Articles

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http://www.statesman.com/news/content/auto...ons/monday/news

_34047d86c12622e600c7.html

 

Concern grows over secrecy at CDC

Scientists want agency to provide data on flu to help with vaccines

By Rebecca Carr

 

WASHINGTON BUREAU

 

Monday, October 3, 2005

 

WASHINGTON -- Scientists are accusing the Atlanta-based Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention of hoarding crucial data that could

help vaccinations at a time when there is growing concern about a

possible influenza pandemic.

 

.

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ADHD advice secretly paid for by drugs companies

By Daniel Foggo

(Filed: 09/10/2005)

http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml...9/ixportal.html

 

 

Support and advice groups for parents of children with so-called behavioural disorders are being secretly funded by pharmaceutical firms, it can be revealed.

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USEFUL WEBSITE FOR CHECKING TOXIC COMMUNITIES

http://www.scorecard.org/

 

 

http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3117/1/396

 

EPA's Proposed TRI Rule

 

EPA Proposes Collecting Less Information on Toxic Pollution

EPA recently announced plans that would essentially dismantle its Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), the nation's premier tool for notifying the public about toxic pollution.

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/hea...,1,831137.story

 

TRIBUNE INVESTIGATION: THE MERCURY MENACE

 

U.S. safety net in tatters

Seafood shoppers are at risk for mercury exposure as regulators ignore

their own experts, issue flawed warnings and set policies aiding industry

Advertisement

Seattle Sutton Corporate

By Michael Hawthorne and Sam Roe

Tribune staff reporters

 

December 12, 2005

 

Shipped from Singapore, the swordfish entered the U.S. this year without

being tested for the toxic metal mercury.

 

When a fillet from that fish reached a display case at a supermarket in

suburban Des Plaines, it carried no government warning labels, even though

federal officials know swordfish often is so contaminated that young

children and pregnant women should never eat it.

 

And when the Tribune bought and tested this particular piece of fish, the

results showed not just high amounts of mercury, but levels three times

the legal limit.

 

This repeated neglect by the U.S. government--the lack of mercury testing,

the failure to adequately warn consumers,.......

 

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...ack=1&cset=true

 

DuPont hit with $10 million fine

Settlement with EPA for not disclosing data on toxin in Teflon

 

By Michael Hawthorne

Tribune staff reporter

Published December 15, 2005

 

 

DuPont will pay a record $10.25 million fine for failing to tell the Environmental Protection Agency what the company knew about a chemical used to make Teflon, including studies that found the substance in human blood and said it should be considered "extremely toxic."

 

Federal regulators hope the settlement will help solve an environmental mystery. Perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, is turning up throughout the world, in polar bears near the Arctic Circle and toddlers in American cities. But no one is sure why.

 

Until recently, very little has been known about PFOA and related chemicals outside of DuPont and a handful of other companies, even though the chemicals have been used for more than 50 years to make non-stick cookware, grease-resistant food wrappers, rain-repellent clothing and hundreds of other products.

 

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As new research published today reveals a link between poor diet and mental ill health, Fran Gorman says it's time for the government to act

 

Rise in mental illness linked to unhealthy diets, say studies

 

Monday January 16, 2006

http://society.guardian.co.uk/socialcare/c...1687598,00.html

 

 

Chickens now reach their slaughter weight twice as fast as they did 30 years ago, which has changed the nutritional profile of the meat. Whereas a chicken carcass used to be 2% fat, it has now risen to 22%. Also, the diet fed to chickens has changed, which has reduced omega-3 fatty acids and increased omega-6 fatty acids in chicken meat. Similarly, the diet fed to farmed fish is changing the ratio of fatty acids in the fish we eat. As a result, the population's intake of omega-3 fatty acids has decreased whilst the consumption of omega-6 fatty acids has increased. This unequal intake combined with a lack of vitamins and minerals has been linked depression, concentration and memory problems.

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12 States Oppose Bush Pollution Plan

 

By MICHAEL GORMLEY

The Associated Press

Friday, January 13, 2006; 8:16 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6011301010.html

 

The proposed changes, which require congressional approval, would exempt companies from disclosing their toxic pollution if they claim to release fewer than 5,000 pounds of a specific chemical _ the current limit is 500 pounds _ or if they store it onsite but claim to release "zero" amounts of the worst pollutants.

