, and coverage of illegal aliens — may get placed on the familiar fast track used to spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars this year.

Instead of the 60 votes needed in the Senate if proper parliamentary rules were followed, passing this reshaping of the medical system as a “budget reconciliation” measure would mean only a simple majority was needed.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., accused of cheating on his taxes, last week held a hearing to let the House version of the health reform bill be passed this way. As the Washington weekly Human Events reports, Democratic leaders “have apparently invoked the ‘nuclear option’ to shut out Republicans and ensure the bill is passed before the end of the year.”

So all those “town hells” during the summer, where senators and congressmen were given an earful about passing secretly written thousand-page bills without reading them, will be ignored.

In the age of the Internet, Congress refuses to post for computer access the most consequential legislation in history, as far as its effect on human lives (and deaths) is concerned, before voting on it.

The people will have to wait until it’s all signed, sealed and delivered before finding out exactly how this government-imposed monster will devour health care as Americans have known it for all their lives.

And why? Because both congressional Democrats and the White House are afraid of the power of the people. Just as they are both afraid to give the opposing party a seat at the negotiating table.

Rangel didn’t allow Republicans to offer amendments in committee. Why not? Fear that Democrats might be embarrassed by having to reject a Republican amendment to protect Medicare, for one thing. And fear in general that the people might catch wind of a few bipartisan ideas that sound more sensible than their big government solutions.

The magnitude of what Congress is about to do is staggering. The federal government is about to begin dictating Americans’ behavior regarding the most intimate and vital area of life — health.

You play ball with Uncle Sam and pay thousands and thousands of dollars for far more expensive insurance than what you’re now used to, or you get slapped with fines. And as yet we don’t know how heavy those fines will be — or if noncooperation with the new system will mean more than fines.

Doesn’t Congress owe it to us to provide time to mull this over before it takes force?

Shouldn’t the exact wording of this radical transformation of our medical system be available on the Internet for weeks before a floor vote takes place?

And shouldn’t medical experts, health care providers and legal analysts get the opportunity to read every word of such a bill carefully, then give their well-considered analysis to concerned Americans?

Apparently not, according to those now running Washington.

To them, this is a rare opportunity to take a giant step toward single-payer, European-style socialized medicine. And they have no intention of letting the people stop them.

Dr. Oz Children will not get Swine Flu Vaccine

Valerie — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:44:46 +0000

from LewRockwell.com:

Dr. Mehmet Oz, talk show host and Vice-Chair and Professor of Surgery at Columbia University is perhaps the most well-known doctor in the U.S.

During a recent episode on his talk show, a Walgreens pharmacist gave Dr. Oz a flu shot – which was also given to everyone in his studio audience. (Unfortunately, we cannot post that clip, but you can view that segment here.)

He states that he’s been getting the seasonal flu vaccine every year for about ten years.

But what you didn’t see in that clip was Dr. Oz stating that when it comes to the swine flu shot, neither his wife nor his four children will get the vaccine (although he will get that one too). This comes up during interviews on both Fox News and CNN.

It’s amazing how many doctors have been hoodwinked into believing that the flu shot is a necessity.

Fortunately, he acquiesces to a far healthier approach as it pertains to the rest of his family, and his wife and children will be spared the toxic burden and other potential health hazards inherent with the swine flu vaccine.

It’s far less surprising how many corporations are happy to promote the belief that you need a flu shot every year, given how much money they’re making off of useless flu vaccines.

Study after study keeps coming to the same conclusion: Flu vaccines DO NOT WORK, and in many cases do more harm than good.

In fact, before the CDC advocated vaccinating children under the age of five, the number of children dying from the flu was very low, and on the decline. Then, in 2003, just after children aged five and under started getting vaccinated, the number of flu deaths skyrocketed.

For this year’s flu season, five biopharmaceutical companies have been awarded massive contracts by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for development and production of more than 195 million doses of swine flu vaccine, in addition to the seasonal flu vaccine.

The companies – Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, MedImmune, Australian drug maker CSL, and Sanofi-Pasteur – will likely make a great deal of money.

CSL has contracts to supply $180 million worth of bulk antigen to the U.S. MedImmune will supply 40 million doses of its live attenuated nasal spray swine flu vaccine for more than $450 million. And Sanofi-Pasteur is providing more than 100 million doses of monovalent swine flu vaccine, a $690 million order.

Sources:

DoctorOz.com September 12, 2009
The Scientist September 23, 2009

Dr. Joseph Mercola’s Comments:

In my eyes, Dr. Oz didn’t do anyone any favors by recommending the flu vaccine. Although he has many valuable recommendations, this is absolutely not one of them.

If people only understood the facts, I doubt many would rationally decide to receive a flu shot year after year. Sadly, throwing away money is the least of your worries, should you decide to get a flu shot.

Fortunately, Dr. Oz also openly admits that no one in his family (aside from himself) will submit to getting the swine flu shot. Apparently someone, whether it’s Dr. Oz or Mrs. Oz, knows better and is not willing to line up the family and take a number in the human trial currently underway.

Why Don’t Most Physicians “Get It”?

The problem, of course, is that there is a massive disinformation campaign designed to distort the facts and create a sense of fear and urgency where it is absolutely unwarranted – in addition to suppressing the emerging evidence of the lack of proven safety and efficacy of this vaccine.

It really is unfortunate that the drug companies have been so effective at brainwashing physicians of the “germ theory” and the belief that vaccines are an effective solution for this. It was only at the NVIC International Vaccine Conference that I had this epiphany.

I was listening to Dr. Bob Sears, who is a vaccine advocate (with a much different schedule for getting them), say that he was convinced of the germ theory. That’s when I realized that that is precisely what was going on. They fully believe that the viruses and bacteria are responsible for all the damage.

It is my belief, and that of nearly all natural health care practitioners, that these infectious agents only serve as triggers to cause the illness, but what is required or responsible for the actual infection is a dysfunctional immune system.

When I lecture, I frequently use the analogy of disease to darkness and health to light. If you shine a light in a dark room it is not dark anymore. Darkness and light simply can’t coexist. Similarly if you are healthy you can have enormous exposure to infectious agents and you simply will NOT get sick. Just like light and darkness it is very difficult, if not impossible in most cases, for a strong immune system and infectious disease to exist together.

What the Science Says About Injecting Mercury

The standard counterclaim from the medical industry and the bobble-heads on TV is that these ingredients, in the doses administered, have never been proven detrimental to human health.

This is a bold faced lie.

But it’s an effective lie, because most people will simply take that statement at face value without doing any further research. Life is far too busy to double check “reliable resources.”

