Flu Natural Remedies
How far will feds go to inject you with swine-flu shot?
CDC spends $16 million on ‘outreach’ to convince Americans to get vaccine
From World Net Daily:
Concerns about possible side effects

“However, in a study conducted at the University of Hong Kong, the British Medical Journal reported that less than half of 8,500 doctors and nurses in public hospitals will accept vaccination against the swine flu – even following increases in the World Health Organization’s pandemic alert level.

The study revealed, “The major barriers identified were fear of side effects and doubts about efficacy.”

Nonetheless, federal authorities are preparing to launch a nationwide campaign to convince Americans to get the swine flu vaccine, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Government officials have expressed concern that public demand for immunization will not be high enough.

“Many parents (in focus groups) expressed a lot of concerns about 2009 H1N1 vaccine. Those concerns were centered around the fact that it was new and it was being developed quickly,” said Kris Sheedy, a communications director with the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “There were comments such as ‘this is new and I don’t want my child to be a guinea pig.'”

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the government will spend “about $16 million on outreach to convince people of the need to get the swine flu vaccine.”

As WND reported, alarmist language over possible outbreaks of swine flu as well as a series of moves by the federal government are fueling fears federal agents will soon be forcing citizens to be vaccinated – prompting the Constitution Party to launch a pre-emptive defense against any such effort.

The Constitution Party, a fast-growing alternative to the dominant Democratic and Republican parties in many elections, has come out strongly in opposition to any “mandatory injections” of “potential toxic (H1N1) ‘swine flu’ vaccine.”

Condemnation also has come from Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who cited the swine flu vaccination program in 1976. The effort killed more than two dozen people – not from the flu but from the vaccine.

Paul said he was concerned that “nearly $8 billion will be spent to address a ‘potential pandemic flu’ which could result in mandatory vaccinations for no discernable reason other than to enrich the pharmaceutical companies that make the vaccine.”

The letter from the Health Protection Agency, the official body that oversees public health, has been leaked to The Mail on Sunday, leading to demands to know why the information has not been given to the public before the vaccination of millions of people, including children, begins.

It tells the neurologists that they must be alert for an increase in a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine.
GBS attacks the lining of the nerves, causing paralysis and inability to breathe, and can be fatal.

The letter, sent to about 600 neurologists on July 29, is the first sign that there is concern at the highest levels that the vaccine itself could cause serious complications.

It refers to the use of a similar swine flu vaccine in the United States in 1976 when:
More people died from the vaccination than from swine flu.
500 cases of GBS were detected.
The vaccine may have increased the risk of contracting GBS by eight times.
The vaccine was withdrawn after just ten weeks when the link with GBS became clear.

The US Government was forced to pay out millions of dollars to those affected.
Concerns have already been raised that the new vaccine has not been sufficiently tested and that the effects, especially on children, are unknown.
It is being developed by pharmaceutical companies and will be given to about 13 million people during the first wave of immunisation, expected to start in October.
Top priority will be given to everyone aged six months to 65 with an underlying health problem, pregnant women and health professionals.

The British Neurological Surveillance Unit (BNSU), part of the British Association of Neurologists, has been asked to monitor closely any cases of GBS as the vaccine is rolled out.
One senior neurologist said last night: ‘I would not have the swine flu jab because of the GBS risk.’

And from another recent article located at Spiegel Online:
Germany
The Injection Business
How Safe Is the Swine Flu Vaccine?
By SPIEGEL Staff
Swine flu symptoms may generally be mild but in a bid to prevent a pandemic health officials and pharmaceutical companies are planning to administer a new, little-tested vaccine to millions of Germans. Meanwhile, officials in the United States are taking a more cautious approach to fighting the virus.
“…Does It Pose a Health Risk?

But the question is: Is it even advisable to get the supposedly protective vaccination as quickly as possible? Is the swine flu vaccine truly safe? Or does it pose a health risk?

