[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)
Showing posts with label Swine Flu and Other Pandemics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Swine Flu and Other Pandemics. Show all posts
March 18, 2020
Coronavirus Lockdown (Don't Take the Vaccine)
Pass Me a 🅲🅾🆁🅾🅽🅰 👑
March 27, 2020
ODD TV
Bill Gates, TED 2010 Conference: "The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent."
In 2015, Bill Gates gave an eight-minute TED Talk called "The Next Outbreak? We're Not Ready," which is now going viral as it seems to have chillingly predicted the coronavirus pandemic.
Here's Bill Gates patent on a Coronavirus strain, filed in 2015.
June 28, 2017–For the first time, the World Bank bonds are being used to finance efforts against infectious diseases, and the first time that pandemic risk in low-income countries is being transferred to the financial markets.
February 7, 2018–“I can tell you he point blank refused to vaccinate them as children,” Gates private physician said at a behind-closed-doors medical symposium, adding: “They were gorgeous kids, really smart and vivacious, and he said they didn’t need any shots.”
The World in 2020 Economist Cover
MMG invest
Nov 28, 2019
Coronavirus: What Has It Revealed?
Russell Brand
Mar 16, 2020
Je nsz wrote:
"This is something other than fear. Event 201, Global Pandemic, was a meeting in October 2019 in New York City. Attending were Bill and Melinda Gates, World Health Organization, World Bank, World Economic Forum, CIA, CDC, United Nations, NBC, Bloomberg news, etc. They all have an agenda. This crisis is no accident. World Bank launches first ever Pandemic bonds in 2017. Coronavirus is patented by the Pirbright Institute, partially funded by the Gates Foundation.
"Everyone is so blinded by fear they are calling for freedoms to be stripped. China has more power and control over their citizens now compared to before this virus. The same is happening globally as we speak. They use safety as a reason to control. Just like terrorism was used as a reason to spy on everyone. Ultimately everyday people will suffer from all this. The virus itself is a bad flu that’s being amped up to something it isn’t.
The Ripple Effect~The Systematic Shutdown Of America w TheTruthSeeker69
Brian Staveley
THE HIDDEN AGENDA FOR THE WORLDWIDE SHUTDOWN
Streamed live on Mar 15, 2020
The Fullerton Informer
Joe imbriano
PO BOX 4121
FULLERTON CA 92834
"The truth about mobile phone and wireless radiation: what we know, what we need to find out, and what you can do now,"
presented by Dr Devra Davis, Visiting Professor of Medicine at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, and Visiting Professor of Medicine at Ondokuz Mayis University, Turkey.
What are the health effects of mobile phones and wireless radiation? In this Dean’s Lecture, epidemiologist and electromagnetic radiation expert, Dr Devra Davis, will outline the evolution of the mobile phone and smartphone, and provide a background to the current 19-year- old radiation safety standards (SAR), policy developments and international legislation. New global studies on the health consequences of mobile/wireless radiation will be presented, including children’s exposure and risks.
THIS
LISTEN TO THEM!
"We've been to Iraq. We've been to Afghanistan. We know what these wars are really about...our enemies are not in the poorest countries on the planet but right here in the richest one." pic.twitter.com/zlkIAsdTAt
BRACE YOURSELF (Excerpt)
JUNE 26, 2020 5:12 PM
DANA COVERSTONE
LIVINGWORDMINISTRIESAG.ORG
I believe that we’re not just going to see a second huge wave of Covid between September, October, November, but we're going to see:
Major things with the elections,…
Major chaos in our country.
Troops in our cities.
Protests get even worse,
Buildings burn.
Civil war in this country.
And so for my friends that are believers … I’m just going to show that what I think you need to hear.
First of all, you need to be preparing food.
Make sure you’ve got alternative forms of currency like silver or gold or whatever.
I believe you need to have an ample supply of both guns and ammunition. That’s not just the Second Amendment fan of me coming out, that is the things that we’re seeing. They are talking about defunding the police. That means one thing … you’re on your own a lot of areas.
I also believe you need to be praying like you never prayed before.
