Voice of the Environment Logo
Voice of the Environment
AboutCampaignsDONATEContactVOTE Action Committee
SWINE FLU ALERT
The CDC is increasingly obfuscating the facts about incidence and virulence of the H1N1 virus.     >>>>>     President Obama's declaration of a national emergency around this issue verges on the bizarre.     >>>>>     The WHO redefined the word 'pandemic' one month after the swine flu breakout (find out why).     >>>>>     H1N1 is not a serious infection; the death rate is lower than typical seasonal flu.     >>>>>     The FDA is actively suppressing purveyors of natural immune-system boosting substances (if related to H1N1).     >>>>>     Some doses of the H1N1 vaccine contain mercury, regardless of current state laws.     >>>>>     In spite of numerous other safety issues, H1N1 vaccine makers are immune to prosecution for medical-liability suits.     >>>>>     Meta-studies of flu vaccines (in general) show that this form of immunization actually does not work.
Voice of the Environment's mission is to educate the public regarding
the transfer of public trust
assets into private, mostly corporate, hands.
Ukiah office:
1330 Boonville Road
Ukiah, CA 95482
707-467-0329

Marin office:
270 Beach Road
Belvedere, CA 94920
415-435-2007
For more than a decade, Voice of the Environment has stood up for the people and our communities against the avarice of corporations and the misguided policies of the corporate-dominated state.

The Infection Deception -- Unanswered Questions about the Swine Flu Controversy

Fri, 11/20/2009 - 13:22 - BBelitsos

[By Len Saputo, MD, and Byron Belitsos] On Friday October 23, President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency, plunging the H1N1 controversy ever more deeply into an Orwellian world of disinformation, fear, and confusion. The government's program of swine flu vaccination was already the most ambitious of its kind since the anti-polio campaign of the 1950s. And now, this surprise declaration from the president raised anxiety levels by giving federal health officials much greater powers in the face of a supposed pandemic. The ostensible reason for Obama's heavy-handed act--at least according to the official explanation--was merely to authorize hospitals to set up emergency health-care operations in nonstandard ways and locations. Yet this explanation was odd in the extreme, given that a national emergency declaration is just not necessary in order to simply waive something as simple as hospital-tent rules; Obama could have easily accomplished the same thing with an Executive Order. [1]

But a bigger cause of consternation was that, just two days previous to Obama's surprise announcement, CBS News had published the results of a major swine flu investigation that effectively refuted the need for such an emergency declaration. CBS seriously disputed the government's official figures concerning the number of infections, publishing raw state-by-state data obtained from state labs which showed that the incidence of swine flu was being overstated by more than 90 percent. CBS also revealed that the CDC had directly obstructed their investigation in a variety of ways. Something had to be done quickly to counter one of America's most respected news sources.

Upping the swine-flu ante was none other than Tom Freiden, the head of the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) in Atlanta, who came forward a few days after this embarrassment to state that "many millions had been infected. Confirming "research was then released a week later by the CDC that was based not on actual collected data, but on computer projections. [2]

Now we knew for sure: CDC officials would stick with a program of obfuscation in the face of contrary facts, even if published by the mainstream press.

The problems facing the administration were mounting: By mid-October, too many Americans weren't buying the swine flu threat. Surveys showed that more than 50 percent of all health care workers nationwide, including nurses and physicians, did not plan to take the vaccine. An LA Times poll showed that 62 percent of the public were choosing to not vaccinate themselves or their family despite the president insisting it was an emergency. Another major national poll showed that more than a third of all parents would not get their kids vaccinated.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, America's own "celebrity TV physician, confounded the debate even more, when in an interview on CNN he declared that he will get the vaccine (which he did later, live, on his national show), but that his wife and kids would not. And then a few weeks later it was revealed that Oz has since 2005 owned 150,000 options on stocks in SIGA Technologies, a vaccine technology company whose success depends on the widespread adoption of vaccines. [3]

And many more zigzags were set to occur--that is, jerky movements of the epidemic plot line in which reality zigged one way, while compromised science and government disinformation zagged in the opposite direction.

