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Author Topic: DID THE FEDERAL GOV'T. HIDE A FLU EPIDEMIC IN 1993 AND WHY?  (Read 3305 times)

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Offline Tamet Gould

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DID THE FEDERAL GOV'T. HIDE A FLU EPIDEMIC IN 1993 AND WHY?
« on: September 27, 2009, 09:05:10 AM »
I found this extremely interesting and decided to post for yall to read too.   Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

By Bill Sardi
August 17, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

For decades now, since the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, US life expectancy has progressively risen. But federal government documents reveal a sudden unexplained increase in the US death rate in 1993, so severe as to cause a decline in US life expectancy for the first time in over 8 decades. Examine the chart below (Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2004 -- National Center for Health Statistics)

Nearly 93,000 more deaths were reported in 1993 than the previous year. My memory bank didn’t recall any outstanding disease or epidemic back then.

What was the cause of this severe increase in the death rate? I began to investigate.

Not caused by a non-infectious disease

The Monthly Vital Statistics Report said death rates for HIV infection (9.8%), COPD-chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (8.2%) and pneumonia/influenza (8.1%) rose steeply from 1992 to 1993. However, the ten leading causes of death didn’t change over that time period. The Centers for Disease Control said deaths due to heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), HIV infection and pneumonia/influenza as well as diabetes made the largest contributions to the overall mortality increase. The cause(s) of the increase in the death rate were spread among various diseases by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), far too broad to explain any single cause. Not a word was said about this startling setback in life expectancy.

But that same government document said some of these increases in chronic disease (diabetes, heart disease, COPD) were “the result of the two influenza epidemics of 1993.” [Page 9, Monthly Vital Statistics Report, Volume 44, No 7(S), Feb. 29, 1996]

1993: Two flu epidemics

What two flu epidemics is the report referring to?

A CDC review of mortality patterns in 1993 also states “the decline in life expectancy likely reflects increases in death rates for chronic disease during the two influenza outbreaks of 1993.” [Morbidity Mortality Weekly 45:08), 1161-64, March 1, 1996] There it is again, confirmation that two flu epidemics in the same year caused an increase in deaths with an admission it resulted in a decline in the life expectancy of Americans.

Timeline of historical flu outbreaks

Americans may be roughly familiar with the historical timeline of flu outbreaks provided in the chart below. The chart has been adapted to show the severity of each influenza outbreak and also the SARS coronavirus pandemic of 2003. I have added the 1993 flu outbreaks to the chart.

Note that the 1993 flu outbreak which resulted in nearly 93,000 more deaths than the prior year resulted in more deaths than the well-known Asian and Hong Kong flu pandemics and would be second only to the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 in comparable deaths. The Spanish flu had temporarily set back US life expectancy gains from 50.9 years to 39.1 years. Of course, this was the pre-antibiotic era. There were no anti-bacterial or anti-viral drugs then.

According to charts provided by the CDC and other health organizations, it’s as if there was no flu epidemic in the US in 1993. I had to dig deep into the health reports of that year to find further confirmation that it was the flu, and no other disease, that caused the American life expectancy to steeply decline for one year.

Data showed only 3,430 more deaths among HIV-infected residents then the prior year. [Morbidity Mortality 45: 121-25, 1996] Another study showed only 254 excess flu deaths among person with HIV for 1992-93 and only 191 the following year. [Archives Internal Medicine 161: 441-46, 2001] So HIV-infected persons, through at higher risk for death from the flu, cannot explain the unusual number of deaths attributed to influenza in 1993.

It’s also possible that flu vaccination rates declined in that year, but a quick search on Google found evidence to the contrary. Vaccination rates were rising while the flu outbreak of 1993 proceeded. (See chart below)

It struck elderly nursing home residents. But why?

So I began to re-read a government document I had flagged with a red paperclip during my investigation. A flu surveillance report published by the CDC states that the “1992-93 influenza season was dominated by influenza B, but increasing circulation of influenza A (H3N2) viruses toward the end of the season” which struck nursing home populations with deadly consequences.
For reference, type-A flu viruses are the most virulent and most common. Type B are less common but almost exclusively strike humans.

The report went on to say that influenza B viruses predominated early in the season and were mainly limited to school-age children, and “no excess mortality was observed.” Then sustained excess mortality began in mid-March of 1993 and coincided with outbreaks in nursing homes. [Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report 46: (SS1), 1-12, Jan 31, 1997]

Like the more recent swine flu outbreak which began in Mexico, the second flu bout in 1993 began late in the season.

