A Rouge Forum Broadside

 

Smallpox, War Hysteria, Corporate Greed 

and the Developing Opposition

By Tom Suber

January 26, 2003

This article addresses a small aspect of the economic and political corruption attendant to developing fascism; specifically, as it relates to the narrow aspect of smallpox, war hysteria, corporate greed/advantage, and the developing opposition. Hopefully, this brief examination will provide insight to the functioning of our institutions in one area in the dark face of fascism and the concomitant growing opposition. If that developing opposition becomes organized and conscious there is hope for the future. The alternative is the darkest period in modern history. We have only to look at the Balkans too see the speed by which the light can be extinguished from civilization and the attendant darkness and barbarity that can befall a modern western civilization. War is the loss of future possibilities.
 

War Hysteria and the 
Developing Opposition on the Vaccine Front

 

The United States military estimates that 500,000 Iraqi civilians may die, primarily as the result of air attacks, in the course of the Bush war for oil in Iraq. It would amount to the largest death toll in aerial bombardment in history. You don't engage in that kind of slaughter without whipping up public hysteria and turning it into support for aggressive war. The government is attempting to do exactly that with its claims of imminent bio-terrorism. War requires a demonized opposition by use of the big lie at the expense of truth. 
 

The Bush use of the big lie in support of aggression was dealt a spectacular blow January 24, 2003 when only four people volunteered for smallpox inoculations that began in Connecticut. The response of the public to the Bush administration's plan to vaccinate nearly 500,000 health workers across the country represents a growing opposition to the dishonest warmongering promulgated by the administration.
 

The small turnout was due to the collective efforts of SEIU, AFSCME, the Nurses Association, doctors, health care, and emergency workers who have become a reluctant opposition. Health care and emergency workers cited safety and liability concerns and a growing recognition that smallpox is not a currently viable threat. 
 

The Washington Post reported on Dec. 18 that two "prominent teaching hospitals" are refusing to vaccinate their employees against Smallpox. The hospitals cited were Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. But opposition to inoculations is obviously much larger and widespread than what was previously reported in the Washington Post and other media
 

Widespread refusals to take the Smallpox vaccine have developed among United States military personnel. In fact, the strongest opposition to the administration War hysteria the related drum beating for war has come not from politicians but from military leaders in the Pentagon. The developing resistance to military and civilian vaccine inoculations in the United States reflects the recent experience of the Israeli government.
 

In Israel , as reported by Ha'aretz on Dec. 30, "Nearly half of the Meuhedet HMO's staff [in Tel Aviv] have refused to take the Smallpox vaccine being offered by the government." The refusals are widespread throughout the Israeli health care system and among members of Israel's security forces and emergency rescue squads. The Israeli government has been forced to abandon plans for mass inoculation of Israeli citizens and admitted that there is no imminent threat of Smallpox from Iraq. This is a spectacular admission from a state that promoted hysteria by distributing gas masks to each of its citizens.
 

Within the United States, military personnel have learned to view the Army's vaccination plans with skepticism based upon their own previous firsthand experience with the mandatory inoculation of an unsafe Anthrax vaccine. The widespread Anthrax refusals and furor within the military forced the United States to reluctantly end mandatory inoculations for Anthrax. This was followed, soon after, by the announcement that the Anthrax vaccine would be reformulated and new manufacturing procedures instituted in an attempt to make the vaccine safer. 
 

SAFETY CONCERNS
 

The Smallpox vaccine being given to the military and first responders is unsafe and the United States government well knows this. You might ask administration officials why only the President was vaccinated and not one cabinet officer. The answer lies in the fact that the old vaccine is unsafe and primitive by today's medical standards and would not be approved for licensure if subject to FDA approval procedures currently in effect. The vaccine's lack of safety is caused mainly by two irrefutable facts: 
 
 
 

1. The current smallpox vaccine is made from calf lymph tissue in which the cowpox virus was grown. The bovine proteins in the vaccine tend to enhance allergic immune responses causing severe complications and death in a predictable number of individuals.
 
 
 

2. The virus in the vaccine is live and attenuated with a mercury formulation produced by the Eli Lilly Company called Thermisol.
 

The Eli Lilly Company was forced to take Thermisol off the American market due to widespread evidence that mercury poisoning results from childhood vaccinations. The issue revolving around Thermisol has been the increased mercury levels children are being exposed to due to a 20-fold increase in vaccinations since Thermisol was first introduced in the 30's. If 1 PPM of mercury found in 1 kg of fish per week is the safe limit set by the government for adults, and 1 PPM of mercury found in 1 kg of fish per month is the safe limit for pregnant adults... it is easily shown mathematically that multiple Thermisol-based vaccines will cause mercury poisoning in an 18-month old child.The proximate cause of Autism in children may be the result of this childhood mercury poisoning. 

Some may claim that the smallpox vaccine does not contain thermisal.  The vaccine manufactured by Wyeth and known as Dryvac does not but the Aventis product does.  Infact, Aventis continued to use Thermisal in their recent Hepititis A vaccine which by the way was recalled by the European Union for failing to have sufficient antigens to work. 
 