The fact is there’s plenty of evidence indicating that significant brain damage can occur as a result of being exposed to agents such as mercury and aluminum, both for children and adults. In fact, some researchers believe that aluminum may be an even more important toxin than mercury in the vaccines.

For example, in a brand new study published in the journal Neurotoxicology just last month, the researchers found that primates injected with just ONE vaccine containing thimerosal suffered significant neurological impairment when compared with those who received a saline solution injection, or no injection at all.

The monkeys received a weight-adjusted amount of the vaccine preservative thimerosal, so each dose included 2 mcg’s of ethyl mercury. A human infant dose of thimerosal-containing vaccine typically contains 12.5 mcg, and most seasonal flu vaccines as well as the swine flu vaccine will contain 25 mcg of mercury per adult dose.

As a result, the macaques vaccinated at birth took more than twice as long as unexposed macaques to acquire three standardized skills typically used to measure infant brain development.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that has built up over the years, US health officials are still promulgating vaccines as the best solution to the flu.

Worse yet, in a nauseating twist, the state of Washington’s Health Department has now temporarily suspended a rule that limits the amount of a mercury preservative in vaccines given to pregnant women and children under the age of 3, just so that they can start administering the swine flu vaccine to toddlers and pregnant women as quickly as possible…

Trading Health for Something that Doesn’t Work Anyway

It really amazes me how effective the drug companies have been at manipulating the culture so that we now allow them to sell these toxic, ineffective and expensive options in pharmacies, airports, college campuses, grocery stores and countless other outlets, without taking into account your medical history or doing any follow-up.

Study after study (that was not unduly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry) has reached the same conclusion – that flu shots simply do not work as advertised. For example:

Giving young children flu shots appeared to have no impact on flu-related doctor visits or hospitalizations during two recent flu seasons, according to a study published in the October issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.
The flu vaccine is no more effective for children than a placebo, according to a large-scale, systematic review of 51 studies, published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
NO studies have conclusively proven that flu shots prevent flu-related deaths among the elderly.
A study published in the Lancet just found that influenza vaccination was NOT associated with a reduced risk of pneumonia in older people. Why is this important? Because 35,000 of the 36,000 “flu” deaths the government claims happen each year are actually caused by diseases like pneumonia, and NOT the flu.
Research published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine also confirms that there has been no decrease in deaths from influenza and pneumonia, despite the fact that vaccination coverage among the elderly has increased from 15 percent in 1980 to 65 percent now.

For even more information, studies and statistics about the flu shot, please review this previous article.

What Should You Do?

I strongly advise against getting any flu shot, and that includes the swine flu shot.

But don’t just take my word for it.

Here I’ve given you a sampling of evidence against the flu shot, but I’ve written hundreds of articles about the flu, flu vaccines, vaccine additives such as mercury, aluminum, and squalene (just to name a few), as well as numerous articles about the coming swine flu vaccine.

You can find them all simply by using the search engine at the top of this page.

Educating yourself on this issue is becoming more important than ever before.

Look, the pharmaceutical industry is not leaving anything to chance to protect their profits. They even have studies showing them just how much risk parents will accept and still inoculate their children, and how much they’re willing to pay while still accepting that risk!

Believe me, if we had the REAL numbers of serious adverse reactions and deaths from vaccines, the vaccine industry would go bust in short order. Unfortunately we don’t know the exact devastation caused, because there’s no mandatory follow-up and reporting of side effects.

Studies have estimated that only 1 to 10 percent of all side effects, including deaths, are ever reported, so the numbers in existence are very deceptive and in no way gives you a realistic view of the true impact of all these vaccinations.

Educational Resources

One of the best and most trustworthy vaccine information sources is The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), the American vaccine safety watchdog. Exploring their information, as well as reviewing the links provided in the text above and searching my site for previous articles, will help you to get educated on this vital topic.

Last but not least, for my recommendations on how to avoid the flu without resorting to dangerous drugs and vaccines, please review my previous article “Avoid Flu Shots With the One Vitamin that Will Stop Flu in Its Tracks.”

Medicare Leads the Way in Claims Rejections

Valerie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:24:39 +0000

from Investors.com

Posted 10/07/2009 07:00 PM ET

View Enlarged Image

Reform: Throughout the health care debate, insurance companies have been cast as greedy villains that gleefully deny medical claims. But when it comes to rejecting claims, they can’t hold a candle to the government.

Just days before Congress broke for its August recess, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the insurance industry’s opposition to a government-run health plan “almost immoral” and accused carriers of profiting at the country’s expense.

“Of course they’ve been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure,” said the San Francisco Democrat who has taken more than $200,000 in political contributions from the insurance industry in the last two election cycles. “They are the villains. They have been part of the problem in a major way.”

The complaints lodged toward the industry from the Democratic side are focused primarily on premiums — too high, government health care supporters say — and horror stories about private insurers denying care. Neither criticism, however, is fair.

Premium rates are affected in no small way by government policy. Mandates handed down by lawmakers add significantly to costs.

The Congressional Budget Office believes mandates such as requiring insurers to sell policies to anyone who wants one and rules on what treatments must be covered increase premium costs by 15%. The Council for Affordable Health Insurance says the increase is higher — 20% in some states and as much as 50% in others.

As for denial of care, Medicare, which we’ve described as the government’s public option for senior citizens, has the highest denial rate in the country, according to the American Medical Association’s 2008 National Health Insurer Report Card.

From March 1, 2007, to March 10 of last year, Medicare rejected 475,566 of 6.94 million claims for a rate of 6.85%.

Aetna was the only private insurer that had a similar number, denying 43,317 of 637,239 claims for a rate of 6.8%. But the average of seven carriers was 4.05% including Aetna. Dropping Aetna as an outlier takes the denial rate down to 3.08%.

Medicare’s biggest reason for rejection (27.8%) was claims lacking information “needed for adjudication,” the AMA report says. More than one-fifth (20.9%) of the rejections were in response to procedures deemed not to be a medical necessity by Medicare.

Nearly 4% were rejected because they were noncovered services performed during a routine exam or screening. In 3.1% of the cases, Medicare said the expenses were incurred before the patient was covered — a pre-existing condition.

Other claims were denied because the patient wasn’t covered by Medicare or couldn’t be identified as a Medicare recipient, or there were paperwork problems.

Not surprisingly, the private insurers didn’t deny a single claim due to corporate greed, Republican malevolence or any of the other criticisms the left uses to attack the insurance industry.

The lesson here is that a government program, even one as beloved as Medicare, is no more efficient, no more caring, no more morally superior than private coverage.

This isn’t the only lesson that can help the public understand why government-run health care, even if it’s just a camel’s-nose-under-the-tent public option, would be a mistake.