Make sure your family knows what’s going on, where you are have some sort of communication between your family about if certain things happen if certain things go down.
I’m not saying, get off the grid, and I’ve never ever said anything like this in my church. I have said I believe that this could happen but I’ve never done what I’m doing right now.
I’m telling you that between September and November of this coming year. And by the time we get to November and nothing’s happened … man you call you call me on this and say .. you are an absolute idiot and a fool for saying those things.
Go right ahead.
I realize I’m responsible for what I’ve spoken. I also know what I sense and I know the Holy Spirit’s voice enough to know that what I’ve heard.
I believe is going to happen. What I heard in December happened between March and June.
Not because I’m a prophet, because dreams have a prophetic edge to them sometimes. I’ve been doing a whole series on dreams and visions I’m gonna finish that series up tonight on my our church and going to talk about why dreams and visions are literally an extension of the spiritual gifts at first Corinthians chapter 12, because we’re a wisdom or a knowledge the servant all those things are required for dreams.
And I pray Lord show me what these things mean that I have seen show me how to interpret them and what they are and right now as I speak this it is it was June 24th Wednesday night at 5:30 p.m. in Burkesville Kentucky. I’m in my office at the church, Limor ministries in Birch Hill Kentucky, sharing this not to scare you because I believe. You know, look, God gave the prophets of the Old Testament a lot of warnings - not to scare people but to prepare them for what was coming.
And sometimes I’m challenging you: don’t just throw my word away, don’t just think I’m some some preacher trying to get people to come. That’s not it either because, look, the Bible says last day is a bit great falling away. Jesus tells people to endure to the end. Make sure you endure to the end. Why? Because people when endure sound doctrine they’re gonna hear something, you know, some of you hear me and go oh man he is on drugs or something.
I’m just telling you the dreams I have had. You can interpret them the way that you want to, but I’m going to declare that I believe we’re gonna see, between September and November, incredible terrible awful nasty bad things happen in this nation.
And for the people who are not prepared for it, it’s not just gonna catch them, catch them in a bad place, it’s gonna destroy a lot of faith, a lot of harlot relationships, a lot of people it’s gonna. The aim is to kill this nation because right now we’re a nation that stands in the way of a lot of the Antichrist principles like freedom, liberty, justice, First Amendment, Second Amendment. Thus, Antichrist doesn’t want those things; and, yes, I do believe the Antichrist is alive and well on planet Earth.
And I don’t like, I don’t I don’t really care what people think about this video. You can call me whatever you want, you can say whatever you want about me, but wait til December first to say it. And if I’m wrong I’ll be the first one to come out and say, folks I don’t know what I was thinking.
I’ve never had two dreams like this. I’ve never had a part 1 part 2. Part 1 came fully true. Part 2 I believe will as well, so heed my words, folks. Believers, stop messing around - if you’re not living for the Lord like you need to - because the press, there’s an Olive Press moment coming for the church in this country, an olive press moment. And we’re gonna get crushed and squeezed and pushed down. That’s why I believe God keeps saying, brace herself. He’s this to me, so I can say to you, brace yourself for the things that are coming. Endure to the end no matter how hard it gets. I’m not giving up the faith that I have in Christ I’ve come too far on this walk and too far in my life to do that, but I want to make sure that others don’t make that mistake and don’t just walk away from it. Take up the cross, deny yourself, and follow him.
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.
The first patients in the queue for the jab - being supplied to the UK by GSK and Baxter Healthcare - may understandably be a little nervous at any possible side effects. A mass vaccination campaign against swine flu in America was halted in the 1970s after some people suffered Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disorder of the nervous system.
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.
The above is quite a sensational headline for 1,590 cases in the U.S., which is hardly a epidemic, but, of course, that's what government officials are telling us to scare us into accepting massive aerial spraying of chemicals
August 29, 2012
Reuters - A total of 1,590 U.S. cases of West Nile virus, including 66 deaths, have been reported through late August this year, the highest human toll reported since the mosquito-borne disease was first detected in the country in 1999, health officials said on Wednesday.
The toll is rising quickly and "we think the numbers will continue to rise," said Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of the U .S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's D ivision of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases.
