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A
Rouge Forum Broadside
Smallpox, War Hysteria, Corporate Greed and the Developing Opposition By Tom Suber January 26, 2003 This article addresses
a small aspect of the economic and political corruption attendant to developing
fascism; specifically, as it relates to the narrow aspect of smallpox,
war hysteria, corporate greed/advantage, and the developing opposition.
Hopefully, this brief examination will provide insight to the functioning
of our institutions in one area in the dark face of fascism and the concomitant
growing opposition. If that developing opposition becomes organized and
conscious there is hope for the future. The alternative is the darkest
period in modern history. We have only to look at the Balkans too see the
speed by which the light can be extinguished from civilization and the
attendant darkness and barbarity that can befall a modern western civilization.
War is the loss of future possibilities.
War
Hysteria and the
The
United States military estimates that 500,000 Iraqi civilians may die,
primarily as the result of air attacks, in the course of the Bush war for
oil in Iraq. It would amount to the largest death toll in aerial bombardment
in history. You don't engage in that kind of slaughter without whipping
up public hysteria and turning it into support for aggressive war. The
government is attempting to do exactly that with its claims of imminent
bio-terrorism. War requires a demonized opposition by use of the big lie
at the expense of truth.
The Bush use of the big
lie in support of aggression was dealt a spectacular blow January 24, 2003
when only four people volunteered for smallpox inoculations that began
in Connecticut. The response of the public to the Bush administration's
plan to vaccinate nearly 500,000 health workers across the country represents
a growing opposition to the dishonest warmongering promulgated by the administration.
The small turnout was
due to the collective efforts of SEIU, AFSCME, the Nurses Association,
doctors, health care, and emergency workers who have become a reluctant
opposition. Health care and emergency workers cited safety and liability
concerns and a growing recognition that smallpox is not a currently viable
threat.
The Washington Post
reported on Dec. 18 that two "prominent teaching hospitals" are refusing
to vaccinate their employees against Smallpox. The hospitals cited were
Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and at the Virginia Commonwealth University
in Richmond. But opposition to inoculations is obviously much larger and
widespread than what was previously reported in the Washington Post
and
other media.
Widespread refusals to
take the Smallpox vaccine have developed among United States military personnel.
In fact, the strongest opposition to the administration War hysteria the
related drum beating for war has come not from politicians but from military
leaders in the Pentagon. The developing resistance to military and civilian
vaccine inoculations in the United States reflects the recent experience
of the Israeli government.
In Israel , as reported
by Ha'aretz on Dec. 30, "Nearly half of the Meuhedet HMO's staff
[in Tel Aviv] have refused to take the Smallpox vaccine being offered by
the government." The refusals are widespread throughout the Israeli health
care system and among members of Israel's security forces and emergency
rescue squads. The Israeli government has been forced to abandon plans
for mass inoculation of Israeli citizens and admitted that there is no
imminent threat of Smallpox from Iraq. This is a spectacular admission
from a state that promoted hysteria by distributing gas masks to each of
its citizens.
Within the United States,
military personnel have learned to view the Army's vaccination plans with
skepticism based upon their own previous firsthand experience with the
mandatory inoculation of an unsafe Anthrax vaccine. The widespread Anthrax
refusals and furor within the military forced the United States to reluctantly
end mandatory inoculations for Anthrax. This was followed, soon after,
by the announcement that the Anthrax vaccine would be reformulated and
new manufacturing procedures instituted in an attempt to make the vaccine
safer.
SAFETY
CONCERNS
The
Smallpox vaccine being given to the military and first responders is unsafe
and the United States government well knows this. You might ask administration
officials why only the President was vaccinated and not one cabinet officer.
The answer lies in the fact that the old vaccine is unsafe and primitive
by today's medical standards and would not be approved for licensure if
subject to FDA approval procedures currently in effect. The vaccine's lack
of safety is caused mainly by two irrefutable facts:
1. The current smallpox
vaccine is made from calf lymph tissue in which the cowpox virus was grown.
The bovine proteins in the vaccine tend to enhance allergic immune responses
causing severe complications and death in a predictable number of individuals.
2. The virus in the vaccine
is live and attenuated with a mercury formulation produced by the Eli Lilly
Company called Thermisol.
The Eli Lilly Company was forced to take Thermisol off the American market due to widespread evidence that mercury poisoning results from childhood vaccinations. The issue revolving around Thermisol has been the increased mercury levels children are being exposed to due to a 20-fold increase in vaccinations since Thermisol was first introduced in the 30's. If 1 PPM of mercury found in 1 kg of fish per week is the safe limit set by the government for adults, and 1 PPM of mercury found in 1 kg of fish per month is the safe limit for pregnant adults... it is easily shown mathematically that multiple Thermisol-based vaccines will cause mercury poisoning in an 18-month old child.The proximate cause of Autism in children may be the result of this childhood mercury poisoning. Some may claim that the smallpox vaccine does not contain thermisal.
The vaccine manufactured by Wyeth and known as Dryvac does not but the
Aventis product does. Infact, Aventis continued to use Thermisal
in their recent Hepititis A vaccine which by the way was recalled by the
European Union for failing to have sufficient antigens to work.
