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You've heard it before, how the pharmaceutical industry has a giant "revolving door" through which corporations and government agencies frequently exchange key employees. That reality was driven home in a huge way today when news broke that Dr. Julie Gerberding, who headed the CDC from 2002 through 2009, landed a top job with Merck, one of the largest drug companies in the world. Her job there? She's the new president of the vaccine division. How convenient. That means the former head of the CDC was very likely cultivating a relationship with Merck all these years, and now comes the big...

Drugmaker MedImmune is recalling nearly 5 million doses of H1N1 flu vaccine because the nasal spray appears to lose strength over time, federal health officials announced Tuesday. The vaccine recall is the second this month caused by declining potency and comes as public health officials urge millions of Americans to get vaccinated against swine flu. The action affects more than 4.6 million doses, but the vast majority have already been used, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Agency officials said the vaccine was strong enough when it was distributed in October and November.

f you've been waiting to get a swine flu shot, here's your chance. New Hampshire Public Health Director Dr. Jose Montero announced yesterday that anyone over the age of 6 months may receive a swine flu vaccine. The shot had previously been limited to people in high-risk groups, such as pregnant women, health care workers and those with a serious health condition. "The supply has caught up with the demand and allowed us to move forward," said Montero. "I know it has been difficult to wait, but it has been the right thing to do to protect the people of...

ATLANTA (AP) - Health officials are recalling hundreds of thousands of doses of swine flu vaccine after tests indicated they may not be potent enough to protect against the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified doctors about the recall Tuesday. The recall involves about 800,000 doses made by Sanofi Pasteur. The doses are pre-filled syringes intended for young children, ages 6 months to almost three years. Health officials recommend children those ages get two doses, spaced about a month apart. Health officials say it's not clear how many doses have already been given, but they don't think...

Hey, stop worrying about a massive government takeover of health care. You’re in good hands: Health officials are recalling hundreds of thousands of doses of swine flu vaccine after tests indicated they may not be potent enough to protect against the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified doctors about the recall Tuesday. The recall involves about 800,000 doses made by Sanofi Pasteur. The doses are pre-filled syringes intended for young children, ages 6 months to almost three years. …Health officials say it’s not clear how many doses have already been given, but they don’t think children need...

800,000 Doses Of Kids' H1N1 Vaccine Recalled ATLANTA (CBS) ― Health officials are recalling hundreds of thousands of doses of swine flu vaccine after tests indicated they may not be potent enough to protect against the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified doctors about the recall Tuesday. The recall involves about 800,000 doses made by Sanofi Pasteur. The doses are pre-filled syringes intended for young children, ages 6 months to almost three years. Health officials recommend children those ages get two doses, spaced about a month apart. Health officials say it's not clear how many doses have...

So far... Funny Cartoon. Another example of the media blowing things up, for no reason other then ratings.

A Tennessee woman is learning to walk again after she came down with a deadly nerve disease only eight days after receiving the swine-flu vaccine. Clarksville resident Suzanne Hogan is recovering at Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Stallworth Rehabilitation Center from Guillain-Barre Syndrome, or GBS, an illness she believes is associated with the H1N1 vaccination. GBS attacks the lining of the nerves, causing paralysis and inability to breathe, and can be fatal. Symptoms may include "pins and needles" sensations in fingers and toes; weakness or tingling in legs and upper body; inability to walk; difficulty with eye movement, facial movement, speaking,...

LONDON - Swine flu is far less dangerous than originally feared, British officials said Thursday — about 100 times less lethal than the 1918 Spanish flu. To determine how deadly the virus is, the British health department tracked all reported swine flu patients hospitalized between July and November. In a paper published online in the British journal, BMJ, experts estimated that out of every 100,000 infected people in Britain, about 26 died.

December 8, 2009 The man with the nickname “Dr Flu”, Professor Albert Osterhaus, of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam Holland has been named by Dutch media researchers as the person at the center of the worldwide Swine Flu H1N1 Influenza A 2009 pandemic hysteria. Not only is Osterhaus the connecting person in an international network that has been described as the Pharma Mafia, he is THE key advisor to WHO on influenza and is intimately positioned to personally profit from the billions of euros in vaccines allegedly aimed at H1N1.

