How Would You Feel If Your Doctor Were Bribed To Give You A Drug?

Source: NoMoreFakeNews.com | JonRappoport.wordpress.com
Jon Rappoport
April 27, 2017

Hello, Novartis. The pharmaceutical giant has just been fined $50 million by the government of South Korea for bribing doctors to prescribe the company’s drugs.

FiercePharma reports: “Last year, prosecutors in the country [Korea] raided Novartis offices to gather documents and account books. South Korean officials later indicted a half-dozen Novartis execs, as well as more than a dozen doctors and five medical journal heads…The Korea Times says the criminal trial is now underway.”

A Novartis spokesperson called the crime “in violation of our policies and inconsistent with our culture…”

Really? There’s more.

FiercePharma continues: “Outside of Korea, Novartis faces separate bribery claims in Greece, where an official earlier this month said ‘thousands’ of people could be implicated.”

“The company faced other allegations in Turkey, which it now considers ‘unsubstantiated,’ and paid $25 million to U.S. authorities last year to settle a bribery investigation in China.”

Sounds like bribery might be central to the culture of Novartis.

You walk into a doctor’s office. He makes a diagnosis and writes out a prescription for a drug. Unknown to you, he’s been paid off to tell you to take the drug.

In the case of Novartis, do law enforcement officials in Korea, Greece, Turkey, and China release the names of the bribed doctors and inform their patients of these crimes? If not, why not? The patients ought to know, and they ought to be able to sue the drug company.

Let’s take this whole business out on to a wider stage. Do you think doctors who take money from drug companies (e.g., for speaking fees and consulting) might be prone to altering their prescription habits? If so, consider this nugget from NPR (3/17/16): “Nationwide [in the US], nearly 9 in 10 cardiologists who wrote at least 1,000 prescriptions for Medicare patients received payments from a drug or device company in 2014, while 7 in 10 internists and family practitioners did.”

Then there is this bombshell from Business Insider (1/9/15)—wait for the punch line in the last sentence: “Companies pay doctors millions of dollars to promote not their most innovative or effective drugs, but some of their most unremarkable.”

“In the last five months of 2013, drug makers spent almost $20 million trying to convince physicians and teaching hospitals to give their freshly-patented drugs to patients, but many of them are near-copies of existing drugs that treat the same conditions.”

“A hefty portion are also available as generics, chemically identical copies that work just as well at a fraction of the price. And still others have serious side effects that only became apparent after they were approved by the FDA.”

Doctors paid by drug companies. Doctors prescribed those companies’ drugs. Some of those drugs have serious side effects.

Medicalbillingandcoding.org (5/25/11) follows the money. According to their analysis, between 2009 and 2011, these drug companies paid doctors the following amounts: Merck, $9.4 million; Johnson & Johnson, $10.6 million; Pfizer, $19.8 million; AstraZeneca, $22.8 million; GlaxoSmithKline, $96.4 million; and Eli Lilly, $144.1 million. For speaking fees, consulting fees, etc., and who knows what else? Does this cast an ominous cloud over the companies and their favorite doctors? Is the Pope Catholic?

Medicalbillingandcoding,org goes on to publish fines that have been levied against drug companies (2007-2010) for engaging in illegal activities with doctors. The fines are, of course, a drop in the bucket, considering the profits of these corporations:

Forest Laboratories, $313 million; Allergan, $600 million; AstraZeneca, $520 million; Cephalon, $425 million; Pfizer, $2.3 billion.

Paying a fine is having to say you’re sorry, and then you walk away.

The next time you talk with a doctor, you might apprise him of these matters, just to liven the conversation.

[Editor’s Note] Bold Emphasis Added Throughout

Read More At: JonRappoport.wordpress.com
_______________________________________________________________

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

New Vaccine Study: Many Toxic Heavy Metal & Red Blood Cell Contaminants Found

Source: GizaDeathStar.com
Dr. Joseph P. Farrell Ph.D.
February 12, 2017

From time to time we have been following the vaccine story and the increasing scrutiny that they are under.

And for good reason, for consider the following the story that Mssrs. P.H., V.T. and many other shared this week (and you may want to sit down):

Dirty Vaccines: New Study Reveals Prevalence of Contaminants

The release of this information as the Trump Administration is considering the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy JR to head a panel to investigate them and the pharmaceutical companies behind them is timely, and perhaps, even deliberate. But the real news here is what is in these vaccines. Note the following paragraphs:

Using extremely sensitive new technologies not used in vaccine manufacturing, Italian scientists reported they were “baffled” by their discoveries which included single particles and aggregates of organic debris including red cells of human or possibly animal origin and metals including lead, tungsten, gold, and chromium, that have been linked to autoimmune disease and leukemia.

