| Swine Flu Hype: Political Lies and
Media Disinformation are Rampant
Governments worldwide are now determined to stockpile large
caches of vaccines, antibiotics, chemical antidotes, and antitoxins
to protect the people of every nation from the swine flu.
However, media reports are twisted, realities are turned up
side down and policy statements are not backed by medical
and scientific evidence. So why the hype?
The WHO's Phase 5 alert means "there is sustained human-to-human
spread in at least two countries and that global outbreak
of the disease is imminent... It also signals an increased
effort to produce a vaccine... Human cases have been confirmed
in Mexico, the United States, Canada, Britain, Israel, New
Zealand and Spain."
According to reports, the WHO took this decision after "
a 23-month-old [child] died [from the swine flu] in Texas
after travelling there from Mexico for medical treatment."
The swine flu was, according to reports, confirmed in 11
states in the US. Health officials at the WHO in Geneva and
Washington are quoted as saying that the "spread of the
virus is unlikely to stop".
The media has gone into full gear with little analysis and
review of the evidence, focussing their attention on the more
than 2400 cases of non-specific influenza in Mexico.
"the global outbreak is imminent...
all countries should activate preparedness plans",
The worst health crisis facing the world in 90 years..."
On the day following the WHO's Phase 5 Pandemic Alert, a
scientist attached to the European Union's Centre for Disease
Control and Prevention hinted, without evidence, that the
epidemic could potentially affect 40% to 50% of the EU population
"in a mild way". (See europeanvoice.com,
April 30, 2009).
Professor Neil Ferguson, a member of the World Health Organisation
task force on swine flu, stated that "40 per cent of
people in the UK could be infected within the next six months
if the country was hit by a pandemic."
“We don’t really know what size epidemic we will
get over the next couple of months... It is almost certain
that, even if it does fade away in the next few weeks –
which it might – we will get a seasonal epidemic in the
autumn."
“We might expect up to 30 to 40 per cent of the population
to become ill in the next six months if this truly turns into
a pandemic. “We could get substantial numbers infected
in the next few weeks but, if I was to be a betting man, I
would say it would be slightly longer because we are moving
into summer.” Prof. Ferguson said the 152 deaths in Mexico
probably made up a relatively small proportion of the total
number infected, which might run into tens or hundreds of
thousands." (Daily Express, May 1, 2009)
30 to 40 % of the British population? Up to 50 % of the population
of the European Union's 500 million population?
On what basis are these statements being made?
On April 27, there was, according to reports, only one case
of swine flu in the entire European Union: "Europe's
first confirmed case of swine flu has been diagnosed in Spain.
The country's health ministry confirmed the news on Monday
morning, after tests on a man who had recently returned from
a trip to Mexico." (BBC,
April 27, 2009)
Weakening the Social Protest Movement
Statements of this nature on the "inevitable spread"
of the disease, create, quite deliberately, an atmosphere
of fear, insecurity and panic. They also serve to distract
people's attention from a devastating global economic crisis
which is leading the World into mass poverty and unemployment,
not to mention the war in the Middle East and the broader
issue of US-NATO war crimes.
The Real Global Crisis is marked by poverty, economic collapse,
ethnic strife, death and destruction, the derogation of civil
rights and the demise of State social programs. The EU announcement
of the swine flu pandemic inevitably serves to weaken the
social protest movement which has spread across Europe.
In Mexico, the swine flu emergency measures which have "closed
down" entire urban areas, are widely perceived as a pretext
of the Felipe Calderon government to curb mounting social
dissent against one of the most corrupt administrations in
Mexican history.
In Mexico, the May 1st Parade, which was directed against
the Calderon government, was cancelled.
The WHO's Balance Sheet
The WHO advisory points to 148 laboratory confirmed cases
Worldwide of the swine influenza, including 8 deaths, barely
a pandemia:
"29 April 2009 -- The situation continues to evolve
rapidly. As of 18:00 GMT, 29 April 2009, nine countries have
officially reported 148 cases of swine influenza A/H1N1 infection.
The United States Government has reported 91 laboratory confirmed
human cases, with one death. Mexico has reported 26 confirmed
human cases of infection including seven deaths.
The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed
cases with no deaths - Austria (1), Canada (13), Germany (3),
Israel (2), New Zealand (3), Spain (4) and the United Kingdom
(5).
