From what I've read HN51 has been around since at least 1997, and has been mixing with people and poultry ever since. Can Michael or anyone else tell me why is it only now that the pandemic issue has become so significant ? Even if HN51 spreads to European bird populations I would still expect the most likely bird/human crossover will occur in Asia because of the higher population density and prevalence of people cohabiting with poultry.

Is there any credible information on the probability of HN51 or any other virus mutating in to a virulent human form or is this disease just another Y2K/SARS/BSE/Ebola/MRSA.

Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005

This is a very urgent alert. This Act - on the face of it quite unbelievable - creates a new secret agency to "partner" with drug manufacturers for the creation of new vaccines and drugs. It places information about them outside of public view, insures that injury from them will never become public, and completely exempts the vaccine and drug manufacturers from any liability for vaccine and/or drug injury. The Act also specifically exempts this new agency from the Freedom of Information Act. The history of injury and poor efficacy of vaccines and anti-viral drugs has been completely ignored in the debate. At end of this email I have included a more detailed statement from the National Vaccine Information Center.

Influenza vaccines in particular have a very poor record of efficacy. Often they do nothing for stopping the virus, because by the time they have been developed the virus has mutated. They have caused injury to thousands of people (Guillain Barr Syndrome). Their toxic components (including the mercury-based preservative thimerosal and the petrochemical solvent squalene) cause toxic injury and reduce immunity to other disease. Anti-viral drugs have a long list of horrific "side effects" because they interfere with intricate body processes.

The two bills, Senate S1873 and House HR3970 must be stopped. Our civil liberties and health are in great jeopardy. If passed, and when combined with federal power under existing law (BioShield 1), in the midst of an epidemic (or perceived epidemic) the entire population may be forced to be vaccinated with experimental, dangerous, immune-compromising vaccines and we will have no recourse. President Bush is promoting this Act as part of the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza.

Please call your Senators and Representatives now and tell them that you oppose S1873 (Senate) or HR3970 (House) because they are an extreme violation of our civil liberties and a dangerous precedent in secrecy and removal of liability.

Thanks
Jonathan Campbell

U.S. plan paints frightening bird flu picture
03 Nov 2005 20:56:22 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Nearly two million dead. Schools and public transit closed for days or even weeks. Hospitals overwhelmed.

This frightening picture of an influenza pandemic is envisaged in the official U.S. plan released this week.

H5N1 avian influenza has killed 62 people and infected at least 122 since 2003 -- hardly an alarming number. But the virus is sweeping through poultry flocks and has moved into birds in Europe.

Agriculture and health officials agree the H5N1 virus is probably unstoppable, and say it could mutate at any time to become a disease that sweeps just as easily among humans.

Experts have warned for years that an influenza pandemic is overdue and have a good idea of what it would look like. Three influenza pandemics occurred in the last century.

The 1918 pandemic was the worst, killing anywhere between 20 million and 100 million people globally, depending on the estimate. The 1957 pandemic killed an estimated 2 million people globally and the last one, in 1968, killed 1 million.

"An influenza pandemic has the potential to cause more death and illness than any other public health threat," the Health and Human Services department says in its new flu plan, posted on the Internet at http://pandemicflu.gov.

"If a pandemic influenza virus with similar virulence to the 1918 strain emerged today, in the absence of intervention, it is estimated that 1.9 million Americans could die and almost 10 million could be hospitalized over the course of the pandemic, which may evolve over a year or more."

Why paint such a frightening scenario?

"We felt that it would be important that we have a worst-case scenario to make sure our planning efforts were measured against that," said Dr. Bruce Gellin, a vaccine expert who is heading up HHS's pandemic influenza planning.

World Bank pledges avian flu funds
From correspondents in Washington
November 05, 2005

THE World Bank has said it was preparing to disburse between $US300 million and $US500 million to help governments prevent a deadly outbreak of avian flu.

A statement from the World Bank said funds would start flowing to countries "within weeks" to help them combat the deadly virus.

"The bank is now finalising its plans for the new funding program, while at the same time preparing to take part in an international conference in Geneva on avian flu in poultry and birds and planning for a possible human pandemic," the statement said.

Governments around the world are concerned about H5N1, an influenza virus that at present is confined mostly to migrating birds and poultry.

It is a threat to humans who come into close proximity to infected birds, notably by breathing virus-laden nasal secretions or dried, pulverized feces.

"We have the financial resources to move quickly," said Jim Adams says, the Bank's vice president for operations policy and country services.

Adams said the Geneva meeting is designed to allow donors and the international organizations to sit at the same table as affected countries and identify needs at the country level.

"Obviously one of the things we can do is provide funding to support these country programs to supplement government resources, to strengthen the veterinary systems and to put in place culling and vaccine programs for animals," he said.

