Levi Quackenboss on Recent Negative Vaccine Stories
Thanks to Levi Quackenboss for this deft post on the recent spate of articles that do not kiss the backside of pharma and vaccination. Visit Levi's site often.
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We all know by now that our “free press” has deeply embedded editors and producers who take their marching orders directly from pharmaceutical companies and the CDC. Their job is to postpone, water down, spin, or kill stories that hurt public health profits.
Whenever you see a vaccine article that strikes you as negative– or hell, even fair and balanced– it’s a red flag that big wheels are in motion behind the scenes; you just don’t know what the outcome is going to be yet.
I’ve seen it twice in three weeks with the meningitis b vaccine. On August 18th NBC ran an article about two girls, both of whom had been vaccinated for men b, both of whom were in perfect health, and both of whom were killed by men b anyway. The article points out that the CDC’s recommendation for the vaccine is permissive, and that getting the infection is akin to being struck by lightning.
I saw the article and thought, what’s up? Why are NBC’s pimps allowing reporters to write about these girls?
Then on September 7th the New York Times, of all newspapers, wrote about men b outbreaks, describing them as “small” and “extremely rare,” and said men b vaccines are “lucrative” and “pricey” and “playing to parents’ fears.” They pointed out that making vaccines for less rare diseases has the potential to make the vaccine industry into a “cash cow” and they didn’t mean it in a good way. Mmmm-hmmm. I mean duh, but still. Not what you’d expect them to say.
The Times even included a quote from a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The risk, he said, “is not a large enough problem to warrant routine vaccination.”
So why are Pfizer’s and GSK’s men b vaccines on the media chopping block? I don’t know, but we’re not reading investigative vaccine journalism on NBC and in the Times. Keep your eyes peeled for the Godsent explanation the overlords will provide us with. They don’t usually announce the problem more than 30 days before announcing the solution, so it should be any day now.
But on to the flu vaccine. You may remember in July 2016 when the inhaled flu vaccine went from a championed 90% efficacy to only 3% efficacy. Is it likely that actually happened? Hell no, unless they threw the game on purpose. But numbers can be twisted to say whatever they want them to say, and, for whatever reason, FluMist makers– or the flu vaccine industry as a whole– wanted to scrap that vaccine. So overnight the needle-free FluMist was taboo and it was injected mercury for almost everyone.
Maybe FluMist makers got a buyout like GSK did from Merck for leaving the US HPV vaccine market.
So these past couple of weeks have been nuts for flu vaccine news.
In the last few days of August I began seeing mainstream articles pointing out how ineffective the flu vaccine is for the elderly.
I see their ineffectiveness and raise them up to murder, but that’s not where I’m going with this.
Within one week of each other, The Daily Mail ALL-CAPS screamed about the flu shot’s ineffectiveness, the BBC finally had an honest vaccine headline, and Chemist and Druggist halfheartedly shrugged that vaccinating the elderly was better than nothing.
This made me side-eye the news.
Then! On September 13th the Washington Post wrote about a new study that linked the flu vaccine to a 7.7x increased chance or a 670% increase in miscarriages. I know that one of my favorite bloggers has written an incredibly researched piece about WaPo’s bullshit spin of 7.7x being just a “hint” of increased fetal death, but I’m seeing this a little differently.
If protecting the flu vaccine was WaPo’s goal, I don’t think the press would even bother with the spin when they could just ignore the study completely, a la William Thompson. So the fact that this finding– in a study I can’t believe was conducted by the CDC’s Frank Mothereffing DeStefano and published in the journal Vaccine— is getting mainstream coverage is spelling death for the annual flu vaccine as we currently know it.
The Daily Beast jumped on the dog pile, as did NBC, Science, Fortune, and the New York Post. All of them make the same milquetoast arguments that maybe the finding isn’t real and pregnant women should continue to get the shots. And Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research who is famous for his “We have over-promoted and overhyped this vaccine. It does not protect as promoted. It’s all a sales job: it’s all public relations” quote, wrote up the miscarriage study in Stat with the spin that “science prioritizes safety.” Thanks for looking out, science!