Further information on the situation will be available on
the WHO website on a regular basis." (WHO.org)
In a 29 April statement, the WHO Director-General, Dr Margaret
Chan confirmed that
"Based on assessment of all available information,
and following several expert consultations, I have decided
to raise the current level of influenza pandemic alert from
phase 4 to phase 5.
Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because
of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the
world.
... WHO will be tracking the pandemic at the epidemiological,
clinical, and virological levels.
... I have reached out to donor countries, to UNITAID, to
the GAVI Alliance, the World Bank and others to mobilize resources.
Bonanza for the Pharmaceutical Conglomerates
As the late great poet Yogi Berra might have put it, ‘this
just gets absurder and absurder.’ The international agencies
supposedly responsible for monitoring worldwide dangers of
new pandemic threats, the WHO and CDC are acting like the
directors of a Hollywood ‘B’ grade sci-fi movie
or the author of a copycat version of Michael Crichton’s
Andromeda Strain novel. The global panic over outbreak of
a new human-to-human Swine Flu pandemic is increasingly revealed
as a likely operation in mass psychological terror whose only
beneficiaries are the few global pharmaceutical giants that
are in the business of peddling so-called ‘antiviral’
drugs—Roche, SmithKlineGlaxo and Novavax most prominently.
The losers are the rest of us normal folks.
Big Pharma has been identified by the WHO as the solution
to the crisis:
"I [the WHO Director-General] have reached out to companies
manufacturing antiviral drugs to assess capacity and all options
for ramping up production. I have also reached out to influenza
vaccine manufacturers that can contribute to the production
of a pandemic vaccine."
The swine flu pandemic constitutes a corporate bonanza for
a handful of BioTech conglomerates. The European Union has
already given the green light to work with Big Pharma to develop
a vaccine against the swine flu.
An agreement (Spanish
PDF) on March 9th stated that there was a 100 million
Euros dedicated by the vaccine division of Sanofi-Aventis
and Mexico to build the infrastructure for immunizations against
pandemics. This communication was released by Sanofi-Aventis
itself.
Recombining into a Deadlier Virus
Swine flu’s potential to reconfigure its genetic material
and become more deadly is a “major concern,” said
Anne Schuchat, a scientist with the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
Although most microbiologists will postively assert that viruses
cannot jump from humans to animals, Canadian health officials
have reported otherwise. The world’s first case of the
swine flu is now on the map as it jumped to pigs from a human,
probably after a farm worker in the province of Alberta became
ill during a trip to Mexico.
Examination of the Evidence
The data used to justify a Worldwide level 5 alert is extremely
scanty. The WHO not only asserts that a "global outbreak
of the disease is imminent", it also distorts Mexico's
mortality data pertaining to the swine flu pandemic. According
to the WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan in her official
April 29 statement: "So far, 176 people have been killed
in Mexico". From what? Where does she get these numbers?
159 died from influenza out of which only seven deaths corroborated
by lab analysis, resulted from the H1N1 swine flu strain,
according to the Mexican Ministry of Health. (For details,
see below).
As documented by William Engdahl, the symptoms of swine flu
are non specific, similar to those of flu in general. (See
William Engdahl, Global Research, April 29, 2009).
Scientific opinion contradicts the WHO official statement:
"Scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus
that this hybrid strain of influenza -- at least in its current
form -- isn't shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that
caused some previous pandemics.
In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged
in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not
even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks
that occur each winter without much fanfare.
Mounting preliminary evidence from genetics labs, epidemiology
models and simple mathematics suggests that the worst-case
scenarios are likely to be avoided in the current outbreak."
(Los Angeles Times, April 30, 2009)
Mexico
Influenza is a common disease. There are millions of cases
of influenza across America, on an annual basis. "According
to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the flu kills
up to 2,500 Canadians and about 36,000 Americans annually.
Worldwide, the number of deaths attributed to the flu each
year is between 250,000 and 500,000" (Thomas Walkom,
The Toronto Star, May 1, 2009)
Most of the reported influenza cases in Mexico do not exhibit
the A/H1N1 strain.
