What's Behind Big Media's Vaccine Propaganda Onslaught?: Forced Mass Vaccination On Adults Planned Under 'National Adult Immunization Plan'

The National Adult Immunization Plan

Adapted by Ronald David Jackson from a  Photo by Jamiecat.

By Prof. James F. Tracy

The transnational pharmaceutical cartel will be positioning itself to profit handsomely if a federally-mandated adult immunization program becomes law. The proposed US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) policy will be implemented alongside the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), thereby becoming a standard component of US national healthcare policy.

Published on February 6, 2015 amid the “measles outbreak” media frenzy, the HHS is accepting “public comment” on its Draft National Adult Immunization Plan (NAIP) until March 9, 2015. Under the NAIP, all adult American citizens will be compelled to receive current and retroactive vaccination regimens that may amount to several dozen “shots” per individual during their “catch-up” phase. Under the federally-mandated immunization schedule children presently receive 49 vaccines before the age of six.

The NAIP underscores how

[t]he adult schedule … includes catch-up vaccinations for those adults who never initiated or did not complete a multi-dose series when vaccination was first recommended during childhood. Catch-up vaccinations include vaccines such as measles, mumps, rubella and varicella, which are routinely recommended for administration during childhood (p. 1).

The NAIP is intended to supplement the National Vaccine Plan (NVP), published in conjunction with the ACA. The HHS describes the NVP as “a guiding vision for vaccination for the decade 2010-2020 and strategic direction for coordination of the immunization enterprise in the United States” (NAIP, p. 9), by highlighting the alleged public health problem posed by the low vaccination rates of US adults.

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How can forced vaccinations of adults be accomplished?: The same way it is done in school systems -- either you prove you are vaccinated or you won't be allowed to attend school.  This has already been done at hospitals where nurses are often forced to get flu vaccinations of dubious value or face losing their jobs. Members of the military were forced to take a coctail of vaccinations during the Gulf Wars that were subsequently implicated as a cause of the "Gulf War Syndrome." Ohio State University, for example, has just instituted a policy where all incoming students will be required to get vaccinations — those who can't prove they have been vaccinated will not be allowed to attend: See ""Ohio State to require vaccinations for incoming students"" 

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“[T]he NAIP is intended to promote coordinated planning and action across all stakeholder groups,” the 52-page document reads, “[i]ncluding those within and outside of the federal government” (p. 6). In addition to the health and personnel-related agencies within HHS’ purview, such as the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration, other government and “stakeholder groups” include the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the “vaccine industry” and “academic/research organizations” (p. 7).

Given the frequent and serious side effects of vaccines routinely documented in the inserts accompanying them, the government appears to be waging a high stakes game with public health under the guise of prevention that will soon extend to the entire US adult population.

The NAIP is unambiguous in its ambition and intent. “The vision for adult immunization is to protect the public health and achieve optimal prevention of infectious diseases and their consequences through vaccination of all adults” (emphasis retained, p. 6).

The NAIP was developed in coordination with the RAND Corporation, whose services were “enlisted to review historic literature, interview stakeholders, and collect plan date to identify plan priorities and key indicators” (p. 8).

Specific “subgroups of adults” will be particularly targeted for vaccination, “such as healthcare workers and pregnant women.”

HHS lists four specific objectives in its NAIP policy. The subpoint strategies of each goal are summarized below, although it should be noted that the original document contains highly detailed strategies for achieving each (pp. 11-25) .

1: Strengthen the adult immunization infrastructure.

Objective 1.1: Monitor and report trends in adult vaccine-preventable disease levels and vaccination coverage data for all ACIP-recommended vaccines. In cases where there are associated Healthy People 2020 goals, measure progress toward established targets.

Objective 1.2: Enhance current vaccine safety monitoring systems and develop new methods to accurately and more rapidly assess vaccine safety and effectiveness in adult populations (e.g., pregnant women).

Objective 1.3: Continue to analyze claims filed as part of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) to identify potential causal links between vaccines and adverse events.

Objective 1.4: Increase the use of electronic health records (EHRs) and immunization information systems (IIS) to collect and track adult immunization data.

Objective 1.5: Evaluate and advance targeted quality improvement initiatives.

Objective 1.6: Generate and disseminate evidence about the health and economic impact of adult immunization, including potential disease burden averted and cost-effectiveness with the use of current vaccines.

2: Improve access to adult vaccines.

Objective 2.1: Reduce financial barriers for individuals who receive vaccines routinely recommended for adults.

Objective 2.2: Assess and improve understanding of providers’ financial barriers to delivering vaccinations, including to stocking and administering vaccines.

Objective 2.3: Expand the adult immunization provider network.

Objective 2.4: Ensure a reliable supply of vaccines and the ability to track vaccine inventories, including during public health emergencies.

3. Increase community demand for adult immunizations.

Objective 3.1: Educate and encourage individuals to be aware of and receive recommended adult immunizations.

Objective 3.2: Educate, encourage, and motivate health care professionals to recommend and/or deliver adult vaccinations.

Objective 3.3: Educate and encourage other groups (e.g., community and faith-based groups, tribal organizations)to promote the importance of adult immunization.

4: Foster innovation in adult vaccine development and vaccination-related technologies.

Objective 4.1: Develop new vaccines and improve the effectiveness of existing vaccines for adults.

Objective 4.2: Encourage new technologies to improve the distribution, storage, and delivery of adult vaccines.

Despite religious and philosophical exemptions from vaccines offered in almost every state, not to mention the abundant side effects–including possible carcinogenesis–associated with such substances, roughly 95% of American families subject their children to the federally-mandated immunization schedule. Under the NAIP, government bureaucrats and the vaccine industry are now poised to foist a similarly intensive yet scientifically dubious program on the entire US population.

Reprinted with permission from Center for Research in Globalization.

Ebola Didn't Make This Doctor Sick — The Experimental Ebola Vaccine Did

Study Participant Receives NIAID/GSK Candidate Ebola Vaccine (Photo by NIAID)

By Maggie Fox
Just 12 hours after he got an experimental Ebola vaccine, and just two days after he stuck himself with a needle while caring for Ebola patients in September, Dr. Lewis Rubinson started getting sick.

