Today's Top Stories (all those selected for the Home Page, Plus Other important news)

►December 22, 2003 - Small Businessman Whistleblower Risks it all in the Name of Conscience - Common Dreams - "Imagine a businessman, consumer advocate and whistleblower all in one person. He is John Munsell, owner of the family business Montana Quality Foods, Inc...Mr. Munsell charged that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) tried to drive him out of business because he exposed the department's failure to act on evidence that the giant ConAgra beefpacking company was shipping E. coli contaminated ground beef carrying the USDA's own seal of approval as wholesome...The USDA's aggressive "do not look, do not tell" non-interference policy with ConAgra backfired when it was finally required to recall over 19 million pounds of ground beef and related trim during the summer of 2002. The reason: Laboratory tests confirmed E.coli 0157:H7 -- the same deadly germ that had taken lives and hospitalized many in previous contamination tragedies."

►December 22, 2003 - Increasing demand for nasal vaccine - The Journal News - "The first time the Katonah Pharmacy held a clinic to offer the new nasal flu vaccine, only four people showed up...That was in October, when the supply of the standard vaccine was thought to be ample, and before the large-scale influenza outbreaks in the West and the highly publicized stories of healthy children dying of the flu...At another clinic on Saturday, 60 people filed through the drug store to have the vaccine, FluMist, squirted in their nostrils."

Comment: For more on how this "increasing demand" came about, go to How The Mass Media In The U.S. Created Flu Hysteria And Helped Drive The Vaccine Markets For The Makers Of FluMist And Fluzone. - by RFD columnist Sherri Tenpenny, DO in the Online Vaccines Conference at www.redflagsdaily.com

►December 22, 2003 - How anthrax turns into a killer - Scientists in the United States say they have discovered how anthrax turns into a deadly killer. - BBC

►December 23, 2003 - Child eczema 'has tripled since 1970s' - The Guardian, UK - "Nearly one in three children has suffered eczema by the age of three-and-a-half, triple the rate in the 1970s, a study suggested last night...A fifth of babies develop the condition in the first six months according to data on 14,000 children born since 1991...Researchers cannot yet identify reasons for the rise, although improvements in hygiene may mean that there are fewer chances for babies to develop immunity to the condition, and genetics, environment and diet may also be factors."

Comment:  While not mentioned in the article as being among the many speculated causes, vaccinations are implicated in the significant increase in eczema and the many other chronic diseases now plaguing children.  For more on this, go to Scandals: Prescription For Disaster - Is Vaccine Policy A "House of Cards"?

►December 23, 2003 - Arsenic-treated playground equipment faces the chop - The Sydney Morning Herald

►December 22, 2003 - Nigeria debates polio program - Nigeria's National Assembly has begun a hearing to discuss the controversy over the polio immunisation campaign in the north of the country. - BBC

►December 22, 2003 - Otitis Media Pathogens Skewed by 7-Valent Pneumococcal Vaccine - (registration required) -  Reuters Health via www.medscape.com - "Certain strains of bacteria are more prevalent in children with acute otitis media who have been inoculated with the pneumococcal 7-valent protein conjugate (PNC7) vaccine, researchers report, with strains not included in the vaccine being favored...As lead investigator Dr. M. Catherine McEllistrem told Reuters Health, 'the proportion of cases of pneumococcal acute otitis media due to non-vaccine serogroup strains rapidly increased from 1999 to 2001 in children who received at least two doses of PNC7 vaccine.'"

Comment:  For more on the problem of changing serotypes as a result of vaccination, go to Scandals: Changing Disease Epidemiology Via Vaccines - Are We "Robbing Peter To Pay Paul"?

►December 22, 2003 - Weekly Report of New Colorado Cases Shows Slight Decline - State of Colorado CDPHE

►December 23, 2003 - Vaccine options - The Washington Times - "An alternative approach involves the application of option theory to ensure adequate supply of vaccine. Financial options are widely used to address uncertainty in markets. Call options give the holder the right, but not the obligation, to purchase a particular asset (the underlying asset, in this case, being additional vaccine doses) at a predetermined price, on or before a given date."

Comment:  Note the advertisers for the Washington Times Editorial/Op-Ed.

►December 23, 2003 - The Ghost of Medical Atrocities: What's Next, After the Unveiling? (requires registration or subscription) - The New York Times - "Ever since 1972, when the American public first learned about the Tuskegee syphilis research that subjected African-American men to scientific experiments without their consent, the medical profession has had much explaining to do about its past...Since then, several disturbing instances have come to light. In those cases, scientists, physicians and the government-sanctioned research or treatments that we would today consider unethical, like trials of untested vaccines or medications on mentally retarded children and prisoners."

►December 22, 2003 - Judge Halts Military's Required Anthrax Shots (requires registration or subscription) - The New York Times

►December 23, 2003 - Facts don't support furor over plants' mercury emissions - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - "The growing outrage over mercury emissions by power plants seems a stretch, considering that the connection with health is only theoretical and tenuous."

Comment:  And if you believe this.....