►December 24, 2003 - New understanding of why brain cells die after stroke will lead to development of new treatments - University of Toronto via www.eurekalert.org

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

►December 19, 2003 - Confronting Influenza: Prevention Strategies That Work - (registration required) - CME via www.medscape.com

►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 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?

►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."

►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 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

►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.] "

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

►December 30, 2003 - U.S. Bans Dietary Supplement Linked to Number of Deaths (requires registration or subscription) - The New York Times

►December 30, 2003 - North Coast firm reduces tuna mercury - The Ukiah Daily Journal - "Albacore caught off the Humboldt County coast are smaller than those caught mainly by foreign boats, and haven't accumulated much mercury. By singling out the smallest of the fish that are caught, Bill Carvalho of Carvalho Fisheries of McKinleyville has canned a product that falls below even stricter European standards for mercury."

►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

►January 2004 - Concerns continue over mercury and autism (Letter to the editor) - by Mark F. Blaxill, Director Safe Minds - journal article (American Journal of Preventive Medicine) via www.elsevier.com - "Stehr-Green et al.[1] have misrepresented my work and confused the debate over autism and mercury exposure with ecologic data from Sweden and Denmark. Their report has many flaws. Four stand out."

►January 2004 - Authors' reply to Mr. Blaxill's "concerns continue over mercury and autism" (Letter to the editor) - by Paul Stehr-Green DrPH, MPH - journal article (American Journal of Preventive Medicine) via www.elsevier.com

►December 30, 2003 - Ark. Limits Info Regarding Flu Deaths - Ark. Officials Limit Sharing Information About Flu Deaths, Citing New U.S. Medical Privacy Law - AP via ABC News

Comment:  What's that about?

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 - 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 - 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 30, 2003 - Ephedra Ban Comes Too Late; FDA Should Have Acted Much Sooner - Statement of Dr. Sidney Wolfe, Director of Public Citizen's Health Research

►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 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 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 29, 2003 - Pharmaceutical companies find new ways to reach anxious parents -- go direct (Editorial) - www.sfgate.com 

►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

►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 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.'"