Adams says the funding mechanism, similar to that used by the bank for funding its AIDS programs in Africa, would allow low-income countries immediate access to grants and soft loans from the bank's lending arm, the International Development Association.

The World Health Organisation (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Bank are co-sponsoring the meeting from November 7 to 9, at WHO headquarters in Geneva.

The animals are fighting back! Ha-ha. I guess we've tortured them for long enough. Karma's ah bitch.

http://www.fictionfixation.com

Finally Medical Journal Admits the Truth About Bird Flu

The British Medical Journal recently featured an editorial on the bird flu in which they state the following:

The lack of sustained human-to-human transmission suggests that this AH5N1 avian virus does not currently have the capacity to cause a human pandemic.

Theoretical Speculation

While they do go on to say the virus could mutate with a influenza A virus and has the potential to acquire the means for rapid human to human transmission, it does not have this ability now; the preparation and warnings are entirely about a theoretical speculation.

No Lawsuits or Compensation Allowed

Meanwhile, the Bush administration's proposed $7.1-billion pandemic flu plan seeks broad restrictions on lawsuits against producers of vaccines and antiviral drugs, and makes no mention of how those injured or killed by adverse reactions could be compensated.

Yesterday's Wired magazine does an excellent review of detailing why this plan will fail. They conclude:

"...it will take at least five years to create enough manufacturing capacity to reach that goal. Then it will take another eight months to create a new vaccine that combats the specific strain that would be killing people. In other words, it would be 2011 at the earliest before every American could be vaccinated against a bird flu pandemic."

The other, even more serious shortcoming of the plan is that it would protect vacine producers and distributors except in cases of "willful misconduct," a term to be defined later.

Lawsuits Not An Undue Burden

Bush has called "the growing burden of litigation" one of the greatest obstacles to vaccine production. But critics have pointed out that lawsuits against vaccines are relatively rare; a recent study of the subject found only ten lawsuits related to flu vaccine over the past 20 years.

British Medical Journal October 29, 2005; 331(7523): 975-976

Avoiding vaccine or drug liability
November 17, 2005

Vaccine liability exemption language has now been inserted into a large
number of bills in Congress. This must be stopped; please see the excellent
and profoundly alarming article below by Mark Sircus of the International
Medical Veritas Association.

In short, please ask your Senators and Representative to oppose any
legislation that includes exemptions for vaccine or drug liability. Drug and
vaccine makers must be held accountable for injuries caused by their
products, and these new proposed laws gives them free reign to make toxic
drugs and vaccines and not be held accountable for it. The two primary
bills, S1873 (Senate) or HR3970 (House), would literally create a
nightmarish secret government agency, without any public oversight or
disclosure, to oversee the creation of new vaccines and drugs to counter
"epidemics." It would also shield the drug and vaccine industry from public
disclosure of product contents and adverse health reports.

There are a million children in the United States that have developed autism
and other serious neurological developmental disorders as a result of the
mercury vaccine preservative thimerosal, and Senator Bill Frist and others
in Congress want to eliminate liability for this and all future damage done
by vaccines.

Thanks
Jonathan Campbell
CQS Health Alert Update

Deaths lead to Tamiflu safety check

James Meikle and Charlotte Moore
Friday November 18, 2005
The Guardian

Drug safety regulators in the US and Europe are reviewing the safety of the anti-flu drug Tamiflu among children and adolescents after reports of 12 deaths and psychiatric symptoms among users in Japan.

The US Food and Drug Administration said it was concerned about 32 reports of psychiatric "events" among children, including hallucinations and abnormal behaviour. There were two cases where a 12-year-old and 13-year-old had jumped out of second-floor windows of their homes after taking the medication.

The European Medicines Agency has asked manufacturer Roche to provide "all available data on serious psychiatric disorders, including all case reports with a fatal outcome where Tamiflu was involved".

The US and European agencies stressed last night that no causal link had been identified between the use of Tamiflu and reported deaths. The drug is increasingly being used against "normal" flu around the world, and is already being used against avian flu contracted by humans in the far east. It will be a major bastion against any pandemic flu that might follow if the virus mutates.

An FDA advisory committee is considering Tamiflu in children as part of a normal process required for drugs prescribed to children. The agency said the discussion "is not directly addressing any issues related to pandemic flu preparations".

But a preparatory review had found a total of 12 deaths , including a suicide, four cases of sudden death and four cases of cardiac arrest. "In many of these cases a relationship to Tamiflu was difficult to assess because of the use of other medications, presence of medical conditions, and/or lack of detail in the reports."

A spokeswoman added: "Very high temperatures can result in abnormal behaviour from lethargy to hallucinations."

The review comes as Indonesia announced bird flu was responsible for the deaths of two people last week.

