Faith, Reason, and Health

The greatest threat facing mankind is...

2012-01-22T19:17:00.000-05:00

The greatest threat facing mankind is NOT anthropogenic "climate change."

Nor is it anthropogenic environmental damage.

It most certainly is not "overpopulation." Neither is it "peak oil." Nor is it food shortages.

The greatest threat facing mankind is, however, "anthropogenic."

Because the greatest threat facing mankind is the general failure of mankind to reproduce:

Fewer tells a monumental human story, largely ignored, but which promises to starkly change the human condition in the years to come. Never before have birth and fertility rates fallen so far, so fast, so low, for so long, in so many places, so surprisingly. In Fewer, Ben Wattenberg shows how and why this has occurred, and explains what it means for the future. The demographic plunge, he notes, is starkly apparent in the developed nations of Europe and Japan, which will lose about 150 million people in the next half century. Starting from higher levels, but moving with geometric speed, the demographic decline is also apparent in the less developed nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Only the United States (so far) has been exempt from the birth dearth, leaving America as more than "the sole super-power." Perhaps it should be called the global "omni-power." These stark demographic changes will affect commerce, the environment, public financing, and geo-politics. Here Wattenberg lists likely winners and losers. In Wattenberg's world of "The New Demography" readers get a look at a topic often chattered about, but rarely understood.

You’ve heard about the Death of the West. But the Muslim world is on the brink of an even greater collapse. WILL WE GO DOWN IN THE IMPLOSION? Thanks to collapsing birthrates, much of Europe is on a path of willed self-extinction. The untold story is that birthrates in Muslim nations are declining faster than anywhere else—at a rate never before documented. Europe, even in its decline, may have the resources to support an aging population, if at a terrible economic and cultural cost. But in the impoverished Islamic world, an aging population means a civilization on the brink of total collapse— something Islamic terrorists know and fear. Muslim decline poses new threats to America, challenges we cannot even understand, much less face effectively, without a wholly new kind of political analysis that explains how desperate peoples and nations behave. In How Civilizations Die, David P. Goldman—author of the celebrated “Spengler” column read by intelligence organizations worldwide—reveals how, almost unnoticed, massive shifts in global power are remaking our future.

Remarkably, most conventional wisdom about the shifting balance of world power virtually ignores one of the most fundamental components of power: population. The studies that do consider international security and demographic trends almost unanimously focus on population growth as a liability. In contrast, the distinguished contributors to this volume—security experts from the Naval War College, the American Enterprise Institute, and other think tanks—contend that demographic decline in key world powers now poses a profound challenge to global stability. The countries at greatest risk are in the developed world, where birthrates are falling and populations are aging. Many have already lost significant human capital, capital that would have helped them innovate and fuel their economy, man their armed forces, and secure a place at the table of world power. By examining the effects of diverging population trends between the United States and Europe and the effects of rapid population aging in Japan, India, and China, this book uncovers increasing tensions within the transatlantic alliance and destabilizing trends in Asian security. Thus, it argues, relative demographic decline may well make the world less, and not more, secure.

Overpopulation has long been a global concern. But between modern medicine and reduced fertility, world population may in fact be shrinking--and is almost certain to do so by the time today's children retire. The troubling implications for our economy and culture include:* The possibility of a fundamentalist revival due to the decline of secular fertility* The threat to the free market as the supply of workers and consumers declines* The eventual collapse of the American health care system as inordinate expenses are incurred by an aging populationPhillip Longman's uncompromisingly sensible solutions fly in the face of traditional ideas. State intervention is necessary, he argues, to combat the effects of an aging population. We must provide incentives for young families, and we cannot close our eyes and hope for the best as an entire generation approaches retirement age.The Empty Cradle changes the terms of one of the most important environmental, economic, and social debates of our day.

The world's population is still growing, thanks to rising longevity. But fertility rates - the average number of children born per woman - are falling nearly everywhere. More and more adults are deciding to have fewer and fewer children. Worldwide, reports the UN, there are 6 million fewer babies and young children today than there were in 1990. By 2015, according to one calculation, there will be 83 million fewer. By 2025, 127 million fewer. By 2050, the world's supply of the youngest children may have plunged by a quarter of a billion, and will amount to less than 5 percent of the human family. The reasons for this birth dearth are many. Among them: As the number of women in the workforce has soared, many have delayed marriage and childbearing, or decided against them altogether. The Sexual Revolution, by making sex readily available without marriage, removed what for many men had been a powerful motive to marry. Skyrocketing rates of divorce have made women less likely to have as many children as in generations past. Years of indoctrination about the perils of "overpopulation" have led many couples to embrace childlessness as a virtue. Result: a dramatic and inexorable aging of society. In the years ahead, the ranks of the elderly are going to swell to unprecedented levels, while the number of young people continues to dwindle. The working-age population will shrink, first in relation to the population of retirees, then in absolute terms. A world without children will be a poorer world - grayer, lonelier, less creative, less confident. Children are a great blessing, but it may take their disappearance for the world to remember why.

Demographic Winter: Decline of the Human Family (DVD/ Documentary)
by Rick Stout
Product Overview
One of the most ominous events of modern history is quietly unfolding. Social scientists and economists agree - we are headed toward a demographic winter which threatens to have catastrophic social and economic consequences. The effects will be severe and long lasting and are already becoming manifest in much of Europe.

A groundbreaking film, Demographic Winter: Decline of the Human Family, reveals in chilling soberness how societies with diminished family influence are now grimly seen as being in social and economic jeopardy.

Demographic Winter draws upon experts from all around the world - demographers, economists, sociologists, psychologists, civic and religious leaders, parliamentarians and diplomats. Together, they reveal the dangers facing society and the world’s economies, dangers far more imminent than global warming and at least as severe. These experts will discuss how:

The “population bomb” not only did not have the predicted consequences, but almost all of the developed countries of the world are now experiencing fertility rates far below replacement levels. Birthrates have fallen so low that even immigration cannot replace declining populations, and this migration is sapping strength from developing countries, the fertility rates for many of which are now falling at a faster pace than did those of the developed countries.

The economies of the world will continue to contract as the “human capital” spoken of by Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker, diminishes. The engines of commerce will be strained as the workers of today fail to replace themselves and are burdened by the responsibility to support an aging population.

Government programs will slow-bleed by the decrease in tax dollars received from an ever shrinking work force. The skyrocketing ratio of the old retirees to the young workers will render current-day social security systems completely unable to support the aging population.

Our attempts to modernize through social engineering policies and programs have left children growing up in broken homes, with absentee parents and little exposure to extended family, disconnected from the generations, and these children are experiencing severe psychological, sociological and economic consequences. The intact family’s immeasurable role in the development and prosperity of human societies is crumbling.

The influence of social and economic problems on ever shrinking, increasingly disconnected generations will compound and accelerate the deterioration. Our children and our children’s children will bear the economic and social burden of regenerating the “human capital” that accounts for 80% of wealth in the economy, and they will be ill-equipped to do so.

Is there a “tipping point”, after which the accelerating consequences will make recovery impossible without complete social and economic collapse? Even the experts can’t tell us how far we can go down this road, oblivious to the outcomes, until we reach a point where sliding into the void becomes unpreventable.

Only if the political incorrectness of talking about the natural family within policy circles is overcome will solutions begin to be found. These solutions will necessarily result in policy changes, changes that will support and promote the natural, intact family.

Just as it took the cumulative involvement of activist organizations, policy makers, the business world and the media to create the unintended consequences we are beginning to experience, so it will take the holistic contribution of all of these entities, together with civic and religious organizations, to change the hearts and minds of all of society to bring about a reversal.

It may be too late to avoid some very severe consequences, but with effort we may be able to preclude calamity. Demographic Winter lays out a forthright province of discussion. The warning voices in this film need to be heard before a silent, portentous fall turns into a long, hard winter.

Demography is destiny. But not always in the way we imagine, begins Pearce (When the Rivers Run Dry) in his fascinating analysis of how global population trends have shaped, and been shaped by, political and cultural shifts. He starts with Robert Malthus, whose concept of overpopulation—explicitly of the uneducated and poor classes—and depleted resources influenced two centuries of population and environmental theory, from early eugenicists (including Margaret Sanger) to the British colonial administrators presiding over India and Ireland. Pearce examines the roots of the incipient crash in global population in decades of mass sterilizations and such government interventions as Mao's one child program. Many nations are breeding at less then replacement numbers (including not only the well-publicized crises in Western Europe and Japan, but also Iran, Australia, South Africa, and possibly soon China and India). Highly readable and marked by first-class reportage, Pearce's book also highlights those at the helm of these vastly influential decisions—the families themselves, from working-class English families of the industrial revolution to the young women currently working in the factories of Bangladesh.

What is the impact of demographics on the prospective production of military power and the causes of war? This monograph analyzes this issue by projecting working-age populations through 2050; assessing the influence of demographics on manpower, national income and expenditures, and human capital; and examining how changes in these factors may affect the ability of states to carry out military missions. It also looks at some implications of these changes for other aspects of international security. The authors find that the United States, alone of all the large affluent nations, will continue to see (modest) increases in its working-age population thanks to replacement-level fertility rates and a likely return to vigorous levels of immigration. Meanwhile, the working-age populations of Europe and Japan are slated to fall by as much as 10 to 15 percent by 2030 and as much as 30 to 40 percent by 2050. The United States will thus account for a larger percentage of the population of its Atlantic and Pacific alliances; in other words, the capacity of traditional alliances to multiply U.S. demographic power is likely to decline, perhaps sharply, through 2050. India's working-age population is likely to overtake China's by 2030. The United States, which has 4.7 percent of the world's working-age population, will still have 4.3 percent by 2050, and the current share of global gross domestic product accounted for by the U.S. economy is likely to stay quite high.

And the primary means by which mankind has stopped reproducing are abortifacient hormonal contraceptives and abortion itself.

Martin Luther called the "Sin of Onan" marital sodomy. In the Judeo-Christian and Natural Law tradition, any sex act made deliberately infecund is no better than sodomy.

So in considering the greatest threats facing mankind, one must also consider this:

Crying to Heaven for Vengeance

by Dr. Jeff Mirus, September 7, 2004

From Our Store: Misinterpreting Catholicism (eBook)

The Bible mentions only four sins which cry out to God for vengeance. Considering the source and the emphasis, we have little choice but to examine our consciences on these points. A cursory examination will not do; we must cast off our cultural preconceptions to see beyond the obvious.

Homicide

And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.” (Gn 4:10) It is hardly suprising that Cain’s murder of Abel provides the first instance of one of these sins that cries out for Divine vengeance. While all sins disrupt the natural order in some way, those enumerated as crying out to God appear to be chosen because they strike at nature’s root.

It is easy to see how murder fits into this category. The unjust termination of the life of another is a profound violation of “how things should be” precisely because our very nature compels us to regard our own lives as precious. To take a person's life is to terminate in another what we instinctively regard as our own highest good.

Sadly, the ease with which we understand the foulness of murder may be conditioned more by our culture than by Divine Revelation. We must take care that we do not find it abhorrent only insofar as we are creatures of society, rather than creatures of God.

Abortion is a case in point.

Sodomy

Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry which has come to me.” (Gn 18:20-21) The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty of homosexual activity. So far gone were they in this vice that the men of the town would not even accept heterosexual license with Lot’s daughters, both virgins, as a means of sating their lust (see 19:8-9).

Here we have another case in point for cultural conditioning. It is far more difficult for our contraceptive culture to see how contrary to nature homosexuality is. Those of us who instinctively feel its deep unnaturalness rightly react to homosexual activity with disgust, but logical arguments are unlikely to produce the same reaction in those whose instincts are damaged, blunted or rationalized away.

It is precisely in such situations that Divine Revelation is so very useful, for we cannot trust our feelings when they run counter to reality. We require a better guide. Sodomy strikes at the root of human nature because of its perversion of the procreative impulse, without which the race must die. But in case we don’t see it, God does.

Oppression of Widows and Orphans

“You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. If you do afflict them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.” (Ex 21-23) There is a deep truth in this passage about the relationships of husbands to wives, and of parents to children, and about how vulnerable wives and children become when their natural protection is removed.

Very probably all of us can see that it would be gravely sinful to take advantage of the weakness and vulnerability of either a widow or an orphan, and we can readily imagine the financial burdens and solicitation of “favors” with which either can be afflicted. It is much easier in every way to abuse a boy or girl who has no father and to intimidate a woman who has no husband.

Once again, however, we must remove our social blinders to see the great evil in our culture which turns so many into widows and orphans in the first place. The grave sin of divorce, by which natural protection is ripped away from women and children, surely tops the list of horrors under this heading.

Cheating Laborers of Their Due

“You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brethren or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns; you shall give him his hire on the day he earns it, before the sun goes down (for he is poor, and sets his heart upon it); lest he cry against you to the Lord, and it be a sin in you.” (Dt 24:14-15) Here we come to a principle of sound social order: those in positions of authority and wealth have serious obligations to those who depend on their decisions for their well-being. Fortunately, we live in a very wealthy society.

But does our very wealth cause this sin to appear irrelevant? Free enterprise is an excellent system, but too often it carries the completely unnecessary baggage of a callous attitude toward employees, regarding them as commodities. The social teachings of the Church have attempted to address this concern (without pointing at all toward socialism) for over a century.

Yet the latest trend, at least in the United States, is constant mergers and buyouts which throw hundreds of thousands out of work while enriching an elite few. Even temporary unemployment is both a bank-breaker and a heart-breaker. Working under an abusive or negligent boss can be a living nightmare. And most of us are well-shielded from adults who must work for a minimal wage. The Israelites were urged to remember their days in Egypt, and treat others accordingly.

Together and In Order

All of these sins cry out to God, but the four are not equal. The sequence in the text suggests a hierarchy of value, and it is a tightly linked hierarchy. One sin leads to another, from the gravest to the least, as we make objects out of persons and treat them accordingly, subverting all our natural relationships. For this reason, we cannot assuage our consciences by attending to the fourth sin while ignoring the first, or by claiming virtue on the third and closing our eyes to the second. If these sins cry out to God for vengeance and we still commit them or do nothing to restrict them in others, we mock God to His face. Of course, when we’re wearing our usual cultural blinders, it often appears to us that we can mock God with impunity. But isn’t this something else we know from Revelation—in case we cannot see it for ourselves?

The Obama administration would do well to recall these foundational principles before trying to force the only Church in the world still fighting for the future of humanity, and against this greatest threat to it, to cave in and pay for contraception and abortifacients:

Obama administration is taking a wrong-headed line with the church
Forcing contraception insurance coverage goes too far

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, January 22 2012, 4:10 AM

Louis Lanzano/AP
Archbishop Timothy Dolan has lambasted the Obama administration for putting health policy ahead of moral teachings.
Excerpt:

President Obama’s health chief decreed Friday that the Catholic Church must provide its employees with health insurance coverage for contraception, its moral stance against birth control be damned.
Wrong, wrong, high-handedly, obtusely wrong.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took Obamacare’s philosophy of equal insurance for all to a level of zealotry that reduced a deeply held matter of conscience to a bothersome trifle.
Presumably, the President was fully briefed on a decision of this magnitude. If so, he made a fundamental error that will only add to a sense among many faith-based communities that the White House has a thing against religion.
It was less than two weeks ago that the Supreme Court unanimously and thunderingly scolded the administration for trying to tell churches and church-based organization that the government knew best as to who they could hire and fire.
Because of the church’s size and reach, Sebelius’ ruling will apply most broadly to Catholic organizations, but they apply to affiliates of other religions that bar contraception and sterilization.

Transubstantiation: Change We Can Believe In

2011-10-19T22:45:00.000-04:00

Late George Kopp rifle

2011-08-26T03:00:00.000-04:00

Several months ago a friend here in western PA let me snap a few photos of his "George Kopp" rifle. He bought it at auction many years ago. I had never seen a Kopp rifle with these characteristics, and it was a relatively small gun compared to other Kopp rifles I've seen, so I forwarded the photos to Bill Vance who publishes the OWR-CSA Newsletter.

He said this was indeed a late George Kopp rifle, typical of his post-civil war work. George had started using parts from catalogs in some of his later work, thus the "toilet seat" commercial patch box.

Andrew Kopp and George Kopp rifle photos

2011-02-12T14:27:00.000-05:00

The best collection of Andrew and George Kopp rifle photos available online is at the American Long rifles's Virtual Museum and Library:

George Kopp Halfstock 091101-1
Andrew Kopp 091022-1
George Kopp 090923-1
Andrew Kopp 090921-1
George Kopp 090222-3
Andrew Kopp 090222-2

Kopp geneology

2011-02-12T14:21:00.001-05:00

Johann Georg KAPP
Maria Catharina __?__ Husband: Johann Georg KAPP
Birth: by 1685
Death: bef. 29 Jan 1731/2, Bavaria Marriage: Wife: Maria Catharina __?__
Birth: by 1690
Death: 29 Jan 1731/2, Bottenweiler, Parish of Wildenholz, Mittelfranken, Bavaria

Children — born in the hamlet of Bottenweiler, Parish of Wildenholz, Mittelfranken, Bavaria:

1. Johann Michael KAPP, b. 30 Jul 1705? — to Philadelphia in 1732 on the ship Pennsylvania
2. Maria Helena KAPP, b. 15 Jan 1706/7
3. Johann Georg Friedrich KAPP, b. 5 Jan 1708/9 — to Philadelphia in 1732 on the ship Pennsylvania
4. Johann Andreas KAPP, b. 19 Apr 1711 — to Philadelphia in 1732 on the ship Adventure
5. Johann Georg Veit/Vitus/Titus/Fyt KAPP, b. 12 Oct 1713 — to Philadelphia in 1737 on the ship Charming Nancy
6. Eva Barbara KAPP, b. 4 Apr 1716
7. Johann Georg Martin KAPP, b. aft. 1720, prob. in 1721 — to Philadelphia in 1737 on the ship Charming Nancy

(Johann) Georg Friederich KAPP
Eva Maria GRAFF Husband: (Johann) Georg Friederich KAPP
Birth: 5 Jan 1708/9, Bottenweiler, Mittelfranken, Bayern [Bavaria, Germany]
Death: 28 Apr 1749
Disposition: buried Tulpehocken Church Graveyard, Berks Co., PA
Migration: 1732, to Pennsylvania (with brother, Joh. Michael KAPP), on the ship Pennsylvania Merchant
Religion: 1743-46, member, Tulpehock [Lutheran] Church, Berks Co., PA
Father: Johann Georg KAPP
Mother: Maria Catharina __?__ Marriage: 26 Feb 1739, Tulpehocken Church, Berks Co., PA Wife: Eva Maria GRAFF
Birth: ca. 1710s
Disposition: buried Christ Lutheran Church Cemetery, Stouchsburg, Berks Co., PA
Other spouse: m2. 14 Nov 1749, Christian MÜLLER/MUELLER/MILLER; m3. Johann Georg Martin KAPP
Father: Hans Georg GRAFF
Mother: Magdalena __?__

Children — born in Berks Co., PA:

1. Johann Friedrich KAPP, bap. 22 Sep 1740, Berks Co., PA; d. 17 Apr 1823, Stouchsburg, Berks Co., PA; m1. Maria Barbara Catharina STRICKLER; m2. Christina NEWMAN
2. Maria/Mary KAPP, b. aft. 1740
3. Johann George Michael KAPP, b. 25 Dec 1744 or 1745

(Johann) George Michael KAPP
Susanna Margaret SCHNEIDER Husband: (Johann) George Michael KAPP
Birth: 25 Dec 1744 or 1745, Berks Co., PA
Death: by 11 Nov 1794, York Co., PA
Father: Johann George Friedrich KAPP
Mother: Eva Maria GRAFF Marriage: 15 Nov 1768 Wife: Susanna Margaret SCHNEIDER / SNYDER
Birth: ca. 1749

Children: — born in Berks Co., PA (baptized Christ Lutheran Church, Stouchsburg, Berks Co., PA):
1. Eva Marie KAPP, b. 7 Mar 1772; bap. 27 Mar 1772; died in infancy
2. Maria Magdalena KAPP, b. 14 Nov 1774; bap. 11 Dec 1774
3. Eva Marie KAPP, b. 20 Feb 1776; bap. 24 Feb 1776
4. Maria Catharina KAPP, b. 20 Jul 1779
5. Andrew KAPP/KOPP, b. 13 Oct 1781
6. George Leonard KAPP, b. 6 Oct 1784; bap. 25 Dec 1784
7. John Jacob KAPP, b. 1 Jan 1788; bap. 6 Feb 1788

— born in Paradise Twp., York Co., PA:
8. (Son A) KAPP, b. 1790-95

Andrew KOPP
Elizabeth __?__ Husband: Andrew KAPP/KOPP
Birth: 13 Oct 1781, Stouchsburg, Berks Co., PA
Baptism: 11 Nov 1781, Christ's Lutheran Church, Stouchsburg, Berks Co., PA
Death: 1875, Frankstown Twp., Blair Co., PA
Disposition: buried Geeseytown Cemetery, Frankstown Twp., Blair Co., PA
Occupation: gunsmith
Father: Johann George Michael KAPP
Mother: Susanna Margaret SCHNEIDER/SNYDER Marriage: Wife: Elizabeth __?__
Birth: 1784-90
Death: 1850-60
Disposition: buried Geeseytown Cemetery, Frankstown Twp., Blair Co., PA
Occupation: homemaker

Children — born in PA, probably York Co. (data in braces are {year: age, birthplace} from the 1850 Census):

1. Jacob KOPP, b. 1802/3 {1850: 47, PA; 1860: 50, PA; 1870: 61, PA; 1880: 73, PA}
2. Eliza KAPP, b. 1811/12
3. George KOPP, b. 1813/4

George KOPP
Margarett __?__ Husband: George KOPP / COPP
Birth: 1813/4, PA
Occupation: gunsmith
Father: Andrew KOPP
Mother: Elizabeth __?__ Marriage: Wife: Margarett __?__
Birth: 1817/8, PA
Occupation: homemaker Children:
1. (Son) KOPP, b. 1835-40; d.s.p. by 1850

4. Andrew KOPP, b. 14 Nov 1814/5

Jacob KOPP
Sarah A. FAUST Husband: Jacob KOPP
Birth: 1802/3, PA
Death: aft. 1880
Occupation: laborer, farmer
Father: Andrew KOPP
Mother: Elizabeth __?__ Marriage: Wife: Sarah A. FAUST / FOUST
Birth: 1802/3, PA
Death: 1870-80, Cambria Co., PA
Occupation: homemaker

Children:

1. George Washington KOPP, b. 17 Apr 1833, Frankstown Twp., Huntingdon [now Blair] Co., PA; d. 19 Aug 1911, Burnside Twp., Clearfield Co., PA; m. 12 Jun 1856, Clearfield Co., PA, Hester/Esther "Hettie" KEIRN, d/o Nathan & Susannah
2. (Daughter A) KOPP, b. 1835-40
3. Andrew H. KOPP, b. 1836/7
4. Margaret KOPP, b. 1843/4

Andrew H. KOPP
Martha KEIRN Husband: Andrew H. KOPP
Birth: 1836/7, PA
Occupation: carpenter
Father: Jacob KOPP
Mother: Sarah A. FAUST Marriage: Wife: Martha KEIRN
Birth: 1840/1, PA
Occupation: homemaker
Father: Nathan KEIRN, b. 1801/2, MD (stonemason)
Mother: Susanna CARL

Children:

1. Amanda Bell KOPP, b. 1861/2
2. Henrietta KOPP, b. 1864/5
3. Mary A. KOPP, b. 1867/8
4. George W. KOPP, b. 1870
5. Margaret "Maggie" KOOP, b. 1871/2
6. Catharine E. "Kate" KOOP, b. 1874/5
7. Harry KOPP, b. 1878/9

George W Kopp - United States Census, 1880, 1910

Residence: Logan, Blair, Pennsylvania
Birthdate: 1871
Birthplace: Pennsylvania, United States
Father's Name: Andrew H. Kopp
Father's Birthplace: Pennsylvania, United States
Mother's Name: Martha Kopp
Mother's Birthplace: Pennsylvania, United States

Household Gender Age
George W Kopp M 39y
Spouse Alice R Kopp F 38y
Child Lorana R Kopp F 12y
Child Margaret J Kopp F 9y
Child Richard G Kopp M 2y
Child Donald J Kopp M 2y
Laselle Vanormer M 48y

Donald J Kopp
Born 1908
Spouse: Josephine Fischer (b. 1910)
Child: Patricia (b. 1932)
Child: William Newell (b. 1935)
Child: Donna Joann (b. 1937)

William N. Kopp
Born 1935
Spouse: Mary Louise Franks (b. 1935)
Child: Mark W.
Child: Constance L.

Child: Brian J.

Child: Timothy J.

Child: Roseann

Andrew Kopp and George Kopp Pennsylvania Kentucky long rifles

2011-02-12T13:58:00.002-05:00

I took my Andrew Kopp rifle to Mark Wheland in Williamsburg to drop it off for restoration. On the way, I grabbed a couple quick pictures of an Andrew and George Kopp rifle that are already in my family.

My dad's Andrew Kopp rifle has the darker stock coloring and larger bore, my Andrew Kopp rifle has the cable ties holding it together prior to restoration, and my dad's George Kopp rifle has the lightest stock color:

If anyone has photos of Kopp rifles they would like to share, or knows of any that are available, please send me an email at docpolycarp_at_yahoo_dot_com. Also, David Douglass of Huntingdon County was a Pennsylvania Kentucky long rifle maker who worked under/with Andrew Kopp in the Geeseytown gunsmith shop. We are looking for more information about him, as well as any photos of his rifles and any examples of his work that might be available.

Andrew Kopp Pennsylvania Long rifle

2011-02-12T13:48:00.000-05:00

I live in Central PA, and grew up in Hollidaysburg, PA. Andrew and George Kopp were Pennsylvania long rifle makers. Andrew Kopp was my great great great great grandfather, and George, his son, was my great great great uncle. Their last gunsmith shop was located in Geeseytown, Frankstown Township, just outside of Hollidaysburg. At the time Frankstown Townnship was part of Huntingdon County, so Andrew Kopp and George Kopp are identified as Huntingdon County "Kentucky Rifle" makers.

Years ago, I asked my local gun shop to call me if they ever got in a Kopp rifle, and the call finally came in last month.

An elderly gentleman was going into a nursing home, and brought in several firearms to them to sell. Among them was the following piece with "An. Kopp" markings on the barrel and lock.

Apparently the percussion cap assembly and hole was long ago rusted away. He was a machinist and years ago had attempted to make this rifle "work" by machining a percussion cap mount and re-drilling and re-tapping the barrel. In the process he made a large crescentic cut in the lock plate to accommodate his "custom gunsmithing."

UPDATE (January 15, 2011):

I went back to the gun shop and asked them if they could contact the gentleman who had brought in this Andrew Kopp rifle. They were kind enough to call him and I had a very nice conversation with him about the history of this rifle.

Earl is 89 and lives in Johnstown. The rifle has been in his family since he was 9 years old, and the prior owners lived at the Spangler farm in Shanksville PA, near the current Flight 93 Memorial. Earl recalls being told that this rifle was brought to Somerset by the previous owners from Indiana County PA, and that it might have been manufactured around 1860. (Andrew Kopp retired from the trade in 1863.)

Earl always liked to tinker with stuff.

When he was 12, Earl took apart the rifle and tried to remove the breech plug, which was seized.

He couldn't get it apart, so he put the breech end of the barrel in his family's wood stove to heat it up, to see if that would let him free up the seized breech plug.

He didn't know the gun was loaded, and the gun fired off when it heated up. Shocked

Fortunately, no one was injured!

Earl subsequently worked as a machinist for US Steel in Johnstown PA starting in his teen years.

He machined the sealed ignition device in these photos when he was nineteen, 70 years ago. He also ground off the surface of the hammer at that time, so it would contact the pin on the sealed ignition device. He was never able to get the gun working, but the gun has been in his possession ever since, providing an 80 year history of the provenance of this particular Andrew Kopp rifle.

However, he was clearly very fond of this old rifle, and was very pleased that someone had bought it that would treasure it and have it restored.

UPDATE (January 16, 2011):

I took my Andrew Kopp rifle to Mark Wheland in Williamsburg today to drop it off for restoration. We took along my father's Andrew Kopp rifle for Mark to look at. He is going to use the cheek plate on my father's rifle as a template to recreate the missing cheek plate on my rifle, so he took several macro close-up photos.

Mark examined my rifle closely and said the metal work on my rifle indicated it was actually an earlier rifle than my father's Andrew Kopp rifle, based on the trigger guard and butt plate. He also checked the bore; this rifle is a 38 caliber.

However, (as hurricane pointed out in the next post on this thread) the stock architecture has a higher comb than usual.

Mark thought the rifle might have been re-stocked by George Kopp after he returned to Geeseytown from his ten years of working in Illinois, as the current stock has some western features, like the higher comb and stock angle, not usually seen in Bedford/Blair/Huntingdon PA rifles.

My son and I talked with Mark in his shop for about an hour and a half, and we learned more in that time about these Kopp rifles than everything I've learned up to this point. He was a great guy to talk to, and his current work that he showed us in his shop was just spectacular.

He estimates our rifle will be completed sometime this summer.

Using Vaccines Obtained From Intentionally Aborted Human Embryos

2011-01-16T12:18:00.001-05:00

From ZENIT:

Using Vaccines Obtained From Intentionally Aborted Human Embryos

Further Clarification Needed for Parents, Researchers

WASHINGTON, D.C., JAN. 12, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a question on bioethics asked by a ZENIT reader and answered by the fellows of the Culture of Life Foundation.

Q: I would love to see some more discussion or advice on the use of vaccines. [...] If my memory served me correctly, in the United States, all of the vaccines for Chicken Pox and the standard MMR [measles, mumps, rubella] protocols are developed from aborted children. Considering the ubiquity of these particular vaccines, I believe it is an issue that needs further exploration, discussion, and guidance from the Church and her thinkers. -- C.G., Charleston, South Carolina, USA

William E. May offers the following response:

A: The reader's question is specifically the one used in the heading of this article. However, that issue was addressed earlier in response to another reader's question (ZENIT, DEC. 15, 2010). It therefore seems proper here to raise the following question: "Is it ever morally licit to use biological material of illicit origin?"

