WHAT THEY TELL US:
Each day the media reports additional cases of H1N1 infections and rising death tolls attributed to the pandemic disease.
WHAT THEY DON’T TELL US:
In July of 2009, the World Health Organization issued a press release stating that it will no longer release the global table of H1N1 infections because it is “extremely difficult, if not impossible” to determine swine flu cases in laboratory testing. “Even in countries with limited laboratory capacities, WHO recommends that the initial virological assessment is followed by the testing of at least 10 samples per week in order to confirm that disease activity is due to the pandemic virus and to monitor changes in the virus that may be important for case management and vaccine development.”
The Centers for Disease Control issued a similar statement on October 2, 2009. “Influenza diagnosis will not distinguish between infection with seasonal influenza vs. infection with A-H1N1. Furthermore, it will not be confirming influenza infections with a diagnostic test, but rather, will rely upon the clinician’s judgement to determine flu infection if the patient presents with flu-like symptoms.”
The nasal spray vaccine by MedImmune has demonstrated evidence in clinical trials of shedding the live virus for 3-21 days post-vaccination. Vaccinating large populations, especially school children, with the live nasal-spray vaccine will cause a rise in the number of those infected.
HEALTHANGEL ASKS:
Then, how are health officials “confirming” and media outlets “reporting” the numbers of actual swine flu cases and swine flu-related deaths if they are no longer testing nor distinguishing between seasonal flu, swine flu, rhinovirus and pneumonia? And will these arbitrary and inflated figures then be used as statistics to drive future vaccination programs?
How can a public health initiative aimed at reducing the spread of H1N1 infections, engage in a vaccination program (administration by live-virus nasal spray) that has been clinically demonstrated to increase the actual rate of infection?
Monday, November 23, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Less Mammograms: Less Overdiagnosis
Have We Harmed More Women than We Helped?
Women in their 40s should stop routinely having annual mammograms and older women should cut back to one scheduled exam every other year, an influential federal task force has concluded, challenging the use of one of the most common medical tests.
In its first re-evaluation of breast cancer screening since 2002, the panel that sets government policy on prevention recommended the radical change, citing evidence that the potential harm to women having annual exams beginning at age 40 outweighs the benefits.
"We're not saying women shouldn't get screened. Screening does save lives," said Diana Petitti, vice chairman of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which released the recommendations Monday in a paper being published in today's Annals of Internal Medicine. "But we are recommending against routine screening. There are important and serious negatives or harms that need to be considered carefully."
The task force's new guidelines, which also recommend against teaching women to do regular self-exams of their breasts and concludes that there is insufficient evidence to continue routine mammograms beyond age 74, immediately triggered intense debate.
Several patient advocacy groups and many breast cancer experts praised the shift, saying it represents a growing recognition that more testing, exams and treatment are not always beneficial and, in fact, can harm patients. Mammograms produce false-positive results in about 10 percent of cases, causing anxiety and often prompting women to undergo unnecessary follow-up tests, sometimes disfiguring biopsies and unneeded treatment, including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
Basis for guidelines
The new guidelines were based on a comprehensive analysis of the medical literature that included an update of a Swedish study involving 70,000 women, new results from a British trial involving more than 160,000 women and data from more than 600,000 women from the U.S. Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium.
In addition, the task force commissioned an unusual study funded by the National Cancer Institute that involved six independent teams of researchers conducting separate mathematical modeling studies of the risks and benefits of 20 different screening strategies.
While annual mammography for all women beginning at age 40 reduced the death rate from breast cancer by at least 15 percent, the modeling studies indicated that the added benefit of starting before age 50 was modest, the researchers concluded.
For every 1,000 women screened beginning at age 40, the modeling suggested that just 0.7 deaths from breast cancer would be prevented while 480 women would get a false-positive result and 33 more would undergo unnecessary biopsies.