 

The chemicals involved include mercury, DDT, PCBs and other chemicals that persist in the environment and work up the food chain. Companies must report any storage of dioxin or dioxin-like compounds, even if none are released.

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http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06018/639721.stm

 

Drug error, not chelation therapy, killed boy, expert says

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

By Karen Kane, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

 

One of the nation's foremost experts in chelation therapy said she

has determined "without a doubt" that it was medical error, and not

the therapy itself, that led to the death of a 5-year-old boy who was

receiving it as a treatment for autism.

[kim]

http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/5-12-30/36349.html

 

Autism: An Epidemic Is Finally Acknowledged

Government agency takes first step to protect our children

James Ottar Grundvig

Special to The Epoch Times Dec 30, 2005

 

The year 2005 will be a year to remember in the autism epidemic: The debate came to a head between parents of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) children and the federal government, which has long denied an autism epidemic exists.

 

The ebb and flow has turned in the favor of these long-neglected children, who today number well over one million in the United States alone. Governmental agencies in charge of children's health and the pediatric-psychiatry-pharmaceutical axis had erected a wall to protect their errant policies regarding baby vaccinations. In 2005 that wall began to shows signs of cracking.

 

Turning Points

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http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15980500

 

 

 

Vaccine exemption outrages mercury foes

 

01/23/2006

 

By MAGGIE BORMAN

 

The Telegraph

 

Advertisement

 

 

Reaction has been swift to a decision this month by the Illinois Department of Public Health to delay state lawmakers’ attempts to reduce mercury exposure for those receiving flu shots.

 

The controversy surrounds a decision by state director Dr. Eric Whitaker to issue an exemption to a law that was supposed to take effect Jan. 1, eventually banning mercury content in certain vaccines. The law, however, contains a provision that allows for an exemption if the state determines that the law would lead to, among other things, vaccine shortages. Whitaker has said the phase-out could cause shortages of this season’s flu shot and vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus, meningitis and Japanese encephalitis.

 

Illinois’ Mercury-Free Vaccine Act was signed into law by Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Aug. 29, reducing the allowable mercury content in all vaccines to 1.25 micrograms after Jan. 1, 2006, and for all vaccines administered in Illinois to be totally mercury-free by Jan. 1, 2008. The vaccine preservative thimerosal is comprised of 49.6 percent mercury by weight and is a known neurotoxin.

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Helpful Probiotic Information

 

http://www.innvista.com/health/nutrition/biotics/proborg.htm

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*Childhood Vaccination: State Enforced Child Abuse?*

------------------------------------------------------------------------

/Dateline: Monday, January 30, 2006/

http://phenomena.cinescape.com/0/editorial..._id=84&sub_id=0

 

*By: DR PAULA BAILLIE-HAMILTON*

By: Medical Doctor and Author

 

 

/Dr. Paula Baillie-Hamilton explores the growing phenomena of parents

choosing medical sterilisation instead of submitting future children to

the increasingly rigid state childhood vaccination program, which many

top scientists now believe to be compromising our children's present and

future health./

 

I am standing in the Floridian department store Burdines-Macy's watching

my friend Annie trying to round up her two younger children. For most

children, a few stiff words would have the desired effect, however in

this instance she could be speaking in an alien tongue for all the

effect her efforts appear to be having. As I race around the store

searching for her youngest child, who appears to have completely

vanished off the face of the earth, I look back and catch a glimmer of

unadulterated distress and sadness in her eyes as her beloved children's

poor behavior attracts increasing numbers of disapproving stares from

passing shoppers.

 

Far from being a result of poor discipline, the poor behavior - and

multiple health problems - of all her three children seems to have

arisen as a direct result of childhood vaccinations. Despite being

completely normal for the first few months, they all deteriorated

physically, and behaviorally, immediately following various different

rounds of the intensive and expanding program of childhood vaccinations

all American children now have to unquestioningly submit to in order to

be admitted to school.

 

Now all her three children appear to show signs of the increasingly

common vaccine linked childhood behavioral conditions known as Attention

Disorder Hyperactivity Deficit (ADHD) - indeed her eldest was recently

put on a ritolin like drug (called focalin) due to poor behavior in

school. But this tragedy for her does not stop there as, more

worryingly, another one of her children has also developed features of

autism. Indeed, their behavior has deteriorated to the point that this

highly intelligent lady says with feeling that "These are not the

children that I gave birth to."

