[The] man of sin [shall] be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 KJV)
Jesus saith, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6 KJV)
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13 KJV)
FORT
MEADE, Md. (AP) — The text of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning's
statement that will be sent to the president, as read by defense
attorney David Coombs following Manning's sentencing Wednesday:
The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of a concern for my
country and the world that we live in. Since the tragic events of 9/11,
our country has been at war. We've been at war with an enemy that
chooses not to meet us on any traditional battlefield, and due to this
fact we've had to alter our methods of combating the risks posed to us
and our way of life.
I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help
defend my country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret
military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the
morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized that (in)
our efforts to meet the risk posed to us by the enemy, we have
forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue human life
both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived
were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians.
Whenever we
killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our
conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and
classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.
In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition
of torture. We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due
process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by
the Iraqi government. And we stomached countless other acts in the name
of our war on terror.
Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts
are advocated by those in power. When these cries of patriotism drown
out any logically based dissension, it is usually the American soldier
that is given the order to carry out some ill-conceived mission.
Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtues of democracy —
the Trail of Tears, the Dred Scott decision, McCarthyism, and the
Japanese-American internment camps — to mention a few. I am confident
that many of the actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar
light.
As the late Howard Zinn once said, "There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."
I understand that my actions violated the law; I regret if my actions
hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intent to hurt
anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose
classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a
sense of duty to others.
If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing
that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I
will gladly pay that price if it means we could have a country that is
truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all
women and men are created equal.
January 14, 2014
Belgian Lawmakers Considering a Law That Would Extend Euthanasia to Dementia Patients and Children
NBC News - Two deaf twin brothers in Belgium were euthanized by their doctor after realizing they were going blind and would be unable to see each other ever again, their physician says.
The 45-year-old men, whose names have not been made public, were legally put to death by lethal injection at the Brussels University Hospital in Jette, on Dec. 14.
The men, who were born deaf, had a cup of coffee and said goodbye to other family members before walking into hospital room together to die, their doctor told Belgian television station RTL.
"They were very happy. It was a relief to see the end of their suffering," said Dr. David Dufour.
"They had a cup of coffee in the hall. It went well and a rich conversation. Then the separation from their parents and brother was very serene and beautiful," he said. "At the last there was a little wave of their hands and then they were gone."
More than 1,000 people legally availed themselves of doctor-assisted deaths in Belgium in 2011, most of them were terminally ill cancer patients.
The brothers are unique in that their illness was not terminal. Belgian law, however, allows doctors to euthanize "suffering" patients who are both mentally sound, over 18 and want to die.
Belgian lawmakers are considering a law that would extend euthanasia to dementia patients and children, whose families and doctors consented.
By Dr. Lawrence Dunegan, Pittsburgh pediatrician on
his recollections of the lecture (recorded on tape in 1988)
On March 20, 1969, Dr. Richard Day, an insider to the NWO plans,
gave a lecture to a gathering of pediatricians at a meeting of the
Pittsburgh Pediatric Society. In his introductory remarks, he commented
that he would not have been able to say what he was about to say, even a
few years earlier, but he was free to speak at this time because,
'Everything is in place and nobody can stop us now.'
The new
system would be brought in — if not by peaceful co-operation with
everybody willingly yielding national sovereignty, then by bringing the
nation to the brink of nuclear war. Everybody would be so fearful — as
hysteria is created by the possibility of nuclear war — that there would
be a strong public outcry to negotiate a public peace; and people would
willingly give up national sovereignty in order to achieve peace, and
thereby this would bring in the 'New International Political System.' If
there were too many people in the right places who resisted this, there
might be a need to use one or two or possibly more nuclear weapons. By
the time one or two of those went off then everybody, even the most
reluctant, would yield. This negotiated peace would be very convincing,
as in a framework or in a context that the whole thing was rehearsed
but nobody would know it. People hearing about it would be convinced
that it was a genuine negotiation between hostile enemies who finally
had come to the realisation that peace was better than war.
His
purpose in telling our group about the changes which were to be brought
about [especially regarding medicine and their planned control over it,
including eliminating solo practitioners and limiting access to
affordable health care] was to make it easier for us to
adapt to these changes. Indeed, as he quite accurately said, "There
would be changes that would be very surprising, and in some ways
difficult for people to accept," and he hoped that we, as sort of his
friends, would make the adaptation more easily if we knew somewhat
beforehand what to expect.
Change was to be brought about, change
was to be anticipated and expected, and accepted, no questions asked. A
comment he made from time to time during the presentation was,
"People are too trusting; people don't ask the right questions."
Sometimes, being too trusting was equated with being too dumb. But
sometimes when he would say that "people don't ask the right questions,"
it was almost with a sense of regret as if he were uneasy with what he
was part of, and wished that people would challenge it and maybe not be
so trusting.
EUTHANASIA AND THE 'DEMISE PILL'
Everybody has a right to live only so long. The old are no longer useful. They become a burden.You should be ready to accept death. Most
people are. An arbitrary age limit could be established. After all,
you have a right to only so many steak dinners, so many orgasms, and so
many good pleasures in life. After you have had enough of them and you're no longer productive, working and contributing, then you should be ready to step aside for the next generation.
He mentioned several of the things that would help people realise that they had lived long enough. I don't remember them all but here are a few. The use of very pale printing ink on forms
that people are necessary to fill out — older people wouldn't be able
to read the pale ink as easily and would need to go to younger people
for help. Automobile traffic patterns —
there would be more high-speed traffic lanes that older people with
their slower reflexes would have trouble dealing with and thus, lose
some of their independence.