But it is part of a larger package of reasons that coherently argue against more intervention from the state, which controls 45% of U.S. health care spending as it is.

Social Security COLA Payoff Demonstrates Fiscal Irresponsibility

Valerie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:20:39 +0000

From Investors.com Posted 10/15/2009

Social Security: The White House wants to give a special $250 payment to all 57 million recipients of retirement, disability and veteran benefits. If it does, it will destroy the last shred of fiscal control left in the system.

To protect retirees from the ravages of inflation, Social Security recipients get a Cost of Living Adjustment to their basic payout each year based on consumer price changes in the preceding year.

Since COLAs were introduced in the early 1970s, inflation has been so inexorable, every year has seen an increase in benefits.

The string runs out next year, however.

Because of a fluke in the COLA calculation, beneficiaries this year accidentally got a whopping 5.8% hike — more than actual inflation. And because inflation this year has been fairly low, beneficiaries are slated to get nothing additional next year, and perhaps not in 2011 either.

Thanks to Washington, they’ll get another raise anyway — right out of working Americans’ pockets.

With unemployment at a 26-year high of 9.8% and many working Americans taking double-digit cuts in pay, it seems only fair that those who get Social Security should be held to what they deserve, and nothing more. But that’s not how Washington works.

Sensing an opportunity to curry favor with the largest, and wealthiest, group of Americans in the country — the elderly — the White House wants to give them a $250 hike anyway — $14.3 billion in budget terms.

Even if it’s a one-time payout, which is likely, it’s vote buying on a massive scale — the kind of casual corruption practiced in Third World countries.

What’s worse is that a precedent would be set — in effect, eliminating the COLA. Social Security and Medicare are already bankrupting us. This ends even the pretense of fiscal responsibility when it comes to entitlements.

Coincidentally, the very day this latest news of federal fiscal incontinence emerged, the Government Accountability Office released an update to its long-term budget outlook.

“While a lot of attention has been given to the recent fiscal deterioration,” the GAO report said, “the federal government faces even larger fiscal challenges that will persist long after the return of financial stability and economic growth.”

The long-term fiscal outlook, it added, “remains unsustainable.”

What exactly does unsustainable mean? In the GAO’s “alternative scenario” — the one based on “historical trends and policy preferences,” and thus the most likely scenario — the U.S. has a spending shortfall of $62.1 trillion over the next 75 years.

That’s just under 9% of our expected total GDP over that time. To close this “fiscal gap” will require a 47% hike in taxes or a 33% cut in spending. That’s what “unsustainable” means.

Every day, in ways large and small, this government shows itself to be the most fiscally reckless and irresponsible in our nation’s history — frighteningly on par with those that wrecked once-wealthy Argentina in the 1940s and Germany in the 1920s.

The $14 billion cumshaw the White House has in mind for the retired is just another signpost on our road to fiscal ruin.

CDC Confirms Sickest H1N1 Patients Have Comorbidities

Valerie — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:11:18 +0000

CDC Confirms Sickest H1N1 Patients Have Comorbidities

By Todd Neale, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: October 13, 2009

A preliminary CDC analysis has confirmed that most patients hospitalized with the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus have underlying conditions that increase the risk for complications.

In more than 500 hospitalized children evaluated, the most common conditions included asthma, chronic lung disease, neurologic and neuromuscular disorders, and sickle-cell anemia and other blood disorders, Anne Schuchat, MD, of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on a conference call with reporters.

Among about 1,400 hospitalized adults, the most common conditions were asthma, diabetes, chronic lung disease, chronic heart disease, and immunosuppression.

The findings came from a preliminary look at data covering hospitalizations from the beginning of the outbreak in April through the end of August.

Schuchat said the agency has continued to monitor hospitalizations to make sure there were no risk factors for complications that were overlooked.

The information was reported to the CDC’s Emerging Infections Program, which receives data from 10 state health departments and their local collaborators.

In addition to the underlying chronic medical conditions, pregnancy remained notable among the hospitalized adults; 6.1% were pregnant.

Schuchat said pregnancy increases the risk of flu-related complications because a mother’s immune system is suppressed so the body does not have a reaction to the fetus, increasing vulnerability to all infections.

In addition, she said, as the baby grows, the mother’s airways can become restricted, making it harder to fight off a lung infection.

Schuchat noted that people with underlying medical conditions and pregnant women are among the groups recommended to receive priority access to the pandemic vaccine as it becomes available.

Creative Accounting to Pay for Health Care Legislation

Valerie — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:17:05 +0000

From The Heritage Foundation: October 13 2009

“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future. Period.” President Barack Obama promised this to the American people in his health care address before a Joint Session of Congress on September 9th. Problem is, no one believes him.

The Congressional Budget Office has issued reports on the Senate Health Committee bill (HELP), the House Tri-Committee Bill (HR 3200), and the Senate Finance Committee bill (Baucus bill). According to the CBO, the HELP bill would add $600 billion to the deficit in just the first ten years, HR 3200 would add $239 billion to the deficit in just the first ten years, and the Baucus bill claims to reduce the deficit by $81 billion.

But nobody believes that the Baucus bill will accomplish what it claims to do. As the Washington Post reported:

The cost difference stems from the fact that the House measure is honest enough to include the full 10-year cost of the so-called “doc fix” — $245 billion to reverse scheduled cuts in Medicare payments to physicians — although not fiscally responsible enough to pay for it. The Senate just patches the problem for one year and pretends that doctors take a 25 percent cut in reimbursements the following year and then stay at that low level forever. No one believes that will happen, so the money is going to have to be scrounged up later or else add more to the deficit.

The Washington Post is right: claims that the Baucus bill reduces the deficit are a complete fraud since there is simply no way Congress is going to cut doctor pay by 25% in one year. But all of these bills are deeply dishonest about their true costs in a more fundamental way.

Look at these charts on spending levels in the HR 3200 and the Baucus bill over time. Notice how in both bills the increased revenues (a.k.a. tax hikes) take place immediately but the increased spending doesn’t really ramp up until 2013. In other words, in order to game the CBO scoring system (explained by former CBO Director Donald Marron here), Democrats have packed ten years of taxing, but only six years of spending, into the CBO’s ten-year budgeting window.

So what happens to the deficit in those years after the CBO budget window? Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA), a member of the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition explains: “Every year, you lose ground. It’s likely after 10 years, we fall off a cliff.”

Falling off a cliff. That is the verdict from members of his own party on what Obamacare will actually do to the federal deficit.

