Tamiflu and other 'vaccines'

Today, the New Zealand Herald has reported this:

Tamiflu is available without prescription from today until September, but it will cost flu sufferers at least $60.

A full course of the unsubsidised drug, which is available over the counter for people showing flu symptoms, is priced at between $60 and $80.

People have been trying to sell it over NZ's version of E-Bay (TradeMe) as mass hysteria begins to grip that unfortunate little isolated and insecure nation. What they are paying for, however, is not a cure or a vaccine, it is a tax. If you don't purchase any Tamiflu you will get through flu season just as well as if you do... And I must say, if this is the be all and end all of pandemics, I wouldn't be hanging out near any pharmacy as all the infected leave their beds and rush out to grab their magic beans 'over the counter.'

Tamiflu was invented by a biopharmaceutical corporation called Gilead. They own the patent rights and licence the drug to Roche, who market and distribute it. All that Gilead, and indeed Tamiflu.com, say about their drug is that it "helps" to treat and prevent both Influenza A and B. They make no remarks about pandemic strains, and certainly don't use any words like "Bird" and "Swine" when talking about their product's effectiveness.

Tamiflu has helped Gilead achieve incredible growth as an organisation. In 1999/2000, the same time that the FDA approved Tamiflu, Gilead had a stock price of little over $3 a share. Once Europe approved the drug by the end of 2002 the share price had tripled to almost $10. Bird flu scares over recent years have helped the company achieve its all time high of $57.63. Indeed, today the stock is down to $45.80 so anyone with a spare couple of grand should add this to their portfolio - it may well tip $60 by the end of this "pandemic."

But there is someting a little more fishy about Gilead and Tamiflu. Gilead was founded in 1987. From 1988, Donald H. Rumsfeld sat on Gilead's Board of Directors, and was Chairman from 1997 until he resigned in 2001 to serve the Bush Administration as Secretary of Defense. Now, personally, I think this is quite wrong - that a man who has his finger in the pie of vaccines and pharma wonder-drugs can also have another finger on the button of quite probably the most devastating biological weapons depository in the world.

I'm sure I'm being alarmist. Rumsfeld was a professional after all. He'd even had the job before. Rumsfeld had previously been the youngest ever Secretary of Defense in the Ford Administration. This from Time Magazine:
In 1976, an errant outbreak of swine flu at Fort Dix, New Jersey, caused scientists to worry about a possible pandemic, so President Gerald Ford announced that the federal government would vaccinate the entire U.S. population. Unfortunately, several hundred people developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, an illness characterized by nerve damage and paralysis, after receiving the vaccination. The Ford family tried to alleviate fears by televising their flu shots, and in the end 40 million Americans were vaccinated for a strand of influenza that only had a handful of documented cases of human infection.
(Pictured: Rumsfeld with Ford, centre, and Chief of Staff Dick Cheney, right, in 1975... wonder if they were discussing how business and politics shouldn't mix?)


Even if Rumsfeld's transition from politics to pharma-business and back to politics again has been nothing but benign, I wonder how his influence was used in convincing governments around the world to stockpile Tamiflu during a succession of Bird Flu scares while he held the position of Secretary of Defense under the Bush Administration - a time when Gilead's share price has increased six-fold.

Marketing company Roche have experienced similar growth in yearly dividend payouts over the same period, from a little over 1.00CHF in 2000 to 5.00CHF last year. Compare the following statements from annual reports as the pandemic thing lifts off (while previous Gilead Chairman Rumsfeld sits in office as Secretary of Defense, I might add)
Roche's Annual Report 2001: Sales of Tamiflu increased 58% to 97 million Swiss francs in 2001. Despite modest sales, attributed to last year's mild flu season, the product has established itself as the market leader. Annual Report 2005: Sales of Tamiflu rose to 1.6 billion Swiss francs. Over 60 countries have now placed orders of pandemic stocks of Tamiflu. Roche will be able to produce over 300 million treatments annually by 2007. Annual Report 2007: Sales rose to 2.2 billion Swiss francs. Roche have the capacity to produce 400 million treatments if required.