Through last week, 1,118 cases and 41 deaths had been reported, and the updated figures represent a 40 percent in crease in the number of cases and a 61 percent spike in the number of deaths.
In hard-hit Texas, the number of confirmed cases soared to 733, up 197 from last week, said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services. Deaths reached 31, up 10 from last week.
"It looks like it is going to be our worst year ever," said Lakey. "As I look at the data, I'm not convinced we have peaked."
August 11, 2012
West Nile Virus Outbreak in Dallas County, Texas; Five Planes Spraying Insecticide
AP - Suffering from the nation's deadliest outbreak of West Nile virus this year, Dallas County authorized aerial spraying of insecticide on Friday for the first time in nearly five decades to help fight the mosquito-born illness.
Texas' second most populous county announced the decision after its leaders met with the state's top health official and experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 90 cases of the most severe form of West Nile have been confirmed in the county so far, nine residents have died, and the virus' peak season is just beginning.
"This is a matter of extreme concern, and we're going to follow the science and do what's best for our people," said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, the county's top elected official.
Five planes have been requested for spraying the heavily populated northern part of Dallas as well as the nearby enclaves of Highland Park and University Park — the most affected areas — but they won't be used until leaders in those jurisdictions approve, said Jenkins, who urged the cities to allow the planes in.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and officials from the other cities said they plan to meet with other city, county and state officials and industry experts early next week to decide how to proceed.
Jenkins on Thursday declared a public health emergency. Three nearby counties have reported one death each.
There is no vaccine for the virus, which has been in the U.S. since about 1999, according to the CDC. The virus, which most often affects people over 50, can cause high fevers, headaches and disorientation.
Public health officials typically advise residents of mosquito-prone areas to drain standing water, apply insect repellent containing the ingredient DEET and wear long-sleeve shirts and long pants. But officials at Friday's meeting said it's clear that those warnings and ongoing ground-based spraying aren't enough.
"It seems like the avoidance strategy is not working, so now you have to kill the bug," said Dr. Rick Snyder, president of the Dallas County Medical Society.
The Texas Department of State Health Services this year has tracked 214 cases of neuroinvasive West Nile, the most serious form of the illness, including 89 in Dallas County.Noting that the peak season for the illness is just beginning, agency officials said they fear the state will break the record number for such cases — 438 — reported in 2003.
"This is a major outbreak," said Dr. David Lakey, the department's commissioner. "People need to do all they can to protect themselves."
Aerial spraying is controversial. Some fear health effects from chemicals falling on them from the sky, and others have questioned whether the approach was scientifically proven to stop West Nile cases.
But at least one study in California has concluded that the odds of infection are about six times lower in treated areas than those that are untreated.
The American Mosquito Control Association doesn't keep exact statistics, but an association spokesman said spraying is common in Florida, and ongoing programs exist in other states including Louisiana, New Jersey, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan and Minnesota.
The Texas health agency said the intensity of the disease fluctuates from year to year in the state depending on factors such as weather and the number of birds and mosquitoes that spread it.
The large number of West Nile cases this year is due to the extremely hot weather and recent rains, according to the agency.
July 28, 2012
Ebola Virus Outbreak in Uganda Kills 14
Ebola spreads by contact when you contact each other physically... avoid shaking of hands, because that can cause contact through sweat, which can cause problems. Do not take on burying somebody who has died from symptoms that look like Ebola -- instead call health workers because they know how to do it... avoid promiscuity because this sickness can also go through sex. "I appeal to you to first of all report all cases which appear to be like Ebola, and these are high fever, vomiting, sometimes diarrhoea, and with bleeding," Uganda's president Museveni said. "When you handle this case well you can eliminate Ebola quickly."
According to experts, despite being extremely virulent the disease is containable because it kills its victims faster than it can spread to new ones. It has a fatality ratio of between 23 and 90 percent, according to the WHO.
The rare haemorrhagic disease, named after a small river in DR Congo, killed 37 people in western Uganda in 2007 and at least 170 in the north of the country in 2000. However, Museveni said that the virus had not been immediately identified this time, resulting in a delay. "The bleeding which normally accompanies Ebola did not take place initially among these patients," he said, adding that health workers at first did not therefore realise what the problem was. "Because of that delay the sickness spread."