Did 1918 Spanish Flu Deaths Result From Aspirin-Induced Scurvy (Vitamin C Deficiency)? by Bill Sardi

Valerie — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:15:32 +0000

By Bill Sardi:

The Daytona Beach News Journal cites the death of a 15-year-old New Smyrna Beach high school student, a confirmed swine-flu victim. The report says: “This student struggled with medical conditions his entire life. He was at higher risk for medical complications.” [Daytona Beach News Journal, October 8, 2009]

A Texas 8^th-grader was diagnosed with the flu on Wednesday at the doctor’s office and denied the anti-viral drug Tamiflu because she wasn’t “high risk.” Her mother was advised to continue monitoring her daughter whose condition worsened with “crackling sounds in her lungs.” She was finally hospitalized on Saturday. This otherwise healthy child succumbed to the flu by Sunday morning. [WFAA-TV 11 news Sept 30, 2009]

The CDC also just released a report showing a striking mortality rate among pregnant women. Among 100 pregnant women hospitalized due to influenza infection, 28 died. This is an unprecedented 28% mortality rate! [Washington Post October 2, 2009] There is no way to confirm this alarming report since it is not cited in a published report that can be examined. A CDC transcript only says “28 pregnant women have died.” (Scare tactic by the CDC?) A published report does show 6 of 45 pregnant women infected with the pandemic H1N1 virus infection died during the period from April 15 to June 16, 2009. [Lancet 374; 451–57, 2009] However, no data is provided that vaccination prevented the women who survived from a fatal consequence.

These reports are being released in the news media’s effort to launch the nation’s flu vaccination program, in hopes that more Americans will elect to undergo vaccination and flu-related deaths may be prevented. While vaccination for the flu may avert flu symptoms or viral infection altogether, will vaccination actually prevent flu-related deaths? Maybe not.

What Americans are hearing from the Centers for Disease Control via the news media is that “Two-thirds of the U.S. children who have died of H1N1 complications had high-risk medical conditions, but another third were healthy before getting flu. Most of the latter group probably died from co-illnesses: H1N1 and a bacterial infection working together, health officials said.” [Knox Tennessee News Nov. 8, 2009]

Would the flu vaccine in fact prevent deaths in immune-compromised subjects? That can only be assumed. In fact, it is inappropriate to administer the nasally-instilled “live” flu vaccine to subjects with weakened immunity.

There seems to be something missing in explanations why otherwise healthy and younger adults die from the flu. Does a dark angel just come visit these kids that die and take them? Fearing a repeat of the 1918 Spanish flu, which resulted in millions of deaths worldwide, what could be done to avert a similar deadly pandemic now?

Dr. Karen M. Starko MD provides us with some important clues. She hypothesizes the high mortality rates due to the 1918 Spanish flu resulted from the over-use of aspirin. The evidence Dr. Starko provides is compelling.

Physicians of the day were unaware that the recommended medication regimens (8.0–31.2 grams per day, or 8000 to 31,200 milligrams) during that time period produce aspirin levels associated with hyperventilation (33%) and fluid accumulation in the lungs (pulmonary edema 3%) of subjects.
Accumulation of fluid in the lungs was recently found in 46% of 26 aspirin-intoxicated adults. In lab experiments, aspirin increases lung fluid and impairs clearance of mucus.
In 1918 aspirin was recommend by the US Surgeon General, the US Navy, and the Journal of the American Medical Association just prior to the October death spike.
Bayer first introduced water-soluble aspirin tablets in 1900. Farbenfabriken Bayer’s worldwide distribution of aspirin had been accomplished in the same year as the flu pandemic. Aspirin sales more than doubled from 1918 to 1920.
The US Army camp with the highest mortality rate had ordered 100,000 aspirin tablets.
Young children were not given aspirin as widely as young adults, which may explain why the young had a lower mortality rate in the 1918 flu. [Clinical Infectious Diseases 2009; 49: online Sept. 29]

The descriptions of flu-related, aspirin-induced lung disease by Dr. Starko are gripping. She cites records of doctors describing aspirin lung as looking like “the lungs of the drowned.” There were small hemorrhages in the lungs which appeared “dark and red and wet, dripping wet.”

Dr. Starko cites doctors who described “frothy, blood-tinged fluid” in the lungs of patients who had died during the 1918 flu outbreak. There were also frank lung hemorrhages.

Dr. Starko goes on to describe aspirin-induced symptoms to include brain swelling, pinpoint red dots on the skin called petechiae, blue coloration of the skin and mucus membranes (cyanosis), along with vomiting and nose bleeds. These are not symptoms characteristic of the flu.

Another common finding among records of mortal flu cases in 1918 was brain swelling, called cerebral edema. Cerebral edema also occurs with the use of aspirin and in Reye’s syndrome. [Acta Neurologica Scandinavia Supplement 2007; 186:45–56]

This is exactly how a patient with severe vitamin C deficiency (scurvy) dies. In scurvy capillaries are weak and red blood cells leak into surrounding tissues, like the brain, lungs and eyes, which was observed among the 1918 flu victims.

Yes, aspirin depletes the body of vitamin C. Aspirin is known as one of the most powerful drugs at depleting vitamin C in normally healthy individuals. [Journal Clinical Pharmacology 1973; 13: 480] Modern medicine appears to have overlooked this well-documented fact.

The volume of literature that confirms aspirin depletes vitamin C is extensive.

A study of rheumatoid arthritis patients is instructive. Rheumatoid patients often exhibit low vitamin C blood levels. In one early study the only rheumatoid patients with normal vitamin C levels were those taking vitamin supplements. In this study, significantly low blood platelet levels were found only in those rheumatoid patients receiving high-dose aspirin – 12 or more tablets per day. Poor blood clotting and low blood platelet levels, characteristic of scurvy, were also prevalent in this group. [Lancet 1971 May 8; 1(7706):937–8]

A major drawback of aspirin therapy is that it may induce bleeding gastric ulcers. When buffered (alkalinized) aspirin plus vitamin C is employed, there is a measurable reduction in microscopic bleeding in the gastric tract, better than buffering alone. [Alimentary Pharmacology Therapy 2004 Feb 1; 19(3):367–74] As aspirin-induced gastric bleeding may induce anemia or even death, it is odd modern medicine does not mandate incorporation of vitamin C into aspirin tablets.

Another way aspirin depletes vitamin C from the body is via excretion in the kidneys. Vitamin C is a water-soluble nutrient that is readily excreted in the urine and which requires repeated oral intake throughout the day to maintain adequate levels. Aspirin increases the excretion of vitamin C via the kidneys. [Proceedings Society Experimental Biology Medicine 1936; 35: 20]

Vitamin C and white blood cells

Relying upon blood plasma levels of vitamin C among aspirin users to determine vitamin adequacy can be misleading. In healthy individuals, blood plasma levels of vitamin C do rise when taking aspirin and supplemental vitamin C. Everything appears normal. However, aspirin blocks the entry of vitamin C into white-blood cells, which goes unmeasured. Vitamin C adequacy in the blood plasma serves to distract a physician from the dire state of vitamin C depletion in the white blood cells.

