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Flu Vaccines: Open Season
by Sinead Dumigan
www.dissidentvoice.org
December 6, 2006
For all the frantic, unvaccinated citizens fearing the "upcoming" peak of flu season -- rest assured, coming down with a flu infection is the least of your worries.
Despite the government’s statements urging individuals to vaccinate their children, the threat of an infantile influenza fatality is just about as serious as the dreaded hangnail.
Nonetheless, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently declared November 27 to December 3 as National Influenza Vaccination Week. The order stems from the governments "concern" that infection rates will soon come to a season-high and, as having the flu is such a dire condition within the general population, the well-being of society rests on mass inoculation.
In fact, government agents are so adamant about protecting the nation that new recommendations have been made concerning vaccine administration, which, by the way, only protects against three specific strains of the countless, ever-evolving strains of the virus.
According to a November CDC publication, children less than two years of age are at high risk for infections and therefore advocate ALL children aged 6 months to 18 years, in addition to pregnant women, be inoculated at least once a year.
Furthermore, if children under 9 years of age are getting injections for the first time, they are advised to receive two shots a month apart. CDC members say vaccinations should be administered in October or November, but since infections can occur as late as April "getting the vaccine in December or later still offers protection in most [I repeat, most] years."
That being said, one has to question why the Health Industry Distributors Association’s (HIDA) April publication states that demands for flu vaccines are highest in September and October "despite the public campaign to stretch flu shot ‘season’ into January."
Weird -- there must be a mistake somewhere; surely these decisions result from valid scientific studies, as well as endless hours of analyses and discussion regarding the best interests of the public.
Comforting maybe, but accurate? Not so much.
Despite lack of publicity, programs have been in place for almost 20 years now that acknowledge vaccine injuries; the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) was launched in 1988 as a means of "reimbursing" patients adversely affected by inoculations, as if any amount of money can make up for a lifetime of suffering or, worse, the death of a child. In addition, two years subsequent, the CDC and FDA created the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) so affected individuals or their representatives can report negative reactions occurring post-vaccination, which currently contains hundreds of thousands of documented tragedies.
Currently circulating flu vaccines contain the mercury-based preservative thimerosal. As if further explanation is needed, mercury is a horrible neurotoxin with a toxicity level 1000x higher than that of lead. Previously banned from over-the-counter products, animal vaccines and, ironically in some states, every other vaccine given to children, thimerosal remains in full concentration in flu vaccines.
Knowing that mercury levels in drinking water cannot exceed 2 parts per billion (ppb) without being toxic, or more appropriately, since any liquid containing more than 200 ppb of mercury is considered hazardous waste -- it’s sickening that circulating vials of flu vaccine has 50,000 ppb of mercury, the only exceptions being Sanofi-Pasteur’s preservative-free vaccines.
With four out of five manufacturers producing thimerosal-containing flu vaccines, over 90% of the 115 million doses distributed in America will contain 25 micrograms (mg) of mercury. This means that once the remaining 10% of mercury-free doses are used up, pregnant women and children will only have access to vials containing toxins measuring 250x the EPA’s safety limit.
For a person to safely receive that amount of mercury in one vaccine, he or she would have to weigh over 550 lbs, making the recommendation for pregnant women and children nothing less than an act of brutality.
As told in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (Summer 2006), pregnant women who get inoculated with thimerosal-containing vaccines will be exposed to 3.5 times the organic mercury limit set by EPA officials, but since mercury accumulates in fetal tissue, especially those of the central nervous system, concentrations found in the developing fetus can exceed maternal levels by a factor of 4.3.
The results of such an attack are devastating. "Brain damage, mental retardation, incoordination, blindness, seizures, and inability to speak" are just a few of the fetal reactions found by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).
In addition, the team clearly identified mercury, of any form, as posing a threat to the nervous system. Children exposed to mercury experience brain functioning difficulties such as "irritability, shyness, tremors, changes in vision or hearing, and memory problems," which further explains why American children are riddled with neurodevelopmental disorders ranging from autism and ADHD, to Guillain-Barre syndrome and speech disorders.
Americans will soon see for themselves what the selfish, money-driven vaccine industry has done for society. Not even officials will be able to deny the ever-excelling autism epidemic when it stares them square in the eye; human flesh and blood, just as themselves, rather than numbers on a page in their office.
When the country’s social security trust depletes due to the cost of special education and assisted living facilities for these disabled children, and there are neither enough patients nor finances remaining to support the vicious "damage-treat" circle created by manufacturers and their loyal elected lapdogs -- who will be blamed then? Where will the fingers point when greed isn’t paralyzing their conscience? Time will soon provide the answer, unfortunately.