Ebola is characterised by the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat, often followed by vomiting, diarrhoea and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding, according to the WHO. It spreads by direct contact with the blood or other body fluids of infected persons. [Source]
AP - The deadly Ebola virus has killed 14 people in western Uganda this month, Ugandan health officials said on Saturday, ending weeks of speculation about the cause of a strange disease that had many people fleeing their homes.
The officials and a World Health Organization representative told a news conference in Kampala Saturday that there is "an outbreak of Ebola" in Uganda.
"Laboratory investigations done at the Uganda Virus Research Institute...have confirmed that the strange disease reported in Kibaale is indeed Ebola hemorrhagic fever," the Ugandan government and WHO said in joint statement.
Kibaale is a district in mid-western Uganda, where people in recent weeks have been troubled by a mysterious illness that seemed to have come from nowhere. Ugandan health officials had been stumped as well, and spent weeks conducting laboratory tests that were at first inconclusive.
On Friday, Joaquim Saweka, the WHO representative in Uganda, told The Associated Press that investigators were "not so sure" it was Ebola, and a Ugandan health official dismissed the possibility of Ebola as merely a rumor. It appears firm evidence of Ebola was clinched overnight.
Health officials told reporters in Kampala that the 14 dead were among 20 reported with the disease. Two of the infected have been isolated for examination by researchers and health officials. A clinical officer and, days later, her 4-month-old baby died from the disease caused by the Ebola virus, officials said.
The officials urged Ugandans to be calm, saying a national emergency taskforce had been set up to stop the disease from spreading far and wide.
There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola,and in Uganda, where in 2000 the disease killed 224 people and left hundreds more traumatized, it resurrects terrible memories.
Ebola, which manifests itself as a hemorrhagic fever, is highly infectious and kills quickly.It was first reported in 1976 in Congo and is named for the river where it was recognized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Scientists don't know the natural reservoir of the virus, but they suspect the first victim in an Ebola outbreak gets infected through contact with an infected animal, such as a monkey.
The virus can be transmitted in several ways, including through direct contact with the blood of an infected person. During communal funerals, for example, when the bereaved come into contact with an Ebola victim, the virus can be contracted, officials said, warning against unnecessary contact with suspected cases of Ebola.
The Lookout - Chagas, a tropical disease spread by insects, is causing some fresh concern following an editorial—published earlier this week in a medical journal—that called it "the new AIDS of the Americas."
More than 8 million people have been infected by Chagas, most of them in Latin and Central America. But more than 300,000 live in the United States.
The editorial, published by the Public Library of Science's Neglected Tropical Diseases, said the spread of the disease is reminiscent of the early years of HIV.
"There are a number of striking similarities between people living with Chagas disease and people living with HIV/AIDS," the authors wrote, "particularly for those with HIV/AIDS who contracted the disease in the first two decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic."
Both diseases disproportionately affect people living in poverty, both are chronic conditions requiring prolonged, expensive treatment, and as with patients in the first two decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, "most patients with Chagas disease do not have access to health care facilities."
"It likes to bite you on the face," CNN reported. "It's called the kissing bug. When it ingests your blood, it excretes the parasite at the same time. When you wake up and scratch the itch, the parasite moves into the wound and you're infected."
"Gaaah," Cassie Murdoch wrote on Jezebel.com, summing up the sentiment of everyone who read the journal's report.
Chagas, also known as American trypanosomiasis, kills about 20,000 people per year, the journal said.
And while just 20 percent of those infected with Chagas develop a life-threatening form of the disease, Chagas is "hard or impossible to cure," the Times reports:
The disease can be transmitted from mother to child or by blood transfusion. About a quarter of its victims eventually will develop enlarged hearts or intestines, which can fail or burst, causing sudden death. Treatment involves harsh drugs taken for up to three months and works only if the disease is caught early.