By then, Rubinson was aboard a jet, being evacuated from Sierra Leone to the United States. He wasn't sure if he was infected with Ebola or if the vaccine was causing a reaction. He was en route to strict isolation at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington D.C.

Months later, it's fairly clear the vaccine caused the reaction. He has no trace of Ebola infection. What's not entirely clear is whether the vaccine stopped the virus from taking hold, or whether he was never infected in the first place.

"My gut leads me to believe he was never exposed. You can never prove it," Thomas Geisbert, an Ebola vaccine expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, told NBC News.

[...]

Rubinson had two choices: an experimental drug made by Canadian company Tekmira, or an experimental Ebola vaccine that had not, at that time, ever been tested in humans. Rubinson chose the vaccine.

He was put aboard a specially equipped jet for the long flight to Maryland and vaccinated.

"The patient developed malaise, nausea and fever 12 hours after the vaccination while on the transport jet," Dr. Mark Mulligan of Emory University and colleagues wrote in a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Thursday.

They could have been symptoms of Ebola, or from the vaccine, which is made using a "live" virus called vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) genetically engineered to carry a small, non-infectious piece of Ebola virus. By design, the vaccine causes a mild infection that activates the immune system and helps it recognize Ebola.

Read More

Airborne Ebola: After Thousands Have Already Died — Washington Post Finally Publishes Article Admitting Airborne Transmission of Ebola

Photo screen captured from YouTube video.

By Lenny Bernstein
A team of prominent researchers suggested Thursday that limited airborne transmission of the Ebola virus is "very likely," a hypothesis that could reignite the debate that started last fall after one of the scientists offered the same opinion.

"It is very likely that at least some degree of Ebola virus transmission currently occurs via infectious aerosols generated from the gastrointestinal tract, the respiratory tract, or medical procedures, although this has been difficult to definitively demonstrate or rule out, since those exposed to infectious aerosols also are most likely to be in close proximity to, and in direct contact with, an infected case," the scientists wrote. Their peer-reviewed analysis was published in mBio, a journal of the American Society of Microbiology.

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RELATED STORIES: While big media was insisting that Ebola could not be transferred through the air, these are some of the facts they ignored:

• Coverup on How Ebola Can Spread Continues: CDC Removed Info On Ebola Spreading Via Coughing And Sneezing From Website
• Ebola May Spread By Air Say Experts: Tell Center for Infectious Disease Research — 'Healthcare Workers Should be Wearing Respirators, Not Facemasks'
• 'Not Everything Known' About Current Strain — 'Being Dogmatic Is Ill-Advised'
• Canadian Scientists Have Shown Deadliest Form of Ebola Can Be Air Transmitted Between Species
• Purdue Researcher — Ebola Virus Could Spread By Air
• Weaponized Ebola Was Manufactured By South Africa's White Supremacists From 1980's - 1994: The US Was Involved — And There's No Evidence It Was Destroyed

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The paper's lead author, Michael T. Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, touched off a small furor and was condemned by some experts last Sept. 11 when he raised the same possibility in an op-ed piece in the New York Times as concern over the spread of the deadly disease was increasing rapidly.

Less than a month later, Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian infected with Ebola in his home country, died in a Dallas hospital, but not before two nurses who treated him became infected, sparking fears about how prepared U.S. hospitals were to handle the disease. Public health authorities reassured Americans they were in no danger of contracting the hemorrhagic disease from casual contact with others. Ebola is transmitted by contact with infected body fluids -- mainly blood, feces and vomit -- experts around the world have said. This is why health care workers and people who had contact with victims were most likely to become infected in the current epidemic, they said.

"There was almost a rush to ensure the public that we knew a lot more than we did," Osterholm said in an interview Wednesday night, repeating a theme he has raised many times before. "But we're saying you can’t rule out respiratory transmission."

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Health Effects of Vaccines: 'Mercury in Medicine' — Investigative Report Published in the Congressional Record

Photograph by Melissa Wiese.

By Ronald David Jackson
The following "Mercury in Medicine" report was added to the Congressional Record on May 20, 2003.  The report was prepared by the staff of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness, Committee on Government Reform. The report is the result of a three-year investigation initiated in the Committee on Government Reform. The key findings of the investigation are highlighted with black outlines and in some cases with black and yellow outlines. Some of the key findings include:

1) No one knows for sure if vaccines are safe or unsafe because while there are studies comparing health outcomes in those who did and did not get the vaccine (epidemiological studies) - the vaccines themselves (and more importantly, the various ingredients in the vaccines) have never been thoroughly tested for safety in humans. Specifically: "The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] has never required manufacturers to conduct adequate safety testing on thimerosal and ethylmercury compounds."

2) As the rate of autism has grown at epidemic proportions during the last two decades, the number of childhood vaccines containing thimerosal was growing, increasing the amount of ethylmercury to which infants were exposed threefold.

3) The Institute of Medicine (an American non-profit, non-governmental organization founded in 1970) determined that a relationship between autism, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, and speech or language delay, and the increased use of thimerosal in vaccines is plausible and deserves more scrutiny (even though there was not enough evidence to support or reject this hypothesis).

4) In 1998, the FDA finalized a rule requiring that ethylmercury be removed from over-the-counter products like topical ointments and skin creams (suggesting that ethylmercury—used as a preservative in many vaccines—could be hazardous to health) . Yet it took the FDA 18 years to get around to doing this, even though an advisory committee determined that ethylmercury was unsalfe in these products in 1980.

5) The FDA and the CDC [Center for Disease Control] failed in their duty to be vigilant as new vaccines containing thimerosal were approved and added to the immunization schedule. When the Hepatitis B and Haemophilus Influenzae Type B vaccines were added to the recommended schedule of childhood immunizations, the cumulative amount of ethylmercury to which children were exposed nearly tripled.

6) The amount of ethylmercury to which children were exposed through vaccines exceeded the safety thresholds established by the Federal government for a closely related substance methylmercury, "experts agree that the methylmercury guidelines are a good substitute."

