Critical Alert: The Swine Flu Pandemic – Fact or Fiction?

Where did This Mysterious New Animal-Human Flu Strain Come From?
(Part #2 excerpt)

Alongside the fear-mongering headlines, I’ve also seen increasing numbers of reports questioning the true nature of this virus. And rightfully so.
Could a mixed animal-human mutant like this occur naturally? And if not, who made it, and how was it released?
 
Not one to dabble too deep in conspiracy theories, I don’t have to strain very hard to find actual facts to support the notion that this may not be a natural mutation, and that those who stand to gain have the wherewithal to pull off such a stunt.
 
Just last month I reported on the story that the American pharmaceutical company Baxter was under investigation for distributing the deadly avian flu virus to 18 different countries as part of a seasonal flu vaccine shipment. Czech reporters were probing to see if it may have been part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic; as such a "mistake" would be virtually impossible under the security protocols of that virus.
 
The H5N1 virus on its own is not very airborne. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which are more easily spread, the effect could be a potent, airborne, deadly, biological weapon. If this batch of live bird flu and seasonal flu viruses had reached the public, it could have resulted in dire consequences.
 
There is a name for this mixing of viruses; it’s called "reassortment," and it is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created in the lab. Some scientists say the most recent global outbreak — the 1977 Russian flu — was started by a virus created and leaked from a laboratory.
Another example of the less sterling integrity of Big Pharma is the case of Bayer, who sold millions of dollars worth of an injectable blood-clotting medicine to Asian, Latin American, and some European countries in the mid-1980s, even though they knew it was tainted with the AIDS virus.
So while it is morally unthinkable that a drug company would knowingly contaminate flu vaccines with a deadly flu virus such as the bird- or swine flu, it is certainly not impossible. It has already happened more than once.
 
But there seems to be no repercussions or hard feelings when industry oversteps the boundaries of morality and integrity and enters the arena of obscenity. Because, lo and behold, which company has been chosen to head up efforts, along with WHO, to produce a vaccine against the Mexican swine flu?
 
Baxter!11 Despite the fact that ink has barely dried on the investigative reports from their should-be-criminal "mistake" against humanity.
According to other sources,12 a top scientist for the United Nations, who has examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as HIV/AIDS victims, has concluded that the current swine flu virus possesses certain transmission "vectors" that suggest the new strain has been genetically-manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon.
 
The UN expert believes that Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and the current A-H1N1 swine flu virus are biological warfare agents.
 
In addition, Army criminal investigators are looking into the possibility that disease samples are missing from biolabs at Fort Detrick — the same Army research lab from which the 2001 anthrax strain was released, according to a recent article in the Fredrick News Post.13 In February, the top biodefense lab halted all its research into Ebola, anthrax, plague, and other diseases known as "select agents," after they discovered virus samples that weren’t listed in its inventory and might have been switched with something else.

Factory Farming Maybe Source of Swine Flu

 
Another theory as to the cause of Swine Flu might be factory farming. In the United States, pigs travel coast to coast. They can be bred in North Carolina, fattened in the corn belt of Iowa, and slaughtered in California.
 
While this may reduce short-term costs for the pork industry, the highly contagious nature of diseases like influenza (perhaps made further infectious by the stresses of transport) needs to be considered when calculating the true cost of long-distance live animal transport.
The majority of U.S. pig farms now confine more than 5,000 animals each. With a group of 5,000 animals, if a novel virus shows up it will have more opportunity to replicate and potentially spread than in a group of 100 pigs on a small farm.
 
With massive concentrations of farm animals within which to mutate, these new swine flu viruses in North America seem to be on an evolutionary fast track, jumping and reassorting between species at an unprecedented rate.
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Click On Link to Read Full Article 
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine-Flu.aspx

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New Flu

Critical Alert: The Swine Flu Pandemic – Fact or Fiction? (AA)
By Dr. Mercola (Part 1)

American health officials declared a public health emergency as cases of swine flu were confirmed in the U.S. Health officials across the world fear this could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, where seven people are confirmed dead as a result of the new virus.

