Guest guest Posted January 7, 2010 Report Share Posted January 7, 2010 ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION A Catalyst for Public Debate: Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability http://www.ahrp.org < http://www.ahrp.org> FYI A resolution calling for an investigation into the influence that drugmakers may have had on the World Health Organization, scientists and governments was signed and supported by more than a dozen members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and passed unanimously by the Health committee. The resolution was introduced by Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, a member of Germany's Social Democratic Party who chairs Health Subcommittee. The approved text of the resolution calling for a debate and inquiry states (among other things): "In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies have influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards, to alarm governments worldwide. They have made them squander tight health care resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly exposed millions of healthy people to the risk of unknown side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines. The birds flu campaign (2005-06) combined with the swine flu campaign seem to have caused a great deal of damage not only to some vaccinated patients and to public health budgets, but also to the credibility and accountability of important international health agencies. The definition of an alarming pandemic must not be under the influence of drugsellers." See: Pharma Times http://www.pharmatimes.com/WorldNews/article.aspx?id=17147 and Ed Silverman's Pharmalot (http://www.pharmalot.com < http://www.pharmalot.com> In June 2009, the WHO declared the swine flu a class 6 pandemic-- despite evidence that it did not fulfill the required conditions of a pandemic: "a new influenza virus subtype emerges; it infects humans, causing serious illness; and it spreads easily and sustainably among humans." Most of the cases attributed to the swine flu proved to be mild, and far fewer than anticipated cases emerged. Indeed, both the WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control had stopped counting swine flu cases. But the WHO classification has had major financial ramifications for the global procurement of drugs and vaccines worth many billions of dollars. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8094655.stm Dr. Wodarg called the "false pandemic" "one of the greatest medical scandals of the last century" and said that pharmaceutical companies influenced the whole process and needed to be held accountable. They were willing to "inflict bodily harm in their pursuit of profits," he said. Articles in the European press, starting in Denmark and spreading, have repeatedly called into question the myriad ties between vaccine manufacturers and decision makers in the United Nations' global health body. Further investigation, a report and a vote on the resolution by the Parliamentary Assembly are anticipated. A slate of reports confirm that "expert" medical advisory panels in the U.S. were overrun by panelists with conflicts of interest. For example, The New York Times reports (below) that a report issued last month by the Inspector General of the Health and Human Services Department found that the majority of "expert" advisors to the Centers for Disease Control--the agency that has been most actively promoting vaccination against the swine flu "pandemic"--had serious conflicts of interest: "64 percent of the advisers had potential conflicts of interest that were never identified or were left unresolved by the centers. Thirteen percent failed to have an appropriate conflicts form on file at the agency at all, which should have barred their participation in the meetings entirely, Mr. Levinson found. And 3 percent voted on matters that ethics officers had already barred them from considering." "Most of the advisers identified [in the report] had either a job or a grant from a company or other entity whose interests were affected by the committees' discussions, and a considerable number also owned stock in such companies." Public trust and the integrity of healthcare policymaking have been sacrificed when defective medical products were recommended for marketing by financially compromised "expert" advisory panels. As Gardiner points out: "As numerous medicines have been pulled from the market in recent years, worries have grown that experts may be recommending medical products - even ones they know to be unsafe - in part because manufacturers are paying them." CDC's former chief, Dr. Gerberding (2002-2008), a long-time advocate of vaccines, encapsulates the betrayal of trust by a high ranking federal official. Following her departure from the CDC, Jan. 2008, Dr. Gerberding went to work immediately for the global public relations firm, Edelman, that describes itself as "adviser on global health strategy." Edelman's Big Pharma clients, include: the industry's lobbying group, PHARMA, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Pfizer, Abbott Laboratories, & , and Merck-- thereby violating federal statutes (18 U.S.C. 207) restricting high government officials from serving as lobbyists before a year's "cooling off" period: See: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/207.html The Alliance for Human Research Protection calls for an investigation of conflicts of interest at Federal Agencies which spearheaded the excessive, expensive, and unjustifiable federal expenditure in response to false Swine Flu "pandemic" in the U.S. Indeed, federal agencies even stage-managed "off the record" media coverage of the epidemic. See: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/swineflu/news/sep0309exer cise.html Issues requiring investigation: 1. Why was BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority) a new agency in charge of procuring countermeasures for weapons of mass destruction, with no expertise procuring drugs in common use, made the lead agency for procuring vaccines and drugs for nonexistent Bird Flu and Swine Flu? BARDA bought large quantities of new drug and vaccine products which had not been tested in the field: it is unknown if any of it will work as desired. Indeed, as reported in the BMJ, December 8, 2009, no reliable evidence supports the usefulness of Tamiflu in treating the flu. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/dec08_3/b5351 2. Why were the manufacturers of all five Swine Flu vaccines and the two antiviral drugs (Tamiflu and Relenza) issued total liability waivers-- as were "government program planners" at BARDA and other agencies who had approved and exhorted their use? DHHS Secretaries under GW Bush and Barack Obama approved these liability waivers under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP): ftp://ftp.hrsa.gov/countermeasurescomp/Public_Readiness_and_Emergency_Prepar edness_Act.pdf. However, neither the Bush nor Obama administration made any attempt to inform Americans that in the event that they suffered a drug or vaccine-caused injury, they were prohibited from accessing the US legal system to seek damages. Discussion of the PREP law which enabled this can be found here: http://www.hrsa.gov/countermeasurescomp/prep_act.htm 3. AHRP would like to know why the US treasury, and worldwide health budgets, have come to resemble Big Pharma's cookie jar? With at least 36,000 U.S. deaths annually from seasonal flu, and (at most) 10,000 deaths from swine flu, we believe that President Obama's recent declaration (in October 2009) that swine flu presents a national emergency was ill-advised as it is preposterous. For continuing updated information about unsustainable vaccine policies, see: http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/ (the blog is maintained by AHRP board member, Meryl Nass, M.D) Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav veracare@... 