 

*When sterilization is the only alternative*

 

For Annie and a growing number of her friends, the current system has

gotten so crazy that they have been forced to take the only option

available to them - medical sterilization. She and other parents of

vaccine damaged behaviorally disturbed children have been so traumatized

and worn down by the tough state laws on childhood vaccinations, medical

stone walls and extreme child behavior, that they taken the dramatic

step of being sterilized for fear of having any further healthy babies

which end up being damaged by compulsory vaccinations.

 

While she and her husband love all their children dearly and despite her

deep desire to have another child, which was extremely strong, they both

could not contemplate coping with another behaviorally damaged child. It

is this real fear of "making more bad babies" which appears to be the

driving force behind this new and shocking phenomena of deliberate

sterilization.

 

*The Government childhood immunization programs: State endorsed blackmail?*

 

You may well ask why if it was so obviously the vaccines behind her

first child's deteriorating health, why were her second and third

children vaccinated? Well, if the doctor who vaccinated your child does

not accept the fact that the vaccine that he/she gave was actually

responsible for your child's current health problem, this would make

even the most confident parent, question his or her own recall of events

or existence of symptoms. If you combine this with the fact that all

childhood vaccines are now mandatory, this serves to makes resistance

almost futile. As questioning the safety of a vaccine is tantamount to

taking on the entire US government and medical profession in one fell

swoop. Thirdly, there is denial - what parent wants to be told that by

vaccinating their child they were indirectly responsible for causing

their health problem?

 

Every different state has passed laws requiring children to be given a

full course of vaccination, which comprises 33 doses of about 9 or 10

vaccines before entering school. While exemptions can be obtained, they

are very hard to get and mainly reserved for religious and some health

reasons. And although a few states do allow for philosophical

objections, the New Jersey courts recently upheld the right of a private

school to deny admission to a student merely because she objected to

taking a vaccine.

 

This legalized form of blackmail goes further as unvaccinated children

are not even allowed to take part in school sports. Indeed many

pediatricians will not even treat unvaccinated children. For a country

supposedly known as "The Land of the Free," America appears to have the

harshest anti-libertarian laws in the world when it comes to childhood

vaccinations. To many citizens, particularly non-Americans who don't

have anything like these laws, these regulations could be seen as

nothing more than state-endorsed and enforced blackmail.

 

Annie's child was transformed from a normal baby into a "high needs

baby," who screamed around the clock immediately following her first 8

week vaccination. This was followed by five years of total rebellion and

extreme behavior. Another of her children's hair fell out at the age of

two following another vaccine. Nevertheless, the threat of being unable

to send her children to school, of being struck off her pediatrician

books, and of becoming a social outcast among the other parents with

vaccinated children made Annie press on with the full vaccination

program, despite her better innate judgement.

 

*Do vaccines really benefit our children?*

 

Since most children today get up to 33 immunizations before they can be

admitted to public school, parents are starting to ask a fundamental

question. Which is the greater risk: getting and being injured by the

disease, or being injured by the vaccine that purports to protect

against it?

 

For example, serious adverse events after receiving the hepatitis B

vaccine, including 48 deaths, are reported three times as frequently as

actual cases of hepatitis B in children under the age of 14. Indeed,

many of the vaccines are used against diseases which simply don't exist.

For instance, the only polio cases in the United States since 1991 have

been those caused by the oral polio vaccine, whose use was discouraged

only just recently! And even when they do exist, our better living

standards have converted diseases such as measles from potential

killers, as they can be in third world countries, to mostly harmless

childhood illnesses.

 

So somewhat shockingly, despite the draconian "blackmail" style laws set

up to force parents to vaccinate their children before they are old

enough to decide for themselves whether they want to be injected with

this concoction of highly toxic chemicals, there appears to be no clear

cut evidence that the vast mass vaccination program is on balance

benefiting our children. Indeed, there is a growing pile of evidence

indicating that as legislation goes to previously unheard of extremes,

this policy may have brought about far more damage to our children's

health than good.