Zig: California's governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declares a state of emergency in the nation's most populous state. Zag: CBS News finds a few weeks later that only two percent of test samples from over 13,000 suspected swine flu patients in the state were actually swine flu.

Zig: Governor David Paterson of New York declares his own state of emergency. Zag: Just a week or so before that, a New York Supreme Court judge issued a restraining order against the state, ordering it not to enforce the controversial mandatory vaccination on health care personnel.

And then there's the ultimate zig and zag: The government stops counting the numbers of swine flu cases via lab tests. Its "assumed numbers get zonked by the nation's leading TV investigative team. This is next followed by a declaration of a national emergency. And then, the CDC suddenly triples the death count overnight from 1,615 to 4,000 on November 11.

Eventually, all such cases of cognitive dissonance must get resolved: Either there is outright deception underlying the governmental programs at the national and international levels--one designed to panic populations into believing the influenza is more serious than it actually is, so that they will take the "jab--or the federal government, the WHO (World Health Organization), and the CDC have lost their ability to think clearly about human biology or count past one hundred.

This article seeks to discover the reasons for these strange doings, and asks key unanswered questions that now bedevil this controversy.

In our survey of the data derived primarily from mainstream media sources, it appears that four pillars of evidence point to a massive disjunction between the facts and government rhetoric that trumpets a national emergency whose only solution is the largest vaccination drive in 60 years.

(1) First of all, the alleged epidemic is--thus far--almost a non-event; it prevalence and virulence are comparable to a typical seasonal flu.

(2) Immunization programs for flu have never been shown to be effective.

(3) The FDA is directly suppressing products that boost immunity in the population, making Americans even more vulnerable to other infections, and even to H1N1 itself. This issue is, by the way, just another species of the paradigm war waged by mainstream allopathic medicine against alternative medicine that we map out in our book, A Return To Healing: Health Care Reform and the Future of Medicine (Origin Press, 2009).

(4) Considerable evidence points to the possibility that the flu vaccines are more dangerous that the diseases they purport to protect us from.

Let's consider each of the four areas.

Is the Current Strain of H1N1 Really a Threat?

From the outset, WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan seemed almost eager for a pandemic to call her very own, when she declared on April 29--with very scanty evidence in hand--that a "global outbreak is imminent." Chan's initial declaration was based on the alleged fact that, as she said, "So far, 176 people have been killed in Mexico."

Unfortunately, this crucial number turned out to be highly misleading. Soon after her announcement, only seven deaths were shown by lab analysis to result from the H1N1 swine flu strain, according to the Mexican Ministry of Health. A week later the official toll was scaled down to 19. This was a sketchy way to launch a global pandemic.

A similar rush to judgment occurred in New York city in late April, when several hundred children were quickly categorized as having the H1N1 influenza; yet in none of these cases was the diagnosis corroborated by a laboratory test.

The mild, new strain was certainly communicable, and it did manage to travel around the world to numerous countries. By June 11 Chan had raise the level of influenza pandemic alert to Phase 6, the highest possible--making it the first flu pandemic declaration in 41 years.

How could this escalation to a global pandemic of the worst sort possible happen so quickly, in less than two months from the outbreak?

According to our investigation, the WHO was in part enabled to declare a "global flu pandemic of the worst sort because--by virtue of sheer and utter coincidence--WHO officials had a month earlier changed the very definition of the word "pandemic to something much more benign. We have ascertained that this occurred sometime during the month of May, or early June, in time for the Phase 6 designation.