In the study, published this week in the International Journal of Vaccines and Vaccination, the researchers led by Antonietta Gatti, of the National Council of Research of Italy and the Scientific Director of Nanodiagnostics, say their results “show the presence of micro- and nano-sized particulate matter composed of inorganic elements in vaccine samples” not declared in the products’ ingredients lists.

…

Lead particles were found in the cervical cancer vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, for example, and in the seasonal flu vaccine Aggripal manufactured by Novartis as well as in the Meningetec vaccine meant to protect against meningitis C.

Samples of an infant vaccine called Infarix Hexa (against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, poliomyelitis and haemophilus influenzae type B) manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline was found to contain stainless steel, tungsten and a gold-zinc aggregate.

Other metal contaminants included platinum, silver, bismuth, iron, and chromium. Chromium (alone or in alloy with iron and nickel) was identified in 25 of the human vaccines from Italy and France that were tested.

…

Observe that this study was conducted by the Italian National Council of Research, and hence, is not so easily dismissed by the Center for Disease Control or by corporate shills. And also observe the list of what was found: unidentifiable red blood cells, lead, tungsten, gold, chromium, stainless steel, zinc, platinum, silver, bismuth, iron, and nickel. All we’re missing is a little thorium toothpaste (that’s a joke for those who’ve been following my interviews over the years), and a dash of uranium. But seriously, the list is far from complete. There is a growing body of criticism that has maintained that vaccines also contain human stem cells (from aborted babies), and so on. And let’s not leave out aluminum:

The investigation revealed aluminum and sodium chloride, the usual component of saline, as was expected, because they are named ingredients of most vaccines. …

Aluminum has a documented neurotoxicity all by itself. The French veterinary vaccines exclude it for this reason. The human ones don’t. (Emphasis added)

Ponder that: in France, veterinary vaccines are prohibited from containing aluminum, but human ones aren’t… a disturbing factoid, since there are also studies linking aluminum to Alzheimer’s(that’s that “documented neurotoxicity” part, perhaps).

So what’s the problem? In mentioning the presence of aluminum, the Italian researchers go on to mention a very significant point, one which we have observed here in prior blogs about vaccines and, incidentally, about GMOs:

Aluminum has a documented neurotoxicity all by itself. The French veterinary vaccines exclude it for this reason. The human ones don’t. The researchers express concern about synergy of multiple toxins added to this known neurotoxin. “It is a well-known fact in toxicology that contaminants exert a mutual, synergic effect, and as the number of contaminants increases, the effects grow less and less predictable. The more so when some substances are unknown.” (Emphases added)

It’s that “mutual, synergistic effect” that should make everyone sit up and take notice, for what this really means is that while the effects of individual contaminants are fairly well known, their effects when working in combination multiply synergistically, and by dint of that, have effects that are geometrically multiplied and that are not well understood.

What’s the bottom line? Well, for one thing, I suspect it won’t be long before “Big Pharma” – and let’s call them what they really are: I.G. Farbensanto – will realize they’re missing a golden opportunity to harvest even more wealth from people, and start contaminating animal vaccines as well, and reaping enormous profit from suffering animals and their owners, and then proffer even more drugs as “cures”, for a hefty price, of course. And as for humans, I don’t know about you, but I strongly suspect the omission of these contaminants from their vaccine labels is not accidental.

They… just… don’t… care.

See you on the flip side.

Read More At: GizaDeathStar.com
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About Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and “strange stuff”. His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into “alternative history and science”.

How to naturally avoid the threat of infectious diseases and vaccine damage

Source: NaturalNews.com
Jonathan Landsman
December 16, 2016

Concerns over the safety of our current vaccine schedule appear to be growing every day, as well-educated health experts highlight the fact that vaccines contain toxins like, mercury, aluminum and formaldehyde. And, especially for our children, these toxins can easily overwhelm the body and cause irreversible harm.

One disturbing example is the FLUAD influenza vaccine, recently released by Novartis, which contains squalene – suspected by many of being the substance that triggered Gulf War Syndrome. In addition, let’s not forget that recent (independent) laboratory research confirms that many commonly-used vaccines are contaminated with glyphosate – the toxic herbicide found in Roundup.