"What isn't in the model but is an issue is how many extra imaging tests are done to follow up on things that turn out to be falsely positive and the harm of the anxiety that goes along with that," Petitti said. "Then there's the whole other line of problems that come into play, which is where there are some breast cancers detected that grow very slowly and would never have killed you."
Cutting back to biannual screening of women age 50 and older would maintain 81 percent of the benefits of screening annually while reducing by half the number of false positives, the computer modeling study estimated.
Women in their 40s should stop routinely having annual mammograms and older women should cut back to one scheduled exam every other year, an influential federal task force has concluded, challenging the use of one of the most common medical tests.
In its first re-evaluation of breast cancer screening since 2002, the panel that sets government policy on prevention recommended the radical change, citing evidence that the potential harm to women having annual exams beginning at age 40 outweighs the benefits.
"We're not saying women shouldn't get screened. Screening does save lives," said Diana Petitti, vice chairman of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which released the recommendations Monday in a paper being published in today's Annals of Internal Medicine. "But we are recommending against routine screening. There are important and serious negatives or harms that need to be considered carefully."
The task force's new guidelines, which also recommend against teaching women to do regular self-exams of their breasts and concludes that there is insufficient evidence to continue routine mammograms beyond age 74, immediately triggered intense debate.
Several patient advocacy groups and many breast cancer experts praised the shift, saying it represents a growing recognition that more testing, exams and treatment are not always beneficial and, in fact, can harm patients. Mammograms produce false-positive results in about 10 percent of cases, causing anxiety and often prompting women to undergo unnecessary follow-up tests, sometimes disfiguring biopsies and unneeded treatment, including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
Basis for guidelines
The new guidelines were based on a comprehensive analysis of the medical literature that included an update of a Swedish study involving 70,000 women, new results from a British trial involving more than 160,000 women and data from more than 600,000 women from the U.S. Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium.
In addition, the task force commissioned an unusual study funded by the National Cancer Institute that involved six independent teams of researchers conducting separate mathematical modeling studies of the risks and benefits of 20 different screening strategies.
While annual mammography for all women beginning at age 40 reduced the death rate from breast cancer by at least 15 percent, the modeling studies indicated that the added benefit of starting before age 50 was modest, the researchers concluded.
For every 1,000 women screened beginning at age 40, the modeling suggested that just 0.7 deaths from breast cancer would be prevented while 480 women would get a false-positive result and 33 more would undergo unnecessary biopsies.
"What isn't in the model but is an issue is how many extra imaging tests are done to follow up on things that turn out to be falsely positive and the harm of the anxiety that goes along with that," Petitti said. "Then there's the whole other line of problems that come into play, which is where there are some breast cancers detected that grow very slowly and would never have killed you."
Cutting back to biannual screening of women age 50 and older would maintain 81 percent of the benefits of screening annually while reducing by half the number of false positives, the computer modeling study estimated.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
How Can We Stop Kids From Taking Drugs When We Are "Drug Nation"?
Teens find their highs in parents’ drug chest
After Special Agent Douglas Collier of the Drug Enforcement Administration spoke at a conference on the abuse of prescription drugs, a sobbing woman came to him and told of her daughter’s near death from an overdose of the painkiller fentanyl.
“She said to me, ‘Agent Collier, now I understand,’” Collier said. The woman said her daughter had never had a particularly close relationship with her grandmother, but started visiting regularly in the last months of the dying woman’s life when she was being heavily medicated.
During those visits, Collier said, the young girl was raiding her grandmother’s trove of powerful
painkillers and using the medication to get high. “And the access point for that was the medicine cabinet,” Collier said.
Each year, experts say, a growing number of teenagers quietly turn to a seemingly unlikely source to score drugs: their parents’ medicine cabinets.
We are bombarded every day with TV, internet, and print ads that espouse the benefits of all kinds of drugs; for stomach ache, headache, backahe, depression, fibromyalgia-from birth control to sleepiness to sleeplessness to erectile dysfunction-yup, there's a pill for that!