For comparison, the Mexico swine flu virus began in March or April of 2009 whereas the second 1993 flu outbreak began in March and peaked even later in August and September. The pathogenic virus involved in 1993 was identified as Type A H3N2 A/Beijing/32/92 strain. [Morbidity Mortality Weekly March 18, 1994 / 43(10); 179-183]

Still, why would the government hide such an epidemic, particularly the second one in 1993? I had no clue.

Free flu shots begin in 1993

I had uncovered much of this information over two years ago. But the reason for the cover-up remained elusive until I read a Health & Human Services press release issued in 1999. It said that Medicare coverage for flu shots for the elderly began in 1993 as the Administration launched an effort to increase immunization rates among older adults. The shots were free for those enrolled in Medicare Part B. (Ive already posted the article below)

The big difference from prior years was that elderly Americans were getting free flu shots.

According to The Vaccine Guide (North Atlantic Books, 2002), during the 1992-1993 season, 84 percent of samples for the predominant type A virus in circulation in the US population were not similar to the virus in the vaccine. The flu vaccine that year would be largely worthless. But that wouldn’t explain such a huge increase in deaths, particularly in nursing home populations that apparently hadn’t received flu shots in prior years due to lack of provisional funding.

There was a very slight increase in the risk for Guillain-Barré syndrome in the period 1992 to 1994 from flu shots (one additional case per million persons vaccinated). [New England Journal of Medicine 339: 1797-802, 1998] This would still not be sufficient to produce a setback in life expectancy.

A death vaccine?

Now the big question comes to mind. Was the flu vaccine in 1993 lethal in some way? This could be the only explanation as to why this deadly flu outbreak has been hidden from the public. If so, it would be a severe blow to the nation’s flu vaccination program.

There is a hint of evidence in Europe that either a deadly flu virus or a “death vaccine” was in circulation that year. Dutch National Influenza Centrum reported that nursing home residents in 1993 experienced a severe outbreak of the flu that struck 49% of them and caused 10% to die. That’s a death rate four times greater than the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The cause of the deaths was attributed to the Type A H3N2 flu viral strain. [Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd 1993 Sep 25; 137(39):1973-7]

Could there have been some deadly vaccine in use in the US in 1993? So-called “hot” lots of vaccines are not a matter of public record. Flu vaccines inject a “little bit of disease” to provoke the production of antibodies and produce long-term resistance to a particular strain of the flu. Nursing home patients are often frail and immune compromised. Every flu vaccine is a new invention, produced in advance of the next flu season and usually comprised of a new combination of three viral strains that virologists believe will be in circulation during the upcoming flu season. The three viral strains in these trivalent vaccines could have been deadly to frail elderly patients.

It is often stated that flu vaccines are comprised of “dead” or “attenuated” viruses. In fact, viruses are not alive, they are proteins and genetic material that require a host cell for replication. Virulent flu viruses are “grown” in mammalian eggs until less virulent strains are produced, which are then used in vaccines.

In the process of making a vaccine in this manner, a hidden virus may be introduced, such as the Simian 40 virus that was mistakenly introduced in the polio vaccine some years ago. New methods of making vaccines would eliminate this problem. But was a deadly combination of viruses hidden in the flu vaccine used in 1993? Certainly no flu vaccine manufacturer would admit to that.

The FDA has been lax in its monitoring of flu manufacturing facilities. For example, in December of 2000 The Idaho Observer (I have posted this article down below) noted that Medeva, a British flu vaccine maker, had received a warning letter from the US FDA over filthy conditions in its manufacturing plant, but the FDA had given the green light to sell 20 million doses of its “Fluvarin” flu vaccine in the US in that same year without re-inspecting the plant.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2009, 09:10:12 AM by Tamet Gould »
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam - I will either find a way or make one.  "Can't lives on Won't street."

Let us be reminded of what Captain John Parker told his army at Lexington Green, the place where the War for Independence began in 1775. He said, “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.