LIMITING ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE MEDICAL
A big item that was elaborated on at some length was that the cost of medical care would be made burdensomely high.Medical
care would be connected very closely with one's work but also would be
made very, very high in cost so that it would simply be unavailable to
people beyond a certain time. Unless they had a remarkably
rich, supporting family, they would just have to do without care. And
the idea was that if everybody says, "Enough! — what a burden it is on the young to try to maintain the old people," then the young would become agreeable to helping Mom and Dad along the way, provided this was done humanely and with dignity. Then
the example was — there could be a nice, farewell party, a real
celebration. Mom and Dad had done a good job. Then after the party's
over they take the 'demise pill'.
PLANNING THE CONTROL OVER MEDICINE
The next topic is Medicine. There would be profound changes in the practice of medicine. Overall, medicine would be much more tightly controlled. The observation that was made in 1969 that,
"It is now abundantly evident that Congress is not going to go along withnational health insurance. But it's not necessary — we have other ways to control health care".
These would come about more gradually, but all health care delivery would come under tight control. Medical care would be closely connected to work. If you don't work or can't work, you won't have access to medical care.The days of hospitals giving away free care would gradually wind down, to where it was virtually non-existent.Costs would be forced up so that people won't be able to afford to go without insurance.
People
pay for it, you're entitled to it. It was only subsequently that I
began to realise the extent to which you would not be paying for it. Your
medical care would be paid for by others. Therefore, you would
gratefully accept, on bended knee, what was offered to you as a
privilege. Your role being responsible for your own care would be diminished.
As an aside here, this is not something that was developed at that
time; I didn't understand it at the time that it was an aside.
Here's
the way this works: everybody has made dependent on insurance, and if
you don't have insurance then you pay directly; the cost of your care
is enormous. The insurance company, however, paying for your care, does not pay that same amount. If
you are charged, say, $600 for the use of an operating room, the
insurance company does not pay $600; they only pay $300 or $400. That
differential in billing has the desired effect:
It enables the insurance company to pay for that which you could never
pay for. They get a discount that's unavailable to you. When you see your bill you're grateful that the insurance company could do that. And in this way you are dependent and virtually required to have insurance. The whole billing is fraudulent.
Access to hospitals would be tightly controlled and identification would be needed to get into the building. The
security in and around hospitals would be established and gradually
increased so that nobody without identification could get in or move
around inside the building. Theft of hospital equipment, things like
typewriters and microscopes and so forth, would be 'allowed' and
reports of it would be exaggerated so that this would be the excuse needed to establish the need for strict security — until people got used to it.
Anybody
moving about the hospital would be required to wear an identification
badge with a photograph and telling why he was there — employee or lab
technician or visitor or whatever. This is to be brought in gradually, getting everybody used to the idea of identifying themselves — until it was just accepted.
This
need for ID to move about would start in small ways: hospitals, some
businesses, but gradually expand to include everybody in all places!
It was observed that hospitals can be used to confine people and for the treatment of criminals. This did not mean, necessarily, medical treatment. At that time I did not know the term 'Psycho-Prison' — they are in the Soviet Union. But,
without trying to recall all the details, basically he was describing
the use of hospitals both for treating the sick and for confinement of
criminals for reasons other than the medical well-being of the
criminal. The definition of criminal was not given.
[...]
SCHOOLS AS THE HUB OF THE COMMUNITY
Another angle was that the schools would become more important in peoples' overall life.
Kids, in addition to their academics, would have to get into school
activities unless they wanted to feel completely out of it.
But spontaneous activities among kids — the thing that came to my mind
when I heard this was sand lot football and sand lot baseball teams
that we worked up as kids growing up. I
said the kids wanting any activities outside of school would be almost
forced to get them through the school. There would be few
opportunities outside.
Now
the pressures of the accelerated academic program, the accelerated
demands where kids would feel they had to be part of something — one or
another athletic club or some school activity — these pressures he
recognized would cause some students to burn out. He said.
"The smartest ones will learn how to cope with pressures and to survive. There will be some help available to students in handling stress, but the unfit won't be able to make it. They will then move on to other things."
In
this connection, and later on with drug abuse and alcohol abuse, he
indicated that psychiatric services to help would be increased
dramatically.In
all the pushing for achievement, it was recognized that many people
would need help, and the people worth keeping around would be able to
accept and benefit from that help, and still be super achievers.Those
who could not would fall by the wayside and, therefore, were sort of
dispensable — 'expendable' I guess is the word I want.
Education would be lifelong and adults would be going to school. There'll always be new information that adults must have to keep up. When you can't keep up anymore, you're too old. This was another way of letting older people know that the time had come for them to move on and take the demise pill. If you got too tired to keep up with your education, or you got too old to learn new information, then this was a signal — you begin to prepare to get ready to step aside.
January 3, 2014
Federal Employees Contribute Less Than 1 Percent of Salaries Toward Their Pensions — Taxpayers Pay 12 Percent; This Means That Bureaucrats Can Retire in Their 50s with Full Benefits While the Majority Work Until They Die to Afford Them That Luxury
The House-passed version of the fiscal 2012 budget resolution included a recommendation that would require federal employees to pay for half the defined benefit they receive with their pensions at retirement. Most employees currently contribute 0.8 percent of their salaries and agencies (taxpayers) pay 11.7 percent, with agencies' (taxpaypers') contribution set to increase to 11.9 percent in October.
Government Executive - With less than a month to go before the government begins to default on its obligations, federal employee groups continue to urge congressional leaders and the White House to reject proposals targeting their pay and benefits as part of a deficit reduction deal.
A coalition of 25 groups sent letters to President Obama and House and Senate leaders July 1, criticizing a plan negotiators are considering that would require federal workers to contribute more of their salaries to their pension plans, calling the proposed increase a "payroll tax." Federal employee advocates argue such an increase in worker contributions could exceed 5 percent of employees' income.
"Federal civil servants are already subject to a two-year pay freeze, despite the fact the nation's debt crisis did not arise out of exorbitant federal civil service pay or benefits," the letters stated.
The Federal-Postal Coalition is made up of organizations including the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the National Association of Letter Carriers, and the Senior Executives Association. The group sent a similar letter in June to Vice President Biden, who is leading the debt ceiling negotiations.