  Déjà Vu for Obama Too:The H1N1 FiascoDecember 9, 2009 When I was growing up, my mother’s most repeated words of advice were: “Watch out, those words may come back to bite you” and “If you can’t fix it, then just leave it alone”. Mom was just warning me about the pitfalls of ignorant babble and clueless meddling. And so I present to you Obama aka “the clueless wrecking ball”. Or to rekindle John Kerry’s 2004 invectives, “If you can't get flu vaccines to Americans, how are you going to protect them against bioterrorism?”...“If you can't get flu vaccines to Americans, what kind of health...

Around one million doses of Tamiflu have so far been given out, but according to the figures, hundreds of thousands of packets could have been wasted as most people with symptoms of flu did not have the H1N1 pandemic virus. Random swabs taken by the Health Protection Agency show that four out of five people calling the National Pandemic Flu Service with symptoms of the disease, did not test positive for it. At the end of the first wave of the pandemic in Britain, just one in twenty people calling the flu line with symptoms tested positive. It has led...

Bird influenza viruses have a variety of strategies to cross the species barrier and spreadThe 2009 H1N1 influenza virus used a new strategy to cross from birds into humans, a warning that it has more than one trick up its sleeve to jump the species barrier and become virulent. In a report in this week's early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, researchers show that the H1N1, or swine flu, virus adopted a new mutation in one of its genes distinct from the mutations found in previous flu viruses, including...

World Health Organization scientists are suspected of accepting secret bribes from vaccine manufacturers to influence the U.N. organization's H1N1 pandemic declaration, according to Danish and Swedish newspapers. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical profits from swine-flu related drugs have soared – with earnings between $10 billion and $15 billion in 2009, investment bank JP Morgan estimates. As WND reported, the WHO Director General Margaret Chan initially raised the influenza pandemic alert to its second highest level in May – but evidence reveals the agency may have made it easier to classify the flu outbreak as a pandemic by changing its definition to omit "enormous...

'The obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic [H1N1] virus' Virologists and influenza authorities are becoming increasingly concerned that the 2009 A-H1N1 flu virus could “reassort” with the highly virulent H5N1 avian flu that’s still prevalent in parts of the world like China, and that a mutation could occur resulting in a new strain that has the lethality of H5N1 and the human transmissibility of A-H1N1. The concerns have grown in the wake of revelations that mutations of the H1N1 flu virus had been found in Norway and elsewhere, leading experts to fear that it might just be...

With H1N1 poised to enter history as the least deadly of four global flu pandemics, some experts are calling for an end to Canada's mass vaccination program. Nature is already achieving what we would hope to achieve by vaccinating, they say. ~snip~ Fisman can't understand the rational for continuing mass vaccinations. He said that for a virus as contagious as H1N1, less than 30 per cent of the population needed vaccination to reach a critical level of immunity. ~snip~ Despite that view, Canada's top doctor this week pleaded with Canadians to get vaccinated if they have not already done so....

I've had a hard time locating a flu shot around my locality, and for that matter one cannot find a flu shot in the entire state of New Hampshire unless you belong to a certain group of "at risk" people. More specifically, they are currently offering flu shots to those under 24 with certain underlying health problems. Well it appears that to the south in the people's republic of Massachusetts, both flu shots are available to anyone. Could it be that there are politics behind the availability of flu vaccine? Are democratic lives more valuable than those of somewhat more...

As I have been stating all along on this website, the CDC was lying about there being no mutation of the H1N1 virus. Utah woman died of mutated H1N1 strain"...A 28-year-old Utah woman who died this summer of H1N1 swine flu had a mutated form of the novel virus." (...) "...It was so minor, she said, that the CDC didn't notify the state of the mutation. The health department instead asked about the case after learning of it from a blog." The headlines in the summer: August 21, 2009 H1N1 flu virus hasn't mutated, CDC officials reportSeptember 25, 2009 Swine...

A new analysis, using H1N1 deaths in the United States in the spring and projecting likely outcomes for this fall, shows that a typical -- or possibly even a milder flu season than average -- should have been expected. The finding begs the question: Has swine flu been oversold? The new study, done by researchers at Harvard University and the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit in the U.K., says swine flu cases in the spring indicated a flu season that might be, at worst, slightly worse than normal. "It would have been great to have that back in June," said...