I offer below a review of relevant Church teaching regarding this question and other helpful sources.

Relevant Church Teaching

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 2009 document "Dignitas Personae" (The Dignity of the Person) addresses the question regarding the use of "biological material" of illicit origin in numbers 34 and 35, and in doing to refers to relevant teaching of Pope John Paul II in his encyclical "Evangelium Vitae" (The Gospel of Life) and to the congregation's 1987 document "Donum Vitae" (Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and the Dignity of Procreation).

Number 34 of "Dignitas Personae" says the problems are cooperation in evil and giving scandal. Number 35 says that a different situation exists when researchers use "biological material" of illicit origin produced apart from their research or commercially obtained and refers to John Paul II's "Evangelum Vitae." It declares that "Donum Vitae" (Part I, No. 4) articulated the principle to be followed: "The corpses of human embryos and fetuses [...], deliberately aborted or not, must be respected just as the remains of other human beings. In particular, they cannot be subjected to mutilation or to autopsies if their death has not yet been verified and without the consent of the parents or of the mother. Furthermore, the moral requirements must be safeguarded that there be no complicity in deliberate abortion and that the risk of scandal be avoided."

Number 35 of "Dignitas Personae" considers "the criterion of independence." According to it, the use of "biological material" of illicit origin would be ethically permissible if there is a clear separation between those who produce, freeze, and cause the death of human embryos, and the researchers involved in scientific experimentation. "Dignitas Personae" expresses caution here, saying that of itself this criterion might not be sufficient.

It declares: "There is a duty to refuse to use such 'biological material' even when there is no close connection between the researcher and the actions of those who performed the artificial fertilization or the abortion, or when there was no prior agreement with the centers in which the artificial fertilization took place. This duty springs from the necessity to remove oneself, within the area of one's own research, from a gravely unjust legal situation and to affirm with clarity the value of human life. Therefore, the above-mentioned criterion of independence is necessary, but may be ethically insufficient."

But it goes on to note that "within this general picture there exist differing degrees of responsibility. Grave reasons may be morally proportionate to justify the use of such 'biological material.' Thus, for example, danger to the health of children could permit parents to use a vaccine which was developed using cell lines of illicit origin, while keeping in mind that everyone has the duty to make known their disagreement and to ask that their health care system make other types of vaccines available. Moreover, in organizations where cell lines of illicit origin are being utilized, the responsibility of those who make the decision to use them is not the same as that of those who have no voice in such a decision."

"Dignitas Personae" seems here to follow the position taken by Elio Sgreccia regarding use of a measles vaccine developed by making use of aborted fetuses; for a summary of Sgreccia's position, see "On Vaccines Made from Cells of Aborted Fetuses: Pontifical Academy for Life Response," (ZENIT, JULY 25, 2005).

Comment

Christian Brugger offers important observations on the treatment in "Dignitas Personae" of this issue (see E. Christian Brugger, "Strengths and Weaknesses of 'Dignitas Personae,'" in "Symposium on 'Dignitas Personae,'" National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly. Vol. 9.3. Autumn, 2009, 487-481). Commenting on the passage in number 35 about the duty to refuse to use such "biological material" even when there is no close connection between the researcher and the actions of those who performed the artificial fertilization or the abortion, he wonders whether this "would this apply to an epidemiologist in 2009 doing research on … cell lines … or vaccines derived from those lines, given that both were taken from electively aborted fetuses? The moral wrong -- the grave evil of abortion -- was done nearly forty-five years ago. [...]

"Is a researcher's duty to refuse to work on those materials exceptionless, even when the refusal could result in harms to the researcher and to his or her family? The text [of "Dignitas Personae"] indicates that it is not [exceptionless]. It states that grave reasons may be morally proportionate to justify the use of such 'biological material.' But the Instruction ["Dignitas Personae"], following the 2005 Pontifical Academy for Life text, "Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Fetuses," only mentions parents consenting for grave reasons to their children's immunization. Where does this leave morally conscientious researchers?"

I think that if the research is the kind that reasonably promises to provide a great benefit to unborn human subjects who are vulnerable to specific kinds of pathologies from which the research will protect them, as was the case of the research to which Brugger refers, then the kind of exception allowed for by "Dignitas Personae," (No. 35) is present. In all likelihood this kind of exception may simply not have occurred to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in preparing the 1987 instruction "Donum Vitae."

This is a subject that needs further clarification by the Church.

* * *

May Researchers Use "Biological Material" Unjustly Obtained?

Considerations of "Grave Reasons" and Exceptions

By William E. May

WASHINGTON, D.C., DEC. 15, 2010 (Zenit.org).- If an unborn baby in the fetal or embryonic stage of life dies as a result of a miscarriage it would not be immoral to do worthwhile scientific research using tissues taken from it.

But, as Germain Grisez noted in his massive book on "Difficult Moral Questions," a serious problem of conscience can frequently face pro-life scientists and researchers regarding use of tissues taken from embryonic or fetal human persons who were intentionally aborted.

The quandary is the following: Suppose that it is not possible to do the research proposed by using spontaneously aborted unborn babies who miscarry. For example, certain research may require using embryonic/fetal tissue that must be fresh and not frozen or in any way not normal and tissues from miscarried embryos/fetuses do not meet these criteria. What should a conscientious pro-life person do if his research center agreed to use biological material obtained as a result of the intentional abortion of babies in their embryonic or fetal stages of life?

Grisez concluded that the scientist ought not participate in the research nor cooperate with it in any way, even by advising a colleague who would take his place but who is not as knowledgeable about the science involved as he is. Grisez, however, thinks that if certain conditions are fulfilled, he could offer this colleague some advice if it justified tolerating bad side effects that would accompany the discovery of a procedure that would also greatly benefit unborn babies (pp. 385-388).

Grisez's book was published before the 2009 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's document "Dignitas Personae," in which the question of using "biological materials" obtained illegally is addressed. I will summarize the teaching of "Dignitas Personae" and then offer comments on it.

Biological materials illegally procured

Part III of "Dignitas Personae" is called "New treatments which involve the manipulation of the embryo or human genetic patrimony." No. 34 first identifies a common situation causing moral problems: "For scientific research and for the production of vaccines or other products, cell lines are at times used which are the result of an illicit intervention against the life or physical integrity of a human being. The connection to the unjust act may be either mediate or immediate, since it is generally a question of cells which reproduce easily and abundantly. This 'material' is sometimes made available commercially or distributed freely to research centers by governmental agencies having this function under the law. All of this gives rise to various ethical problems with regard to cooperation in evil and with regard to scandal. It is fitting therefore to formulate general principles on the basis of which people of good conscience can evaluate and resolve situations in which they may possibly be involved on account of their professional activity (emphasis in original)" ("Dignitas Personae," No. 35).

No. 35 points out a somewhat different situation -- the precise one of concern to us -- with its set of moral issues, stating: "A different situation is created when researchers use 'biological material' of illicit origin which has been produced apart from their research center or which has been obtained commercially. The Instruction 'Donum Vitae' formulated the general principle which must be observed in these cases: 'The corpses of human embryos and fetuses, whether they have been deliberately aborted or not, must be respected just as the remains of other human beings. In particular, they cannot be subjected to mutilation or to autopsies if their death has not yet been verified and without the consent of the parents or of the mother. Furthermore, the moral requirements must be safeguarded that there be no complicity in deliberate abortion and that the risk of scandal be avoided'" ("Donum Vitae," I, 4).

In a centrally important passage, No. 35 then considers the "criterion of independence" proposed by some. According to this passage, the use of such "biological material" would be ethically permissible provided there is a clear separation between those who produce, freeze, and cause the death of embryos and researchers involved in scientific experimentation.

"Dignitas Personae" expresses caution here, arguing that of itself this criterion might not be sufficient "to avoid a contradiction in the attitude of the person who says that he does not approve of the injustice perpetrated by others, but at the same time accepts for his own work the 'biological material' which the others have obtained by means of that injustice.

"When the illicit action is endorsed by the laws which regulate health care and scientific research, it is necessary to distance oneself from the evil aspects of that system in order not to give the impression of a certain toleration or tacit acceptance of actions which are gravely unjust. Any appearance of acceptance would in fact contribute to the growing indifference to, if not the approval of, such actions in certain medical and political circles."

In fact, "there is a duty to refuse to use such 'biological material' even when there is no close connection between the researcher and the actions of those who performed the artificial fertilization or the abortion, or when there was no prior agreement with the centers in which the artificial fertilization took place. This duty springs from the necessity to remove oneself, within the area of one's own research, from a gravely unjust legal situation and to affirm with clarity the value of human life. Therefore, the above-mentioned criterion of independence is necessary, but may be ethically insufficient."

Nonetheless, "Dignitas Personae" goes on to declare: "Within this general picture there exist differing degrees of responsibility. Grave reasons may be morally proportionate to justify the use of such 'biological material.' Thus, for example, danger to the health of children could permit parents (emphasis added) to use a vaccine which was developed using cell lines of illicit origin, while keeping in mind that everyone has the duty to make known their disagreement and to ask that their healthcare system make other types of vaccines available. Moreover, in organizations where cell lines of illicit origin are being utilized, the responsibility of those who make the decision to use them is not the same as that of those who have no voice in such a decision" (No. 35).

Comment

Christian Brugger offers important observations on the treatment of this issue in "Dignitas Personae."[1] Commenting on the passage in No. 35 about the duty to refuse to use such "biological material," even when there is no close connection between the researcher and the actions of those who performed the artificial fertilization or the abortion, he wonders whether this would apply to an epidemiologist in 2009 doing research on the WI-38 or MRC-5 cell lines, or to vaccines derived from those lines, given that both were taken from electively aborted fetuses?[2]

The moral wrong -- the grave evil of abortion -- was done nearly 45 years ago. Is a researcher's duty to refuse to work on those materials exceptionless, even when the refusal could result in harms to the researcher and to his or her family? The text of "Dignitas Personae" indicates that it is not exceptionless. It states that "grave reasons may be morally proportionate to justify the use of such 'biological material'" (No. 35). But the Instruction "Dignitas Personae," following the 2005 Pontifical Academy for Life text, "Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Fetuses," only mentions parents consenting for grave reasons to their children's immunization. Where does this leave morally conscientious researchers?"

I think that if the research is the kind that reasonably promises to provide a great benefit to unborn human subjects who are vulnerable to specific kinds of pathologies from which the research will protect them, as was the case of the research involved in the WI-38 and MRC-5 experiments that Brugger summarizes, then the kind of exception allowed for by "Dignitas Personae," No 35, is present. In all likelihood this kind of exception may simply not have occurred to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in preparing the 1987 Instruction "Donum Vitae." It seems to me analogous to the situation discussed by Grisez when he thought the solid pro-life researcher could advise a colleague less knowledgeable than he about using unjustly obtained embryonic/fetal tissues in research that reasonably promised great benefit to the unborn, tolerating the evils involved.

NOTES

[1] See his "Strengths and Weaknesses of Dignitas Personae," in the "Symposium on Dignitas Personae," in National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, 9.3 (Autumn 2009), 461-481; at 480-481).

[2] Research on these cell lines led to therapies that greatly benefited embryonic and fetal human babies; Brugger gives detailed descriptions of them and cites relevant literature in footnotes to his essay.

* * *

William E. May, is a Senior Fellow at the Culture of Life Foundation and retired Michael J. McGivney Professor of Moral Theology at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

World Net Daily fabricates a "Missile" Contrail tale

2010-12-12T12:34:00.010-05:00

I've been following the California contrail saga closely since the original video was captured in early November. I was never fully satisfied with any of the explanations, so I tracked down the two known first hand eyewitnesses and spoke to them about what they actually witnessed. As a result of these interviews, I contacted World Net Daily (because they were still writing about the subject a month later, from the bias that the contrail was indeed a missile, and I had written for them once before) and asked them if they would be interested in an article based on these first hand eyewitness accounts. They asked me to submit my article, and were eager to use it.

At this point, I was thoroughly convinced that the contrail was nothing more than UPS flight 902, back-lit by the setting sun. The object remained in view to the eyewitnesses far too long to have represented a missile launch, despite several credible military experts who had stated the contrary -- based only on viewing the highly edited CBS footage. Because WND was following the lead of these experts, and continued to insist the contrail was a missile exhaust plume, I knew I had to be extremely diplomatic in presenting a countering view, if I wanted them to actually publish it. So I used terminology that was deliberately non-committal.

Furthermore, Gil Leyvas had given freely of his time in presenting his side of the debate, and was very kind and gracious during our phone interview as well as multiple subsequent email exchanges, so I wanted him to have "his day in court." I gave him a lot of column space to explain his perspective.

Here is the article, as I submitted it to WND, with the graphics I recommended (the first of which was graciously supplied by FreeRepublic.com poster TXnMA) and for which I had obtained permission. I was not blatantly militating for the airliner contrail argument, because WND would not have published such an article, but any objective reader would see from the manner in which I presented the facts that, despite Leyvas' good faith, the evidence underpinning the "missile exhaust plume" side of the debate was exceedingly weak at best:

California contrail: Four conflicting eyewitness reports

One month after the KCBS video purporting to show a missile contrail off the coast of California went viral, a heated debate over what exactly created the contrail persists. Experts have offered convincing analysis supporting the theory that the contrail represents an SLBM launch, while internet pundits have assembled a formidable collection of evidence that the contrail was created by UPS flight 902. The debate is seemingly at an impasse, and it might be a good time to step back from the intense data analysis and review the basic facts of November 8, 2010.
There are two known eyewitnesses who captured images of the contrail. Gil Leyvas is the helicopter camera man for KCBS in Los Angeles who videotaped the contrail and Rick Warren lives on Long Beach and photographed the contrail from his tenth story balcony. A 50 minute phone interview with Leyvas was obtained for this report and discussed further via email, and Warren was also contacted by email.
According to Leyvas, his video was obtained while filming a sunset view for a KCBS weather report. As he was filming, Leyvas noticed an object on the horizon that appeared to be climbing vertically out of the ocean, and he zoomed in on the object. He videotaped the contrail for a total of ten minutes and subsequently continued to view the contrail for an additional ten minutes. Leyvas maintains that the object itself that created the contrail only remained in view for two to three minutes. For 30 to 45 seconds, the object glowed brightly and then seemed to disappear from view. His initial impression was that the object was traveling east towards the coast. On reviewing the video later, he had the impression the object may instead have been heading away from the coast, towards the northwest.
The highly unusual appearance of the sunset contrail shown on TV and posted online, combined with Leyvas’ perception that the object creating the contrail only remained in view for two to three minutes, constitutes the primary basis upon which many observers believe the object was a Sub Launched Ballistic Missile.
Rick Warren wasn’t sure what the object was that he was photographing on November 8th. “I was shooting with a telephoto lens and looking through a viewfinder so I never really saw the separation of the object and the contrail until I looked at the photos, but I’m sure that this whole thing lasted way too long to be a missile. I see lots of contrails from my 10th floor balcony but the difference in this one was that it “seemed” to be going up.”
Having seen many contrails, what stood out for Warren was the vertical nature of the contrail, not that it looked like a missile exhaust plume. Some of his photos of the contrail were posted on the local ABC7 website, and were utilized by Mick West of Contrailscience.com to create a composite image of the flight progression of the object. The time stamps on Warren’s photos were used to establish that the object creating the contrail remained in view for 4 minutes 43 seconds in Warren’s photos. Based on altitude and position, the object first appeared in Leyvas’ video at least five minutes prior to Warren’s photos. After seeing West’s analysis of the images, Warren says, “I’m now of the opinion that it was indeed a plane."
At this point, one of the most glaring discrepancies between these eyewitness accounts must be addressed. Most observers looking at Warren’s images agree that the small dark object which appears at the top of each of his later photos is the same craft creating the plume that was seen in his earlier photos as well as that which was seen in Leyvas’ video.
If the object that created the contrail was still visible in Warren’s photos, then the object itself is not likely to have been a missile. Solid fuel engines such as those used in an SLBM create an uninterrupted exhaust plume for two to three minutes, after which time the solid fuel is spent, and the missile is usually out of view.
On the other hand, when an airliner transitions from cold moist air to warmer drier air, the dew point changes and contrail formation decreases. In the case of USP902, the airliner would have been transitioning from moist cool air at altitude over the ocean to warmer, drier air over land. This could explain the contrail disappearing as the object moved farther east.
Mick West created a "chronological cut" of Leyvas’ video and posted it to YouTube. The transition from moist cool air over the ocean to warmer, drier air over land may have occurred at 1:17 to 1:20 of the chronological cut, which Warren referred to as “the separation of the object and the contrail.” When still images from Leyvas’ video are compared to the overlay of Warren’s photos, there is a remarkable similarity and continuity between the two sets of images, providing a better time frame for Leyvas’ video within the context of Warren’s time stamps:

When Leyvas was initially queried regarding these later photos, he replied,
“…the [Contrailscience composite] animation … only shows the path the plume drifted and not anything in flight. The 30-45 seconds of video I captured in which I could see the object (the portion of the video showing the glow/flame of the object at its pinnacle) occurred 8-10 minutes prior to the animated images of the animation (if the time stamps are accurate). I have no way of telling if those time stamps are accurate since the raw video has no real-time time stamp associated with it. I can only go by an estimated time based on the time we launched out of John Wayne airport and the approximate time of our weather shot. My guess is that the time stamps are relatively close to the accurate time. However, what you are seeing in those images is the plume drifting and not anything in flight.
Leyvas still maintains the object creating the contrail is not visible in Warren’s photos 8 to 10 minutes later:
”The separate smaller trail that is separate from the main body of the plume and that was captured by Warren in his photos, which makes it seem as if the object continued in flight, appears in my video to possibly be the top portion of the plume that partly dissipates leaving a segment of the tip adrift - detached from the main body of the plume. (I highlight "possibly be" because during that portion of the video, I zoom in and out and pan off and back onto the plume, so I'm not sure if what we are seeing is a stage of separation like that of a missile or if it's the tip of the plume separating from the main portion). I did zoom into that portion to see if I could see a craft of some kind (at the time I thought that there was a chance the object was still making condensation/exhaust) but there was nothing there creating that segment. Had there been, I know I would have been able to see it with the high-powered lens I was using. Add to that - if it was traveling toward us, the closer it would come the easier it would be to see it, but there was nothing there. That's why I said it was merely the plume adrift and not anything continuously flying.
“Though there was no time code associated with the raw footage I shot, you are still able to accurately time the footage from the moment I started the recording (as we departed John Wayne airport) to the final moments of the mystery missile story. When I play the video I can time the duration of the object in flight which was between 30-45 seconds of "Glow Time" - which is inclusive within, and at the end of the 2-3 minute estimated flight time from which the plume was visible at the horizon ... I can rely on the raw footage as it plays to gauge my estimated times since it plays back in real time on the player deck's control track timer.”
There were also two unknown witnesses who captured images of the contrail, both anonymous posters on the image hosting website Flickr. A photographer on Hermosa Beach, north of Leyvas and Warren, uploaded a photo of the November 8 sunset and only subsequently realized he had captured the same contrail due to media reports. From his vantage point, without the setting sun directly back-lighting the contrail, it apparently appeared similar to the other contrails in his sunset photo.
Another anonymous photographer uploaded photos of clouds at sunset on November 8, and noticed a bright horizontal contrail that he subsequently associated with the media reports regarding the contrail. Notice that in the case of these latter two eyewitnesses, the first noted nothing unusual about the contrail until he read media reports about it, and the second viewed a horizontal, not vertical contrail.
Finally, the opinions of the known military experts must be taken into consideration. Several highly credible experts have stated their opinion that the contrail in question represented the launching of an SLBM.
A little further background from Leyvas might shed more light on the way the video was edited and presented to the public. Leyvas related that the video was taken during sweeps week in his TV market, and part of his job during sweeps week is to go out and look for and capture video of interest for sweeps week ratings. The video he captured of the contrail was subsequently heavily edited before being aired, and less than two minutes of the ten minutes of video has been seen by these experts. From the perspective of garnering sweeps week ratings, the footage was certainly successful.
It may be that the experts would modify their opinion based on viewing the entire footage. The footage is owned by the local CBS affiliate and nothing was found by the Department of Defense in reviewing the footage that would prevent its release to the public. According to Leyvas, it might still be available on their server. If that is the case, it should just be a matter of uploading the unedited ten minutes of video to YouTube to put an end to the debate.

As a result of a subsequent email exchange with Leyvas, I had asked WND to edit the final paragraph as follows:

It may be that the experts would modify their opinion based on viewing the entire footage. The footage is owned by the local CBS affiliate and nothing was found by the Department of Defense in reviewing the footage that would prevent its release to the public. According to Leyvas, although the entire raw video may no longer be available on the local CBS affiliate's server, "We archive important video we shoot as a back up for the station, but the station maintains the rights to the video." If that is the case, it would just be a matter of uploading the unedited ten minutes of video to the internet in order to put an end to the debate.

Now compare the article I composed and submitted above to the sensationalistic manipulated (and frankly, fabricated) version WND actually published:

MATTERS OF NATIONAL SECURITY
Mysterious missile launch baffles even eyewitnesses
Video, still photographers watched contrail soaring over Pacific Coast

One thing to note, as I implied in my original closing paragraph. Both CBS and WND know that Gil Leyvas has a back up copy of the original unedited ten minutes of raw footage. CBS knows they duped credible military experts into stating publicly that the contrail was formed by a missile by deliberately editing the raw footage for ratings. CBS has also conveniently let the impression persist from the first week that the video was seized by the Department of Defense for analysis (implying they no longer had a copy.)

WND also knows from my correspondence with them that a back-up copy exists, but they left that important fact out of their version of the story.

Frankly, both media outlets are acting like ... typical mainstream media outlets.

I never trusted CBS to begin with.

Unfortunately, I can no longer trust World Net Daily as a news source.

And I sure as heck will never submit anything to them in the future for publication.

Update 12/28/2010:
Rick Warren just sent me an email noting he uploaded two more contrails, photographed yesterday:

Pope visits Little Sisters of the Poor

2010-09-18T18:30:00.002-04:00

Pope meets residents of St Peter’s Residence, Vauxhall

By Huw Twiston Davies on Saturday, 18 September 2010

(Photo: PA)

Meeting with elderly residents of St Peter’s Residence in Vauxhall, London, the Pope emphasised the “unique gift” of life, “from conception to natural death”.

Arriving from meetings with victims of sexual abuse by priests just after five, roughly thirty minutes later than he was originally scheduled to arrive, the Holy Father was greeted by Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark, and welcomed by Sr Marie Claire of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The Pope then went and visited some residents individually, who were too sick to leave the rooms, and also accepted a donation from 10 Catholic residential homes for overseas missionary work.

Sr Marie Claire then spoke of St Jeanne Jugan in her speech, the founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor who was canonised last year.

The Holy Father then gave an address in which he emphasised his community with the assembled residents, saying he came to them “not only as a father, but also as a brother who knows well the joys and the struggles that come with age.”

The Pope also encouraged the older people not to fear the difficulties of increasing old age, saying that while people “may enjoy good health in old age; but equally Christians should not be afraid to share in the suffering of Christ, if God wills that we struggle with infirmity”, also recalling the illness of Pope John Paul II in the last years of his papacy.

“His cheerfulness and forebearance as he faced his final days were a remarkable and moving example to all of us who have to carry the burden of advancing years.”, Pope Benedict said, in reference to his predecessor.

The Holy Father also said that great age grants “the opportunity to appreciate both the beauty of God’s greatest gift to us, the gift of life, as well as the fragility of the human spirit” and that the elderly “are given a marvellous chance to deepen our awareness of the mystery of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

“As the normal span of our lives increases… these years are an opportunity to remember in affectionate prayer all those whom we have cherished in this life, and to place all that we have personally been and done before the mercy and tenderness of God.”

The Holy Father then individually blessed and spoke to each of the residents of St Peter’s before he left.

Of Medicine, Magic and Original Sin

2010-08-29T00:53:00.000-04:00

Of Medicine, Magic, and Original Sin

by Brian J. Kopp, DPM

From The Wanderer

3-8-2001

With the dawn of the Third Millennium, Western society is experiencing a period of economic prosperity and material wealth that is unequaled in the history of mankind. Americans have a standard of living greater than most men who ever lived. New technologies arise at an astonishing rate, previously untreatable diseases are now not only cured but eradicated, and much physical suffering is being alleviated. With this affluence has come a longer life expectancy, as well as increased rates of previously rare diseases. Unfortunately, an unhealthy obsession with health in general accompanies this affluence, and an uneasy realization is settling over the West. All the promise of our technology, and all the money of our booming economy spent on new treatments and cures, has failed keep pace with our demands. In the back of our collective psyche, it is dawning on the world that all these advances are failing to resolve the basic problem of the suffering and death of man.

In reality, there have truly been enormous advances. Life expectancy climbs steadily, despite the perceived "dangers" of our technological world, from industrial chemicals to pollution, to new sources of ionizing radiation and electromagnetic fields. Life expectancy alone is the best gage of true advance in the life sciences. It’s increase is primarily a result of modern medicine, despite its synthetic and "unnatural" chemicals and techniques, and overall improvement in diet, which has been achieved by farming techniques with heavy dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Yet the public perceives that medicine and science has failed them. They rightfully point out rising cancer rates, increases in heart diseases, drug resistant infections, and new and deadly viruses. As questions build, no true answers are forthcoming, at least from science. Thus, as man’s modern knowledge fails to fulfill its promise of solutions for all the world’s ills, the public is turning, en masse, to alternatives to mainstream medicine and science. If penicillin fails, an herb may help. If chemotherapy fails, acupuncture and meditation and vegetarian diets are embraced.

Much of this "new" medicine comes from the "old" religions. American Indian and Chinese herbology, eastern religious meditation techniques, vegetarian Hindu diets, acupuncture, and a myriad other old healing techniques are "rediscovered," and advanced as an alternative for the failure of modern science to cure all the suffering in the world.

Yet how can the west forget so quickly the roots of western medicine itself? Traditional western medicine has grown alongside traditional western culture. That culture, the culture of Europe, and to a certain degree the Americas, is the culture of the Church that formed it and from which it received its principles of scientific investigation. Those principles are, boiled down to their basics, derived from the rational approaches of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Granted, St. Thomas Aquinas dealt with theology and philosophy. Yet it was Thomistic thought, the rational, reasoned examination of concepts and ideas, from which grew the methods of scientific investigation and by which was discovered the evidence upon which modern western medicine and science is based. The Church was the incubator of the scientific process, and its universities were the seed from which has grown Western scientific thought.

Furthermore, western medicine and science have grown within a fundamentally Catholic understanding of reality. That reality is that God made the created world, along with the Laws of Nature by which it is governed. God, of course, is the infinite omnipresent power in the universe. He also made angels, man, and the lower animals. Demons are fallen angels. All His creation must obey His Laws of Nature, which are described and codified by scientific inquiry, as well as the Natural Law, which is written on our souls, summed up in the Ten commandments and the Great commendment of Jesus Christ, and codified within the sciences of philosophy and theology. Of course, we were created perfect, but disease and death entered the system with the Original Sin of Adam and Eve.

That is a simplistic summary of the reality of our existence, properly understood by science and philosophy and theology. We are created physical bodies, imbued by God with an eternal soul, living a finite Earthly life. We are forced to live according to the Laws of Nature and the Natural Law, and we cope daily with disease and death, the price of sin.

Western medicine grew up with a fundamental understanding of this reality, and works within its finite framework. As such, it examines the body in a rational scientific Jesuitical manner, with its (sometimes limited) understanding of the Laws of Nature, and attempts to apply remedies to the body based on this reality and the diseases present.

There are biochemical, electrical, and other forces acting within the body, any disruption of which can lead to the diseased state. Investigation of disease entails the use of all the sciences, including biology, chemistry, physics, etc. Treatment may be a chemical to restore function to an injured or malfunctioning organ, surgery to remove a diseased organ, vitamins and nutrients to restore proper function, or any of the thousands of treatments available to modern medicine.

They all have, as common denominator, at least an attempt to understand structure and body function through rational scientific thought within the framework of created reality, or in other words, Catholic reality. Even the early herbal remedies of modern western medicine were attempts at treating the body within the realm of reality. If remedies were found to be without merit, they were relegated to the dustbin with the other snake oils of history. As herbal remedies stood up to scientific investigation, the active ingredients were codified, formalized, and purified into the modern medicines we use today.

The failure of Western medicine today is that in its absolute pursuit of human knowledge, it has forgotten the fact of the immortal soul and the effects of Original Sin. It has so formalized itself that the patient has become a case number to be "objectively" evaluated, probed, prodded, sliced, medicated, and placated. Killing unborn babies, to use their cells to cure the current living case number, is the perfect example of the pit into which western medicine has fallen.

It is no wonder then, that men and women are sensing this something that is now missing. Western medicine has divorced itself from this spiritual side in the name of some mistaken "scientific objectivity." Unfortunately, when the patient takes the seemingly logical next step, from a soulless western medicine into the world of alternative, holistic, or eastern medicine, and the admission of the spiritual aspects of man these alternative philosophies embrace, he often steps from the relatively known to the unknown.

For all its failings, western medicine attempts to treat the body using rational scientific concepts. Alternative medicine largely refrains from making any such claims. Instead, remedies are couched in terms of balancing the "powers" within the body, or opening energy channels, or bringing "harmony" within. Anecdotal evidence replaces double-blind, standardized, and reproducible studies. Concepts of healing are drawn from eastern mysticism or ancient spiritualism, or other old world religious traditions such as Wicca and Earth worship, in a belief that "Mother Earth" provides all the cures necessary for the healing of her children. Many common maladies are believed not to be biochemical or genetic errors from a fallen human nature, but an unbalance of energies or powers, or bad karma from a previous life.

The public, in essence, is turning away from science, and returning to that which so much of early man embraced, namely superstition and gnostic paganism. These "new" alternative techniques rarely have scientific basis, but rely on mystical interpretations of the body and soul which are inherently foreign to the Catholic understanding of reality.

Despite the dangers and traps of western science noted above, these "powers" or "energies" of the body, which form the fundamental basis of these alternative remedies and techniques, still must be examined objectively. Are they "real?" Do they indeed exist? Can they be quantified or measured? If not, why? Are they part of that Nature God created? Of course, if they do exist, they must be made to "fit" into the realm of God’s creation, best understood by western philosophy and theology.

However, our western understanding of God’s creation has no place for powers or energies freely floating around for us to tap into, use and manipulate. Western tradition has a simple word for the tapping into and manipulation of energies or life forces. That word is "Magic." Magic, in the western Christian world view, is a forbidden art.

God did not make energies freely floating around into which we may tap and which we may manipulate by our will, like some cosmic Star Wars "Force." Any religion or "medicine" that promises its adherents such power is a dishonest or sinister one, for such is forbidden by God. Such "knowledge" is Gnostic, or forbidden or hidden knowledge, and it is antithetical to Christian belief.

What of so-called healings brought about by practitioners of eastern or New Age mysticism based medicine? Are there other "powers" by which we may be healed? The only force or power in the universe is the power of God. We are not permitted to attempt to conjure up God’s power by herbs, potions, incantations, yoga, "Healing Touch," Reiki, or any other technique.

We can indeed use intercessory prayer to ask God for true healing by His power. Saints have done so. Jesus our Lord healed multitudes by His power. Angels are credited with healings in Scripture, but only through God’s power.

However, we cannot conjure up God by an act of our own will or by ritual or incantation or transcendental meditation. Therefore, in the Catholic understanding of reality, these healings can at best only come from forces which God never intended us to understand or attempt to manipulate. Two thousand years of Christian thought and proper scientific investigation have not revealed any such powers. At worst, and more likely, they come from demonic forces, and magic is always and only the conjuring of demonic forces. Even when a "cure" is documented in alternative methods, the nagging question remains, "What profit it a man to gain the whole world yet lose his Eternal soul?"

For the typical individual who walks into a local alternative medicine shop, the herbal remedies they sell are not likely to open him up to demonic influence. However, the attraction of further advance into these gnostic healing arts that are the next logical step are hard to ignore. Power over physical reality, even the reality of our fallen physical nature, even if pursued to help and heal, is not a power to be grasped at by Christians. It is another attractive yet forbidden fruit so very much like that first one of which Adam and Eve tasted.

In western medicine, the patient has become naked to science, and their personhood is often run over roughshod. In an industry called "health care," they are no longer a face and a name and there may be very little care at all. In leaving behind this fundamental truth, that a patient is a human created in the image and likeness of God with innate dignity and that the end simply does not justify the means, western medicine has lost its roots and its soul.

So has western society and culture. Both have walked away from the Church that raised both from infancy, and still offers the only true hope for modern medicine and the culture at large. What is the solution to this malaise that has taken over the mind of modern man, this obsession with health and healing?

The root problem is a fundamental fear of death. Disease is simply a stage on the road to that death introduced by original sin. So man must come to terms with his own death. All the chemical compounds of all the plants of the world will never provide a cure for original sin, and therefore, disease will always be present. The sooner modern man grasps this reality, including the men and woman of science and medicine, the sooner man will truly be healthy in body and soul.

This can only come with a return to that concrete reality that tells us that God exists, He made us, and because of Original Sin and our sin, we must suffer and eventually die. The reality is that the only "cure" from this suffering and death is the embrace of the Cross, and the Savior who hung there and died for us. This reality must be proclaimed by all who would seek to heal his fellow man and himself. The cure is the Good News, and the sooner modern man takes His medicine, the sooner our world will be truly Healed.

Update on anti-vaccine lobby icon

2010-08-02T16:11:00.002-04:00

Andrew Wakefield is in the news again. He received a dishonorable mention in this previous blog post,...and the evil that lurks in the anti-vaccine lobby

Now there's this:

Anti-vaccine Crusader Andrew Wakefield Loses Medical License

Posted by Sierra on May 24th, 2010 at 12:05 pm

Finally. British doctor Andrew Wakefield, whose questionable research into a link between autism and vaccination began a tidal wave of anti-vaccine sentiment in the U.S and Britain, has lost his medical license.

Wakefield’s research on autistic children and the MMR vaccine was the first published work to draw a connection between the vaccine and the disorder. Later researchers have been unable to replicate his results. Earlier this year, the Lancet retracted his papers. Shortly thereafter, he was censured by Britain’s leading medical body.

Today, he’s lost is license to practice medicine in Britain.

Wakefield described the ruling against him as “a little bump in the road”. That’s probably because it’s been a long time since he made his living practicing medicine in Britain.

He lives in Texas now, where he’s a prominent activist in the anti-vaccine movement. The medical establishment may have kicked him to curb, but he’ll always have Jenny McCarthy.

Wakefield’s controversial research claimed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, and suggested that giving the vaccines to children separately instead of as a mixed dose. He’s losing his license because his research violated ethics rules about the treatment of children as research subjects. He’s also been cited for hiding his financial conflicts of interest; Wakefield was being paid huge sums by lawyers hoping to file a class action lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers.

For a quick pictorial history of the Wakefield case, check out this 15-page cartoon story.

To parents who believe his theories, Wakefield is a saint. To those who believe in science, he’s an obstacle to research of real value for children with autistic spectrum disorders. Personally, I’m celebrating this move by the British General Medical Council. Hopefully being stripped of credentials will make Wakefield seem less authoritative to those who’ve been listening to him, and we can move the resources on autism research back to real avenues of inquiry.

Make sure you follow the link for the quick pictorial history of the Wakefield case.

Maybe that will put the nail in the coffin for that particular hypothesis.

The more worrying one still has merit, from a Natural Law point of view.

You can't violate Natural Law without there being temporal consequences. Vaccines themselves do not violate Natural Law, so there is nothing intrinsic to vaccinations that should cause temporal consequences.

However,

As the abstract of the study indicates, autism rates in the US and the UK began to increase around the same time that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine switched from using animal cells to using human cells that had been derived from aborted fetuses.

A Joyful Day at St. Ann's Novitate

2010-08-02T15:30:00.005-04:00

As a follow up to my previous post, Doctor fulfills dream by working to become nun please see the photo collage posted at the Little Sisters of the Poor website, View Profession Photo Album Here!

An Alternative Approach to Pandemic Influenza That Clinicians Everywhere Could Use

2010-07-23T11:41:00.004-04:00

I interviewed Dr. Fedson for the L'Osservatore Romano article previously posted. He is still tirelessly promoting this concept:

UPMC Center For Biosecurity
http://www.upmc-biosecurity.org/index.html

Clinicians Biosecurity Network

CBN Report
Guest Editorial*
An Alternative Approach to Pandemic Influenza
That Clinicians Everywhere Could Use
By David S. Fedson, MD, July 23, 2010
The initial waves of the first influenza pandemic of the 21st Century have passed. Despite the best efforts of inﬂuenza scientists, health officials, and companies, more than 90% of the world’s people did not have timely access to affordable supplies of vaccines and antiviral agents. Instead, they had to rely on 19th Century public health “technologies.” They should have (and probably could have) had something better.^1-5
The Central Importance of the Host Response
In the 1918 pandemic, young adults had high mortality rates, yet children were infected more frequently than young adults and they seldom died.⁵ This is best explained by the more benign host response of children, a feature shared with several other medical conditions. Few people who die of influenza do so during the first few days of illness when pro-inflammatory cytokine levels are high; instead, like patients with sepsis, they usually die in the second week, when anti-inflammatory cytokines and immunosuppression dominate. Influenza deaths at any age occur more frequently in persons with cardiopulmonary conditions, diabetes, renal disease, obesity, asthma and late pregnancy. All of these conditions share one characteristic in common: dysregulated innate immunity. Laboratory studies confirm the importance of the host response. For example, fatal acute lung injury can be induced in mice by inactivated H5N1 virus.⁴ In this model, antiviral agents would be useless; only the host response is responsible for disease. Could the host response be modified so patients would have a better chance of surviving?
Influenza, Acute Coronary Syndromes (ACS), Statins and Related Agents
Influenza is associated with ACS, and influenza vaccination and statins reduce its occurrence. These associations led to the suggestion in 2004 that statins might be used to treat pandemic influenza.¹ Other agents that might also be effective include PPARα and PPARγ agonists (fibrates and glitazones, respectively) and AMPK agonists (metformin).^3-5 These agents have been studied in laboratory models of sepsis, acute lung injury, ischemia/reperfusion injury, innate immunity, energy metabolism, mitochondrial function and programmed cell death. The results show that one or more of them:
down-regulate pro-inflammatory cytokines (e.g., NF-kappaB, TNFα, IL-1, IL-6);
upregulate anti-inflammatory cytokines (IL-10, TGFβ), pro-resolution factors (lipoxin A4, resolvin E1) and HO-1;
decrease TLR signaling by PAMPs and DAMPs;
restore iNOS/eNOS balance and stabilize cardiovascular function;
decrease reactive oxygen species and oxidative stress and restore mitochondrial biogenesis;
decrease tissue factor and its associated pro-thrombotic state;
stabilize the actin cytoskeleton in endothelial cells and shore up intracellular tight junctions, thereby increasing pulmonary barrier integrity and decreasing vascular leak;
modify macrophage function, caspase activation and apoptosis; and
increase the Bcl-2/Bax ratio in influenza virus-infected cells, thereby preventing the apoptosis necessary for virus replication.
The mechanisms demonstrated in these studies strongly suggest that these agents should benefit patients with severe influenza.
Evidence of Clinical Effectiveness
Outpatient statins decrease hospital admissions and mortality due to pneumonia.^3-5 In mice infected with PR8 (H1N1), H2N2 and H5N1 viruses, fibrates and glitazones reduce mortality by 40-50%, often when treatment is started 2-4 days following infection.^3-5 Remarkably, they do so without increasing virus replication. In influenza patients, these immunomodulatory agents should reduce pulmonary infiltrates, maintain oxygenation, stabilize and improve myocardial contractility and endothelial and epithelial cell function, reverse immunosuppression, restore mitochondrial biogenesis, prevent multi-organ failure and reduce mortality. There is already strong evidence that this can actually happen. In a soon-to-be published study of almost 4,000 patients hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed seasonal influenza, inpatient statin treatment reduced hospital mortality by 66%.⁶
Global Implications of Immunomodulatory Treatment
Simvastatin, pioglitazone, and metformin are produced as inexpensive generics in developing countries, and global supplies are huge. These agents would not be used to treat all influenza patients. Instead, only those at risk of multi-organ failure and death would need to be treated. The cost per patient would be less than $1.00 [DS Fedson, Unpublished observations]. Because these agents are available in all countries that have basic healthcare systems, they could be used on the first pandemic day.
Thus far, influenza scientists and the institutions that support their work (e.g., NIH, CDC, the Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the World Health Organization) have shown little interest in immunomodulatory treatment. Nonetheless, when vaccines and antiviral agents are not available, clinicians must have an alternative that will work. Consequently, they should demand that research be undertaken to determine whether generic immunomodulatory agents might be useful in managing seasonal influenza and the next pandemic.
Research on this approach must involve investigators in many fields outside influenza science. The laboratory studies needed to identify promising agents would probably cost less than $5-15 million [DS Fedson, Unpublished observation]. The results of these studies would inform clinical trials that intensive care physicians are already eager to undertake. Clinicians should easily understand that we simply cannot afford not to undertake this research.
Background Readings
Fedson DS. Pandemic influenza: a potential role for statins in treatment and prophylaxis. Clin Infect Dis 2006;43:199-205.
Fedson DS, Dunnill P. Commentary: From scarcity to abundance: pandemic vaccines and other agents for “have not” countries. J Public Health Policy 2007;28:322-40.
Fedson DS. Confronting the next influenza pandemic with inexpensive generic agents: can it be done? Lancet Infect Dis 2008;8:571-6.
Fedson DS. Meeting the challenge of influenza pandemic preparedness in developing countries. Emerg Infect Dis 2009;15:365-71.
Fedson DS. Confronting the next influenza pandemic with anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory agents: why they are needed and how they might work. Influenza Other Respir Virus 2009;3:129-42.
Vandermeer M, Thomas A, Kamimoto L, Reingold A, Gershman K, Meek J et al. The role of statins in preventing death among patients hospitalized with lab-confirmed influenza infections (Abs. 706). Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. October 30, 2009.
* Following a recent presentation by Dr. Fedson at the Center for Biosecurity, the CBN editors invited him to submit a guest editorial. Inquiries may be directed to him at dfedson@wanadoo.fr.

It appears that others have picked up the gauntlet laid down by Dr. Fedson:

InFACT: a global critical care research response to H1N1
The H1N1 pandemic presents acute care researchers with an extraordinary challenge and an unprecedented opportunity. By early October, 2009, there had been more than 340 000 reported cases of H1N1 infection in 191 countries, with more than 4100 deaths.1 WHO initially projected that up to 2 billion people could become infected with the virus over the next 2 years.2 Although vaccination programmes and other factors should reduce this number, plausible estimates of the number of infected individuals who might benefi t from admission to intensive care range from 200 000 to 10 million. Infl uenza killed at least 50 million people during the 1918 pandemic.3 Today, with antibiotics and antiviral agents, mechanical ventilation, and the supportive measures available in intensive care, most of those deaths could have been prevented.

The mortality for H1N1-infected patients admitted to intensive care ranges from 10 to 40% over the fi rst month,4–8 and survivors spend a median of 2 weeks in the intensive care unit. To reduce this toll requires a better understanding of the epidemiology and clinical biology of the disease, and the identifi cation of effective management strategies. New knowledge must be gathered with unprecedented speed and effi ciency. Beyond antiviral agents, anecdotal reports and data from animal studies suggest that illness severity can be attenuated by readily available agents, such as corticosteroids and statins, that can modulate the host’s infl ammatory response.9 None of these drugs has been adequately studied for effi cacy.

It is within the intensive care unit that the most severely aff ected patients will be treated. As international leaders of investigator-led clinical research consortia, and as clinicians dedicated to the care of critically ill patients, we have joined together as the International Forum for Acute Care Trialists (InFACT)10 to promote a scientifi cally rigorous, geopolitically inclusive, and academically collegial research response to this challenge (panel). We call on those who share this goal to join us.

The InFACT H1N1 research programme incorporates four core initiatives. We have harmonised fi ve regional databases to create a common global registry of critically ill patients with H1N1 infection.6–8 We urge clinicians and researchers to contribute cases. The database will enable real-time study of the epidemiology, natural history, and treatment of severe H1N1 disease. In parallel, we will develop a biobank to facilitate studies of genetic susceptibility and clinical biology.

We are starting a programme of collaborative, investigator-led randomised trials of treatment strategies that target both the virus and the host response. Our initial three studies will evaluate inexpensive interventions that are available in both the developed and the developing world: corticosteroids and statins. They use adaptive designs to ensure that results can be quickly incorporated into practice, and that ineff ective treatments are dropped. As measures of effi cacy, they will measure survival of individual patients and the rapidity with which patients can be liberated from limited intensive-care resources.

We seek to reduce the consequences of severe H1N1 infection in the developed world, where available research infrastructure is most robust, and in the developing world, where the human toll is likely to be the greatest. To this end, we will catalogue international critical care capacity, and promote, mentor, and support clinical research activities in resource-poor areas.

Research during a pandemic poses unique ethical and logistical challenges. Our position paper seeks toreconcile the potentially competing imperatives of a deliberate and conservative approach to the protection of the rights of the individual patient with the societal need to minimise the burden of illness and rapidly determine optimum approaches to prevention and treatment.

The H1N1 pandemic transcends geographic, economic, and political boundaries—our response must be similarly inclusive. We have committed ourselves, and the scientifi c constituencies we represent, to a methodologically rigorous and intellectually open collaboration to learn as much as we can and as quickly as we can to reduce the burden of illness of severe H1N1 infection. We call on clinicians, regulatory agencies, governmental authorities, research ethics boards, and funding bodies to support this unparalleled response to an extraordinary global challenge.

The InFACT Global H1N1 Collaboration* St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, ONT, Canada M5B 1W8 marshallj@smh.toronto.on.ca

Doctor fulfills dream by working to become nun

2010-07-19T21:26:00.006-04:00

Several years ago a dear friend started on a beautiful journey:

Doctor fulfills dream by working to become nun

November 5, 2007 - By William Kibler, bkibler@altoonamirror.com

A 47-year-old family physician from Altoona has cured herself of a chronic longing by joining the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Judy Jacobus closed her practice Oct. 1 and joined the order Oct. 26 in Washington, D.C., as a “postulant,” eligible to become a full-fledged nun by 2015.

She first felt the call at 15, but she hesitated because her nominally Catholic family in Kane discouraged her and because she wanted to get married and have “oodles of kids,” she confessed recently to members of her Lakemont parish.

Maybe it was an omen that the boy who took her to the prom is now a priest.

She dated on and off until five years ago, and she didn’t feel compelled to join any of the religious orders she checked out.

Then, a year-and-a-half ago, she read a Wall Street Journal story about the Little Sisters and felt compelled.

She wants to be part of a community of prayer, singing and eating together, and of a mission to care for the elderly poor so she wouldn’t waste her talents and 11 years of medical education.

She hopes she can work as a physician in the elderly care homes the sisters run.

“It’s a beautiful life,” she said.

Oddly, as her decision solidified, it coincided with her purchase of a downtown building for her doctor practice, which like her purchase of a house in 1991, helped to root her here.

She stopped taking new patients in late 2006 when a partner left, put her building up for sale, ended her practice Oct. 1 and spent recent weeks shedding possessions.

That wasn’t as hard as parting from her patients and distancing herself from friends and family, Jacobus said.

Still, giving up her practice as a doctor wasn’t as radical as it seems because Jacobus has “always been a nun,” said friend Dorothy Liller of Hollidaysburg.

She is kind and considerate, “a perfect friend,” and she seemed destined for the convent life she often talked about, Liller said.

“We were all just sort of waiting for her to give us the word,”she said.

Her mother, Greta, believes Jacobus may find it hard to take orders to feed or bathe an elderly resident after running her own medical practice.

She’s giving up a lot, her mother said.

In love, sacrifices don’t seem like sacrifices, Jacobus said, recalling when she gave a dress with a butterfly imprint to a sister who loves butterflies and realized her sister’s delight outweighed her own loss.

Jacobus first felt the call on a diocesan mission trip in high school to Kentucky, where she painted the tin roof of a one-room shack papered inside with cereal boxes. There were five children and their mother with no indoor plumbing.

At supper and around the campfire, Jacobus shared with fellow volunteers and the mountain people, feeling “incredibly grateful” for what she had back home.

“Everything I learned in my Catechism that was in my head went to my heart,” she said.

Jacobus began going to daily Mass. She eventually returned to Kentucky three times and later went to Haiti many times, finding things that were even worse.

As a Little Sister, her spouse will be Jesus, her “best friend,” to whom she can tell everything without fear, she said.

He “loves me no matter what, even with my worst screw-up job,” she said.

The community is worse off by losing Jacobus’ services, said Dr. David Burwell, who will be custodian of her medical charts.

Her leaving aggravates the acute primary doctor shortage in the area, caused by nine who have left practice in the past year and a half, Burwell said.

The shortage is national, but it’s especially bad in Pennsylvania because of high malpractice insurance costs and low insurance reimbursement, he said.

Jacobus tried and failed to sell her practice, an indicator of the problem, he said.

Her old number refers callers to Burwell, but he hasn’t taken her patients en masse, he said.

His staff is giving prospective new patients their first appointments in December, another indication of the problem, he said.

Judy is the God-mother of our daughter, Marie. This weekend, my wife and Marie attended Sister Judith of the Eucharist's first profession at St. Ann's Novitiate in Queen's Village, NY:

And here's an entry from the Little Sisters of the Poor website:

Little Sister novices enter retreat in preparation for first profession

July 8, 2010

“What happiness for us, to be a Little Sister of the Poor!”
Saint Jeanne Jugan

This is a very exciting time for St Ann’s Novitiate!

Please join us in praying for our Little Sister novices and postulants who have entered into retreat today in preparation for first profession and entrance into the novitiate on July 16 and 17. They are being led in retreat by Rev. Frederick Miller, a good friend of our community; during these days of retreat they will be immersed in prayer and complete silence.

The ceremonies will take place at our novitiate in Queens Village, New York. Five young women will become novices on Friday, July 16 and the next day four novices will make their first profession as Little Sisters. This year’s profession ceremony will be quite a Midwestern affair, as the new Little Sisters hail from Oklahoma, Kansas, Minnesota and western Pennsylvania.

So, please join us in praying for:
Sr Amy Marie of Jesus (Love)
Sr Dara Catherine of the Passion (Vishnefske)
Sr Judith of the Eucharist (Jacobus)
Sr Maria Catherine of Jesus (Flicker)

Check back after the 17th to see photos of the profession ceremony and to learn the first destination of our new Little Sisters. By then we’ll also know the religious names of our five new novices. For those who might be curious, we have the possibility of choosing our own religious name and may keep our baptismal name or choose an entirely new name. For each Little Sister this is a highly personal choice, “worked out” in prayer. You can guess from the names above that many of our Little Sisters pick some combination of new and old elements for their religious name, and the names often reflect a Little Sister’s personal spirituality in some way.

Accompanying this blog are some photos taken recently at the Jeanne Jugan weekend in Queens, during which the novices and postulants introduced young woman to our saintly foundress and her charism. In two of the photos the novices and postulants act out the humble beginnings of the Congregation in Brittany, France in the 19th century.

Fatima and the 2009 H1N1 Flu Pandemic

2010-07-14T09:23:00.002-04:00

Fatima and the 2009 H1N1 Flu Pandemic

In the fall of 1918, two young Portuguese shepherds contracted a virulent form of swine flu during a global pandemic that took the lives of 50 to 100 million. Francisco Marto barely survived the flu and died of complications, most likely a secondary bacterial infection, in April 1919. His sister Jacinta subsequently developed tuberculosis and died in February of 1920. With their cousin Lucia dos Santos, they are better known today for having witnessed the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima.

Francisco and Jacinta likely would have survived the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic if modern antibiotics had been available. Science has subsequently assembled an impressive database for virology and immunology as well as more effective vaccines, antiviral medications and intensive care interventions for flu complications. Despite these advances there are increasing deaths, especially among pregnant women, the young and the healthy due to the current swine H1N1 pandemic, which has striking similarities to the Influenza A (H1N1) virus responsible for the 1918 pandemic. Both are noted for precipitating “cytokine storm,” an overreaction of the immune system that floods the lungs and can lead to multi-organ failure and death. Unlike 1918, the feared second wave during September of 2009 failed to produce a massive surge in fatalities. Complicating the debate, the scientific world is split on the implications of recent minor genetic changes in the virus and the best available options for prevention and treatment in the face of a possible third wave later this winter.

A good illustration of the dissension within the scientific community can be seen in the work of David Fedson, MD. Specializing in the epidemiology of influenza and vaccination, Fedson served as Director of Medical Affairs for Aventis Pasteur MSD and was a member of numerous US and World Health Organization (WHO) committees on influenza immunization. Having worked extensively within the field, he continues to believe that safe effective vaccines are the gold standard in preventing deaths from pandemic flu, but also grasps the inherent shortcomings of our reliance on flu vaccines and antiviral medications such as Tamiflu. A December study in the British Medical Journal has drawn into question the general effectiveness of Tamiflu, and due to a minor genetic mutation (known as H274Y) seasonal H1N1 flu is now 99% resistant to Tamiflu. There have been increasing reports of the H274Y mutation in 2009 swine H1N1 samples. Viral genetic drift, which helps a virus evade a host’s immune response, can also render pandemic vaccines ineffective, and global pandemic vaccine production capacity is only sufficient to immunize approximately a billion people, less than 1 in 7 of the world’s population. Fedson is an ardent promoter of adjuvants as an essential antigen sparing method to stretch limited supplies to vaccinate as many as four times as many individuals.

An interview with Fedson exploring these issues was published in July in L'Osservatore Romano as part of their coverage of the G8 Summit meeting. For over five years Fedson has been campaigning for research on the use of currently available generic medications to help control the “cytokine storm” precipitated by novel influenza strains. Targeted drugs include statins and fibrates (currently used for lowering cholesterol and triglycerides), glitizones (used in managing diabetes) and Resveratrol (a chemical in red wines and peanuts thought to be responsible for lowering rates of heart disease). Until recently, his pleas fell on deaf ears at the CDC, WHO, The Gates Foundation, and other major philanthropic organizations. Headlines this fall finally vindicated his efforts. Research funded by the CDC indicated that among people hospitalized with seasonal influenza, those taking statins were 50% less likely to die.

Susan Chu, MD was a cosigner of Fedson’s seminal 2006 letter to The Times (UK) urging research on this issue. An editor of the popular newfluwiki2.com website, Chu parts company with Fedson when it comes to the use of adjuvants in flu vaccines. Chu has posted a series of essays at newfluwiki2.com about the possibility of adjuvants causing autoimmune disease and spontaneous miscarriages. The medical literature and vaccine manufacturers simply have not provided adequate documentation to allay Chu’s concerns, though Fedson maintains that, with 40 million adjuvanted vaccines administered so far in Europe, such complications would already have been widely reported. Adjuvant promoters also point to a possible additional benefit, the potential of cross protection via broader immunity to pandemic viruses that displays genetic drift away from the original vaccine target. Recent minor genetic mutations (known as D225G) that have been noted in samples from the Ukraine and Norway were also seen in the 1918 and H5N1 influenza strains. These mutations are associated with infections that strike deeper in the lungs, causing widespread damage to alveolar cells and triggering cytokine storm, increasing virulence and death rates. One Ukraine specimen with this minor genetic mutation was characterized as a low reactor, indicating that current vaccines might not be as effective against strains with this mutation.

An additional concern is an immunological concept called, ironically, Original Antigenic Sin (OAS). According to the OAS theory the immune system will create a robust immune response to a novel virus, but if the individual is subsequently infected with a strain of virus closely related to the first strain, the body reacts as if it were being reinfected with the original strain, failing to confront the mutated virus. This could have implications for the minor genetic variations noted between waves of any given pandemic flu. Individuals infected with the spring 1918 pandemic wave had at least partial immunity to the fall 1918 wave, but little or none to the Winter 1918/1919 wave. Fortunately, the 2009 H1N1 Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine (LAIV) nasal spray appears to have included the D225G variant. The injectable inactivated vaccines do not, and no one in the medical community can foretell the significance of this at present.

The evolutionary explanations for these mutations are being hotly debated among the scientific community and point to one of the greatest controversies among virologists. The current genetic theories of random mutation and viral reassortment, representing the reigning orthodoxy at the CDC and WHO, simply cannot explain the appearance of some of these mutations among widespread samples and differing genetic backgrounds. Henry Niman, PhD, is the leading proponent of a relatively new theory of homologous recombination to explain and predict such mutations, and his company, Recombinomics, hopes to cash in on the ability to predict such changes to better guide vaccine production. By shear tenacity he has managed to drive the online flu community towards his point of view, and in the process has precipitated wider access to genetic sequence data online. His signature comments, “Release of sequences would be useful” and “[the genetic mutation du jour] is cause for concern” have become both a thorn in the side of mainstream science as well as a rallying cry among the online flu community seeking transparency from government labs and influenza researchers.

The scientific establishment points to a lack of peer reviewed publications supporting Niman’s theory of recombination, but the recent ClimateGate controversy has illustrated the tyranny and political correctness of the peer review process. As in the global warming debate, the mainstream position isn’t holding up to scrutiny. Tamiflu resistance is becoming too widespread to continue to claim it is randomly popping up in multiple patients simultaneously, or that resistance to Tamilflu makes the virus less able to spread. In France, one fatal case contained both D225G and Tamiflu resistance mutations. According to Niman, low reactors to current vaccines due to the virulent D225G mutation along with increasing prevalence of Tamiflu resistance could create the perfect storm for a deadly third or fourth pandemic wave later in 2010.

Fortunately, some common concerns expressed since early in the pandemic cycle have been settled. Current pandemic vaccines do not utilize any technologies that are intrinsically objectionable from a pro-life perspective, and there never was any validity to claims that current pandemic vaccines might be used for population control purposes. Brian Clowes, PhD, is director of research at Human Life International, and exposed the use of abortifacient hCG hormone-linked Tetanus vaccines in third world countries in the early 1990's. When asked if current pandemic vaccines might be used for population control purposes, he stated that although sterilization vaccines are still being researched, they are only used by western nations against the third world countries targeted in the 1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200.

By mid December, at least 200 million doses of pandemic flu vaccine had been administered globally, and the complications that were feared, based on the infamous 1976 Swine Flu vaccine campaign, have simply failed to materialize. Though Guillain–Barré syndrome has not become an issue in the current vaccine campaign, there have been some credible reports of increased allergic reactions and anecdotal reports of miscarriages associated with adjuvanted vaccines. The non-adjuvanted pandemic vaccines have displayed a safety level similar to seasonal flu vaccines, but it is still too early to tell whether current vaccines will actually prevent deadly infections during subsequent waves of influenza.

Most of the hysterical claims regarding the current pandemic have originated among promoters of alternative medicine, who insist that herbs, vitamins and other natural remedies can prevent and cure influenza. While proclaiming that the pandemic declaration itself is a hoax or conspiracy, they’ll be happy to sell supplements to the credulous, and adjust their flow of energy for optimum immune response. A central theme of the new age Gnostic alternative health field is the notion that the human body should be symptom and disease free, simply as a result of living a "healthy" lifestyle, and therefore able to overcome any illness. Unfortunately, this concept implicitly denies that disease entered human history as a result of Original Sin and continues due to personal sin. Gluttony and sloth aren’t bad lifestyle choices because they disturb karma or displease Gaia, they are cardinal sins that have temporal consequences. Obesity, diabetes and heart disease are the highest risk factors in the current pandemic.

Mainstream medicine has been neutered in its ability to address modern lifestyle choices, be they nutritional, behavioral, or sexual, because the “scientism” that animates modern medicine is non-judgmental. This “scientism” promised a utopia of health, happiness, and freedom from disease, and eventually the answers to all human questions and problems, but also forbids the intrusion of traditional morality into modern mainstream medicine.

December’s headlines, “H1N1 Pandemic a Dud,” may be true. Or the mounting viral mutations could cause a brutal third wave later this winter. Regardless, it is apparent that scientism has failed to deliver on its grand promises, at least in this current pandemic. The new age Gnosticism inherent in the alternative medicine industry is blind to the reality that human suffering comes from The Fall, the answers to which can be found only in the Cross. Disease will not be eliminated by science or by a healthy lifestyle. It will only end in that place where all tears are wiped away.

There are messages for us in the midst of this pandemic, in the message of Our Lady of Fatima. Blessed Francisco and Jacinta, please pray for us, and help us discern.

SEALED WITH BLOOD Letter From a Father to His Beloved Son

2010-07-09T22:10:00.001-04:00

SEALED WITH BLOOD
Letter From a Father to His Beloved Son

April 2002By Brian J. Kopp

Dr. Brian J. Kopp is a foot surgeon, NFP instructor, and home-schooling father in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

Cite de Dio
The Feast of The Holy Innocents, A.D. 2032

My Dearest Miguel,

Oh, how I yearn to see your face again Miguel, my first-born son and only child. I so very much wish you were here with me now in this incredible city where the Sun never sets. Each time I look into the face of my Father, I see your face there. My joy would be that much more complete if you decide to join us here.

I realize our parting was so very hard for you. I wish it had not happened that way, and I realize that you could not possibly understand how I could have left you without an explanation. Now, I will try to explain. I know it can never erase the sense of bewilderment and disbelief that must have engulfed you at our parting. However, as I’ve come to know my Father here, I have come to know too that I must speak to you about those days of bewilderment and wonder and disbelief. I wish I had known my Father better in my youth. He has such boundless wisdom. Oh, the mistakes I could have avoided, and the suffering I could have prevented, if only I had listened to that wisdom in my youth. I pray you will understand, someday, that these words I write and speak are not words of regret. It is too late for regret. They are simply words of truth that I could not have possibly shared with you before that painful parting. You would not have understood then.

I wish too that your mother had decided to join me here, Miguel. You know I loved her too, as much as a mortal man can love a woman. It was not enough, though. As much as it is possible to "miss" someone here now, that much I miss your mother. She could have decided to come here too, but I would not have been able to help her make that decision. Our parting too was so very difficult. Then, it was my own face that was disfigured with that same sense of bewilderment and disbelief. It was so painful to see it on your face at our own parting, such a short while after.

We possessed the world, your mother and I. We had all that the world could offer. Never before had two people so enjoyed the awe and esteem of the world's medical and scientific community. Never before had two scientists become so powerful and so wealthy. From the halls of the United Government, to the International Universities and Hospitals System, to the homes of the media elites, and even in the corridors of hidden power and control, we were welcomed and esteemed. That is why it was so hard for you to have seen me leave the way I did. That is why the questions ring through your brilliant mind, seemingly without answers. Questions you never anticipated asking, and for which I failed to form you to be capable of answering. That, in this place and time of no regrets, would be my greatest regret. In that I failed you, Miguel, despite my unprecedented worldly success.

As you know, Miguel, your mother was instrumental in finally "proving" the existence of global warming to the world. Her atmospheric modeling and computer analysis surpassed the efforts of any other scientist. Her ability to devise long-range plans for its alleviation brought her the Nobel Peace Prize. It was an accomplishment that an entire University faculty couldn't match, and few men could even comprehend her mathematical methods and programming genius, let alone challenge her conclusions. Hers was a mind rivaled only by my own, Miguel. And you are heir to both our intellects. There is danger in that, Miguel, yet great promise and hope. I hope you realize this soon. Very soon.

When I joined the faculty of the International University, adjoining the grand halls of the United Government, my accomplishments preceded me. Few men had an MD degree as well as PhD's in biophysics, immunology and nanoscience. My work identifying the protein markers on the fetus and placenta made it possible to develop the only contraceptive vaccine known to man that was at once as effective and safe as it was permanent. Unused and forgotten embryos, frozen in liquid nitrogen in fertility clinics worldwide, offered ample material for my research and experimentation.

All the other vaccines had failed, even those that linked the HCG hormone of the fetus to known immune antigens such as the tetanus vaccine. These vaccines all had painful, dangerous side effects, because the body failed to attack the fetus early enough in the pregnancy. My vaccine, however, met all the expectations and surpassed them. By developing a synthetic protein that mimics the proteins of the cells lining the early placenta, an immune reaction would develop as soon as a pregnancy started, ending it before the regular menstrual period. It was truly a silent termination. Ninety-nine percent of women never had any idea they were pregnant.

The fact that it could be added to the other vaccinations of childhood made it easier to distribute, especially among those cultures that we deemed "backwards" at the time, and refused to embrace the "wisdom" of our population control plans. We marketed the vaccine to the public at the same time, aimed at women of childbearing age as a painless alternative to surgical sterilizations and dangerous hormonal medications. We convinced the medical community that it only lasted for 10 years. It was a perfect deception. Yet this deception did not seem important compared to the scale of the environmental crisis we envisioned if the "population explosion" was not stopped.

Your mother and I ardently embraced the need for population contro. Her own calculations and global warming models showed the need and why action was necessary. My vaccine finally provided the answer; a safe effective permanent vaccine that was "accepted" because it was not suspected. With the wild success at eliminating so many human diseases that the vaccines of the 1900's brought about, who would have questioned continuing and expanding the vaccine industry and research. Great-grandparents still remembered the iron lungs of the years before the polio vaccine. Several generations grew to respect and accept vaccination programs uncritically. My breakthrough was the dream of the United Government. I made it a reality and it made me rich. My own Nobel Peace Prize was awarded secretly, for the United Government decided the world was not yet ready to accept the level of central planning already being achieved by the selective administration of my vaccine.

Beyond that concern, and more importantly, the Third World nations were finally leveling off in population growth, and within a short period they entered into that desired demographic goal of birth rates "below replacement level." Finally, after many years, total world population was declining. The strategic threat posed by population growth in Third World countries compared to the population decline of the West was finally eliminated. Even the Muslem countries failed to see the effects of this childhood vaccine. Its demographic effects were not felt till 15 to 20 years after its introduction, making it hard for traditional cultures to determine the cause of their infertility.

I am reluctant now to admit that we planned it that way, Miguel. It was the greatest cold war victory in the history of man. A war had been fought and won against an enemy, the world's population, that never knew it was fighting a battle for its very existence.

Between your mother's models and my own insistence that we were winning this demographic warfare at an unprecedented rate, on a scale never imagined, the nascent United Government decided that the traditional wars that had been envisioned as necessary to curtail world population growth were no longer necessary. A worldwide peace was negotiated and the United Government emerged victorious over eons of strife and discord. A new order grew that was unprecedented in its philanthropy and humanitarian efforts. A seemingly just world order reigned that never could have functioned before the population implosion that followed on the heels of my vaccine.

Fortunately, Miguel, I was able to turn to more rewarding research. Using my background in biophysics and nanomachines, I dedicated the rest of my years to developing a precise delivery system for chemotherapy and radiation therapy to malignant tumors. This was always my goal. I never intended to follow down that road to population control. I always found it somehow unsettling, but never realized why until I came here to this city.

I was fascinated with thesenano machines from my earliest memories. Machines not even seen by the human eye, capable of navigating the arteries and veins of the body, to deliver microscopic doses of molecular poison to cells of that last remaining incurable disease, cancer -- these machines were always a dream of medicine. It was a frontier as big as the suffering of man but smaller than a human cell.

Like the wild success of my vaccine, my research utilizing nanomachines in treating tumors held such promise. The navigation system of these magnificent little machines depended on recognizing those same chemical markers on the cell surfaces of the body's tissues. Just like the body's own immune system that my vaccine tricked into attacking the placenta, my nanomachines were trained to find and attack tumor markers on cells associated with cancer. Building on my own experience with the female reproductive tract and its tissue markers, we attacked the cancers there first, with phenomenal success.

The delayed time bomb of breast cancers, uterine cancers, and cervical cancers precipitated by the widespread use of hormonal contraceptives that the West relied upon so heavily before my vaccination gave us ample opportunity to experiment and refine our machines and techniques. Your mother joined me, utilizing her expertise in computer modeling to map the surface antigen codes and utilizing the findings of the previous generation's Human Genome Project.

We had cracked the code for every tissue marker in the body. Collecting tumors from the United Government's International University Hospitals System, we mapped the tissue markers specific to all of the most common cancers. We prepared nanomachines for each type of tumor, capable of delivering the appropriate dose of chemo or radiation necessary to obliterate the tumor cells. The size of the tumor determined the number of nanomachines injected. They went directly to the tumor and launched their deadly payload right into the tumor mass itself. The results were immediate and astonishing. We were curing cancers previously thought incurable.

Then...the world crumbled around me, son. When your mother was diagnosed, it was like a deathblow to me, despite the rapid progress we were making. If I had believed in God, I would have shaken my fist in His face, or cursed fate, or engaged in any of the old superstitions to which man resorts when he knows not why he suffers. But atheists are stoic in their own way. Stoic is really just a word for the mask atheists hide behind while they silently despair.

Your mother's treatment should have been routine. Instead it went terribly wrong. I should have recognized the signs of that fearsome condition from the start, Miguel. In my earlier days, working on my PhD in immunology, I had described it in the medical literature and mapped out the complex biochemical cascade that lies behind it. But Disseminated Intravascular Coagulopathy was simply not seen much any longer, and in reality, doctors always tend to undertreat and underdiagnose their own family and friends.

Why didn't I see it, Miguel?

Pride. My pride would not admit that my own treatment of my beloved wife was killing her. Her blood simultaneously clotted and grew too thin throughout her body, throwing clots to fingers and toes and organs, and at the same time bleeding uncontrollably in other places.

Looking into her eyes I saw a horror I never knew possible for a person of science. She was more fiercely atheist than myself, and she knew death was coming, but in her pride she would not believe, even then.

Of course, I followed the United Government International University Hospital guidelines for termination of life support immediately. I helped write them. I had to abide by them, even if, after recognizing my error, I thought somehow I could save her.

Miguel, you were deeply involved in your own meteoric rise within the inner circle of the United Government long before your mother became ill. Now I see that I lost you so many years earlier when I chose my work and research over raising you, my son. And with an intellect such as hers, the world did not expect your mother to forget her own research to raise a son. There is no way to apologize now for what was so obvious then. We were embarrassed to have conceived (I would never give my own wife that vaccine--we elites were above such cattle controlling methods) and too proud to abort the offspring of two such great minds.

Yours was the finest education money could buy, at only the best prep schools. I'm sorry you only saw us on our vacations from the International University. My own money, power and prestige, combined with one of the greatest intellects of all time, bought you your ticket to the highest levels of the new United Government. But you never knew the love of your own parents.

After your mother died I suffered a depth of despair that few could possibly know. When the promise of science fails to fulfill one's life and bring the happiness that the grasp of pure knowledge promises, an abyss of despair, depression and even suicide awaits, Miguel. I was very close to death, having decided to end my despair and my life over my failure, when I first heard my Father's voice. It came to me as a whisper, as in a dream. "Awake, my beloved son. I have work for you yet to complete before you part from your world."

In that moment I saw it all. I saw the billions of children who died early deaths in the womb from my vaccination. I saw the agony of "infertility" of billions of couples. I saw your atheism, which sprouted from my rejection of fatherhood and my failure to show you the Love of the Father of us all. I also saw my eternal "reward" for my life up till that moment. I had a conscience, and I had knowingly killed it. I ignored the natural law permanently imprinted on my soul. I was guilty of some of the greatest crimes ever against humanity. I was a prideful man, Miguel. You know that. But I was not a dumb man. I knew the reward that was mine at that very moment.

When I awoke, I knew that I had little time to correct the things I had done. After 78 years of destroying the Father's image in His families on earth, I had so very little time to restore some small piece of it. I knew nothing of that Faith which my grandfather had brought out of Cuba, and my own parents rejected, and that I ridiculed as the crutch of small-minded men. But I knew that something must be done.

Of course, you, better than anyone else, know the rest. After I called the international press conference and revealed to the world the presence of my vaccine in childhood immunization programs world wide, the truth was out. I was a powerful man in my own right. I revealed the demographic war that had been fought against the Third World countries. I revealed to the Muslims the failure of their leaders to protect them and their faith.

The world finally realized why the Catholic Church had been sounding the alarm at every United Government meeting for decades -- faithfully, truthfully -- while everyone had stopped listening except a small remnant. Now a springtime of the faith blossoms amid the blood of countless martyrs.

Of course, all these admissions did nothing for the credibility of the United Government, and the price was to be paid in blood. When they brought me before the United Government International Criminal Court, the Chief Justice -- you, Miguel-- could not believe the reports. How could you possibly believe that your own father, that brilliant scientist, had rejected the god of Science and backslid into that old superstition of Religion. Controlled by a bureaucracy you helped to create, you had to convict your own father of treason against the United Government you served, just as I had put your mother to death due to the guidelines for Euthanasia I had helped create for the International University Hospitals System. The United Government allowed no exceptions to its laws.

You yourself wrote the law that said that a United Government International Criminal Court Chief Justice, finding a man guilty of a capital offense against the United Government, must personally carry out that execution. I know that somehow, when you wrote that, you felt it was a noble thing, and would help prevent abuse of a punishment reserved for only the greatest offenses against this new world order. I also knew that the beast you unwittingly helped create and set in power was now dictating to you your duties. I hold no ill feeling towards you, son. Like myself, you thought you were only serving man and science.

Our parting was so difficult Miguel. When the day of my execution arrived, bewilderment, wonder, and disbelief filled your face as you did for me that which I failed to do for you. You gave me the gift of Baptism by Blood, even though I had never given you the gift of Baptism by Water. By taking my life, you gave me Eternal Life. By following the orders of the Beast, you are helping the Beast to defeat himself. My public execution, televised worldwide on the United Government network, was witnessed by more human beings than any other death in history.

Of course war and bloodshed have since replaced that false peace the United Government had imposed. From my witness and blood has sprung forth so many more witnesses and martyrs. And I was only a 78 year old fool, who only grasped Reality for the final 47 days of his life, and who never learned a single line of the teachings of the Father during his life on earth.

Son, my prayers here in this Cite de Dio seem to be powerful with my Father. Apparently the intercessions of the Martyrs are some of the most powerful next to those of the Mother of God. I look into His beautiful face, into this Beatific Vision, and I see you. My Father allows me to see into your soul, where I see turmoil, bitterness and bewilderment. Yet I also see a fragile glimmer of hope there, that fragile willingness to believe that maybe, just maybe, your own father did not die in vain. My Father does not allow me to know your final decision, however, so I persevere in prayerful intercession for you at His throne.

I will spend Eternity in this City learning about Our Infinite Father. He has taught me the severity of my sins but also the Infinite Mercy of His Divine Love and Forgiveness. Now, of course, He has also taught me that in His eyes there is simply, no such thing as "overpopulation." The Love of an Infinite Father simply cannot be exhausted by "too many" children. In My Father's eyes, there are poverty-stricken children and prideful, selfish children. They are all the Father's children, made in His image and likeness, yet wounded by that Original Sin. His Will is for His children blessed with material excess to aid His children in poverty, not eliminate them. Yes, Miguel, the Father's Son, when He walked the earth with us, said the poor would always be with us. He knew man would resist His Grace and Love, with which those effects of Original Sin could be solved. Even your mother's prideful notions of global warming, which we used to rationalize the deaths of billions of His children, were way off the mark. The pride and folly of man, to think we could destroy the creation of an Infinite Creator! You and your United Government now must realize that the global economy has completely collapsed because there simply cannot be economic growth with a contracting population base, and that "global warming," such as it was, was only the Father's naturally created cycles that man's myopic vision could not grasp.

You are indeed one of the ten most powerful men in the world, Miguel. But the most powerful one, the one you serve, is not of My Father, but a liar and deceiver from the start. But do not despair, my son. Even my death will be forgiven you, if you only ask.

So I say these words here directly to your soul, even if your mind fails to hear them and grasp them. My pride and failure as a father took away much of your earthly opportunity to come to know our Father. Yet He undeservedly granted me the grace of Martyrdom before your very eyes. There is no greater witness to that which cannot be seen. Please take this gift that was given you, the witness to the shedding of blood for belief in the Eternal Father, so that you too may come to believe, and decide to join us here in this City.

I have lost everything, Miguel. I lost my worldly wealth and position. I lost your mother. I lost my life, but by losing my life, I gained it. I do not want to lose you too. Of all my worldy accomplishments, none could I bring with me here to this City. The souls of our children is the only worldly thing Our Father allows us to bring to this City. You are my only Eternal accomplishment, Miguel.

Please come join me here my son, my only child, my executioner, my beloved Miguel. It is not too late. Our Father is waiting for you to decide.

Your loving father,

Saint Miguel Cortino III, Holy Martyr

Rise in Autism: Aborted Fetal DNA in Vaccines Versus Cable TV?

2010-06-05T20:45:00.003-04:00

I am a 100% skeptic when it comes to claims of a link between autism and vaccines. There is far more correlation between television viewing and autism rates than any other link. See

Does Watching TV Cause Autism? - TIME
Does Watching Television Trigger Autism? - National Bureau of Economic Research
TV might cause autism. - By Gregg Easterbrook - Slate Magazine
Daily Kos: Early Television Viewing Is Correlated With Autism
Rainfall + cable TV = autism?

However, the following theory must be fully explored:

Thursday June 3, 2010

Study: Rise in Autism and introduction of Aborted Fetal DNA in Vaccines Correlate
By James Tillman

PHILADELPHIA, PA, June 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- Dr. Theresa Deisher, founder of the pro-life Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, presented a study revealing the link between autism and aborted fetal DNA in vaccinations at the International Meeting for Autism Research in May.
"The temporal connection between the introduction of aborted fetal DNA and autism rises is found over decades and across continents," Dr. Deisher told LifeSiteNews. "This temporal connection is more compelling than any mercury connection," which, she said, had no temporal connection to rising rates of autism.
As the abstract of the study indicates, autism rates in the US and the UK began to increase around the same time that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine switched from using animal cells to using human cells that had been derived from aborted fetuses.

The use of such cells means that the vaccine might contain residual human DNA fragments. Dr. Deisher told LSN that "short fragments of human DNA residuals in vaccines present two well-documented potential physiological dangers" and "the possibility for auto-immune reactions." While the immune system recognizes the DNA as foreign, its similarity to an individual’s own DNA can cause the immune system to attack parts of the individual's own body.
Another danger springs from the length of the DNA fragments. Residual DNA fragments consisting of less than 250 base pairs (bp) have been shown to have a higher probability of entering the nucleus of human cells. Once inside the nucleus, short DNA fragments can integrate with the genome of the cell. The probability of integration is 1 billion times greater with DNA from the same species than with DNA from another species, according to the abstract.

The study explained that, as the average human DNA fragment length in the rubella vaccine is 220bp, it would be especially likely to enter the nucleus of a cell. Moreover, 25 of the "recombination hotspots" where the DNA fragment could likely combine are located in some of the autism-associated genes (AAG). Thus, such recombination could be one of the causes of autism.
According to SCPI, before children received many vaccinations and before vaccines contained aborted fetal DNA, only about 1 of 10,000 children was diagnosed with autism, whereas now 1 of 150 is diagnosed.
Sound Choice is working to provide further evidence of a causal association between residual human DNA and autism. "In order to definitively prove the connection, one would want to see these vaccines all replaced and autism rates go down immediately," Dr. Deisher told LSN.

Sound Choice also plans to look at historical databases for more evidence of correlation, to evaluate a mouse model of autism using mouse DNA fragments, and to attempt to determine the exact location where human DNA fragments enter the human genome.
The pro-life organization Children of God for Life praised Sound Choice and its companion organization Ave Maria Biotechnology for their crucial research.
"Until the advent of AVM Biotechnology and their non-profit arm SCPI we had little hope that anyone would invest the time and money to do this study", stated Children of God for Life founder Debi Vinnedge.

"Dr. Deisher's work is a blessing to hundreds of thousands of families, if not millions worldwide," Vinnedge continued. "She is a direct answer to our prayers for a biotech company focused solely on moral research and ethically produced vaccines and therapeutics."
Related links:

Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute

Ave Maria Biotechnology

Children of God for Life
See related stories on LifeSiteNews.com:

Is Aborted Fetal DNA in Vaccines Linked to Autism?
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09072106.html

US Elections: Why Social Issues Matter

2010-06-05T14:53:00.002-04:00

Friday June 4, 2010

US Elections: Why Social Issues Matter

Chichester believes that present fiscal crisis is direct result of left's war on life and family

Commentary By Dr. Brian Kopp

AUSTERLITZ, New York, June 4, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The upcoming November US elections are being held under the shadow of unprecedented global economic turmoil. As the chaos striking European nations deepens and threatens to spread, American conservatives are concerned that the politicians they support comprehend the origins and implications of this economic crisis and are willing to combat it effectively.

Tim Chichester, a candidate in the GOP primary for the US Senate seat occupied by Democrat appointee Kirsten Gillibrand, is working with the New York state Tea Party movement to educate voters on the true origins of the present crisis. An unapologetically pro-life veteran of the culture wars, Chichester believes that the present fiscal crisis is a direct result of the left's war on life and the family.

Chichester says, "Frederick Engels focused on social issues as the key to transforming society to the socialist model; he firmly held that religion, traditional marriage and family structure must be destroyed so as to bring about social conditions that would usher in socialism."

According to Chichester, "These economic dislocations and disasters are the exploding assets of Western civilization. They are the by-products of social assaults, collateral damage in socialism's unrelenting war on the family. Every major economic ill we have can be directly traced to social policies. The promotion of divorce, promiscuity, abortion, pornography are all heavy artillery shells aimed at creating disconnected, disaffected and malleable individuals with no moral anchor or foundation."

"All of these policies", continues Chichester, "have enormous economic side effects as the individuals are severed from normal and natural social connections. Those policies that attack the family produce declining populations.

The American economic effects of abortion alone are estimated at over $50 trillion of lost GDP. Adam Smith noted that prosperity was associated with growing populations and poverty with declining populations. We must reverse these trends if we are to survive as a republic."

And Chichester sees a philosophical war emerging as a result. "What I see at stake in these elections goes far beyond balancing of the federal budget, desirable as it is. What is at stake is whether or not we will still have our republican form of government by the time these troubles pass - whether or not our children will grow up truly free. I see this as a last stand against what is coming. I do not expect to go down to Washington and come away unscathed, or have a long comfortable career. I expect to go to the Alamo, to fight to retain the Constitution during what is to be the Second Civil War: A war against the idea that man has unalienable rights. A war between Socialists who see man as property of the state and those who see property as inextricably bound to individual liberty and creativity. A war between the violent sterility of Socialism and the creative prosperity of a Godly people protected by a Divinely inspired Constitution."

Chichester believes that those claiming that the current recession is almost over, with economic recovery on the near horizon, are delusional. He likens the current market indicators to the receding waters preceding an economic tsunami. "As a Catholic, I understand the moral implications of abortion, population control, etc. I understand in greater detail the economic and social penalty to be paid in adhering to behavior that is inherently evil. When a society adheres to a great evil, the impact is obvious. Our world is ready to see the enormous economic and social penalty that has accrued over the years because of our disregard for the life ethic."

A vocal minority of Tea Party conservatives, primarily among the small libertarian faction, is insisting that social conservative issues be set aside in this election cycle to focus solely on "fiscal conservatism." The fiscally conservative Libertarian Party is even threatening to run a candidate in the Kentucky Senate race against one of their own, Rand Paul, because of his support for a federal abortion ban and his opposition to gay marriage.

In this election, Chichester is urging social conservatives not to be deceived by "fiscal conservatives" seeking to forge a larger coalition based on marginalizing social issues, because this war is one which fiscal conservatism alone simply cannot win.

See Tim Chichester For US Senate website and Tim Chichester For U.S. Senate’s Facebook site

Dr. Brian Kopp has written articles for L'Osservatore Romano, The Wanderer, New Oxford Review and World Net Daily.

Medicare Fraud

2010-05-25T12:41:00.002-04:00

TAKE A STAND AGAINST MEDICARE FRAUD
By Brian Kopp, DPM

Podiatry Today
August 2001 •
Forum

In my first week of podiatry school, one young professor stood before our freshman class giving his first lecture. He began by saying, “Podiatry is what I do. It is not what I am. What I am is a husband, and a father, and a believer.” It is the only direct quote I remember from eight years of schooling and two years of residency, and when I keep this hierarchy of priorities, life goes well.

During our early years, we lived in an apartment above our office. Patients got to know my wife and three young children, and continue to bring cards and gifts for birthdays and holidays. My training failed to prepare me for the depth and scope of the friendships I would form with many patients, or the very real sense of loss felt when patients passed away. The personal (if not financial) rewards of the practice of podiatry have far surpassed any preconceptions I had when I started my practice.

Unfortunately, all my years of training failed to prepare me for another reality of podiatry. Recently, I read a discussion on an online podiatry e-mail list about the perception that there is a federal “witch hunt” going on regarding fraud among podiatrists.

Yet daily I see evidence of the fraud the feds maintain exists, as patients come to my office after having seen other podiatrists. They uniformly expect that their routine foot care will be covered, because it always was before.

As I review their medical histories and find no qualifying systemic diseases, and find strong pulses and healthy skin, I go into what has become a standard monologue:

“Cutting toenails and trimming corns and calluses is called routine foot care. Medicare simply does not cover routine foot care unless the patient has an underlying disease that would make it dangerous for them or a family member or friend to care for them. Your feet are healthy and you have none of the underlying diseases, and you say you don’t have pain in your toes from the toenails. Therefore, unfortunately, this will be a noncovered service. You may bring back your EOMB from your previous doctor’s visit, and I can review it with you to see if there’s some way I can get your treatment covered too.”

After reviewing numerous past EOMBs with my patients and discussing this issue with peers around the country, I’ve come to the conclusion that the feds are not unjustified. Podiatry seems to be blind to the scope of insurance fraud rampant among our ranks. Here are some common examples:

• billing 11721 when there are only one or two mycotic nails, or, as often as not, no mycotic nails;
• reporting pain or infection where there is none;
• claiming PVD where there is no clinical evidence;
• class findings grasped out of thin air;
• billing 11721 or 11720 when 11719 is clearly the appropriate code;
• billing 11730 when no such procedure was done;
• billing for ulcers or skin neoplasms where only corns and calluses exist;
• billing the 11055-11057 procedures in conjunction with 11720/11721/11719 on patients with underlying systemic diseases where no corns/calluses existed;
• practices that bill routine foot care as covered in 100% of patients, or bill E&M codes instead when routine foot care is provided;
• unnecessary surgical procedures, such as the patient presenting with a simple, uncomplicated ingrown hallux nail who was previously told this was secondary to a very mild bunion deformity that would first need correction to resolve the onychocryptosis.

Medicare fraud is easy to rationalize (i.e., “Medicare guidelines and reimbursements are unreasonable,” “procedural definitions are unreasonable,” “managed care is taking away our patient base,” “our bottom line is constantly shrinking,” etc.) Given the entitlement mentality of the retirement population, who demand that every conceivable medical treatment be covered, I’m seen as the bad guy and the fellow who fudges it to get it covered is the hero.

Of course, these things are rationalizations, not justifications, for fraud, which is never justifiable. The government defines the regulations and terms under which we work and get reimbursed. They may be grossly unfair. Lobbying to effect change for the better is the duty of all disagreeing with these regulations. Committing fraud to circumvent them is unethical and criminal, and the feds would be guilty of wrongdoing in the utilization of my tax dollars if they failed to investigate and eliminate it.

Fraud investigation is also the only hope I have to practice on a level playing field. Maybe my religious convictions engender a certain scrupulosity over ethical billing practices. I know that if I’m ever forced out of the practice of podiatry, it will not be due to managed care, Medicare restrictions/cutbacks, or educational loans and malpractice costs. It will be because I cannot and will not compete with those—too common in our ranks—who say, “Podiatry is what I do, a Medicare fraud is what I am.”

Dr. Kopp has been in private practice since 1995 in Johnstown, PA. He is a regular contributor to several national Catholic periodicals, writing on issues of morals and ethics.

Why Social Issues Matter

2010-05-18T12:49:00.004-04:00

Tim Chichester is a conservative "Tea Party" candidate running for Kirsten Gillibrand's US Senate seat in New York State.

Why Social Issues Matter

by Timothy A. Chichester

There are many who view the present fiscal and monetary crises as standalone problems that can be solved merely by congressional votes for restraint and implementation of procedural checks upon government representatives and officials. Some are actually antagonistic at the idea of including social issues in the debate at all.

Frederick Engels, Karl Marx's friend, published The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State in1884 and focused on social issues as the key to transforming society to the socialist model; he firmly held that religion, traditional marriage and family structure must be destroyed so as to bring about social conditions that would usher in socialism. Lenin, who wrote rapturously about Engels and the need to destroy the family, instituted abortion, instant divorce and mandatory state childcare. Today, 20 years after the end of 80 years of socialist horror, the Russian nation is desperately trying to pull back from the population implosion that will result in a population drop of 21 percent by the year 2040. This is a plunge toward economic disaster and a great threat to their national security.

The entire war on the natural family and the naturally evolved free enterprise economic system in which it operates, has been fought on Social Terrain. Family destabilization is the major weapon used against the prime target on the Social Terrain, The Family – it sits on the high ground. It's destruction means vast numbers of isolated and disaffected individuals subject to political manipulation. The unrelenting assault by progressives and socialists on the Black family in America has been their most visible victory. The trillion dollars spent on the War on Poverty is seen in the enduring economic devastation of Detroit and similar cities. The re-enslavement of Black America by the progressives is virtually complete: with fathers driven out of the Black family, 90% voted for a State Father.