Discover a safe and effective way to minimize the toxic effects of vaccines for you and your family. Obviously, the best way to avoid being harmed by toxins is to avoid exposure. But, that’s not always possible – depending on your situation. On the next NaturalNews Talk Hour, Jonathan Landsman and Thomas E. Levy, MD, JD talk about an effective way to minimize your risk of being harmed by vaccines. (This information is rarely discussed in public and NEVER disclosed by the MSM)

The optimal antidote for all toxins and oxidative stress, including those from vaccines

Dr. Levy says that proper doses of vitamin C can safely and effectively eliminate the threat of all viruses – as well as toxins from drug overdoses and even venom from snake bites. According to Dr. Levy, megadoses of vitamin C are capable of destroying the pathogens that cause measles, mumps, viral encephalitis, herpes, mononucleosis, viral pneumonia, chickenpox, Ebola and influenza.

High-dose vitamin C therapy is particularly useful when given along with vaccines because these injections present a toxic challenge and inflict substantial oxidative stress – especially in babies, where the brain and nervous system are particularly susceptible to new toxins.

Keep in mind, vaccinations are toxic solutions and they must be neutralized immediately, or serious neurological impairments – including autism – could result. Vitamin C not only block adverse vaccine side effects, but also enhances the body’s immune response. (which is exactly what vaccine advocates want to achieve)

Vaccine warning: Conventionally-trained doctors caught refusing to see the obvious truth

Why vitamin C is not routinely administered along with vaccines is a source of frustration and bewilderment to many vitamin C advocates and integrative healthcare providers – a lapse that Dr. Levy attributes to the extreme resistance of Western medicine to accept treatments that challenge conventional medical wisdom. In fact, says Dr. Levy, “many doctors will not consider reading something that comes from sources that they do not consider worthy of producing new medical concepts.”

And, the case for vitamin C’s stunning powers has not been helped by clinical studies that were wrongly conducted. The most common problem is that researchers – by oversight or by design – routinely administer doses that are too small to offer therapeutic benefits.

Time for the blunt truth: If your family doctor or pediatrician won’t go along with an intelligent vitamin C protocol along with vaccinations, Dr. Levy advises you to find another doctor.

Continue Reading At: NaturalNews.com

Harvard Study Finally Admits Drug Prices are High Because Govt Grants Big Pharma a Monopoly

via: GreyEnigma.wordpress.com
via: SentinalBlog.com
Source: ActivistPost.com
Matt Agorist
August 27, 2016

In what can only be described as paradigm-shattering research on drug prices, the Journal of the American Medical Association has officially recognized why drug prices skyrocket in America. Big pharma is granted a monopoly by the State which effectively eliminates their competition and allows them to charge any price they want — so they do.

The new paper, published on August 23,  “The High Cost of Prescription Drugs in the United States: Origins and Prospects for Reform,” set out to  “review the origins and effects of high drug prices in the US market and to consider policy options that could contain the cost of prescription drugs.”

What the paper’s authors, Harvard Medical School doctors Aaron Kesselheim and Jerry Avorn, and jurist Ameet Sarpatwari, found and subsequently admitted, shatters the very assertion that government regulation in the market is needed to keep medical care costs low. In fact, their findings were quite to the contrary.

According to the paper:

The most important factor that allows manufacturers to set high drug prices is market exclusivity, protected by monopoly rights awarded upon Food and Drug Administration approval and by patents.

Imagine that.

The costs associated with studying, testing, and getting new drugs approved can be staggering, and the money made from selling the new drug is often used to pay for future drugs as well as paying back investments made to produce the current ones. Unfortunately, the people involved in creating life-saving drugs cannot work for free.

Nothing is wrong with making a drug that saves lives and profiting from it. However, when the profits are a direct result of government involvement, it no longer becomes an issue of innovation and the market, but rather an issue of a State-granted monopoly.

According to the paper:

Although prices are often justified by the high cost of drug development, there is no evidence of an association between research and development costs and prices; rather, prescription drugs are priced in the United States primarily on the basis of what the market will bear.

Increasing the market price of an item to the maximum profit per unit is a natural function of the free market. And, contrary to what the pro-government regulation sect asserts, this increase in price in relation to supply coupled with competition, happens to work toward keeping prices down — unless these prices are protected by a government-granted monopoly. 

As the paper points out:

The most important factor that allows manufacturers to set high drug prices for brand-name drugs is market exclusivity, which arises from 2 forms of legal protection against competition. Together, these factors generate government-granted monopoly rights for a defined period. Initial regulatory exclusivity is awarded at FDA approval.

While the Journal of the American Medical Association is finally admitting the reason for skyrocketing drug prices, Austrian economists have been pointing this out for decades.