7) Federal health officials have conceded that the amount of thimerosal in vaccines exceeded the EPA threshold of 0.1 micrograms per kilogram of bodyweight. "In fact, the amount of mercury in one dose of DTaP or Hepatitis B vaccines (25 micrograms each) exceeded this threshold many times over.

8) The FDA has: a) Failed to require the pharmaceutical industry to conduct extensive safety studies on thimerosal or ethylmercury. b) Failed to require the pharmaceutical industry to conduct adequate testing to determine how thimerosal is metabolized. c) Failed to require the pharmaceutical industry to determine the maximum safe exposure level to thimerosal.

9) Over the course of two decades the FDA slowly removed ethylmercury from many medicinal products - WHY?

10) In June of 2000, the CDC's Advisory Committe on Immunization Practice met in Atlanta. One of the key factors that weighed against a recommendation for a preference for thimerosal-free vaccines was the financial health of the vaccine industry. A recommendation for thimerosal-free vaccine had "the potential for financial losses of existing inventories", "could harm one or more manufacturers and may then decreased the number of suppliers", and "could entail financial losses for all existing stocks of vaccines that contain thimerosal."

It appears that protecting the industry's profits took precedent over protecting children from mercury damage.

Mercury in Medicine

Vaccinations: Deadly Immunity — Government Cover-up of a Mercury/Autism Scandal by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"Government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks"

Photograph by Steven Depolo.

Global Research Editor’s note: We bring to the attention of our readers this incisive and carefully documented 2005 article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. published by Rolling Stone, first posted on Global Research in July 2009.

The article sheds light on the collusion between Big Pharma and the US government and the dangers associated with vaccines produced by major pharmaceutical companies. In 2009 this article was of particular relevance to the debate on the H1N1 swine flu virus and plans by the WHO, The Obama Administration and Big Pharma to develop a swine flu vaccine.

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr; Rollingstone.com 20 July 2005
In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Georgia. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session — only private invitations to fifty-two attendees. There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly “embargoed.” There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left.

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency’s massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines — thimerosal — appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. “I was actually stunned by what I saw,” Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants — in one case, within hours of birth — the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: The number of public figures with his level of integrity is quickly
dwindling to zero. (Photography by Mark Sutton)

Even for scientists and doctors accustomed to confronting issues of life and death, the findings were frightening. “You can play with this all you want,” Dr. Bill Weil, a consultant for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the group. The results “are statistically significant.” Dr. Richard Johnston, an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado whose grandson had been born early on the morning of the meeting’s first day, was even more alarmed. “My gut feeling?” he said. “Forgive this personal comment — I do not want my grandson to get a thimerosal-containing vaccine until we know better what is going on.”

U.S. Media Blackout on Vaccinations: Italian Courts Rule Vaccines Cause Autism

On September 23, 2014, an Italian court in Milan awarded compensation to a boy for vaccine-induced autism. (See the Italian document here.) A childhood vaccine against six childhood diseases caused the boy’s permanent autism and brain damage. While the Italian press has devoted considerable attention to this decision and its public health implications, the U.S. press has been silent.

Photograph by Sam Howzit.

By Mary Holland
On September 23, 2014, an Italian court in Milan awarded compensation to a boy for vaccine-induced autism. (See the Italian document here.) A childhood vaccine against six childhood diseases caused the boy’s permanent autism and brain damage.

While the Italian press has devoted considerable attention to this decision and its public health implications, the U.S. press has been silent.

Italy’s National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

Like the U.S., Italy has a national vaccine injury compensation program to give some financial support to those people who are injured by compulsory and recommended vaccinations. The Italian infant plaintiff received three doses of GlaxoSmithKline’s Infanrix Hexa, a hexavalent vaccine administered in the first year of life. These doses occurred from March to October 2006. The vaccine is to protect children from polio, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, pertussis and Haemophilus influenza type B. In addition to these antigens, however, the vaccine then contained thimerosal, the mercury-containing preservative, aluminum, an adjuvant, as well as other toxic ingredients. The child regressed into autism shortly after receiving the three doses.

When the parents presented their claim for compensation first to the Ministry of Health, as they were required to do, the Ministry rejected it. Therefore, the family sued the Ministry in a court of general jurisdiction, an option which does not exist in the same form in the U.S.

Court Decision: Mercury and Aluminum in Vaccine Caused Autism

Based on expert medical testimony, the court concluded that the child more likely than not suffered autism and brain damage because of the neurotoxic mercury, aluminum and his particular susceptibility from a genetic mutation. The Court also noted that Infanrix Hexa contained thimerosal, now banned in Italy because of its neurotoxicity, “in concentrations greatly exceeding the maximum recommended levels for infants weighing only a few kilograms.”

Presiding Judge Nicola Di Leo considered another piece of damning evidence: a 1271-page confidential GlaxoSmithKline report (now available on the Internet). This industry document provided ample evidence of adverse events from the vaccine, including five known cases of autism resulting from the vaccine’s administration during its clinical trials (see table at page 626, excerpt below).

Italian Government, Not Vaccine Maker, Pays for Vaccine Damages

As in many other developed countries, government, not industry, compensates families in the event of vaccine injury. Thus GSK’s apparent lack of concern for the vaccine’s adverse effects is notable and perhaps not surprising.

In the final assessment, the report states that:

“[t]he benefit/risk profile of Infanrix hexa continues to be favourable,” despite GSK’s acknowledgement that the vaccine causes side effects including “anaemia haemolytic autoimmune,thrombocytopenia, thrombocytopenic purpura, autoimmune thrombocytopenia, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, haemolytic anemia, cyanosis, injection site nodule, abcess and injection site abscess, Kawasaki’s disease, important neurological events (including encephalitis and encephalopathy), Henoch-Schonlein purpura, petechiae, purpura, haematochezia, allergic reactions (including anaphylactic and anaphylactoid reactions),” and death (see page 9).

The Milan decision is sober, informed and well-reasoned. The Ministry of Health has stated that it has appealed the Court’s decision, but that appeal will likely take several years, and its outcome is uncertain.