Our archival search shows that by as late as May 1, 2009, a pandemic was defined at the WHO website in just the way that it has long been understood to mean--as a worldwide epidemic "with enormous numbers of deaths and illness." Somehow during the period between May 1 and the June 11 announcement of a Phase 6 pandemic, the requirement of enormous virulence was quietly struck from the definition. The definition of pandemic now posted at the WHO site reads: "A disease epidemic occurs when there are more cases of that disease than normal. A pandemic is a worldwide epidemic of a disease." [4]

Later in June the WHO claimed that "as many as 2 billion people could become infected over the next two years--nearly one-third of the world population." It also asserted that at least 4.9 billion doses would be needed to inoculate the planet, representing an estimated $400 billion in revenue to vaccine manufacturers.

Fast-forward to mid-November.

The current "official" totals in the global outbreak as of this writing are: 643,278 cases worldwide and 8,083 deaths, or a death rate of 1.2 percent. And according to the questionable CDC data, the U.S. is among the most infected countries, with 44,555 cases and 1,615 deaths, and a death rate of 1.9 percent. (See flucount.org.)

We've already broached that little hard evidence exists to back up any of this data, at least at the national level. Let's look more closely at this crucial work of CBS News.

First, one must understand that the CDC stopped testing for and counting swine flu cases on August 30, advising states to do the same, justifying this by asserting that "the government has already confirmed an epidemic."

A new system of data-gathering by states now replaced the required weekly report of lab-confirmed H1N1-related hospitalizations and deaths that had begun in April. Now they were to send in consolidated reports that combined the numbers of either laboratory-confirmed swine flu, pneumonia, and flu incidence from all types or subtypes of influenza.(5) In ordering this, the CDC was now following the lead of the WHO. Soon after they had declared the swine flu a pandemic in early June, the WHO stated on their website that they would recategorize all cases of common influenza as H1N1 swine flu.

CONTINUE...

December 30, 2009
Leading an Empire in Decline: Obama’s First Year
Almost a year ago, in an editorial [1] published on this site we called on Barack Obama to be the hero our country so sorely needed.
... more
November 21, 2009
Still the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave?
The re-declaration of a national State of Emergency by President Obama on September 10, 2009 is not theoretical; it affects our civil liberties and our ability to live in a free and open society.
... more
October 22, 2009
Obama renews Bush's 9/11 State of Emergency
On September 10th, President Obama reinstituted the national State of Emergency first declared by George W. Bush on September 14, 2001 by placing the following language in the Federal Register.
... more
June 7, 2009
Obama: Complicit in Torture, Complicit in Fraud
Little has changed since Barack Obama assumed the presidency.
... more
May 20, 2009
Mistakes Were Made
Little has changed since Barack Obama assumed the presidency.
... more

February 25, 2010
Do Toxins Cause Autism?
Autism was first identified in 1943 in an obscure medical journal. Since then it has become a frighteningly common affliction, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting recently that autism disorders now affect almost 1 percent of children.
... more
January 23, 2010
Is the Environment to Blame for the Rise in Autism Cases?
Autism cases are on the rise. Or so the most recent data would have us believe.
... more
December 29, 2009
Budget Crisis Leaves Therapists Without Jobs, Autistic Kids Without Treatment
In 2009, Maria Forsell's life was about to get more complicated.
... more
December 18, 2009
U.S. Autism Prevalence Rises to 1 in 110
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released their national autism prevalence report today, confirming that the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders in the United States is 1 percent of the population, or one in 110 of children 8 years of age in 2006.
... more
November 3, 2009
Can Marijuana Help Kids with Autism?
This mom says giving her kid pot has made all the difference.
... more

January 16, 2010
EPA Wants Farmers to Spread Toxic Coal Waste on Fields
The U.S. government is encouraging farmers to spread a chalky waste from coal-fired power plants on their fields to loosen and fertilize soil.
... more
December 24, 2009
Farmers Encouraged To Spread Toxic Coal Ash On Fields
Despite what coal industry executives and opponents of renewable energy research would have you believe, America is running out of this filthy, costly, fossil fuel- and not a moment too soon.
... more
October 16, 2008
Fertiliser kills marine life
In the past, a typical Fijian household would have a knife, fork and spade to till the land. In today's commercial agriculture modern technology and chemicals have been added to the normal tools to ease the burden of everyday cutting and digging. This includes spray tanks, weedicides and fertiliser.
... more
April 14, 2008
Sludge fertilizer program spurs concerns
Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil.
... more
June 21, 2005
Heavy Fertilizer Use May Transform Lakes for Centuries, Study Suggests
The widespread use of phosphorous-rich fertilizers by industrial agriculture could permanently alter the chemistry of nearby lakes, a new study suggests.
... more