Ludwig von Mises correctly explains the situation in the statement below:

As has been pointed out already, there is no such tendency toward monopolization. It is a fact that with many commodities in many countries monopoly prices prevail, and moreover, some articles are sold at monopoly prices on the world market. However, almost all of these instances of monopoly prices are the outgrowth of government interference with business. They were not created by the interplay of the factors operating on a free market. They are not products of capitalism, but precisely of the endeavors to counteract the forces determining the height of the market prices. It is a distortion of fact to speak of monopoly capitalism. It would be more appropriate to speak of monopoly interventionism or of monopoly statism.

A glaring example of the staggering discrepancies in American drug prices can be seen in the remarkable drug for Hep C, sofosbuvir. Sofosbuvir boasts a near miraculous cure rate of 84-96% for Hep C. 

However, the American version of the drug Solvaldi by Gilead, which has an FDA-granted monopoly protecting it, will cost patients a mountainous $84,000. 

In India, however, Gilead has to compete in a free market. Competitors, of which there a many, using the older, much cheaper, and equally effective drug, have driven the price down to a mere $4 a pill. This makes the total cost of curing Hepatitis C in India’s free market — $336.

Because the FDA has become little more than a revolving door for the pharmaceutical industry to continually grant itself special privilege, the natural checks and balances of the market do not apply and we see seemingly insane price differences when compared to other markets.

One example of this revolving door is FDA member, Milton Packer, who chairs the Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee. Packer, who reviews applications for drugs submitted for FDA approval, is financed by Novartis and actually spoke on their behalf to the advisory board that he chaired.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Packer also appeared before the Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee involved speaking on behalf of Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2002; acted as a consultant and speaker for GlaxoSmithKline in 2003; appeared as a speaker for NitroMed in 2005; appeared as a speaker for Sanofi in 2009 and acted as a consultant on behalf of Pfizer in 2010.

And Packer is only one example, the list goes on.

The timing of this paper is impeccable given the recent hoopla in the news on the absurd price hike of EpiPens. Mylan CEO, Heather Bresch – daughter of Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) — is on the receiving end of the FDA’s power to monopolize drugs. As a result of her monopoly, no one can compete with Mylan which has grown Bresch’s annual salary from $2.4 million in 2007 to $18.9 million in 2015.

Again, there is nothing wrong with making money. But, when that money is made at the expense of everyone else — freedom loses.

While the mainstream media often acknowledges that these drug companies charge exorbitant prices for their medications, they conveniently leave out the reason they can do so is because they have the full support of Uncle Sam.

Instead of looking at the corrupt government, who has the unique ability to create and sustain monopolies, the evil market is blamed, and people ironically call for more government – thus creating a vicious cycle of corporatism.

Hopefully, this admonition in JAMA, by these doctors from the Harvard Medical School, opens the eyes of those who continuously cry for more regulation to control prices. We’ve seen where that’s gotten us.

Here at the Free Thought Project we agree with the authors when they say:

High drug prices are the result of the approach the United States has taken to granting government-protected monopolies to drug manufacturers, combined with coverage requirements imposed on government-funded drug benefits. The most realistic short-term strategies to address high prices include enforcing more stringent requirements for the award and extension of exclusivity rights; enhancing competition by ensuring timely generic drug availability.

Matt Agorist is the co-founder of TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared. He is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world.

Read More At: GreyEnigma.com

Big Pharma’s Dirty Little Secret: Vaccine-Induced AutoImmune Disease Injury

This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2016
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Source: GreenMedInfo.com
Celeste McGovern
May 29, 2016

Nasal flu vaccine left  energetic and happy 10-year-old Bobby Hunter with disease that makes him afraid to smile (photo credit: Daily Express)

Scientists reveal how a hyperactivated immune system can unleash disease

Bobby Hunter was 10 years old when his mother noticed her usually energetic boy was struggling to stay awake and he looked exhausted all the time. Then he began collapsing. Eventually Bobby was diagnosed with narcolepsy, a lifelong incurable condition where victims suddenly drop into deep dream sleep, sometimes a dozen times a day or more. It can be accompanied by bizarre and terrifying symptoms: waking hallucinations of demons, insomnia, sleep paralysis and a sudden loss of muscle control or cataplexy often triggered by strong emotions. Bobby now has to be accompanied everywhere he goes in case he falls unconscious; he’ll never bathe or drive or cross a street alone. But his case is particularly cruel. Now, he is a child who is afraid to smile or laugh because it might trigger an attack.

Bobby’s mother Amanda is adamant he first became ill after he received the nasal flu vaccine at his school. But could such a small thing cause such a devastating disorder?