Bruce Moyer, chairman of the Federal-Postal Coalition, said in an email that the group has not received a response to its July 1 letter.
The future of government employees' contributions to the Federal Employees Retirement System is uncertain. In addition to discussions to increase workers' share as part of debt ceiling negotiations, the House-passed version of the fiscal 2012 budget resolution included a recommendation that would require federal employees to pay for half the defined benefit they receive with their pensions at retirement. Most employees currently contribute 0.8 percent of their salaries and agencies pay 11.7 percent, with agencies' contribution set to increase to 11.9 percent in October.
In June, the U.S. Postal Service halted employer contributions to the FERS-defined benefit plan, which the agency estimates will free up $800 million in cash this fiscal year.
The Treasury Department in May suspended investments into federal employees' pensions, when the government officially hit its debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion. Once the debt issue is resolved, the Treasury by law will be required to restore federal pensions and the Thrift Savings Plan's stable government securities (G) fund to their full balance, along with any interest lost during the suspension. The government expects to default on its obligations on Aug. 2, unless negotiators can come to an agreement.
Current and former lawmakers have jumped in on the pension debate. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., last month urged Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to protect federal pensions during budget negotiations. She also criticized the idea that government workers should contribute more to their retirement plans in an effort to cut spending. Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., have introduced legislation that would end the FERS defined benefit plan for new federal employees, including new members of Congress, starting in 2013.
Failure to raise the government's debt ceiling could lead to cuts in pay and benefits for federal civilian employees, military members and veterans, according to an analysis from the Bipartisan Policy Center. In a report published in June, the center found that unless the debt ceiling is raised, federal spending would be cut by 44 percent in August. Under several scenarios, Geithner could prioritize spending to include reductions in pay for government workers, the group said.
A February report from the Congressional Research Service, however, found that exceeding the debt ceiling carries less risk for federal workers than a government shutdown.
"Failing to raise the debt ceiling would not bring the government to a screeching halt the way that not passing appropriations bills would," CRS wrote, quoting a 1995 report from the Congressional Budget Office. "Employees would not be sent home and checks would continue to be issued."
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis for 2008, the average federal employee made $79,197 [the average private sector employee made $49,935]. The pension for the average employee can be calculated as follows:
$79,197 x 30 Years x 1% = $23,759
$79,197 x 40 Years x 1% = $31,678
Understanding the FERS Retirement
When we talk about your FERS Retirement, we're really talking about several different benefits. FERS (Federal Employees Retirement System) has three main components:
Basic FERS Pension
Social Security
Thrift Savings Plan (TSP)
Your FERS pension and Social Security will be fixed dollar amounts. But the money you get from your TSP will depend on how much you contributed and how well you managed the money.
As a FERS, you have a chance to take a more active role in managing your own retirement than CSRS do. But, that means you need to stay up-to-date on your benefits.
Here are some important things you need to know about each part of your FERS retirement...
Reductions to Your FERS Pension
There are some choices you can make that will reduce the amount of your FERS pension:
Retiring Before Age 62 with MRA+10 If you retire before age 62 on an Early FERS Retirement (MRA+10), your pension will be reduced. Your FERS pension will be PERMANENTLY reduced by 5% for every year you are under age 62. Click here to see an example of this reduction and how it might affect you
The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is a special account for Federal Employees. The TSP was created as part of the Federal Employees Retirement System in 1986. Most government employees (FERS and CSRS) are eligible for the TSP -- even those hired before it was created.
The TSP allows you to save pre-tax dollars in a special personal account. You can choose how to invest those dollars -- although your choices are limited.
With your FERS retirement pension and Social Security, you will receive fixed amounts.But with your TSP, the amount you receive depends on how much you put in and how well you managed the money.
Your TSP contributions are optional and separate from your FERS pension.
Employees covered under the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) are typically eligible to receive Social Security benefits when they retire. Every pay period, the Federal Government takes out 6.2% of your basic pay to put towards Social Security. But just like your FERS pension, your Social Security benefit is not based on your contributions - it is based on other factors.
You pay Social Security taxes on your earnings up to a certain amount. That amount increases each year to keep pace with wages. In 2011, that amount is $106,800.
You pay Medicare taxes on all of your wages or net earnings from self-employment. These taxes are used for Medicare coverage.
Alabama Live - Coastal Clinical Research is looking for children between the ages of 1 and 8 to test a pediatric vaccine for the H1N1 virus — commonly referred to as swine flu.
The Mobile-based research group was selected, along with several others across the country, by a pharmaceutical company to test the vaccine in August, said Appie Head, patient recruiter with CCR.
Compensation for taking part in the local clinical trials varies, Head said. Last year, CCR paid participants between $35 and $100 to take part in four different seasonal flu vaccines.
How much will be paid to those who try the swine flu vaccine had not yet been established, Head said.
The number of confirmed and probable U.S. swine flu cases has surpassed 37,000, with more than 200 deaths reported, according to the most recent numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta...
Here’s how the clinical trial will work: After a first visit to establish eligibility, the participant will be required to return to the CCR offices on the Springhill Medical Center campus, 100 Memorial Hospital Drive, Suite 3-B for two additional visits. During the second visit, a patient will have blood drawn for lab testing and will be given an injection of the vaccine. A legal guardian receives a symptom diary to record any side effects after the shot. A staff member from CCR will call the patient at least twice after the injection to check on them, Head said. A month after the shot, the patient is required to visit the research offices again to have more blood drawn to assess the effectiveness of the vaccine, Head said.
To be eligible for the H1N1 influenza vaccine pediatric trial in Mobile, children must be free from illness, accompanied by a legal guardian and submit to a screening process that includes a physical exam. A urine sample is also required during the first appointment. Patients, or their guardian, are paid at the end of each visit.