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

I swear this whole bird flu saga is something straight from some television mini-series or fiction novel. However, as you know, you couldn't make up a story like this tale of greed and political corruption.

Earlier this year the United States placed an order for 20 million doses of this worthless drug at a price of $100 per dose. That comes to a staggering $2 billion. It was abundantly clear that this drug was not going to help anyone with the flu, and now we find out that this drug has a serious potential of killing children that take it.

To add insult to injury, the drug companies have made a sweet arrangement with the U.S. government that they are not liable for any of the side effects from the drugs. President Bush's $7.1-billion pandemic flu plan seeks broad limits on lawsuits against producers of vaccines and antiviral drugs, but is silent on how those injured or killed by adverse reactions might be compensated.

The liability shield is contained in the Pandemic Flu Countermeasure Liability Protection Act of 2005. It would protect producers and distributors of emergency vaccines from injury suits except in cases of "willful misconduct," a term to be defined later by the attorney general and the secretary of Health and Human Services.

So, even if these drugs or vaccines wind up killing innocent children, these companies will not be held liable. But you don't have to worry as on Saturday the FDA aannounced that Tamiflu was safe. Of course, this is the same agency that gave Vioxx its safetly blessing before it killed 55,000 people.

Real knowledge is power

Suggest you do a Google search on the following for an informative read on hat the bird flu is really about! 

Bird Flu or Cash Cow? - The Pandemic Some Want to Have

WHO’s Behind Designer Germs?

by Eve Hillary ~ © 2005

Released November 15, 2005 ~ Sydney Australi

Flying in the face of bird flu fears
Alice Hung in Tainan, Taiwan,
28nov05

FEARS that migratory wild birds would spread a deadly strain of avian flu across the world had little, if any, scientific basis and chances of them infecting humans were even more remote, experts said.

The experts, who attended this week a meeting of the International Waterbird Society in Taiwan, said the biggest threat of the H5N1 strain of highly pathogenic bird flu comes from domestic poultry, not wild birds.

"Wild birds are implicated in spreading the disease because they travel a long distance. There is no absolute proof of that yet," Ron Ydenberg said on the sidelines of the three-day meeting that ended yesterday in the southern city of Tainan.

"The real issue is where the highly pathogenic strain of the virus comes from. That's not in wild birds. It's almost certain it comes from poultry population," said Professor Ydenberg, who heads the Centre for Wildlife Ecology at Simon Fraser University in Canada.

Scientists have warned for months that the virus, which has killed 68 people in Asia, could trigger a pandemic and kill millions once it mutates into a form that is easily transmissible among people.

The World Health Organisation says there are more than 120 documented cases of people contracting bird flu, most of whom were infected directly from poultry.

While acknowledging the risk of the lethal H5N1 virus, experts attending the meeting said there was no need to panic and adopt draconian measures such as killing migratory birds.

"I think bird flu fear has been over-emphasised," said Leslie Dierauf, the director of the National Wildlife Health Centre in Wisconsin, the US.

"It's a very complex virus. In order to be highly pathogenic you have to mix and match with other viruses and mutate. There is no predictability to that. We don't know when it's going to mix, when it's going to match, or when it's going to mutate, or where," she said.

Reuters

Wally - just a quick line to let you know that I am follwoing your posts with a great deal of interest. I have my suspicions about 'bird flu pandemic' and you are helping to keep me informed with your regular contributions and links.

Thank you

'Bird Flu', SARS - Biowarfare or a Pandemic of Propaganda?

Are we being stampeded into a pandemic? The announcement was made by Dr Nancy Cox of the US Centers for Disease Control. According to an article in The Scotsman, Cox says that a global epidemic of bird flu could dwarf history’s worst infection disaster, which killed between 20 and 40 million people. The reference of course is to the "Spanish Flu" at the end of World War I which, according to a BBC article of almost exactly one year ago, experts say to have possibly been caused by "a bird virus jumping to humans".

The reasoning in the CDC statement goes on like this:

The H5N1 influenza strain that has already killed 42 has a fatality rate of 76 per cent, cases so far suggest. The virus which caused the 1918 pandemic killed only 1 per cent of those it infected. The association is tenuous at best and the reasoning sounds odd, but the message is clear: "Prepare for the worst".

It might be good to remind ourselves that H5N1 is very same bird virus that was being "researched", meaning it was being actively changed and cultured, when Liu Jianlun, a laboratory scientist in China's Guangdong province became the first SARS victim two years ago - on 4 March 2003. Another death of a scientist was later linked to a laboratory in Singapore. The laboratory was culturing the same virus.