Narcolepsy Nightmare Explained

This month at the 10^th Autoimmunity Congress in Leipzig, Germany a leading pharmaceutical researcher presented his international team’s findings suggesting that vaccination could indeed have the “unexpected” effect of inducing crippling narcolepsy, an autoimmune disease.

Sohail Ahmed, lead author of a ground breaking paper published last summer in Science Translational Medicine explained how the now-retracted Pandemrix vaccine was implicated in a narcolepsy epidemic of more than 1,300 children in several European countries and spates of cases linked to other vaccines for the 2009 swine flu pandemic that never materialized.

It turns out,  part of the influenza nucleoprotein in the swine flu vaccine looked (molecularly) just like a receptor for a neurotransmitter in the brain called orexin that regulates the sleep/wake cycle, explained, Ahmed former global head of clinical sciences at Novartis and later GlaxoSmithKline who is currently with Roche Pharmaceuticals.

When the vaccine was injected with an adjuvant to ramp up the immune response, the immune system went into overdrive. Something  — maybe chemical ingredients in the vaccine, maybe inflammation  –  breached the blood brain barrier and the immune system targeting the vaccine virus also locked in on the receptors in the brain sleep centre. Narcoleptic patients’ own immune system then destroyed a hub of 70,000 or so orexin-producing cells in their brains before their hosts started knocking out. The autoimmune reaction can’t be turned off because the immune system is programmed to relentlessly attack anything it perceives as a foreign invader. It’s a case of mistaken identity and in immunology it’s called a “cross-reaction.”

But could other vaccines still in circulation that contain the H1N1 virus trigger narcolepsy too? Could the same mechanism cause kids like Bobby Hunter to get narcolepsy from the nasal flu vaccine?

Both Ahmed and immunologist Maria Teresa Arango at Leipzig confirmed that it could indeed. Bobby probably carries the HLA-DQB1*0602 genetic marker that leaves him at a higher risk of getting narcolepsy. But so does 20% of the US population. For pharmaceutical industry dependents like Ahmed, so long as cases like Bobby’s are not epidemic as they were with Pandemrix, they are collateral damage the pharmaceutical industry is willing continue to keep flu vaccines rolling.

But what if other vaccine proteins are acting in more unexpected ways, contributing to other autoimmune diseases?

Arango said such cross-reactivity could be the underlying mechanism for widely varied and unexpected documented vaccine adverse autoimmune events affecting other parts of the brain or body. She pointed to the work of Dr. Darja Kanduc.

Massive Peptide Sharing, Massive Autoimmunity?

Kanduc is a biochemist at the University of Bari in Italy who presented her findings in Leipzig at a one-day symposium on vaccine safety sponsored by the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute. Bari has been looking for molecular similarities between microbial and human proteins and found that a massive, unexpected “peptide sharing” exists between human proteins and microbe proteins.

Where overlap (“peptide sharing”) occurs between a foreign protein and human protein, they have a same identical amino acid sequence (for example, SLVDTYR).  An immune response launched against SLVDTYR might hit A (the microbial protein) and also B (the human protein). In immunology terms, this is a cross-reaction between A and B — in the same way Ahmed’s team illustrated vaccine-induced narcolepsy.

Normally such cross-reactions do not occur, explains Kanduc. “In fact, the human immune system has been ‘educated’ to ignore foreign proteins and avoid cross-reactions in order not to harm the similar human ‘self’ proteins.” In immunology, this is called immunotolerance. Our immune system does not press the panic button and launch an attack on every foreign viral protein it encounters.

Tolerance Lost

Our natural immunotolerance has proved a big problem for vaccine manufacturers over the years. Simply injecting a viral or bacterial particle into our bodies does not trigger the immune storm they want. Our bodies aren’t designed to encounter pathogens via intramuscular injection, after all. Our immune system refuses to attack the injected pathogen since that would mean also attacking the look-alike human proteins. It would rather not go to war than risk the home casualties.

Imagine the immune system as a border guard. If a guard at the Canada-US border pulled every vehicle that drove up to his checkpoint aside, emptied the suitcases, called in the sniffer dogs, strip-searched the occupants and called for the SWAT team, things would get ugly pretty fast. Most of the time, border guards are alert but passive. Our immune system is the same way with foreign proteins.

So vaccine manufacturers pepper vaccines with adjuvants — crude extracts of mycobacteria, toxins such as mercury, aluminum salts, or mineral oils to force the reluctant immune system to go into attack mode – from passive border guard to hypervigilant nutter pulling a gun on a granny.  Celebrated Yale immunologist Charles Janeway called this “immunologist’s dirty little secret” underlying vaccination.