We are such a drug culture, no one ever notices that almost 70% of TV ads and 80% of print ads are for.....DRUGS! Medicine is killing us....stop the madness NOW!
After Special Agent Douglas Collier of the Drug Enforcement Administration spoke at a conference on the abuse of prescription drugs, a sobbing woman came to him and told of her daughter’s near death from an overdose of the painkiller fentanyl.
“She said to me, ‘Agent Collier, now I understand,’” Collier said. The woman said her daughter had never had a particularly close relationship with her grandmother, but started visiting regularly in the last months of the dying woman’s life when she was being heavily medicated.
During those visits, Collier said, the young girl was raiding her grandmother’s trove of powerful
painkillers and using the medication to get high. “And the access point for that was the medicine cabinet,” Collier said.
Each year, experts say, a growing number of teenagers quietly turn to a seemingly unlikely source to score drugs: their parents’ medicine cabinets.
We are bombarded every day with TV, internet, and print ads that espouse the benefits of all kinds of drugs; for stomach ache, headache, backahe, depression, fibromyalgia-from birth control to sleepiness to sleeplessness to erectile dysfunction-yup, there's a pill for that!
We are such a drug culture, no one ever notices that almost 70% of TV ads and 80% of print ads are for.....DRUGS! Medicine is killing us....stop the madness NOW!
Friday, November 6, 2009
Guard your daughters from Gardasil!
Gardasil & Swine Flu Vaccines: Inconvenient Truths
by Barbara Loe Fisher
The summer of 2009 revealed two inconvenient truths about vaccination: first, the Gardasil vaccine is not as safe for girls as the government, medical organizations and Merck have said it is; 1 and second, the H1N1 influenza pandemic is not as serious as health officials are telling us it is. Which means that fast tracked swine flu vaccines children will get in schools this fall may end up being more risky than getting the flu.
Doctors Question Benefits & Merck Marketing Tactics
On August 19, the Journal of the American Medical Association published two important articles written by doctors questioning whether HPV vaccine benefits outweigh the risks of recommending it for all young girls. The intellectually honest doctors publicly criticized the aggressive marketing of Gardasil vaccine by Merck and certain Merck-funded U.S. medical organizations 5 and asked for more scientific evidence that universal HPV vaccination is necessary, safe and effective. 6
Bad Outcome Report After 1 In Every 1,855 Gardasil Shots
In the third article, written by government health officials, it was revealed that 1 in every 1,855 Gardasil shots is followed by a bad health outcome report to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System.
These bad health outcomes reported after Gardasil shots include lots of girls suddenly passing out and having seizures within minutes or hours of getting vaccinated and suffering head injuries and broken bones when they hit the floor. In fact, there is a larger than expected rate of girls passing out after getting Gardasil vaccine.
Girls Passing Out & Having Car Accidents
Back in 2007, the National Vaccine Information Center warned that many girls given Gardasil shots were losing consciousness within minutes or hours. 7 8 9 Some girls have left doctors offices and fallen unconscious while driving and had car accidents. 10 This brings up the little known fact that four girls who got Gardasil in Merck’s pre-licensure clinical trials died in car accidents. 11 How many of those girls suddenly collapsed while driving?
Clearly, Gardasil vaccine should be given while girls are lying down and they should be warned that sudden collapse can occur without warning within 24 hours of getting vaccinated.
Blood Clots Reports After Gardasil
What else did the recently published government study on Gardasil reveal? Well, we now know that there is a greater than expected rate of reported blood clots in girls who get the vaccine. Some blood clots can lead to pulmonary embolism or stroke, which means the blood clot ends up in the lung or in the brain. In fact four girls have died after they developed a blood clot that traveled to the lung after Gardasil vaccination.
Most Bad Outcome Reports Merck Files FDA Can’t Analyze
But the most shocking fact in this study is that, although nearly 70 percent of all Gardasil reaction reports were filed by Merck, a whopping 89 percent of the reports Merck did file were so incomplete there was not enough information for health officials to do a proper follow-up and review of what happened to the girls who fell unconscious or had convulsions, developed blood clots or inflammation of the brain and nerves, including Guillain Barre syndrome that causes paralysis, or those who suddenly developed serious autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and more.
There were 32 reports of Gardasil-related deaths between 2006 and the end of 2008 but only 20 of these death reports had enough information to be followed up. There are now a total of 43 deaths that have been reported. 12 How many of those Gardasil related deaths cannot be evaluated because of incomplete information?
1986 Law Requires Reporting of Vaccine Injuries & Deaths
This is an outrage. Under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, 13 it is a federal legal requirement for any person – a doctor, nurse or any person who gives a vaccination in America – to file a report with the federal government whenever a vaccination is followed by a bad health outcome, especially a hospitalization, injury or death. Vaccine providers are NOT supposed to be notifying the vaccine manufacturer – which clearly is like flushing the vaccine reaction report down the toilet – they are supposed to be notifying the government. And health officials at the FDA and CDC are supposed to be analyzing each and every report of a serious vaccine injury or death.
Massive Underreporting of Vaccine Bad Outcomes
FDA and CDC officials admit that there is underreporting of vaccine-related bad health outcomes. In fact, some studies say that less than 10 percent or even less than 1 percent of serious vaccine adverse events are ever reported. 14 15
Closed Government Databases Used to Deny Vaccine Risks
But health officials are quick to downplay the significance of this. They tell us not to worry because the closed government databases, which the CDC operates with vaccine manufacturers and HMO’s they pay to participate in them, can be relied upon to reassure us that all those seizures and blood clots and cases of brain inflammation, paralysis, lupus and deaths in girls who get Gardasil shots are really – mostly - just a coincidence.
In 2005, the National Vaccine Information Center and other parent groups called on the CDC and FDA to open up those closed government vaccine monitoring databases to public scrutiny. 16 17 So far, most of that vaccine reaction data is still hidden from public view so it can’t be independently verified.
Will H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine Risks Be Hidden From Public?
If the government can let vaccine manufacturers fast track Gardasil vaccine 18 but can’t compel the drug company that makes the vaccine or doctors giving the vaccine - who are shielded from liability 19 - to report each and every death and serious injury that follows vaccination, why should we believe anything government health officials tell us about the safety of vaccines?
Why should we believe that the experimental swine flu vaccines being fast tracked with only a few weeks of study in healthy children and adults 20 are going to be safe and that all vaccine reactions will be reported to the government and then properly followed up? 21
No Way To Monitor H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine Side Effects In Schools
It is far more likely that, when children get swine flu vaccine in schools and then get really sick or even die like the Gardasil girls, that all those bad health outcomes will be written off as a coincidence by health officials. That is, IF any reports are made to the government at all! Because few school nurses or other people giving children swine flu vaccines in the schools will be taking medical histories; or have a way to record vaccine information in children’s medical records, much less monitor children for signs of a vaccine reaction and then file a reaction report to the government.
This is not the way to run a national vaccine program. This is not what we expect from doctors in positions of authority who have accepted responsibility for protecting our individual health or the health of our nation.
Doctors & Drug Companies Shielded From Liability Ignoring the Law
In the early 1980’s, parents of DPT vaccine injured children worked very hard on getting informing, recording and reporting safety provisions of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. We wanted to make sure everything was being done to help prevent vaccine injuries and deaths. Little did we know then that those safety provisions would be blown off by doctors and vaccine manufacturers shielded from liability in that law. 22
The federal vaccine safety provisions should be codified into every state vaccine law with legal sanctions for doctors and drug companies who fail to file a complete vaccine reaction report.
What Public Health Emergency?
And now, today, we have swine flu vaccines that are being rushed to market 23 with even less testing that the fast tracked Gardasil vaccine had, with the justification that there is a public health emergency. 24 25 26 What public health emergency?
As everyone knows by now, the swine flu is no more serious than the garden variety influenza that goes around every year. 27Just like everyone knows by now that most cervical cancer can be prevented with regular Pap screening and that the very expensive HPV vaccine is questionable at best. 28
Why are we letting employees working for government agencies and pharmaceutical companies stampede us into taking vaccines that may not be necessary, safe or effective and – certainly - are not properly monitored for safety after they are given to tens of millions of children and adults?
It is time to demand that government officials and drug companies stop conducting national vaccine experiments on the American people.
Come To Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination
If you want to learn more about vaccines and how to be a vaccine safety and informed consent advocate in your community, come to the Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination being held October 2-4, 2009 in Washington, D.C. For more information, go to www.NVIC.org.
by Barbara Loe Fisher
The summer of 2009 revealed two inconvenient truths about vaccination: first, the Gardasil vaccine is not as safe for girls as the government, medical organizations and Merck have said it is; 1 and second, the H1N1 influenza pandemic is not as serious as health officials are telling us it is. Which means that fast tracked swine flu vaccines children will get in schools this fall may end up being more risky than getting the flu.
Doctors Question Benefits & Merck Marketing Tactics
On August 19, the Journal of the American Medical Association published two important articles written by doctors questioning whether HPV vaccine benefits outweigh the risks of recommending it for all young girls. The intellectually honest doctors publicly criticized the aggressive marketing of Gardasil vaccine by Merck and certain Merck-funded U.S. medical organizations 5 and asked for more scientific evidence that universal HPV vaccination is necessary, safe and effective. 6
Bad Outcome Report After 1 In Every 1,855 Gardasil Shots
In the third article, written by government health officials, it was revealed that 1 in every 1,855 Gardasil shots is followed by a bad health outcome report to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System.
These bad health outcomes reported after Gardasil shots include lots of girls suddenly passing out and having seizures within minutes or hours of getting vaccinated and suffering head injuries and broken bones when they hit the floor. In fact, there is a larger than expected rate of girls passing out after getting Gardasil vaccine.
Girls Passing Out & Having Car Accidents
Back in 2007, the National Vaccine Information Center warned that many girls given Gardasil shots were losing consciousness within minutes or hours. 7 8 9 Some girls have left doctors offices and fallen unconscious while driving and had car accidents. 10 This brings up the little known fact that four girls who got Gardasil in Merck’s pre-licensure clinical trials died in car accidents. 11 How many of those girls suddenly collapsed while driving?
Clearly, Gardasil vaccine should be given while girls are lying down and they should be warned that sudden collapse can occur without warning within 24 hours of getting vaccinated.
Blood Clots Reports After Gardasil
What else did the recently published government study on Gardasil reveal? Well, we now know that there is a greater than expected rate of reported blood clots in girls who get the vaccine. Some blood clots can lead to pulmonary embolism or stroke, which means the blood clot ends up in the lung or in the brain. In fact four girls have died after they developed a blood clot that traveled to the lung after Gardasil vaccination.
Most Bad Outcome Reports Merck Files FDA Can’t Analyze
But the most shocking fact in this study is that, although nearly 70 percent of all Gardasil reaction reports were filed by Merck, a whopping 89 percent of the reports Merck did file were so incomplete there was not enough information for health officials to do a proper follow-up and review of what happened to the girls who fell unconscious or had convulsions, developed blood clots or inflammation of the brain and nerves, including Guillain Barre syndrome that causes paralysis, or those who suddenly developed serious autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and more.
There were 32 reports of Gardasil-related deaths between 2006 and the end of 2008 but only 20 of these death reports had enough information to be followed up. There are now a total of 43 deaths that have been reported. 12 How many of those Gardasil related deaths cannot be evaluated because of incomplete information?