Rimini: 2012 – Italian Court Rules MMR Vaccine Caused Autism

Two years earlier, on May 23, 2012, Judge Lucio Ardigo of an Italian court in Rimini presided over a similar judgment, finding that a different vaccine, the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine (MMR), had caused a child’s autism. As in the Milan case, the Ministry of Health’s compensation program had denied compensation to the family, yet after a presentation of medical evidence, a court granted compensation. There, too, the Italian press covered the story; the U.S. press did not.

In that case, a 15-month old boy received his MMR vaccine on March 26, 2004. He then immediately developed bowel and eating problems and received an autism diagnosis with cognitive delay within a year. The court found that the boy had “been damaged by irreversible complications due to vaccination (with trivalent MMR).” The decision flew in the face of the conventional mainstream medical wisdom that an MMR-autism link has been “debunked.”

Italian Court Decisions Break New Ground in Debate Over Vaccines and Autism

Both these Italian court decisions break new ground in the roiling debate over vaccines and autism. These courts, like all courts, are intended to function as impartial, unbiased decision makers.

The courts’ decisions are striking because they not only find a vaccine-autism causal link, but they also overrule the decisions of Italy’s Ministry of Health. And taken together, the court decisions found that both the MMR and a hexavalent thimerosal- and aluminum-containing vaccine can trigger autism.

Italian Court Rulings Contradict Special U.S. Vaccine Court

These court decisions flatly contradict the decisions from the so-called U.S. vaccine court, the Court of Federal Claim’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. There, from 2007 to 2010, in the Omnibus Autism Proceeding, three decision makers, called Special Masters, found that vaccines did not cause autism in any of the six test cases, and one Special Master even went so far as to compare the theory of vaccine-induced autism to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

The Italian court decisions contrast starkly with these U.S. cases based on similar claims.

Read the full story at Age of Autism.

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About the Author

Mary Holland is Research Scholar and Director of the Graduate Legal Skills Program at NYU Law School. She has published articles on vaccine law and policy, and is the co-editor of Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health and Our Children (Skyhorse Publishing, 2012).

Reprinted with permission from Center for Research in Globalization.

Are Flu Vaccines Tested and Safe?: The Insert That Comes With The Flu Vaccine Might Shock You

A beautiful box for the flu vaccine. But doctors almost never give you the insert that came with the vaccine: Why?

"And now some words from our sponsor (GlaxoSmithKline)" — via the package insert:

"There have been no controlled trials adequately demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccination with Flulaval."

"Safety and effectiveness of Flulaval have not been established in pregnant women, nursing mothers or children."

"Safety and effectiveness of Flulaval in pediatric patients have not been established."

"Flulaval has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential [cancer causation] , or for impairment of fertility."

"Do not administer Flulaval to anyone... following previous administration of any influenza vaccine."

 

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Possible Adverse Effects Include:

• Eye pain and chest pain
• Arthritis
• Dizziness, tremors and losing consciousness (syncope)
• Convulsions and seizures
• Gullain-Barre Syndrome
• Cranial nerve paralysis or limb paralysis
• Swelling of the brain
• Partial facial paralysis

A screen shot from the CDC's vaccine additives page, which miraculously hasn't yet been removed from their site:

Read More About What The Insert Says: HERE

Measles Outbreak Traced to 'Fully Vaccinated' Patient for First Time

"Measles" (Photo by Dave Haygarth)

By Nsikan Akpan
Get the measles vaccine, and you won’t get the measles—or give it to anyone else. Right? Well, not always. A person fully vaccinated against measles has contracted the disease and passed it on to others. The startling case study contradicts received wisdom about the vaccine and suggests that a recent swell of measles outbreaks in developed nations could mean more illnesses even among the vaccinated.

When it comes to the measles vaccine, two shots are better than one. Most people in the United States are initially vaccinated against the virus shortly after their first birthday and return for a booster shot as a toddler. Less than 1% of people who get both shots will contract the potentially lethal skin and respiratory infection. And even if a fully vaccinated person does become infected—a rare situation known as “vaccine failure”—they weren’t thought to be contagious.

That’s why a fully vaccinated 22-year-old theater employee in New York City who developed the measles in 2011 was released without hospitalization or quarantine. But like Typhoid Mary, this patient turned out to be unwittingly contagious. Ultimately, she transmitted the measles to four other people, according to a recent report in Clinical Infectious Diseases that tracked symptoms in the 88 people with whom “Measles Mary” interacted while she was sick. Surprisingly, two of the secondary patients had been fully vaccinated. And although the other two had no record of receiving the vaccine, they both showed signs of previous measles exposure that should have conferred immunity.

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Vaccines — Did They Really Reduce Disease?: Disease Rates Plunged Before Mass Vaccination Programs (Study)

Mass vaccinations are given credit for a steep decrease in outbreaks of deadly diseases. 
But these charts show that these disease out- breaks had already run their course by
thetime "medical measures" like vaccines (see arrows) were introduced. (Charts
from the published scientific study: "The Questionable Contribution of Medical
Measures to the Decline of Mortality in the United States in the Twentieth Century")

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The Questionable Contribution of Medical Measures to the Decline of Mortality
in the United States in the Twentieth Century

UK Government Feared Terrorists Would Weaponize Ebola: Developed Own Scenarios — Don't Know if the Heavily Censored Report Said It Already Happened in Africa

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of filamentous Ebola virus particles (blue)
budding from a chronically infected VERO E6 cell (yellow-green). (Photo from
NIAID)

By Ben Quinn
British military experts were asked to draw up guidance at the height of the Ebola outbreak in west Africa late last year on the feasibility and potential impact of terrorists “weaponising” the virus.

RELATED STORY: Weaponized Ebola Was Manufactured By South Africa's White Supremacists (With the Help of the US From 1980's - 1994  —  No Evidence It Was Destroyed

The Ministry of Defence has released a heavily redacted report, prepared in October, that identified three scenarios involving the exploitation of Ebola for bioterrorism.