 “Adjuvants expand, potentiate, and increase immune responses,” explains Kanduc. “Such hyperactivation has a price: the loss of specificity. The hyper-stimulated immune system does not discriminate any more between foreign proteins and self-proteins…Adjuvants render the immune system blind. Human proteins that share peptide sequences will be attacked.”

Kanduc likens immunotolerance to a protective wall. “The dam is demolished by the adjuvants and the cross-reactivity flood can crush and alter human proteins.” This might also cause numerous cross-reactions, manifested as a wide variety of autoimmune attacks.

Can vaccines induce genetic disease?

Kanduc looked for peptide sharing between a single influenza A H5N1 protein and human proteins. She found that the viral protein shares 70 peptides with the human host — proteins involved in basic cell functions including proliferation, neurodevelopment, and differentiation.

Among the human proteins that could be on the firing range: reelin, a protein involved in neuron layering, neurexins, proteins that connect neurons,  syndrome 10 protein for Bardet-Biedl syndrome, a transcription factor for Williams Syndrome (a rare genetic neurodevelopmental disorder), a protein associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and so on.

When these human proteins are altered, as for example by genetic mutations, neurological disorders such as epilepsy, obesity, dystonia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and demyelinating diseases like multiple sclerosis occur, says Kanduc.

 “The same spectrum of diseases might occur if these human proteins are attacked and altered by cross-reactions following an expanded and indiscriminate immune response induced by an adjuvant vaccine,” she adds.

With such “massive overlap” of proteins, the potential for vaccines to induce all sorts of autoimmune diseases is possible; it explains why such diverse autoimmune phenomena have been documented in the medical literature with respect to vaccination, from neurological disorders to skin afflictions to impaired fertility.

“The type of autoimmune phenomenon and disease that is eventually established will depend on the molecules and organs attacked,” explains Kanduc. “For example, attacks against myelin may evoke demyelinating diseases [such as multiple sclerosis] whereas immune reactions against proteins involved in behaviour  and /or cognition may cause autism and behaviour disorders.”

Autoimmune Infertility?

Such autoimmunity may be the mechanism underlying cases of premature menopause and infertility in adolescent girls following injection with the vaccine against HPV, described in Leipzig by an Australian GP. Deirdre Little, a general practitioner in South Bellingen, first published a case study of her 16-year-old patient who developed premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) following HPV vaccination. Since then Little has encountered six more post-HPV cases of sterility in adolescents in her practice – though primary ovarian insufficiency is almost unheard of  — normally affecting one in 100,000 girls under age 20.

Continue Reading at: GreenMedInfo.com

__________________________________________________________________

Celeste McGovern is a Canadian freelance journalist in the UK.

© [May 29] GreenMedInfo LLC. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter.

Flu Flop – Another Year of Dangerous CDC Lies

via: Mercola.com
By: Dr. Mercola

Despite the fact that last year’s (2014 to 2015) flu vaccine was a major flop with an abysmal 18 percent effectiveness rate, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publicly expressed unreserved confidence in this year’s (2015-2016) vaccine.

In September 2015, CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a news conference, “Get vaccinated … That’s the best way to protect yourself, your family and your community against flu.”¹

A CDC analysis also was used to reassure the public that the most common strains of influenza virus circulating in the US and in other regions match the strains included in this year’s vaccine.^2,3

That was in August 2015 and the “get vaccinated” advertisements have been out in full force – at airports, grocery stores, subways and more – telling Americans that the best way to prevent influenza and stay well during the flu season is by getting a flu shot.

It remains to be seen how effective (or ineffective) this year’s flu vaccine will be, but in the meantime research has shown that much remains to be understood about the potential negative effects of frequent vaccination on human health.

Getting Flu Shots Regularly May Make You More Susceptible to the Flu

Data collected from Canada and Hong Kong during 2009-2010 showed that people who received the seasonal flu vaccine in 2008 had twice the risk of getting the H1N1 “swine flu” compared to those who hadn’t received a flu shot.^4,5,6

ABC News reported at that time that such shots may actually set you up for less “broad” protection than if you get, and recover from, a natural infection.⁷

It’s also been shown that getting previous flu shots led to a blunting effect or “interference” that left the recipient less protected from certain influenza strains in later years

In fact, research in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found that vaccine-induced protection against influenza was greatest among those not vaccinated during the prior five years.⁸

In other words, the long-term effects of getting an annual flu shot are completely unknown, but it appears this strategy may be backfiring, leaving those who have been vaccinated annually less protected than those who have not been frequently vaccinated.