"The problem is once the heart symptoms start, which is the most dreaded complication—the Chagas cardiomyopathy—the medicines no longer work very well," Dr. Peter Hotez, a researcher at Baylor College of Medicine and one of the editorial's authors, told CNN. "Problem No. 2: the medicines are extremely toxic."
And 11 percent of pregnant women in Latin America are infected with Chagas, the journal said.
May 22, 2012
Another Case of Deadly Flesh-eating Disease in Georgia
Good Morning America - A Georgia landscaper is battling flesh-eating disease at the same Augusta hospital as Aimee Copeland, the 24-year-old student who lost her leg to the deadly infection.
Robert Vaughn, 32, contracted necrotizing fasciitis after cutting on his thigh while trimming weeds May 4, three days after Aimee Copeland sliced open her calf falling from a homemade zip line near the Little Tallapoosa River.
Vaughn went to a hospital in Cartersville, Ga., where doctors gave him a prescription for antibiotics and recommended he stay for observation, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. But Vaughn, "being the man that I am," went home and watched the painful gash swell from the size of a peanut to that of a grapefruit.
He returned the next day and underwent emergency surgery.
"It was that bad," he told the newspaper, describing how doctors removed some of the infected flesh and sent him to Doctor's Hospital in Augusta for more surgeries. "They told me I was close to death."
It took five surgeries to remove more than two pounds of tissue infected by bacteria that burrowed deep into Vaughn's wound.
"The bacteria produce enzymes that can dissolve muscle deep down," said Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., and president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. "And because it's so deep, it can be a sneaky infection that's not immediately appreciated by the patient."
"An otherwise healthy individual with a seemingly superficial injury who has severe pain should have a much more thorough evaluation," he said.
Indeed Vaughn said the pain was so bad he "could hardly move," the AJC reported.
Vaughn is expected to undergo skin grafts today to replace some of the tissue removed during surgery.
"They have to rebuild my groin area," he told the AJC. "But I'm feeling much better now."
Vaughn was at one point next door to Copeland, who is slowly recovering from the infection that claimed her left leg and threatens to take her right foot and both hands. The two cases occurred 54 miles apart.
"Ironic? I don't know what the right word is," Jeff Buzhardt, Vaughn's brother-in-law, told ABC News.
Copeland's infection was the work of Aeromonas hydrophila, a bacteria that thrives in warm climates and fresh water like the river where Copeland was zip lining with friends. The bacteria that caused Vaughn's infection is unclear. Calls to Doctor's Hospital were not immediately returned.
Vaughn is the third person to contract flesh-eating disease in Georgia in three weeks. Lana Kuykendall, 36, developed necrotizing fasciitis May 11 after giving birth to twins at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. She is reportedly in critical but stable condition.
Doctors say the cases are rare and unrelated.
To reduce the risk of necrotizing fasciitis, all wounds big and small should be immediately cleaned, treated with antimicrobial ointment and covered with sterile bandages, according to the National Necrotizing Fasciitis Foundation.
May 16, 2012
Super-bugs Mutate in India, Rendering Antibiotics Impotent
Natural News - It is no longer a secret that drug-resistant bacteria are rapidly emerging and spreading all around the world as a result of the continued overuse and abuse of antibiotic drugs in both conventional medicine and industrial agriculture. But now it appears that the genes responsible for spawning these so-called “superbugs” are also spreading, and turning otherwise mild conditions such as throat infections into deadly killers.
Known as NDM-1, or New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1, these genes basically hitch a ride on mobile DNA loops known as plasmids, and latch themselves onto various bacteria whenever and wherever they find an opportunity. The end result of this parasite-like invasion into bacteria is that even largely innocuous microbes can become extremely virulent and fully able to outsmart even the strongest antibiotic drugs available.
“Things as common as strep throat or a child’s scratched knee could once again kill,” said Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) at a recent meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, about the phenomenon. “Hip replacements, organ transplants, cancer chemotherapy and care of preterm infants would become far more difficult or even too dangerous to undertake.”
According to a recent report by Bloomberg, the spread of NDM-1 and antibiotic-resistant superbugs has become so extreme that even beneficial bacterial, also commonly referred to as “probiotics” or “gut microflora,” are being affected as well. And as long as antibiotics continue to be abused in the careless way that they now are globally, the situation will only worsen over time until eventually even the most minor infections and injuries become fatal.