Offline Tamet Gould

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Re: DID THE FEDERAL GOV'T. HIDE A FLU EPIDEMIC IN 1993 AND WHY?
« Reply #1 on: September 27, 2009, 09:06:17 AM »
You can find this article at http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/1999pres/991007.html

This is an archive page. The links are no longer being updated.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday,Oct. 7, 1999   Contact:   CDC Press Office
(404) 639-3286

SECRETARY SHALALA URGES OLDER AMERICANS TO GET
1999 FLU SHOT

HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala today urged older Americans to start getting their 1999 flu shots to help protect against potentially life-threatening influenza infections.
Each winter, a flu epidemic sweeps the country and is responsible for killing on average 20,000 Americans, most of them over age 65. While 65 percent of seniors receive the flu shot, millions more remain unprotected, even though the vaccinations are free under Medicare.

"The flu poses a serious potential hazard to older Americans, but it's a hazard we can all protect against," Secretary Shalala said. "Every senior citizen needs to know that flu and pneumonia shots are convenient, free under Medicare, and sometimes lifesaving. Tragically, many serious cases of flu and even deaths could be prevented through immunizations. Flu shots work, but not when the vaccine sits on the shelf."

Pneumococcal disease, a common cause of pneumonia, kills more than 10,000 Americans each year, many of them age 65 and older. "Together, influenza and pneumococcal disease are the most common causes of death in Americans from diseases that can be prevented by vaccines," Secretary Shalala said.

Flu shots must be given every year because the influenza virus changes from year to year and because antibody protection from the vaccine wanes over time. Flu vaccine is specifically recommended for people who are at high risk for developing serious complications as a result of influenza infection. These groups include all people aged 65 years or older; all people in nursing homes; and people of any age with chronic diseases of the heart, lung, or kidneys, diabetes, immunosuppression or severe forms of anemia.

Adults with diabetes are three times more likely to die from influenza. This is the second year of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) campaign encouraging people with diabetes to get an annual flu shot. The campaign consists of public service announcements in English and Spanish, information for health-care providers and health systems interventions to ensure that patients with diabetes are reminded to get a flu shot.

The CDC recommends that the best time to conduct annual vaccination campaigns is between October and mid-November. However, after mid-November, people may still benefit from influenza vaccination, even after flu cases begin to occur in the community. Pneumococcal shots are recommended for most of the same people who should receive flu shots. Pneumococcal shots are usually given once and do not need to be repeated annually.

The CDC reports today that influenza A(H3N2) viruses continued to predominate worldwide during May through September, 1999. In the United States, summer influenza activity included an outbreak of influenza A(H3N2) virus infections among tourists to Alaska and the Yukon Territory. The surveillance data are contained in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) this week.

Also in the MMWR is a report on reasons given by Medicare beneficiaries for not receiving influenza or pneumococcal vaccinations. Not knowing vaccination was needed was the most commonly reported reason for not receiving influenza (19 percent) or pneumococcal (57 percent) vaccination. Cost was a factor for less than 2 percent.

"We must be vigilant during this time of year to take every opportunity to vaccinate our older adults and people with chronic illnesses to protect them from influenza and pneumococcal disease. These vaccines are critical to the health of our older Americans," said CDC Director Dr. Jeffrey Koplan.

Overall, 45 states have already surpassed the Year 2000 goal of having 60 percent of seniors immunized against the flu. But while 68 percent of white Americans over age 65 usually receive flu shots, statistics from 1997 show that only 50 percent of African Americans and 58 percent of Hispanics were vaccinated.

Medicare coverage for flu shots for the elderly began in 1993, as the Clinton Administration launched an effort to increase immunization rates among older adults. The shots are free for those enrolled in Medicare Part B from physicians who accept Medicare payment as full payment. Medicare also covers vaccinations against pneumonia. A beneficiary who has not previously received the pneumococcal vaccine can obtain it at the same time as the flu shot.

"Millions have benefited from the flu and pneumonia shots that Medicare provides, but millions more still need them," said Michael Hash, deputy administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the agency that runs Medicare. "Too often, people don't get the immunizations that could save their lives. People age 65 and over are more likely to get flu or pneumonia and to experience serious complications. That's why we're reaching out to remind beneficiaries that it's important to get their shots and that they are covered by Medicare."

HCFA has undertaken an aggressive outreach program to remind seniors of Medicare's free flu vaccination benefit. The agency is mailing nearly 8 million postcards in four languages to remind Medicare beneficiaries to get immunized and is distributing posters to senior centers, clinics and other places where Medicare beneficiaries are likely to see them. In addition, HCFA plans to air two 30-second television public service announcements in six target cities during flu season this year, and television and radio announcements have been produced in English and Spanish for local outlets to use across the country.

As part of its efforts, HCFA also is reaching out to African American communities to raise awareness about the need for flu shots. Medicare's quality-review organizations have begun a three-year project to measurably reduce death rates among Medicare beneficiaries. These organizations also have joined with historically black colleges and universities to develop strategies for boosting immunization rates among African American beneficiaries. HCFA also is distributing a half-hour video documentary on the 1918 flu epidemic that took a heavy toll on Baltimore's African American population.

For more information about receiving a flu shot covered by Medicare, call toll-free 1-800-638-6833 or visit Medicare's Web site at www.medicare.gov. For more information about influenza disease and CDC's recommendations for influenza vaccination, call the CDC National Immunization Information Hotline at 1-800-232-2522 (English) or 1-800-232-0233 (Spanish), or visit CDC's Web site at www.cdc.gov/nip. For weekly updates on influenza cases during the season, visit www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/flu/weekly.htm.
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam - I will either find a way or make one.  "Can't lives on Won't street."

Let us be reminded of what Captain John Parker told his army at Lexington Green, the place where the War for Independence began in 1775. He said, “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.

Offline Tamet Gould

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Re: DID THE FEDERAL GOV'T. HIDE A FLU EPIDEMIC IN 1993 AND WHY?
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2009, 09:09:21 AM »
This is the article from the Idaho Observer mentioned above....


From the December 2000 Idaho Observer:

FDA approves potentially contaminated Medeva flu vaccine for use in U.S.

Mass vaccination, long believed by many to be the best way to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, is turning out to be a public health nightmare: A congressional delegation has called for a halt to the Department of Defense's mandatory anthrax vaccination program until it is determined why it makes U.S. military personnel chronically ill; scientific links between this nation's epidemic of childhood autism and the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine have been published in medical journals since 1995; the Lyme disease vaccine has been linked to an auto-immune condition resulting in chronic arthritis in a significantly large number of vaccine recipients; it was announced last year that oral polio vaccine administered (OPV) until 1964 was contaminated with the carcinogenic SV-40 monkey virus; thimerosal, used as a preservative in most vaccines for decades, was removed after researchers linked the mercury-derivative to an entire menu of degenerative diseases which include chronic fatigue and cancer and; the rotavirus vaccine was removed from the marketplace after it was discovered that it caused intususception -- the potentially fatal telescoping of the bowel into itself that must be corrected with surgery -- in babies who received the anti-diarrhea shot. And now, because, public health officials claim, supplies of influenza vaccine are in short supply this season, the FDA has approved for sale in this country 20 million doses of flu vaccine that may be contaminated with the prion protein crystal that causes mad cow disease.

By Virginia Winston

Earlier this year, according to an October, 2000 article by the The Observer, a leading British newspaper, British pharmaceutical company Medeva's Liverpool plant was found by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to be producing vaccines in filthy conditions. The FDA report found that Medeva neither maintained nor cleaned its equipment. It also reported that Medeva was unable to prove that its vaccines were not contaminated with bacteria or fungi.

Certain fungi provide the medium in which the prion protein crystal that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or “mad cow” disease) to proliferate.

Because it exports flu vaccine to America, Medeva got a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “warning” to clean up its act. However, in a report dated October 22, 2000, The Observer noted that the FDA had not re-inspected the filthy Medeva factory since it sent the warning letter earlier this year and has given the company the green light to sell an estimated 20,000,000 doses of its “Fluvarin” flu vaccine in the U.S. during this cold and flu season.

The British government recently recalled Medeva's oral polio vaccine (OPV) as it had been grown from “bovine material of UK origin” contrary to mandated vaccine production protocols. Until its removal from the marketplace last month, Medeva's OPV had been injected into 11 million people, mostly children, commented another British newspaper the International Herald Tribune.

Hundreds of thousands of “mad” cattle in Great Britain have been destroyed since 1993 in an attempt to control the spread of prion disease that is epidemic in England. Ingestion of beef and other products derived from prion-infected cattle have been linked to the epidemic of prion disease in humans.

Prion disease is called mad cow disease in cattle, scrapie in pigs and sheep, whirling disease in fish and wasting disease in deer and elk, is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) in humans. It is estimated that as many as 200,000 Americans that have been misdiagnosed with Alzheimer's disease are actually victims of CJD.

The Medeva Fluvarin vaccine, produced in the same plant that produced the recalled OPV, may have the potential of opening the floodgates of a “mad cow” epidemic in the U.S. Though the administration of possibly contaminated Fluvarin may be a public health disaster of unprecedented proportions, the dominant media has failed to sound the alarm and the FDA has not ordered that Fluvarin be tested for the presence of prions or the fungi in which they grow.

Why?

FDA approval of the potentially contaminated Fluvarin for sale in the U.S. was likely influenced by a shortage of flu vaccine here this season. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Immunization Program Director Dr. William Atkinson, the A-Moscow-1099 strain of flu virus did not incubate properly this year and, therefore, did not produce “serum” in large enough quantities to produce sufficient doses of flu vaccine to meet demand. So, despite Medeva's “history of contamination and production blunders,” FDA has authorized the distribution of Fluvarin to clinics and hospitals all over the nation.

According to The Observer, the FDA claims that the vaccine is safe. The FDA also, at one time, claimed that silicone breast implants and Phen-Phen were “safe” -- and those are just two of many FDA-approved products that have ultimately been linked to serious health side-effects that include chronic degenerative disease and death.

“It stands to reason that Medeva's flu vaccine -- manufactured in the same reportedly filthy plant as the recalled polio vaccine -- could also contain BSE (prion)-contaminated materials,” commented Dr. Len Horowitz. Dr. Horowitz is the author of several books including “Healing Codes for the Biological Apocalypse” in which he meticulously documented the development and spread of prion disease world wide by following the path of published science.

An official at the National Institutes of Health describes the prion which causes BSE as, “The single most resistant organism on the face of the Earth. You can boil it, you can put it in formaldehyde, you can autoclave it for a little while, you can treat it with the usual disinfectants...and it's like you didn't do anything.”

If Fluvarin is contaminated with BSE, then millions of unsuspecting Americans may be injected this year with a terminal neurological disease. Prion crystals, 100 times smaller than a virus, cause lesions in brain tissue (encephalopathies) that turn the brain to mush and gradually causes dementia and death. British officials predict that hundreds of thousands of Brits will eventually show symptoms of this terminal malady.

CJD is so dangerous that medical examiners are afraid to perform autopsies on people and animals that are suspected as having succumbed to prion disease. Continental Europe, which originally considered itself safe from prion disease, is in a panic over recent discoveries that some of their animals and citizens are showing symptoms.

Fluvarin is currently on the shelves of doctors' offices and health departments all over the country and is being administered to the public. Medical personnel in the northwest U.S. who confirm that they have administered Fluvarin are unaware of the Medeva scandal or the likelihood that the triple-antigen flu vaccine is contaminated.

There are at least two facilities in the U.S. that are capable of testing Fluvarin for prion contamination: The National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and the National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Since neither the FDA nor the dominant media have demanded that Fluvarin be tested for contamination, anyone about to receive Fluvarin should demand the vaccine be properly tested.

Due to this year's flu vaccine shortage, the CDC urges health officials to prioritize the administration of flu vaccines. The CDC recommends that the most immunologically vulnerable members of society -- the elderly and the chronically ill; babies and small children -- be priority one. Healthcare workers exposed to flu victims are priority number two. Otherwise healthy people between the ages of 17-65 should be the last people to receive a flu shot.

If your health officials haven't heard about Medeva's track record, it's time to get them educated. You can copy for them a series of British media reports covering the Medeva scandals. The web address is:

http://www.observer.co.uk/

Go to “Information,” then “Archive,” then type “Medeva” in the keyword box. See especially the October 22 article “Revealed: full scale of vaccine blunders.”
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam - I will either find a way or make one.  "Can't lives on Won't street."

Let us be reminded of what Captain John Parker told his army at Lexington Green, the place where the War for Independence began in 1775. He said, “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.

Offline turnin horse power

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Re: DID THE FEDERAL GOV'T. HIDE A FLU EPIDEMIC IN 1993 AND WHY?
« Reply #3 on: September 27, 2009, 08:49:51 PM »
I worked for the Nocona hospital during that time as an aide, we were full not only elderly but infants also. So these reports do not surprise me. I believe them, Thanks Tamet for posting this