Dr. Michael Gardam, director of infection prevention and control at Toronto’s University Health Network, told CBC News:⁹

“People do not have a good explanation for why … The idea basically is that your immune system is occupied elsewhere. It would be like getting the swirling ball of death on your Mac where your operating system is doing something else rather than opening the file.”

Dr. Danuta Skowronski, a Canadian researcher who conducted the original study discovering individuals with a history of annual seasonal flu shots increased their risk of infection with pandemic H1N1 influenza, noted that the findings are so new that “policy-makers have not yet had a chance to fully digest them or understand the implications.”¹⁰

Unfortunately, instead of warning the public that annual flu shots may carry unknown risks and cause effects that are not well understood, public health officials continue to promote them as a panacea for influenza prevention. To say this is misleading is a vast understatement.

Why Might Flu Shots Increase Your Risk of Certain Flu Infections?

Similar evidence demonstrating that flu shots might make you sicker continues to be released. For instance, research presented at the 105th International Conference of the American Thoracic Society in San Diego revealed that children who had gotten seasonal flu shots were more at risk for hospitalization from H1N1 pandemic influenza than children who had not gotten previous flu shots.

Children who had received the influenza vaccinations had three times the risk of hospitalization for H1N1pandemic influenza as children who were not vaccinated. Among children with asthma, the risk was even higher.¹¹ Skowronski offered two hypotheses for why those who received seasonal flu shots in 2008 may have been at increased risk for pandemic influenza in 2009:¹²

• No Protective Antibodies Generated: It’s possible that the 2008 seasonal flu vaccine protected against an H1N1 virus that was related to the 2009 circulating pandemic influenza virus – but not similar enough to generate antibodies to neutralize it. The 2008 flu shot may therefore have “facilitated infection with the pandemic virus” the following year.

A similar mechanism is seen with dengue viruses transmitted by mosquitoes, which cause hemorrhagic dengue fever in humans; those infected with one type of dengue virus are at increased risk of developing life-threatening dengue if they’re infected with one of the other three virus strains.

• Infection Block Hypothesis: If you’re naturally infected with influenza, your body will build antibodies that may fight off other influenza strains that circulate in future years. Flu vaccine, however, will only protect you against the type A or type B influenza strains it contains and artificial vaccine acquired immunity is not identical to naturally acquired immunity. So it’s possible that people who didn’t get influenza A infection prior to 2009, were therefore more susceptible to the influenza A pandemic virus.

Skowronski stressed to CBC News that these are only theories, noting:

“… [W]ho knows, frankly? The wise man knows he knows nothing when it comes to influenza, so you always have to be cautious in speculating.”¹³

Flu Shots Urged for Pregnant Women Despite Unknown Effects

The flu vaccine is widely recommended for pregnant women, despite a lack of adequate safety testing. It was around this time in 2014 that a study came out in the New England Journal of Medicine stating the flu vaccine provided partial protection against confirmed influenza in pregnant women and their infants.¹⁴

The media began touting headlines like “flu vaccine safe for pregnant women,” and one news outlet, News 4 Jax, even quoted maternal-fetal medicine Dr. Erin Burnett as saying, “All pregnant women should get the vaccine because it’s 100 percent safe in pregnancy.”¹⁵

This is quite a statement, since even the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lists influenza (and Tdap) vaccines as either Pregnancy Category B or C biologicals, which means that adequate testing has not been done in humans to demonstrate safety for pregnant women, and it is not known whether the vaccines can cause fetal harm or affect reproduction capacity.¹⁶

There are ingredients in flu vaccines, including mercury-containing (Thimerosal) preservatives, and many more bioactive and potentially toxic ingredients that have not been fully evaluated for potential genotoxic or other adverse effects on the human fetus developing in the womb that may negatively affect health after birth.

The rush to vaccinate pregnant women to try to passively vaccinate the developing fetus is a clear case of policy preceding science, as NVIC President Barbara Loe Fisher pointed out in her public comment at a recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccine advisory committee meeting where public health officials made preparations to fast track vaccines targeting pregnant women to licensure. She said,

“Maternal vaccination policy has preceded vaccine safety science. Now there are proposals on the table here in this Committee and in the 21st Century Cures Act backed by FDA and industry to lower FDA licensing standards to ensure that vaccine policy can continue to precede vaccine safety science in the future.”¹⁷

It is clear that in the future many pregnant women are not only going to be urged to get the current government recommended influenza, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccines during every pregnancy but also be urged to get more vaccines that may not have been thoroughly tested. While women are evaluating their options for staying well during pregnancy, it is always wise to optimize  vitamin D levels, which has the potential to not only cut your risk of the flu in half but also can protect you and your baby from serious complications, such as premature delivery and preeclampsia.