A shortage of vitamin C in white blood cells reduces their activity against viral attack. [Annals New York Academy Science 1975 Sept 30; 258: 355–76]

In a decades-old study, the concentration of vitamin C in white blood cells was measured in patients with gastrointestinal hemorrhage. The white-blood-cell vitamin C concentration was 14.2 micrograms per 108 cells versus 23.7 micrograms in healthy individuals. Vitamin C concentration in white blood cells was found to be lowest among aspirin users in this study. [Lancet 1968; 292 (7568); 603–606]

In an experiment conducted among healthy adults, the acidity of acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) apparently aided the absorption of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) so that the combined administration of 600 mg of aspirin with 500 mg of vitamin C produced a greater increase in blood plasma vitamin C levels than with vitamin C alone, but the aspirin completely arrested uptake of vitamin C into white blood cells! [Annals New York Academy Science 1975 Sept 30; 258: 355–76]

The flu and vitamin C deficiency

One explanation why the elderly are typically more prone to die of the flu may be that the concentration of vitamin C in blood plasma and white-blood cells progressively diminish during life, reaching minimal levels at the age of 60. [Journal Vitamin Nutrition Research 1971; 41:258]

Furthermore, senior adults are more likely to be plagued with the aches and pains of old age and reach for an aspirin tablet more often than younger adults. Additionally, older adults take more drugs, many which deplete vitamin C, such as tetracycline antibiotics, iron, estrogen replacement and steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Cigarettes and alcohol are also vitamin C destroyers. [British Medical Journal 1975; 1 (5951) 208]

Concern over high mortality rates among pregnant women may be explained by a shortage of vitamin C. Vitamin C levels decrease during ovulation and during pregnancy. [Annals New York Academy Science 1975 Sept 30; 258: 355–76]

In a more recent experiment, mice were genetically altered so they did not synthesize vitamin C in their liver as most other animals do (guinea pigs, primates, and humans are an exception as they don’t naturally produce vitamin C within the liver and must completely rely upon the diet for vitamin C). These vitamin C-deficient mice were inoculated with influenza virus and experienced massive damage to their lungs compared to vitamin C-adequate mice. Researchers concluded that supplemental “vitamin C is required for an adequate immune response and in limiting lung pathology after influenza virus infection.” [Journal Nutrition. 2006 Oct; 136(10):2611–6]

Aspirin, influenza, Reye’s syndrome link to vitamin C deficiency

Another flu/aspirin-related condition is Reye’s syndrome. Aspirin use by children during viral infections is not advised because this can result in a potentially fatal outcome. Health authorities warn that aspirin is NOT to be used during episodes of fever-causing illness.

Reye’s syndrome was first described by Dr. R. Douglas Reye of Australia in 1963. [Lancet 1963; 2: 749–52] It is said the origin of Reye’s syndrome is still unknown. Reye’s syndrome is often misdiagnosed and it can occur without the use of aspirin. [Archives Pediatrics 2002 Jun; 9(6):581–6] In light of what has been learned here, this suggests an underlying vitamin C deficiency may be involved in unexplained cases of Reye’s syndrome.

While Dr. Reye’s receives credit for his description of this aspirin-related syndrome in more recent times, descriptions of similar syndromes date back to 1929 in the medical literature. Sadly, modern medicine has missed the vitamin C connection to this syndrome for decades.

Reye’s syndrome was killing a lot of children, with mortality rates ranging from 17.8% to 89.6% depending upon severity, up until the early 1980s when health advisories warned of this aspirin-related problem. An analysis of 1134 Reye’s syndrome cases revealed an alarming 31.3% overall mortality rate. Beginning in 1986 the labels on aspirin bottles warned of this problem and the number of Reye’s cases dropped considerably. [New England Journal Medicine 1999 May 6; 340(18):1377–82]

Bird flu mortality and Reye’s syndrome

The deadly H5N1 avian flu virus is reported to have a 60% mortality rate (6 in 10 infected die), but fortunately has poor human-to-human transmission.

It is interesting to note that the very first confirmed death from H5N1 involved a 3-year-old boy with good past health who developed pneumonia with accompanying complications of Reye’s syndrome. [Journal Paediatric Child Health. 1999 April; 35(2):207–9] Inquiry of the child’s use of aspirin or supplemental vitamin C was not recorded, nor was blood sample drawn to obtain a vitamin C level.

Another study involving the first confirmed H5N1 influenza diagnoses was comprised of 7 patients over the age of 13 with 4 deaths, and 5 patients under the age of 5, one who died with Reye’s syndrome associated with intake of aspirin. [Lancet. 1998 Feb 14; 351(9101):467–71]

An intriguing case of mortal H5N1 flu infection was reported in 1998 involving a 3-year-old child in Hong Kong. The H5N1 virus was isolated from tracheal aspiration samples. The young patient had no direct contact with affected chickens. Since the H5N1 flu virus has poor human-to-human transmission, doctors were puzzled by this case. [Lancet. 1998 Feb 14; 351(9101):472–7] This report would be better explained by examination of aspirin or anti-inflammatory drug use and leukocyte (white-blood cell) vitamin C concentration.

Conclusions

If overuse of aspirin during the 1918 Spanish flu was the primary cause of flu-related death as Dr. Karen Starko contends, then modern medicine has missed a large lesson on how to prevent flu-related death – that it was aspirin-induced scurvy that heightened mortality during this worldwide flu pandemic, maybe not the flu itself. If this hypothesis is true, then preventable mortality continues today. Many hundreds of thousands have needlessly succumbed to a vitamin C deficiency induced by self-treatment with aspirin and/or modern medicine’s continued failing to practice nutritional medicine.

It is not like vitamin pills could have averted the vitamin C-related deaths then. Vitamin C had not been discovered till ~1928 by Hungarian researcher Albert Szent-Györgyi and was not commercially available till a few years later. Vitamin C-rich foods like citrus fruits would have had to be relied upon then. But 8 decades later, physicians aren’t routinely screening their flu patients for aspirin use and aren’t advising their patients to take supplemental vitamin C.

The facts are clear – a pharmaceutical company widely promoted aspirin pills – a pill that depletes vitamin C from the human body, a pill that prevents blood clots, helps to reduce the risk for heart attacks and gastric cancer, and is a trusted pain reliever, but its biggest drawback is that it depletes vitamin C. This drawback could have deadly consequences.