1986 Law Requires Reporting of Vaccine Injuries & Deaths
This is an outrage. Under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, 13 it is a federal legal requirement for any person – a doctor, nurse or any person who gives a vaccination in America – to file a report with the federal government whenever a vaccination is followed by a bad health outcome, especially a hospitalization, injury or death. Vaccine providers are NOT supposed to be notifying the vaccine manufacturer – which clearly is like flushing the vaccine reaction report down the toilet – they are supposed to be notifying the government. And health officials at the FDA and CDC are supposed to be analyzing each and every report of a serious vaccine injury or death.
Massive Underreporting of Vaccine Bad Outcomes
FDA and CDC officials admit that there is underreporting of vaccine-related bad health outcomes. In fact, some studies say that less than 10 percent or even less than 1 percent of serious vaccine adverse events are ever reported. 14 15
Closed Government Databases Used to Deny Vaccine Risks
But health officials are quick to downplay the significance of this. They tell us not to worry because the closed government databases, which the CDC operates with vaccine manufacturers and HMO’s they pay to participate in them, can be relied upon to reassure us that all those seizures and blood clots and cases of brain inflammation, paralysis, lupus and deaths in girls who get Gardasil shots are really – mostly - just a coincidence.
In 2005, the National Vaccine Information Center and other parent groups called on the CDC and FDA to open up those closed government vaccine monitoring databases to public scrutiny. 16 17 So far, most of that vaccine reaction data is still hidden from public view so it can’t be independently verified.
Will H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine Risks Be Hidden From Public?
If the government can let vaccine manufacturers fast track Gardasil vaccine 18 but can’t compel the drug company that makes the vaccine or doctors giving the vaccine - who are shielded from liability 19 - to report each and every death and serious injury that follows vaccination, why should we believe anything government health officials tell us about the safety of vaccines?
Why should we believe that the experimental swine flu vaccines being fast tracked with only a few weeks of study in healthy children and adults 20 are going to be safe and that all vaccine reactions will be reported to the government and then properly followed up? 21
No Way To Monitor H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine Side Effects In Schools
It is far more likely that, when children get swine flu vaccine in schools and then get really sick or even die like the Gardasil girls, that all those bad health outcomes will be written off as a coincidence by health officials. That is, IF any reports are made to the government at all! Because few school nurses or other people giving children swine flu vaccines in the schools will be taking medical histories; or have a way to record vaccine information in children’s medical records, much less monitor children for signs of a vaccine reaction and then file a reaction report to the government.
This is not the way to run a national vaccine program. This is not what we expect from doctors in positions of authority who have accepted responsibility for protecting our individual health or the health of our nation.
Doctors & Drug Companies Shielded From Liability Ignoring the Law
In the early 1980’s, parents of DPT vaccine injured children worked very hard on getting informing, recording and reporting safety provisions of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. We wanted to make sure everything was being done to help prevent vaccine injuries and deaths. Little did we know then that those safety provisions would be blown off by doctors and vaccine manufacturers shielded from liability in that law. 22
The federal vaccine safety provisions should be codified into every state vaccine law with legal sanctions for doctors and drug companies who fail to file a complete vaccine reaction report.
What Public Health Emergency?
And now, today, we have swine flu vaccines that are being rushed to market 23 with even less testing that the fast tracked Gardasil vaccine had, with the justification that there is a public health emergency. 24 25 26 What public health emergency?
As everyone knows by now, the swine flu is no more serious than the garden variety influenza that goes around every year. 27Just like everyone knows by now that most cervical cancer can be prevented with regular Pap screening and that the very expensive HPV vaccine is questionable at best. 28
Why are we letting employees working for government agencies and pharmaceutical companies stampede us into taking vaccines that may not be necessary, safe or effective and – certainly - are not properly monitored for safety after they are given to tens of millions of children and adults?
It is time to demand that government officials and drug companies stop conducting national vaccine experiments on the American people.
Come To Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination
If you want to learn more about vaccines and how to be a vaccine safety and informed consent advocate in your community, come to the Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination being held October 2-4, 2009 in Washington, D.C. For more information, go to www.NVIC.org.
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