From the press reports, most of the Mexican cases of swine
flu were "suspected": they have not been confirmed
by an advanced lab examination. The Mexican Minister of Health,
José Ángel Córdova confirmed that there
were "2498 serious cases of atypical pneumonia associated
with a flu condition" ...[which] could be related to
the A/H1N1 virus". Out of those 2498 cases of influenza,
159 died, of influenza or related ailments, but only seven
of these deaths were related to the swine flu, according to
the official statement of the Minister of Health.
The figures above are consistent with the overall pattern
of influenza observed in Mexico in previous years. "In
a normal year, between 6,500 and 7,500 Mexicans die from pneumonia-like
diseases" (Ibid)
159 reported deaths "have been blamed on the outbreak"
but the lab reports suggest that the swine flu was the cause
of death only in seven out of 159 cases.
For instance, in the Veracruz town of La Gloria where there
was an outbreak of acute respiratory infections, out of 450
cases, 35 were tested for the swine flu virus and only one
came back positive. (That is a ratio of 1/450)
The press reports are invariably biased. They will quote
152 or 159 deaths from the H1N1 virus, when in fact only seven
of these deaths are associated with the A/H1N1 swine flue
strain, according to the Minister of Health. The other deaths
may be associated with cases of ordinary flu and/or related
conditions, but it seems that the reports rarely make the
distinction. Moreover, no details were given as to the lab
results pertaining to these seven cases.
In the US only one lab in the entire country has the ability
to confirm the identify of the virus, namely the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention located in Atlanta. How many
labs are there in Mexico which have the ability to confirm
the identify of the virus?
According to reports, samples are being sent to Mexico's
National Institute of Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference,
which then forwards them to government labs in the US and
Canada. What this suggests is that there is no lab based analysis
which documents the relatively large number of suspected cases.
According to the Minister's statements, the laboratory analysis
pertaining to the 159 deaths is being conducted in Mexican
labs with the support of the Atlanta based CDCP and that the
results are forthcoming.
Media Disinformation
News reports point to "hundreds of New York schoolchildren
reported to have fallen sick with "suspected swine flu".
There was, however, no evidence corroborated by lab examinations
of the incidence of the swine flu H1N1 strain. In all likelihood,
the children were suffering from the flu, which is part of
a common occurrence during the month of April. "All the
cases were mild, no child was hospitalized, no child was seriously
ill,” Dr. Frieden said. Health officials reached their
preliminary conclusion after conducting viral tests on nose
or throat swabs from the eight students, which allowed them
to eliminate other strains of flu."
Tests were conducted on school children in Queen's, but the
tests were inconclusive: among theses "hundreds of school
children", there were no reports of laboratory analysis
leading to a positive identification of the influenza virus.
In fact the reports are contradictory: according to the reports,
the Atlanta based CDCP is the "only lab in the country
that can positively confirm the new swine flu strain —
which has been identified as H1N1." (NYT, April 25, 2009)
Influenza is a common disease. Unless there is a thorough
lab examination, the identity if the virus cannot be established.
It is revealing that the Atlanta based CDCP is playing a
key role in identifying the virus on behalf of several Latin
American countries, including Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador
and Costa Rica. On April 30th, the US government established
a CDCP lab in Mexico. In other words, a US government agency
is monopolising the conduct of laboratory testing, the data
and analysis.
Quarantine
Many of those suspected of having swine flu are practicing
voluntary "social distancing." Essentially, they've promised
their doctors, local health directors and the state Department
of Public Health that they will stay home from work or school,
refrain from stepping out to go to the gym, dine out, attend
sports events, concerts or anywhere they would come into close
contact with others.
Another word for voluntary social isolation is quarantine.
Health policy analysts, medical professionals and legal experts
point out that if swine flu becomes more contagious and the
never-before-seen virus strain mutates into a deadlier virus,
the state Commissioner of Public Health has the authority
under the state's Public Health Emergency Response Act --
once the governor declares a state of emergency -- to quarantine
or
isolate not only those who have swine flu, but those with
no symptoms whatsoever who have been exposed to it and pose
a risk for passing it on to someone else.
What prompted state lawmakers to pass this legislation was
the global threat and spread of SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome, which struck more than 8,000 people in 37 countries
from China to Canada, and resulted in the quarantine in 2003
of tens of thousands of Toronto residents in their homes.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, which
has had a longstanding policy opposing civil confinements,
quarantines and isolations to fight tuberculosis, takes a
similar stance on swine flu.