“If this latest bug becomes entrenched in our hospitals, there is really nothing we can turn to,” said Donald E. Low, head of the public health lab in Toronto, Ontario. “Its potential is to be probably greater than any other organism.”
How you can help fight antibiotic-resistant superbugs
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Besides raising awareness about the issue and pushing for a complete moratorium on antibiotic drug use, there is little that can be done on a large scale to effectively stop the spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.But there are some simple steps you can personally take to help you and your family avoid superbug infection.
*If you eat meat, purchase only pasture-raised, antibiotic- and hormone-free varieties. Conventional meat from animals raised in confined feedlots is often loaded with antibiotics, chemicals and other toxins that can exacerbate the superbug problems. By consuming only grass-fed, organic meats, you and your family will avoid repeated exposure to meat-based antibiotics and any superbugs that might be living in it.
*Avoid taking antibiotic drugs, and instead try colloidal silver, garlic, coconut oil and other natural antibiotics. Instead of taking prescribed antibiotics for every minor ailment, which is contributing greatly to the spread of superbugs in society today, try boosting you and your family’s immune systems with bacteria-resistant superfoods. You can also promote healthy bacterial growth that naturally fights off the deadly kind by drinking kombucha tea and eating kefir, yogurt, and other probiotic foods.
*Educate your friends and neighbors about drug-resistant superbugs, and the dangers of antibiotic overuse. Many people are simply unaware of how antibiotic drug abuse is contributing to the rise of deadly superbugs. By sharing this information with your friends and neighbors, and teaching them about how to boost their immune systems naturally with herbs, superfoods, clean water, organic produce, and probiotics, you can help to bring about real change on a societal scale.
Reuters - On New Year's Eve 2004, after months of losing weight and suffering fevers, night sweats and shortness of breath, student Anna Wattersonwas taken into hospital coughing up blood.
It was strange to be diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) - an ancient disease associated with poverty - especially since Watterson was a well-off trainee lawyer living in the affluent British capital of London. Yet it was also a relief, she says, finally to know what had been making her ill for so long.
But when Watterson's infection refused to yield to the three-pronged antibiotic attack doctors prescribed to fight it, her relief turned to dread.
After six weeks of taking pills that had no effect, Watterson was told she had multi-drug resistant TB, or MDR-TB, and faced months in an isolation ward on a regimen of injected drugs that left her nauseous, bruised and unable to go out in the sun.
"My friends were really shocked," Watterson said. "Most of them had only heard of TB from reading Victorian novels."
Tuberculosis is often seen in the wealthy West as a disease of bygone eras - evoking impoverished 18th or 19th century women and children dying slowly of a disease then commonly known as "consumption" or the "white plague".
But rapidly rising rates of drug-resistant TB in some of the wealthiest cities in the world, as well as across Africa and Asia, are again making history.
London has been dubbed the "tuberculosis capital of Europe", and a startling recent study documenting new cases of so-called "totally drug resistant" TB in India suggests the modern-day tale of this disease could get a lot worse.
"We can't afford this genie to get out of the bag. Because once it has, I don't know how we'll control TB," said Ruth McNerney, an expert on tuberculosis at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
INTERNATIONAL ALARM
TB is a bacterial infection that destroys patients' lung tissue, making them cough and sneeze, and spread germs through the air. Anyone with active TB can easily infect another 10 to 15 people a year.
In 2010, 8.8 million people had TB, and the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) has predicted that more than 2 million people will contract multi-drug resistant TB by 2015. The worldwide TB death rate currently runs at between two and three people a minute.
Little surprise, then, that the apparently totally untreatable cases in India have raised international alarm.
The WHO has convened a special meeting on Wednesday to discuss whether the emergence of TB strains that seem to be resistant to all known medicines merits a new class definition of "totally drug-resistant TB", or TDR-TB.
If so, it would add a new level to an evolution over the years from normal TB, which is curable with six months of antibiotic treatment, to the emergence of MDR-TB, then extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB).