Ebola Within A Bioterrorism Context - UK Ministry of Defense

Ebola Within A Bioterrorism Context: Addendum

Details of the first scenario are entirely blacked out, as are most of those of the second, which is described as “logistically and technically challenging for a non-state group to undertake”.

It adds: “Clearly there are practical issues involved with such a scenario that of themselves are often not insurmountable but taken together add to the complexity of successfully undertaking this attack.”

The third scenario – details of which were also heavily redacted – was described as the “most technically challenging”.

[...]

Jennifer Cole, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, said she wasn’t surprised the report had been drawn up. “The US and UK military have been carrying out research for some time into infectious diseases,” she said. “The fact that vaccines are so far along in development is because of concerns that the US has had about the virus being weaponized.”

Read More

Super Mosquitoes May Be Created By Insecticide-Treated Nets

 Ugandan villagers are taught the importance of the use mosquito nets in the fight against the spread of malaria. (Photo by Sallyforthwit)

By Marissa Fessenden
Evolution’s mechanisms keep life on Earth mutable, adaptable and alive. But it also presents a stumbling block when we humans attempt to control nature. When confronted with penicillin, bacteria develop resistance to the formerly miraculous drug and its successors. When challenged repeatedly with the same potent herbicides, weeds become dreaded superweeds. Now, our efforts to drive back malaria-carrying mosquitoes have created bloodsuckers unaffected by insecticides.


Since 2000, deaths from malaria worldwide have fallen by 47 percent, according to the World Health Organization’s World Malaria Report. Much of that success in sub-Saharan Africa, where the brunt of that toll is exacted, can be attributed to the use of insecticide-treated nets. The Guardian reports that access to such nets in the region rose from 3 percent in 2002 to 49 percent in 2013. The article, written in December, states that the WHO report "estimates that 214m long-lasting insecticidal nets will have been delivered to the area by the end of this year, bringing the total number distributed in the area over the past two years to 427m."

That kind of firepower gets met by the inevitable mosquito march for survival. The malaria-carrying mosquito species Anopheles coluzzii has apparently interbred with another species Anopheles gambiae. The hybrids carry genes that give them resistance to the most commonly used insecticides, reports Arielle Duhaime-Ross for The Verge.

Alarmingly, the rise of insecticide-treated nets in Mali coincides neatly with the development of this resistance, researchers found. They published their work in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A.

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Dallas Hospital Nurses Threatened With Being Fired if They Talked to the Press About the Horrifying Lapses in Ebola Containment

By J. D. Heyes
A nurse's union is claiming that healthcare workers who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian national who became the first Ebola patient on U.S. soil, were told by hospital administrators to keep quiet about treatment conditions at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital or they would be fired.

As reported by The Associated Press (AP), Deborah Burger of National Nurses United, a union that does not represent nurses at Texas Presbyterian, convened a conference call to reporters recently to discuss what she said were concerns of nurses at the hospital. Among other things, Burger said the nurses had to use medical tape to secure gaps in flimsy protective clothing, and that they were concerned about exposure of their necks and heads as they cared for Duncan, who died October 8.

The AP further reported:

RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of Nurses United, said the statement came from "several" and "a few" nurses, but she refused repeated inquiries to state how many. She said the organization had vetted the claims, and that the nurses cited were in a position to know what had occurred at the hospital. She did not specify whether they were among the nurses caring for Duncan.

Also, nurses said that Duncan's lab samples were sent through the hospital's pneumatic tube network, which may have resulted in contamination of the specimen delivery system. And they said hazardous waste -- sheets, protective outerwear, towels, etc. -- were allowed to pile up to the ceiling in Duncan's room.

Read More

Ebola Defeated In Nigeria — Why Was Invisible Ebola Defeated But Not the Visible Boko Haram?: Class, Disease and Terrorism

The Nigerian government’s successful handling of Ebola contrasts sharply with its blunders in tackling Boko Haram. One factor in that disparity is whose interests were at stake in each case: Ebola had the potential to kill indiscriminately across classes, while Boko Haram has so far directly affected mostly lower classes.

Boko Haram jihadist.

By Akong Charles Ndika
On 20 October 2014, the World Health Organization officially declared Africa's most populous country ‘Ebola free’, 42 days after the last case was confirmed in Nigeria. The ‘world class’ swiftness and forceful response to quash the scary epidemic that killed seven of its citizens pales greatly when compare to the dysfunctional response of the government so far in the face of Boko Haram, a terrorist group that has killed more than 1500 civilians in just the first three months of 2014. Boko Haram, in fact, still holds more than 250 girls in captivity — despite international outcry and the Nigerian government’s recent announcement of having reached a deal with the Islamic militants for the girls’ release.

Much ink continues to spill on how the government accomplished such an epidemiological feat, which so far seems to elude even the US, the most resource-endowed healthcare system. But without understanding why Nigeria got everything right on Ebola, few applicable lessons could be drawn from the unparalleled success. Nigeria so far remains a country with many stories: at different points in time, islands of good governance have surprisingly emerged, pulling the whole system to deliver when particular interests were threatened. The Nigerian middle class felt more threatened by Ebola than by Boko Haram, resulting in a successful coalition with the ruling class to prevent the scariest scenario imagined: an uncontrollable Ebola outbreak in Lagos, Africa’s most populated city.

MY HOUSE, MY CAR, THE FUTURE

Nothing in recent memory has so far threatened to melt in a frightening manner the growing divides between rich and poor in Africa. Ebola introduces in an increasingly unequal Nigerian society a horrifying prospect: the random possibility of death. A poor, underclass and rural Nigerian has almost same chance of dying of Ebola as an urban, rich–-middle or upper class—citizen, everything being equal. And for once, the ruling elites together with the affluent middle class don’t have the option to pay their way into safety and protection through flying abroad for treatment, while abandoning a crumbling health care system, neglected for so long through chronic underinvestment by the government.

