The World Health Organization is investigating a claim by an Australian researcher that the swine flu virus circling the globe may have been created as a result of human error.
Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu drug, said in an interview that he intends to publish a report suggesting the new strain may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines. Gibbs said he came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus's origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint.
"One of the simplest explanations is that it's a laboratory escape," Gibbs said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. "But there are lots of others."
The World Health Organization received the study last weekend and is reviewing it, Keiji Fukuda, the agency's assistant director-general of health security and environment, said in an interview May 11. Gibbs, who has studied germ evolution for four decades, is one of the first scientists to analyze the genetic makeup of the virus that was identified three weeks ago in Mexico and threatens to touch off the first flu pandemic since 1968.
A virus that resulted from lab experimentation or vaccine production may indicate a greater need for security, Fukuda said. By pinpointing the source of the virus, scientists also may better understand the microbe's potential for spreading and causing illness, Gibbs said.
© Tribune photo by Candice C. Cusic, August 7, 2007
Obama does his Bush impression
The "lasting commitment" Washington war-time summit/photo-op between United States President Barack Obama and the AfPak twins, "Af" President Hamid Karzai and "Pak" President Asif Ali Zardari was far from being an urgent meeting to discuss ways to prevent the end of civilization as we know it. It has been all about the meticulous rebranding of the Pentagon's "Long War".
In Obama's own words, the "lasting commitment" is above all to "defeat al-Qaeda". As an afterthought, the president added, "But also to support the democratically elected, sovereign governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan." To have George W Bush's man in Kabul and former premier Benazir Bhutto's widow defined as "sovereign", one would be excused for believing Bush is still in the White House.
© unknown
Ice in the Arctic is often twice as thick as expected, report surprised scientists who returned last week from a major scientific expedition. The scientists - a 20-member contingent from Canada, the U.S., Germany, and Italy - spent one month exploring the North Pole as well as never-before measured regions of the Arctic.
Among their findings: Rather than finding newly formed ice to be two metres thick, "we measured ice thickness up to four metres," stated a spokesperson for the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research of the Helmholtz Association, Germany's largest scientific organisation.
Then we get this from the United States: "Sorry, Al Gore, but Public Cares About the Economy, Not Global Warming".
Gallup Poll Editor Frank Newport says he sees no evidence that Al Gore's campaign against global warming is winning. "It's just not caught on," says Newport. "They have failed." Or, more bluntly: "Any measure that we look at shows Al Gore's losing at the moment. The public is just not that concerned." What the public is worried about: the economy.
He adds: "As Al Gore I think would say, the greatest challenge facing humanity . . . has failed to show up in our data."
© Red Pill Press
Writing in a preface to Knight-Jadczyk's new book High Strangeness: Hyperdimensions and the Process of Alien Abductions, Dolan states:
"It's a rare book that has the ability to change one's mind about the world. Rarest of all are those gems with the ability to change one's life. High Strangeness is such a book....
High Strangeness is a book that lays out provocatively and passionately the hidden slavery of the human race." Dolan goes on to describe the field theory set out in that book, "The human race is being manipulated physically and spiritually by a race of beings that we know as the Reptilians.... They can manipulate time with ease, they control the "Greys" and they live in what is known as the Fourth Density.
Dolan writes of this field theory, "The Reptilians are able to manipulate and control us in just the way we can control cattle. But simply because the Reptilians live in a state of consciousness that is higher than ours does not mean they are ethical. They are, in fact, what we would refer to as pretty evil. They exist in what is called a Service to Self (STS) state of being."
Comment: We notice that our author refers to the ideas presented by Laura Knight-Jadczyk as an "hypothesis" - which is correct. But then we see it magically becomes "field theory". Certainly "field theory" may be a loose way of expressing hyperdimensional realities when addressing non-scientists and thus will attract the attention of more readers than just "hypothesis" (doesn't matter how well grounded a hypothesis), however it is just this sort of lack of precision that can lead to erroneous impressions. The point should be not in attracting the readers but in portraying the truth as precisely as possible. This "field theoretical" distortion repeats all through the article.
Scientists use various models to evaluate risk, but researchers have long understood that ordinary people don't rely on mathematical probability to assess the dangers posed by some phenomenon - they use other kinds of rules.
For example, we're much more accepting of risks that we assume voluntarily. That's one reason why people who smoke a pack a day will go to a zoning board meeting to fight against a diesel bus yard.
People are also more accepting of risk when they have a sense of control. Driving a car is much more dangerous than riding in an airplane, but as an airplane passenger, you feel helpless. Another reason people worry more about airplane crashes than motor vehicle accidents is because the events are more noteworthy - a whole lot of people killed all at once, instead of one or two here and there, even though the latter adds up to a lot more people over time.
For example, we're much more accepting of risks that we assume voluntarily. That's one reason why people who smoke a pack a day will go to a zoning board meeting to fight against a diesel bus yard.
People are also more accepting of risk when they have a sense of control. Driving a car is much more dangerous than riding in an airplane, but as an airplane passenger, you feel helpless. Another reason people worry more about airplane crashes than motor vehicle accidents is because the events are more noteworthy - a whole lot of people killed all at once, instead of one or two here and there, even though the latter adds up to a lot more people over time.
