Postcard:

Swine Flu over the Cuckoos' Nests

Despite the European Union health commissioner 's advice to not travel to the USA unless urgent, I've just returned from two weeks in America, where the atmosphere was charged with the threat of contamination. Every news broadcast showed images of complacent kids with syringes up their noses demonstrating the ease with which the nasal vaccine is administered. Instructional posters were plastered everywhere. I passed lines of people filling out forms and rolling up sleeves in supermarkets, drug stores and malls.

YES, the Swine flu virus, now known as H1N1 or the Influenza A virus, is airborne and is easily transmitted when people cough or sneeze, but most cases are mild and don't require treatment to get better.  As of October 20, 2800 deaths in the USA have been attributed to H1N1, hardly a number to induce panic, and yet while I was there, President Obama declared a 'Public Health Emergency'  to defend against a virus that many doctors claim almost anyone with decent levels of vitamin D and basic nutrition can resist without incident. Americans seem to have been lobotomized by the media's perpetual shock treatments to their common sense.

Allergy & Asthma Network Mothers of Asthmatics (AANMA) reports that “Most adults hospitalized with H1N1 (about 45%)  had an underlying illness before catching it. Asthma was the most common illness (26 %), followed by diabetes, other chronic lung diseases and immunosuppressive disorders. About 6.1 % of those hospitalised were pregnant women.”

How does H1N1 flu compare in fatalities against any other common flus? Of all the information that's been heaped upon me, I can find no such figures. The H1N1 Chicken Littles of the world are basing their warnings on “potential” damage rather than actual damage to date, and it is not exclusive to the USA. The British government warns that H1N1 deaths from this winter could be between 19,000 and 65,000 in the UK. French authorities warn of a second wave of the disease in 2010 and that 30% of the EC could be infected.

Pro-vaccine rationales range from  “it's the logical thing to do” to “you'll die if you don't”; while, “it's a government plot to kill us” seems to dominate the present thinking of the anti-virus contingent, including accusations that Obama's children had not yet been vaccinated.  Cuckoo.

What does strike me is that H1N1 is a golden opportunity for Big Pharma to make BigCash and for global governments to continue their militarization of public health. At the end of August, the Senate of the state of Massachusettes, cradle of the American Revolution and my home state, passed a new bill called the Pandemic Response Bill (#2028), which will eventually seek confirmation by the state's House of Representatives in order to pass into law. If passed, any Massachusetts citizen “suspected” of being infected will be forced to submit to interrogations, decontaminations and vaccines. It’s also sets fines up to $1,000 per day for anyone who refuses. Under this bill, Massachusetts becomes a medical police state. There is no debating it. It’s all written, clear as day.

Back on May 30, 2009 the Sarkozy government authorized spending “an estimated €1 billion to buy vaccines and combat and protect against H1N1 Swine Flu virus” according to Le Journal du Dimanche. The report continued to say that, “Authorities will announce in the fall if they decide to make the vaccine mandatory.” The French Government has thusfar not even whispered about a mandatory vaccination, but pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi and Novartis, have certainly benefited from the 100 million doses of flu vaccine ordered, the latter two being French companies.

The good news? According to The Washington Post, concern about shortages of the vaccine are refocusing attention on homeopathic preventions and remedies to flu, which are increasingly being used worldwide. The bad news? In response to this surge of alternative care, the US Food and Drug Administration has mounted an aggressive campaign against “products making unproven or unapproved claims to fight swine flu." In Europe, the EC is in the process of placing tight restrictions on the availability of  vitamins, minerals and herbs essential for alternative cures. (see September 15 article on Codex Alimentarius- Nutricide is Happening)

Yet, to date neither the World Health Organisation (WHO) nor the US Center for Diseases Control (CDC) have succeeded to isolate and chemically classify the H1N1 Influenza A virus. There is no scientifically published evidence that French virologists have done so either.
As of last week, the WHO has the French tally of 'le virus A' related deaths at a whopping 36. The number includes the 7 different French territories, such as la Réunion and New Caledonia with 6 and 7 deaths respectively. Sixteen countries in Europe have confirmed deaths due H1N1, with the UK in the lead at 79, far ahead of the other countries such as Sweden which has two. Although the number of deaths relating to the H1N1 virus are extremely low, not only the American media, but the global media seems to be examining them with a stethoscope that isolates and amplifies one unified beat of fear.

Fortunately, Europeans appear less neurotic about the whole thing.  According to French TVAntenne 2 news, the vast majority of the French populace prefer NOT to receive the vaccine, although much of the population are making the ultimate French sacrifice. Without specifically mentioning the traditional French greeting - la bise, a French ministry web site recommends 'not kissing or shaking hands and avoiding 'direct contact' with people.' It advises 'keeping a one-metre buffer zone as a minimum, or wearing masks if that's not possible.' 

En route back to France, I took the ministry's advice. I boarded the plane wearing two surgical masks - one of cloth, worn flat across my mouth and a rounded cardboard cup gizmo that resembled the airmasks that drop for plane passengers in emergencies – somewhat of a subliminal in-flight no-no. Gawked at and uncomfortable for the entire flight, quarantined to my seat by a boyfriend who pretended not to know me, my efforts were rewarded only by my inability to eat the airplane cuisine. But, it's one precaution, along with others, that I'm willing to take rather than taking this flu shot - “willing” being the optimal word.

As journalist Mike Adams wrote for  Natural News, “Until the vaccines are actually available, don’t expect to see any declarations of a public emergency or laws for madatory participation...But once that milestone is reached, a declaration of a pandemic emergency is imminent. They won’t let all those hundreds of millions of vaccines sit around unused.”
If any government authority should make the H1N1 vaccine obligatory, may its citizens regain their sanity and respond with an indignant, “Flu you!” - a quip that we can bumpersticker and add to our vernacular. Otherwise, despite the “bise ban” we may well be kissing our freedoms goodbye.