The economic dislocations and disasters are the exploding assets of Western civilization. They are the by-products of social assaults, collateral damage in socialism's unrelenting war on the Family. Every major economic ill we have can be directly traced to social policies. The promotion of divorce, promiscuity, abortion, pornography are all heavy artillery shells aimed at creating disconnected, disaffected and malleable individuals with no moral anchor or foundation. All of these policies have enormous economic side effects as the individuals are severed from normal and natural social connections. A recent British study cited the yearly cost of family breakdown at over $2,000 per taxpayer. The American economic effects of abortion alone are estimated at over $50 trillion of lost GDP. Adam (Wealth of Nations) Smith noted that prosperity was associated with growing populations and poverty with declining populations. Those policies that attack the family produce declining populations. We must reverse these trends if we are to survive as a republic.

We must realize that simply balancing the budget or banning any form of corruption are necessary but very temporary fixes to the problem. The adverse and unconstitutional social policies embedded in the law must also be rooted out and destroyed. Those that knowingly and purposely work for them must be exposed and driven out of government.

Copyright 2010 All rights reserved. May be freely used with attribution. Timothy A. Chichester

Study Confirms Autism Boom - Correlates with Aborted Fetal DNA in Vaccines

2010-04-30T08:53:00.001-04:00

This is the first autism-vaccine link claim I've seen that actually sounds credible. Violations of Natural Law always have (often unintended) consequences:

Friday April 23, 2010

Study Confirms Autism Boom - Correlates with Aborted Fetal DNA in Vaccines
By John Jalsevac
Washington, DC, April 20, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed 1988 as a “change point” in the rise of Autism Disorder rates in the U.S. - a date that pro-life leaders say correlates with the introduction of fetal cells for use in vaccines.
While the EPA study does not speculate into the cause of the jump in autism rates, and makes no mention of aborted fetal cells, the researchers point out that it “is important to determine whether a preventable exposure to an environmental factor may be associated with the increase.”
According to the pro-life group Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute (SCPI), which specializes in vaccine research, that “environmental factor” may well be the use of aborted fetal cells in vaccines.
The group pointed out in its most recent newsletter that 1988 is the same year the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices began recommending a second dose of the MMR vaccine, which included cells derived from the tissue of aborted babies.
Analyses of autism rate data published by SCPI identify 3 clear change points in U.S. autism disorder trends: 1981, 1988 and 1995, all of which the groups claims roughly correlate with the use of vaccines (Meruvax, MMRII, and Chickenpox) that were cultivated with the use of tissue from aborted children. The group says that it has been unable to identify any other factor that might correlate to the change in autism rates.
“The only environmental event correlating with these statistical autism trend ‘change points’ which would impact almost all children was the introduction of vaccines produced using human fetal cells and containing residual human DNA and cellular debris,” said SCPI.
Pro-life groups say that the research by EPA adds to an increasing body of evidence implicating the use of aborted fetal cell material in the nationwide vaccinations impacting nearly every child born in the United States.
American Life League has joined Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute in calling for a Fair Labeling and Informed Consent Act in light of the findings.
“For years the evidence has pointed toward the link between vaccines using DNA from aborted babies and the rise of Autism Disorder rates,” said Jim Sedlak, vice president of American Life League.
“Parents need and deserve to know the risks associated with vaccinations made from lines derived from the bodies of aborted children.”
SCPI has affirmed that they are continuing to study the impact of residual human fetal DNA in vaccines on the brain development and autism in children, and will present their studies at the International Society for Autism Research in May 2010.

For more information:
Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute http://www.soundchoice.org/
Click here to read Sound Choice's April 2010 newsletter. http://www.soundchoice.org/Images/SCPINewsletter_April_2010.pdf
Environmental Protection Agency: Timing of Increased Autistic Disorder Cumulative Incidence (10 July 2009)
http://www.all.org/pdf/McDonaldPaul2010.pdf
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Is Aborted Fetal DNA in Vaccines Linked to Autism?
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09072106.html
Fetal Tissue in Vaccine Production May be Linked to Autism in Children Claims Campaign Group
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09070611.html
Abortion-Tainted New Flu Vaccine From Vaxin Uses Aborted Fetal Cell Lines
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/feb/05020703.html

summary of current theories in alternative/supplemental treatments for H1N1

2009-11-15T01:38:00.008-05:00

I originally posted the following on the FluTrackers forum on July 18, 2009. (I have not found a better summary of these issues online, but if I do I'll post them here):

As far as I'm concerned, the gold standard for information on evidence based treatment alternatives for pandemic influenza characterized by cytokinemia (cytokine storm) is Dr. Fedson's paper in the 12 Jun 2009 edition of the journal Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses titled Confronting the next influenza pandemic with anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory agents: why they are needed and how they might work

Here is a summary of his recommendations for further research from our L'Osservatore Romano interview:

Statins, fibrates and glitazones are, in my view, prime candidates.

...Several studies have suggested that prescriptions for statins are associated with a 50% reduction in pneumonia hospitalizations and deaths. If statins prove to be effective against pneumonia, they might be similarly effective against pandemic influenza. Experimental studies in mice show that gemfibrozil and pioglitazone dramatically reduce influenza-related mortality. A 2005 study of resveratrol showed a 54% decrease in mortality in a mouse model of influenza.

However, many family members and friends have requested suggestions for the "best" over-the-counter alternatives/supplements given Dr. Fedson's research.

The following ideas are a response to those requests. I'm doubtful that alternative medicine and/or OTC supplementals can actually prevent cytokine storm, but these are the best recommendations I've found. These ideas are my own, no one else's, and they do not consitute "medical advice":

Standard of care

The "gold standard" for medical treatment is effective safe vaccines and antivirals. A good vaccine that is safe and effective is still the best chance any of us have collectively of surviving a deadly pandemic. Tamiflu and Relenza are the best treatment alternatives currently known.

Unfortunately, due to poor growth characteristics of the current strain of swine H1N1 in egg cultures, and limited global production capacities, vaccines for the current pandemic will not be available till early 2010 (at the earliest). Global production capacity of Tamiflu is 600 million doses annually, and there have been at least four documented cases of Tamiflu resistance globally to date. Global production capacity of Relenza is 60 million doses annually.

Risk factors

The most common risk factors are obesity, asthma/lung disease, heart disease, diabetes and pregnancy.

Regarding Vitamin D

See Grattan Woodson MD's recommendations on this thread, Vitamin D supplementation and recommendation by Dr. Grattan Woodson:

A considerable quantity of research data published in the peer reviewed medical literature over that past 2 decades has shown that many people within the developed and underdeveloped world are vitamin D deficient. There are a variety of reasons for this finding including diet, lifestyle and use of inadequate levels of vitamin D supplements.

With regard to risk for pandemic influenza, the most important thing this data suggest for those deficient in this key vitamin is that they are much more likely to contract influenza than the vitamin D replete and are at higher risk of experiencing severe complication from this infection including cytokine storm, post influenza pneumonia and death.

The data suggests that cytokine storm seen in young victims of the current and past pandemic is due to an immune system dysregulation. It is clear that vitamin D plays an important role in immune health and being deficient in this critical substance maybe playing a causal role in this fatal complication of pandemic influenza.

...The US RDA for vitamin D of 400iu is clearly too low to provide immunological benefits but is enough to prevent rickets in children. The US RDA is focused entirely upon rickets prevention since it was established many years ago when it was first understood that vitamin D deficiency caused rickets and that by adding 400iu to the daily diet prevented this bone disease. What we understand today is that while one might be able to avoid rickets with this very low dose of vitamin D, there are many other things vitamin D does that are not prevented by this very small daily dose. Many people who obtain a dose of 400iu vitamin D daily remain deficient in this key vitamin, as we now understand what having an adequate serum level of this substance means.

Current studies show that people need much more vitamin D each day for optimal health than 400iu per day. At a minimum what research scientists whose work is focused on this vitamin recommend is that people have at least 5,000iu of vitamin D3 each day.

It is remarkable and frankly surprising that these dose suggestions are between 12 and 24 times higher than the US RDA and there is some older data to suggest that people taking supplements in this range could be placing themselves at risk for harm. However most recent studies show that this is not the case. Rather these data show that it is very rare for anyone to suffer vitamin D excess until they obtain more than 30,000iu on a daily basis from all sources for at least two months.

It requires about 2000iu of vitamin D3 daily to obtain a level of 32ng/ml of 25OH vit D3, the minimum needed for bone health.

Regarding very young children

Very young children do not appear to be at high risk for pandemic flu related cytokine storm (though the very young and the old always rank high among victims of seasonal flu). The cytokine storm appears to be limited to relatively mature robust immune systems. Those younger than puberty don't seem to have this mature immunity, and don't seem to be experiencing cytokine storm related deaths.

One theory for this might be suggested by the following excerpts from Fedson's paper:

It is worth considering the host responses of children and adults with sickle cell disease, and malaria and those who experience severe trauma. Persons with any one of these conditions are at risk of developing acute lung injury, yet the disease is mild in children whereas in adults it is more severe and there is greater risk of dying [reviewed in Ref. (23)]. In none of these conditions do bacterial infections contribute significantly to the course of illness. Likewise, children with malaria and schistosomiasis have less vigorous immune responses to their infections than do young adults.26,27 The switch from one host response to the other seems to occur at the time of puberty/menarche/adrenarche.23 The differences between the two are poorly understood and rarely studied.

...

A model of severe acute inflammation in mice has provided a clue to how anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory treatment might improve outcomes in severe influenza ... If PPARγ agonists are able to control acute lung injury, as has been suggested,120 the results of the study by Shin et al. suggest that treatment of young adults might, in effect, 'roll back' the host response of someone who is sexually mature and a poor PPARγ responder (and who might die) to that of a sexually immature child who is a better PPARγ responder (and more likely to live).

Regarding Vitamin D and kids

Any pediatric multivitamin with 400iu of Vitamin D3 should be adequate for younger children.

For children at or after puberty, consider increasing their daily Vitamin D intake. The easiest way to get kids to take Vitamin D that otherwise might be resistant to doing so is Viactiv calcium supplements. Get the chocolate or caramel Viactiv that contains calcium, Vitamin D and Vitamin K (Vitamin K is not toxic, but don't take calcium supplements if you have any underlying health problems that require you to limit calcium intake.) Kids love Viactiv supplements. Throughout the pandemic flu season, for ten to 13 year olds, consider two a day. For older than 13, consider three a day.

Regarding Resveratrol and catechins

I actually went out and looked for "Resveratrol supplements" at the local chain drug stores, grocery stores and WalMart. I couldn't find it there, because it is not marketed as "Resveratrol" in those stores.

You need to look for "Grape Seed Extract" or "Red Wine Extract." Make sure it says "Resveratrol" somewhere on the bottle. I also learned from an internet search that there are also supplements that get the Resveratrol content from Japanese knotweed.

Resveratrol is sold as "Resveratrol" at Vitamin World and GNC, and some of those supplements include Japanese knotweed extract.

Ultimately, peanuts and red wine may be the best sources of natural Resveratrol. The Resveratrol in peanuts is probably the explanation for this:

Peanut butter 'wards off heart disease', say scientists

By Daily Mail Reporter
26th June 2009

Peanut butter is high in polyunsaturated fats that has been shown to lower 'bad' cholesterol

Peanut butter sandwiches could be the secret to beating heart disease, says a study.

Snacking on peanuts or peanut butter at least five days a week can nearly halve the risk of a heart attack.

The nuts are thought to lower bad cholesterol, help reduce inflammation in the body and boost the health of blood vessels around the heart...

It is the "active ingredient" in grape skins and grape seeds thought to be responsible for "the French paradox," which is:

the observation that the French suffer a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease, despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fats.[1] The phenomenon was first noted by Irish physician Samuel Black in 1819. The term French paradox was coined by Dr. Serge Renaud, a scientist from Bordeaux University in France in 1992.[2]

Other researchers think Procyanidins and polyphenols are responsible for the French paradox:

Although research continues on resveratrol, the concentration in wine seems too low to account for the French paradox. Professor Roger Corder and team have identified a particular group of polyphenols, known as oligomeric procyanidins, which they believe offer the greatest degree of protection to human blood-vessel cells. Tests with 165 wines showed that these are found in greatest concentration in European red wines from certain areas, which correlates with longevity in those regions.[14] The highest procyanidins are found in wines from the Tannat grape, grown in the Gers area of southwest France.

Unlike resveratrol, procyanidins are present in wine in quantities that seem to be high enough to be significant: "Procyanidins are the most abundant flavonoid polyphenols in red wine – up to one gram per litre is found in some traditional style red wines."[15] "… clinical trials of grape seed extract, which have shown that 200–300 mg per day will lower blood pressure. Two small glasses (125 ml glass) of a procyanidin-rich red wine, such as a Madiran wine from southwest France, would provide this amount." However several times this amount of procyanidin can be consumed by eating an apple.[16]

Other research suggests that polyphenols in wine reduce the absorption of malondialdehyde, which is implicated in arteriosclerosis, cancer, diabetes and other diseases

Proanthocyanidin (also known as procyanidin oligomeric proanthocyanidin (OPC), leukocyanidin, leucoanthocyanin and condensed tannins) is a class of flavanols. Proanthocyanidins are essentially polymer chains of flavonoids such as catechins.

Catechins are found in green teas, so it might also be worth considering adding a Green Tea extract is you are planning on using supplements during a pandemic:

Health benefits of catechins

The health benefits of catechins have been studied extensively in humans and in animal models. Reduction in atherosclerotic plaques was seen in animal models.[7] Reduction in carcinogenesis was seen in vitro.[8]

Many studies on health benefits have been linked to the catechin content. According to Norman Hollenberg, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, epicatechin can reduce the risk of four of the major health problems: stroke, heart failure, cancer and diabetes. He studied the Kuna people in Panama, who drink up to 40 cups of cocoa a week, and found that the prevalence of the “big four” is less than 10%. He believes that epicatechin should be considered essential to the diet and thus classed as a vitamin.[9][10]

According to one researcher[11] epigallocatechin-3-gallate is an antioxidant that helps protect the skin from UV radiation-induced damage and tumor formation.

Green tea catechins have also been shown to possess antibiotic properties due to their role in disrupting a specific stage of the bacterial DNA replication process.[12]

Catechins, when combined with habitual exercise, have been shown to delay some forms of aging. Mice fed catechins showed decreased levels of aging. Oxidative stress was lowered in cell mitochondria, as well as increase in mRNA transcription of mitochondria related proteins. [13]

Regarding statins Vs Red Yeast rice

Many studies in the medical literature point to beneficial effects of statins (cholesterol drugs) in decreasing mortality from both pneumonia as well as influenza, and they play a large role in Dr. Fedson's research and recommendations, past and present.

Statins are not without side effects, and a lot of people don't want to discuss this with a physician. How would a lay person explain to a doctor that they want a prescription for a statin because they are concerned about swine flu?

Red yeast rice appears to be a valid supplemental alternative to prescription statins. Red yeast rice supplements originally contained a naturally occuring statin called Lovastatin. The pharmaceutical company Merck patented Lovastatin years ago, and eventually the FDA forced manufacturers of Red yeast rice supplements to remove any active Lovastatin from over-the-counter supplements.

However, all the most recent medical literature still seems to indicate that supplementation with Red yeast rice improves bad cholesterol and decreases risk of atherosclerosis. Apparently, Red yeast rice supplements contain many other naturally occurring chemicals besides Lovastatin that lower cholestrol and inflammation.

However, Red yeast rice supplements have (rarely) been reported to cause the same side effects as prescription statins, including muscle inflammation/pain (myalgia).

Here's an excerpt from a 2009 article in Annals of internal Medicine, Red Yeast Rice for Statin-Intolerant Patients

Red yeast rice contains naturally occurring lovastatin (monacolin K) and other monacolins that may inhibit HMG-CoA reductase and reduce LDL cholesterol levels compared with placebo (5–7). It is unclear why red yeast rice may be better tolerated than statins in patients with SAM. The low rate of myalgias in the red yeast rice group was striking because the recurrence rate of myalgias is as high as 57% when patients are challenged with a second statin (15). One clue may be related to the increasing risk for SAM with higher doses of statins (17). The dose of red yeast rice in our study (3.6 g/d) was equivalent to a daily lovastatin dose of only 6 mg (Table 2), far less than the established therapeutic dose (20 to 40 mg/d) (30). A recent study showed that patients with variants in the SLCO1B1 gene were more likely to develop statin-associated myopathy with higher doses of simvastatin (31). It is therefore possible that the low dose of monacolin K (lovastatin) in our red yeast rice product was below the threshold necessary to cause SAM. Another possibility is the presence of compounds in red yeast rice, other than monacolin K, that may inhibit HMG-CoA reductase (Table 2). Little is known about their pharmacodynamics, but these monacolins may either have lipid-lowering effects or potentiate the effects of monacolin K. They may also be less likely to deplete mevalonate metabolites distal to HMG-CoA reductase, such as intracellular isoprenoids (for example, ubiquinone) and guanosine triphosphate–binding regulatory proteins, which are believed to mediate statin-induced muscle injury (32).

There is some research that indicates statins decrease muscle levels of Co-enzyme Q 10,

This oil-soluble vitamin-like substance is present in most eukaryotic cells, primarily in the mitochondria. It is a component of the electron transport chain and participates in aerobic cellular respiration, generating energy in the form of ATP. Ninety-five percent of the human body’s energy is generated this way.[1][2] Therefore, those organs with the highest energy requirements—such as the heart and the liver—have the highest CoQ10 concentrations.[3][4][5]

and that giving over-the-counter supplements of Co-enzyme Q 10 lowers the risk of side effects and muscle pain from prescription statins.

Coenzyme Q10 shares a common biosynthetic pathway with cholesterol. The synthesis of an intermediary precursor of Coenzyme Q10, mevalonate, is inhibited by some beta blockers, blood pressure-lowering medication,[19] and statins, a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs.[20] Statins can reduce serum levels of coenzyme Q10 by up to 40%.[21] Some research suggests the logical option of supplementation with coenzyme Q10 as a routine adjunct to any treatment that may reduce endogenous production of coenzyme Q10, based on a balance of likely benefit against very small risk.[22][23]

So if you want to get the protective effects of a statins in an over-the-counter supplement, there is evidence that Red Yeast Rice can serve that role. But due to the risk of myalgia, it might be appropriate to take an over-the-counter supplement of CoQ10 when you take Red yeast Rice.

Red yeast rice does have a warning on the bottle not to take it if there is a history of liver disease, if you're taking other statins, if you're younger than 18, if you might be pregnant, or if muscle pain or GI symptoms develop.

Regarding NSAIDS

We need to have some real anti-inflammatories on hand for body aches and fever and other flu symptoms. But the old NSAIDS can be dangerous:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extra.../jun15_1/b2345

Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2345

Letters
A/H1N1 flu

NSAIDs and flu

The potentially harmful effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are rarely discussed in the treatment of A/H1N1 flu, which has caused high death rates in Mexico.1 2

Severe and fatal cases, including sudden death, are characterised by severe sepsis with multi-organ failure with findings such as fever, leucocytosis, leucopenia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), liver impairment, renal failure, rhabdomyolysis, and hypotension.2 NSAIDs may aggravate these syndromes, leading to multi-organ failure.3

Since the flu pandemics of the 20th century salicylates have been linked to Reye’s syndrome and their use restricted in children. But NSAIDs such as diclofenac, mefenamic acid, and ibuprofen are still used as antipyretics in many countries, albeit less often than aspirin. Since the use of diclofenac and mefenamic acid was restricted in children in Japan in 2000, the case fatality of so called flu associated encephalopathy has fallen dramatically.4

Reanalysing the World Health Organization’s data on A/H1N1 flu,2 I . . . [Full text of this article]

Everyone knows you don't give aspirin to kids during flu due to Reye's Syndrome.

I'm not aware of any natural supplementals capable of controlling the flu symptoms but that would not cause Rye's.

The new class of NSAIDS called COX2 inhibitors include Celebrex (celecoxib). Cox 2 inhibitors show some promise in alleviating cytokine storm in influenza:

In a study of mice massively infected with H5N1 influenza virus (1000 LD50), treatment with zanamivir begun 48 hours after infection reduced lung virus titers but led to little improvement in survival.32 However, when two immunomodulatory agents (celecoxib and mesalazine) were added, virus titers remained much the same but survival improved significantly. Unfortunately, the investigators failed to include a group of mice that were treated with celecoxib and mesalazine alone. If they had measured survival rates and virus titers in the two groups (two immunomodulators with and without an antiviral agent), they could have determined whether the antiviral agent was necessary for improving survival.

A commentary that accompanied this study emphasized that co-administration of the two anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory agents along with an antiviral agent was essential.33 Improved survival was ascribed to inhibition of cyclooxygenase (COX)-2, but it is unlikely that it was due to COX-2 inhibition alone. The cell signaling pathways involved in the regulation of COX-2 expression are complex.34 In other models of acute lung injury, COX-2 inhibition actually impairs resolution of pulmonary inflammation, probably because it prevents the up-regulation of pro-resolution factors such as lipoxin A4.35 Moreover, mesalamine is not simply a COX-2 inhibitor; it is primarily a peroxisome proliferator activator receptor (PPAR)γ agonist36 (see below).

Regarding Elderberry Extract/Sambucol

There is evidence that Elderberry extract improves results in seasonal flu by increasing inflammatory cytokines, but I'm very leary about Elderberry extract/sambucol in regards to cytokine storm:

Eur Cytokine Netw. 2001 Apr-Jun;12(2):290-6.

The effect of Sambucol, a black elderberry-based, natural product, on the production of human cytokines: I. Inflammatory cytokines.Barak V, Halperin T, Kalickman I.

Immunology Laboratory for Tumor Diagnosis, Department of Oncology, Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel.

Sambucus nigra L. products - Sambucol - are based on a standardized black elderberry extract. They are natural remedies with antiviral properties, especially against different strains of influenza virus. Sambucol was shown to be effective in vitro against 10 strains of influenza virus. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized study, Sambucol reduced the duration of flu symptoms to 3-4 days. Convalescent phase serum showed a higher antibody level to influenza virus in the Sambucol group, than in the control group. The present study aimed to assess the effect of Sambucol products on the healthy immune system - namely, its effect on cytokine production. The production of inflammatory cytokines was tested using blood - derived monocytes from 12 healthy human donors. Adherent monocytes were separated from PBL and incubated with different Sambucol preparations i.e., Sambucol Elderberry Extract, Sambucol Black Elderberry Syrup, Sambucol Immune System and Sambucol for Kids. Production of inflammatory cytokines (IL-1 beta, TNF-alpha, IL-6, IL-8) was significantly increased, mostly by the Sambucol Black Elderberry Extract (2-45 fold), as compared to LPS, a known monocyte activator (3.6-10.7 fold). The most striking increase was noted in TNF-alpha production (44.9 fold). We conclude from this study that, in addition to its antiviral properties, Sambucol Elderberry Extract and its formulations activate the healthy immune system by increasing inflammatory cytokine production. Sambucol might therefore be beneficial to the immune system activation and in the inflammatory process in healthy individuals or in patients with various diseases. Sambucol could also have an immunoprotective or immunostimulatory effect when administered to cancer or AIDS patients, in conjunction with chemotherapeutic or other treatments. In view of the increasing popularity of botanical supplements, such studies and investigations in vitro, in vivo and in clinical trials need to be developed.

I don't want anything on board that might increase TNF-alpha. See Dr. Fedson's article which mentions TNF:

More recently, Aldridge et al. studied the effects of treatment with pioglitazone (a PPARγ agonist) in influenza-infected mice.66 They found that a subset of dendritic cells (DCs) known as tumor necrosis factor (TNF)α/inducible nitric oxide synthase DCs (TipDCs) accumulated with high frequency in the lungs of mice infected with highly pathogenic PR8 virus. TipDCs are known to recruit CCR2-positive mononuclear cells from the bone marrow and traffic them to sites of pulmonary infection. CCR2-deficient mice are generally more susceptible to non-viral infections, but CCR2-positive monocyte-derived cells have been shown to be a major cause of the immunopathology of influenza.67 Aldridge et al. speculated that pioglitazone suppression of CCL2 (the pro-inflammatory ligand for CCR2) would reduce the number of CCR2-positive mononuclear cells and increase protection. The results showed that with 3 days of pre-treatment, mortality fell from 92% to 50%. However, they also found that TipDCs increased the frequency of virus-specific CD8+ T-cells in the later stages of infection. As CD8+ T-cells are critical for influenza virus clearance, TipDCs appeared to induce a protective response. Yet, protection was not reflected in pulmonary virus titers; they were the same in control and pioglitazone-treated animals. Thus, although pioglitazone was able to 'tip the balance' in favor of protection,68 it must have done so through mechanisms that were independent of its effects on virus replication and clearance.

...

Resveratrol has statin-like effects on HMG-CoA,72 activates PPARα73 and PPARγ,74 and synergizes with statins in protecting against experimental myocardial infarction.75 The effects of resveratrol on ROS, TLR4, NF-kappaB, pro-inflammatory cytokines (e.g., TNFα, IL-6), and HO-1 are the same as those of statins, fibrates, and glitazones (see Table 1).76–78 In experimental Serratia marcescens pneumonia in rats, resveratrol has been shown to down-regulate NF-kappaB, TNFα, IL-6, and IL-1β, increase macrophage infiltration, decrease neutrophil infiltration, reduce the bacterial burden in the lung and improve survival.78

Sambucol does the opposite of Resveratrol in regards to TNFα. I'd error on the side of caution and recommend for Resveratrol but against Sambucol in any flu with cytokine storm as a hallmark. For seasonal flu, Sambucol might be OK, but not one marked by cytokine storm.

The cytokine storm appears to be limited to relatively mature robust immune systems. Those younger than puberty don't seem to have this mature immunity, and don't seem to be experiencing cytokine storm related deaths.

Based on this observation, Elderberry extract might be OK for those under the age of ten.

Regarding curcumin

Dr. Fedson's study also specifically mentions curcumin:

The many effects of catechins (found in green tea) and curcumin (turmeric in curry) on inflammation and the host response suggest that they too might be beneficial against influenza.

So here's my current personal list:

1) Vitamin D supplements
2) Resveratrol supplements, AKA Grape seed extract, AKA Red Wine Extract, AKA Japanese Knotweed extract, as well as peanuts and red wine
3) Green tea extract supplements
4) Red Yeast Rice supplement taken in moderation with CoQ10 supplement
5) Celebrex for flu symptoms (You'll need a prescription for that.)
6) Elderberry only for those under ten, if at all
7) curcumin

This is not intended to be an authoritative list, but it is my best guess.

As I've said elsewhere, I'm not an MD, I'm just a podiatrist, but this is the summary of my three years of research and study on the subject.

About those self-proclaimed internet health gurus

2009-11-14T14:14:00.019-05:00

Be very skeptical when it comes to self-proclaimed internet health gurus.
For instance, Mike Adams of "NaturalNews" also owns a company that sells email marketing software, Arial Software. Be sure to check out their extensive client list. This is obviously not some obscure little guy fighting health care goliaths; Arial Software is in bed with some very big corporate/big pharma/big government giants, including XM Satellite Radio, Blockbuster, Bausch & Lomb, Federal Election Commission, Ameriquest Mortgage, RE/MAX, Roche Diagnostics, EL AL Israel Airlines, Fedex Custom Critical, Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce, Government Scientific Source, Turner Broadcasting System, DreamWorks, Hughes Network Systems, eBay Inc., Monster.com, Alienware, Intuit, Terra Lycos, Microsoft, Democrats.com, Dept. of Treasury - U.S. Secret Service, United States Senate Federal Credit Union, Oklahoma Dept. of Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Dept. of Health Professions, U.S. District Court Eastern District of Kentucky, Rand Worldwide, Siemens Corporation, Liberty Bank.
He calls it "permission email marketing software."
Every time you read one of his articles that requires you to input an email address to read the rest of the article, you might be providing him with an active email address that he could potentially sell to his Arial Software customers (with "permission," since you freely gave it to him to read his article). Lists of known active email addresses with targeted audiences (i.e., those who read his articles on health care issues and products) are very lucrative resources (for instance, to those who use email to market alternative/complimentary health care products, or even Viagra) .
He is a professional email list marketer. See his website Email Doctor:

Direct Email Marketing Services From the Email Doctor

Impactful, Cost-Effective Direct Email Marketing
In Partnership With PostMasterDirect
Choose from more than 50 million double opt-in emails from more than 500 sites including MSNBC.com, ClickZ, CNET, Internet.com, NewMedia, TechRepublic, Twisted Humor, ZDNet and many more. Campaigns can be targeted by interest area, geographic region, job role, and so on. Both B2C and B2B lists are available.
As the Email Doctor, I'll help you select the right lists, and I'll conduct a 10-point review of your outbound email message at no extra charge. You'll pay no more than renting directly through PostMasterDirect, but you get a wealth of direct email marketing experience that's bound to increase the return on your campaign.
Specifically, I can help you:

• Avoid the most common direct email marketing mistakes
• Create a compelling subject line
• Quickly and easily acquire first-time contact permission from prospects
• Review your campaign tracking mechanisms
• Conduct multi-generational A/B message testing for peak optimization
• Leverage the first-time contact with prospects into a lifelong loyalty campaign

All this is available to you for the same price you'd normally spend to rent these lists alone. My time and expertise is included at no extra charge, but you must agree to allow your organization to be described as a case study for my upcoming book on email marketing.
Campaign costs range from 10 cents / name to 34 cents / name, depending on the list origin, quality and demand. All are 100% opt-in. Minimum order size is $2,500. Fees include list selection, merge / purge, delivery and tracking. Call the Email Doctor at 307-587-1338 for details.

And here are his Email Marketing Kung Fu tips.

Here are the concepts and simple steps of Kung Fu Email Marketing:

1. The primary job of your web site is to get a visitor to give you their email address and permission to email them. You need to prominently feature your subscription mechanism. The mechanism can be as simple as an email link, a form they can submit, a popup/popunder/popover, or whatever. Just get the email address. And be sure to tell them what you will do with it - you will send them your newsletter, ezine, occasional special offers, or whatever. It doesn't hurt to tell them in plain English that you're not going to sell their email address to a bunch of spammers either. And be sure to keep that promise! Since people are getting pretty protective of their email addresses, it may also be a great idea to give them a good reason to subscribe. Maybe you can give them a free ebook or report, or a free trial of your service.

2. You want your email newsletter to earn your subscribers' trust and respect, turn subscribers into customers, and customers into repeat business. You need to send your newsletter regularly forever, earning trust and respect the old-fashioned way, and never letting your subscribers down. You can do this manually, but I recommend instead doing at least most of it with a sequential autoresponder. There are a number of good ones out there, and you can either go with one hosted on someone else's servers or you can run a script on yours.

That's it, you've now taken your first lesson in Kung Fu Email Marketing!

According to data freely available on WhoIs service websites, his company, Truth Publishing, owns at least 387 website domains related to alternative healthcare ideas and products as well as internet newsletter and email marketing software. One of the email addresses he uses for domain registrations is a contact on the whois record of 463 domains. That's a hallmark of Affiliate marketing, internet spammers, specifically search engine spamming, and viral marketers. See for instance, this RipOff Report:

"Mike Adams of Webseed.com (AKA SearchEngineVisibility.com) claims that for $695.00 he will improve your search engine ranking, guaranteeing his customers top-10 positions in the sixteen most popular search engines for any keywords you choose...Mr. Adams also sells some Spam software or mass email software as he calls it for $495.00 or $985.00 for the deluxe "Phishing" version at arialsoftware.com This software is the "Tools of the Trade" for any internet / email "Scam Artist".

After doing a little more research on this chap I uncovered that Mike Adams claims to be the primary content contributor of the largest health content network on the Internet (Truth Publishing AKA NewTarget.com)"

Currently active and past domains include: prenatalnutrition.org, expectant-mothers.com, NewsTarget.com, HoodiaFactor.com, EmergingFuture.com, SpamAnatomy.com, VitaminFactor.org, CounterThink.com, HealthFactor.info, JunkScience.info, BrainHealthNews.com, LowCholesterolDiets.DietsLink.com, PublicHealthNews.org, PharmaWatch.info, HomeToxins.com, PoisonPantry.org, DepressionFactor.org, webseed.com, ConsumerWellness.org, herbreference.com, FLUNEWS.ORG, healingfoodreference.com, honestfoodguide.com, organicconsumers.org, Naturalhealthreport.com, usenature.com, supplementreference.com, newenergyreport.org, birdfludefense.com, enewslettertemplates.com
He uses these sites for what appears to be an elaborate viral marketing scheme that plays on people's fears about pandemics, vaccines, mainstream medicine and Big Pharma, gathering active email addresses, selling vitamins and alternative/complementary medicine products and self published books and tapes. He is also involved in multi-level marketing with his Moxxor line of products.
His corporation, Truth Publishing International, Ltd. is headquartered at 12F-4, No.171, Sec. 4, Nanjing E. Rd, Taipei, Songshan District, Taiwan.
That is also the headquarters of a huge Taiwanese telemarketing firm. (Some of the address and phone data from his website domain registrations also come up on websites listing known or suspected Nigerian internet scammers (Google cache) . I don't know if that data is accurate.)
The Reference links at NaturalNews include links to environmentalist groups (some of which appear to support population control) as well as sites that may be front groups for Scientology.
Mike Adams was also the guy who ran, with Mike Goodin (or under the alias "Mike Goodin"), the Y2KNewswire service, which was the number one source of much of the Y2K fear and hysteria 10 years ago. Y2KNewswire's phone number was the same as Mike Adams'a Arial Software. The whois domain info for many of these websites use email addresses common to Truth Publishing, Y2KNewswire, Arial Software, webseed.com, and others. (Google srs@webseed.com and mg@webseed.com.) Truth Publishing's "Order Fulfillment Warehouse" is listed as 2055 N. Kolb Rd Ste. 131, Tucson, Arizona 85715. That's also the address for the Arizona office of Arial Software. Check out this account of an individual who reportedly visited Truth Publishing's "Order Fulfillment Warehouse":

...instead of it being a place where one would expect to find a display of products and publications available on the NaturalNews site, nothing found at the Tucson location indicates to the outside world anything relating to Truth Publishing or NaturalNews at all. Apparently there is no signage on the building to that effect, and that the only signage found at the location is a small one saying “acupuncture”. The investigator who visited casually opened the door and walked into the space, which he reports took everyone inside the space completely by surprise, as if anyone just walking into their space from the outside was just something that never happened. The investigator understood quite clearly this was a front operation of some sort, with working computers strewn about on the floor and on desks, paperwork everywhere, and well-suited FBI-looking guys. Dr Waterman reports the investigator made inquiries as to was this Truth Publishing and the answer from one of the well-suited guys was yes. The investigator saw that in one area there was a small stack of Truth Publishing brochures of some kind and asked if he could take one – the answer was no. He inquired may he speak to the owner, and the reply was that the owner was in Ecuador. The investigator was hastily shown the door.

This is all circumstantial evidence from basic Google searches.

In my opinion, however, anyone who thinks NaturalNews is a reasonable and rational source for health information is the victim of a very well oiled viral marketing scheme.

UPDATE:
See these recent posts at the Science Blogs:

Shorty Awards "fraud"

Mike Adams attacks skepticism

More on Mike Adams' views on overpopulation:

The Health Ranger Misfires the Population Bomb
August 16, 2011 by ppjg
Frank Veracity/PPJ Contributor
_____________________________________________
Climate constantly changes, it’s called WEATHER. Weather always affects crops, however…”
________________________________________
Bloomberg came out with a story last week revealing that George Soros is selling gold and buying farmland. Some large farming investments reap over 16% profits yearly. Soros makes his money by renting land to farmers and land appreciation (notice that he owns the land).
Mike Adams discusses food shortages in his article ‘Why is George Soros selling gold and buying farmland?’ http://www.naturalnews.com/033319_food_prices_farmland.html
Adams identifies the following causes of food shortages:
1. Increased food demand- this is a veiled reference to overpopulation. The Malthusian overpopulation theory is incorrect and is used to justify depopulation. By the way, the UN projects that by 2050 the world’s population will be around 9 billion people and will plateau there- the population projection for 2300 is still 9 billion people.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=9136&Cr=population&Cr1
Here are some of Mike Adams’ thoughts on overpopulation from another article:
“When the population continues to expand and most of the world’s resources are wiped out, the human population will plunge into a time of great darkness. The loss of life will be immense — perhaps as much as a 90% reduction in the planetary population. Ecosystems will fail, crops will fail and civilization itself will be brought to its knees.” http://www.naturalnews.com/029056_environmental_protection_population_control.html#ixzz1V6uP6AP8
This silly yet destructive idea, perpetuated by Paul Ehrlich, the leading depopulationist of the 1970′s, has been proven wrong over and over again. http://www.prisonplanet.com/predictions-of-the-overpopulation-alarmists-wrong-wrong-wrong-again.html
While Mike Adams says he does not support a one-child policy or government intervention to squelch the population “problem”, he does advocate education- this could have some value if his information was actually correct:
The International Grains Council report for July 2011 says that global grain production is expected to reach record highs in 2011/2012. This report indicates that grain used as animal feed to produce meat may be causing a higher consumption demand. http://www.igc.int/en/downloads/gmrsummary/gmrsumme.pdf
2. Adamsidentifies the next leading cause of famine as “radical climate changes” which is a euphemism for global warming, based on phony science coming out of the United Nations in order consolidate resources and political power under the UN. NASA’s real world satellite data shows that carbon dioxide is having a minuscule heat-trapping effect, and nullifies much of the phony global warming theory.
http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/273239/nasa-study-shatters-climate-alarmists-assumptions-mario-loyola
Climate constantly changes, it’s called WEATHER. Weather always affects crops, however…
If Adams was referring to the Russian heat wave that resulted in a decrease in wheat production in 2010, even the corrupt NOAA admitted that the heat wave was a result of natural phenomena as opposed to global warming. There are many other examples of blaming global warming for natural weather changes that affect crops.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/09/noaa-findsclimate-change-blameless-in-2010-russian-heat-wave/
And what about Japan? Their food supply will be damaged for hundreds of years or longer. The earthquake that ruined the county’s food supply is a result of plate tectonic movement, not carbon. http://www.infowars.com/global-warming-did-not-cause-the-japanese-earthquake/
Alarmism over population, “finite resources” and beneficial carbon dioxide creates a false mindset of scarcity and panic.
Mike Adams does correctly state that genetically engineered crops reduce crop yields. Ironically, global warming is the excuse used for extensive planting of GE crops.
Adams says that “fossil water supplies” or, the more appropriate common name “groundwater”, is being depleted- this is correct, but this is a much more complicated topic that involves corporate monopolies, government corruption and poor planning.
The Real Problem
The real problem is not so much a shortage of food, but government control over food and manufactured famines- here’s what Adams neglected to mention:
Government Control
Governments provide restrictive regulations, subsidies, market manipulation, price fixing and import/export regulations that benefit government and favored corporations. Corporate monopolies exist only through government regulations.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2249_food_intro.html
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2249_cartel_companies.html
The cure for this is to remove unnecessary government regulations that hinder economic development, such as the despicable Food Safety and Modernization Act. Corporate privileges must be abolished. Corporate owned monopolies are the opposite of free market Capitalism that encourages competition.
People make the mistake of blaming Capitalism for our current problems. There is nothing wrong with making a profit. The problem is that governments mandate advantages for corporations or other favored groups that create monopolies, and while this is very wrong, it cannot be called free market Capitalism.
Lack of Private Property
The cornerstone of Capitalism is private property ownership. Property ownership is the leading cause of economic freedom.
Lack of property rights, not population density, is the major cause of poverty. The linked article points out that Ehrlich’s book, “The Population Bomb”, does not explain why South Korea is so much better off than North Korea, but an analysis of property rights explains this difference very well.
http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/y2k/jungle_christ.htm
Wall Street
The derivatives market was responsible for the meteoric inflation of food prices in 2008, and we have the same story today.
http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/05/05/how-goldman-sachs-created-the-food-crisis/
Wall Street speculation reform is not a high priority on the elite or political agenda. However, an effective hedge against rising food costs is grain storage. The federal government sold or gave away most of the US grain reserves, so the responsibility of grain storage falls to the states, local governments, communities and individuals.
http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/usda-no-strategic-grain-reserves-they-sold-them/
While I am totally prepared to support any individual or group sounding the alarm on various impending global disasters it appears quite apparent to me that many of those who claim to be “grassroots” or even professional activists of one sort or another, really turn out to be some sort of provocateur. These people tend to get on my last nerve with their wavering back and forth on issues. When they blatantly begin parroting government talking points that we all know to be fictionally created scare tactics, I really get kind of P.O’d.
Pick a side Mikey and stay there. At this point we don’t care if you are for us or against us, we just need to know where you really stand.

Swine H1N1 flu vaccine antigen/adjuvant bait and switch?

2009-10-29T11:57:00.006-04:00

In the previous post, I mentioned the huge purchase and stockpiling of vaccine adjuvants by HHS. There are legitimate, scientific reasons to be wary of adjuvants, as well as efforts to dispel concerns in countries utilizing them.

Many of us simply do not trust the current administration in the White House. For good reason: Anyone who cannot get it right on basic questions of the culture of life has no business in government, let alone running the most powerful government in the history of mankind.

There are valid reasons to suspect that the current administration would have no scruples employing an emergency use authorization permitting the use of adjuvants with the current swine flu vaccine. They are under intense political pressure to "do something" in the face of swine flu vaccine production that is only 10 to 20% in volume compared to the assurances of the administration earlier this summer. See my comments (under the "St Michael" screen name) on the FluTrackers thread, Obama declares swine flu emergency:

Does the emergency declaration permit the emergency use of adjuvants to address the shortage of swine H1N1 vaccine? According to the FoxNews report,

Quote:

Because of vaccine production delays, the government has backed off initial, optimistic estimates that as many as 120 million doses would be available by mid-October. As of Wednesday, only 11 million doses had been shipped to health departments, doctor's offices and other providers, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The government now hopes to have about 50 million doses of vaccine for the so-called swine flu out by mid-November

That's less than 10% of the projected supply. The emergency use of adjuvants would stretch that limited supply.

I've documented the very real concern over a possible Swine H1N1 antigen/adjuvant bait and switch? at the FluTrackers forum (Registration is required to view The Pandemic Discussion subforum):

Swine H1N1 antigen/adjuvant bait and switch?

If TPTB decide we need an adjuvanted vaccine in order to vaccinate the entire population, so be it.

But there needs to be full disclosure, so that health care consumers can make informed decisions.

This is the ONLY article I have seen claiming they straightened out the growth issue in eggs:

Quote:

Pandemic Shot May Be Available as Early as September (Update1)
By Tom Randall

July 29 (Bloomberg) -- A swine flu vaccine may be ready as soon as September, earlier than the mid-October estimate previously reported, with 40 million doses available for distribution first and 80 million more shots ready in October, U.S. health officials said.

Yields of antigen, the key vaccine ingredient, have increased and that should ease pressure on vaccine manufacturers, said Robin Robinson, chief of the Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority, the U.S. agency in charge of buying the vaccine. Vaccine makers previously reported antigen yields 50 percent to 75 percent less than that of the typical seasonal flu shot.

About 182 million doses have been purchased by the U.S., and 20 million doses of antigen have already been produced, Robinson told doctors and scientists at a vaccine meeting at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta today. Tests to determine safety and proper dosage are continuing.

“We’re starting to see for the first time increases in production yields -- we’re able to get a virus that grows well in eggs,” Robinson said at the CDC. “We want to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.”

Some members of the CDC’s vaccine panel said that even if the shots were available in September or early October, testing wouldn’t be completed until the end of September, making it difficult to make recommendations for early distribution.

Mothers First

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met today to vote on who should to get the shot the first in case of vaccine shortages. The priority recommendation might never be used if the 120 million shots are available in October as projected, the panel said. The recommendations may also change, depending on the availability of the vaccine and the severity of the outbreaks when the shots first become available.

If there is a shortage, pregnant women should be at the front of the list, the panel agreed. About one in eight people who died after contracting the virus have been pregnant women, according to a study published today in the medical journal Lancet. Swine flu in pregnancy warrants immediate treatment with antiviral drugs, according to the study.

Other target groups for the vaccine include caregivers and household contacts of infants under 6 months old, who don’t qualify for the shot. Health-care personnel and emergency workers also should be vaccinated early, along with children and young adults from 6 months to 24 years old, and those 25 and older who have health conditions that raise their risk. Healthy people ages 25 and older should wait until sufficient vaccine is available, the panel said.

People ages 65 and older are at high risk for seasonal flu and should get their yearly flu shots as early as possible, the CDC said. Studies have found that age group has some natural immunity to swine flu and has a lower risk of contracting the new virus.

To contact the reporters on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 29, 2009 16:49 EDT

Something is fishy between this article below and the one above. Are they planning a bait-and-switch, claiming antigen production has increased, to calm the general population, while instead using new adjuvants?

Quote:

Swine Flu Shot May Rely on Emergency Use of Additives (Update1)

By Tom Randall and Gary Matsumoto

July 29 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu vaccine makers may rely on a U.S. emergency declaration to use experimental additives made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Novartis AG to boost a limited supply of shots that will be available to fight the pandemic.

The ingredients, known as adjuvants, may be added for the first time to flu shots in the U.S. Health officials today are meeting to discuss the additives at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and to recommend who should receive the limited amount of vaccines drugmakers say they will begin delivering in September or October.

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department declared a public health emergency over swine flu in April, and the Food and Drug Administration has the power to allow the use of unapproved medical products during such a crisis. The U.S. has been slow to approve the use of adjuvants because of safety concerns, and for fear of giving Americans an excuse to avoid getting the shots, said John Treanor, a University of Rochester researcher.

“The question is, do you really feel comfortable throwing this new thing into the mix and do you really need to?” said Treanor, a professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology at the school in Rochester, New York. “I myself, if I had to do it, would really wrestle with that decision.”

The CDC agreed to pay London-based Glaxo and Novartis, based in Basel, Switzerland, more than $415 million for adjuvants that could be added to the swine flu vaccines, according to a July 13 statement.

Early Production

Adjuvants may not be necessary if enough shots can be produced without them, according to Health and Human Services. That possibility got a boost today from authorities at the CDC, who said 40 million shots of unadjuvanted vaccine may be available in September, earlier than previously reported, with 80 million more doses ready in October.

A safety concern was raised in 2004 when researchers at the University of Florida in Gainesville reported that mice injected with oils used in the adjuvants developed conditions of the type that occur when the body’s immune system produces an excessive protective reaction. Similar reactions haven’t been seen in humans.

MF59, made by Novartis and sold in Europe, has been given to more than 40 million people, mostly adults, to prevent seasonal flu, according to the company. Glaxo’s adjuvant has proven safe and effective in clinical trials with 39,000 people, said Lisa Behrens, a spokeswoman for the company, in an e-mail. Glaxo will conduct more studies and continue to monitor safety after the vaccines are in use, she said.

Emergency Authorization

Under the U.S. health emergency, the FDA may authorize the use of unlicensed vaccines, according to Peper Long, an agency spokeswoman. The FDA convened an advisory committee July 23 to consider what trials are necessary for the vaccines’ approval. Advisory committees consist of medical experts who provide guidance to the agency.

Swine flu’s full force may reach the U.S. earlier than the typical flu season, according to the CDC. Vaccine makers are racing to make shots by mid-October, when cases are expected to rise in the northern hemisphere, fueled by cooler temperatures and the return of pupils to close quarters of classrooms.

The World Health Organization, based in Geneva, has said the H1N1 influenza, as the pandemic flu is known, is moving with “unprecedented speed.” The flu spread farther globally in less than six weeks than previous pandemics have in more than six months, the Geneva-based agency said on its Web site on July 17. Global health authorities have stopped counting the number of cases and the CDC says more than 1 million people Americans have been sickened by the virus.

Egg Yields

The vaccine makers have found it difficult to cultivate the quantities of virus needed for vaccine, as the strain yields 50 percent to 75 percent less antigen, the substance that induces immunity, compared with a typical seasonal flu strain, according to the WHO. The virus didn’t initially grow well in eggs, the principal medium used by the industry, vaccine makers said.

In the last week, scientists have been able to improve yields in eggs for the first time, which should ease pressure on manufacturers, Robin Robinson, chief of the Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority, the U.S. agency in charge of buying the vaccine, said today. A decision on adjuvant use hasn’t been made, he said.

Mixing Oil, Water

The adjuvants are mixes of oil and water that -- by stimulating the immune system -- offer a way to boost the body’s response to antigen. Adjuvants, whose effectiveness vary by flu strain, may boost the strength of the antigen as much as 10- fold, as was the case with a bird flu vaccine approved in Europe, said Treanor, of the University of Rochester. By adding an adjuvant the same amount of antigen can be used to treat more people, he said.

“Until GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis can show me it won’t harm a rat or guinea pig, I think it’s a bad idea to give it to humans,” Vicky Debold, a registered nurse with a Ph.D. in public health, who is a member of the FDA’s advisory committee for reviewing vaccines, said July 27 in an interview.

The U.S. never had to consider the risks of an adjuvant because regular flu vaccines were deemed to have “worked so tremendously well,” said Lone Simonsen, research director in the department of global health at George Washington University in Washington.

“We have had a safe experience with the MF59-adjuvanted vaccine in Italy and Spain for many years now,” Simonsen said. “That experience we can lean on. That’s going to be the best data we have in time for using adjuvanted vaccines.”

U.S. Contracts

CSL Ltd., which has a $180 million order to supply bulk H1N1 antigen to the U.S. government, decided against boosting its vaccine with an adjuvant, preferring to use a formulation more closely resembling the seasonal flu shot, said Mary Sontrop general manager of the Melbourne-based company’s biotherapies unit.

The U.S. has contracts with five companies to provide flu shots. Novartis, based in Basel, Switzerland, is responsible for 45 percent of the supply, while Sanofi will provide 26 percent and CSL will make 19 percent, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, in an interview last week.

The remaining doses will be made by Glaxo and London-based drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc.

To contact the reporters on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net; Gary Matsumoto in New York at gmatsumoto@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: July 29, 2009 13:25 EDT

This is a legitimate reason for concern in the current swine flu pandemic. The administration has known all along that there could not possibly be enough swine flu vaccine doses available by October of 2009 to inoculate the US population. I documented this fact in July in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano:

Has vaccine production capacity improved in the last few years?

No, the situation has not changed a great deal. I keep going back to the arithmetic. Two years ago it was estimated that within 9 months of the emergence of the pandemic virus, all of the world's influenza vaccine companies could produce enough doses of a new pandemic vaccine to vaccinate with two doses approximately 750 million people. More recently, a report sponsored by the WHO estimated that 6 months after the emergence of a new pandemic virus, the companies could produce 860 million doses of vaccine. These numbers are similar to the number of people living in the nine countries that produce almost all of the world's seasonal influenza vaccines.

If you're talking only about the US and want to vaccinate everyone, you will need 300 million doses. If you need two doses per person, you'll need 600 million doses and you're not going to get 600 million doses right away unless you have an antigen sparing formulation. This requires adding an adjuvant, a chemical that boosts the immune response and allows companies to decrease the amount of virus in each dose. However, US regulatory authorities are concerned about the safety of adjuvanted vaccines. As long as the virus doesn't get more virulent and the case fatality rate among non vaccinated individuals remains very low, the social and political impact of the pandemic will be tolerable; although a huge number of infections will occur, 99.5% of those infected will survive. The choice between an adjuvanted or non adjuvanted vaccine will determine whether companies produce more or fewer doses of vaccine. Erring on the side of caution will mean that developing countries will have even less chance of obtaining supplies of pandemic vaccines.

But the administration published rosy forecasts about 120 million doses being available in mid-October nonetheless. Now that October is over, and less than 20 million doses have become available, will the Obama administration use an emergency use authorization to utilize the $700 million worth of adjuvants they already purchased and stockpiled?

A reasonable assessment of the swine flu vaccine

2009-10-28T22:38:00.006-04:00

Why be skeptical?

Orthodox Catholics have a strong tendency towards healthy skepticism when it comes to big government and big pharma. We've seen the democide carried out by atheistic governments against several hundred million innocent men, women, and children over the past century. We've seen the demographic winter and destruction of over a billion lives at the hands of scientism's big medicine and big pharma. Science no longer serves the God who created the laws of nature and nature itself, even if many individual scientists, doctors and biomedical researchers may be faithful pious believers.

Does that mean that we must accept at face value every claim against modern medicine or big pharma? As Catholics, Faith and Reason dictate we seek the Truth, and alleviate suffering whenever possible. It also means confronting evil and error outside and inside our ranks.

Many of the current internet rumors regarding flu vaccines are simply false. Seasonal flu vaccines are very safe (though there is valid debate over their overall effectiveness.) The current swine flu, if it had been isolated several months earlier in the 2008/2009 flu season, would have simply been added to this year's seasonal flu vaccine. Because it was too late to add it to the seasonal flu vaccine, an additional vaccine is necessary this year. The swine H1N1 vaccine is simply the seasonal flu vaccine without the three seasonal flu variants. Instead, it contains the swine flu viral antigen. There is no rational, reasonable basis to fear the current swine flu vaccine.

The infamous 1976 swine flu vaccine was linked to 25 deaths from Guillain-Barre Syndrome. It was administered to over 40 million people. In a worst case scenario, if the current swine flu vaccine was as "bad" as the 1976 vaccine, and the entire US population of 300 million was vaccinated, one could anticipate 188 vaccine related deaths. There is no rational, reasonable basis to believe the current swine flu vaccine would have any different safety profile than the seasonal flu vaccine from which it was made. In other words, there is no reason to suspect the side effects that occurred in 1976.

On the other hand, over 200 children have died so far in the USA alone from this pandemic, with total "official" death counts in the USA over 1200 and global deaths nearing 9000. These official numbers represent only those cases in which swine flu was verified by lab testing. (Only a tiny fraction of swine flu cases are currently being lab confirmed because the medical establishment knows that almost all current flu infections are swine flu.) And there is a very real possibility of genetic mutations increasing the virulence of the current swine H1N1 pandemic virus.

A recent article in The Atlantic, Does the Vaccine Matter? has caused a wave of concern. The article is grossly misleading in its analysis. There are several good, reasonable, rational discussions of the errors of the article on the science blogs:

Vaccination for H1N1 "swine" flu: Do The Atlantic, Shannon Brownlee, and Jeanne Lenzer matter?

Journalists sink in The Atlantic article on vaccines

Science journalists, bloggers and the Brave New World we live in

I'm not qualified to make the kind of analysis that can be found in these entries, but I am qualified to make an assessment of the original article and these rebuttals: The original article simply does not stand up to scrutiny.

Because I am in a high risk group (history of asthma, heart disease and diabetes), I received the seasonal flu vaccine two weeks ago. If the swine flu vaccine becomes available locally, I can see no valid reason not to receive the vaccine or have my own children vaccinated, given everything I know as a pro-life Catholic doctor.

My one concern is the use of adjuvants.

Fortunately, NO US VACCINES CURRENTLY USE ADJUVANTS! There is no squalene or other adjuvants in any approved flu vaccines being distributed in the USA, but they are being used in Canada and Europe.

On the other hand, the USA has purchased large stockpiles of adjuvants for emergency use:

HHS 2009 H1N1 Vaccine Development Activities

Fact Sheet

Overview

The newly emergent 2009 H1N1 influenza virus is a novel virus with pandemic potential. Consistent with the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, HHS is committing funds for the production of pilot lots for clinical studies, as well as a bulk supply of antigen and adjuvant for use in a potential vaccine for the 2009 H1N1 which will become a part of the national stockpile of pre-pandemic influenza vaccines.

A vaccine is made from a virus or bacteria (referred to as an antigen), which causes the human body’s immune system to develop antibodies against a specific virus or bacteria so the body can recognize and fight the virus or bacteria. Adjuvants may be added to a vaccine to help generate a stronger immune response so less vaccine is needed for the body to recognize and fight a virus or bacteria.

Vaccine Development

When the 2009 H1N1 strain was isolated and identified as a novel influenza virus, work began to prepare a virus reference strain. This is a standard practice when new influenza strains are discovered, where a clinical sample of the virus is mixed with another influenza virus that grows in eggs to develop a new virus that has some of the properties of the novel virus and the ability to grow in eggs. This work is necessary in order to create an influenza vaccine using conventional methods.
Once a virus reference strain is ready, it will be made available to influenza vaccine manufacturers in order to create a master virus seed, which prepares a virus to be used in making the vaccine.

HHS Contracting Activities

Since 2004, HHS has contracted with manufacturers that currently hold U.S. licenses for flu vaccine as part of the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza. In May 2009, HHS issued new orders on these contracts to produce a bulk supply of vaccine antigen and adjuvant and to produce pilot (also called investigational) lots of a 2009 H1N1 vaccine. Most will be stored in bulk, and a small amount will be prepared as vaccine for use in clinical studies to evaluate vaccine safety and the dosage required for a protective effect. This research will include studies with adjuvant to determine its safety and the effect it would have on the immune system’s response.

Orders for Bulk Supply of H1N1 Influenza Vaccine Antigen and Adjuvant: May 22, 2009

Manufacturer

Bulk Vaccine Antigen

Oil-In-Water Bulk Adjuvant

Novartis

$150 million

$139 million

GlaxoSmithKline

$ 38 million

$144 million

Sanofi Pasteur

$191 million

CSL Biotherapies

$180 million

MedImmune

$ 90 million

Total

$649 million

$283 million

Orders for Bulk Supply of H1N1 Influenza Vaccine Antigen and Adjuvant: July 9, 2009

Manufacturer

Bulk Vaccine Antigen

Bulk Virus Concentrate/FFF

Oil-In-Water Bulk Adjuvant

Sanofi Pasteur

$61,425,000

0

0

GSK

$0

0

$71,400,000

Novartis

$346,334,450

0

$343,810,470

CSL

$0

0

0

MedImmune

$0

$61,008,000

0

Total

$407,759,450

$61,008,000

$415,210,470

HHS orders an additional 56 million doses of vaccine: September 21, 2009

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ordered an additional 56 million doses of vaccine for the 2009 H1N1 flu from MedImmune and Sanofi Pasteur. HHS used approximately $438 million in existing funds for the purchase. The additional vaccine purchase will help to ensure that anyone who wants a vaccine will be able to obtain one when the vaccine becomes available. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended that five groups of people receive the vaccine as soon as it is available (embed link http://www.flu.gov/individualfamily/vaccination/index.html). The 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine will be available beginning in October and throughout the flu season.

Manufacturer

Total Cost

MedImmune

$295,660,000

Sanofi Pasteur

$143,483,025

Total

$438,143,025

Novartis' adjuvant is MF59. GlaxoSmithKline's adjuvant is AS03

There is some evidence that adjuvants increase certain elements of the cytokine response. See Adjuvants and Cytokines I - the Curious Case of IL-6

Controlling cytokine response was the central topic of the article I wrote for L'Osservatore Romano, "The unforgiving arithmetic of pandemic" that was published in July.

Furthermore, adjuvant use might increase spontaneous miscarriages. From Adjuvants and Cytokines I - the Curious Case of IL-6:

Let's start with the GSK one. In their document submitted to the EMEA, in response to a query about the use of their vaccine in early pregnancy, GSK argued that
the adjuvant is not expected to have adverse effects on early pregnancy primarily because the innate immune response is local to the site of injection and on injection of the adjuvanted vaccine, there is no systemic cytokine response detectable.

Since no data is presented in those documents, nor AFAIK in any peer-reviewed publications regarding the systemic cytokine response to AS03 adjuvanted vaccines, animals and humans included, and since we have already encountered some rather questionable claims from industry representatives, those remarks in the EMEA file should IMHO be considered unsupported by evidence, until they are.
BTW this may well be consistent with corporate policy. GSK also markets vaccines adjuvanted with AS04, an adjuvant that contains both alum and MPL, a 'detoxified' version of the bacterial endotoxin LPS. AS04 is used in a hepatitis B vaccine Fendrix which was approved in the EU in 2005, and the HPV vaccine Cervarix approved in 2007. In a recent presentation to the FDA seeking licensure of Cervarix in the US, company representatives first said that the vaccine was "not associated with a systemic cytokine release." (p.24 of meeting transcripts) Then, during Q&A, they modified that to "just a little bit of IL-6" (p.168) in response to questions from an advisory committee member, an Obs/Gyn doc from Mass General Hospital who said
One of the things that troubled me a little bit about the spontaneous abortion issue as an obstetrician, and that is why I asked the question about detoxification of LPS, because there are very good animal models for inducing abortion and early delivery using LPS, presumably mediated by IL-6, TNF alpha and IL-1 beta.