The middle class perceives Ebola as an existential threat to its way of life, which has risen spectacularly with Nigeria’s economic fortunes. While no standard definition of what constitutes a middle class exists, according to a recent study, the number of Nigerians earning $15-$115 daily has swollen sixfold— 600 per cent—since 2000 (Standard Bank 2014). That is three times more than the average growth of the top economies in Africa, which were studied. That one in ten Nigerian households are middle class is no news. But taken in context, it is simply staggering, given how long it has taken to lift 23 million of its citizens into the middle class. This is more than the population of the three Ebola-hit countries together.

While it is difficult to lump them all together, those in the emerging category of the consumer class who have disproportionately benefited from the economic growth are marked by their visible affluence. They have more than sufficient income after meeting their basic needs, enough to spend on cars, houses and leisure—the fruits of their sweat, which they will do anything to protect jealously. According to one survey, 53 per cent of them owned cars that were less than five years old and 35 per cent of their households have at least one family member with a foreign passport. Over 18 per cent of them were planning to move into newly-completed, self-owned apartments (Renaissance Capital 2011).

Their numbers are projected to more than triple by 2030. With most of them being graduates, Nigeria’s middle class are not only the most informed segment of the electorate, they also wield significant influence on Nigerian politics as well as share similar interests with the ruling class—at least to prevent the status quo from crumbling in a costly manner.

Populated in Lagos and Port Harcourt, the two cities that were directly exposed to the deadly Ebola trail, a coalition of middle class and ruling class interests in those richest states of the Federation shocked a muddled Nigerian government into steering an effective response against the virus.

PREPAREDNESS IN WAITING

At the time when Ebola first appeared, public health infrastructures generally were ill-prepared. And even now, it’s not yet clear whether they have been effectively stepped up after the initial success to prevent any future outbreaks. In fact, the index patient from Liberia landed in Nigeria when health workers were striking against their poor working conditions. The ruling elites have consistently underinvested in systems to protect the population against epidemics.

Nigerian preparedness to deal with a crisis like Ebola has been below the African average. As of April 2014, Nigeria had implemented only 58 per cent of minimum core capacities that countries have collectively agreed to put in place in order to better prevent and protect their populations against outbreaks of international public health concern (World Health Organization 2014). That was below the African average of 60 per cent. Nigerian progress in putting in place national preparedness plans was very slow, with only 40 per cent success against the agreed minimum. And regarding appropriate surveillance and control measures, only four per cent of minimum requirements had been put in all the ports of entry in Nigeria, far below the African median of 35 per cent.

The Ebola outbreak was therefore a wakeup call. It was a terrifying full stop to the growing trend where the ruling elites and middle class Nigerians opt to travel abroad for health care. Nigerian politicians and senior civil servants are the largest market for medical tourism in Africa, travelling frequently abroad for even routine medical check-ups. According to the Nigerian Medical Association, over 5,000 Nigerians travelled abroad monthly for medical care, taking along almost half a billion dollars out of the economy every year. This is over 10 per cent of what the government spends on health care for the entire population of 200 million. That is the amount of almost a whole year’s expenditure on healthcare in the Ebola-hit Guinea and Liberia combined. Nigerians even travel to peer countries like Egypt, which received over 3,500 Nigerian patients last year. The Nigerian government spends only $29 per citizen on health care. With only seven per cent of the budget allocated to health, Nigeria spends just a little above South Sudan in percentage terms—50 per cent less than the continental benchmark (World Health Organization 2010)

FRINGE AFFAIR

Boko Haram has exploited in part the government’s neglect and underinvestment in social and economic development of the northeast of the country to create an able fighting force that has given the national army a run for their money. The extreme Islamist group has taken swaths of territory in the north and unleashed a sustained campaign of violence, including kidnappings, against countless civilians. But unlike Ebola, the middle class, predominantly living in the south, have not felt their interests threatened enough to force the government into mounting a sustained and effective counter-response.

While the group has undertaken some sporadic attacks in Abuja, its impact has been localized in the poorer north, where 72 per cent of the population live in extreme poverty compared with the 27 per cent in the booming south. The insurgency has driven almost one million people from their homes and killed over 13,000 Nigerians in the past five years. From 2009 to 2013, Boko Haram killed more people than Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula together and was responsible for 5.9 per cent of overall fatalities linked to terrorism (US State Department 2014). Only nine per cent of all Boko Haram targets were military. Because of the risks of attacks, most people working across the agriculture value chain, the mainstay in the North, fear moving outside protected areas.

A whole generation of underclass Nigerians is emerging. More than 10.5 million children between the ages of 6 and 17 are not in school—that is one in six of the world’s out-of-school children. In the poorest areas of the country, only 30 per cent of children even start primary school (The Economist 2014). Even in terms of numbers, Boko Haram has disproportionately killed more poor people than rich folks.

Basic health indicators are dismal in the north. While Ebola landed in Lagos via airplane as a ‘middle class disease’, cholera has remained endemic in the north over the past years as a result of a weak health system. In 2010 alone, 1,500 people were killed. And in the first quarter of 2014, the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control reported 106 deaths from an outbreak caused by poor sanitation. And if Ebola has to find its way again into the country through the ungoverned areas in the north, it is highly unlikely that government will repeat the success.

NOT ANY PRICE

To be fair, the Nigerian middle class is seriously concerned about security, in particular Boko Haram’s limitless campaign of terror. In a survey, the majority of them expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s performance in maintaining safety and security and in managing the Moslem and Christian sectarian divide, fueled in part by Boko Haram (Afrobarometer 2014).

While the middle class feel strongly about governance—the underlying causes of the government failure—it is not clear what price they are willing to pay for good governance. In fact, when asked to rank their concerns over the next 12 months by a Renaissance Capital survey, they listed electricity and unemployment (19-23 per cent) as top priorities, followed by insecurity (5 per cent) and corruption (3.5 per cent).

When they perceive their interests to be sufficiently threatened, the Nigerian middle class can wield a decisive impact on the government through joining forces with the ruling class. When necessary, the middle class may also form coalitions with the poor and underclass to stop or change the course of government’s in(actions). One example is the successful 2012 Occupy Nigeria protest, which forced the government to reverse the highly unpopular proposal to abolish the inefficient $8 billion per year fuel subsidy, which so far has disproportionately benefited the car-owning-middle and upper classes on a per capita basis. This is more than what the government spends on education.