Just kidding. We all know that today’s science doesn’t prioritize anything but profits. So why is the CDC’s father of thimerosal-induced autism denial acting as a hitman for the annual flu vaccine?
I might have the answer: the universal flu vaccine is about to arrive.
Read more here.
In 2013 Dr. Michael Osterholm came under fire for claiming current flu vaccines are ineffective and overhyped. But he had a method to his madness.
Osterholm heads CIDRAP, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. In October 2012 CIDRAP published a 160-page document titled “The Compelling Need for Game-Changing Influenza Vaccines: An Analysis of the Influenza Vaccine Enterprise and Recommendations for the Future.” It was funded by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sites/default/files/public/downloads/ccivi_report.pdf
The report’s preface nobly quotes Richard Feynman: “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.” Yet Osterholm himself cannot resist leveraging defensive PR, using media cronies to pejoratively mislabel vaccine program critics as “anti-science” — an epithet about as logical as “anti-breathing.”
https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2013/02/osterholm-says-officials-should-be-more-frank-about-limits-flu-vaccine
Some of CIDRAP’s key findings:
“4. Novel-antigen influenza vaccines in investigational research offer the potential of lasting, broad, and potent protection; however, substantial research support is needed to further develop and evaluate these vaccines.”
“5. The current US government regulatory process for approving influenza vaccines… presents a barrier to the development of game-changing vaccines.”
“6. Substantial financial risks and inadequate incentives create significant barriers to bringing game-changing vaccines to market.”
Among its recommendations:
“A substantial investment by the US government in research and development and regulatory science, with new private-sector investment incentives, will be imperative in accomplishing this objective.” That would require “a new organizational and leadership structure for the influenza vaccine enterprise” similar to “the Manhattan Project.”
More money and more social control, but no plan to accommodate consumers’ negative experiences with the vaccine. What could go wrong with that?
Posted by: nhokkanen | September 16, 2017 at 02:36 PM
In my entire life I had only heard of 1 Meningitis death but when Meningitis shots were put on the schedule, Meningitis illnesses and deaths soared. In one tiny town of a 1 mile radius, NINE children were hospitalized with Meningitis after the vaccine (Elementary school children).
In Princeton U. a friend of a student visited the campus from Pa. went home and died. The college age kids had already had Meningitis shots in middle school, high school or for college. The university announced that the kids got the wrong type and they would fly in the correct type from the UK. They were assured that the UK had a better type. So the batches were flown in and the Princeton kids received 3 more. At that point they got 5th, 6th, 7th or more injections. What they were NOT Told was that it had just been approved but not yet used on college kids. Today Universities are making vaccines for profit. It felt awkward to watch the news showing so many kids wait on line for their turn to get 3 (Not yet used on humans in the UK) more shots. I used to think that Ivy League Students were bright now I have lost that opinion.
Posted by: Shelley Tzorfas | September 16, 2017 at 02:23 PM
No matter what Dr Wakefield will still be blamed - blast from the past many on here would have been present at the time the pictures were taken.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4890984/Anti-vaccine-mothers-blamed-diseases-returning-UK.html
Pharma for Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | September 16, 2017 at 01:45 PM
Yes, Like John I think Levi has got his facts wrong regarding the meningitis jabs. In the UK the Meningitis ACWY vaccine is routinely offered to teenagers. It does NOT protect against the deadly Meningitis B, which is a separate jab, offered to infants. It's acknowledged college students are vulnerable to infection from a number of diseases.
"The meningitis ACWY vaccines offers protection against four types of bacteria that can cause meningitis – meningococcal groups A, C, W and Y.
Young teenagers, sixth formers and "fresher" students going to university for the first time are advised to have the vaccination."