© Bruce Eagle
"Swine Flu"
"Swine Flu"
It was stated by the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) that the first case of "Swine Flu" was diagnosed in Mexico on the 17th of April. In the last few weeks, several researchers have sent information to Andrew Johnson, an independent lay researcher who runs a free website called "Check the Evidence". Johnson explains "I was sent information that includes commentary provided by Alternative Health figures such as Dr Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician, and Dr Leonard Horowitz, a Harvard Graduate of Dental Medicine. Their commentaries vigorously challenge mainstream reports about the Swine Flu scares."
On his website, Dr Mercola states "this isn't the first time the public has been warned about swine flu. The last time was in 1976, right before I entered medical school and I remember it very clearly. It resulted in the massive swine flu vaccine campaign. Do you happen to recall the result of this massive campaign? Within a few months, claims totalling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the vaccine. The vaccine was also blamed for 25 deaths."
Suspicions have also been raised about the actual nature of the virus itself , following comments by a WHO Official that the current strain contains both Avian and Swine Flu characteristics. Johnson states, "Some would say this was only possible if the virus had been genetically manipulated in a laboratory".
For eight years, Condoleezza Rice dealt with the Beltway punditry and the access-craving White House press corps. The reception she got, with a handful of exceptions, was fawning. Which leaves her totally unprepared for a return to an academy populated with the Daily Show generation: bright young minds with a very critical attitude towards the last eight years. In a meeting with Stanford students at a dormitory reception on April 27, the school's former provost got off to a shaky start and ended in a train wreck. She may in fact have her last words in the exchange quoted back to her some day in a law court.
Dr John Crippen is the pseudonym of an NHS doctor who writes a popular medical blog. This is his account of the view from the GP's surgery
Oh! God, now I know it is serious. The Health Protection Agency has sent me an algorithm to tell me how to deal with swine flu. It arrived today in an email with one of those red exclamation marks at the side. An algorithm, for those who don't know, is a "finite sequence of instructions, an explicit, step-by-step procedure for solving a problem". It is very complicated. I do not understand it. Fortunately the primary care trust has also sent me a red exclamation mark email with instructions I can understand: "The main message remains: always use a tissue to catch coughs and sneezes, throw away used tissues and regularly wash your hands."
Oh! God, now I know it is serious. The Health Protection Agency has sent me an algorithm to tell me how to deal with swine flu. It arrived today in an email with one of those red exclamation marks at the side. An algorithm, for those who don't know, is a "finite sequence of instructions, an explicit, step-by-step procedure for solving a problem". It is very complicated. I do not understand it. Fortunately the primary care trust has also sent me a red exclamation mark email with instructions I can understand: "The main message remains: always use a tissue to catch coughs and sneezes, throw away used tissues and regularly wash your hands."
© Unknown
Nice swine
Nice swine
Do you happen to recall the result of this massive campaign?
Within a few months, claims totaling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the vaccine. The vaccine was also blamed for 25 deaths.
However, several hundred people developed crippling Guillain-Barré Syndrome after they were injected with the swine flu vaccine. Even healthy 20-year-olds ended up as paraplegics.
And the swine flu pandemic itself? It never materialized.
More People Died From the Swine Flu Vaccine than Swine Flu!
Comment: Another take on this potentially pandemic virus is the following:
Investigative journalist from Washington Wayne Madsen says the outbreak of the swine flu virus is raising suspicions. The sources quoted by him say it could be manmade containing 2 types of human flu spliced with 1 form of avian flu, and different forms of swine flu.. "Not naturally occuring.."Globally pandemic flu virus, or not (it really is unknown at this stage?), it should be common sense to look after ourselves as best we can, and for those we love. This includes ridding ourselves of the toxins that we accumulate from our diets and living/working environments, and helping to boost our under-pressure immune systems.
Please listen to Sott's latest Podcast entitled 'Toxic World, Toxic Bodies' - Flu, or no global flu... this information is a must and should not be missed.
In this SOTT.net podcast, we touch on a topic that hasn't received anywhere near the attention that it deserves: improving our health through a program of detoxification. We're joined by Mark Givert of Get Fitt™ Ltd, a UK-based company that provides far infrared saunas and other products to detoxify the body and improve overall health. We discuss the benefits of far infrared, the surprising effects of heavy metal toxicity and candida, and several other illnesses and health-related topics. Mark and Laura also share their personal stories of how the far infrared saunas were a key tool in helping to restore their health and battle toxicity. Even if you have never had any serious illnesses or health issues, this is one podcast you can't afford to miss!Large Download (right click to save)
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The torture trail starts and ends in the White House. That is perhaps the most inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the flurry of documents released in the last week - first the OLC memoranda, then a newly declassified report of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and finally an amazing document that Attorney General Eric Holder released yesterday, which has still gained little attention. The Holder note presents a summary of CIA interaction with the White House in connection with the approval of the torture techniques that John Yoo calls the "Bush Program." Holder's memo refers to the participants by their job titles only, but John Sifton runs it through a decoder and gives us the actual names. Here's a key passage:
Comment: Given that:
Pharmaceutical companies stand to make billions of dollars from vaccines against new strains of the flu virus
and
in order to make the vaccines pharmaceutical companies combine strains of the virus
what are the chances that any such release was "accidental"?