 

*It's official - The Childhood Vaccination Program is damaging

children's health*

 

Ever since mass vaccination of infants began last century, reports of

serious brain, cardiovascular, metabolic and other injuries started

filling pages of medical journals. A recent article called "The Dark

Side of Immunizations," reviewed reports from several countries showing

that vaccinated children, in addition to having a lower I.Q., also have

a higher incidence of behavioral problems, asthma, and diabetes than

unvaccinated children. In fact, pertussis vaccine (whooping cough) has

even been used to induce encephalomyelitis in animals, a potentially

fatal disease characterized by brain swelling and haemorrhaging.

 

Take for example the strong link between vaccines, autism and other

childhood behavioral disorders, a real problem Annie and her family live

with 24/7. The overall amount of the heavy metal mercury that children

were getting -- from the constantly increasing number of vaccinations --

was getting so high that between 1989 and 1999, children who received

all the recommended vaccinations would have absorbed their lifetime's

"safe" amount by the time they were 6 months old. This "mistake" was so

serious that it even prompted an adviser to the National Immunization

Program, Dr. Neal Halsey of Johns Hopkins University, at a hearing in

Cambridge three years ago to admit, "I feel badly that I didn't pick it

up".

 

Symptoms of mercury toxicity in young children are extremely similar to

those of autism and ADHD. Thus, it is thought that the widespread use of

mercury in the childhood vaccination program explains the recent

increase in the numbers of children diagnosed with autism since the

early 1990s. Indeed, the high number of children diagnosed with autism

seems to directly correlate with the recommendation of both the

hepatitis B and HIB vaccine to infants in the early 1990s.

 

But it's not just behavioral problems that are linked to the childhood

vaccination program. Mounting evidence suggests the program has played a

role in the massive upsurge of other 21st century childhood health

epidemics, such as diabetes, cancer, and immune-system diseases like

allergies, asthma and autoimmune disorders.

 

*Why we are seeing previously unforeseen levels of apparently

vaccine-linked childhood disease*

 

The reason behind this epidemic of vaccine-linked diseases appears to

stem from our increasingly polluted environment. Since the creation of

synthetic (and often extremely health-damaging) chemicals at the

beginning of the 20th century, their production has doubled

approximately every ten years. Consequently our children are now exposed

to thousands of synthetic and toxic industrial chemicals from the moment

they are even conceived. Then as children, they get yet more from

contaminated food, water, and air.

 

The problem is that our detoxification systems simply were not been

designed to process these chemicals. This is true with adults, and even

more so with babies. As a result, these toxins accumulate in our bodies.

At a certain point, the degree of chemical poisoning appears to become

so great that one or more body system collapses, resulting in the

development of a so-called "fixed name" disease, such as diabetes or

cancer.

 

There is evidence which points to childhood vaccinations being far more

risky than adult vaccination. Firstly we know that children, due to

their relatively immature detoxification systems, appear to be the most

vulnerable to possible vaccine-induced chemical damage. Secondly, levels

of chemicals which cause damage to children are much far smaller than

those known to damage an adult. And thirdly, because children systems

are still developing, chemical damage can causes additional health

problems in our young such as developmental delays and diseases such as

autism. This, together with the fact that these days our children are

have already been exposed to far more chemicals in the womb than their

parents ever were, could help account for the unprecedented number of

childhood vaccine-related illnesses now being seen.

 

*The difficulty of breaking the "vaccines are only good" myth*

 

Dr. J. Anthony Morris, the former Chief Vaccine Control Officer at the

U.S. Federal Drug Administration, stated that "there is a great deal of

evidence to prove that immunization of children does more harm than

good." This is a profoundly shocking comment, and makes you wonder what

is behind the government's policy of forcing parents to unknowingly

subject their babies to dozens of shots of highly toxic, well

established brain poisons -- in the name of health?

 

To understand how this crazy situation came to pass we need to go back

to the origins of vaccines. Vaccines were originally introduced

following Dr. Jenner, an extremely observant country physician, noticed

that milkmaids who had been infected by Cowpox, appeared to be resistant

against contracting the more fatal small pox. Ever since, this romantic

medical breakthrough has resulted in virtually the entire medical

community holding the concept of vaccinations tightly to its collective

bosom.

 

However, things have changed from those early days in a way in which

Jenner could never have predicted. For vaccines are now -- unlike in his

day -- regularly loaded with some of the most toxic brain damaging

chemicals known to mankind.