By 2008 sales had dropped off dramatically as governments had all the stockpiles needed. This, however, begs the question: if Roche can produce 400 million treatments, and governments are sitting on stockpiles with 7 year shelf lives, what's the best way to get production and sales moving again? A viable answer would be another pandemic scare, like the Bird Flu scare that was so profitable between 2005-2007. Stockpiles will be spent, sales go up and stockpile replishments needed. Really, I suggest you invest in Roche shares right now, the coming year will be very good.

It's another example of the cyclical economics our twised society engages in. Only now it's not every 10-20 years. Now it is so brash and so greedy, cyclical consumerism is no longer confined to household cleaners and fast foods - our public health systems have become FMCGs: Mark my words, there'll be another pandemic outbreak in 2011.

More later...

Flying Pigs - The Swine Flu Fraud

Ever get the sense you've been on this ride before? Come on, sure you have... You've watched the media whip the public up into a frenzy where people get terrified enough to purchase something they wouldn't normally... maybe you've been coerced yourself... maybe in your 'end times kit' you already have two boxes of expired Tamiflu nestled amidst your torch, bottled water and cans of baked beans...

Well, folks, the ride seems to have started again. This time they've gone for a great porker of a name: Swine Flu... There will be some benefits; the overreaction of an otherwise ignorant public may result in the bulk of us enjoying a period of cheap bacon. There will, however, be some huge losses: Pig farmers may lose their livelihoods as Joe Public overreacts to the name (or worse, have their properties torched by ignorant mobs) and larcgescale corporate farms continue their takeover of agriculture. Uncle Tom Obama will show himself as no more the bearer of hope or purveyor of truth as his predecessor as Swine Flu helps him to quickly rush through a string of national health 'reforms' to the U.S. And, dear I say it, the end result of all of this could be that if we ever want to fly internationally again we may have to go through not only security checks but also have blood samples taken and tested as we wait in the transit lounge.

Yes, I am a cynic. There will be 'solutions' made into law as a result of this 'problem'.

The purpose of this blog is not to engage in any wild rumour, be it via conspiracy theories or mainstram media, but to dissect information, put it into a little perspective and relate to you, the reader, in what I hope is a sensible and logical manner. There is a lot to cover...

I'll begin with this gem, because mainstream media in New Zealand (TVNZ Breakfast) reported that 152 people had died worldwide from Swine Flu by April 28, 2009. This was rubbished by the World Health Organisation. By April 30, 2009, there have been eight (8) confirmed Swine Flu deaths around the world. One from the U.S. Now, from the website of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) on 'Seasonal Influenza':
Each flu season is unique, but it is estimated that, on average, approximately 5% to 20% of U.S. residents get the flu, and more than 200,000 persons are hospitalized for flu-related complications each year. About 36,000 Americans die on average per year from the complications of flu.
That is just under 99 people dying, on average, every day in the U.S. alone from complications with the normal, everyday flu.

Of course, these figures need to be taken with a grain of salt. Even the Britsh Medical Journal (2005;331:1412) has criticized this number as being outlandishly high, warped by the 'complications of' tag and used as scare tactics to have more and more Americans use flu vaccines every year. I plan to discuss in the next blog the powers behind the flu vaccines, who they are, where they sit in politics and how much money they make by frightening the living hell out of you. However, note that the World Health Organization says this:
Although difficult to assess, these annual epidemics are thought to result in between three and five million cases of severe illness and between 250 000 and 500 000 deaths every year around the world.

So, around 1,000 deaths every day (give or take) from annual seasonal epidemics. And the media has you terrified with 8 deaths over the last week from the Swine Flu strain. How about the 7,992 regular flu deaths that have occurred over the same time?

But the point is that people get the flu all the time. And people die from the flu all the time. Giving it a name like Swine Flu doesn't make you any more suseptible to catching the flu as you were yesterday. Don't buy into the fear.

