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Centers of Disease Control: Best Vaccine PR Firm Taxes Can Buy

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European polls indicate that our neighbors on the other side of the great pond are less nervous about the H1N1 strain's severity and far more suspicious towards health officials' rationale for hyping dire warnings of swine flu's dangers. In France, Le Figaro conducted a poll of 12,050 people showing 69 percent will refuse the vaccination. In a separate French survey, one third of 4,752 doctors, nurses and healthcare workers surveyed would not be inoculated.[8] Twenty-nine percent of Germans surveyed said they would refuse it "under any circumstance and an additional 33 percent would likely refuse it. In the region of Bavaria and Baden Wurttemburg, only 10 percent of those polled said they would submit their arms to injection. In the UK, a couple polls reported in the Daily Mail last August, showed half of family physicians and a third of UK nurses do not want the swine flu vaccination. Seventy-one percent do not believe the vaccine has been tested enough for safety and the swine flu is much milder than health authorities are saying.

During the course of the CDC's media war to push forward the vaccine industry's greed for profit, science and reflective caution are being sacrificed. An important peer-reviewed study appearing in the June 2009 issue of Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry shows a causal relationship between the amounts of ethylmercury (thimerosal) found in inoculations for infants, when administered to monkeys, and cellular toxicity resulting in mitochondrial dysfunction, impaired oxidative reduction activity and degeneration and death in neuronal and fetal cells.[9] These are all indicative signs found in some ASD. But health officials prefer to ignore such results. For the future health of American children, the study's findings arrive at a bad time when a recent Harvard study now reports autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) has risen to 1 in 91 people compared to the earlier 1 in 150 estimate. But since the study was sponsored by the CDC, the press release makes no indication that just maybe the over-vaccination of children with dozens of injections by the age of 5 years might be a causal factor behind this national epidemic of ASD and other neurological disorders.

During the course of interviewing many parents of autistic children for our documentaries Vaccine Nation and Autism: Made in the USA, the personal stories we filmed repeatedly were that of a once perfectly healthy and joyful child who, shortly after a vaccination or a series of injections, simply vanished from normality. However, national health policy today seems to have almost legislated by divine decree that there is no relationship between vaccine ingredients and autism. Besides, further independent research and first-hand personal stories would only interfere with the propaganda machine and the CDC's "Seven Step Recipe for Generating Interest In, and Demand for, Flu Vaccination.

Peter Doshi first brought public attention to the CDC's PR influenza strategy known as the Seven Step Recipe. Glen Nowak, now the Director of the CDC's Media Relations, outlined a concise public relations template while serving as the communications spokesperson for the National Immunization Program. Speaking at the 2004 National Influenza Vaccine Summit, he presented the CDC's seven steps. After a careful review of Nowak's Powerpoint presentation we discover a very detailed and concerted PR and multimedia campaign that includes the following (quotes are from CDC's materials):

  • To encourage the belief that influenza infection can "occur among people for whom influenza is not generally perceived to cause serious complications (e.g., children, healthy adults, healthy seniors). In other words, promote flu vaccination to those who don't really need it.
  • In order to "foster the demand for flu vaccinations the CDC should target "medical experts and public health authorities publicly (e.g., via media) [to] state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes) "and urge influenza vaccination.
  • By focusing on the message of dire health threats and human casualties upon those who don't really need to be vaccinated, the CDC will reach its milestone of "framing of the flu season in terms that motivate behavior (e.g., as "very severe, "more severe than last or past years, "deadly ).
  • Throughout the flu season, the campaign would continue issuing reports "from health officials and media to emphasize that "influenza is causing severe illness and/or affecting lots of people "helping foster the perception that many people are susceptible to a bad case of influenza.
  • Of course, no marketing strategy is thorough without images. Ergo another ingredient in the recipe is to use "visible/tangible examples of the seriousness of the illness (e.g., pictures of children, families of those affected coming forward) and people getting vaccinated (the first to motivate, the latter to reinforce).

