Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Global Research
July 25, 2009

In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Georgia. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session — only private invitations to fifty-two attendees. There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly “embargoed.” There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left.

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency’s massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines — thimerosal — appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. “I was actually stunned by what I saw,” Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants — in one case, within hours of birth — the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children. Read more…

Tally of H1N1 infections rises 10% in week, compared with doubling of cases in previous week, government says

By Andrew W. Griffin

Red Dirt Report, editor

Posted: July 30, 2009

reddirtreporter@gmail.com

OKLAHOMA CITY — With Oklahoma City under the microscope in coming weeks, in light of plans to test the new swine flu vaccine on hundreds of Oklahoma children, many questions remain unanswered and Red Dirt Report will look to provide more information.

First of all, the company conducting this research, IPS Research Company, located in downtown Oklahoma City, is, according to the website, “a leading clinical research facility” that conducts all sorts of medical trials addressing problems related to anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, major depression and Alzheimer’s disease, among many others.

IPS told The Oklahoman last week that they are hoping to attract young volunteers to be used as test subjects – guinea pigs, in the common parlance – to see how effective the new swine flu vaccine will be on their young, developing “patients,” starting on August 17.

And the medical director for IPS Research, Dr. Louise Thurman, told The Oklahoman that “(f)rom a science standpoint, it should work.”

I’m sorry Dr. Thurman, that’s not good enough. Are our children’s lives and well-being worth the risk, particularly in light of swine flu levels plateauing around the world, according to news reports this week.

Read the Entire Story Here.

By washingtonpost.com Editors  |  July 30, 2009; 10:38 AM ET
CDC’s Dr. Richard Besser Joins ABC News

In the latest example of a government official leaving public service for television, the CDC’s Dr. Richard Besser will join ABC News in September as a senior medical editor and correspondent, according to an internal ABC memo obtained by The Eye.

“Dr. Besser’s distinguished background in public health, emergency preparedness, and epidemiology will enhance the leadership of ABC News in reporting and explaining medical issues to our audiences,” ABC News president David Westin said in the memo to staffers. Read more…

With the new H1N1 virus continuing to cause illness, hospitalizations and deaths in the US during the normally flu-free summer months and some uncertainty about what the upcoming flu season might bring, CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has taken an important step in preparations for a voluntary novel H1N1 vaccination effort to counter a possibly severe upcoming flu season. On July 29, ACIP met to consider who should receive novel H1N1 vaccine when it becomes available.

Novel H1N1 Vaccine

Every flu season has the potential to cause a lot of illness, doctor’s visits, hospitalizations and deaths.  CDC is concerned that the new H1N1 flu virus could result in a particularly severe flu season this year.  Vaccines are the best tool we have to prevent influenza.  CDC hopes that people will start to go out and get vaccinated against seasonal influenza as soon as vaccines become available at their doctor’s offices and in their communities (this may be as early as August for some).  The seasonal flu vaccine is unlikely to provide protection against novel H1N1 influenza.  However a novel H1N1 vaccine is currently in production and may be ready for the public in the fall. The novel H1N1 vaccine is not intended to replace the seasonal flu vaccine – it is intended to be used along-side seasonal flu vaccine.  Read more…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met today to make recommendations for use of vaccine against novel influenza A (H1N1). 

The committee met to develop recommendations on who should receive vaccine against novel influenza A (H1N1) when it becomes available, and to determine which groups of the population should be prioritized if the vaccine is initially available in extremely limited quantities.

The committee recommended the vaccination efforts focus on five key populations.  Vaccination efforts are designed to help reduce the impact and spread of novel H1N1. The key populations include those who are at higher risk of disease or complications, those who are likely to come in contact with novel H1N1, and those who could infect young infants. When vaccine is first available, the committee recommended that programs and providers try to vaccinate:

• pregnant women,
• people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months of age,
• health care and emergency services personnel,
• persons between the ages of 6 months through 24 years of age, and
• people from ages 25 through 64 years who are at higher risk for novel H1N1 because of chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems. Read more…

Friday, July 31, 2009

Associated Press

The World Health Organization says the coming end of the regular flu season in the southern hemisphere will help it better track the spread of swine flu there.

Since the symptoms of swine flu and regular flu are nearly identical, the two diseases are easily mistaken for one another. Laboratories also don’t have the capacity to test every case to determine which cases are swine flu.

WHO spokesman Thomas Abraham said on Friday the peak of the southern hemisphere’s flu season is almost over. Once the regular flu season ends, officials will be able to assume that all flu cases are swine flu, or H1N1, as is the case in the northern hemisphere.

So far, the virus has infected more than 130,000 people and killed 800 worldwide.

WHO has previously said that swine flu could strike poorer nations, like those in Latin America and Africa harder, since those populations have other health problems like HIV, malaria and tuberculosis that could make the disease deadly.

Most people who get swine flu only experience mild symptoms and recover without medical treatment.

The European Union also called G-7 nations — the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada — to coordinate efforts to contain the virus with Mexico and the World Health Organization. It called for a September meeting in Brussels.

Friday, July 31, 2009

Associated Press

Health officials say their count of U.S. swine flu deaths has risen to 353 and swine-flu associated hospitalizations have grown to more than 5,500.

The cumulative number of deaths rose from the 302 reported last Friday. Last week, health officials said there have been about 44,000 lab-confirmed illnesses but the government would stop providing such counts. Officials believe more than 1 million Americans have had the infection, but many cases go unreported.

Swine flu has continued to spread, but the number of states with widespread activity has been dropping. Now there are four — California, Hawaii, Maine and New Jersey.

More than half of children taking the swine flu drug Tamiflu experience side-effects such as nausea and nightmares, research suggests.

An estimated 150,000 people with flu symptoms were prescribed the drug through a new hotline and website last week, according to figures revealed yesterday.

Studies of children attending three schools in London and one in the South West showed that 51-53 per cent had one or more side-effects from the medication, which is offered to everyone in England with swine flu symptoms.

Read the Entire Story Here.

Stores possibly would serve as sites for inoculation campaign

ORLANDO, Florida – Wal-Mart is discussing with U.S. health officials the possibility of putting vaccination sites at some of its stores for an H1N1 swine flu inoculation campaign this fall, a company official said on Thursday.

Federal officials met with Wal-Mart executives on Wednesday in Arkansas to discuss the issue, said Dr. John Agwunobi, president of health and wellness for Wal-Mart U.S., addressing public health leaders at a conference in Orlando, Fla.

“We are in discussions with CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and others in local and state departments to see what role we might play,” Agwunobi said. “It might be we are a site. It may be help with logistics and with supply chain.”

Read the Entire Story.

Outbreaks a ‘harbinger’ of spread when school year begins, official says

ORLANDO, Florida – Outbreaks of the H1N1 flu among children attending U.S. summer camps presage a surge in cases this fall as students return to school, an official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns.

“This is just a harbinger of what we will see in the fall,” Dr. Richard Besser, who led the U.S. response to the virus outbreak last spring, told a meeting of public health officials.

Besser, who was the CDC’s acting director for the first half of this year, later told Reuters that the number of outbreaks in summer camps was in the hundreds.

Read the Entire Story

Concerns Surround H1N1 Vaccine Which May Contain Thimerosal
By Shaun Heasley
July 30, 2009

A swine flu vaccine expected this fall is raising red flags because it will likely contain a preservative some link to autism despite scientific research repeatedly proving otherwise.

Government officials say they hope to have 160 million doses of a vaccine for swine flu, or H1N1, available by the fall when flu season is expected to kick in. A vaccine is currently going through clinical trials. Pregnant women, children and health care workers will be the first to be vaccinated.

Scientists say the swine flu vaccine will be similar to the flu vaccines provided annually with little fanfare. However, some consumer groups are reserved about the new vaccine because of the possibility that it could contain thimerosal in combination with a second additive in an effort to produce large quantities more quickly.

Furthermore, a vaccine offered to combat a different strain of the swine flu in the 1970s is linked to increased incidents of a neurological disorder.

But makers of the vaccine say they anticiptate manufacturing two versions, one with and one without thimerosal, which ought to ease some fears, reports ABC News.

Read the Entire Story Here.
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