The prevalence of vitamin C-deficiency related to aspirin use is unmonitored. Over 50,000 tons of aspirin is produced annually, which is equivalent to 50 billion aspirin tablets. About 1 trillion aspirin tablets have been swallowed since its first availability in the early 1900s.

Aspirin kills thousands of people annually, mostly from gastric-tract hemorrhages. [Annals Internal Medicine 1997; 127: 429–38]

More deaths may be attributed to aspirin use than previously recognized. The footprints of this vitamin C deficiency syndrome are all over the diagnostic flu map, yet they have been missed for decades.

According to listings at the National Library of Medicine (PubMed), there are over 2000 published reports concerning Reye’s syndrome, but no published studies involving Reye’s syndrome and vitamin C deficiency. There are only six published studies involving flu mortality and vitamin C. With a research budget in the billions of dollars, the National Institutes of Health is remiss in not delving into the connection between vitamin C deficiency, aspirin use, flu-related death and Reye’s syndrome.

Researcher John T. Ely, emeritus professor at the University of Washington, says white blood cells multiply more rapidly and ingest and eradicate viruses more effectively when vitamin C concentrations are high. Dr. Ely emphasizes the human immune system “must have ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to prevent and/or cure influenza.” [Experimental Biology Medicine (Maywood) 2007 July; 232(7):847–51]

In regard to my series of articles critical of flu vaccination posted at LewRockwell.com, an online blogger writes: “Bill Sardi doesn’t know what it is like to have a family member die of the flu.” That is precisely my point here. The public assumes the vaccines prevent death.

Vaccines may reduce symptoms and prevent infection, if the vaccinee is able to generate sufficient antibodies, and if the vaccine contains a strain of the virus currently in circulation (not so in this year’s seasonal flu vaccine), and if the dosage is correct (many need two inoculations to develop immunity), and if there is no treatment resistance, and if, and only if, nutritional status is adequate to avert a fatal outcome.

There is only contrived evidence vaccines prevent death. There is incontrovertible evidence that a shortage of vitamin C, emanating from poor diet, smoking, overuse of alcohol, aspirin, or vitamin-depleting drugs (the very drugs they treat flu patients with – steroids, antibiotics, etc.), is likely the primary cause of flu-related mortality.

What this report alleges is that modern medicine casts a blind eye at nutritional medicine because they need deaths, published in the news media, to frighten the public into vaccination. This morning I read news reports saying another 16 American children died of the H1N1 pandemic flu.

Fear is the pandemic. Health agencies and the news media are doing their best to spread it. The facts are stark – regardless of the evidence provided, the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization aren’t going to rush to recommend vitamin C pills. These so-called health agencies are obliged to produce profits for the vaccine makers, who in turn pay off politicians in the nation’s capitol, in what becomes circular profiteering by politician and drug manufacturer.

Fear clouds the mind. People ask, “if not vaccines, what are we to do, take a useless vitamin C pill? Are we going to let our children die?” Their minds have been inoculated with the thought that vitamin C is a weak player next to a killer pandemic virus. In fact, as revealed in this article, the lack of vitamin C may be attributed to most of the flu deaths over the past century.

How much clearer can I make my plea? The first vaccine made available is the nasally-instilled live-virus vaccine which induces viral shedding for 5 days following inoculation and spreads the disease to family members, teachers, grandmothers, everybody. The vaccine industry knows how to jump start a flu season – begin with the live-virus vaccine. Don’t fall victim to this evil vaccination scheme. The deaths will continue till health authorities address nutritional status. A 100% vaccination rate would not quell mortality rates.

To minimize the risk of flu-related death, the public is going to have to take matters into their own hands and proceed with unguided use of supplemental vitamin C. Asking doctors about vitamin C to treat the flu will produce a predictable answer – “that idea is unproven.” It is just that doctors are ignorant on this point, not that there is no credible evidence.

As a final note, it needs to be said that vitamin C should be incorporated into aspirin pills, to avert or minimize serious side effects such as gastric or brain hemorrhage, or at least aspirin pills should be labeled to inform consumers of the hazards posed by its depletion of vitamin C.

Modern medicine’s narrow approach, to treat every disease as if it were a drug deficiency, has resulted in a steep price for humanity. It is obvious millions have died prematurely since vitamin C was first discovered over 80 years ago. Brave and resolute men and women, Albert Szent-Györgyi, Irwin Stone, Linus Pauling, Ewan Cameron, Emil Ginter, Matthias Rath, Andrew Saul, Tom Levy, Steve Hickey, Raxit Jariwalla, John T. Ely, Hilary Roberts, and others promoted the idea of vitamin C therapy but were readily dismissed, even belittled.

It is said, you don’t die of the flu – you die of the subsequent fluid accumulation in your lungs (pneumonia) and secondary bacterial infection as a result of the flu. In this regard, the discoverer of vitamin C, Albert Szent-Györgyi MD, PhD, said this: “If you do not have sufficient vitamins and get a cold, and as a sequence pneumonia, your diagnosis will not be ‘lack of ascorbic acid’ but ‘pneumonia.’ So you are waylaid immediately.” [The Healing Factor, Irwin Stone, 1972]

Addendum: Does vaccination prevent flu-related death?

Given this author’s negative tack on flu vaccination, frequent challenges are received for me to disclose data on whether the flu vaccine saves lives or not.

The question of whether flu shots avert flu-related death is a difficult question to answer.

Not every influenza virus, nor every pneumonia death, is confirmed by laboratory testing. The Centers for Disease Control employs statistical methods, not body counts, to come up with flu-related mortality figures.

Some guesstimates indicate large numbers of vaccinated populations having been spared their lives. However, one group of researchers report that excess deaths attributable to influenza have only been 5–10% on average in flu seasons in the past several decades. They argue that flu shots could not possibly have prevented more deaths than the 5%–10% of excess deaths in the population. [Archives Internal Medicine 2005; 165(3):265–272; Lancet Infectious Diseases 2007; 7(10):658–666; New England Journal Medicine 2007; 357(26):2729–2730] It’s obvious some pseudoscience has been produced.

While observational studies indicate mortality rates during flu seasons are much lower in vaccinated elderly groups, and Kaiser health plan doctors found elderly patients who died were less likely to have been vaccinated (45% versus 63% among survivors), recently investigators found that the vaccinated had relatively low mortality (death) and morbidity (disease) compared to the unvaccinated, even before the start of the flu season, which would certainly skew the data for analysis. Much of the difference in mortality between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups may be attributable to what is called selection bias.