Mainstream Media's Swine Flu Fear Mongering Kicks into Full Gear
AFP - Anxiously eyeing the approach of winter, US health officials are urgently gearing up for a huge vaccine campaign hoping Americans will swing behind efforts to protect them from swine flu.
“Ultimately, the number of people that we hope will be vaccinated before the fall winter wave of H1N1 arrives will exceed any of the previous vaccine campaigns that we’ve conducted in this country,” Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told AFP.
“This is the largest vaccine effort the world has ever seen,” agreed Robin Robinson, director of the Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority (BARDA), quoted in the Washington Post.
But authorities also have to overcome a vocal debate in the United States about vaccinations, amid lingering suspicions among some parents that they are not safe for young children.
“At this point it is just really unclear to say how many will get vaccinated,” said Osterholm.
“It’s all going to be a matter of when the vaccine is available. If the vaccine is available, and people are getting sick in the winter, then I think you are going to see many more people wanting the vaccine...”
Some 263 people have so far died across the country, and more than 40,000 cases have been registered, although US health officials have said they believe as many as a million people could already be infected. To put the figures in perspective, officials stress that ordinary seasonal flu kills on average some 36,000 people a year in a nation with 300 million people.
But an all-out effort has been launched to put in place a vaccine before the start of the traditional flu season in the coming months. Health officials have called for thousands of volunteers to join clinical tests of two vaccines with the aim of having results in two months time, enabling the vaccination campaign to start at the beginning of the fall.
“We are hopeful we’ll be talking about several hundred million people getting vaccinated if possible,” said Osterholm. “It’s going to literally be a function of how much vaccine we’ll ultimately have before the wave really takes hold in this country.”
An emergency meeting of health officials has been set for Wednesday, July 29, to work on an action plan and identify the groups most at risk.
“Everything is going to be done to try to encourage people to get it,” said Gretchen Michael, a BARDA spokeswoman, referring to the vaccine...
AP - In a disturbing new projection, health officials say up to 40 percent of Americans could get swine flu this year and next and several hundred thousand could die without a successful vaccine campaign and other measures.
The estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are roughly twice the number of those who catch flu in a normal season and add greater weight to hurried efforts to get a new vaccine ready for the fall flu season.
Swine flu has already hit the United States harder than any other nation, but it has struck something of a glancing blow that's more surprising than devastating. The virus has killed about 300 Americans and experts believe it has sickened more than 1 million, comparable to a seasonal flu with the weird ability to keep spreading in the summer.
Health officials say flu cases may explode in the fall, when schools open and become germ factories, and the new estimates dramatize the need to have vaccines and other measures in place.
A world health official said the first vaccines are expected in September and October. The United States expects to begin testing on some volunteers in August, with 160 million doses ready in October.
The CDC came up with the new projections for the virus' spread last month, but it was first disclosed in an interview this week with The Associated Press.
The estimates are based on a flu pandemic from 1957, which killed nearly 70,000 in the United States but was not as severe as the infamous Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19. The number of deaths and illnesses from the new swine flu virus would drop if the pandemic peters out or if efforts to slow its spread are successful, said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner.
"Hopefully, mitigation efforts will have a big impact on future cases," he said. Besides pushing flu shots, health officials might urge measures such as avoiding crowded places, handwashing, cough covering and timely use of medicines like Tamiflu.
Because so many more people are expected to catch the new flu, the number of deaths over two years could range from 90,000 to several hundred thousand, the CDC calculated. Again, that is if a new vaccine and other efforts fail. In a normal flu season, about 36,000 people die from flu and its complications, according to the American Medical Association. That too is an estimate, because death certificates don't typically list flu as a cause of death. Instead, they attribute a fatality to pneumonia or other complications.
Influenza is notoriously hard to predict, and some experts have shied away from a forecast. At a CDC swine flu briefing Friday, one official declined to answer repeated questions about her agency's own estimate. "I don't think that influenza and its behavior in the population lends itself very well to these kinds of models," said the official, Dr. Anne Schuchat, who oversees the CDC's flu vaccination programs.
The World Health Organization says as many as 2 billion people could become infected in the next two years — nearly a third of the world population. The estimates look at potential impacts in a two-year period because past flu pandemics have occurred in waves over more than one year.
Swine flu has been an escalating concern in Britain and some other European nations, where the virus' late arrival has grabbed attention and some officials at times have sounded alarmed.
In an interview Friday, the WHO's flu chief told the AP the global epidemic is still in its early stages. "Even if we have hundreds of thousands of cases or a few millions of cases ... we're relatively early in the pandemic," Keiji Fukuda said at WHO headquarters in Geneva.
The first vaccines are expected in September and October, Fukuda said. Other vaccines won't be ready until well into the flu season when a further dramatic rise in swine flu cases is expected.
First identified in April, swine flu has likely infected more than 1 million Americans,the CDC believes, with many of those suffering mild cases never reported. There have been 302 deaths and nearly 44,000 laboratory-identified cases, according to numbers released Friday morning.
Because the swine flu virus is new, most people haven't developed an immunity to it. So far, most of those who have died from it in the United States have had other health problems, such as asthma.
The virus has caused an unusual number of serious illnesses in teens and young adults; seasonal flu usually is toughest on the elderly and very young children.
WBAL TV (Baltimore, MD) - The University of Maryland School of Medicine said it will lead a human trial of a swine flu vaccine. The order came from the National Institute of Health.
The clinical trial will begin in August and enroll as many as 1,000 healthy adults and children at 10 centers nationwide.
Participants in five age groups will receive two doses three weeks apart. The response after the first dose will be compared to the response after the second. If there are no problems, then doctors will begin testing on children and infants.
The trial also will evaluate two strengths of the vaccine to determine how much is needed to prompt an immune response most likely to protect against the swine flu.
Dr. Karen Kotloff, who is overseeing the trials, said she is confident the tests will be without complications as they are similar to shots that are given for seasonal flu. "We're very hopeful that this study will lead to a safe, effective vaccine to protect the world's population from the H1N1 flu," Kotloff said.