- - -

The SARS "pandemic" eventually faded away, but not without leaving a deep impression. A high pitched media campaign had convinced the world it was facing a great threat when in reality SARS turned out to be a comparably minor disease with 8.500 infected world wide and around 812 deaths. Compare that to CDC figures of 36.000 flu related deaths yearly in the U.S. alone. Or compare it with the mayhem of more than 100.000 U.S. deaths from the damaging effects of pharmaceutical drugs in the same time span.

See more at, http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/03/02/bird_flu_sars_biowarfare_or_a_pandemic_of_propaganda.htm

Outcry over bird flu hit list
From:
By John Rolfe

November 30, 2005

GORDON Gekko would be proud.

One of the world's largest investment firms has developed a strategy for its Australian clients to profit if bird flu mutates and triggers a "virulent pandemic".

Citigroup advises clients to sell shares in companies that need people to go to public places - such as mall operator Westfield (wdc.ASX:Quote,News), airport owner MAp and casino controllers PBL (pbl.ASX:Quote,News) and Tabcorp.

They should also dump airlines (Qantas (qan.ASX:Quote,News) and tourism companies, which would include Flight Centre.

Investors are told to substitute stocks of companies that would benefit if people were forced to stay in their houses.

These include phone companies -- for instance, Telstra -- and media businesses, such as Austar. Freight delivery firms are also favoured by the Citigroup strategists. The main players in Australia are Toll Holdings and Patrick Corp.

Business ethicist John Sweeney said the analysis had the hallmarks of Gordon Gekko, the character played by Michael Douglas in the film Wall Street. Gekko famously said: "Greed is good."

"This makes your blood go cold," said Mr Sweeney, leader of the Edmund Rice Business Ethics Initiative.

Dear Scout

Will government experimentation cause an Avian Flu Epidemic?

Dr. Len Horowitz has recently expounded on the origins of epidemics and their causes, in a wide-ranging article - Avian Flu Fright: Politically Timed for Global "Iatrogenocide" - a copy of which I have placed on my website at http://www.cqs.com/horowitz.htm since I cannot yet find it published anywhere else. (In the article, Dr. Horowitz specifically gives permission for anyone to do so to get the word out.)

While I do not subscribe to everything Dr. Horowitz says in the article, he has some profound observations about epidemics and their connection to vaccines. And he reminds us: vaccines are based on existing virus cultures, since they use "attenuated" or "inactivated" copies of the viruses to supposedly invoke the human immune system to create antibodies.

Now add to this information: a small percentage of people who are treated with vaccines actually get the full-blown illness. This still happens with all the vaccines for childhood illness, even with polio vaccine. Since Avian Influenza supposedly kills more than 50% of its victims, and since there is no natural immunity in the rest of the population, this is an extremely serious matter. How would they prevent those unfortunate enough to get the full-blown illness from spreading it to the mostly-unprotected population?

After reading Dr. Horowitz's article, I remembered that there have been recent press releases about experimental vaccines that are being prepared - right now - for Avian Influenza, and federal authorities are concerned that not enough will be available if there is an outbreak or epidemic. But something doesn't make sense: other articles have stated that the Avian Flu hasn't mutated yet to be able to spread from human to human easily. So how are they creating a vaccine for a virus that doesn't exist yet? And how are they testing such a vaccine, for a virus that supposedly kills more than 50% of its victims?

http://www.cqs.com

Wally - thanks, I checked the article.

What I understand as a layperson.

1. HN51 the current Avain flu strain spreads between birds, but only transfers to humans directly by contact with faeces for example.

2. A human with HN51 cannot spread the flu to another human unless it is by direct contact, as above? Or have all the 65 diagnosed thus far been infected by birds only?

3. Even if the virus mutates so that it is transmissable from human to human via the respiratory system (as with common influenza) - it is not necessarily likely to become a pandemic or lethal; the mutation could be benign, mild or not easliy transmissable. There are many variations a mutation could take.

It is point 3. that makes me think that the media hype is a beat up. I do not know what to make of conspiracies. I do believe that some issues are hyped up to cloud others. As to whether there is a deliberate conspiracy to reduce world population or even as a way for the pharmacuetical companies to make a huge profit from anticipated vaccine sales - I really cannot make a judgement on that. Does appear very extreme.

I take the point that it is impossible to make a vaccine for humans without a virus to start with. Therefore, it does bring into question why stock piles of treatments such as tamiflu are being funded when there is no evidence that this treatment works.

4. I do know that humans have been engaged in biological warfare experiments since at least WW2. Someone must've been producing results somewhere. But where this fits in with HN51 - impossible to say.

I can see that those with a vested interest would prefer to create a scare from 'natural causes' than to admit to lab creations.

Anyway - based on theory of natural causes, I think a pandemic is unlikely - that we are being alarmed unnecessarily and possibly for ulterior motives.

I appreciate the information you have provided and will certainly be giving it all a lot of consideration.

Cheers