Kaiser Health Plan researchers suggest vaccination prevents ~25 deaths per 100,000 elderly people vaccinated in a study year. If this figure is projected to larger senior-adult populations, then flu vaccination would prevent ~250 deaths per 1 million vaccinees and 2500 deaths among 10 million vaccinees. The Kaiser study guesstimates, if no elderly patients were vaccinated the excess mortality rate during the flu season would be ~9.8% and with 60% vaccination coverage, this figure would drop to ~4.6%, a relative 47% reduction. Of course, these numbers are guesstimates because the number of deaths among the unvaccinated has to be estimated. In the Kaiser study, about 4000 elderly people had to be vaccinated for 1 flu-related death to be prevented. One can easily see the flaw in these estimates when one considers in many past flu seasons the vaccine didn’t match the flu strain in circulation. Furthermore, the Kaiser study had no way to determine if a deceased patient had actually received a flu shot in a non-Kaiser facility (nursing home) where Kaiser doesn’t monitor vaccination rates. So some vaccine failures may not have been reported. [American Journal Epidemiology 2009 September 1; 170(5): 650–656]

The American Flu Charade by Bill Sardi

Valerie — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:41:03 +0000

The American Flu Charade
News Media Maintains Undeserved Public Confidence In Flu Vaccination Program – Millions Of Doses Of Flu Vaccine May Go Unused This Season

by Bill Sardi

With a Consumer Reports poll showing nearly 2/3rds of U.S. parents will hold off on having their children vaccinated with the H1N1 late-2009 season flu vaccine, health authorities are likely to resort to scare tactics as they have in past years to induce parents into having their children vaccinated. You can’t cry wolf every year. The Consumer Reports telephone survey shows 50% of U.S. parents are delaying their decision to have their children vaccinated and another 14% will forego vaccination altogether.

Anticipate millions of unused doses of vaccine

There may be hundreds of millions of doses of unused vaccine if the public holds to their guns on no flu vaccination. The U.S. government has ordered 250 million doses of the H1N1 late-2009 flu strain vaccine from five suppliers: MedImmune, a unit of AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis (France), Australia’s CSL, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis. In past years the CDC ordered over 100 million doses of the seasonal flu vaccine.

Recognizing resistance to flu vaccination, flu shots are not just being offered at clinics this year. There is coercion at schools, hospitals and workplaces to undergo flu vaccination. The military must take the vaccine.

Reported cases of the flu are likely to be on the upswing as human immunity declines with the seasonal tilt of the Earth away from the sun in northern latitudes, thus reducing intensity of vitamin D-producing solar ultraviolet-B radiation. Despite doing the obvious – promoting vitamin D supplements – vaccines are forced onto the public.

Nasal vaccines will accelerate spread of the flu

The first flu vaccines in use will be nasally-administered Flumist® which utilizes “live” viruses. Flumist®-vaccinated individuals will shed viruses for 5 days following inoculation and are likely to spread the virus to family members. This will predictably accelerate infection rates. Look for health authorities to liken an upsurge in flu cases to the late-season return of the 1918 Spanish flu rather than viral shedding from the nasal-instilled vaccine.

It is not difficult to see how rapidly the flu will spread with Flumist®. For example, breast-feeding infants are at risk for flu infection should their mothers receive Flumist®. Older siblings in grade school are likely to be inoculated with Flumist® and bring the virus home and spread it to their mothers who are breast-feeding their infant children.

Young grade school students are likely to be administered nasal Flumist and subject senior-aged teachers, who are at higher risk for flu-related mortality, to an avoidable risk.

Individuals considered high-risk, such as asthmatics and individuals taking immune-suppressing drugs, should also avoid contact with individuals who receive Flumist®. Any individual receiving Flumist® should not visit a hospitalized patient within 5 days of inoculation. But hospitals post no warning about this.

The Flumist® is not recommended for adults over age 50, and senior adults living in a home with others who have received Flumist® are at greater risk to become infected, though no warning is issued over this.

Vaccines unapproved for the very young

According to package inserts, none of the current vaccines approved by the FDA have been tested for use among pregnant females or in children below the age of 2 for Medimmune Flumist®, or for injectable vaccines, not below age 18 for CSL (Australia) vaccine; not below age 4 for Novartis (UK-USA) vaccine; not below 6 months of age for Sanofi Pasteur (France) vaccine. However, these vaccines are being widely promoted for use among pregnant women and very young infants.

Assessing the real flu threat

Public confidence in the nation’s flu vaccination program exists only because the news media chooses to parrot the many falsehoods offered by the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, the FDA and the vaccine industry.

For example, no one in the news media confronts the mistaken claim that the late-2009 season H1N1 flu has produced a “pattern similar to that seen in the deadly 1918 flu pandemic.” As virologist Vincent Racaniello PhD, Higgins Professor in the Department of Microbiology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, says: “There is no evidence that mutation led to the emergence of a ‘more virulent’ virus that caused more severe disease in the fall of 1918. The only virus available to study was reconstructed from material obtained in November 1918. The first influenza virus was not isolated until 1933. The idea that a more virulent virus emerged in the fall has nevertheless become firmly established – without any scientific evidence to support the hypothesis.”

It is this contrived idea that the Spanish flu could reappear, that the current flu in circulation could reassort or mutate into a deadlier flu virus resembling the 1918 Spanish flu, which is driving the public’s fear over this year’s flu season.

The vast majority of the flu-related deaths in 1918 were caused by bacterial pneumonia, not the flu. Many of these subjects are reported to have had TB, not the flu. [Journal Infectious Disease 2008 Oct 1; 198(7):962–70] Far more people die of lung tuberculosis than the flu. If the $9 billion being spent to ramp up for the 2009–10 flu season were spent on TB eradication, far more lives would be saved. This lends further evidence that the current flu hysteria is driven by commercial interests, not protection of human life or promotion of public health.

How do you kill a virus?

Another falsehood that is often repeated to give false assurance that flu vaccines are safe is that injected vaccines are comprised of “killed viruses.” But given that assurance, health authorities go right ahead and administer live flu virus via nasal instillation to young children, which causes viral shedding for 5 days and accelerates spread of the disease.

Furthermore, there is no such thing as a “live” or “killed” flu virus. As Dr. Racaniello says: “Viruses are not living, so they cannot be killed.” Viruses require a host cell to replicate. Viruses are inactivated by use of heat, UV radiation or treatment with chemicals such as formalin. [Virology Blog, Vincent Racaniello PhD]

It is possible for some vaccine vials in a batch to harbor “active” viruses if the “inactivator” has not been completely employed. So-called “hot lots” of vaccines are never reported to the public. Technically, a “hot lot” is a vaccine lot that receives 10 or more reports of adverse reactions and/or two reports of seizures as well as one or two reports of death.