Swine flu strikes isolated North Korea By HYUNGJIN KIM, Associated Press Writer - 1 hour 58 minutes ago SEOUL, South Korea – Swine flu has struck isolated North Korea, the regime acknowledged Wednesday, although it was unclear whether there were any fatalities from the virus that has been circling the globe for months. North Korea made its first acknowledgment of an H1N1 outbreak with a short dispatch in state media citing nine confirmed cases in northwestern Sinuiju on the Chinese border and in Pyongyang, the capital. The official Korean Central News Agency reported that a quarantine system to prevent the...

Results from 34 swine flu victims in New York were released by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in a December 7 bulletin. The swine flu symptoms and effects on the lungs of the victims were similar to the effects of the 1918 Spanish flu, which had an extremely high mortality rate around the world. Other reports of H1N1 infections deep in the lungs have been reported around the world, including Ukraine, China, Brazil, Norway, and the United States, in Iowa and Utah. These infections have been linked to a change in the receptor binding domain of the virus. Swine...

Liza Northrop Beale, the general manager of The Almanac, a weekly newspaper in Washington, Pa. died Saturday of complications related to the H1N1 virus. She was 49 and lived in Peters Township which is suburban Pittsburgh.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of the most systematic looks yet at the swine flu pandemic confirms that it is at worst only a little more serious than an average flu season and could well be a good deal milder, researchers said on Monday. ... Lipsitch's team calculated a potential range of 7,800 to 29,000 deaths. This compares to seasonal flu, which kills 36,000 people a year and puts 200,000 into the hospital.

In fatal cases of 2009 H1N1 influenza, the virus can damage cells throughout the respiratory airway, much like the viruses that caused the 1918 and 1957 influenza pandemics, report researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. The scientists reviewed autopsy reports, hospital records and other clinical data from 34 people who died of 2009 H1N1 influenza infection between May 15 and July 9, 2009. All but two of the deaths occurred in New York City. A microscopic examination of tissues throughout the airways revealed that the virus caused damage...

NURISTAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Dec. 1, 2009 – Nuristan Provincial Reconstruction Team servicemembers recently took to the airwaves to combat misinformation about the spread of the H1N1 flu virus here. Navy Lt. Jennifer Dreiling, a senior medical officer for the Nuristan Provincial Reconstruction Team, records a radio message on Radio Kalagush, a U.S.-funded Afghan radio station that broadcasts from Forward Operating Base Kalagush in eastern Afghanistan’s Nuristan province, educating locals about the H1N1 flu virus, Nov. 19, 2009. U.S. Air Force photo by 2nd Lt. Natassia Cherne  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Navy Lt. Jennifer Dreiling, team senior medical officer...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – With flu season in full swing and the threat of H1N1 looming, demand for vaccines is at an all-time high. Although those vaccines are expected to be effective, University of Missouri researchers have found further evidence that some over-the-counter drugs, such as aspirin and Tylenol, that inhibit certain enzymes could impact the effectiveness of vaccines. “If you’re taking aspirin regularly, which many people do for cardiovascular treatment, or acetaminophen (Tylenol) for pain and fever and get a flu shot, there is a good chance that you won’t have a good antibody response,” said Charles Brown, associate professor...

George Anter knows he has a lot to be thankful for during the holidays. The heart he received during a transplant procedure 12 years ago, for which he gives thanks every day, continues to do its job. Most Popular Stories # Elderly question flu shot controls # NORM: Wynns finalize divorce papers # U.S. HIGHWAY 95 CRASH: Longtime LV officer mourned # Slaying details emerge # NORM: At last, Ripa gets her wedding cake # NORM: Crash compounds Woods' problems # Surgeon agrees to plea deal in medical malpractice fraud case # Two more teens arrested in slaying of officer...

The panic over the mutated H1N1 flu strain in the Ukraine has reached epic proportions. Over 450 people have died from the strain and nearly 2 million people have been infected: FTO: The new statistics and numbers show that 41 659 people got infected since the day before yesterday. That means that almost 100 000 people got infected in two days. Today's statistics are not there yet but looking at what happened from the 2nd to the 3rd we see that 452 people have now died in the Ukraine because of this plague / H1N1 spreading there. The total of...