The University of Maryland School of Medicine is home to one of eight federally supported Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units. "We're extraordinarily proud to live in Maryland with the worlds-best scientists, and one of the worlds premier institutions of higher learning. (We're) going to be putting to test this important health weapon," Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Sec. John Colmers said.
Doctors said they are hopeful that the first test doses will begin sometime in mid-August, with results starting to trickle in sometime in earlier to mid-September.
If you would like to take part in the trials, click on the link or call the center at 410-706-6156.
CNN - In a race to beat the flu season, medical institutes across the United States will begin human trials for a new H1N1 flu vaccine starting in early August, the University of Maryland announced Wednesday.
In the hope of getting the vaccine to those who will need it most by October, the clinical trials will enroll as many as 1,000 adults and children at 10 centers nationwide, said officials at the Center for Vaccine Development at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which will lead the effort. The trials will measure the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.
The research is a first step toward U.S. health officials' goal of developing a safe and effective vaccine against H1N1, also known as swine flu, which has been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization
The time frame for developing a vaccine is a tight one. "It's going to be close," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. "I believe it can be [ready by October] if things run smoothly. We hope they will, but you never can tell when you're dealing with biological phenomena like making vaccines and administering them."
The announcement of the U.S. trials followed the announcement earlier this week, by an Australian company, CSL Ltd., of the first human trials of a swine flu vaccine. "This virus has the potential to cause significant illness with hospitalizations and deaths during the U.S. flu season this fall and winter," said Dr. Karen Kotloff, professor of pediatrics and lead investigator and researcher at Maryland's Center for Vaccine Development. "Vaccines have always been a vital tool for controlling influenza. The results of these studies will help to guide the optimal use of the H1N1 vaccines in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world."
After careful screening, volunteers will be inoculated and then asked to keep a diary on how they feel. After eight days their blood will be checked and after 21 days they will receive another dose, followed again by diary logs and blood tests. Patients will be monitored two months for safety issues, followed by a four-month and six-month checkup.
"The purpose of these trials is always to make sure they are safe," Kotloff said. "But even after six weeks, if things look good, we're pretty sure the vaccine will work." She noted the response to the vaccine may vary in different age groups. "This is because young people have not seen a flu virus like this one before," she noted. "Older adults might have some immunity to the new H1N1 virus as a result of being exposed to similar flu viruses in the past. As a result, older adults might need fewer doses or a lower strength of the vaccine than younger individuals."
The vaccine at this point has been tested only in animals, where it has shown to be effective.Further trials will examine questions such as how the vaccine works in combination with the seasonal flu vaccine and whether including an adjutant, a substance that boosts the immune response to vaccines, can make it work better at lower doses.
Other trial sites along with the University of Maryland Medical Center are Baylor College of Medicine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Emory University, Saint Louis University, Seattle Group Health Cooperative, the University of Iowa, and Vanderbilt University. They will be joined by Children's Mercy Hospital and Duke University Medical Center.
BBC News - The first batch of British school pupils quarantined in China after members of their group contracted swine flu has been released. A total of 20 students and three teachers were allowed to leave Yanxiang Hotel after seven days of restrictions.
They were under observation after a number of students on a tour of China fell ill with the virus. The released pupils were taken to another hotel in Beijing from where they will continue their visit...
More than 80 British school pupils and teachers remain in quarantine in the Yanxiang Hotel, along with a number from the US... None of the children is thought to be seriously ill.
China has this year quarantined hundreds of foreign visitors who have shown symptoms of swine flu.
Telegraph - Swine flu is a greater threat to Britain than terrorism, said Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, as pregnant women were advised to avoid unneccessary travel. Mr Johnson insisted that measures were in place to deal with the spread of the virus but urged people to adhere to good hygene practices to limit the risk to themselves and others.
He said: “We have been preparing for this for a long time. It came actually above terrorism as a threat to this country, so we had the whole Cobra machinery and inter-agency working. We have gone through simulation exercises where everyone was involved.
Mr Johnson told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show: “What we are finding is that it is attacking the young rather than the elderly, who traditional seasonal flu would attack...
Newsmax - An outbreak of swine flu occurred in Mexico this spring that eventually affected 4,910 Mexican citizens and resulted in 85 deaths. By the time it spread to the United States, the virus caused only mild cases of flu-like illness.
Thanks to air travel and the failure of public health officials to control travel from Mexico, the virus spread worldwide. Despite predictions of massive numbers of deaths and the arrival of doomsday, the virus has remained a relatively mild disease, something we know happens each year with flu epidemics.
Worldwide, there have only been 311 deaths out of 70,893 cases of swine flu. In the United States, 27,717 cases have resulted in 127 deaths. Every death is a tragedy, but such a low death rate should not be the basis of a draconian government policy.
It is helpful to recall that the Centers for Disease Control with the collusion of the media, constantly tell us that 36,000 people die from the flu each year, a figure that has been shown to be a lie. In this case, we are talking about 300 plus deaths for the entire world.
This virus continues to be an enigma for virologists. In the April 30, 2009 issue of Nature, a virologist was quoted as saying,“Where the hell it got all these genes from we don’t know.” Extensive analysis of the virus found that it contained the original 1918 H1N1 flu virus, the avian flu virus (bird flu), and two new H3N2 virus genes from Eurasia. Debate continues over the possibility that swine flu is a genetically engineered virus.
Naturally, vaccine manufacturers have been in a competitive battle to produce the first vaccine. The main contenders have been Baxter Pharmaceuticals and Novartis Pharmaceuticals, the latter of which recently acquired the scandal-ridden Chiron vaccine company. Both of these companies have had agreements with the World Health Organization to produce a pandemic vaccine.