 

The problem appears to arise from the fact that most doctors are simply

not told about these additives. And even if they are, because they are

not taught about the effects that these chemicals can have on human

health, they fail to grasp their significance and potential role they

could be playing in triggering disease.

 

*Is the US Government responsible for child abuse on a massive scale?*

 

In the light of all this information, the question has to be asked to

whether the U.S. government enforces laws based on incomplete and flawed

science, which are now so rigid, that they could even constitute child

abuse on a massive scale - the like which has never before been seen?

 

Consider the definition of child abuse from federal agencies themselves

- when those responsible for a child's welfare knowingly or by omission

inflict physical harm on a child. Although I am no lawyer, the fact that

no safety studies have examined how existing levels of vaccines

"additives" could affect current and future child health, could

potentially be construed as child abuse by negligence.

 

For instance if I, a medical academic, but also a non-government funded,

mother of four young children, can find enough evidence to write two

major books on the subject, surely one or more of the highly paid

government scientists in charge of the childhood immunization program

should be able to do the same. If not, at least examine the evidence

from the thousands of existing peer-reviewed scientific papers

available, and adopt the precautionary principle to make vaccination

optional until further studies shed more light on the situation.

 

*Conclusion*

 

After discovering that her children's problems may have been due to the

chemicals present in vaccines, rather than waiting for any change of

policy from the government, Annie has spent the last few days avidly

reading up on ways in which to reverse this damage. She has also been

researching ways to exempt her children from future vaccines. While she

knows she cannot undo all of the seemingly vaccine-induced damage done

to her children, she has already seen a glimmer of promise following

even a few days of appropriate supplements. Although small, it has even

been enough to give her hopes of one day resurrecting her dream of

having another child.

 

While that dream may just have come that bit too late for her, one thing

that can be said for certain: no child of hers will ever get the needle

again.

 

*Copyright Phenomena Entertainment Group LLC 2004.*

 

/Dr Paula Baillie-Hamilton is a medical doctor who holds an academic

doctorate in human metabolism from the University of Oxford. She is a

visiting fellow in Occupational and Environmental Health at Stirling

University in Scotland and an advisor to the Soil Association, the UK's

organic certification body. Dr Baillie-Hamilton's extensive work on

chemical toxins and organic foods has been published in international

medical journals. Her critically acclaimed book, 'The Body Restoration

Plan', was published in the US in 2003 by Avery Books and in the UK by

Michael Joseph under the title, The Detox Diet. Paula's second book is

known as 'Stop the 21st Century Killing You' in the UK (Random House,

January 2005) and as 'Toxic Overload' in the US (Penguin Putnam June

2005). This book looks at the wider issue of the ways in which 21st

century living damages our health, and outlines ways in which to adapt

and thrive in our new and toxic environment./

 

Dr Baillie-Hamilton's website can be found here

<http://www.slimmingsystems.com/>.

 

*

 

The material in this post is distributed without

profit to those who have expressed a prior interest

in receiving the included information for research

and educational purposes. For more information go to:

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htm

If you wish to use copyrighted material from this email

for purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain

permission from the copyright owner.

[kim]

Hastert, Frist Said to Rig Bill for Drug Firms*

 

By Bill Theobald

The Gannett News Service

 

Thursday 09 February 2006

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020906R.shtml

http://www.gallatinnewsexaminer.com/apps/p...405/1309/MTCN04

 

*/Frist denies protection was added in secret./*

 

Washington - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker

Dennis Hastert engineered a backroom legislative maneuver to protect

pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits, say witnesses to the

pre-Christmas power play.

 

The language was tucked into a Defense Department appropriations

bill at the last minute without the approval of members of a

House-Senate conference committee, say several witnesses, including a

top Republican staff member.

 

In an interview, Frist, a doctor and Tennessee Republican, denied

that the wording was added that way.

 

Trial lawyers and other groups condemn the law, saying it could make

it nearly impossible for people harmed by a vaccine to force the drug

maker to pay for their injuries.

 

Many in health care counter that the protection is needed to help

build up the vaccine industry in the United States, especially in light

of a possible avian flu pandemic.

 

The legislation, called the Public Readiness and Emergency

Preparedness Act, allows the secretary of Health and Human Services to

declare a public health emergency, which then provides immunity for

companies that develop vaccines and other "countermeasures."

