Posted by: Dr. Mercola
October 27 2009

President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency on Friday October 23, empowering the health secretary to suspend federal requirements and speed up treatment.

His declaration authorizes Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to bypass normal federal regulations so health officials can respond more quickly to the outbreak, which, allegedly, has killed more than 1,000 people in the United States.

"As a nation, we have prepared at all levels of government, and as individuals and communities, taking unprecedented steps to counter the emerging pandemic," Obama wrote in the declaration, which the White House announced Saturday.

He said the pandemic keeps evolving, the rates of illness are rising rapidly in many areas and there's a potential "to overburden health care resources."

Because of vaccine production delays, the government has backed off initial estimates that 120 million doses would be available by mid-October. As of mid-October, only 11 million doses had been shipped to health departments, doctor's offices and other providers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said.

The government now estimates to have about 50 million doses of swine flu vaccine out by mid-November and 150 million in December.

 

Sunday , September 27, 2009

WASHINGTON — 

More than 3,000 people a day have a heart attack. If you're one of them the day after your H1N1 flu shot, will you worry the vaccine was to blame and not the more likely culprit, all those burgers and fries?

The government is starting an unprecedented system to track possible side effects as mass flu vaccinations begin next month. The idea is to detect any rare but real problems quickly, and explain the inevitable coincidences that are sure to cause some false alarms.

"Every day, bad things happen to people. When you vaccinate a lot of people in a short period of time, some of those things are going to happen to some people by chance alone," said Dr. Daniel Salmon, a vaccine safety specialist at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Health authorities hope to vaccinate well over half the population in just a few months against swine flu, which doctors call the 2009 H1N1 strain. That would be a feat. No more than 100 million Americans usually get vaccinated against regular winter flu, and never in such a short period.

How many will race for the vaccine depends partly on confidence in its safety. The last mass inoculations against a different swine flu, in 1976, were marred by reports of a rare paralyzing condition, Guillain-Barre syndrome.

"The recurring question is, 'How do we know it's safe?'" said Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic.

Enter the intense new monitoring. On top of routine vaccine tracking, there are these government-sponsored projects:

_Harvard Medical School scientists are linking large insurance databases that cover up to 50 million people with vaccination registries around the country for real-time checks of whether people see a doctor in the weeks after a flu shot and why. The huge numbers make it possible to quickly compare rates of complaints among the vaccinated and unvaccinated, said the project leader, Dr. Richard Platt, Harvard's population medicine chief.

_Johns Hopkins University will direct e-mails to at least 100,000 vaccine recipients to track how they're feeling, including the smaller complaints that wouldn't prompt a doctor visit. If anything seems connected, researchers can call to follow up with detailed questions.

_The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is preparing take-home cards that tell vaccine recipients how to report any suspected side effects to the nation's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting system.

"We don't have any reason to expect any unusual problems with this vaccine," said Dr. Neal Halsey, director of Hopkins' Institute for Vaccine Safety, who is directing the e-mail surveillance.

After all, the new H1N1 vaccine is a mere recipe change from the regular winter flu shot that's been used for decades in hundreds of millions of people without serious problems. Nor have there been any red flags in the few thousand people given test doses in studies to determine the right H1N1 dose. They've gotten the same sore arms and occasional headache or fever that's par for a winter flu shot.

But because this H1N1 flu targets the young more than the old, this may be the year that unprecedented numbers of children and pregnant women are vaccinated.

Then there's the glare of the Internet — where someone merely declaring on Facebook that he's sure the shot did harm could cause a wave of similar reports. Health authorities will have to tell quickly if there really do seem to be more cases of a particular health problem than usual.

So the CDC is racing to compile a list of what's normal: 25,000 heart attacks every week; 14,000 to 19,000 miscarriages every week; 300 severe allergic reactions called anaphylaxis every week.

Any spike would mean fast checking to see if the vaccine really seems to increase risk and by how much, so health officials could issue appropriate warnings.

Very rare side effects by definition could come to light only after large-scale inoculations begin — making this the year scientists may finally learn if flu vaccine truly is linked to Guillain-Barre, an often reversible but sometimes fatal paralysis. It's believed to strike between 1 and 2 of every 100,000 people. It often occurs right after another infection, such as food poisoning or even influenza.

