►December 30, 2003 - Smallpox attack simulation uncovers critical communications problems: report  CP via Health Canada Network - "Thank God it was only a simulation...A multi-country bioterrorism exercise held earlier this year highlighted critical weaknesses in intergovernmental communications capabilities and national response capacities, a report on a mock smallpox attack reveals."

►December 30, 2003 - Story is laborious testament to mother's love (book review - The Boy Who Loved Windows: Opening the Heart and Mind of a Child Threatened With Autism) - The Boston Globe

►December 21, 2003 - Serious mind games - Parents of autistic children face years of intensive exercises and structured play with their kids in an effort to unlock abilities that seem trapped inside. New research suggests that diagnosis and treatment has to come early in life to be fully effective. - The Times-Picayune via www.nola.com

►December 30, 2003 - 'Unlimited Potential' program offers hope - New therapy surfaces in the treatment of autism, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and brain injuries. - Northwest Indian Times

►December 30, 2003 - Bill would help autistic kids - Proposal would tack surcharge on fines for drunken driving - Rocky Mountain News

►December 30, 2003 - In-Home Autism Program Eliminated - www.wbay.com - "Three hundred-fifty families across Wisconsin are looking for backup since a Fond du Lac clinic they relied on for their children is no longer an option. After the first of the year, the State is cutting back funding for an in-home therapy program for autistic children."

►December 28, 2003 - Liaisons fueling AIDS in Africa - Washington Times

►December 30, 2003 - Looking forward to 2004: HIV vaccine prospects - www.aidsmap.com

Comment: What if, as some believe (1,2), AIDS has nothing to do with HIV?

►December 29, 2003 - Africa is dying of Capitalism, not AIDS - www.khilafah.com - "The problem lies with the fact that American drugs companies have developed a treatment program for AIDS, spending enormous resources in research and development under the protection of the patent. Their reasons for doing this are simply financial; they intend to recoup their expenditure by selling the treatment at a massive profit."

Comment:  And what if, as some believe, it is AIDS medications, not "AIDS", which are killing people?

►January 2, 2004 - U.S. Army Buys $30 Million in Anthrax Shots - Reuters - "The Defense Department announced on Friday a $29.7 million order for anthrax vaccine based on the assumption that a federal judge's ban on mandatory inoculations will be reversed...Privately held BioPort Corp. of Lansing, Michigan, was awarded the Army order on Wednesday as part of a $245.6 million contract, the Pentagon said."

Comment:  If this isn't arrogance of power and doesn't show contempt for the taxpayer, I don't know what does.

►January 3, 2004 - Guardsman who refused vaccine to be deployed - AP via www.newarkadvocate.com - "An Ohio National Guard member convicted of disobeying a direct order by refusing to be vaccinated against anthrax is expected to be deployed next week with his unit, the guard said Friday."

►December 31, 2003 - FDA Issues Final Rule And Final Order Regarding Safety And Efficacy Of Certain Licensed Biological Products Including Anthrax Vaccine - FDA via ScienceDaily - "To complete the review of the safety and effectiveness of certain bacterial vaccines and toxoids licensed before July, 1972, FDA today issued a final rule and order that makes final determinations concerning the safety and effectiveness of such products and amends certain biologics regulations. The final order states FDA's conclusion that the licensed anthrax vaccine, Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed, is safe and effective for the prevention of anthrax disease - regardless of the route of exposure."

Comment:  How conVENient.

►December 30, 2003 - FDA's Issuance of Final Rule Concerning Anthrax Vaccine Reflective of Legal Gamesmanship - 18 Year Delay In Issuing Final Rule Calls Into Question FDA Conduct - Press Release, Mark S. Zaid, Esq. and John J. Michels, Jr., Esq.

►January 5, 2004 - No longer a threat (Editorial) - AirForceTimes.com - "The Defense Department’s mandatory anthrax vaccination program has been snakebit from its inception...Now, in the face of a U.S. District judge in Washington who ordered the Pentagon to stop forcing service members to take the anthrax shots, the Pentagon has backed down. For now."

►December 30, 2003 - Pocatello woman helps stop mandatory anthrax vaccinations - Idaho State Journal - "A Pocatello woman helped influence the decision when she refused to take the anthrax vaccine last March. Sarah Holder, a former soldier at Fort Lewis, Wash., and Pocatello native, took a general discharge under honorable conditions Nov. 29 ending her five-year military career in communications...Holder, who now lives in Portland, Ore., told the Seattle P-I Tuesday she might try to have her discharge upgraded to honorable."