The Baxter vaccine, called Celvapan, has had fast track approval. It uses a new vero cell technology, which utilizes cultured cells from the African green monkey. This same animal tissue transmits a number of vaccine-contaminating viruses, including the HIV virus.
The Baxter company has been associated with two deadly scandals. The first event occurred in 2006 when hemophiliac components were contaminated with HIV virus and injected in tens of thousands of people, including thousands of children. Baxter continued to release the HIV contaminated vaccine even after the contamination was known.
The second event occurred recently when it was discovered that Baxter had released to 18 countries a seasonal flu vaccine containing the bird flu virus, which would have produced a real world pandemic. Fortunately, astute lab workers in the Czech Republic discovered the deadly combination and blew the whistle before a worldwide disaster was unleashed.
Despite these two deadly events, WHO maintains an agreement with Baxter Pharmaceuticals to produce the world’s pandemic vaccine.
Novartis, the second contender, also has an agreement with WHO for a pandemic vaccine. Novartis appears to have won the contract, since their vaccine is near completion. What is terrifying is that these pandemic vaccines contain ingredients, called immune adjuvants, that a number of studies have shown cause devastating autoimmune disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and lupus.
Animal studies using this adjuvant have found them to be deadly. A study using 14 guinea pigs found that when they were injected with the special adjuvant, only one animal survived. A repeat of the study found the same deadly outcome...
It is obvious that the vaccine manufacturers stand to make billions of dollars in profits from this WHO/government-promoted pandemic. Novartis, the maker of the new pandemic vaccine, recently announced that they would not give free vaccines to impoverished nations—everybody pays.
One must keep in mind that once the vaccine is injected, there is little you can do to protect yourself—at least by conventional medicine. It will mean a lifetime of crippling illness and early death. There are much safer ways to protect oneself from this flu virus, such as higher doses of vitamin D3, selective immune enhancement using supplements, and a good diet.
EmaxHealth - Swine flu manufacturers have now been granted legal immunity in case something goes wrong that causes side effects associated with the vaccine. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, signed a document making federal officials and vaccine makers immune from lawsuits related to any ill effects from the swine flu vaccine.
Fears about the effects of a novel swine flu vaccine have sparked much discussion. A swine flu outbreak among soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J in 1976 resulted in vaccinations that caused side effects including Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a condition that causes paralysis. The result was thousands of lawsuits.
Stephen Sugarman, a law professor who specializes in product liability at the University of California at Berkeley says, "The government paid out quite a bit of money,” following past swine flu vaccination side effects.
Most cases of swine flu have been mild.The WHO has stopped tracking cases. No one knows how many infections have really occurred, because not everyone seeks treatment.
Five pharmaceutical companies are manufacturing swine flu vaccine. The drugs are not as profitable as some, like cancer drugs, but immunity from legal action provides incentive to vaccine makers.
Paul Pennock, a New York plaintiffs attorney on medical liability cases, spoke out about the immunity granted to swine flu vaccine makers, saying: "If you're going to ask people to do this for the common good, then let's make sure for the common good that these people will be taken care of if something goes wrong."
The document granting protection from lawsuits to swine flu vaccine makers was signed by Sebelius last month.
Harvard School of Public Health - As part of a series about Americans’ response to the H1N1 flu outbreak, the Harvard Opinion Research Program at the Harvard School of Public Health is releasing a national poll that focuses on Americans’ views and concerns about the potential for a more severe outbreak of Influenza A (H1N1) in the fall or winter. The polling was done June 22-28, 2009.
Approximately six in ten Americans (59%) believe it is very or somewhat likely that there will be widespread cases of Influenza A (H1N1) with people getting very sick this coming fall or winter. Parents are more likely than people without children to believe this will occur, with roughly two thirds of parents (65%) saying it is very or somewhat likely compared to 56% of people without children.
“These results suggest Americans are likely to support public health officials in prioritizing preparations for the possibility of a serious H1N1 outbreak in the fall or winter,” said Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health...
San Francisco Business Times - The federal government is committing more than $800 million to buy more of the two key ingredients to make the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The money will be used to place additional orders on existing contracts with vaccine manufacturers including GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis. The former Chiron Corp. facility in Emeryville is now owned by Novartis, which makes vaccines there.
The government is placing orders for antigen and adjuvant. Antigen is the active ingredient in a vaccine that triggers the immune system to develop antibodies to fight the H1N1 virus. Adjuvant is added to boost the immune system and reduce the amount of antigen needed for the vaccine. The vaccine ingredients will become a part of the pandemic stockpile, for use if a vaccination campaign is necessary.
Swiss company Novartis, which is building a vaccine manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, received an order for $346 million for antigen and $343.8 million for adjuvant. London-based GlaxoSmithKline received an order for $71.4 million of adjuvant. In addition, Sanofi Pasteur received a $61.4 million order for antigen, and MedImmune won a $61 million order for its nasal flu spray.
“We are doing our part to be as prepared as possible for the impact that this infectious disease could have on our country,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement. “Vaccines may serve an important role in that preparedness.”
Times Online - A swine flu vaccine will be fast-tracked for use in Britain within five days once it is developed, and 130 million doses are on order.
The Department of Health expects to have enough vaccine this year to give it to half the population. Further supplies will be available if needed. Each person will need two doses of the vaccine, unless one single jab is found to provide high rates of immunity.
The first doses specific to the H1N1 swine flu virus are set to arrive in September and could be given regulatory approval in less than a week.
The move came after the first British patient without underlying health problems died from swine flu, taking the number of swine flu-linked deaths in Britain to 15. Peter Holden, the British Medical Association’s lead negotiator on swine flu, said that GPs’ surgeries were prepared for one of the biggest winter vaccination campaigns in almost 50 years. He said that, although swine flu was not generally causing serious illness in patients, health officials were eager to start a mass vaccination campaign, starting first on groups that were susceptible to infection or prone to complications.