"The ACLU views this law enforcement/national security strategy
as shifting the focus from preparing and preventing ... an
emerging health threat to punishing people who fail to follow
orders and stay healthy," ACLU-Connecticut Executive Director
Andrew Schneider said, citing the example of Georgia attorney
Andrew Speaker, who made international headlines in 2007 when
he disregarded an advisory from a local health district in
Georgia against traveling aboard because he had tuberculosis.
Speaker flew to Italy for his honeymoon before the federal
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took action. While
he was out of the country, the CDC issued its first domestic
quarantine order in more than 40 years against him and held
him in civil confinement for several months until he completed
treatment.
Speaker, an attorney in private practice, filed a federal
lawsuit against the CDC Tuesday as swine flu activity in the
United States and Europe was picking up, charging the federal
agency damaged his reputation and made him the target of death
threats when it "unlawfully and unnecessarily" revealed his
medical history and other sensitive information.
"Instead of treating him like a client or a patient, the
CDC opted to treat him like a dangerous public enemy," Schneider
said. "The ACLU's fear is that treating people who are ill
as public enemies will lead more people to forgo the necessary
medical care they need and avoid the public health care authorities
entirely because they fear being punished and isolated."
By comparison, during the 1918 influenza epidemic that claimed
at least 500,000 people and thousands in Connecticut, state
and local health officials made no secret of the identity
of influenza victims. Their names, their addresses, sometimes
their occupations, as well as the number of adults and children
living in their households, were published in Connecticut
newspapers.
In fact, as far back as the turn of the 20th century, when
smallpox and scarlet fever ravaged the state, anyone could
pass by these people's homes home and see a sign proclaiming
the house and its occupants quarantined with whatever they
were stricken with. Newspapers listed the names of the sick
and sometimes gave details about how health officials believed
they contracted their illness, their prospects for recovery,
the likelihood of scarring and the identity of the doctor
treating them.
The newspapers referred to the occupants of the quarantined
houses as "inmates," and in cases where any of these "inmates"
tried to flee, neighbors often ratted them out, prompting
health directors to install armed police to thwart their escape.
At Yale University, the Ivy League school put its entire
Gothic campus in quarantine, barring its students, faculty
and other employees from treading off campus into the rest
of New Haven, Connecticut's largest city at the time with
162,500 residents. The self-imposed quarantine must have worked
-- only four Yale students, compared to 796 New Haven residents,
died during the pandemic.
WHO Spearheading Hype
In her first extensive media interview since alerting
the world to a potential flu pandemic, Margaret Chan, the
WHO’s director-general, told the Financial Times that
the end of the flu season in the northern hemisphere meant
an initial outbreak could be milder but then a second wave
more lethal, as happened in 1918.
“We hope the virus fizzles out, because if it doesn’t
we are heading for a big outbreak.” But she said: “I’m
not predicting the pandemic will blow up, but if I miss it
and we don’t prepare, I fail. I’d rather over-prepare
than not prepare.”
She stressed that a likely increase to the agency’s highest
“level six” pandemic alert did not necessarily mean
“every country and every individual will be affected”
with many more deaths.
Rather “it is a signal to public health authorities
to take appropriate measures” such as intensified disease
surveillance.
She reiterated the WHO’s view based on “the evidence
and science available to us” that travel restrictions
were counterproductive. Although countries had the right under
international health regulations to take different measures,
they would need to justify them publicly.
Ms Chan called on pharmaceutical companies to increase their
contributions, praising their efforts so far but calling for
fresh donations and for far larger quantities of drugs and
vaccines at lower prices to help treat and protect the poor.
She had released most of the WHO’s stockpile of the
antiviral medicine Tamiflu provided by Roche, its manufacturer,
which had already agreed to provide more and to propose lower
prices.
She hinted at fresh ways to encourage generic companies to
produce cheap versions of Tamiflu to expand capacity.
Bottom Line
Is the H1N1 flu real? Absolutely. Stay healthy and protect
yourself by using natural remedies. Avoid pharmaceutical drugs
and vaccinations at all costs.
Is the H1N1 flu being hyped? Absolutely. Other agendas are
at work to make this flu into something much bigger than it
actually is. This is conditioning the public for further outbreaks
or mutation which may set the stage for mass quarantines,
vaccinations and total control over every nation in the world.
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