What's so frustrating about that progression, says Lucica Ditiu of the WHO's Stop TB Partnership, is that all drug-resistant TB "is a totally man-made disease".
Like other bacteria, the TB bug Mycobacterium tuberculosis can evolve to fight its way past antibiotic medicines. The more treatment courses patients are given and fail to complete, the stronger and more widespread the resistance becomes.
"The doctors, the healthcare workers, the nurses, entire healthcare systems have produced MDR-TB. It's not a bug that has come from nature. It's not a spontaneous mutation. It came about because patients were treated badly -- either with poor quality drugs, or not enough drugs, or with insufficient observation so the patient didn't finish the treatment course," said Ditiu.
Ditiu is somewhat reassured that the WHO is meeting to look at recent extreme cases of drug-resistance, which will at least throw a spotlight on this often-forgotten disease. But she says while definitions are central to international guidelines and treatment protocols, they make little difference to sick people.
"What is much more important is the drama and tragedy of the human beings. Whether it's MDR, XDR or TDR TB, it doesn't make much difference to the patients. A lot of them will face a very, very unfortunate fate."
WHEN THE DRUGS DON'T WORK
The situation in India is a case in point.
Dr Zarir Udwadia, a tuberculosis specialist at the Hinduja National Hospital in Mumbai, published a paper in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal late last year documenting four cases of TDR-TB. He told Reuters he has now identified 12 cases for which he has all but run out of treatment options. Three are already dead.
He has tested one powerful anti-TB drug after another on samples cultured from these patients - including first-line treatments like isoniazid, rifampicin and streptomycin, and a range of second line drugs like moxifloxacin, kanamycin and ethionamide. Each medicine failed.
"If you add it all up, they were resistant to 12 drugs in total," he said.
Like others, Udwadia blames poor medical practice.
Non-prescription and over-the-counter antibiotic use is rife in India and it may be no coincidence that the country now has one of the highest burdens on MDR-TB in the world, with more than 100,000 cases.
Udwadia's team conducted a recent study in Mumbai, home to more than 12 million people often living in harsh and overcrowded conditions, and found in one district only five out of 106 doctors in the unregulated private sector could give a correct prescription for a hypothetical patient with MDR-TB.
Most of the prescriptions were "inappropriate" and would only have made the patient worse - driving the conversion of MDR tuberculosis to XDR and then to TDR tuberculosis.
The Mumbai findings show that totally drug-resistant TB "was an accident waiting to happen," Udwadia said.
"To get to this stage, you have to have amplified resistance over years, with loads of misuse of (antibiotic) drugs. And no other country throws around second-line drugs as freely as India has been doing."
SPREAD
That might suggest countries that use antibiotics more prudently should be less vulnerable. Experts are not convinced, and history suggests otherwise.
One of the biggest difficulties in tackling TB is the ease and speed with which it spreads. When patients cough, sneeze or spit, they propel thousands of germ-carrying droplets into the air around them. With people travelling the world in confined spaces, a disease like TB can easily hitch a ride.
A good example is extensively drug resistant TB, which first hit world headlines during an outbreak in South Africa in 2006.Barely four years later in 2010, the WHO said drug-resistant tuberculosis was at "record levels" worldwide and a total of 58 countries had reported at least one case of XDR-TB.
Ditiu fears a similar pattern could emerge with TDR-TB.
"It is spreading, it's spreading as we speak right now," she said. "The situation is extremely worrying."
Anna Watterson, who took 19 months "out of normal life" for her MDR-TB to be successfully treated but still qualified as a barrister and now works in London's law courts, can't be sure where she picked up her infection.
At the time she was living in the northwest borough of Brent, an area of London with a large immigrant community and pockets of poverty. Like millions of others in the British capital, she commuted on the Tube underground train system most days.
Watterson had also travelled to India a couple of years earlier, and since TB can lie dormant for long periods, it's also possible she may have contracted it there.
"You can't be isolated from the rest of the world," she said. "We've become too complacent about TB, thinking that it's gone away. But the reality is that until it goes away in the developing world, it's not going away anywhere."
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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