November  28, 2003                    

Senator Bingaman's Resolution: Expressing the sense of the Senate regarding the anthrax and smallpox vaccines

Longtime dream spurs fight against paralysis - Washington County sheriff in 2nd term - www.ajc.com - "Smith was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare but rapid onset of weakness or paralysis in which the body's immune system typically attacks the body itself...The syndrome can be triggered by vaccinations and it has no known cause or cure. In Smith's case, a flu shot sparked the disease."

Virus Proves too Wily for Scientists - Financial Times  via www.immunizationinfo.org - "Recent failures of experimental AIDS vaccines in early human trials have underlined the difficulty facing researchers in developing a vaccine to fight HIV, with a viable vaccine no closer than five years away, and probably much further. Part of the problem is that people do not develop an immunity against HIV after contracting the disease--like they do for many other illnesses such as measles, smallpox, and mumps--so a vaccine probably cannot confer immunity just by showing the immune system the virus."

Comment:  According to some, there is reason to question whether any vaccine is able to confer immunity in that way.

Comment:  And what if, as some believe, HIV has nothing to do with AIDS?

Scientists warn of coming flu pandemic - Experts recommend world health authorities stockpile vaccine to be ready for new strains of influenza - Knight-Ridder via The Wichita Eagle

Child , 2 seniors, die as flu bug spreads - The Globe and Mail - "Children are particularly vulnerable because flu was mild for several years, not allowing them to build immunity, and because one of the strains is new and particularly virulent...The notion of a universal flu vaccination is recent and immunizing children has not been routine."

Detection and sequencing of measles virus from peripheral mononuclear cells from patients with inflammatory bowel disease and autism. - journal article - "The sequences obtained from the patients with ulcerative colitis and children with autism were consistent with being vaccine strains."

Rett syndrome phenotype following infantile acute encephalopathy. - journal article - "We report on a girl who, at age 2 months, developed an acute encephalopathy with destructive brain damage 12 hours after acellular pertussis vaccination...Months later, the girl manifested a Rett syndrome phenotype."

Clinical and epidemiological picture of B pertussis and B parapertussis infections after introduction of acellular pertussis vaccines. - journal article (August 2003) - "CONCLUSION: Following the increase of pertussis vaccination coverage, we observed a relative increase of B parapertussis cases in comparison to B pertussis cases. In vaccinated children B pertussis disease frequently presented as a mild disease, clinically difficult to distinguish from diseases associated with coughing caused by B parapertussis and other viral or bacterial infections."

Considerations in Designing Effective and Safe Vaccination Programs for Dogs - www.ivis.org  (Last Updated: 5-May-2000 )

Duration of Immunity to Canine Vaccines: What We Know And Don't Know - Critter Fixer Pet Hospital, Inc. ™

Colorado State University's Small Animal Vaccination Protocol - www.vth.colostate.edu - "Our adoption of this routine vaccination program is based on the lack of scientific evidence to support the current practice of annual vaccination and increasing documentation showing that overvaccinating has been associated with harmful side effects. Of particular note in this regard has been the association of autoimmune hemolytic anemia with vaccination in dogs and vaccine-associated sarcomas in cats -- both of which are often fatal."

Working hard at life - Backed by her parents and a few others who believe in her, Stow's Nancy Henn lives productively despite the curse of autism - The Akron Beacon Journal - "Nancy Henn can't daydream on the job.  If she's distracted for even a few minutes, her fragile inner controls may loosen, making her vulnerable to the nightmarish chaos of a broken mind."

Sometimes it’s Okay to “Just Say YES” to drugs: Innovations in intervention for autism spectrum disorder - Exceptional Parent Magazine

Mercury A Growing Scourge - www.i-sis.org.uk

The Nui Project / Art and Disability - The Daily Yomiuri - "While the pieces are at once sheer artistic aesthetic, the power of the project stems from the act of creation as empowerment for the artists, and ultimately shines a light on the need for increased advocacy for Japan's disabled community."

Plan to limit aid alarms advocates for disabled - The Sacramento Bee - "Advocates for the disabled are calling it an ominous sign that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed the first-ever suspension of a 35-year-old state law designed to protect services for the state's disabled residents and their caretakers."

Flu threat puts parents on alert  - One child dies in Peterborough from bug - The Globe and Mail - "Despite experts' dire warnings that the world is overdue for a pandemic that will kill millions of people, that is unlikely to occur this year. A pandemic occurs when a strain jumps from animals to humans...'A/Fujian will not cause a pandemic, but that doesn't mean it's benign,' said Robert Webster, a virologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn...the child who died 'did have some underlying medical problems...'

St. Jude scientists issue flu warning - World not ready to fight outbreak - The Commercial Appeal via www.gomemphis.com

8M Filipino kids suffer from physical, mental disability - Sun.Star Davao

Ministers told to speed up mental incapacity legislation - www.epolitix.com - "MPs and peers on a cross-party committee set up to scrutinise the bill said sufferers from problems such as dementia, autism and learning difficulties had already waited too long for the law to be cleared up."

Aluminum - www.hairanalysisprogram.com

Death by Medicine (abstract) - www.garynull.com (October 2003)

Flu Outbreak Reported in 39 States - UPI via Medline

Dangerous Flu Spreads Across USA - USA Today via www.immunizationinfo.org

How hepatitis has touched their lives -  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Food-borne Illnesses - Even Onions? -  www.pressofatlanticcity.com

The Barefoot Doctor Fights AIDS - The New York Times

Breaking down barriers - World AIDS Day is Dec. 1 - Herald-Review

Mandela urges world to fight AIDS like it fought apartheid - AP via CNN - "It will take greater unity and effort to conquer HIV than it took to tear down apartheid, former South African President Nelson Mandela told a host of music celebrities Friday, gathered in Cape Town for an AIDS benefit concert named in his honor."

Whooping cough on rise again - Coughing, fever may not just be symptoms of flu - The Akron Beacon Journal via www.ohio.com
 

Western Student recovering in St. Louis - The Macomb Journal

A shot in the arm?: Cuba's biotech industry raises hope, suspicion - The Dallas Morning News via The Seattle Times - "It was Cuba's $1 billion gamble — to train an army of scientists, develop a sprawling biotech industry and tackle every disease from cancer to AIDS...The bet paid off, Cuban officials say...But some U.S. officials aren't quite ready to applaud. They remain suspicious of Cuba's intentions and reiterate their charge that the socialist nation is running a secret germ-warfare program."

Microorganisms and Autoimmunity: Making the Barren Field Fertile? (requires registration) - Nature Reviews Microbiology - "Microorganisms induce strong immune responses, most of which are specific for their encoded antigens. However, microbial infections can also trigger responses against self antigens (autoimmunity), and it has been proposed that this phenomenon could underlie several chronic human diseases, such as type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis."

Long-term follow up of pneumonia cases - Health and Age (A Novartis Foundation) - "Researchers at the University of Texas have been looking at a group of patients who had pneumonia and have found that even five years after recovery they are more likely to die than those who did not have pneumonia." (December 2003)

Ceasefire delivers healthcare respite for Sudan's Nuba Mountains - AFP via Yahoo!

UV Lamps Could Reduce Worker Sickness - AP via www.heraldsun.com "industrialized countries could be reduced by using ultraviolet lamps to kill germs in ventilation systems, new research indicates."

Aspartame - NO! - website - www.dorway.org

Redflagsdaily.com - www.redflagsweekly.com