While the same level of success was achieved with the ‘textbook’ response to contain Ebola, the fortune of the middle class-inspired mobilization remains a work in progress. Without their full commitment to the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, it is unlikely that the Nigerian government will do more for the release of the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.

For all its many failings, Nigeria, Africa’s lodestar nation, remains a country with many faces. Like a paradox, the good, the bad and the ugly faces of its governance exist side by side. But depending on whose interests are threatened, the opportunity presented, as well as strength of class coalitions formed, one story may struggle or even triumph over others. And for Ebola, thank God, it was good governance at its best.


____________________________
WORKS CITED

Afrobarometer (2014) Results from the Afrobarometer Round 5 Survey in Nigeria
Renaissance Capital (2011) A Survey of Nigerian Middle Class, Johannesburg: Renaissance Capital.
Standard Bank (2014) ‘Understanding Africa’s middle class’, Lagos: Standard Bank
The Economist (2014) Nigeria: A Divided Nation
US State Department (2014) Country Reports on Terrorism 2013, Washington, DC: US State Department
World Health Organization (2010) Health System Financing: the path to universal coverage, Geneva: World Health Organization
World Health Organization (2014) International Health Regulations (2005) Summary of States Parties 2012 Report on IHR Core Capacity Implementation, Geneva: World Health Organization

*Charles Akong is a global affairs blogger writing at http://mettaboy.blogspot.com/

Reprinted with permission from Pambazuka News.

Coverup on How Ebola Can Spread Continues: CDC Removed Info On Ebola Spreading Via Coughing And Sneezing From Website

A Pinocchio Problem: Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Director
Tom Frieden. (Screen capture from YouTube video)

By Arthur Delaney
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has quietly removed some Ebola information from its website. The changes follow claims from news outlets and conservative blogs that the agency hasn't been forthcoming about how the virus spreads, but it was not clear on Thursday afternoon whether the removal was related to the reports.

The New York Post reported Tuesday that the agency "admitted" Ebola can be contracted through casual contact with a doorknob, seemingly contrary to the CDC's insistence that Ebola is only transmissible through direct contact with bodily fluids from a person sick with the disease. The Post cited a page on the CDC's website that said Ebola spreads through droplets that can travel short distances when a sick person coughs or sneezes.

Meryl Nass, an internal medicine physician in Ellsworth, Maine, first highlighted the page on her own blog over the weekend.

The page was a PDF document that explained the difference between infections spread through the air or by droplets. The PDF had been taken down as of Thursday afternoon, with this message in its place: "The What’s the difference between infections spread through air or by droplets? Fact sheet is being updated and is currently unavailable. Please visit cdc.gov/Ebola for up-to-date information on Ebola."

An earlier version of the page is still available in Google's cache. It said that while Ebola is not "airborne" like chickenpox or tuberculosis, it can travel a few feet in the air inside droplets emitted when someone coughs or sneezes.

"A person might also get infected by touching a surface or object that has germs on it and then touching their mouth or nose," the document said.

The CDC has also changed an Ebola Q&A, deleting the below question about coughing and sneezing (which are not typical Ebola symptoms):

Can Ebola spread by coughing? By sneezing?

Unlike respiratory illnesses like measles or chickenpox, which can be transmitted by virus particles that remain suspended in the air after an infected person coughs or sneezes, Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with body fluids of a person who has symptoms of Ebola disease. Although coughing and sneezing are not common symptoms of Ebola, if a symptomatic patient with Ebola coughs or sneezes on someone, and saliva or mucus come into contact with that person’s eyes, nose or mouth, these fluids may transmit the disease.

The version of the Q&A still online notes that Ebola can survive on doorknobs for several hours. The removed question is available in Google's cache from Oct. 29.

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Weaponized Ebola Was Manufactured By South Africa's White Supremacists From 1980's - 1994: The US Was Involved — And There's No Evidence It Was Destroyed

Wouter Basson testifying before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission: The so-
called "Doctor of Death" led South Africa's development of bio weapons that targeted native
Africans, and he got lots of help from the United States (Screen capture from YouTube video)

By Daniel Taylor
Operating out of South Africa during the Apartheid era in the early 1980’s, Dr. Wouter Basson launched a secret bioweapons project called Project Coast. The goal of the project was to develop biolunogical and chemical agents that would either kill or sterilize the black population and assassinate political enemies. Among the agents developed were Marburg and Ebola viruses.

Basson is surrounded by cloak and dagger intrigue, as he told Pretoria High court in South Africa that “The local CIA agent in Pretoria threatened me with death on the sidewalk of the American Embassy in Schoeman Street.” According to a 2001 article in The New Yorker magazine, the American Embassy in Pretoria was “terribly concerned” that Basson would reveal deep connections between Project Coast and the United States.

Wouter Basson is described as "unrepentant." — So what is he and
his white supremacist cronies up to nowadays?

In 2013, Basson was found guilty of “unprofessional conduct” by the South African health council.

Bioweapons expert Jeanne Guillemin writes in her book Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism, “The project‘s growth years were from 1982 to 1987, when it developed a range of biological agents (such as those for anthrax, cholera, and the Marburg and Ebola viruses and for botulinum toxin)…“

Basson’s bioweapons program officially ended in 1994, but there has been no independent verification that the pathogens created were ever destroyed. The order to destroy them went directly to Dr. Basson. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The integrity of the process rested solely on Dr. Basson’s honesty.”

Basson claims to have had contact with western agencies that provided “ideological assistance” to Project Coast. Basson stated in an interview shot for the documentary Anthrax War that he met several times with Dr. David Kelly, the infamous UN weapons inspector in Iraq. Kelly was a top bioweapons expert in the United Kingdom. He was found dead near his home in Oxfordshire in 2003. While the official story claims he committed suicide, medical experts highly doubt this story.

In a 2007 article from the Mail Online, it was reported that a week prior to his death, Dr. Kelly was to be interviewed by MI5 about his ties to Dr. Basson.

