Thursday, December 18, 2003

Wow, Gosh, Golly Gee Department:

Does this come as a surprise to anyone? Wish fulfillment in the Torygraph, perpetuated by William Safire as from "an Iraqi leader long considered reliable by intelligence agencies," which apparently does not include the FBI.

And people claim the Internet is unreliable....

Meanwhile, with justice depending upon an Attorney General who did not follow the law himself, I feel much safer. Don't you?

Friday, December 12, 2003

Thursday, December 11, 2003

The CDC encourages Mercury Poisoning of Children and Fetuses

Pull quote: With a vaccine with a less optimal match, you
have to say it might not work at all, said Dr. Scott Harper,
a CDC epidemiologist.


Translation: Well, it doesn't include the current strain


Pull quote: For the last five years we have thrown a lot of
flu vaccine away, she said. Last year the two companies made
95 million doses, but because of the 12 million doses left
unused, they reduced that number this year to 83 million
doses.


Translation: The lack of available vaccine is due to a business
decision we made to reduce supply in the face of a trend of
reduced demand.

Pull quote: mercury...can damage the growing brains of
fetuses and young children. About 8 percent of U.S. women of
childbearing age have enough mercury in their blood to put a
fetus at risk.


Translation: you would think that we would want child exposed to
LESS mercury


Pull quote: There are people who shouldn't get the [flu]
vaccine, particularly those with allergies to eggs or
thermasol, a preservative used in the vaccine.


No translation needed: flu shots use Thermasol

Pull quote: However, the flu shot contains mercury. Mercury
can pass through the placenta and accumulate in the unborn
child. Mercury is toxic and can cause damage to the brain
and nervous system to the developing bodies of unborn
babies, infants and young children.


SUMMARY:

The flu shot vaccine (which is in short supply) (1) doesn't protect people
against the new strain that is causing all the headlines, (2) includes mercury [Thermasol], and (3) is being RECOMMENDED by the CDC to pregnant women and infants, despite their inability to detail the effeciveness of the vaccine for younger children?

(Note that the CDC lumps
all "healthy persons under 65" into ONE group
--that is, no
breakdown of the effectiveness of the vaccines in the case
of the two groups MOST AT RISK is offered.)

So we're getting a lot of headlines about a "vaccine
shortage" (caused largely by reduced demand last year
resulting in production cuts [read: lower supply] this
year), and much talk of the vileness of the strain (which
the vaccine doesn't address), and much encouragement from
our government to subject those MOST VULNERABLE to ill
effects from the mercury (children under four and gestating
fetuses) to a dose that is ineffective?

Watch the next few weeks to see if Administration officials
and drug companies argue--despite their own evidence
contrariwise--that it was "regulatory burdens" that produced
the shortage of an ineffectual vaccine.