The CDC's "key points indicate we are now in that critical time-frame for the CDC to distribute materials to "a variety of partners. This includes aggressively disseminating all medical reports, studies and PR spins to the soporific media and corporate-funded medical associations to support the government's mass vaccination efforts. Come November, we will begin to see reports on "pediatric deaths due to influenza "although Dr. Martin Meltzer, a CDC expert in health economics, has stated "almost nobody dies of the flu and "deaths [are] associated with flu, but not necessarily caused by flu. [10] Apparently, the folks over in the various CDC departments and our different federal health agencies don't communicate with each other very well.

So why should our tax dollars go towards fabricating and/or ignoring science in order to vaccinate Americans? Nowak publicly stated the CDC's reasons on National Public Radio, --the manufacturers were telling us that they weren't receiving a lot of orders for vaccine for use in November or even December." It really did look like we [CDC] needed to do something to encourage people to get a flu shot.[11]"

At this moment, we are witnessing a steady flow of press releases and articles in the media to convert Americans to the wisdom of national health vaccination policy. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has issued preliminary positive results from an uncompleted clinical trial testing the H1N1 vaccine on children and young people between 6 months and 17 years of age. The fact that the entire study only enrolled 70 individuals covering this age range should alone raise red flags about any reliable conclusions after the study is completed. Moreover, the study is specifically designed for measuring the necessary immune response to protect youth from the swine flu. It is not a safety study. We usually expect that sound scientific ethics demand clinical trials to be reported after a final analysis of research data, however, the CDC's Seven Step Recipe is not concerned with scientific facts, or rigorous research protocol. It is simply part of the PR game plan to get people vaccinated and to do it fast.

Donald McNeil, a shill for the vaccine complex writing for the New York Times has printed two recent articles aligned with CDC propaganda. He quotes Dr. Jay Butler, chief of the swine flu vaccine task force at the CDC in order to relieve fears about flu vaccine adverse effects, especially to pregnant women. Dr. Butler said, "There are about 2,400 miscarriages a day in the US. You'll see things that would have happened anyway. But the vaccine doesn't cause miscarriages. It also doesn't cause auto accidents, but they happen. [12] I hope that is reassuring to all those expectant mothers across the country, especially since none of the approved H1N1 vaccines have undergone rigorous clinical safety trials on pregnant women or the potential adverse effects of mercury-laced vaccines and other ingredients on the developing fetus. Germany, on the other hand announced it is now taking preventative measures. Agreeing that the verdict on ethylmercury and squalene safety for children is unsettled, Germany is requiring the vaccine industry to return to their plants and provide adjuvant- and mercury preservative-free vaccine lots.

McNeil's more recent article in October 7th's New York Times should be read alongside the Seven Step Recipe for a clear visual unfolding of the CDC's PR strategy in action. McNeil downplays the growing medical realization that the swine flu is in all likelihood much milder than seasonal flu in order to convince us to roll up our sleeves. Following the CDC script, we see the picture of little 3 year old Clayton being vaccinated, while McNeill compares the swine flu death of an 18 year old Tibetan woman in China with a story of joyful young Brandon and his 9 year old sister gleefully surrendering their nostrils for a blast of live-attenuated H1N1 virus.[13]

While finalizing this article, Peter Doshi replied to an email and drew attention to an event in his Harper's article that should force us to pause before rolling up our sleeves. Briefly, the 2004 flu season was a debacle for the vaccine complex and federal health officials after 50 million doses of flu vaccine promised by Chiron Corporation were made unavailable, therefore, putting the health industry into a panic. In order to lessen the frenzy previously stirred by its public fear tactics, the CDC downgraded the flu's urgency to "an annoying illness , and "stressed the protective benefits of regular hand washing. [14]

Now that is a national policy I can support. I would much prefer the CDC funding Americans' soap bills to ward off an uncertain swine flu pandemic rather than using taxes for unsubstantiated threats from the CDC's national vaccine marketing campaign.

Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the genomic industry. Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation's longest running public radio program on nutrition and natural health and a multi-award-winning director of progressive documentary films, including Vaccine Nation and Autism: Made in the USA.

[1] Doshi, Peter. "Viral Marketing: The Selling of the Flu Vaccine. Harpers Magazine. March. 2006.

[2] "MIT grad student's study challenges notions of pandemic flu MIT Tech Talk. April 16, 2008.

[3] Kalb, Claudia. "Stomping through a medical minefield Newsweek. October 25, 2008.

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I am the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network in New York City and producer of the nationally syndicated Gary Null on public stations.

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