►December 30, 2003 - Anthrax Toxin Inhibitor Identified; Findings Could Lead To More Effective Therapy For Deadly Agent - Harvard Medical School via ScienceDaily

►December 30, 2003 - FDA Says Anthrax Vaccine Safe for Troops - Reuters - "The anthrax vaccine is safe for use in protecting U.S. troops against inhaled exposure to the potentially deadly bacteria, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday...'The FDA-approved labeling for the anthrax vaccine does not specify the route of exposure, and the vaccine is indicated for active immunization against Bacillus anthracis, independent of the route of exposure,' it said in a statement...It also said an expert panel put together by the independent Institute of Medicine had found the vaccine to be safe."

Comment:  It is hard to believe that the plaintiffs could have argued, and the judge would have accepted, that the vaccine was only approved for cutaneous use, if the labeling, in fact, did "not specify the route of exposure".  Stay tuned.

►December 30, 2003 - Court To Rule On Marines' Anthrax Vaccinations - One Marine Court-Martialed, Another Awaits Trial - www.nbcsandiego.com

►December 29, 2003 - New drug could beat anthrax poison - UPI via Washington Times - "A U.S. discovery could produce a drug to counter the deadly effects of the anthrax toxin, the BBC said Tuesday...Experts from Harvard Medical School have found six chemicals which they believe could stop a toxin called "lethal factor" getting into cells. In the journal Nature Structural Biology, they say a drug could be more useful than mass vaccination."

►December 29, 2003 - Opt-Out Military - Hysteria leads to judicial overreach — and national-security danger. - National Review Online - "In fact, extensive epidemiological studies have shown that Gulf vets are just as healthy as matched vets who didn't deploy and healthier than matched civilians. They are somewhat less likely to have died thannon-deployed vets and are dying at less than half the rate of the general population. This is not only the case here, but in the U.K. as well. There is no GWS."

►December 29, 2003 - Troop anthrax shots in question - North County Times - "At least two local Marines remain in legal limbo as federal officials and a Washington district court judge wrangle over whether the military can force members of the armed services to take anthrax vaccinations...The two Marines refused to take mandatory inoculations a year ago and have since faced stiff punishment for refusing direct orders. One claims to have suffered intimidation and even a death threat from his superiors for refusing the vaccine."

►January 3, 2004 - Glossary - Glossary Some of the more common mental illnesses found in children: - Rocky Mountain News

►January 4, 2004 - Beating cancer nature's way - In a week that's seen the deaths of Bob Monkhouse, Alan Bates and Dinsdale Landen, all victims of cancer, here is a story of one man's successful - if unorthodox - struggle against the disease - The Guardian, UK

►January 4, 2004 - Future Intranasal Vaccines - Medstar.com via http://rdu.new14.com

►January 4, 2004 - Nasal Flu Vaccine Gets Shot in the Arm - Newsday

►January 3, 2004 - Free vaccine attracts few to flu clinic - 1,000 doses of spray available - The Journal Gazette via www.fortwayne.com - "Despite a near panic a month ago over news of a worsening flu epidemic and a national shortage of flu vaccine, Friday's free vaccine attracted few takers...By the end of the three-hour clinic Friday, officials had vaccinated only 176 people, plus some prisoners in the county jail. By contrast, hundreds were turned away from a clinic Dec. 10 when officials used up all 700 doses they had to offer."

►January 4, 2004 - Is It Safe? - New beef rules aim to stop mad cow disease. But they may not be enough--and there's too much we don't know - www.usnews.com

►January 3, 2004 - Mad cow testing questioned by disease experts - AP via Billings Gazette

►January 4, 2004 - Food culprits that dwarf mad-cow toll - Knight Ridder via The Seattle Times - "In the days since mad-cow disease was announced in the United States, more than 1 million Americans were sickened by food they ate. About 6,000 became so ill they were hospitalized and nearly 100 died, according to federal health estimates...But mad-cow disease wasn't the culprit. Indeed, not a single American is known to have contracted the human form of the disease from eating food in this country...Instead, salmonella, E. coli, listeria and other dangerous bacteria routinely take a huge toll on public health, yet receive little of the attention now focused on the beef from one Washington state Holstein found infected with mad-cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE."