212-595-8974 http://www.wodarg.de/english/2948146.html Council of Europe will investigate and debate on "Faked Pandemics" In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards to alarm governments worldwide and make them squander tight health resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly expose millions of healthy people to the risk of an unknown amount of side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines. The "birds-flu"-campaign (2005/06) combined with the "swine-flu"-campaign seem to have caused a great deal of damage not only to some vaccinated patients and to public health-budgets, but to the credibility and accountability of important international health- agencies. The Council of Europe and its member-states should ask for immediate investigations and consequences on their national levels as well as on the international level. The definition of an alarming pandemic must not be under the influence of drug-sellers. When in April 2009 some hundred normal influenza cases in Mexico City were rashly announced to be the beginning of a threatening new pandemic, there was little scientific evidence for this judgement. Nevertheless a large and immediate word-wide agenda setting process started and was eagerly spread by alarmist media and formally legitimized by pandemic-defining WHO, the agency, which is our global epidemiological watchdog and task-force. Besides this, vaccination programs against influenza are already established in most of the exposed countries as an annual routine. They are regularly taking into account all expected varieties of flu-viruses to bundle their antigen fragments in a well-adjusted polyvalent vaccine. But around the Mexican outbreak, WHO in cooperation with some big pharmaceutical companies and their scientists re-defined pandemics and lowered the alarm-threshold. Those new standards forced politicians in most states to react immediately and sign marketing commitments for additional and new vaccines against "swine-flu" and spend billions of dollars to catch up with the alarming scenario that Big Pharma, media and WHO were spreading. From the beginning in April 2009 it was clear, that a newly combined flu-virus was on its way - as many flu-virus-variations have been almost every year before. From the first cases in Mexico it was also evident, that this new subtype was doing less harm to infected humans than others in former years. Nevertheless the "swine-flu-campaign" was increasingly threatening people, filling television programs, newspapers, health- agendas, ambulances and hospitals. Never before the search for traces of a virus was carried out so broadly and intensively. Besides, many cases of death, that happened to coincide with seropositive H1N1 lab-findings, were simply attributed to "swine-flu" and used to foster fear. Additionally it has been proven, that at least one third of the population older than 60 had already positive test results because of flu contacts in the second half of the last century. In contrast to this "agenda setting process" it has to be stated, that the annual worldwide spreading ("pandemic") of 2009- influenza was a relief for global health, compared with the suffering, influenza waves used to originate most of the years before. The Australian flu-season, which has already passed by with the Australian winter, has even given evidence, that the infection with "swine-flu" brings some protection against other, more dangerous virus-types. Nevertheless we have to observe, that a faked "swine- flu"- pandemic is still used for marketing risky vaccines. The victims among millions of needlessly vaccinated people must be protected by their states and independent scientific clarification should provide evidence and transparency for national and -if necessary- European courts. ~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/health/policy/18cdc.html The NEW YORK TIMES December 18, 2009 Advisers on Vaccines Often Have Conflicts, Report Says By GARDINER HARRIS WASHINGTON - A new report finds that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a poor job of screening medical experts for financial conflicts when it hired them to advise the agency on vaccine safety, officials said Thursday. Most of the experts who served on advisory panels in 2007 to evaluate vaccines for flu and cervical cancer had potential conflicts that were never resolved, the report said. Some were legally barred from considering the issues but did so anyway. In the report, expected to be released Friday, R. Levinson, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, found that the centers failed nearly every time to ensure that the experts adequately filled out forms confirming they were not being paid by companies with an interest in their decisions. The report found that 64 percent of the advisers had potential conflicts of interest that were never identified or were left unresolved by the centers. Thirteen percent failed to have an appropriate conflicts form on file at the agency at all, which should have barred their participation in the meetings entirely, Mr. Levinson found. And 3 percent voted on matters that ethics officers had already barred them from considering. The inspector general recommended that the centers do a far better job of screening. In a reply, the agency's new director, Dr. R. Frieden, agreed. "Since the period covered in this review, C.D.C. has strengthened the financial disclosures and conflict-of-interest process by instituting improved business processes and realigning responsibilities and oversight," Dr. Frieden wrote. As numerous medicines have been pulled from the market in recent years, worries have grown that experts may be recommending medical products - even ones they know to be unsafe - in part because manufacturers are paying them. As a result, government agencies, medical societies and medical journals have become increasingly insistent that experts disclose potential conflicts. And while the experts invariably insist that they have done so, government audits routinely find large gaps between these disclosures and the experts' actual income from consulting. Congress tightened the rules on outside consulting after similar conflicts were found among members of advisory panels to the Food and Drug Administration. But little attention has been paid to the potential conflicts of advisers to the C.D.C., even though that agency's committees have significant influence over what vaccines are sold in the United States, what tests are performed to detect cancer and how coal miners are protected. Most of the advisers identified by Mr. Levinson had either a job or a grant from a company or other entity whose interests were affected by the committees' discussions, and a considerable number also owned stock in such companies, the report said. Representative DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat who said she had long been a supporter of the C.D.C., said: "That is why I am so concerned about this report issued by the inspector general exposing serious ethics violations within the C.D.C. All members of the federal advisory committees, whose recommendations direct federal policy, should be without conflict of interest." FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted (C ) material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without profit. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Toxic Indoor Mold Central" group. To post to this group, send email to mold-centralgooglegroups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.