Dr. Timothy Stamps, Minister of Health of Zimbabwe, suspected that his country was under biological attack during the time that Basson was operating. Stamps told PBS Frontline in 1998 that “The evidence is very clear that these were not natural events. Whether they were caused by some direct or deliberate inoculation or not, is the question we have to answer.”

Stamps specifically named the Ebola and Marburg viruses as suspect. Stamps thinks that his country was being used as a testing ground for weaponized Ebola.

“I’m talking about anthrax and cholera in particular, but also a couple of viruses that are not endemic to Zimbabwe [such as] the Ebola type virus and, we think also, the Marburg virus. We wonder whether in fact these are not associated with biological warfare against this country during the hostilities… Ebola was along the line of the Zambezi [River], and I suspect that this may have been an experiment to see if a new virus could be used to directly infect people.”

The Ghanaian Times reported in early September on the recent Ebola outbreak, noting connections between Basson and bioweapons research. The article points out that, “…there are two types of scientists in the world: those who are so concerned about the pain and death caused to humans by illness that they will even sacrifice their own lives to try and cure deadly diseases, and those who will use their scientific skill to kill humans on the orders of… government…”

Indeed, these ideas are not new. Plato wrote over 2,000 years ago in his workThe Republic that a ruling elite should guide society, “…whose aim will be to preserve the average of population.” He further stated, “There are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small.”

As revealed by The Age, Nobel prize winning Australian microbiologist Sir Macfarlane Burnet secretly urged the Australian government in 1947 to develop bio weapons for use against the “overpopulated countries of South-East Asia.” In a 1947 meeting with the New Weapons and Equipment Development Committee, the group recommended that “the possibilities of an attack on the food supplies of S-E Asia and Indonesia using B.W. agents should be considered by a small study group.”

This information gives us an interesting perspective on the recent unprecedented Ebola outbreak. Is it an organic natural phenomenon? Did this strain of Ebola accidentally escape from a bioweapons lab? Or, was it deliberately released?

Reprinted with permission from Center for Research in Globalization.

Why We Don't Want Bill and Melinda Gates Controlling the WHO Response to Ebola — The 'Donations' Always Come With Massive Strings Attached

Photo by Jules Antonio.

By Margaret Kimberley, BAR
Sierra Leone has waved the white flag in the face of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). Its meager infrastructure has buckled under the onslaught of a disease which could have been curtailed. The announcement that infected patients will be treated at home because there is no longer the capacity to treat them in hospitals is a surrender which did not have to happen. Not only did Europe and the United States turn a blind eye to sick and dying Africans but they did so with the help of an unlikely perpetrator.

The World Health Organization is “the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system.” Its very name implies that it takes direction from and serves the needs of people all over the world but the truth is quite different. The largest contributor to the WHO budget is not a government. It is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which provides more funding than either the United States or the United Kingdom. WHO actions and priorities are no longer the result of the consensus of the world’s people but top down decision making from wealthy philanthropists.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation may appear to be a savior when it provides $300 million to the WHO budget, but those dollars come with strings attached. WHO director general Dr. Margaret Chan admitted as much when she said, “My budget [is] highly earmarked, so it is driven by what I call donor interests.” Instead of being on the front line when a communicable disease crisis appears, it spends its time administering what Gates and his team have determined is best.

The Ebola horror continues as it has for the last ten months in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The cruelty of the world’s lack of concern for Africa and all Africans in the diaspora was evident by the inaction of nations and organizations that are supposed to respond in times of emergencies. While African governments and aid organizations sounded the alarm the WHO did little because its donor driven process militates against it. The world of private dollars played a role in consigning thousands of people to death.

Critics of the Gates Foundation appeared long before this current Ebola outbreak. In 2008 the WHO’s malaria chief, Dr. Arata Kochi, complained about the conflicts of interest created by the foundation. In an internal memo leaked to the New York Times he complained that the world’s top malaria researchers were “locked up in a 'cartel' with their own research funding being linked to those of others within the group.” In other words, the standards of independent peer reviewed research were cast aside in order to please the funder.

Private philanthropy is inherently undemocratic. It is a top down driven process in which the wealthy individual tells the recipient what they will and will not do. This is a problematic system for charities of all kinds and is disastrous where the health of world’s people is concerned. Health care should be a human right, not a charity, and the world’s governments should determine how funds to protect that right are spent. One critic put it very pointedly. “…the Gates Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates, do not believe in the public sector, they do not believe in a democratic, publically owned, publically accountable system.”

There is little wonder why the Ebola outbreak caught the WHO so flat footed as they spent months making mealy mouthed statements but never coordinating an effective response. The Gates foundation is the WHO boss, not governments, and if they weren’t demanding action, then the desperate people affected by Ebola weren’t going to get any.

Privatization of public resources is a worldwide scourge. Education, pensions, water, and transportation are being taken out of the hands of the public and given to rich people and corporations. The Ebola crisis is symptomatic of so many others which go unaddressed or improperly addressed because no one wants to bite the hands that do the feeding.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged an additional $50 million to fight the current Ebola epidemic but that too is problematic, as Director General Chan describes. “When there’s an event, we have money. Then after that, the money stops coming in, then all the staff you recruited to do the response, you have to terminate their contracts.” The WHO should not be lurching from crisis to crisis, SARS, MERS, or H1N1 influenza based on the whims of philanthropy. The principles of public health should be carried out by knowledgeable medical professionals who are not dependent upon rich people for their jobs.

The Gates are not alone in using their deep pockets to confound what should be publicly held responsibilities. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that he was contributing $25 million to fight Ebola. His donation will go to the Centers for Disease Control Foundation. Most Americans are probably unaware that such a foundation even exists. Yet there it is, run by a mostly corporate board which will inevitably interfere with the public good. The WHO and its inability to coordinate the fight against Ebola tells us that public health is just that, public. If the CDC response to Ebola in the United States fails it may be because it falls prey to the false siren song of giving private interests control of the people’s resources and responsibilities.

 Reprinted with permission from Black Agenda Report.