►Bizarre Mad Cow Games - Even a child would understand that the official explanation of the cause of the disease is irrational - by Mark Purdey at the Online Mad Cow Disease Conference @ www.redflagsdaily.com

►2003 - Transmissable Encephalopathies: Speculations and Realities (pdf) - by Dr. Laura Maneulidis - journal article (Viral Immunology) via www.redflagsdaily.com

►December 30, 2003 - Agriculture Secretary Announces New Rules for Safety of Beef - The New York Times - "Effective immediately, she said, the Agriculture Department will ban all sick, or "downer," cattle from the human food chain. She also announced bans on the use of small intestines and head and spinal tissue from older cattle for human consumption."

Comment: Better late than never....

►December 30, 2003 - Meningitis Drops in 2003, Despite Several Recent Cases - Boston Globe via www.immunizationinfo.org (abstract) - "New Hampshire health officials have disclosed that the strain of meningitis that killed an 18-year-old woman in the Bennington area is not the same strain that infected two 15-year-old students in Keene, allaying fears that an outbreak of the dangerous illness is erupting. In addition, two other youths who contracted meningitis last week appear to have no relation to any of the other cases. In fact, the rate of meningitis infection has dropped in 2003 despite this recent jump in the disease's visibility."

►January 4, 2004 - Meningitis group urges child vaccinations - www.2theadvocate.com - "The chances of dying from bacterial meningitis, which has claimed the lives of two area teen-agers in the past month, are about one in a million in Louisiana, health officials said...But such odds, as small as they seem, are still too great for the National Meningitis Foundation."

Comment:  If there were no potential risks from meningitis vaccine, perhaps this would be a no-brainer.  But there are. (There have been 644 adverse meningitis vaccine-associated reactions, representing in all likelihood between 6,440 and 64,400 cases, reported to VAERS so far.)

►December 29, 2003 - Docs Hunt Teen Meningitis Link - "If all of the strains of the bacteria match, and certainly if there are more cases, that would be more concerning." Jesse Greenblatt, state epidemiologist - AP via CBS News

►December 30, 2003 - Meningitis Cases Have Unrelated Strains - AP via The Herald-Sun

►December 29, 2003 - Meningitis victim was sent home by hospital - N.H. teen lacked 'classic' symptoms - The Boston Globe - "Greenblatt said the 15-year-olds appear to have spread the disease to one another, but health officials had found no links between the other cases. Ells, Gilman, and Perry all contracted a strain of the disease that cannot be prevented by vaccination. Health officials were testing to determine whether the Colebrook boy had the same strain, and suspect the Concord-area boy did, as well....'If all of the strains of the bacteria match, and certainly if there are more cases, that would be more concerning," Greenblatt said. "It would mean that there is potentially more risk from a new strain that has entered the area.'"

►January 3, 2004 - Leading With The Jab To Beat Killers - This Is Staffordshire - "North Staffordshire babies receive the most protection in Britain against three potential killer diseases. The area has come top of a national league table recording the proportion of each district's population volunteering their infants to have the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine."

Comment:  This is simply nothing less than fear mongering.  Neither the mumps nor rubella have ever been considered "killers", although rubella can sometimes be quite serious for a fetus.  And the measles is generally not considered serious in the developed world.  For Scandals columns on the measles and measles vaccine, go to What Is Wrong With This Picture?;  More confusing disease stats;   Playing With Fire - It's Not EASY To Fool Mother Nature;   Don't Worry, Be Happy;  Measles In The Vaccination Age:  Is It Now Deadlier?;   Why We Won't Take No* For An Answer  (*No relationship between MMR and autism);  and Shoot First, Don't Ask Questions Later.  Click here for a BMJ article on disease fear mongering.
 

►January 3, 2004 - MMR vaccine take-up rate will cost lives - The Ham & High Network - "A Top Royal Free doctor has warned that many children will die because of the poor take-up of rate of the MMR vaccine."

Comment:  More scare mongering.

January 2004 - Effect of age on immune parameters and the immune response of dogs to vaccines: a cross-sectional study - journal article (Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology)

►December 30, 2003 - New Tests Ordered for Man in China Tied to Possible SARS (requires registration or subscription) - The New York Times

►December 27, 2003 - New weapon against asthma - Scientists have identified a new class of drug which could dramatically boost the weaponry against asthma - BBC

►December 29, 2003 - Kids' Acting Out May Signal Asthma Onset - Reuters via Yahoo!

►January 2, 2004 - Virus Seen in Muscle from Chronic Fatigue Patients - Journal of Medical Virology via Reuters Health - "A persistent enterovirus infection in muscles may be to blame for some cases of chronic fatigue syndrome (sometimes called fibromyalgia) and others with chronic inflammatory muscle disease, a French team reports...They detected genetic material (specifically RNA) from enteroviruses in 20 percent of muscle biopsies from patients with chronic inflammatory muscle diseases and 13 percent of patients with fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue syndrome, but not from healthy volunteers...The findings favor a persistent infection involving defective viral replication as a cause of these conditions."

►December 29, 2003 - Magnesium Prevents Cerebral Palsy? - Ivanhoe

►January 4, 2004 - The new you - How to feel well, look better and improve your life this year - www.sunspot.net - "Get eight hours of sleep a night. The National Sleep Foundation estimates a 10 to 35 percent drop in antibodies and immune cells when you're sleep-deprived...Stop using anti-bacterial hand and dish soaps; they may be strengthening germs and weakening our immune systems."

►January 4, 2004 - Beating cancer nature's way - In a week that's seen the deaths of Bob Monkhouse, Alan Bates and Dinsdale Landen, all victims of cancer, here is a story of one man's successful - if unorthodox - struggle against the disease - The Guardian, UK

►May 2000 - CDC Refuses to Deny Conflict of Interest on Vaccine Policy Committee - AAPS Newsletter - "Government witnesses were not so forthcoming in admitting bias or conflict of interest. Dr. Paul A. Offit, a pediatrician who receives money from vaccine manufacturers to give pro- mandatory vaccine presentations across the country, is a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the CDC-the supposedly "independent" government group which makes recommendations on national vaccine policy. His official statement only acknowledged his "collaboration on the development of a rotavirus vaccine." When pushed by a question submitted to Rep. Burton by Ms. Serkes about his financial ties to Merck & Co., Dr. Offit would only admit an "apparent conflict- of-interest." [Dr. Offit pushed mandatory vaccines at a symposium underwritten by Merck at the August meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council in Nashville, attended by Dr. Orient and Ms. Serkes; Dr. Orient was refused a place on the panel.] "

►November/December 2003 -Yet Another Government Scandal - Breast Cancer Action Newsletter

►November/December 2003 - Conflicted Science: How Industry Corrupts Research - Breast Cancer Action Newsletter - "It's worse than you think."

December 19, 2003 - The Milky Way of Doing Business - www.hipmama.com - "At issue is a letter dated November 3rd that Dr. Johnston sent to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Tommy G. Thompson, officially expressing the AAP’s concern over the “negative approach” of the federal agency’s soon-to-be-released, pro-breastfeeding advertising campaign. What Dr. Johnston didn’t mention in his letter, however, was that he had developed this sudden and seemingly urgent interest in this issue not via a last minute clinical review of the scientific literature, or even after consulting with the AAP’s own recognized lactation science experts...In fact, his concern came immediately after aggressive, personal lobbying by representatives of one of the AAP’s biggest financial contributors, the $3 billion U.S. infant formula industry. Within days of a New Orleans meeting with worried formula industry reps, Johnston hurled the considerable credibility and persuasive impact of the esteemed American Academy of Pediatrics into an explicit effort to stifle the most ambitious initiative ever undertaken to promote breastfeeding in the United States."

Comment:  The American Academy of Pediatrics is apparently making a habit of confusing the interests of the children it is charged with protecting and those of industry.  For evidence of its considerable conflict of interest with vaccine manufacturers, go to Scandals: "There are no secrets that time does not reveal"  - What time and the legal system are beginning to reveal about what vaccine manufacturers and the CDC know.

►January 4, 2004 - We all have a stake in promoting vaccination - www.timesunion.com - "This year, several thousand people in New York state -- and 60,000 across the nation -- will die from diseases that we can prevent through vaccination. Polio, measles, rubella and diphtheria, once responsible for killing or harming thousands of children and adults, can be controlled through immunization...We have vaccines for more than 20 diseases. Sadly, despite these advances, thousands die every year from preventable diseases."

Comment:  Would that those who are concerned about death from diseases were equally concerned about death from vaccines.

►December 30, 2003 - Health:- In 2004, health for all remains the goal - Vanguard, Nigeria - "In developing countries like Nigeria, communicable diseases still represent seven out of the 10 major causes of child deaths."

►December 29, 2003 - Gender specific medicine - Approach acknowledges differences between women, men - The Courier-Journal - "Put simply, gender-specific medicine is the science of how normal human biology differs between men and women and how those differences affect — or should affect — diagnosis and treatment of disease."

Comment:  While vaccination policy continues to sacrifice untold healthy infants and children to its "one-size-fits-all" approach to "prevention", evidence continues to mount that recognizing and allowing for individual differences is paramount to the success of drugs and other biological products.