To avoid being accused of doing nothing, government health officials are preparing a vaccination campaign unprecedented in scope. Last Friday, the health ministers of Germany’s states ordered 50 million doses of the vaccine from pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

But their plans do not call for the standard, tried-and-tested program of vaccinations that are administered to millions of Germans each year to combat the seasonal influenza virus. Instead, new types of vaccine production processes will be used, as well as new drugs designed to boost the immune system.

In addition, the vaccine serums have passed through a uniquely accelerated approval process at the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) in London. “What we are experiencing here is a large-scale experiment being conducted on the German population,” warns Wolfgang Becker-Brüser, the publisher of arznei telegram, a professional journal critical of the pharmaceutical industry.

When the plans for an accelerated mass vaccination were developed, this approach seemed justified. In 2004, a new type of killer bird flu virus known as H5N1 made headlines when it became known that the resulting illness was fatal in 60 percent of those infected. Fortunately, the virus has not (yet) proven to be highly contagious from human to human. But if the bird flu virus ever mutates, a pathogen could develop that will spread quickly and be extremely deadly. If that happens, accelerated vaccination will undoubtedly be preferable to no vaccination, all risks aside.

But the swine flu virus, or H1N1, has not proven to be a killer on anything like the same scale. Although more than 1,100 people had died from swine flu by last Friday, according to official figures, most of the victims were people with underlying conditions, in some cases severe. Pregnant women also appear to be among those at particularly high risk. In the vast majority of cases, however, the symptoms of the swine flu have been noticeably mild.”

…The Americans have good reason to be cautious. Their health officials still have uneasy memories of what the New York Times called the “swine flu fiasco” of 1976, when 13 soldiers at a military base contracted a new H1N1 virus and one of them died. Because of fears that the world could face a new flu pandemic almost as deadly as the 1918-1919 “Spanish flu,” more than 40 million people were immunized with a hurriedly produced vaccine.

The pandemic never materialized, but instead there were many reports of presumed vaccine complications. One that was particularly insidious was Guillain-Barré syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes paralysis in the legs and can lead to severe pulmonary complications.

That experience prompted the FDA to establish stricter standards for the approval of new vaccines, requiring manufacturers to conduct costly studies with thousands of volunteers. Given these regulations, it is only too convenient for drug companies when new vaccines and production processes to combat swine flu are tested on millions of Europeans. Indeed, instead of having to pay for testing, the drug companies stand to profit handsomely from this approach.

It is already clear that GlaxoSmithKline will be the greatest beneficiary of the swine flu. According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, one dose of vaccine will cost €8.33 ($11.9), and GSK stands to earn revenues upwards of €410 million ($588 million) in Germany alone.

Costs Could Reach €1 Billion

And then there is the cost of administering the vaccine on such a large scale, which will not be borne by the health ministers who have ordered the vaccine from the pharmaceutical companies, but by Germany’s health insurance agencies. This, at any rate, is the way German Minister of Health Ulla Schmidt, a Social Democrat, wants the cost issue to be handled. The “summary minutes” of a teleconference of state health ministers also call for the insurance companies to carry the full cost of vaccine administration.

The least expensive option, at least in cities, would be for public health agencies to implement the vaccination program. In that case, the authorities anticipate a markup of approximately €10 per person. It would cost an estimated two or three times as much if doctors in private practice administered the vaccinations and purchased the vaccine from pharmacies.

In the end, each of the German states will define its own procedure. Depending on how the vaccine is administered to the population, the program will cost the health insurance agencies between €650 million and upwards of a €1 billion for the amount of vaccine currently on order.

But things could actually turn out somewhat differently. Health insurance agencies will only pay for vaccines that are in fact administered, while the states will end up paying for unused doses. And perhaps the anticipated surge in demand for vaccinations will never materialize. “Imagine if we have a pandemic, and no one gets vaccinated,” says a ministry official from one of the eastern German states.”

MICHAEL FRÖHLINGSDORF, MARKUS GRILL, VERONIKA HACKENBROCH, GERALD TRAUFETTER
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
I’m not getting vaccinated, and neither are my children…

Jenny Hatch with Baby Allison in 1992
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