 

Beyond the issue of vaccine liability protection, some say going

around the longstanding practice of bipartisan House-Senate conference

committees' working out compromises on legislation is a dangerous power

grab by Republican congressional leaders that subverts democracy.

 

"It is a travesty of the legislative process," said Thomas Mann,

senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

 

"It vests enormous power in the hands of congressional leaders and

private interests, minimizes transparency and denies legitimate

opportunities for all interested parties, in Congress and outside, to

weigh in on important policy questions."

 

At issue is what happened Dec. 18 as Congress scrambled to finish

its business and head home for the Christmas holiday.

 

That day, a conference committee made up of 38 senators and House

members met several times to work out differences on the 2006 Defense

Department appropriations bill.

 

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the ranking minority House member on the

conference committee, said he asked Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, the

conference chairman, whether the vaccine liability language was in the

massive bill or would be placed in it.

 

Obey and four others at the meeting said Stevens told him no.

Committee members signed off on the bill and the conference broke up.

 

A spokeswoman for Stevens, Courtney Boone, said last week that the

vaccine liability language was in the bill when conferees approved it.

Stevens was not made available for comment.

 

During a January interview, Frist agreed. Asked about the claim that

the vaccine language was inserted after the conference members signed

off on the bill, he replied: "To my knowledge, that is incorrect. It was

my understanding, you'd have to sort of confirm, that the vaccine

liability which had been signed off by leaders of the conference, signed

off by the leadership in the United States Senate, signed off by the

leadership of the House, it was my understanding throughout that that

was part of that conference report."

 

But Keith Kennedy, who works for Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., as

staff director for the Senate Appropriations Committee, said at a

seminar for reporters last month that the language was inserted by Frist

and Hastert, R-Ill., after the conference committee ended its work.

 

"There should be no dispute. That was an absolute travesty," Kennedy

said at a videotaped Washington, D.C., forum sponsored by the Center on

Congress at Indiana University.

 

"It was added after the conference had concluded. It was added at

the specific direction of the speaker of the House and the majority

leader of the Senate. The conferees did not vote on it. It's a true

travesty of the process."

 

After the conference committee broke up, a meeting was called in

Hastert's office, Kennedy said. Also at the meeting, according to a

congressional staffer, were Frist, Stevens and House Majority Whip Roy

Blunt, R-Mo.

 

"They (committee staff members) were given the language and then it

was put in the document," Kennedy said.

 

About 10 or 10:30 p.m., Democratic staff members were handed the

language and told it was now in the bill, Obey said.

 

He took to the House floor in a rage. He called Frist and Hastert "a

couple of musclemen in Congress who think they have a right to tell

everybody else that they have to do their bidding."

 

Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., also was critical of inserting the vaccine

language after the conference committee had adjourned.

 

"It sucks," he told Congress Daily that night.

 

Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., another member of the conference committee,

was upset, too, a staff member said, because he didn't have enough time

to read the language. The final bill was filed in the House at 11:54

p.m. and passed 308-102 at 5:02 the next morning.

 

The Senate unanimously approved the legislation Dec. 21, but not

before Senate Democrats, including several members of the conference

committee, bashed the way the vaccine language was inserted.

 

"What an insult to the legislative process," said Sen. Robert Byrd,

D-W.Va., a member of the conference committee. Byrd is considered the

authority on legislative rules and tradition.

 

President Bush signed the legislation into law Dec. 30.

 

When asked about Frist's earlier denial, spokeswoman Amy Call said:

"Bill Frist has fought hard to protect the people of Tennessee and the

people of the United States from a bioterror emergency and that's what

he did throughout this process."

 

Hastert's office did not provide a response.

 

*Not against the Rules*

 

The practice of adding to a compromise bill worked out by bipartisan

House-Senate conference committees, while highly unusual, is not thought

to violate congressional rules.

 

Some Senate and House Democrats have proposed banning the practice

as part of broader attempts at ethics reform in Congress.

 

They, consumer groups and others with concerns about possible harm

caused by vaccines charge that the move was a gift by Frist to the

pharmaceutical industry, which they point out has given a lot of

campaign cash to the Nashville doctor through the years.

 

"The senator should be working to ensure there are safe vaccines to

protect American families rather than protecting the drug industry's

pocketbooks," Pamela Gilbert, president of Protect American Families,

said in a statement. The group is an alliance of consumer, labor and

advocacy organizations.