Need for age-matched vaccines

Another obvious problem is that it appears flu vaccines, if employed at all, should be designed for age groups, since some generations have been exposed to flu viruses and maintain immunity while others have not.

Examine the following chart which compares the age groups infected by the seasonal 2007–08 flu and the novel late-2009 season H1N1 flu. Typically the aged incur higher rates of flu infection. But the late-2009 season H1N1 flu virus is about five times less infective among adults over age 65 than the 2007–08 flu. Young-to-middle aged adults are more likely to become infected this year (2009–10). Usually the very young and the very old comprise most of the cases of the flu. Not this year. This means millions of Americans get flu shots with no potential health benefit and only risks for side effects.

Why would anyone consider receiving this vaccine?

In another misdirection, the Centers for Disease Control continues to advise the public to undergo vaccination for the seasonal flu in addition to the novel H1N1 late-2009 season triple reassortant flu. However, according to the CDC’s own website, 99% of all influenza A viruses currently in circulation (late September 2009) are the late-2009 H1N1 viruses. The seasonal flu strains have virtually disappeared. Seasonal flu shots would be superfluous and even problematic.

Dr. Racaniello asks: “Why would anyone consider receiving this vaccine?” Yet this is being promoted by the CDC and this recommendation is being parroted by the news media.

Positive spin on flu vaccination program is maintained by news media

The news media is aiding and abetting the flu hysteria, dramatizing every flu-related death even when there has been no laboratory confirmation that the H1N1 flu strain was involved, and serves as a free publicity agent for vaccine makers. Behind the scenes there must be mumblings to news reporters they are not to print or air negative reports that would cause the public to lose confidence in the nation’s vaccination program.

An ABC News report cites US health officials as saying low vaccination rates “could have dire consequences,” despite the fact this flu outbreak has produced fewer deaths than the typical seasonal flu and did not result in abnormal mortality as it swept through South America during its summer flu season there.

Complicity between vaccine makers, public health authorities and the news media maintains undeserved public confidence in a flu vaccination program that often only offers side effects and no disease prevention or reduction in mortality. The news media is filled with legions of biology-trained reporters or even MDs. They surely must be aware of the following information about the ineffectiveness of flu vaccines. Instead, we see these health reporters rolling up their sleeves on television to receive a flu shot.

Lack of evidence of effectiveness

While older adults are at the greatest risk for dying from the flu, surprisingly there is only one randomized controlled study among older persons (60 years and up) which reported a 33% reduction in flu-like illness and a 56% reduction in circulating viral count. But this means the vaccine was ineffective in most people in regard to preventing symptoms. [Journal American Medical Assn 1994; 272:1661–1665]

Centers for Disease Control officials concede the ability of flu vaccines to generate sufficient antibodies and effectively reduce symptoms and prevent death is only about 30–50% among currently licensed vaccines. [Current Topics Microbiology Immunology 2009; 333:413–29]

Data collected over 33 flu seasons shows flu vaccination reduced the death rate substantially less than expected. [Journal American Medical Assn 2003; 289: 179–86; Archives Internal Medicine 2005; 165: 265–72]

But news reporters must put a positive face on flu vaccination, despite evidence to the contrary.

Mismatched vaccines

Another major problem is that the flu viruses in the vaccines often do not match the flu viruses in circulation in the population. [Vaccine 2008; 26 (Supplement 4): D5–D9]

For example, in 2007 the trivalent flu vaccine (contained 3 strains of the flu) was only 40% protective due to mismatched flu strains. [Cleve Clin J Med. 2008 Dec; 75(12):865–70] The percentage of viruses that were matched to vaccine strains was 5% (3 of 62) in 2004–2005, 5% (2 of 42) in 2005–2006, and 91% (85 of 93) in 2006–2007. [J Infect Dis. 2009 Jan 15; 199(2):159–67]

In the 8 years spanning 1998–2005, flu vaccine mismatch occurred in 4 of those years including both the 2003–04 and 2004–05 consecutive seasons. The nation had no protection beyond natural immunity in many recent flu seasons. Due to flu strain mismatch, 84% of the vaccinees over 75 years of age who received the flu vaccine in 1997–98 were not protected against infection. [J. Medical Virology 61:94–99, 2000] The public is never alerted to this.

A major review encompassing 64 published studies which evaluated the ability of flu vaccines to reduce symptoms or viral count showed overall effectiveness of just 23% during seasons when the flu strain in the vaccine matched the virus in circulation within the population. Effectiveness did not differ from years when vaccines were mismatched. [Lancet 2005; 366:1165–1174]

Vaccination rate

Just how far the doctor-reporter-vaccine maker triumvirate will go in promoting useless and problematic vaccines is yet to be determined. While public health authorities are claiming they will have enough flu vaccine to inoculate a majority of the US population, and have established a goal for a 70% vaccination rate, researchers in Japan says over-vaccination may induce genetic pressure that will produce a more virulent flu strain which can result in an epidemic that is much more severe and infects more people than before a vaccination program. In their drive to sell vaccines they are placing the public’s health at risk. [PLoS One. 2009; 4(3):e4915]

It’s possible for a vaccination program to eradicate a dominant and more prevalent strain of the flu that is sensitive to the vaccine, leaving a less prevalent but vaccine-resistant form which will overtake the population and result in greater morbidity and mortality. [J Theoretical Biology 2009 Jul 21; 259(2):219–28] The mindless drive to vaccinate the masses may end up being mass manslaughter.

Doctors circle their wagons

With all that has been said here about the shortcomings of the flu vaccination program, physicians, particularly pediatricians, have taken a dogmatic and arrogant stance regarding vaccination.

In a survey of members of the American Academy of Pediatrics, almost 40% said they would not provide care to a family that refuses all vaccines and 28% said they would not provide care to families that even refused selected vaccines. [New England Journal Medicine 2009; 360: 1981–88] This should be deemed patient abandonment.

Look for growing public discontent over the flu vaccination program.

Reasons Why Flu Shots Aren’t Always Effective

Type of vaccine: “live” attenuated virus is more effective than “killed” viruses

Dosage and adjuvants: Lower dosage means greater use of adjuvants to spike antibody production. Very young children need two shots, one to prime the immune system and the other to produce sufficient antibodies.

Age: Very young and very old don’t develop sufficient antibodies and may require priming with 1 shot and then a subsequent shot.

Match with flu strain in circulation: often not matched

Season: Fall and winter are the peak seasons for the flu due to falling natural immunity. Vaccination during summer may appear to produce a better result due to natural immunity.

Vaccine resistance: flu strain in circulation may be resistant to the vaccine

Malnutrition: malnourished individuals often cannot produce sufficient antibody response to vaccines.