The absurd ways of the Massachusetts Legislature never seem to quit. That's why YOUR pressure is so important! The radical pandemic control bill, which (after passing the Senate unanimously) was raced through the House because they said it was extremely urgent, now lies languishing in a conference committee -- nearly two months later -- with no prediction of if or when it will move forward to the Governor's desk.

The World Health Organization tried this week to dampen fears about mutations seen in the swine flu virus in several countries, noting that both mutations had been found in very few people. A change that created Tamiflu resistance has been found in about 75 people around the world, said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, chief flu adviser to the W.H.O.’s director general. Two clusters, in cancer units at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina and a hospital in Wales, were both among patients whose immune systems had been severely suppressed by cancer treatment; some had had their bone marrow, which produces...

It's the kind of information that fuels conspiracy theorists everywhere... Danish journalists claim several World Health Organisation advisers are on the payroll of leading pharmaceutical companies that make swine flu vaccines. RT talks to Louise Volle, a journalist at the Danish Daily Information newspaper and a co-author of the report...

Thanks to a belief in its flu-repellent powers, garlic traders are on course to get stinking rich this year http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/forget-gold-and-silver-invest-in-garlic-1828755.html

The global number of swine flu deaths has jumped by more than 1,000 in a week, latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) show. At least 7,826 people are now known to have died following infection with the H1N1 virus since it first emerged in Mexico in April. Europe saw an 85% increase in the week, with the total number of deaths rising from at least 350 to at least 650. However, in most cases the virus continues to produce mild symptoms. The overwhelming majority of patients usually recover, even without medical treatment, within a week. The biggest rise...

THREE Australian experts are making waves in the medical community with a report suggesting swine flu may have developed because of a lab error in making vaccines. "It could have happened in a lab where somebody became affected and then travelled with it," virologist Dr Adrian Gibbs said yesterday. Conjuring up a vision of Frankenstein's fictional monster fleeing the laboratory, he added: "Things do get out of labs and this has to be explored. There needs to be more research done in this area. "At the moment there is no way of distinguishing where swine flu has come from." The...

A county medical examiner in Iowa has come forward to inform the public of the results of autopsies that point to bleeding in the lungs, just as in the fatal cases in the Ukraine and Norway. Many of these cases went undiagnosed as H1N1 due to the acute condition of the patients, and the invasive nature of testing. Norway/Ukraine flu in the United States The H1N1 mutation found in the Ukraine and in Norway is characterized by acute respiratory distress. According to Professor Victor Bachinsky, PHD, head of the Chernivtsi regional forensic bureau, the mutated form of the swine flu...

As they battle the holiday crowds this weekend, frazzled travelers at Chicago airports also will have the option of stopping to get protection against the swine flu virus. A clinic at O'Hare International Airport run by the University of Illinois at Chicago began offering H1N1 flu vaccines in nasal mist form this week. City officials say the clinic also hopes to receive arm-shot vaccines this week and plans to open kiosks to administer the mist form of the vaccine at both O'Hare and Midway this weekend. "We feel that it is a good amenity and service for travelers passing through...

The message is clear – we are all going to die from swine flu. It spreads fast, it is dangerous, and it must be feared – says the World Health Organization. But worry not – there is a way to save yourself. Just get a flu shot – and purchase a remedy for the deadly virus. Those are the instructions from the WHO. Read more

NEW YORK, Nov. 25 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Twenty-four people have developed a side effect known as anaphylaxis from new-flu vaccine in Canada and one of them has died, Canadian health officials said Wednesday. The fatality was a man in his 80s who was suffering from an underlying disease, the officials said, adding they are investigating a possible linkage between the H1N1 flu vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc which the man was administered and his death.

Emergency Powers Test Run Bethany Stotts, November 25, 2009 Could emergency powers given to state and federal leaders to deal with the H1N1 virus lead to violations of American civil liberties? Conditions at the state level may be a test of how wisely government officials will use their emergency powers. The Constitution Project and the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security (CHHS) recently convened a group of scholars to discuss “the civil liberty implications of the government’s response to the H1N1” pandemic. One panelist, Boston University Professor Wendy Mariner expressed her concern that emergency laws meant to...