It is likely that the elderly would be given a seasonal flu jab to guard against other circulating flu strains — as happens every year — as well as the swine flu vaccination. “The high-risk groups will be done at GPs’ surgeries. People are still making decisions over this, but we want to get cracking before we get a second wave, which is traditionally far more virulent,” Dr Holden said.
It takes several weeks or months to make flu vaccines, which are cultured using chicken eggs. The European Medicines Agency said the fast-tracked approval procedure has involved trials of a “mock-up” vaccine and that the speed would not compromise patient safety. “The vaccines are authorised with a detailed risk management plan,” the agency said.
Times Online - The path of a popular medicine from the laboratory to the chemist or doctor’s surgery can involve years of clinical trials on a select group of patients. When the new vaccine for swine flu arrives in Britain, regulators said this weekend, it could be approved for use in just five days.
Regulators at the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) said the fast-tracked procedure has involved clinical trials of a “mock-up” vaccine similar to the one that will be used for the biggest mass vaccination programme in generations. It will be introduced into the general population while regulators continue to carry out simultaneous clinical trials.
However, regulators said fast-tracking would not be at the expense of patient safety. “The vaccines are authorised with a detailed risk management plan,” the EMEA said. “There is quite a body of evidence regarding safety on the trials of the mock-up, and the actual vaccine could be assessed in five days.”
The UK government has ordered enough vaccine to cover the entire population. GPs are being told to prepare for a nationwide vaccination campaign.
Dr Peter Holden, the British Medical Association’s lead negotiator on swine flu, who has been attending Department of Health meetings on the outbreak, said GPs’ surgeries were prepared for one of the biggest vaccination campaigns in almost 50 years.
He said although swine flu was not causing serious illness in patients, health officials were eager to start a mass vaccination campaign, starting first on priority groups. First, the jabs would reduce the chances of a shortage of hospital beds because of people suffering from swine flu. Second, it would reduce the effect on the economy by ensuring workers were protected from the virus...
Holden said it would be the biggest campaign in response to an outbreak since mass vaccination against smallpox in 1962. He said surgeries would be aiming to inoculate about 30 people an hour in a “military-style operation.”
The Department of Health said it had still not finalised which groups would be vaccinated first, but children, frontline health workers, people with underlying illnesses and the elderly are likely to take priority...
About 15 people have died of swine flu in Britain, but most of those infected get only mild symptoms. According to the latest figures from the Health Protection Agency, the UK has had 9,718 confirmed cases of the disease.
Xinhua News Agency - All Britons could be vaccinated against the A/H1N1 flu as the number of confirmed cases in Britain is moving closer toward 10,000, health authorities said Sunday.
The first doses of A/H1N1 vaccine are set to arrive in Britain in September and could be fast-tracked through regulatory approval in less than a week.
Health officials have put forward plans to build a nationwide immunity to the disease, the biggest vaccination program of the past 50 years.
Health experts have already provided a priority list of patients, and the fast-tracking system has been established since the first British patient without underlying health problems died of the disease.
Lead negotiator on A/H1N1 of the British Medical Association Peter Holden told the Sunday Times the high risk groups will be done at the local clinics. He added that if the virus does mutate, the idea is to give people immunity, but he also admitted that the sheer logistics of dealing with 60 million people can’t be underestimated.
It is reported on Friday that a patient at an Essex hospital has become the first person in Britain without underlying health problems to die of the infection, bringing the death toll in the country to 15.
It is expected to surge in the winter months when flu is more prevalent.
There are 9,718 confirmed cases of A/H1N1 in Britain, according to the latest figures from the Health Protection Agency.
Yahoo Finance - One day after hosting a summit on the 2009 novel H1N1 flu with representatives from state, tribal, territorial and local governments from across the country, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the availability of $350 million in grants to help states and territories prepare for the 2009 novel H1N1 flu virus and the fall flu season. The grants were funded by the recent supplemental appropriations bill that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on June 24, 2009.
“With flu season around the corner, we must remain vigilant and do all we can to prepare our nation and protect public health,” said Secretary Sebelius. “These grants will give states valuable resources to step up their flu preparedness efforts.”
A total of $260 million in Public Health Emergency Response Grants and $90 million in Hospital Preparedness grants will be distributed nationwide.
Public Health Emergency Response grants help state public health departments perform a variety of functions, including preparing for potential vaccination campaigns, implementing strategies to reduce people’s exposure to the 2009 novel H1N1 flu and improving influenza surveillance and investigations.
Hospital Preparedness grants enhance the ability of hospitals and health care systems to prepare for and respond to public health emergencies. Local outbreaks of the novel H1N1 virus have produced a surge of patients at hospitals, and these grants will help ensure hospitals are ready for future outbreaks that may impact their community.
In addition to the grants released today, the Obama Administration has taken a series of steps to help prepare and protect the American people from the novel H1N1 flu. In May of this year, HHS distributed 11 million treatment courses of antivirals to states, territories and tribes to fight the H1N1 influenza outbreak.
Also in May, HHS invested more than $1 billion to produce bulk supplies of key vaccine ingredients as part of the process to develop and test a potential H1N1 vaccine.
The Administration has upgraded and expanded http://www.flu.gov/, which includes guidance that community leaders and the American people need to prepare for, prevent, and respond to the H1N1 flu virus.
The Obama Administration has also launched a new public service announcement competition. Any American can record and submit his or her own public service announcement regarding H1N1 flu preparedness by visiting http://www.flu.gov/. The entries will be judged by experts and the winner will receive a $2,500 prize and the opportunity to have his or her announcement aired on television across the country.
Source: Press Release, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
HHS Press Office: 202-690-6343
Los Angeles Times - California is eligible to receive $31 million in federal grants meant to fight potential cases of the H1N1 influenza virus during the fall flu season, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced today.
The grant is funded by a supplemental appropriations bill recently passed by Congress and signed into law last month by President Obama.
The announcement came a day after Sebelius hosted a summit on the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu. The meeting was attended by representatives from state, tribal, territorial and local governments from across the country.