 

Frist has received $271,523 in campaign donations from the

pharmaceutical and health products industry since 1989, according to the

Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group.

 

He is also a possible candidate for president in 2008.

 

In the interview, Frist reiterated how important he thinks the

vaccine protections are.

 

"The United States of America, if a pandemic occurs, is totally

unprepared," he said. "And the only way we are going to be prepared is

rebuilding our manufacturing base to build a vaccine infrastructure that

can be timely and responsive. We don't have it today."

 

Frist has long advocated liability protection for vaccine makers,

and it was widely reported that he would attempt to attach the

legislation to the Defense Appropriations bill because it is considered

must-pass legislation.

 

Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research

and Manufacturers of America, said that, while the group favors

liability protection, it did not take a position nor did it lobby on

behalf of the law that passed.

 

-------

 

*About the law*

 

The new law providing vaccine makers with protection against lawsuits is

called the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act.

 

Among its key provisions are:

 

. It allows the secretary of Health and Human Services to issue a

declaration that a "disease or other health condition or other threat to

health constitutes a public health emergency."

 

. The secretary may also issue a declaration if there is a "credible

risk" that there may be such a problem in the future.

 

. The protection against lawsuits then kicks in covering the

"manufacture, testing, development, distribution, administration or use

of one or more countermeasures," a term that includes vaccines and other

drugs.

 

. Requires someone who is injured to prove "willful misconduct," and

states that the standard will be "more stringent than a standard of

negligence in any form or recklessness."

 

. Excludes any state or federal court from reviewing the secretary's

[gestapo-like] decisions under the law.

 

-- GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

 

*On the Web*

The Center on Congress at Indiana University is at

http://congress.indiana.edu.

Click on "News" item about media seminar, then click on "Part Three" for

video of staffer's comments.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

*What's next?*

 

Here's what could happen next regarding the vaccine liability protection

law:

 

. House and Senate Democrats have proposed changing the rules to block

votes on any provision that has not been approved by a conference committee.

 

. Members of Congress could try to amend the vaccine law.

 

. The law's constitutionality could be challenged in court.

 

-- GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

 

John Wayne Gacy, Theodore Bundy, Bill Frist, Charles Manson, Dennis

Hastert, Heinrich Himmler, Henry Lee Lucas, Bill Frist, Gary Leon Ridgway

 

The material in this post is distributed without

profit to those who have expressed a prior interest

in receiving the included information for research

and educational purposes. For more information go to:

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htm

If you wish to use copyrighted material from this email

for purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain

permission from the copyright owner.

 

 

 

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[kim]

By Victoria Kennedy

AS EVEN MORE VACCINATIONS ARE PLANNED FOR KIDS, HAVE WE GONE..

 

By Victoria Kennedy

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=1...-name_page.html

 

 

IT'S a scene that's unbearable for both parents and children alike - when a

nurse moves a menacing needle towards their child's arm.

 

But by April, this toecurling scene will be repeated in doctors' surgeries

TEN times before a child is two, as a further four inoculations will be

added to the immunity programme.

 

The current required 21 doses will be increased with an extra four

pneumococcal vaccines - against meningitis, blood poisoning and pneumonia -

and a booster against Hib, an infection that can cause bacterial

meningitis.

 

The government says these jabs are vital as they will keep children safe.

 

However, questions have been raised as to how effective these inoculations

are, and whether they are actually harmful to a child's health.

 

This, in addition to parents' existing concerns over the safety of the current MMR jab - after all many parents born in the 80s only had five inoculations themselves.

 

Some experts believe that vaccines are contributing to the steep rise in immune-related disorders in very young children.

[kim]

2006 January 26

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...l=pubmed_docsum

 

Alteration of the spontaneous systemic autoimmune disease in (NZB x NZW)F1 mice by treatment with thimerosal (ethyl mercury).

[kim]

February 12, 2006

By LAURA BEIL / The Dallas Morning News

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...n1.3e7c881.html

 

Rates of diabetes, autism, asthma and other conditions are rising in

American children. Usually, no one can say why disease afflicts one child

and spares another. The National Children's Study was designed to help

explain how genetics, chemical exposures, social circumstance and other

factors combine to make children ill.