Greed
and War Profiteering
Drug
companies quickly responded to the opportunities offered by the hysterical
war fervor to make a buck at the expense of the people. Capitalism always
seeks a way to profit even if it is at the expense of mass poisoning, destruction,
or suffering.
Eli Lilly was forced by
public indignation and subsequent regulatory action into removing Thermisol
from the American market. However, Eli Lilly, not a company to willing
lose a buck, continues to poison children in the rest of the world. Eli
Lilly faced substantial losses from pending lawsuits of parents with Autistic
children. But the Homeland Security bill came to the rescue and gave immunity
from lawsuit to vaccine makers. All of a sudden, Eli Lilly gets off the
hook for poisoning the world's children. Public outrage may yet reverse
this act and force Eli Lilly to the court dock to answer for mass poisonings.
Thermisol is just one small indication of the drug companies' treachery.
Consider cholesterol.
The largest profit sector of the pharmaceutical industry is the cholesterol
lowering family of drugs known as statins. Must of the population has been
medically defined by the pharmaceutical companies as in need of lowering
their cholesterol. Statins are the ONLY drug being prescribed for
this condition and statins are killing people every day. The mechanism
by which statins block cholesterol production is the very biological mechanism
for production of Coenzyme Q10 or Ubiquitone. CQ10 is the most prevalent
coenzyme in the body and is essential for energy production within each
cell. Its absence causes loss of energy, muscle wasting, and ultimately
death. These deaths could be avoided by the addition of CQ10 to the statins
but there would be less profit in that scenario. Better to let a few people
die. And die they are.
In August of 2003 Bayer
AG withdrew its brand of statin, Baycol, after it was linked to 31 deaths.
Public Citizen says that special warning labels -- placed in black boxes
to make them stand out - should be placed on statins based on the FDA's
own Adverse Event Reporting System. The system received reports of 50 more
deaths associated with the use of statin drugs since October of 1997, not
including Baycol.
The b global vaccines
market is currently dominated by four large pharmaceutical companies --
Aventis SA , GlaxoSmithKline Plc., Wyeth and Merck & Co. Inc -- which
together account for almost 85 percent of sales. One of these four, Aventis
SA had 150 million doses of worthless unmarketable Smallpox vaccine that
it could not sell because of legal liabilities that would be associated
with selling a vaccine with Thermisol brand mercury formulation in it.
So Aventis SA donated it to the United States government and took a charitable
tax deduction of the former retail cost (worth approximately 150 million
dollars) of the now unmarketable vaccine---quite a profit made from a warehouse
full of worthless material that could not even be disposed of without significant
additional expense for handling and special disposal as a toxic waste.
Earlier this year President
Bush signed a bio-terrorism response bill providing huge windfall profits
for pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines that were a low profit
commodity item but would now produce substantial profits at government
expense, especially since the government would no longer require vaccines
to be proven to be effective and safe. No more expense of messy clinical
trials. Indeed, according to a report published by Reuters News Service
on January 7, 2003, Merrill Lynch sees $10 billion in global revenue
from vaccines in '06 versus $5.4 billion in '01. The brokerage predicted
the otherwise unprofitable pharmaceutical company Acambis would achieve
a period of profitability through 2005 solely on the back of U.S. government
contracts for Smallpox vaccine. The Pharmaceutical companies stand to gain
nearly five billion dollars with the stroke of the Presidential pen.
Bush next issued orders
to the Justice Department to seek a court order in the class action civil
case against Eli Lilly to seal records that have linked mandatory childhood
vaccinations as the cause of mercury poisoning giving rise to autism. It
would not do to let people see the public record which condemns the Smallpox
and other vaccines as unsafe when you are trying to promote mass inoculations
with this vaccine.
Drug companies are currently working on a new Smallpox vaccine that will be released next year. But, the recently passed Homeland Security bill also provides immunity for vaccine makers in the event that recipients of vaccines become ill or die after being vaccinated. Further, under the new Food and Drug Administration regulations, vaccines do not have to be certified for efficacy prior to being introduced into the general population. Expect a flood of new vaccines to now come to market as the drug manufacturing companies cannot be sued for ill effects and the vaccines do not even have to be proven to work. The current regulatory scheme is one of legalizing snake oil sales. But worse, workers injured by these vaccines would not receive even workers compensation in most states. In the few states where worker's compensation is available, it is not sufficient to support the worker and h/her family. In many states Workers Compensation is not provided until retirement age but instead is limited to a period of retraining. It is no wonder workers are resisting the President's vaccine plans. One has to be crazy to volunteer. Further,
federal legislation augmented by the states would allow the government
to make refusing a vaccination a crime, punishable by incarceration, and
would permit forced vaccinations in declared health emergencies.
It is a win-win situation
for the government because the vaccines do not have to work if the threat
of biological warfare is imagined. People only have to think they need
it; think it works, and think the threat is real for the President's strategy
to work. Once they have participated in the counterfeit vaccination project,
they embody a false sense of privilege, and support for the imperialist
war.
Think not as the President
would have it. Instead have serious doubts about deeper agendas that lie
beneath government warnings about bio-terror attacks. Think about corporate
greed that cares not for human life but instead promotes war, hysteria,
and death for profit. Be it vaccine manufacturers or oil companies none
are life affirming institutions.
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