Officials at the California Department of Public Health could not be reached for comment because of a state office furlough.
According to statistics on the state health agency’s website, as of Thursday there were 1,945 confirmed cases of H1N1 infections. Thirty-two people in California have died as a result of the virus, and there have been 287 hospitalizations, the website reports.
The grants are aimed at giving states “valuable resources to step up their flu preparedness efforts,” Sebelius said in a written statement. “We must remain vigilant and do all we can to prepare our nation and protect public health...”
Associated Press - The Obama administration put the states on notice Thursday: Swine flu vaccinations are likely to be ready this fall with the looming threat of the disease's resurgence, so figure out now how to deliver them.
"We want to make sure we are not promoting panic but we are promoting vigilance and preparation," President Barack Obama said in a phone call from Italy to the National Institutes of Health, where his Cabinet officials were leading a swine flu summit with 500 state and local officials.
No final decision has been made on vaccination, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the meeting.
But studies with experimental doses of the new swine flu vaccine are set to start in early August to see if they're safe and seem to work. If all goes well, some vaccine could start to roll out in mid-October, she said.
Probably first in line for shots would be school-age children, young adults with risky conditions like asthma, pregnant women and health workers, she added. "We need your help now to prepare" so those shots actually get to people's arms, Sebelius told state officials.
Only limited amounts of vaccine will be available at first, but she warned that even a modest vaccination campaign "will involve extraordinary efforts throughout this country." Swine flu may have faded from the headlines but it's still sickening people in the U.S. and especially abroad and is almost certain to worsen when influenza-friendly fall temperatures arrive. "We must avoid complacency," Sebelius said.
The government estimates that 1 million Americans so far have been infected with the never-before-seen virus known formally by its scientific family name, H1N1.
No longer do many public health experts warn of the new virus' "return" in the fall. Summer's heat and humidity usually chase away influenza, but the swine flu has never left. Children are spreading it in summer camps - 50 outbreaks documented so far - and U.S. deaths have reached 170.
It has spread worldwide, and is causing serious problems in parts of the Southern Hemisphere, where it's currently flu season. In the U.S., even if the virus doesn't mutate to become more dangerous, greater spread is considered inevitable as students return to crowded classrooms and temperatures drop - and regular winter flu makes its own return.
"This fall, it's daunting, all that will be required," said Paul Jarris, executive director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
At the top of his worry list is finding enough workers for two vaccination campaigns.
The 100 million-plus doses of regular winter flu vaccine are set for the usual October inoculation start. But those shots won't protect against swine flu.
Looking back at school closings that disrupted the spring, communities also are struggling to determine when such a drastic step - one that has the chain reaction of parents missing work - is necessary.
A key theme to Thursday's summit: Consider now how your family would handle a disruption even bigger than what happened last spring when the outbreak began. To spur those discussions, HHS will host a contest - at www.flu.gov - for the best anti-flu video to turn into a national public service announcement.
Washington Post - School-age children will be a key target population for a pandemic flu vaccine in the fall, and they may be vaccinated at school in a mass campaign not seen since the polio epidemics of the 1950s.
The federal government should get about 100 million doses of vaccine by mid-October, if the current production by five companies goes as planned. But enough vaccine for wide use by the 120 million people especially vulnerable to the newly emerged strain of H1N1 influenza virus will not be available until later in the fall.
Those were among the messages administration officials delivered to about 500 state, territorial, city and tribal health officials yesterday at a "flu summit" at the National Institutes of Health's Bethesda campus.
President Obama, speaking by audio link from the Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, urged "complete ownership" of preparations for what he termed a "significant outbreak" of H1N1 flu in the next few months.
Health alerts were declared in several countries since the
outbreak began in earlier this year.
The recent outbreak of dengue fever is being portrayed by the media
as a fortuitous reemergence of the disease in Florida and elsewhere
in the United States after 75 years.
Dengue fever is a virus-based disease spread by the bites of
mosquitoes. It can be caused by any one of four separate but related
viruses carried by infected mosquitoes, most commonly the mosquito
Aedes aegypti, found in tropic and subtropic areas.
Dengue fever has been the intense focus of
U.S. army and CIA
biological warfare researchers for over fifty years. As early as the
1950s, the army’s Fort Detrick in partnership with the CIA launched
a multi-million dollar research program under which dengue fever and
several addition exotic diseases were studied for use in offensive
biological warfare attacks.
A University of Illinois international law professor Francis Boyle
charged the Fort Detrick work would include,
“acquiring, growing,
modifying, storing, packaging and dispersing classical, emerging and
genetically engineered pathogens.”
Those activities, as well as
planned study of the properties of pathogens when weaponized,
In early 2009, Czech newspapers questioned if the shocking
discovery
of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were
distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part
of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.
Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 - otherwise known as the
human form of avian flu, one of the most deadly biological weapons
on earth with a 60% kill rate - were received by labs in the Czech
Republic, Germany, and Slovenia.
The swine flu H1N1 virus had
three parents from two continents and
appeared suddenly without warning, evading all routine flu
surveillance and quarantine; sequence data suggest it may have been
created from a faulty vaccine given to pigs in North America.
The CDC isolated and genetically altered (engineered) the H1N1 flu
virus so that it could be used to make hundreds of millions of doses
of the bio-terrorism agent. The new genetically engineered (novel)
A-H1N1 virus then contained a lethal combination of bacteria,
viruses, and toxins.
When we lose our economic security, we also lose our freedom and are forced to survive any way we can. The subliminal, one-world religion is self-preservation — the survival instinct. It's basic to human nature. The Bible shows a coming world leader who will exploit this self-preservation instinct and will bring this religion to its logical conclusion. And, if possible, even some of the very elect will be deceived by this appeal to their pocketbook and personal security.
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1 KJV)
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32 KJV)
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephesians 6:12 KJV)
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