I'm hoping we can trust the World Health Organization as a reputable source of information. So I'll point you there for definitions of the flu.

Influenza is caused by a virus that attacks mainly the upper respiratory tract – the nose, throat and bronchi and rarely also the lungs. The infection usually lasts for about a week. It is characterized by sudden onset of high fever, myalgia, headache and severe malaise, non-productive cough, sore throat, and rhinitis. Most people recover within one to two weeks without requiring any medical treatment. In the very young, the elderly and people suffering from medical conditions such as lung diseases, diabetes, cancer, kidney or heart problems, influenza poses a serious risk. In these people, the infection may lead to severe complications of underlying diseases, pneumonia and death.

Influenza rapidly spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics and imposes a considerable economic burden in the form of hospital and other health care costs and lost productivity.

In annual influenza epidemics 5-15% of the population are affected with upper respiratory tract infections. Hospitalization and deaths mainly occur in high-risk groups (elderly, chronically ill). Although difficult to assess, these annual epidemics are thought to result in between three and five million cases of severe illness and between 250 000 and 500 000 deaths every year around the world. Most deaths currently associated with influenza in industrialized countries occur among the elderly over 65 years of age.

The virus

The currently circulating influenza viruses that cause human disease are divided into two groups: A and B. Influenza A has 2 subtypes which are important for humans: A(H3N2) and A(H1N1), of which the former is currently associated with most deaths. Influenza viruses are defined by 2 different protein components, known as antigens, on the surface of the virus. They are spike-like features called haemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N) components.

The genetic makeup of influenza viruses allows frequent minor genetic changes, known as antigenic drift, and these changes require annual reformulation of influenza vaccines.

Pandemic influenza

Three times in the last century, the influenza A viruses have undergone major genetic changes mainly in their H-component, resulting in global pandemics and large tolls in terms of both disease and deaths. The most infamous pandemic was “Spanish Flu” which affected large parts of the world population and is thought to have killed at least 40 million people in 1918-1919. More recently, two other influenza A pandemics occurred in 1957 (“Asian influenza”) and 1968 (“Hong Kong influenza”) and caused significant morbidity and mortality globally. In contrast to current influenza epidemics, these pandemics were associated with severe outcomes also among healthy younger persons, albeit not on such a dramatic scale as the “Spanish flu” where the death rate was highest among healthy young adults.

Most recently, limited outbreaks of a new influenza subtype A(H5N1) directly transmitted from birds to humans have occurred in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China in 1997 and 2003.

Transmission

The virus is easily passed from person to person through the air by droplets and small particles excreted when infected individuals cough or sneeze. The influenza virus enters the body through the nose or throat. It then takes between one and four days for the person to develop symptoms. Someone suffering from influenza can be infectious from the day before they develop symptoms until seven days afterwards.

Disease spreads very quickly among the population especially in crowded circumstances. Cold and dry weather enables the virus to survive longer outside the body than in other conditions and, as a consequence, seasonal epidemics in temperate areas appear in winter.

So, from the WHO (the organization and not the band led by Roger Daltry), we can currently state that complications arising from the seasonal Influenza A H3N2 can cause the deaths of 4,800 to 9,600 people globally every week.

Influenza A H1N1 (Swine Flu) has caused the deaths of 8 people in the last week.

People, if you fear the flu here's som things to do: go do some exercise, look at your diet and eat more greens and less fats and sugars, sing, be happy and take a chance to improve your personal hygene (don't touch the escalator rails!)... if you NEED to take something, take some vitamin D... All of these things are equal if not better preventors of any kind of flu than Tamiflu or Relenza, which if you look at their official websites NEVER tout that they are able to vaccinate against Bird Flu, Swine Flu... only that they "can help keep the virus from making you sick".

Thing is I "can" kiss my sister, run all the way to Finland, or spend two hours a day watching Reality TV... but will I?

More on the so-called drug "vaccines" later... In the meantime, be healthy, be happy. Oh, and take a listen to guy who should be the U.S. President if both democracy and common sense were ever to prevail: