Baxter, same company that unleashed tainted avian flu vaccines, recalls 300,000 flu vaccines for serious adverse reactions

(NaturalNews) Baxter Healthcare Corp. has announced it is recalling roughly 300,000 doses of its Preflucel influenza vaccine due to what it says is an excessive number of adverse events. Baxter is the same drug company that was caught inserting Avian Flu Virus into flu vaccines back in 2009 (http://www.naturalnews.com/025760.html). The UK’s Daily Mail reports that a high number of individuals injected with an apparently tainted batch of Preflucel have been reporting side effects like fatigue, muscle pain, and headaches. The vaccine, which was crafted specifically for those with egg allergies, has only been in use since March when it was first approved for use in the UK. “The vaccine is being recalled because these side effects have been reported more frequently with this specific batch,” said a Baxter spokesmen. This spokesman also attempted to reassure the public that those who have already been vaccinated with Preflucel “should not be concerned (for their safety).” At the same time, however, Baxter has instructed healthcare providers not to administer any more Preflucel, no matter what batch it came from, to patients. And since this announcement, many European countries where the vaccine was distributed have ceased using it, and have instead switched to various alternatives. “[Preflucel] should no longer be used and any remaining stock [of the recalled batches] should be returned to the original supplier for credit,” announced the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. “No further Preflucel of any batch should be administered at this time.” Conveniently for Baxter, no further information has been provided to the public as to what might be the cause of the uptick in adverse reactions. And if the vaccine is so harmful that the company has decided to recall several hundred thousand doses of it and cease all further administration of it, how can officials say that those who have already been injected with it are safe? The 2009 scandal involving the US division of Baxter essentially exposed the company as a purveyor of biological terrorism. After all, the company’s Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3) facility where the tainted vaccine was produced would have prevented unintentional contamination, which implies an intentional conspiracy (http://www.naturalnews.com/025760.html). So what dirty little secret might Baxter be trying to hide with its current recall? Sources for this article include: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2054160/300-000-doses-flu-vaccine-Preflucel-withdrawn-alert-effects.html

CDC advisory panel declares that young boys should be vaccinated against HPV, cervical cancer

(NaturalNews) In a shocking display of utter corruption and ignorance, a US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory committee has officially declared that young boys and men between the ages of 11 and 21 should be vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV), the viral infection supposedly linked to causing cervical cancer in women. Despite the fact that males do not even have a cervix, 12 of the 14 CDC committee members decided that vaccinating boys as young as nine against the virus is still a good idea. And in a separate vote, the majority of the committee members also decided that men as old as 26 should be vaccinated against HPV as well, which encompasses practically all young men. The decision is founded in the CDC’s belief that Merck and Co.’s Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) Cervarix, the two vaccines approved for HPV, also help to prevent genital warts and various types of cancers in males. Such claims, though, have never actually been proven. The studies used as proof are skewed, and all of them were funded by the vaccine manufacturers. There really is no solid medical proof that either Gardasil or Cervarix prevent HPV infections, cancer, or the transmission of HPV from men to women, as proponents of the vaccines claim. “Though about 40 other countries have approved the vaccine (Gardasil) for males, there is still no medical proof Gardasil prevents penile cancer or other HPV-associated cancers in men,” says an Associated Press (AP) report from 2008. “There also is no evidence the vaccine prevents the spread of HPV from men to women” (http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2008/11/study_mercks_gardasil_may_prev.html). But the CDC advisory committee cannot let the facts get in the way of the pro-HPV vaccine agenda. A recent CNN report on the announcement even admits that the sudden push to vaccinate boys against HPV has little to do with actually stopping the spread of disease, and everything to do with getting as many people vaccinated as possible. “One reason for the push now is that girls aren’t getting vaccinated in the numbers doctors had expected,” says the report. And the reason girls are not getting vaccinated is because HPV vaccines are linked to a host of very serious and deadly side effects, and have never been proven to be effective at preventing or treating anything (http://www.naturalnews.com/Gardasil.html). To learn more about the dangers of Gardasil, visit: http://sanevax.org/ Sources for this article include: http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/25/health/hpv-vaccine/index.html

Siemens abandons nuclear energy in favor of renewable following Fukushima disaster

(NaturalNews) A major, long-time player in the nuclear technology industry, Germany-based Siemens has announced that it is leaving the nuclear energy business for good. Citing “German society and politics clear position on ending nuclear energy,” Siemens CEO Peter Loscher also referenced the ongoing Fukushima disaster in Japan as another reason why his company is switching to safer, more renewable technologies like wind and solar. “The chapter is closed for us,” Loscher is quoted as saying in Spiegel Online , concerning the company’s withdrawal from the nuclear industry. “We will no longer be involved in managing the building or financing of nuclear parts.” Siemens is a large producer of mechanical parts and other materials used in nuclear and other energy industries. The company has also been involved in the production of all nuclear reactors currently operating in Germany, having even made joint plans with Russia-based nuclear firm Rosatom not too long ago to build 400 more nuclear reactors by 2030. But those plans have now been officially scrapped. While the announcement may initially come as a surprise to some, it actually makes good sense in light of the country’s long-range nuclear plans. Shortly after the 9.0+ mega-earthquake and resultant tsunami struck Japan back in March, German Chancellor Angel Merkel announced that her country would be shutting down all of its nuclear plants by 2022 (http://www.naturalnews.com/031831_Germany_nuclear_energy.html). “Germany’s shift towards renewable energies is the project of the century,” added Loscher, noting that his company will continue to produce some of the same components it always has, many of which have dual uses in both the nuclear and non-nuclear energy industries. But at the same time, it will be expanding operations in anticipation of Germany’s 2020 energy goals, which include deriving 35 percent of its energy production from renewable sources by that time. Meanwhile, the German government is currently facing legal backlash for its implementation of a federal tax on nuclear fuel rods, a move that many allege is unconstitutional. And others are challenging the legality of even shutting down Germany’s nuclear plants in the first place (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/19/germany-faces-backlash-from-closing-nuclear-plants/). Sources for this story include: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,787020,00.html

US says dropping bombs is not war, but guessing a computer password is

(NaturalNews) The US government sure has an interesting way of defining war these days. Just a few months after the Obama administration played word games with the public by insisting that air strikes in Libya were just “kinetic military action,” not acts of war, the Pentagon has now come on the record stating that it will treat all acts of cyber-hacking against the US as “acts of war.” The announcement came on the heels of a supposed cyber-attack that occurred a few weeks ago against defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Officials say when hacking incidents like this occur in the future, retaliation in the form of reverse cyber-attacks, economic sanctions, and even “military strike[s]” may take place. “A response to a cyber-incident or attack on the US would not necessarily be a cyber-response,” said Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman. “All appropriate options would be on the table.” A White House statement also said the US plans to “respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would to any other threat to our country,” implying that computer hackers could soon face retaliatory attacks by the US military. So when the US decides to invade foreign nations, often times without necessary congressional approval, it is just a simple act of exerting kinetic energy. But when a computer hacker correctly guesses a password and breaches the security protocols of the US government or one of its contracted companies, this is an act of war. And so it goes in the arbitrary world of the military-industrial complex, where definitions of war are applied only when it benefits the corporate oligarchy. In truth, this latest cyber fear mongering out of the Pentagon is just another excuse for those running the US government to widen the scope of those it considers to be terrorists and enemies of the state. And now that the announcement has been made, you can expect to hear about many more “cyber-attacks” that will predicate convenient excuses to launch new kinetic military actions against nations, groups, and perhaps even fellow American citizens. Sources for this story include: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13614125

TEPCO: Fukushima nuclear meltdown actually occurred just 16 hours after earthquake, more meltdowns on the way

(NaturalNews) The truth has finally come out, as officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) now admit that fuel in Reactor 1 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex melted just 16 hours after the devastating earthquake and tsunami hit the area on March 11, 2011. When asked why it took more than two months to reveal this critical information, TEPCO officials claim that a lack of data left the company unaware of the core’s true condition until only recently — and new reports indicate that other meltdowns could soon follow. According to a recent report from The Mainichi Daily News (MDN) in Japan, TEPCO officials recently announced that, based on new data, water levels in the pressure vessel at Reactor 1 began to drop rapidly within just a few hours after losing power at 3:30 pm on March 11. By 7:30 pm, fuel was fully exposed, and by 9 pm, reactor core temperatures reached an astounding 2,800 degrees Celsius, or 5,072 degrees Fahrenheit. And by 6:50 am the next morning, a full meltdown occurred (http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110516p2a00m0na028000c.html). So for all the time that electric power was out in multiple reactors, causing the cooling systems to fail, and during the months after it was widely known that water levels were consistently dropping in Reactor 4 due to leaks, TEPCO played the ignorance card, acting as though it had no idea how serious the situation at the plant actually was. Surely the company must know, even without access to a detailed analysis, that when cooling systems fail and fuel rods become fully exposed, a meltdown is sure to follow — even regular folks with no background in nuclear technology can put two-and-two together to figure that one out. But apparently TEPCO thinks it can keep playing dumb, and that the world will simply believe whatever it says. This new revelation, however, proves that the company is greatly underestimating the fallout from the situation at best, and deliberately hiding the truth at worst. Either way, the situation is far more dire than we have all been led to believe. “[TEPCO] could have assumed that when the loss of power made it impossible to cool down the reactor, it would soon lead to a meltdown of the core,” said Hiroaki Koide, professor of nuclear safety engineering at Kyoto University, to MDN. “TEPCO’s persistent explanation that the damage to the fuel had been limited turned out to be wrong.” And shortly after the announcement about Reactor 1, The Telegraph reported that two more Fukushima reactors may soon suffer a meltdown as well. Efforts to cool fuel in Reactors 2 and 3 have failed, and experts say that if the reactors cores have not already melted, they soon will (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8517861/Japan-meltdown-feared-at-two-more-Fukushima-reactors.html).

NC bill to criminalize natural medicine delayed: Call and oppose NOW

(NaturalNews) Yesterday, NaturalNews made an important announcement about a rogue bill in North Carolina that threatens to criminalize the practice of unapproved forms of alternative medicine, and we urged our readers to immediately call and oppose it. Thanks in part to your quick action on the matter, Senate Bill 31 (SB 31) has once again been delayed for a vote, this time until tonight — which means now is the time to continue flooding the legislature with calls of opposition. In case you missed it, SB 31 is a bill that was filed in early February as a type of clarification to existing North Carolina law concerning the “unauthorized practice of medicine.” If passed, the bill will reclassify those who practice unapproved forms of natural and alternative medicine as Class I felons, which threatens a large number of practitioners who are not officially licensed by the state to do the work they do, with being put out of business (http://www.naturalnews.com/031953_medical_practice_licensing.html). Few in the natural health community were even aware of the existence of SB 31 until just recently when the original NC House discussion and vote on the bill was to take place on March 31. That first vote ended up getting delayed until the evening of April 4, just hours after we made the announcement to our readers to call and oppose it. As of this morning, the NC House is now planning to debate and vote on SB 31 this evening (http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2011%20%20&BillID=s31). You can read our first announcement about SB 31 here: http://www.naturalnews.com/031953_medical_practice_licensing.html You can also read an actual copy of SB 31 here: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2011/Bills/Senate/PDF/S31v2.pdf This is a crucial time to continue hammering the NC legislature with opposition to SB 31, as the push-back seems to have made an impact in delaying the vote. NC lawmakers appear to be catching on to the fact that the public is aware of their scheme, and perhaps they are now reconsidering the repercussions of supporting a piece of legislation that is clearly not in the best interest of North Carolinians, or the millions of Americans that stand to be impacted by the negative precedent this bill will set. If you live in North Carolina, you can find contact information for your appropriate Congressmen by clicking the following link: http://www.ncleg.net/GIS/RandR07/Representation.html Once there, you can find your representatives by selecting your district, or by inputting your county our zip code. And even if you do not live in North Carolina, you can still help oppose the bill by calling the NC General Assembly line at (919) 733-7928 and expressing opposition. You can also reach NC Governor Bev Perdue’s Raleigh office by calling (919) 733-4240. Be sure to call as soon as possible as the hearing and vote is set for some time today . And once again, be respectful and clear in presenting your case. Explain that SB 31 threatens to further erode health freedom by turning many honest alternative health practitioners into criminals. The bill also threatens to set a dangerous precedent of intolerance for those who practice outside the officially-approved government medical paradigm. And be sure to urge support for the Consumer Health Freedom Act (http://www.ncchf.org/2011/03/29/opposition-to-sb31-action-alert/).

With Pelosi out, incoming House Speaker John Boehner promises to repeal Obamacare

(NaturalNews) It didn’t take long for this announcement to emerge: Following the sweeping victory by Republicans who will soon control a majority of the House of Representatives, the upcoming Speaker of the House, Rep John Boehner, promises to repeal Obamacare. In a news conference held today, Rep Boehner said: “I believe that the healthcare bill that was enacted by the current Congress will kill jobs in America, ruin the best healthcare system in the world, and bankrupt our country. …That means we have to do everything we can to try to repeal this bill and replace it with common sense reforms to bring down the cost of health care.” If only it were that simple… Before you get too excited about this, just remember that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats actually support disease prevention, health freedom or free speech for natural product manufacturers . They are both heavily vested in pharmaceutical interests, and they both owe big favors to the drug companies that funded their campaigns and put them in power (http://www.naturalnews.com/030271_elections_health_care.html). Repealing Obama’s health care reforms is in no way going to transform America’s health care system into one based on nutrition and true disease prevention. The Republican model of health care merely has private insurers dominating the sick-care landscape rather than the federal government running the show. Democrats deliver government-run sickness and disease , in other words, while Republicans deliver privately-run sickness and disease . Nothing really changes in all this except where you send your checks to pay for sick-care insurance. What we truly need in America today, obviously, is a health care revolution based on health freedom, nutrition education, holistic health practitioners and an end to FDA tyranny. I very much doubt Rep John Boehner has any intention of tackling those issues. These are the kind of changes that will require a revamping of the entire system, not just playing shell games with who pays for disease.

Four years after Clinton’s victory over sugary drinks in public schools, they’re more widely available than ever

(NaturalNews) It was only four years ago that, with much fanfare, former President Bill Clinton announced the Alliance for a Healthier Generation , a project of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association. This project was supposed to drastically reduce junk food and soda availability in public schools. It was a voluntary program involving Kraft Foods, Mars, Campbell Soup, Dannon and PepsiCo, and back in 2006, this was a very big deal of an announcement that had Bill Clinton looking like a hero for solving the “junk food in public schools” problem. I remember how CNN and other news sources called this a “victory for public health” and touted it as a model for solving the childhood obesity problem now facing America. Of course, the rest of us knew better. We quickly realized this was merely a voluntary program designed to create a lot of positive press at the time of the announcement (which it did). But we also knew it would never be enforced . Just a lot of talk, in other words, and no real action. Today soda availability in public schools reaches an all-time high Fast forward four years to the present. It’s November, 2010. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago publish a study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. That study says students’ ability to purchase sugary sodas and sports drinks from school vending machines is at an all-time high! Instead of vending machines disappearing from schools, they’ve invaded them. Just as we all knew back in 2006, the voluntary “Alliance for a Healthier Generation” program was a ruse — a decoy designed to get the government to back off of industry regulation by claiming “the industry can regulate itself.” Four years later, the results are now obvious: MORE sodas in schools. MORE obesity and MORE diabetes among schoolchildren. I guess the industry can’t regulate itself, after all. (Is anyone surprised?) Asking the soda industry to sell less soda is sort of like asking Big Tobacco to stop marketing cigarettes. No industry is going to voluntarily harm its own bottom line. According to the study, in 2007 only 49 percent of students could buy high-calorie drinks from vending machines or school stores, but by 2009 that number rose to an alarming 61 percent . So much for Clinton’s Alliance. So much for all the spin, hype and grandstanding. Once again, it turns out that food companies always put profits ahead of public health ; even when it comes to schoolchildren. It’s time to ban sodas and junk foods from public schools So what’s the real solution to this issue? Ban all sodas and junk foods in public schools , period. A school is not the proper place to poison our children with foods and chemical additives that cause diabetes, cancer, heart disease and attention disorders. We need to pass laws to reign in the corporations on this issue, because they’ve proven their voluntary efforts simply don’t work. Selling sodas and junk food to children is wrong . It’s something that should be immediately halted across the nation. At the same time, don’t believe politicians when they claim to solve such problems via “voluntary” agreements with the for-profit junk food industry, either. Such agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

Policy unveiled to combat diarrheal disease, a killer of Kenyan children

Kenya’s government has unveiled a renewed set of national policy guidelines to redouble diarrheal disease management and control efforts by putting proven interventions to work within the country’s health system. This announcement comes at a time when global progress against diarroea has stalled. Diarrhea is the third leading killer of children in Kenya.

Weight Watchers says eat at McDonald’s to lose weight (opinion)

(NaturalNews) Weight Watchers has now officially endorsed Chicken McNuggets as a “healthy meal” in New Zealand, where McDonald’s restaurants will begin carrying the Weight Watchers logo on several menu items. This bizarre and inexplicable decision has now made Weight Watchers the laughing stock of the health world where nutrition and weight loss experts normally don’t use “McDonald’s fast food” and “weight loss” in the same sentence. As The Guardian reports, “As part of the deal, which the company says is the first of its kind in the world, McDonald’s will use the Weight Watchers logo on its menu boards and Weight Watchers will promote McDonald’s to dieters.” Nutritionists, not surprisingly, were shocked at the announcement. The idea of eating at McDonald’s to lose weight seems a bit ridiculous, and anyone who believes that eating Chicken McNuggets will cause you to lose weight is arguably one nugget short of a Happy Meal . Sometimes you just have to point out the stupidity of these things, even at the risk of offending someone who has convinced themselves that eating more Chicken McNuggets is their ticket to a slim, fit and sexy body. Watch your weight balloon! Weight Watchers, by the way, never actually claims that eating the foods they endorse will cause you to lose weight. If you examine it carefully, even their name isn’t really about weight loss . It’s about weight watching … as in, watch your weight grow larger by the day… A “weight watch” is sort of like a “tornado watch” or a “tsunami watch.” You keep your eyes peeled and wait for something disastrous to happen — such as ballooning to 300 pounds while engaging in unhealthy eating McHabits based on snarfing down meat parts from factory-farmed cows raised in bovine concentration camps that might more accurately be called “Cowschwitz.” If Weight Watchers is going to endorse McNuggets, then why not just endorse the entire McDonald’s menu and throw the logo behind Big Macs and ice cream shakes, too? It’s not like Weight Watchers is trying to “protect its reputation” by not crossing a line, you know. Once you’ve endorsed McDonald’s as “healthy” food, that line is no longer anywhere in sight. Of course, McDonald’s products merely join a long list of questionable foods marketed under the “Weight Watchers” brand name — a brand that in my opinion has discovered great commercial success in selling the false hope of weight loss to clueless consumers who are unwilling to read ingredients lists on food labels. Not coincidentally, Weight Watchers has now become the “McDonald’s” of the weight loss industry — and industry filled with so many scams and shams that the idea of eating Chicken McNuggets to lose weight doesn’t even seem that strange to many people. We live in a world where corporate promotional lies are disgusting at best, and criminal at worst. We’re told that psychiatric drugs will make you happy, that chemotherapy will make you healthy and that eating at McDonald’s will make you lose weight. We’re told that sugary junk drinks will give you “energy”, that toxic vaccines are necessary for your immune system to work correctly and that buying silly pink-ribbon products will somehow cure cancer. At the same time, we’re told that vitamins are dangerous, that sunlight causes cancer and that there’s no such thing as a cure for type-2 diabetes. Everything that’s good for you is discredited as bad while everything that’s toxic is hyped up as “healthy.” I suppose in light of the corporate-sponsored sick-care insanity that passes for medical advice these days, the idea that eating at McDonald’s will make you lose weight doesn’t seem as insane as it really should. But that doesn’t make it any more true. In a world gone mad with dietary misinformation touting fictional foods, insanity can now be marketed to the intoxicated mainstream as if it somehow made sense. … and people swallow it. Sources for this story include: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/03/weight-watchers-mcdonalds-obesity

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