On Monday April 27th, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its pandemic alert level to four on its six-level threat scale,1 which means they’ve determined that the virus is capable of human-to-human transmission.

The number of fatalities, and suspected and confirmed cases across the world change depending on the source, so your best bet — if you want the latest numbers — is to use Google Maps’ Swine Flu Tracker.

Several nations have imposed travel bans, or made plans to quarantine air travelers2 that present symptoms of the swine flu, such as:

  • Fever of more than 100
  • Coughing
  • Runny nose and/or sore throat
  • Joint aches
  • Severe headache
  • Vomiting and/or diarrhea
  • Lethargy
  • Lack of appetite

Top global flu experts are trying to predict how dangerous the new swine flu strain will be, as it became clear that they had little information about Mexico’s outbreak. It is as yet unclear how many cases occurred in the month or so before the outbreak was detected. It’s also unknown whether the virus was mutating to be more lethal, or less.

Is This the Pandemic Health Officials Have Been Waiting for?

Folks, you can expect to see a lot of panic over this in the near future.  But I wouldn’t be too hasty — this isn’t the first time the public has been warned about swine flu. The last time was in 1976, right before I entered medical school and I remember it very clearly. It resulted in the massive swine flu vaccine campaign.

Do you happen to recall the result of this massive campaign?

Within a few months, claims totaling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the vaccine. The vaccine was also blamed for 25 deaths.

However, several hundred people developed crippling Guillain-Barré Syndrome after they were injected with the swine flu vaccine. Even healthy 20-year-olds ended up as paraplegics.

And the swine flu pandemic itself? It never materialized.

More People Died From the Swine Flu Vaccine than Swine Flu!

It is very difficult to forecast a pandemic, and a rash response can be extremely damaging.

As of Monday April 27, the worldwide total number of confirmed cases was 82, according to WHO, which included 40 cases in the U.S., confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control.  But does that truly warrant the feverish news headlines?

To put things into perspective, malaria kills 3,000 people EVERY DAY, and it’s considered "a health problem"…  But of course, there are no fancy vaccines for malaria that can rake in billions of dollars in a short amount of time.

One Australian news source,3 for example, states that even a mild swine flu epidemic could lead to the deaths of 1.4 million people and would reduce economic growth by nearly $5 trillion dollars.

Give me a break, if this doesn’t sound like the outlandish cries of the pandemic bird-flu I don’t know what does. Do you remember when President Bush said two million Americans would die as a result of the bird flu?  

In 2005, in 2006, 2007, and again in 2008, those fears were exposed as little more than a cruel hoax, designed to instill fear, and line the pocketbooks of various individuals and industry. I became so convinced by the evidence AGAINST the possibility of a bird flu pandemic that I wrote a New York Times bestselling book, The Bird Flu Hoax, all about the massive fraud involved with the epidemic that never happened..

 

PANDEMIC?

April 26, 2009 4:26 PM EDT

World Govts Racd to Contain Swine Flu Outbreak

WASHINGTON – The world’s governments raced to avoid both a pandemic and global hysteria Sunday as more possible swine flu cases surfaced from Canada to New Zealand and the United States declared a public health emergency. "It’s not a time to panic," the White House said.

Mexico, the outbreak’s epicenter with up to 86 suspected deaths, closed churches, markets and restaurants. Few people ventured onto the streets, and some wore face masks. Canada became the third country to confirm cases, in six people, including some students who – like some New York City spring-breakers – got mildly ill in Mexico. Countries across Asia promised to quarantine feverish travelers returning from flu-affected areas.

The U.S. declared the health emergency so it could ship roughly 12 million doses of flu-fighting medications from a federal stockpile to states in case they eventually need them – although with 20 confirmed cases of people recovering easily, they don’t appear to for now.

Make no mistake: There is not a global pandemic – at least not yet. It’s not clear how many people truly have this particular strain, or why all countries but Mexico are seeing mild disease. Nor is it clear if the new virus spreads easily, one milestone that distinguishes a bad flu from a global crisis. But waiting to take protective steps until after a pandemic is declared would be too late.

"We do think this will continue to spread but we are taking aggressive actions to minimize the impact on people’s health," said Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

President Barack Obama’s administration sought to look both calm and in command, striking a balance between informing Americans without panicking them. Obama himself was playing golf while U.S. officials used a White House news conference to compare the emergency declaration with preparing for an approaching hurricane.

"Really that’s what we’re doing right now. We’re preparing in an environment where we really don’t know ultimately what the size or seriousness of this outbreak is going to be," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters.

On the Net:

World Health Organization: http://www.who.int

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: http://www.cdc.gov

Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov

Flu Symptoms Spreads

 
NYC Heath Department: 75 kids sickened at 1 school
April 24, 2009 10:57 PM EDT

NEW YORK – New York City health officials say that about 75 students at a Queens high school have fallen ill with flu-like symptoms and testing is under way to rule out the strain of swine flu that has killed dozens in Mexico.
 
The Health Department’s Dr. Don Weiss said Friday that a team of agency doctors and investigators were dispatched to the private St. Francis Preparatory School the previous day after students reported fever, sore throat, cough, aches and pains. No one has been hospitalized.
 
The handful of sick students who remained at the school were tested for a variety of flu strains. If they’re found to have a known human strain that would rule out swine flu.
 
Results could take several days.
 
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
© 2009 EarthLink, Inc. All rights reserved.

SWINE FLU Q&A

Hosted by Google Back to Google News
Questions and Answers About Swine Flu

By The Associated Press – 5 hours ago
Mexico is contending with an outbreak of swine flu, suspected in the deaths of dozens of people and sickening perhaps 1,000. In the United States, at least eight cases have been confirmed with the infection, all of them in California and Texas; only one person was hospitalized. Here are some questions and answers about the illness:
Q. What is swine flu?
 
A. Swine flu is a respiratory illness in pigs caused by a virus. The swine flu virus routinely causes outbreaks in pigs but doesn’t usually kill many of them.
Q. Can people get swine flu?
 
A. Swine flu viruses don’t usually infect humans. There have been occasional cases, usually among people who’ve had direct contact with infected pigs, such as farm workers. "We’ve seen swine influenza in humans over the past several years, and in most cases, it’s come from direct pig contact. This seems to be different," said Dr. Arnold Monto, a flu expert with the University of Michigan.
 
Q. Can it spread among humans?
 
A. There have been cases of the virus spreading from human to human, probably in the same way as seasonal flu, through coughing and sneezing by infected people.
Q. What are the symptoms of swine flu?
 
A. The symptoms are similar to those of regular flu — fever, cough, fatigue, lack of appetite.
Q. Is the same swine flu virus making people sick in Mexico and the U.S.?
 
A. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the Mexican virus samples match the U.S. virus. The virus is a mix of human virus, bird virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.
Q. Are there drugs to treat swine flu in humans?
 
A. There are four different drugs approved in the U.S. to treat the flu, but the new virus has shown resistance to the two oldest. The CDC recommends the use of the flu drugs Tamiflu and Relenza.
 
Q. Does a regular flu shot protect against swine flu?
 
A. The seasonal flu vaccine used in the U.S. this year won’t likely provide protection against the latest swine flu virus. There is a swine flu vaccine for pigs but not for humans.
 
Q. Should residents of California or Texas do anything special?
 
A. The CDC recommends routine precautions to prevent the spread of infectious diseases: wash your hands often, cover your nose and mouth when you cough or sneeze, avoid close contact with sick people. If you are sick, stay at home and limit contact with others.
Q. What about traveling to Mexico?
 
A. The CDC has not warned Americans against traveling to Mexico but advises that they be aware of the illnesses there and take precautions to protect against infections, like washing their hands.
 
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
On the Net:
 
 
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
 
A©2009 Google – About Google News – Blog – Help Center – Help for Publishers – Terms of Use – Privacy Policy – Google Home

EARTH DAY EVERY DAY

Earth Day: 7 Ways To Exercise in a Greener Way
April 22, 200
(McClatchy-Tribune Information Services) — You’re working out regularly. Taking in less fat and less sugar. Feeling good about yourself. " But are you doing what you can to keep the planet healthy too? " In the spirit of Earth Day, here are seven ways to exercise in a greener fashion.
 
   1. Donate your used fitness shoes. Try Soles4Souls (soles4souls.com), which made donations to victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Asian tsunami in 2004. Nike also accepts shoes and recycles them into sports courts around the world (www.letmeplay.com/)
 
   2. When participating in a race, walk or other event, carry your own water or sports drink in a reusable plastic bottle (if you don’t mind the extra weight). Not only will it save on paper cups, but you’ll be certain you’re drinking the same fluids you use during your training, says Bruce Rayner of Boston-based Athletes for a Fit Planet. Rayner’s overall take on being a greener athlete: "We’re all familiar with ‘recycle,’ but there’s also ‘reduce’ and ‘reuse.’"
 
   3. Leave your car in the driveway and ride your bike to the gym (especially on weekends, when you have more time). If you have an old bike, keep it around to use for short neighborhood errands.
 
   4. Carpool to races.
 
   5. Wear eco-friendly training clothing. And if you belong to a group, encourage club officers to pick clothing made with recycled polyester instead of the regular virgin polyester.
 
   6. Sign an "eco-pledge" created especially for athletes, at AFitPlanet.com/pledge. "You can actually make a formal public commitment to being environmentally responsible," Rayner says. "It starts people thinking while wearing their environmental cap. I’ve had people come up to me and talk about how [the pledge] changed the way they’ve done things in their daily life.
 
   7. Designate a cleanup day for your running, cycling, inline skating or fitness club, where you agree to pick up the garbage along your usual route. Runners and skaters could put a garbage pail in the seat of a baby jogger and push it along, so they don’t miss their workout.
 
Copyright (C) 2009, Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
  

Recipe

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*** Healthy Recipes ***
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Try this quick and easy salsa is a great complement to shrimp, scallops and halibut.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Serves 2

Ingredients:

  • 1 medium papaya, diced
  • 1 TBS cilantro, minced
  • 1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
  • 1 TBS lime

Directions:

    Combine all ingredients and enjoy!

Recipes are from the www.whfoods.org website, a very popular website which comes up #1 on a "Google" search for "healthiest foods" and "healthiest recipes." The website provides unbiased information with no commercial interests by the not-for-profit George Mateljan Foundation. George Mateljan is the founder of Health Valley Foods and author of six best-selling books on the Healthiest Way of Eating.

** Do you have a healthy recipe? Email editors@naturalhealthweb.com

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Sugar v. Water

Submitted by Ramona Bates MD on Apr 22nd, 2009
Posted under:
 
Diet and Weight Loss
Sugar Drinks
Being overweight has become the most common medical condition of childhood. Complications of being overweight or obese include not just the increased social problems, but the “adult” health problems of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and joint problems.
 
Sugary drinks have become a “staple” in the daily diet of many children who have a least one can of soda a day. These drinks are the main source of added sugar in the daily diet of children. Each 12-oz serving of soda has the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar so provide many non-nutritional calories.
 
If you switch one can of soda per day to water for your child, the child will have improved glucose and insulin levels. This in turn reduces the ri
sk of type 2 diabetes in the child. It would also decrease their risk of obesity and the health issues that come with increased weight.
 