More People Opting Out of the Flu Vaccine in the UK

Last year, the flu vaccine in the UK was even more of a failure than in the US. In the UK, during the 2014-15 flu season the flu vaccine was only 3 percent effective.

The Conversation described this as “one bad year,” but even during a good year the effectiveness is usually around 50 percent, which means whether or not it will protect you amounts to the flip of a coin.¹⁸

So it’s no wonder that this year the UK is seeing low uptake of the vaccine – influenza vaccination rates are down 6 percent compared to last year.¹⁹ Vaccination rates are even low among groups considered to be most vulnerable to the flu, such as the elderly, children under 5 and those with chronic heart, lung or kidney disease.

The fact is that people are right to be skeptical about an annual vaccine with this kind of questionable track record. Its effectiveness is wholly dependent on the educated “guesses” of public health officials to choose the “right” influenza strains that circulate widely in any given year to include in the vaccine.

And then they are banking on the hope that the virus won’t mutate into a new strain between the time the vaccine is developed in the spring and when the “flu season” begins in the fall.

This is precisely what happened last year. In June 2015, research was published in Cell Reports showing that the influenza A virus that had widely circulated during the 2014-2015 flu season had mutated. However, that mutation was not factored in when the vaccine was developed in early 2014.²⁰

Even then, if all conditions are accounted for and you’ve been vaccinated against the exact same influenza strain you’re likely to be exposed to in real life, the vaccine is not 100-percent effective. As mentioned, on a good year it may only be 50 or 60 percent effective.

During the past three flu seasons the CDC has claimed the flu vaccine’s overall effectiveness in the US was between 47 percent and 62 percent, but some experts have measured it at 0 to 7 percent.^21,22

Statins May Weaken the Effect of the Flu Vaccine

If you’re taking statin cholesterol-lowering drugs, you should know that this may weaken your body’s response to the flu vaccine. In those over 65 who received a flu shot, researchers found antibody concentrations were between 38 percent and 67 percent lower than those in people not taking statins.²³ Among younger individuals a weakened response was also seen.

Those who received a flu shot and were taking statins were 11 percent more likely to develop a respiratory illness that required medical attention compared to those not taking the drugs.²⁴ It’s thought that statins’ anti-inflammatory properties may be responsible for lowering the immune system’s response to the vaccine.

Considering that one in four Americans over aged 45 take statins, this could be one reason why the flu vaccine appears particularly ineffective among the elderly. The Lancet even concluded, “evidence for protection in adults aged 65 years or older is lacking”²⁵ The “solution” was to come out with a new, higher dose vaccine – Fluzone High-Dose vaccine. It contains four times the amount of antigen found in a standard dose.²⁶

Research published in 2014 showed Fluzone may lower the risk of getting influenza by 24 percent among seniors compared to the standard-dose vaccine.²⁷ This still isn’t saying much, considering during the 2012 to 2013 flu season the standard flu vaccine was just 9 percent effective in seniors aged 65 and over.

Even when getting a vaccine with four times the dose, only one in four cases of influenza in older patients was potentially prevented. And it’s unclear whether the vaccine actually lowers the risk of influenza-related health complications and deaths.

Now, in another attempt to force the elderly to respond to the notoriously ineffective influenza vaccine, the FDA has licensed a potentially highly reactive flu vaccine that contains a controversial oil in water MF59 (squalene) adjuvant, which has been associated with development of narcolepsy and other autoimmune disorders and chronic illness.

The Fluad vaccine developed by Novartis (sold in 2015 to Australia’s CSL Group now trading as Seqiris) is supposed to stimulate a supercharged inflammatory immune response in those over age 65 that will be more protective.  At a September 2015 FDA committee meeting, consumer advocates protested that not enough study had been done in U.S. seniors to prove the squalene-adjuvanted vaccine was safe for them.²⁸

Even Congress Is Asking Why the Flu Vaccine Isn’t Working

At a congressional hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee Oversight and Investigations in November 2015, lawmakers questioned federal officials about why more progress hasn’t been made toward developing effective flu vaccines and treatments.

Witnesses from the CDC, US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority were questioned, with most lawmakers expressing “frustration that the health agencies were not further along.” As reported by STAT:²⁹

“We are still developing flu vaccines with 1940s technology,’ said Representative Tim Murphy, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the subcommittee. ‘We need better testing to quickly learn of mutations.’ And Representative Diana DeGette, of Colorado … showed her impatience with the group, noting that ‘I’ve been pushing for 10 years to fix the system.'”

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