Posted by: Jenny Allan | September 16, 2017 at 10:12 AM
I am a great admirer of Levi but I think he may have been misreading things if he concludes that the two girls who died had been been vaccinated against the disease - there may be an issue about whether being vaccinated against other types of meningitis leaves people vulnerable to the one's they haven't been. One also has to look very carefully at balancing a rare and terrible disease against a vaccine which has serious side effects in above 1 in 50 applications.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2016/02/urgent-questions-men-b-vaccine-and-the-united-kingdom-joint-committee-on-vaccination-and-immunisatio.html
How many people may sustain long term damage or die from the vaccine without it being recorded from a mass vaccination program? We know when it gets to that the real fall out is never recorded.
Posted by: John Stone | September 16, 2017 at 09:41 AM
Any parent who allows their child to be a guinea pig for this single injection vaccine is crazy as hell! I don't even want them testing on animals! Actually....maybe if they ram this thing through and it kills enough children it will be the beginning of the end for all vaccines. Sad-but this is probably what it is going to take for the truth to come out!
Posted by: Janet Presson | September 16, 2017 at 09:33 AM
As much as I admire Quackenboss, I have to disagree that their 'fessing-up' about the flu vaccines involves a nefarious plot to promote another vaccine. I am not entirely discounting that there is any underhandedness going on, but not as Quackenboss is imagining.
Consider, if it is all about promoting vaccines and profits, why haven't they done a better job at truly 'fixing' the safety study to vindicate vaccines. We consider their MMR and thimerosal studies are shoddy, and also dismiss them as incomplete, not telling us if the full schedule is safe. Yet, if it's all a grand cover-up, why haven't they taken this cue and really fake an epidemiology study, showing, for instance, no relationship between the number of vaccines a child receives and autism? This would go far to take the wind out of our sail when we argue that the safety studies are not exhaustive.
Consider also the Thompson's study: Having found an undesirable results for black boys, they decided to omit the finding. Yet, if they were truly crooked, they could've really cooked the study and data to show no link for that subgroup. Even Thompson in his recordings lament how they are failing to properly study the autism connection, rather than confessing that there is any over-the-top scamming going on
What I am suggesting here is a pattern, that rather than resembling any grand scheming, is one of avoidance, not wanting to uncover undesirable results. In the end, perhaps there is no significant difference between the two, but it does illustrate their prime operating rationale. It's not so much about promoting vaccines and profits, but not wanting to lose. I see them primarily as scared. Fear drives them; they're terrified of losing their shirts, and much more, should vaccines be proven as unsafe as suspected.
So, with this said, what do I consider are the possible underhandedness angles to their 'dissing' the flu vaccine? It may simple be a desperate attempt to buy credibility and take some of our heat off them. Perhaps they throw the flu vaccine under the bus as a distraction, knowing that the much bigger fish that they seek to protect is the autism connection. Then there is also what I would term as a 'tactical retreat', but for the sake of brevity, I won't go too much into that now.
Posted by: Greg | September 16, 2017 at 09:14 AM
Frank mothereffing Destefano - excellent! Could not have said it better myself!!
One shot - to cure them all! Why go through the pain of watching your children squirm while getting each shot? Wow. Is that the best reason for an all in one shot? Just insane.
Posted by: Jill | September 16, 2017 at 08:07 AM
I don't know if the "universal flu vaccine is about to arrive" .. but .. the following article describes an even more threatening vaccine that is also "about to arrive".
http://www.newser.com/story/248672/one-shot-for-all-vaccines-study-holds-promise.html
Potential good news for kids—and the parents who hate to watch them squirm when faced with a needle. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a technology that could allow childhood vaccines—for everything from polio to measles, mumps, and rubella—to be combined into a single injection, reports the BBC. The idea is that one shot would inject microscopic capsules of vaccine into a person, and those capsules would be designed to break down and release their contents at different times, per the Science study. A simpler application would be to deliver one vaccine and its necessary booster shots at one time. In tests on mice, researchers were able to time the release of the booster doses to exactly nine, 20, and 41 days after the initial shot. The concept has not been tested in humans yet.
Posted by: bob moffit | September 16, 2017 at 06:21 AM