For those who still cannot seem to grasp the severity of thimerosal-containing vaccines, perhaps this will put things into perspective: if someone spilled a bottle of thimerosal indoors, the entire building would have to be evacuated immediately and remain so until a time when hazard crews thoroughly cleaned and secured the area.
It makes no sense to jeopardize a human life for a theoretical risk, especially not for a condition where, according to a November 30th BioWorld Online article, “Americans’ Concern for Skin Infection, Flu, Spreads Across the County,” “Proper handwashing is the simplest and most effective way to prevent these infections.”
As far as numbers go, the rate of influenza infections leaves something to be desired of the government’s national quest for total inoculation. According to the CDC’s Weekly Report: Influenza Summary Update (week ending November 18, 2006), World Health Organization (WHO) and National Respiratory and Enteric Virus Surveillance System (NREVSS) laboratories have tested 15,707 samples of suspected influenza viruses, with only 477 testing positive. Of the positive results, 308 were reported from Florida alone.
Now, call it audacity, but that sounds more reassuring than anything. Not only does it show incidence rates to be low throughout the country, it further establishes grounds for the useless vaccine debate. Highly counterproductive on their part, the preceding data shows just how easily misdiagnoses occurs and therefore, shows how ambiguous the reported 36,000 annual flu infections are.
Though that’s not all officials have up their sleeves, on top of being uncalled for and dangerous -- the vaccines haven’t even been proven effective in providing immunity!
Dating back to 1935, a study conducted on thimerosal’s antibacterial and antifungal efficiency concluded the dangerous preservative, so to speak, was “35.3 times more toxic for embryonic chick heart tissue than for Staphylococcus aureus,” making it, as said by the FDA, “no better than water” in killing bacteria.
Confirming suspicions was a 1948 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in which the authors concluded thimerosal was ineffective as a “disinfectant, germicide, and antiseptic,” in addition to stating thimerosal "may not completely kill cultures of . . . streptococci . . . in mice receiving an intraperitoneal injection of the culture-germicide mixture, after ten minutes’ [sic] exposure of the organisms to the drugs . . . usually die [all but one of the 17 mice injected], and hemolytic streptococci can be isolated from the heart’s blood after death of the mice.”
Subsequently, an American Academy of Pediatrics (1985) study revealed thimerosal to be “only weakly bactericidal . . . not an ideal preservative,” which explains the FDA’s 1980 proposal to ban thimerosal from topical ointments, skin creams, and other over-the-counter products, along with the 1999 decision to exclude the chemical from future vaccine production due to “safety and efficiency” concerns.
Though, perhaps 2004 brought the most irrefutable of evidence when the British-based Chiron factory was found to have serious contamination problems. The company’s flu vaccine, Fluvirin, was pulled from distribution due to an unspecified number of lots containing an extremely dangerous microorganism, serratia, which is precisely the kind of threat thimerosal is supposed to eliminate.
Officials see the American public naively accepting whatever is put in front of them (i.e., Hepatitis B vaccines for 12-hour-old babies, recent HPV vaccinations, unnecessary flu shots), and with the demolished state of check-and-balance within government bodies, officials are free to do whatever they choose without the fear of consequence.
As long as each scratches the others back, “scientific evidence” favoring the use of flu vaccines, and anything else they can think of, will continue regardless of necessity or safety. Manufacturers charge between $9.00 to $12.50 for every 10-pack of flu vaccines, so with over 100 million ready for distribution this year its not surprising that every government agency is practically celebrating vaccination.
Though perhaps the true motivation for mass vaccination lies in the Medicare reimbursement rate for flu vaccine administration, which, from 2002 to 2005, increased more that four times from an average of $3.98 to $18.57; or maybe in the five-year, $274 million contract awarded to GlaxoSmithKline in May 2006 to develop cell-based production models for future flu vaccines, but then again, it could be related to the "measly" $429 million reported in Chiron’s 2004 fourth quarter Fluvirin revenue, as opposed to the preceding years $555 million.
Whatever the situation, rather than simply accepting what is being pushed on us, it’s time to use some common sense and question why history is showing us one side of the story, while the government portrays a very different other side. Influenza infections, for the majority of citizens, are not life threatening, and even if they were -- the occurrence rates do not justify injecting what both science and history has proven to be POISON into the desperately fragile bodies of infants and children.
Sinead Dumigan is a freelance investigative journalist who has published a series of articles on vaccination policies in the US. Sinead can be reached at s_locky12@sbcglobal.net.
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