But the vaccine concern stems from 1976, when 500 cases were reported among the 45 million people vaccinated against that year's swine flu. Scientists never could prove if the vaccine really caused the extra risk. The CDC maintains that if the regular winter flu vaccine is related, the risk is no more than a single case per million vaccinated.

So the question becomes, Is the risk of disease greater than that?

Mayo's Poland cites a study in Chicago that found the rate of preschoolers being hospitalized for the new H1N1 flu last spring was 2 1/2 times higher than that possible Guillain-Barre risk.

However the flu season turns out, the extra vaccine tracking promises a lasting impact.

"Part of what we hope is that it will teach us something about how to monitor the safety of all medical products quickly," said Harvard's Platt.

Read More

OUTBREAK!
Feds go hog wild promoting swine-flu shots
CDC spends $16 million on 'outreach' to convince Americans to get vaccine

Posted: August 27, 2009 - 12:48 am Eastern
By Chelsea Schilling - © 2009 WorldNetDaily

With plush swine-flu toys stocked on its gift-shop shelves, citizens earning $50 to attend forums on the virus and an additional $50 for those willing to take a vaccine, it's a $16 million swine-flu shot bonanza hosted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As part of a massive public relations and research campaign, the CDC has been hosting as many as 10 swine flu forums in nine U.S. cities before Labor Day – and it is shelling out as much as $50,000 for a program that pays citizens $50 when they register early and attend the events.

CDC pays forum attendees

The city of Somerville, Mass., announced it has been selected as one of the 10 national sites. Its full-day "H1N1 vaccination strategy and information session" will take place this Saturday and is open to 100 residents who register. Each participant will also receive a continental breakfast, lunch and snacks. For those who don't speak English, the events provide interpretation in Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole.

According to an announcement, the sessions are designed to "help state and local health organizations develop a voluntary fall vaccination program for the H1N1 flu virus." Workshops will focus on the following questions:

• Should the CDC create a mass vaccination program against H1N1?

• What are the particulars of a mass vaccination program?

• How does the federal prioritization guidance (developed for all scenarios) apply in light of this real outbreak? If there are elements that don't apply, what's different and why?

• Are there particular/unique strategies that this pandemic will require?

The CDC is presenting a video on the flu at each of the public meetings. Forums have taken place in the following U.S. cities: Denver, Colo.; Lincoln, Neb.; Birmingham, Ala.; Vincennes, Ind.; Sacramento, Calif.; El Paso, Texas; New York, N.Y.; and Bucks County, Pa. Registration is still open for the Aug 29 Spokane, Wash., event.

A Keystone Center bulletin for the event states, "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local health partners are developing plans for the vaccination program. A public dilemma being faced is whether the U.S. should adopt a full-throttle, go slow, or intermediate intensity program."

Shots frighten you? Be sure to get "SCARY MEDICINE: Exposing the dark side of vaccines"

The CDC video presented at each of the events discusses influenza viruses and death tolls resulting from pandemics, including the "Spanish" influenza of 1918, "Asian" influenza of 1957 and the "Hong Kong" influenza of 1968.

"Even after years of studying the virus, we cannot predict when a pandemic will occur or the impact a pandemic will have," said Dr. Beth Bell, the CDC's associate director for science at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, in the video. "… The virus appears to have originated in Mexico sometime early in 2009. The virus spread very rapidly and caused widespread illness and deaths in Mexico. The virus has also spread rapidly in the United States. By June 19, infection

with the new virus had been reported by all 50 states in the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The virus has subsequently spread throughout the world."

Bell declares, "More than 43,000 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported in the U.S." as of July 24 and "a million infections probably have already occurred." The total, she claims, is an "underestimate" of cases.

The CDC is also hosting an "H1N1 Public Engagement WebDialogue" this month. One of the 2-day sessions began today and will continue through tomorrow. A second session will take place on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1.

CDC sells swine-flu toy

In addition to hosting forums to spread its H1N1 message, the CDC's headquarters in Atlanta is also selling a stuffed swine-flu toy in its gift shop, according to Atlanta's WXIA 11 News. The pink toy is intended to look like a microbe and also resembles a pig snout.