Replacing milk with soda at meals decreases the child’s intake of calcium which increases their risk of osteoporosis (weak bones). Weaker bones are easier to break.
It is recommended that children be given water, milk, or real fruit/vegetable juices to drink. Buy these rather than sodas. Encourage your children to drink water between meals.
 
TYPES AND EXAMPLES OF SUGARY DRINKS
* Fruitades: lemonade, limeade, Gatorade
 
* Fruit drinks: Hi-C, Hawaiian Punch, Kool-Aid
* Soda: Coke, Pepsi, 7UP, Mountain Dew
 
* Energy drinks: Red Bull, Rockstar, Monster
 
Sources:
American Academy of Pediatrics
Center for Disease Control and Prevention
 
Sugary Drinks and Childhood Obesity; Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2009;163(4):400; Megan A. Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH
 

EARTH DAY EVERYDAY

Dear Supporter,

We work to provide useful, science-based information to help you safeguard your family from environmental hazards.

We also work to reform federal policy on toxic chemicals so that the Earth is a cleaner, safer place for us all.

Please join us in celebration of Earth Day by changing how you live, then by letting government know that you want better protection from chemical pollution.

Make a personal change:

  • Switch to earth-friendly lightbulbs.  Start with our Green Lighting Guide to identify which energy-efficient bulbs have the least mercury, where in your home they should go and how to use them safely.
  • Eat organic when you can.  Put our Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in your wallet or on your iPhone (now!) so you can eat organic without breaking the bank.
  • Do that dusting.  Pets and young children are the most vulnerable to dust-bound pollutants, but cleaning your home is free, easy, and everyone benefits from cleaner indoor air.

Get political:

  • Tell the EPA to set a truly health-protective safety standard for perchlorate in drinking water.  Perchlorate is known to interfere with thyroid hormones essential for brain development, so it poses particular risks to the fetus, infants and young children. Click here to send your message to the EPA.

Support EWG so we can get political:

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In partnership,

Ken Cook
President, Environmental Working Group

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Medical Errors

NaturalNews.com printable article
Originally published April 20 2009
Injuries, Deaths Caused by Medications Skyrocket 38 Percent
http://www.naturalnews.com/z026083.html
by David Gutierrez, staff writer
(NaturalNews) The number of serious injuries and deaths linked to the use of prescription medications reached a new high in the first quarter of 2008, according to a report issued by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices.
 
Researchers found mention of 4,825 deaths and approximately 21,000 serious injuries among voluntary adverse event reports submitted by doctors to the FDA between January and March. These numbers were 38 percent higher than the quarterly average for 2007 and a striking 200 percent higher than the first quarter of 2007.
The researchers estimate that because adverse event reports are voluntary, the numbers represent less than one-tenth of the actual prescription drug-related injuries and deaths taking place.
 
Together, 10 drugs were responsible for killing more than 100 people each, thereby accounting for more than 20 percent of all deaths. This contrasted with prior quarters studied, in which only one to three drugs killed that many people.
 
The two single most lethal drugs were the anti-smoking drug varenicline — marketed as Chantix — and the blood thinner heparin. While heparin was responsible for killing a 102 people and injuring 779, the vast majority of these cases were associated with a batch of contaminated medication imported from China. Since the discovery of the tainted drugs, injuries and deaths from heparin have dropped off.
 
Chantix, in contrast, continues to cause high rates of injury and deaths, accounting for 50 fatalities and 1,001 serious injuries in the first quarter of the year. Since its approval in 2006, the drug has been implicated in 112 fatalities and 3,325 serious injuries. Many of these injuries were self-inflicted and stemmed from the drug’s psychiatric side effects, while others stemmed from seizures, blackouts, loss of consciousness and sudden heart arrhythmia,
 
Other drugs in the top 10 included the common over-the-counter painkillers acetaminophen and ibuprofen, as well as prescription pain killers and narcotics.
Sources for this story include: www.latimes.com.

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