Link only due to copyright issue

LONDON — Canadian doctors have been advised not to use a batch of 170,000 swine flu vaccines after six reports of serious allergic reactions among recipients, but there are no similar reports from other countries, pharmaceuticals company GlaxoSmithKline PLC said Tuesday. Authorities routinely monitor vaccines for any signals of problems, such as the allergic reactions that do occur, rarely, every year. Company spokeswoman Gwenan White said that GlaxoSmithKline advised medical staff in Canada ast week to refrain from using one batch of the vaccine while they look into reports that that it might have caused more allergic reactions than normal....

Although federal health officials decline to use the word “peaked,” the current wave of swine flu appears to have done so in the United States. Flu activity is coming down in all regions of the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday, though it is still rising in Hawaii, Maine and some isolated areas. The World Health Organization said Friday that there were “early signs of a peak” in much of the United States. On Wednesday, the American College Health Association, which surveys over 250 colleges with more than three million students, said new cases of flu...

4 at Duke get drug-resistant H1N1 By KEITH UPCHURCH DURHAM -- Four patients at Duke University Medical Center, all from North Carolina, have tested positive for a type of swine flu that's resistant to the antiviral drug Tamiflu, and three have died, health officials announced Friday at a news conference in Raleigh. The fourth patient, a woman, is still a patient at Duke and ''is doing much better,'' they said. Although the four had the H1N1 virus, they all had other medical problems, so it's uncertain if the swine flu caused their deaths, they said. All four were in an...

Buddy Lou, a 10-year old tabby cat, has become the first feline death from H1N1 in the United States. It appears the cat acquired the H1N1 virus from the owner’s niece who had been sick with an influenza-like illness the previous week. H1N1 in cats: Buddy Lou’s illness The cat was brought to the Animal Clinic in Lebanon, Oregon, on November 4, with labored breathing and was initially diagnosed with pneumonia. His breathing worsened by the next day and the cat was admitted to the veterinary clinic for treatment with antibiotics and oxygen. Buddy Lou did not respond to treatment...

The level of swine flu activity in the United States appears to be declining, although officials are worried about another increase of cases during the Thanksgiving holiday when many people travel and families gather. The news came as scientists in Norway announced that they had detected a mutated form of the swine flu virus ... It is the most recent report of mutations in the virus that is being watched closely for any change that could make it more dangerous. The two patients who had the mutation and died were the first swine flu fatalities in Norway. The third patient...

Health officials say a Tamiflu-resistant strain of swine flu has spread between hospital patients. Five patients on a unit treating people with severe underlying health conditions at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff were infected. Three appear to have acquired the infection in hospital. They are thought to be the first confirmed cases of person-to-person transmission of a Tamiflu-resistant strain in the world. There have been several dozen reports around the world of people developing resistance to Tamiflu while taking the drug - but they have not passed on the strain to others. Just one possible cases of person-to-person transmission...

LONDON — The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline says it has advised medical staff in Canada to not use one batch of swine flu vaccine for fear it may trigger life-threatening allergies. GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman Gwenan White said Tuesday the company issued the advice after reports that one batch of the swine flu vaccine might have caused more allergic reactions than normal. She says the affected batch contains 172,000 doses of the vaccine. She declined to say how many doses had been administered before the advice to stop using them was given.

Shaw wasn’t always skeptical about vaccines. The neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia had his teenage son vaccinated with most of the recommended shots. But then he started studying some of the ingredients commonly found in vaccines. What he discovered caused him to go cold turkey on all shots for his six-year-old daughter. And that includes the vaccine for the H1N1 flu. “I am not convinced H1N1 is sufficiently hazardous to most people to risk the potential downside of the vaccine,” Shaw said over the phone from his office in the research pavilion at the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority....

The World Health Organisation said on Thursday that checks on many of the 30 deaths recorded following mass pandemic flu vaccinations had so far ruled out a direct link to the vaccines.

Five patients on a unit for people with severe underlying health conditions at the University Hospital of Wales, in Cardiff, were diagnosed with swine flu that is resistant to the drug. Three appear to have acquired the infection in hospital, the National Public Health Service for Wales (NPHS) said. Two of the five have recovered and have been discharged from hospital, one is in critical care and two are being treated on the ward. The service said the resistant strain does not appear to be more severe than the swine flu virus circulating since the spring. All patients on the...