GIANTmicrobes, the company that markets and sells the giant swine flu microbes for $7.95, also provides an information booklet about the H1N1 virus with the stuffed toy.

Several readers provided the following reactions to the Atlanta news story about the swine-flu toy at CDC headquarters:

• Your tax dollars at work ... health care reform? Next thing on the shelf will be fuzzy replicas of Tamaflu and Tylenol. Mommy! I want those for Christmas!

• What a bizarre sense of humor the CDC has.

• I'd really hate to see what the HIV toy looks like. Ugh. Bad taste.

• That's twisted, "Here's what is killing you, Billy. Isn't it cute?"

'Guinea pigs' earn cash for taking shot

Meanwhile, ABC News reported researchers are in a race to test the H1N1 vaccines on at least 3,000 paid volunteers – half adults and half children – before flu season this year. In eight hospitals across the nation, volunteers are receiving a series of injections to determine how much vaccine and how many shots each person will be recommended to have.

According to the ABC News report, the volunteers may "risk fever, allergic reactions and a remote chance of paralysis and even death."

Dr. Lisa Jackson, principal researcher who's heading trials at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, told MSNBC nearly 1,100 people flooded phone lines within two days after the request for volunteers.

According to the report, each person will receive $50 for each of the three or four visits they make to the clinics.

Sharon Frey, who is leading the government-funded testing at Saint Louis University, told the Associated Press scientists have been working late nights and weekends to organize studies and recruit volunteers.

"Typically it takes a year to do this," Frey said. "I can tell you we're working at breakneck speed."

One advertisement appearing on Craigslist offers to pay between $300 and $475 per volunteer for participation in swine flu clinical trials.

Concerns about possible side effects

However, in a study conducted at the University of Hong Kong, the British Medical Journal reported that less than half of 8,500 doctors and nurses in public hospitals will accept vaccination against the swine flu – even following increases in the World Health Organization's pandemic alert level.

The study revealed, "The major barriers identified were fear of side effects and doubts about efficacy."

Nonetheless, federal authorities are preparing to launch a nationwide campaign to convince Americans to get the swine flu vaccine, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Government officials have expressed concern that public demand for immunization will not be high enough.

"Many parents (in focus groups) expressed a lot of concerns about 2009 H1N1 vaccine. Those concerns were centered around the fact that it was new and it was being developed quickly," said Kris Sheedy, a communications director with the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "There were comments such as 'this is new and I don't want my child to be a guinea pig.'"

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the government will spend "about $16 million on outreach to convince people of the need to get the swine flu vaccine."

As WND reported, alarmist language over possible outbreaks of swine flu as well as a series of moves by the federal government are fueling fears federal agents will soon be forcing citizens to be vaccinated – prompting the Constitution Party to launch a pre-emptive defense against any such effort.

The Constitution Party, a fast-growing alternative to the dominant Democratic and Republican parties in many elections, has come out strongly in opposition to any "mandatory injections" of "potential toxic (H1N1) 'swine flu' vaccine."

Condemnation also has come from Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who cited the swine flu vaccination program in 1976. The effort killed more than two dozen people – not from the flu but from the vaccine.

Paul said he was concerned that "nearly $8 billion will be spent to address a 'potential pandemic flu' which could result in mandatory vaccinations

for no discernable reason other than to enrich the pharmaceutical companies that make the vaccine."

Previous stories:

Next step in H1N1 scare: Microchip implants

Will Americans follow orders to take flu shots?

Swine flu an act of biological warfare?

Vaccine maker's snafu sparks pandemic scare

Feds target children with live flu vaccine

Death toll linked to Gardasil vaccine rises

8 more deaths connected to HPV vaccine

California on track to mandate STD vaccine

Merck's vaccine tied to 3 deaths

Top researcher: 'Untested' vaccine could harm

CDC to STD vaccine maker: 'Back off'

STD vaccine opposition builds in Texas

Merck gives up push for girls to get shots

HPV mandates face federal money ban

STD vaccine campaign sweeping the nation

Family group compares HPV vaccine to condoms

Bill forces shots on all children

Chelsea Schilling is a staff writer for WorldNetDaily.

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