Until there is more safety data on these adjuvants, and proof that they are not abortifacient, I could not in good conscience recommend their use.

On the other hand, if a pandemic arose with a virulence similar to that of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, the risks of refusing even an adjuvanted vaccine would be far outweighed by the risks of the pandemic.

Its worth noting that Jacinta and Francisco of Fatima, who with Sister Lucia were blessed with the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, died in the 1918/1919 Spanish Flu pandemic, which was due to a similar swine H1N1 flu strain. That is always in the back of my mind during this current pandemic.

(For more information on the nasal mist flu vaccine see my previous post, Disinformation: "Live virus in the nasal spray vaccine will cause a pandemic")

...and the evil that lurks in the anti-vaccine lobby

2009-10-16T23:12:00.009-04:00

Much of the current anti-swine-flu-vaccine debate can be drawn back to one study in the British medical journal Lancet. From Wikipedia:

In the UK, the MMR vaccine was the subject of controversy after publication in The Lancet of a 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield, et al., reporting a study of 12 children mostly with autism spectrum disorders with onset soon after administration of the vaccine.^[40] During a 1998 press conference, Wakefield suggested that giving children the vaccines in three separate doses would be safer than a single vaccination. This suggestion was not supported by the paper, and several subsequent peer-reviewed studies have failed to show any association between the vaccine and autism.^[41] It later emerged that Wakefield had received funding from litigants against vaccine manufacturers and that Wakefield had not informed colleagues or medical authorities of his conflict of interest;^[42] had this been known, publication in The Lancet would not have taken place in the way that it did.^[43] Wakefield has been heavily criticized on scientific grounds and for triggering a decline in vaccination rates,^[44] as well as on ethical grounds for the way the research was conducted.^[45] In 2009 The Sunday Times reported that Wakefield had manipulated patient data and misreported results in his 1998 paper, creating the appearance of a link with autism.^[46]

In 2004 the MMR-and-autism interpretation of the paper was formally retracted by 10 of Wakefield's 12 co-authors.^[47] The CDC,^[48] the IOM of the National Academy of Sciences,^[49] and the UK National Health Service^[50] have all concluded that there is no evidence of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. A systematic review by the Cochrane Library concluded that there is no credible link between the MMR vaccine and autism, that MMR has prevented diseases that still carry a heavy burden of death and complications, that the lack of confidence in MMR has damaged public health, and that design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies are largely inadequate.^[2]

Since the supposed link between vaccines and autism came from Wakefield, orthodox Catholics need to examine his background to assess the roots of the claim:

1996: Andrew Wakefield begins receiving money from lawyers, led by Richard Barr, wanting to file lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers. Of £3.4m distributed to doctors and scientists recruited to help build their case, Wakefield received £435,643 in fees, plus £3,910 expenses.*

1997: Andrew Wakefield applies for a patent for a measles vaccine on behalf of the Royal Free hospital medical school and the Neuroimmuno Therapeutics Research Foundation, the private company of controversial immunologist Professor H. Hugh Fudenberg of Spartanburg, South Carolina. (Fudenberg claims in a 2004 interview with Brian Deer that he cures autistic children with his own bone marrow.) The vaccine is a potential competitor to the MMR vaccine.
1998: The Wakefield group (of twelve) reports in The Lancet an apparently new syndrome of an unusual type of IBD associated with developmental disorders such as (but not limited to) autism. They suggest that measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine may cause IBD, resulting in decreased intestinal absorption of essential vitamins and nutrients and possibly leading to developmental disorders such as autism. Wakefield opines (without any scientific evidence) that such perturbations are less likely if the components of MMR are given separately, spaced several months apart. The study involved only 12 children. Both studies were:

conducted on highly selected patients referred for gastrointestinal ailments. The studies had no controls, were unblinded and were not designed to test aetiology or harm....the association between vaccination and autism was based primarily on parental recall....*

In 2009, it is discovered that Wakefield fixed his data.

Obviously, Wakefield was bribed $400,000 by trial lawyers to publish this false assertion that the MMR vaccine was linked to autism, and Wakefield also had applied for a patent for a competing vaccine!

From the standpoint of Faith and Reason, these facts alone draw into doubt the subsequent claims of a vaccine-autism link. But there are more disturbing reasons to question the ongoing disinformation campaign against vaccines. Some of the purveyors of this propaganda are literally cult/occult groups.

Wakefield's associations with Scientology have been documented:

Shinga posted yesterday on “extraordinary…correspondences between Patrick Holford and Dr Andrew Wakefield”. The ’science’ behind this story has already been torn to pieces all over the blogosphere – read a summary of posts here and here – so I’m not going to look at this again. Frankly, if copies of this newspaper are getting used for soaking up guinea pig crap, then I feel sorry for the guinea pigs – and I can’t really think of much more to say about this ’science’.
However, when I was looking into the debate around Sunday’s awful Observer story on MMR, I found another surprising correspondence: both Holford and Wakefield appear to be linked to the Safe Harbor organisation. Safe Harbor is a controversial ‘alternative’ mental health organisation, which was established by “a very prominent Scientologist called Dan Stradford who apparently has reached the level of Operating Thetan – Level VIII” and which has had a history of substantial Scientologist involvement. As the quackometer shows, Holford is on Safe Harbor’s advisory board.

Wakefield, too, has been plugged by Safe Harbor: their newsletter advertised his presence at a ‘Defeat Autism Now’ conference. Safe Harbor also had someone who they rather chummily referred to as “Dr Andy Wakefield” speaking at their Miami conference, and even threw a dinner in Wakefield’s honour.
...
Anyway, so what does all this tell us? There does seem to be a surprising link between Safe Harbor (and thus certain prominent Scientologists) and two significant figures promoting bad science on autism and vaccination.

The bizarre links to cult/occult forces don't end there. See Autism, scientology and the moonies:

Everybody knows that Scientology has an almost rabid outlook on psychiatry and what they deem psychiatric labels. Its so bad that Xenu-lover John Travolta is allegedly hiding the fact of his son’s autism for fear of offending his masters in Scientology.

Scientologists have a natural theoretical affinity with the mercury militia and in particular the DAN! ideology. They are firmly against medication and firmly in favour of ‘detoxification’ when combined with saunas. The belief is that detoxification ‘loosens’ the toxins which are then sweated out in intense saunas. Sounds familiar right?

Just like the moonies, scientology has untold business interests in all-natural and CAM based treatments, particularly detoxification treatments. So, when you combine business interests with religious zeal you get people highly motivated to move in on people they target.

Are there any scientologists targeting autism? Oh yes. Scary but true.

There is Nancy Mullan, MD, nutritional psychiatrist and Scientology owned Safe Harbor Medical Director. She attended a conference wherein she:

...reviews one of the most critical nutritional biochemical cycles which, when faulty, can contribute to autism, schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder.

I’ve also been notified by commenter ‘culvercitycynic’ that Ms Mullan is also a registered DAN! doctor.

And here’s another Scientology front: Narconon Arrowhead. The Medical Director is a man named Gerald D. Wootan – he’s also a DAN doctor. Thank you to my anonymous friend who forwarded me that info :o)

Then there is Dr. Julian Whitaker who is with the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, established by the Church of Scientology to expose what the church calls psychiatric violations of human rights and who pushes a variety of CAM treatments including chelation. Guess who he’s friends with?

a special thanks to some special people â€“ [...] Dr. Julian Whitaker, Dr.Rashid Buttar…

Then there’s scientologist David Minkoff who once attended a Defeat Autism Yesterday conference, sharing a platform with Rashid Buttar, DAN! doctor Gunnar Heuser and Erin Giffin of Amy Yasko’s practice.

Minkoff is also well regarded by teh folks on Evidence of Harm email list such as MarK Sircus who says of the Scientologist:

...a fine physician…in the chelation and toxicology field like Dr. David Minkoff…

Amazing how far Scientology has managed to insinuate itself into DAN! isn’t it? But is that the end of it? Not by a long chalk.

Scientologist husband and wife team Jean Ross and karl Loren are actively marketing Chelation to autism customers

Another scientologist recently made national television in the US.

In 2002, a schizophrenic named Jeremy Perkins visited a Scientologist doctor called Conrad Maulfair at the behest of his Scientologist mother. Maulfair told Jeremy’s mother that it wasn’t Schizophrenia but in fact high levels of arsenic and metals that were causing Jeremy’s issues. Maulfair had to say this as he cannot, by virtue of his belief in Scientology, accept or diagnose a psychiatric reason to explain Jeremy. He recommended chelation. Jeremy’s mum decided on her own treatment – also not psychiatry – and then in 2003, in the grip of schizophrenia, Jeremy stabs his Scientologist mother to death.

This scientologist, Dr Conrad Maulfair, is a DAN! Doctor. His failure to correctly diagnose has now led to a death.

And here’s Hubbard and Scientology worshipper Dr Arturo M Volpe expounding the benefits of treating autistic children with Methyl B12 and FIRS (far infrared saunas) – he even quotes DAN! Doctor, Sidney Baker.

And then there’s Boyd Haley. Haley was amongst a gaggle of Scientologists making sworn depositions for an amalgam/mercury case in 2002. They lost of course but amongst the Scientologists testifying were: Raymond G. Behm and our old friend David Minkoff. Once again, Boyd Haley demonstrates the calibre of his rationality in the company he keeps and the ‘science’ they present.

There’s also significant Scientology representation amongst the law firms involved the autism/thiomersal litigation. For example, in June 2001 legal firm Baum Hedlund announced a class action lawsuit against thiomersal containing vaccine manufacturers as part of the now defunct Mercury Vaccine Alliance.

Paul Hedlund is described as;

has also been in business with several other Scientologist lawyers, including fellow Slatkin investor George “Skip” Murgatroyd. He and Michael Baum were also both investors with Scientologist ponzi artist Reed Slatkin.

And Michael Baum is described as;

....a former staffer with the Church of Scientology’s Guardian Office (the Church’s secret service operation that preceded the Office of Special Affairs) and is an Unindicted Co-conspirator for his work on Operation Snow White, the domestic espionage case which sent eleven Scientologists to prison, including L Ron Hubbard’s wife.

Its clear to see that Scientology has its claws well into the mercury/thiomersal/chelation/autism community. What that community decides to do about that is a matter for their conscience.

What orthodox Catholics, guided by Faith and Reason, decide to do about that is also a matter of conscience.

Here are some reasonable, rational resources for further reading:

Measles Mumps Rubella And Mercury-based Immunizations Cleared As Causes Of Autism

Addressing Parents’ Concerns: Do Vaccines Contain Harmful Preservatives, Adjuvants, Additives, or Residuals

Update:

By CBC News, cbc.ca, Updated: February 2, 2010 12:08 PM
Autism-vaccine study retracted
A medical journal in Britain has retracted a controversial study it published in 1998 that linked the use of a vaccine in children to autism.
The study retracted Tuesday looked at 12 children suffering from colitis, a gastrointestinal disease.
British surgeon and medical researcher Andrew Wakefield concluded a component of the measles, mumps and rubella or MMR vaccine caused the colitis, which in term led to development problems that are part of autism spectrum disorder.
"It has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield … are incorrect," The Lancet said in a statement.
Since the controversial paper was published, British parents abandoned the vaccine, leading to a resurgence of measles in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.
Subsequent studies have found no proof that the vaccine is connected to autism, though some parents are still wary of the shot. In March 2004, the majority of co-authors on the paper retracted their support for the claims of a possible link between the vaccine and colitis or autism.
'Callous disregard'
A disciplinary panel of Britain's General Medical Council GMC ruled last week that Wakefield had presented his research in an "irresponsible and dishonest" way and shown a "callous disregard" for the suffering of the children he studied.
It also ruled he had brought the medical profession "into disrepute."
Wakefield and the two colleagues who have not renounced the study face being stripped of their right to practise medicine in Britain.
For the study, Wakefield took blood samples from children at his son's birthday party, paying them five pounds each ($8) for their contributions and later joking about the incident.
Wakefield remains outspoken and said last week that the panel's findings were "unjust and unfounded." His supporters believe he has been the subject of a conspiracy to discredit him.
With files from The Associated Press
External Links
Retraction, The Lancet (in .pdf format)

Updated: Thu., Feb. 4, 2010, 9:51 AM

Junk science kills

By ELIZABETH M. WHELAN
Last Updated: 9:51 AM, February 4, 2010

Posted: 12:47 AM, February 4, 2010

The media gave big headlines to this week's stories on a prestigious British medical publication's retraction of an article that had claimed to show a causal link between standard childhood vaccinations (measles, mumps and rubella) and autism.
Yet the coverage of the Lancet affair didn't truly convey the outrageousness of the original publication or the gravity of its consequences -- consequences long festering, since the paper was published not last week but 12 years ago.
Many of us in the scientific community recognized the "study" as junk when it appeared in 1998. Even before we learned of then-unknown ethical failings by its lead author, we knew the study was based on a tiny population of only 12 children. More, it relied on a novel methodology that assumed some bizarre, previously unheard of, association between children's autism and their manifestation of intestinal problems.
Nonetheless, the media back then seized on this story from a prestigious medical source -- and the scare picked up steam when TV appearances by actress Jenny McCarthy and a Rolling Stone article by Robert Kennedy Jr. blared word of the putative dangers of vaccines.
When criticism of the paper intensified in the days after publication, Lancet editor-in-chief Dr. Richard Horton defended his decision to publish what he acknowledged as an inferior study by claiming it would generate debate on the autism/vaccine issue. Even when 10 of the original 13 authors withdrew their names from the article, Horton still refused to withdraw the study.
Nor did he take such action when multiple studies subsequently appeared showing no link between vaccines and autism. Nor even in 2004 -- when it was revealed that the lead author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, had been paid, in part, by lawyers for parents seeking to sue vaccine makers, claiming adverse health consequences.
All the publicity led many parents to forgo these vital infant immunizations: Vaccination rates in Britain, especially, plummeted. And since then, hundreds of unvaccinated children have been hospitalized in Britain with the measles. Some died of the illness.
Here in America, more than 1,000 children have died from H1N1 flu over the last year -- numbers that would surely be smaller had not so many parents been frightened away from getting flu shots by the general Wakefield-induced paranoia over vaccines.
In other words, a medical jour nal triggered a chain of events that led to preventable disease -- and some child deaths.
Some will argue the Lancet piece was an aberration: Most peer-reviewed journals publish only carefully reviewed, well-conducted studies. But there is a disturbing trend in recent years: publication of small, uncontrolled, isolated findings -- which the media immediately present as fact, under alarming headlines.
And health and environmental activists have founded their own cliquish "peer review" journals: Small groups of ideologically fueled scientists publish the manuscripts compatible with their activist mission.
In the specific case of vaccines, a cottage industry of conspiracy theorists, "investigative journalists" and (understandably) desperate parents of sick children in search of explanations also stands ready to pounce on any apparent indictment of vaccines -- and spread the word.
All of which makes it all the more important for serious journals, as the Lancet claims to be, to avoid junk science -- not promote it.
Nor did the journal's editors, after 12 years, finally independently come to their senses and vote to retract. Horton finally pulled the trigger on the retraction only after a British medical panel (the General Medical Council) concluded that Wakefield had been dishonest, violated basic research ethics rules and showed a "callous disregard" for the suffering of children following his spurious publication.
Even with the retraction, the widespread rumors of a vaccine-autism link will prevail: The broader anti-vaccine movement is alive and well, albeit without a shred of evidence to support their case. As the chief of Infectious Disease at Philadelphia Children's Hospital, Dr. Paul Offit, reflected sadly, "This retraction by Lancet came far too late. It's very easy to scare people; it's very hard to unscare them."
Horton has made no effort whatsoever to apologize or take editorial responsibility for this egregious error. He should step forward and say, "I regret the needless suffering and death for which I am partly responsible."
This incident leads to one very unsettling but unavoidable conclusion: Even a study in a top-notch, peer-reviewed medical journal may still be scientific garbage. Imagine how many other false (if less controversial) reports glide by under the radar -- undetected but still destructive to good science and public health.
Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health (AC SH.org).

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The evil that lurks in the vaccine industry...

2009-10-16T21:49:00.014-04:00

One of the most frustrating aspects of trying to bring "Faith and Reason" into the vaccine debate is being stuck between two camps in mortal combat. The sneering condescension of those in the camp of scientism towards people of Faith is as much responsible for the mistrust of modern medicine as the obvious wholesale intrusion of the culture of death in big science. The seething anger towards big medicine on websites such as NaturalNews is repulsive to anyone who tries to work within scientific and medical fields to bring alleviation of human suffering.

The vast majority of Catholics are already aware of the production of vaccines from Aborted Fetal Cell Lines. The debate over the use of these vaccines continues: Are Vaccines Manufactured on Aborted Fetal Cell Lines Morally Acceptable?

After headlines were posted on various Catholic and anti-vaccine websites indicating a possibility of population control efforts related to swine flu vaccines, I called Dr. Brian Clowes of HLI. He lead the research which exposed the abortifacient hCG hormone-linked tetanus vaccines being used in third world countries the early 1990's.

I asked him specifically if research on sterilization vaccines was ongoing, and whether it was a concern for Americans in the upcoming swine flu vaccines. He was very frank: sterilization vaccines are still being researched, but they are only used by western nations against the countries targeted in National Security Study Memorandum 200. Those who have never heard of NSSM-200 or read it should do so now. Here's the relevant excerpt for the current discussion:

The World Population Plan of Action is not self-enforcing and will require vigorous efforts by interested countries, U.N. agencies and other international bodies to make it effective. U.S. leadership is essential [emphasis added]. The strategy must include the following elements and actions:

* (a) Concentration on key countries. Assistance for population moderation should give primary emphasis to the largest and fastest growing developing countries where there is special U.S. political and strategic interest. Those countries are: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia and Colombia. Together, they account for 47 percent of the world's current population increase. (It should be recognized that at present AID bilateral assistance to some of these countries may not be acceptable.) Bilateral assistance, to the extent that funds are available, will be given to other countries, considering such factors as population growth, need for external assistance, long-term U.S. interests and willingness to engage in self-help. Multilateral programs must necessarily have a wider coverage and the bilateral programs of other national donors will be shaped to their particular interests. At the same time, the U.S. will look to the multilateral agencies -- especially the U.N. Fund for Population Activities which already has projects in over 80 countries -- to increase population assistance on a broader basis with increased U.S. contributions. This is desirable in terms of U.S. interests and necessary in political terms in the United Nations. But progress nevertheless, must be made in the key 13 and our limited resources should give major emphasis to them.

The use of sterilization vaccines against third world nations as an American strategic policy is documented fact. Though current research is primarily aimed at livestock and cancer treatment, human birth control vaccine research continues.

So, there is simply no debate whether vaccines have been used to push the culture of death.

Does that mean that all vaccines are "bad"?

No. One need only recall the devastation of smallpox, and the uncontestable fact that it was eliminated via vaccination, to settle that score. Next time someone rants against vaccines in general, show them a few images to remind them:

And we must not forget the devastation caused by polio, which was also eliminated through vaccination. Images of wards of young patients in iron lung machines should also serve to remind us that much modern internet hysteria is simply hysteria:

These images are one of the most important arguments that there is indeed evil in the anti-vaccine movement. Like it or not, it was modern science and big medicine and big pharma that eliminated smallpox.

But there is something more sinister behind the current anti-vaccine agenda, at least from the Catholic perspective of "Faith and Reason." Yes, scientism and big pharma are worthy of healthy skepticism, if not outright hostility. The culture of death, via scientism and big medicine, has destroyed over a billion lives as well as our economy and our children's future.

But that does not mean that all the opponents of the vaccine industry are holy and pious...

Why Christians don't trust Big Medicine/Big Pharma

2009-10-14T16:49:00.004-04:00

One of the most perplexing aspects of the current debates over swine flu and vaccines is the growing mistrust of "Big Science" by those who believe in a Creator God, especially those of us who are orthodox Catholics.

One must remember that there is no gulf between Faith and Reason, between the Church and Science. The "Galileo affair" has been misused so long to beat the Church about the head that people forget the reality of the origins of western science and medicine. One place to start in recovering this reality is Tom Wood's book, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization:

From the role of the monks to art and architecture, from the university to Western law, from science to charitable work, from international law to economics, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization delves into just how indebted we are as a civilization to the Catholic Church, whether we realize it or not.
By far the book’s longest chapter is "The Church and Science." We have all heard a great deal about the Church’s alleged hostility toward science. What most people fail to realize is that historians of science have spent the past half-century drastically revising this conventional wisdom, arguing that the Church’s role in the development of Western science was far more salutary than previously thought. I am speaking not about Catholic apologists but about serious and important scholars of the history of science such as J.L. Heilbron, A.C. Crombie, David Lindberg, Edward Grant, and Thomas Goldstein.
It is all very well to point out that important scientists, like Louis Pasteur, have been Catholic. More revealing is how many priests have distinguished themselves in the sciences. It turns out, for instance, that the first person to measure the rate of acceleration of a freely falling body was Fr. Giambattista Riccioli. The man who has been called the father of Egyptology was Fr. Athanasius Kircher (also called "master of a hundred arts" for the breadth of his knowledge). Fr. Roger Boscovich, who has been described as "the greatest genius that Yugoslavia ever produced," has often been called the father of modern atomic theory.
In the sciences it was the Jesuits in particular who distinguished themselves; some 35 craters on the moon, in fact, are named after Jesuit scientists and mathematicians.
By the eighteenth century, the Jesuits
had contributed to the development of pendulum clocks, pantographs, barometers, reflecting telescopes and microscopes, to scientific fields as various as magnetism, optics and electricity. They observed, in some cases before anyone else, the colored bands on Jupiter’s surface, the Andromeda nebula and Saturn’s rings. They theorized about the circulation of the blood (independently of Harvey), the theoretical possibility of flight, the way the moon effected the tides, and the wave-like nature of light. Star maps of the southern hemisphere, symbolic logic, flood-control measures on the Po and Adige rivers, introducing plus and minus signs into Italian mathematics — all were typical Jesuit achievements, and scientists as influential as Fermat, Huygens, Leibniz and Newton were not alone in counting Jesuits among their most prized correspondents [Jonathan Wright, The Jesuits, 2004, p. 189].
Seismology, the study of earthquakes, has been so dominated by Jesuits that it has become known as "the Jesuit science." It was a Jesuit, Fr. J.B. Macelwane, who wrote Introduction to Theoretical Seismology, the first seismology textbook in America, in 1936. To this day, the American Geophysical Union, which Fr. Macelwane once headed, gives an annual medal named after this brilliant priest to a promising young geophysicist.

How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
Contents
The Indispensable Church
A Light in the Darkness
How the Monks Saved Civilization
The Church and the University
The Church and Science
The Origins of International Law
The Church and Economics
How Catholic Charity Changed the World
The Church and Western Law
The Church and Western Morality

The Jesuits were also the first to introduce Western science into such far-off places as China and India. In seventeenth-century China in particular, Jesuits introduced a substantial body of scientific knowledge and a vast array of mental tools for understanding the physical universe, including the Euclidean geometry that made planetary motion comprehensible. Jesuits made important contributions to the scientific knowledge and infrastructure of other less developed nations not only in Asia but also in Africa and Central and South America. Beginning in the nineteenth century, these continents saw the opening of Jesuit observatories that studied such fields as astronomy, geomagnetism, meteorology, seismology, and solar physics. Such observatories provided these places with accurate time keeping, weather forecasts (particularly important in the cases of hurricanes and typhoons), earthquake risk assessments, and cartography. In Central and South America the Jesuits worked primarily in meteorology and seismology, essentially laying the foundations of those disciplines there. The scientific development of these countries, ranging from Ecuador to Lebanon to the Philippines, is indebted to Jesuit efforts.
The Galileo case is often cited as evidence of Catholic hostility toward science, and How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization accordingly takes a closer look at the Galileo matter. For now, just one little-known fact: Catholic cathedrals in Bologna, Florence, Paris, and Rome were constructed to function as solar observatories. No more precise instruments for observing the sun’s apparent motion could be found anywhere in the world. When Johannes Kepler posited that planetary orbits were elliptical rather than circular, Catholic astronomer Giovanni Cassini verified Kepler’s position through observations he made in the Basilica of San Petronio in the heart of the Papal States. Cassini, incidentally, was a student of Fr. Riccioli and Fr. Francesco Grimaldi, the great astronomer who also discovered the diffraction of light, and even gave the phenomenon its name.
I’ve tried to fill the book with little-known facts like these.
To say that the Church played a positive role in the development of science has now become absolutely mainstream, even if this new consensus has not yet managed to trickle down to the general public. In fact, Stanley Jaki, over the course of an extraordinary scholarly career, has developed a compelling argument that in fact it was important aspects of the Christian worldview that accounted for why it was in the West that science enjoyed the success it did as a self-sustaining enterprise. Non-Christian cultures did not possess the same philosophical tools, and in fact were burdened by conceptual frameworks that hindered the development of science. Jaki extends this thesis to seven great cultures: Arabic, Babylonian, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Hindu, and Maya. In these cultures, Jaki explains, science suffered a "stillbirth." My book gives ample attention to Jaki’s work.

The primary reason that Catholics mistrust Big Science is not that there is any validity to the claim that the Church opposes scientific progress, but that the primary tool in the encroachment of the Culture of Death in our modern world has been Big Medicine/Big science. Its not unreasonable to mistrust an industry that no longer has an institutional ethic of respect for all human life, from conception to natural death.

Furthermore, "science" has become militantly atheistic (even if many scientists and physicians individually are theistic) and "science" is the primary club with which the mainstream media and pop culture attack the Faith.

The October 12 WSJ has a column by William McGurn entitled God vs. Science Isn't the Issue that addresses this divide:

When the poet Matthew Arnold wrote of faith's "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar," the thought was that scientific inquiry had forever undermined claims to certitude. In hindsight we see Arnold was only half right. In place of Genesis we now have scientism—the idea that science alone can speak truth about man and his world.

In contrast to the majority of scientists whose wondrous discoveries seem to inspire humility, today's advocates of scientism can be every bit as dogmatic as the William Jennings Bryans of yesteryear. We saw an example a week ago, when the New York Times reported that many scientists view "outspoken religious commitment as a sign of mild dementia."

The reporter was Gardiner Harris, and the object of his snark was Francis Collins—the new director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Collins is perhaps best noted for his leadership on the Human Genome Project, an effort to map the genetic makeup of man. But he is also well known for his unapologetic talk about his Christian faith and how he came to it.

Mr. Harris's aside about dementia, of course, is less a proposition open to debate than the kind of putdown you tell at a private cocktail party where you know everyone in the room shares your orthodoxies. In this room, there are those who hold that God cannot be reconciled with what science has discovered about the human body, the origin of the species, and the beginnings of the universe. The more honest ones do not flinch before the implications of their materialist principles on our understanding of human dignity and human rights and human freedom—as well as on religion.

In 1997, for example, an International Academy of Humanism statement in defense of human cloning—whose signatories included scientists such as E.O. Wilson, Francis Crick and Richard Dawkins—went out of its way to attack the special dignity of human beings. "Humanity's rich repertoire of thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and hopes seems to arise from electrochemical brain processes, not from an immaterial soul that operates in ways no instrument can discover." They concluded "it would be a tragedy if ancient theological scruples should lead to a Luddite rejection of cloning."

Here's the problem: Almost no one really believes this. Not, at least, when it comes to how we behave. And the dichotomy between scientific theory and human action may itself have something to tell us about truth.

That's not to deny electrochemical brain processes and the like. It is to say that much as we may assent to the idea that we are but matter in motion, seldom do we act that way. We love. We fight. We distinguish between the good and noble and the bad and base. More than just religion, our literature and our politics and our music resonate precisely because they speak to these things.

Remember Peter Singer? Mr. Singer is the Princeton utilitarian who accepts scientism's view that human beings are not fundamentally different from animals, just more complex. In his thinking, those who cannot reason for themselves or have lost their self-awareness have no real claim to life. Yet when Alzheimer's struck his mother, he paid for care to prolong and sustain her life. The irony is that an act that does him credit as a son must discredit him among those whose principles about life he claims to share.

To put it another way, while we talk about the clash between God and science, in practice it often comes down to disagreements about man and morals. The boundaries are not always neat. Many Americans who are indifferent to faith will confess they find themselves challenged as they try to raise good and decent children without the religious confidence their parents had. The result may not be a return to religion but a healthy agnosticism about agnosticism itself.

I once had the opportunity to interview one of my heroes, Sidney Hook. This was a man whose commitment to his atheism and secular humanism was beyond question. One example: A doctor saved Mr. Hook's life by going ahead with an operation against Mr. Hook's wishes. Mr. Hook recovered—and promptly published an op-ed taking his doc to task.

It is possible, of course, to imagine a good society in the absence of a belief that man's dignity comes from his being fashioned in God's image. Something of the sort would have been Mr. Hook's ideal. Yet in his writings, the Almighty in whom Mr. Hook did not believe makes an extraordinary, one might say miraculous, number of appearances. When I asked him why he was not more dismissive, Mr. Hook replied that he was never comfortable with the dogmatism of the village atheist.

Perhaps he thought it "a mild form of dementia."

Much of the anti-vaccine hysteria accompanying the current swine flu pandemic seems to be a rebellion against this "scientism."

But we have to recall that modern medicine's roots are in the western culture, and our western culture comes from the Church. Its dangerous ground to tread when we reject much of modern medicine due to the extremes of "scientism."

This has been a personal concern for years, and prompted the following reflections a number of years ago:

Of Medicine, Magic and Original Sin

By Brian J. Kopp, DPM

From The Wanderer National Catholic Weekly, 3-8-2001

With the dawn of the Third Millennium, Western society is experiencing a period of economic prosperity and material wealth that is unequaled in the history of mankind. Americans have a standard of living greater than most men who ever lived. New technologies arise at an astonishing rate, previously untreatable diseases are now not only cured but eradicated, and much physical suffering is being alleviated. With this affluence has come a longer life expectancy, as well as increased rates of previously rare diseases. Unfortunately, an unhealthy obsession with health in general accompanies this affluence, and an uneasy realization is settling over the West. All the promise of our technology, and all the money of our booming economy spent on new treatments and cures, has failed keep pace with our demands. In the back of our collective psyche, it is dawning on the world that all these advances are failing to resolve the basic problem of the suffering and death of man.