 
 

Greed and War Profiteering
 

Drug companies quickly responded to the opportunities offered by the hysterical war fervor to make a buck at the expense of the people. Capitalism always seeks a way to profit even if it is at the expense of mass poisoning, destruction, or suffering. 
 

Eli Lilly was forced by public indignation and subsequent regulatory action into removing Thermisol from the American market. However, Eli Lilly, not a company to willing lose a buck, continues to poison children in the rest of the world. Eli Lilly faced substantial losses from pending lawsuits of parents with Autistic children. But the Homeland Security bill came to the rescue and gave immunity from lawsuit to vaccine makers. All of a sudden, Eli Lilly gets off the hook for poisoning the world's children. Public outrage may yet reverse this act and force Eli Lilly to the court dock to answer for mass poisonings. Thermisol is just one small indication of the drug companies' treachery. 
 

Consider cholesterol. The largest profit sector of the pharmaceutical industry is the cholesterol lowering family of drugs known as statins. Must of the population has been medically defined by the pharmaceutical companies as in need of lowering their cholesterol. Statins are the ONLY drug being prescribed for this condition and statins are killing people every day. The mechanism by which statins block cholesterol production is the very biological mechanism for production of Coenzyme Q10 or Ubiquitone. CQ10 is the most prevalent coenzyme in the body and is essential for energy production within each cell. Its absence causes loss of energy, muscle wasting, and ultimately death. These deaths could be avoided by the addition of CQ10 to the statins but there would be less profit in that scenario. Better to let a few people die. And die they are.
 

In August of 2003 Bayer AG withdrew its brand of statin, Baycol, after it was linked to 31 deaths. Public Citizen says that special warning labels -- placed in black boxes to make them stand out - should be placed on statins based on the FDA's own Adverse Event Reporting System. The system received reports of 50 more deaths associated with the use of statin drugs since October of 1997, not including Baycol. 
 
 
 

The b global vaccines market is currently dominated by four large pharmaceutical companies -- Aventis SA , GlaxoSmithKline Plc., Wyeth and Merck & Co. Inc -- which together account for almost 85 percent of sales. One of these four, Aventis SA had 150 million doses of worthless unmarketable Smallpox vaccine that it could not sell because of legal liabilities that would be associated with selling a vaccine with Thermisol brand mercury formulation in it. So Aventis SA donated it to the United States government and took a charitable tax deduction of the former retail cost (worth approximately 150 million dollars) of the now unmarketable vaccine---quite a profit made from a warehouse full of worthless material that could not even be disposed of without significant additional expense for handling and special disposal as a toxic waste.
 
 

Earlier this year President Bush signed a bio-terrorism response bill providing huge windfall profits for pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines that were a low profit commodity item but would now produce substantial profits at government expense, especially since the government would no longer require vaccines to be proven to be effective and safe. No more expense of messy clinical trials. Indeed, according to a report published by Reuters News Service on January 7, 2003, Merrill Lynch sees $10 billion in global revenue from vaccines in '06 versus $5.4 billion in '01. The brokerage predicted the otherwise unprofitable pharmaceutical company Acambis would achieve a period of profitability through 2005 solely on the back of U.S. government contracts for Smallpox vaccine. The Pharmaceutical companies stand to gain nearly five billion dollars with the stroke of the Presidential pen.
 

Bush next issued orders to the Justice Department to seek a court order in the class action civil case against Eli Lilly to seal records that have linked mandatory childhood vaccinations as the cause of mercury poisoning giving rise to autism. It would not do to let people see the public record which condemns the Smallpox and other vaccines as unsafe when you are trying to promote mass inoculations with this vaccine. 
 

Drug companies are currently working on a new Smallpox vaccine that will be released next year. But, the recently passed Homeland Security bill also provides immunity for vaccine makers in the event that recipients of vaccines become ill or die after being vaccinated. Further, under the new Food and Drug Administration regulations, vaccines do not have to be certified for efficacy prior to being introduced into the general population. Expect a flood of new vaccines to now come to market as the drug manufacturing companies cannot be sued for ill effects and the vaccines do not even have to be proven to work. The current regulatory scheme is one of legalizing snake oil sales. But worse, workers injured by these vaccines would not receive even workers compensation in most states. In the few states where worker's compensation is available, it is not sufficient to support the worker and h/her family. In many states Workers Compensation is not provided until retirement age but instead is limited to a period of retraining. It is no wonder workers are resisting the President's vaccine plans. One has to be crazy to volunteer.

Further, federal legislation augmented by the states would allow the government to make refusing a vaccination a crime, punishable by incarceration, and would permit forced vaccinations in declared health emergencies.
 

It is a win-win situation for the government because the vaccines do not have to work if the threat of biological warfare is imagined. People only have to think they need it; think it works, and think the threat is real for the President's strategy to work. Once they have participated in the counterfeit vaccination project, they embody a false sense of privilege, and support for the imperialist war. 
 

Think not as the President would have it. Instead have serious doubts about deeper agendas that lie beneath government warnings about bio-terror attacks. Think about corporate greed that cares not for human life but instead promotes war, hysteria, and death for profit. Be it vaccine manufacturers or oil companies none are life affirming institutions.
 
 
 
 
 

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