February 27, 2010
Stop GMO Contamination of Organic!
Don't believe Monsanto's greenwashing. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), aren't meant to feed the world or be resilient when there are droughts and floods - they're designed to sell pesticides.
... more
February 24, 2010
The Happy Story of GM Crops
Since the first commercial cultivation of Genetically Modified (GM) crops in 1996, Monsanto and the rest of the big six Biotech seed companies, (Pioneer/DuPont, Syngenta, Dow, BASF and Bayer) have become masters at the art of story telling.
... more
January 29, 2010
Genetically Modified Forest Planned for U.S. Southeast
While the practice of splicing foreign DNA into food crops has become common in corn and soy, few companies or researchers have dared to apply genetic engineering to plants that provide an essential strut of the U.S. economy, trees.
... more
January 3, 2010
Three Approved GMOs Linked to Organ Damage
In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto’s GM maize.
... more
December 26, 2009
Beyond the Darkest Hours, Grassroots Rising
Winter in America 2009. Passing through the darkest period of the winter solstice, shrouded by the gloom and doom of climate destruction, war, and economic depression, making our way around the broken promises of "change we can believe in," we nonetheless find ourselves celebrating life and the redemptive power of a global grassroots revolution.
... more

March 9, 2006
The Green Scare
On January 20th, eleven people were indicted in Oregon by a grand jury investigating acts of sabotage linked to the underground Earth Liberation Front (ELF).
... more
January 9, 2006
Study strikes salvage logging beliefs
A new study by Oregon State University researchers suggests that burned-over forests recover on their own as well or better than those that are logged and replanted.
... more
January 8, 2006
A Donor Who Had Big Allies
In a case that echoes the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, two Northern California Republican congressmen used their official positions to try to stop a federal investigation of a wealthy Texas businessman who provided them with political contributions.
... more
December 23, 2005
Cutting of private trees could be banned under new law
A Board of Supervisors committee approved legislation Monday that would give city officials wider powers to protect large trees in San Francisco, including those on private property.
... more
November 26, 2005
USDA Forest Service Continues Losing Billions to Log National Forests
In the face of the overwhelming social and economic benefits from protecting our national forest for their amenities, the Forest Service and Congress continue their unabashed funding emphasis on logging to manage our national forests.
... more

January 25, 2010
Wal-Mart cutting 11,200 jobs at Sam’s Club
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will cut about 11,200 jobs at Sam's Club warehouses as it turns over the task of in-store product demonstrations to an outside marketing company.
... more
August 20, 2006
An unbelievable truth
Is the megacorporation going green or just greenwashing its problems?
... more
August 17, 2006
Eye on Election, Democrats Run as Wal-Mart Foes
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, delivered a 15-minute, blistering attack to warm applause from Democrats and union organizers here on Wednesday.
... more
May 3, 2006
Unions Protest Wal-Mart Health Care
Unions representing six million workers planned to rally Wednesday in 35 cities from New York to Los Angeles to protest what they called inadequate health care coverage by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation's largest employer.
... more
April 23, 2006
Retail giant Wal-Mart and its business practices evolve into a political issue
There is no candidate. There are no ballots. There won't be an Election Day. And yet it may be the hottest, highest-stakes political contest in America today. It's the campaign against Wal-Mart.
... more

AboutCampaignsDONATEContactVOTE Action Committee
Voice of the Environment is a 501 (c-3) not-for-profit Montana-based corporation formed in 1991.