In reality, there have truly been enormous advances. Life expectancy climbs steadily, despite the perceived "dangers" of our technological world, from industrial chemicals to pollution, to new sources of ionizing radiation and electromagnetic fields. Life expectancy alone is the best gage of true advance in the life sciences. It’s increase is primarily a result of modern medicine, despite its synthetic and "unnatural" chemicals and techniques, and overall improvement in diet, which has been achieved by farming techniques with heavy dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Yet the public perceives that medicine and science has failed them. They rightfully point out rising cancer rates, increases in heart diseases, drug resistant infections, and new and deadly viruses. As questions build, no true answers are forthcoming, at least from science. Thus, as man’s modern knowledge fails to fulfill its promise of solutions for all the world’s ills, the public is turning, en masse, to alternatives to mainstream medicine and science. If penicillin fails, an herb may help. If chemotherapy fails, acupuncture and meditation and vegetarian diets are embraced.

Much of this "new" medicine comes from the "old" religions. American Indian and Chinese herbology, eastern religious meditation techniques, vegetarian Hindu diets, acupuncture, and a myriad other old healing techniques are "rediscovered," and advanced as an alternative for the failure of modern science to cure all the suffering in the world.

Yet how can the west forget so quickly the roots of western medicine itself? Traditional western medicine has grown alongside traditional western culture. That culture, the culture of Europe, and to a certain degree the Americas, is the culture of the Church that formed it and from which it received its principles of scientific investigation. Those principles are, boiled down to their basics, derived from the rational approaches of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Granted, St. Thomas Aquinas dealt with theology and philosophy. Yet it was Thomistic thought, the rational, reasoned examination of concepts and ideas, from which grew the methods of scientific investigation and by which was discovered the evidence upon which modern western medicine and science is based. The Church was the incubator of the scientific process, and its universities were the seed from which has grown Western scientific thought.

Furthermore, western medicine and science have grown within a fundamentally Catholic understanding of reality. That reality is that God made the created world, along with the Laws of Nature by which it is governed. God, of course, is the infinite omnipresent power in the universe. He also made angels, man, and the lower animals. Demons are fallen angels. All His creation must obey His Laws of Nature, which are described and codified by scientific inquiry, as well as the Natural Law, which is written on our souls, summed up in the Ten commandments and the Great commendment of Jesus Christ, and codified within the sciences of philosophy and theology. Of course, we were created perfect, but disease and death entered the system with the Original Sin of Adam and Eve.

That is a simplistic summary of the reality of our existence, properly understood by science and philosophy and theology. We are created physical bodies, imbued by God with an eternal soul, living a finite Earthly life. We are forced to live according to the Laws of Nature and the Natural Law, and we cope daily with disease and death, the price of sin.

Western medicine grew up with a fundamental understanding of this reality, and works within its finite framework. As such, it examines the body in a rational scientific Jesuitical manner, with its (sometimes limited) understanding of the Laws of Nature, and attempts to apply remedies to the body based on this reality and the diseases present.

There are biochemical, electrical, and other forces acting within the body, any disruption of which can lead to the diseased state. Investigation of disease entails the use of all the sciences, including biology, chemistry, physics, etc. Treatment may be a chemical to restore function to an injured or malfunctioning organ, surgery to remove a diseased organ, vitamins and nutrients to restore proper function, or any of the thousands of treatments available to modern medicine.

They all have, as common denominator, at least an attempt to understand structure and body function through rational scientific thought within the framework of created reality, or in other words, Catholic reality. Even the early herbal remedies of modern western medicine were attempts at treating the body within the realm of reality. If remedies were found to be without merit, they were relegated to the dustbin with the other snake oils of history. As herbal remedies stood up to scientific investigation, the active ingredients were codified, formalized, and purified into the modern medicines we use today.

The failure of Western medicine today is that in its absolute pursuit of human knowledge, it has forgotten the fact of the immortal soul and the effects of Original Sin. It has so formalized itself that the patient has become a case number to be "objectively" evaluated, probed, prodded, sliced, medicated, and placated. Killing unborn babies, to use their cells to cure the current living case number, is the perfect example of the pit into which western medicine has fallen.

It is no wonder then, that men and women are sensing this something that is now missing. Western medicine has divorced itself from this spiritual side in the name of some mistaken "scientific objectivity." Unfortunately, when the patient takes the seemingly logical next step, from a soulless western medicine into the world of alternative, holistic, or eastern medicine, and the admission of the spiritual aspects of man these alternative philosophies embrace, he often steps from the relatively known to the unknown.

For all its failings, western medicine attempts to treat the body using rational scientific concepts. Alternative medicine largely refrains from making any such claims. Instead, remedies are couched in terms of balancing the "powers" within the body, or opening energy channels, or bringing "harmony" within. Anecdotal evidence replaces double-blind, standardized, and reproducible studies. Concepts of healing are drawn from eastern mysticism or ancient spiritualism, or other old world religious traditions such as Wicca and Earth worship, in a belief that "Mother Earth" provides all the cures necessary for the healing of her children. Many common maladies are believed not to be biochemical or genetic errors from a fallen human nature, but an unbalance of energies or powers, or bad karma from a previous life.

The public, in essence, is turning away from science, and returning to that which so much of early man embraced, namely superstition and gnostic paganism. These "new" alternative techniques rarely have scientific basis, but rely on mystical interpretations of the body and soul which are inherently foreign to the Catholic understanding of reality.

Despite the dangers and traps of western science noted above, these "powers" or "energies" of the body, which form the fundamental basis of these alternative remedies and techniques, still must be examined objectively. Are they "real?" Do they indeed exist? Can they be quantified or measured? If not, why? Are they part of that Nature God created? Of course, if they do exist, they must be made to "fit" into the realm of God’s creation, best understood by western philosophy and theology.

However, our western understanding of God’s creation has no place for powers or energies freely floating around for us to tap into, use and manipulate. Western tradition has a simple word for the tapping into and manipulation of energies or life forces. That word is "Magic." Magic, in the western Christian world view, is a forbidden art.

God did not make energies freely floating around into which we may tap and which we may manipulate by our will, like some cosmic Star Wars "Force." Any religion or "medicine" that promises its adherents such power is a dishonest or sinister one, for such is forbidden by God. Such "knowledge" is Gnostic, or forbidden or hidden knowledge, and it is antithetical to Christian belief.

What of so-called healings brought about by practitioners of eastern or New Age mysticism based medicine? Are there other "powers" by which we may be healed? The only force or power in the universe is the power of God. We are not permitted to attempt to conjure up God’s power by herbs, potions, incantations, yoga, "Healing Touch," Reiki, or any other technique.

We can indeed use intercessory prayer to ask God for true healing by His power. Saints have done so. Jesus our Lord healed multitudes by His power. Angels are credited with healings in Scripture, but only through God’s power.

However, we cannot conjure up God by an act of our own will or by ritual or incantation or transcendental meditation. Therefore, in the Catholic understanding of reality, these healings can at best only come from forces which God never intended us to understand or attempt to manipulate. Two thousand years of Christian thought and proper scientific investigation have not revealed any such powers. At worst, and more likely, they come from demonic forces, and magic is always and only the conjuring of demonic forces. Even when a "cure" is documented in alternative methods, the nagging question remains, "What profit it a man to gain the whole world yet lose his Eternal soul?"

For the typical individual who walks into a local alternative medicine shop, the herbal remedies they sell are not likely to open him up to demonic influence. However, the attraction of further advance into these gnostic healing arts that are the next logical step are hard to ignore. Power over physical reality, even the reality of our fallen physical nature, even if pursued to help and heal, is not a power to be grasped at by Christians. It is another attractive yet forbidden fruit so very much like that first one of which Adam and Eve tasted.

In western medicine, the patient has become naked to science, and their personhood is often run over roughshod. In an industry called "health care," they are no longer a face and a name and there may be very little care at all. In leaving behind this fundamental truth, that a patient is a human created in the image and likeness of God with innate dignity and that the end simply does not justify the means, western medicine has lost its roots and its soul.

So has western society and culture. Both have walked away from the Church that raised both from infancy, and still offers the only true hope for modern medicine and the culture at large. What is the solution to this malaise that has taken over the mind of modern man, this obsession with health and healing?

The root problem is a fundamental fear of death. Disease is simply a stage on the road to that death introduced by original sin. So man must come to terms with his own death. All the chemical compounds of all the plants of the world will never provide a cure for original sin, and therefore, disease will always be present. The sooner modern man grasps this reality, including the men and woman of science and medicine, the sooner man will truly be healthy in body and soul.

This can only come with a return to that concrete reality that tells us that God exists, He made us, and because of Original Sin and our sin, we must suffer and eventually die. The reality is that the only "cure" from this suffering and death is the embrace of the Cross, and the Savior who hung there and died for us. This reality must be proclaimed by all who would seek to heal his fellow man and himself. The cure is the Good News, and the sooner modern man takes His medicine, the sooner our world will be truly Healed.

Quick summary on flu vaccines and evidence based treatment alternatives for pandemic influenza

2009-10-13T00:01:00.003-04:00

In my opinion, one of the best summaries of pandemic influenza issues, and the gold standard for information on evidence based treatment alternatives for pandemic influenza characterized by cytokinemia (cytokine storm) is David Fedson MD's paper in the 12 Jun 2009 edition of the journal Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses titled Confronting the next influenza pandemic with anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory agents: why they are needed and how they might work :

"...if a pandemic virus should emerge within the next few years, the world would have to depend on a limited supply of egg-based inactivated vaccines.
Two years ago it was estimated that all of the world's influenza vaccine companies could produce in a 6-month period (i.e., approximately 9 months after the emergence of the pandemic virus) enough doses of a new pandemic vaccine to vaccinate with two doses approximately 750 million people.^11,12 More recently, a report sponsored by the World Health Organization in collaboration with virtually all influenza vaccine companies estimated that 6 months after the emergence of a new pandemic virus, the companies could produce 860 million doses of vaccine.¹³ These numbers are similar to the number of people living in the nine countries that produce almost all of the world's seasonal influenza vaccines. During these early months, the pandemic virus will probably have already spread throughout the world.

Currently, there is no logistical plan for distributing supplies of pandemic vaccines to the 'have not' countries that will not be able to produce them.^11,12 These countries are home to approximately 88% of the world's population. In all likelihood, people in these countries will not be able to obtain meaningful supplies of pandemic vaccines or they will get them too late.

Many health officials have placed their hopes on stockpiles of antiviral agents.^11,14,15 Recently, however, resistance to the most widely stockpiled agent – oseltamivir (Tamiflu^®)– has emerged in seasonal influenza viruses, and there is concern now that similar resistance could develop in a future pandemic virus. More important, current government stockpiles of Tamiflu in 'have not' countries would be sufficient to treat approximately 1% of the people who live in these countries (DS Fedson, unpublished data). At a scientific meeting held in Singapore in early 2008, investigators reported that among people in Indonesia who had been infected with the H5N1 virus, 33/33 (100%) of those who received no antiviral treatment died.¹⁵ This observation is terrifying: if this virus develops efficient human-to-human transmissibility and very few people have access to an effective antiviral agent, we could see a global population collapse. The possibility that this could occur was shown unequivocally in an experimental study published 35 years ago.^15,16

Our current 'top down' approach to confronting a newly emergent pandemic virus is based solely on developing and producing vaccines and antiviral agents. It relies on the decisions of relatively small groups of elite influenza scientists, national and international health officials and company executives.^14,15 As such, this process has been slow and difficult to manage. Despite best efforts, most of the world's people will not have timely access to effective and affordable pandemic vaccines and antiviral agents. Instead, they will have to rely on 19th century public health 'technologies' to see them through. In the 21st century, scientists ought to be able to provide something better, especially as the consequences of not doing so could be disastrous.

This review will suggest ways in which 21st century science could be harnessed to provide new ways of confronting the next influenza pandemic. It will not cover the extraordinary developments in our understanding of the influenza virus itself, the cell signaling events that govern its replication and determine its virulence, or the intricacies of its effects on the humoral and cell-mediated immunity; all issues covered at length in recent reviews.^2–7 Instead, it will draw on lessons that can be learned from the 1918 pandemic and review selectively new information on the host response to infectious and non-infectious challenges that often result in multi-organ failure and death. It will discuss recent studies of experimental influenza and the host response and suggest ways in which currently available agents might be used to manage the next global pandemic.

Based on phone and email discussions with Dr. Fedson and others, I have believed and stated for some time that pandemic vaccines will not be available for the vast majority of Americans (unless adjuvants are added) prior to early 2010.

I've also said consistently that if the pandemic remains a mild infection, the vaccine debate is a moot point, because vaccination would not be necessary. If the pandemic turns deadly, the best hope for survival is an effective safe vaccine. 20 to 50 million people died in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. If this current pandemic were to become that virulent, I would have a moral obligation to get my family vaccinated unless I had a moral certainty the vaccine was dangerous.

The vaccine at worst might be as "dangerous" as the 1976 vaccine. In 1976, over 40 million were vaccinated, 500 got GBS, and 25 died.

In the current pandemic, approx 150 children have died in the USA alone, and over 6000 people have died worldwide. This pandemic has already surpassed in virulence any threat posed by foreseeable complications from a swine flu vaccine.

The current swine flu vaccine is simply the seasonal vaccine with the three seasonal strain flu antigens removed and the swine H1N1 antigen put in instead. The seasonal vaccine is exceptionally safe. Here's a summary by Dr. Nimam from a thread on the Rhiza forum debunking the rumors about deaths on a Navy ship following flu vaccinations:

...here is the real deal on the pandemic vaccine. Vaccine safety is definitely NOT my area of expertise, but the pandemic vaccine is a NO BRAINER. It is made the same way as the seasonal flu vaccine, but has ONE target instead of THREE. It is constructed the same way as new targets are constructed almost EVERY YEAR by vaccine companies. It has the same six carrier genes with H and N targets added. For the pandemic vaccine, the H and N come from one of the first cases in southern California. The child had a mild case and the target was identified in April (A/California/7/2009). Like the seasonal flu, the virus is grow in eggs, purified, and killed. There is NO adjuvent and the US government has bought 250 million doses. It is FREE (although some Drs or retailers may change an administrative fee of something like $10-$25).

The seasonal flu has been made this way for years. You can walk into a Walgreens drug store and get the seasonal flu shot today. In Pittsburgh you can get a shot at the SUPERMARKET!

The virus is DEAD. The vaccine is used in RETIREMENT homes in people that are 80 and 90 years old with SERIOUS chronic medical problems. It is given to children and pregnant women. It cost $20-$25 and is NO big deal!

I get a shot every year and have had NO ill effects. I have six children who have received the shot with NO ill effects. The first time the youngest got the shot (she was under 10), she got TWO shots, three weeks apart. There was NO problem. There also has been NO real controversy on the safety front. Some may argue that it works better in healthy children and adults than those over 65 who are most vulnerable, but no one is saying that the vaccine is creating serious adverse effects.

I am not an MD and am not directing anyone to get a seasonal or pandemic flu shot, but I haven't seen any good reason for not (other than those who have egg allergies or have some issue that precludes getting a seasonal flu shot), internet babble notwithstanding.

There is no valid evidence whatsoever that the swine vaccine being offered in the USA is unsafe, or that it contains adjuvants. The multi-dose vials do contain thimerosol, but that is another debate.

The single dose swine flu vaccines and the nasal mist vaccines do not contain thimerosol or adjuvants -- so what is the basis of all this hysteria?!?

Due to a history of heart disease, diabetes, and asthma, my primary care physician recently recommended I get the seasonal flu vaccine. I have only received the seasonal flu vaccine once in my life, about 8 years ago, and I still got a bad case of the flu.

But I have a moral responsibility to my wife and children to do everything possible to safeguard my own health, so I received the seasonal flu vaccine last Thursday.

As long as I can discern no changes between this seasonal flu vaccine and the swine flu vaccine, I can see no reason whatsoever to oppose it, and I can find no logical, reasonable, scientific grounds on which this anti-swine flu vaccine hysteria is grounded.

Regardless, though I'm in the highest risk population with good connections, I couldn't get a swine flu vaccine right now even if I did want it. Its not available to me, and won't be for the foreseeable future.

So the theories Dr. Fedson mentioned in our interview are all the more important today.

Finally, from a pro-life perspective:

New H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccines Don't Rely on Cells From Babies Killed in Abortion

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 21, 2009

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A pro-life group that monitors vaccinations is pleased to report that the new H1N1 swine flu vaccines the federal government will be distributing next month do not rely on cells from babies killed in abortions. Other vaccinations have been condemned for relying on such cells to formulate the vaccines.

Children of God for Life tells LifeNews.com that four new H1N1 (swine flu) vaccines approved late last week by the FDA do not use aborted fetal cell lines

The four vaccines are made by Sanofi Pasteur, Novartis, CSL and Medimmune and all are using eggs from baby chickens instead of cells from humans.

"We are pleased that the pharmaceutical companies have chosen these cell lines for this year's H1N1 vaccines," Debi Vinnedge, the group's director, told LifeNews.com. "There are enough concerns about public health and safety without compounding the problems with moral issues."

Vinnedge noted that there are two methods of possibly producing flu and H1N1 vaccines: chick embryo or cell culture.

Chick embryo is the standard method that has been used to produce all flu vaccines for several years, she says. The problem with this method is that every time a new batch of vaccines is needed, fresh eggs must be used, making it more difficult to get vaccines to the market in a timely manner for the flu season each year.

Because of this, the pharmaceutical industry has been working on a method that would speed development and processing time by using an established cell culture. Unlike chick embryo, cell lines are developed, FDA approved and then frozen for future use so production time is considerably shorter.

Several pharmaceutical companies such as Medimmune, Protein Science and Novavax are developing these future flu vaccines using a moral cell culture, such as MDCK or insect cells. But some manufacturers like Sanofi Pasteur and Vaxin are developing their cell culture vaccines using aborted fetal cell line, PER C6.

"It is completely unnecessary to use aborted fetal cell lines," said Vinnedge.

"If these companies truly cared about the health of the public they would take into consideration the moral concerns of millions of families who are going to refuse their products," she continued.

Vinnedge has been keeping a close watch on the cell culture process and early clinical trials show the morally produced vaccines may hit the market first -- a welcome relief for both parents and medical professionals who have been urging the industry to use ethically produced cell lines.

Earlier this year, the FDA also approved regular flu vaccines for the 2009-2010 season, which likewise are morally produced on chick eggs.

The pro-life advocate noted that if the Centers for Disease Control and FDA want to ensure as many people as possible receive these future vaccines, it would be wise to encourage the drug companies to use moral cell lines.

"There is no reason why anyone should have to compromise the health and safety of their families because of their deeply held moral and religious beliefs," Vinnedge stated. "It's high time our government and the pharmaceutical industry start listening to the public."

Related web sites:
Children of God for Life - http://www.cogforlife.org

Disinformation: "Live virus in the nasal spray vaccine will cause a pandemic"

2009-10-12T18:56:00.002-04:00

There was a hysterical post on http://www.examiner.com that has since been removed, titled Terminator as Vaccinator: CA gov 'aggressive' EO just before live virus mist vax spreads disease. It has been archived and debunked at the Rhiza FluTracker forum.

The article claimed that

California officials and health workers began spreading the H1N1 flu yesterday by administering the dangerous, experimental, live virus nasal spray vaccine to people. KPCC Southern California Radio reports that by the end of the month, 1.3 million doses of the live virus nasal mist will be in the state, enough to possibly spread the virus well enough to cause a crisis and warrant the declared state emergency.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's issuance of Executive Order S-22-09 (EO) Tuesday to support and facilitate "California's aggressive approach to addressing the H1N1 flu virus known as the swine flu" came three days before the nasal mist H1N1 flu vaccine arrived in the state that is predicted to cause a genuine outbreak.

The H1N1 flu has not been serious or virulent according to CDC reports only days ago. Due to the live virus in the nasal spray, however, people who get this first vaccine type will be contagious and are expected to start a real pandemic. This is being reported by intellectually honest health experts, with no vested interest in the lucrative drug industry, who do not fear losing a job or ruining a career for telling the truth.

Some doctors have ben threatened with such reprisal if they tell patients the truth about this H1N1 'swine flu' vaccine operation.

Will people who are contagious by taking the dangerous live virus into their bodies with the mist vaccine remain isolated from to other people to ensure not spreading th disease? Probably not. Vaccinated individuals are not being readily provided with this advice. It is not included in the governor's advice below.

Fortunately, that was patently false. As one of the admins (a physician) at the Rhiza forum explained:

The injected vaccine cannot cause a case of the flu, since it contains no live virus. The live nasal mist vaccine contains live virus, but the virus ISN'T H1N1. It's a different strain that's cold-adapted and attenuated but has the antigenic parts of H1N1 attached to it. Although people are very unlikely to develop a clinical syndrome from the vaccine, if such a case were somehow to occur, it would be within 1 week of vaccination and be distinguishable by testing from pandemic H1N1.

...

MS4920 -- Thanks for posting this article. It gave me the perfect excuse to spend a while learning more specifics on how the LAIV (live attenuated influenza vaccine) is produced. Most people will not have any idea about that, so unfortunately, Deborah Dupre's article will most probably be taken seriously and scare them when it should be laughed at...After reading it, it's apparent Deborah doesn't have the first clue what the heck she is talking about.

Here's a little science to go with all the paranoia...unlike Deborah, I'm going to quote primary sources and research studies to back up my points, not simply make scary, unsubstantiated assertions...

Quote:
Dupre's statement: "California officials and health workers began spreading the H1N1 flu yesterday by administering the dangerous, experimental, live virus nasal spray vaccine to people.

Reality: The live attenuated vaccine doesn't even have the pandemic H1N1 strain in it. It has a different flu virus, called a master strain, to which only 2 genes from the pandemic strain have been added. The other 6 genes --flu viruses have 8 genetic segments -- are from an entirely different strain of flu A, one that has been around for years, one that has been modified to grow at room temperature but NOT at the temperature of the human body. Thus, it is patently impossible for genuine pandemic swine H1N1 flu to be spread by the live attenuated virus vaccine. If anything gets transmitted, which we'll get to in a moment, it will be a 6/2 reassortment virus containing 6 non-pandemic flu segments and 2 swine flu segments. From the Journal of Clinical Microbiology:

"The vaccine viruses are 6/2 reassortants, in which the hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) genes are derived from the circulating wild-type viruses and the remaining six genes are derived from the cold-adapted master donor strains. The six genes from the cold-adapted master donor strains ensure the attenuation, and the HA and NA genes from the wild-type viruses confer the ability to induce protective immunity against contemporary influenza strains.

The FluMist vaccine appeared to be genotypically stable after replication in the human host. All viruses detected during the 2-week postvaccination period were shed vaccine viruses and had maintained the 6/2 genotype."

http://jcm.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/38/2/839?ijkey=89d5b9eea18d23d82bba502733ef37f0fb6cc9f8&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha

So, Debby didn't even do the most basic of homework...identifying what strain is/isn't in the vaccine...

Quote:
Due to the live virus in the nasal spray, however, people who get this first vaccine type will be contagious and are expected to start a real pandemic.

Reality: The only people "expecting" vaccinated individuals to start a "real pandemic" are those who don't know squat about the live vaccine or about the current ongoing pandemic. Taking the latter assertion first, most people educated on the subject know that an actual, real pandemic started in the spring and is now in its second wave of infections here in the US. Now, I can understand Ms. Dupre having missed that if she doesn't watch the news or read, but the rest of us are clued in.

As for being "contagious" and starting a pandemic, Ms. Dupre mixes up vaccine virus shedding with "contagiousness" for swine flu. It is true that about 80% of people shed the vaccine's virus after getting the live vaccine, but untrue that anyone sheds pandemic H1N1. This virus, again, isn't pandemic H1N1 but only has 2 bits of it, the antigenic parts of the pandemic strain, the parts you want the immune system to be able to recognize and fight (see Point 1 above).

In most cases, the shedding of the vaccine virus isn't at a level that results in human-to-human transmission of the vaccine virus to another person. If the vaccine virus did get transmitted, it's the equivalent of a second person having unwittingly gotten a free vaccine when they didn't know they had. I can see why Ms. Dupre, with all her vaccine paranoia, might find THAT unnerving! So, vaccine virus shedding could potentially result in people being immunized via indirect vaccination, but not in more people getting cases of swine influenza.

If Deborah had taken the time to learn even a smidgen about the LAIV, she'd know this. So, she's either clueless or lying. You decide.
Quote:
Will people who are contagious by taking the dangerous live virus into their bodies with the mist vaccine remain isolated from to other people to ensure not spreading th disease? Probably not. Vaccinated individuals are not being readily provided with this advice.

Reality: Maybe people aren't being advised about this because the vaccine doesn’t actually contain any “dangerous” pandemic virus.
Now, Deborah probably doesn't know anything about what it would take for the vaccine virus to actually become dangerous to someone. So, let me provide some info...

With any live vaccine virus, there is a possibility of genetic reversion to wild type. That is, there is a possibility of mutations occurring that will make the virus lose its attenuated, cold-adapted state and become, once again, a wild type flu virus capable of causing an actual case of disease in the vaccinee. For polio live vaccine, a single point mutation will result in reversion to wild type. Though this isn't frequent, it does happen. For OPV, it happened about once in every 750,000 vaccinations. That's precisely why the live polio vaccine is no longer used in the US.

The key here is how often would a wild type reversion be expected with the live flu vaccine? Unlike with the polio vaccine, in order for the nasal flu vaccine virus to revert to an ability to grow at human body temperature and cause disease, multiple genes would have to undergo mutation. In fact, there would need to be 4-5 separate/distinct mutations at multiple different gene loci in the same person for this virus to revert to wild-type influenza and cause the person to get the flu. Four to five specific spontaneous mutations occurring in the same individual is way less than very unlikely.

How unlikely, you ask? Well, that’s actually been calculated. A single mutation occurs spontaneously .00001 of the time. For 4 or 5 different mutations to all occur together, you’d have:

.00001 x .00001 x .00001 x .00001 (x .00001) = 10 to the -20th to -25th power.

In other words, the necessary 4 or 5 back-reversions will occur in about 1 out of every 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 vaccinations performed. To put this number into perspective, there are 6,700,000,000 people alive on this planet right now. Statistically, you'd have to vaccinate the entire world population almost 3 times each to expect to see a SINGLE back-reversion to wild type virus and resultant case of vaccine-reversion flu. Is this rarity supported in the scientific literature? Yup, it sure is. In fact, in 20 years of testing, not a single wild-type reversion has been identified:

"In multiple studies conducted over 20 years, no reversion of the LAIV strains to a virulent phenotype in vaccine recipients has been detected."

http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics%3B113/5/1441

"Many myths and misperceptions about the vaccine exist, foremost among them the myth of genetic reversion. Independent mutation in 4 gene segments would be required for reversion of the vaccine strain of influenza virus to a wild type, an unlikely and as yet unobserved event. Although shedding of vaccine virus is common, transmission of vaccine virus has been documented only in a single person, who remained asymptomatic."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18174020

Other citations:

Belshe R. A review of attenuation of influenza viruses by genetic manipulation. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 1995;152(4 Pt 2) :S72 –S75

Cha TA, Kao K, Zhao J, Fast PE, Mendelman PM, Arvin A. Genotypic stability of cold-adapted influenza virus vaccine in an efficacy clinical trial. J Clin Microbiol. 2000;38 :839 –845

Quote:
Some doctors have ben threatened with such reprisal if they tell patients the truth about this H1N1 'swine flu' vaccine operation.

A vague assertion without any substantiation details that can be verified. Who specifically does Debby claim has been threatened? How? For saying what? Why doesn't Ms. Dupre provide any details? Is she afraid the story won’t check out as being true? This would certainly be pertinent info to bolster her case, if it were true. So its absence is telling. Also interesting to note that she doesn’t believe swine flu is real, since she felt the need to put scare quotes around the name and the word 'real' at several points in the article. Not a good sign. On top of that, Ms. Dupre just LOVES loaded language, one of the 4 cardinal signs for distinguishing propaganda from news. Her piece clearly is the former.

Quote:
This is being reported by intellectually honest health experts, with no vested interest in the lucrative drug industry

Like who? Deborah clearly has a vested interest. In fact, she explicitly hawks her own products at the bottom of the piece. She personally isn't an expert. Far from it. So, she's not talking about herself. She'd fail on both points. So who IS she talking about here? Deborah doesn’t cite a single alleged “intellectually honest health experts” who agrees with her, but she does insinuate that scientists who disagree are somehow not intellectually honest and/or are shills for Big Pharma. That’s a propaganda technique called Poisoning the Well used to distract attention from failure to provide substantiating evidence for her own position. Ironically, Deborah cites Goebbels at the beginning of her piece. It's interesting to note her use of multiple propaganda techniques that he favored throughout her article. If he were alive, he'd give her a pat on the shoulder and an attagirl.

Manufacturer	Bulk Vaccine Antigen	Oil-In-Water Bulk Adjuvant
Novartis	$150 million	$139 million
GlaxoSmithKline	$ 38 million	$144 million
Sanofi Pasteur	$191 million
CSL Biotherapies	$180 million
MedImmune	$ 90 million
Total	$649 million	$283 million

Manufacturer	Bulk Vaccine Antigen	Bulk Virus Concentrate/FFF	Oil-In-Water Bulk Adjuvant
Sanofi Pasteur	$61,425,000	0	0
GSK	$0	0	$71,400,000
Novartis	$346,334,450	0	$343,810,470
CSL	$0	0	0
MedImmune	$0	$61,008,000	0
Total	$407,759,450	$61,008,000	$415,210,470

Manufacturer	Total Cost
MedImmune	$295,660,000
Sanofi Pasteur	$143,483,025
Total	$438,143,025