October 17, 2009

The Three Myths of Homeschooling

By Berit Kjos - 1998

"Mom, would you be mad at me if I didn't do my work at school?" Ten-year old Christina looked concerned.
"Why wouldn't you want to do it, honey?"
"I have to answer some questions I don't think are right."
Her mother, Ramona Mays, asked to see the assignment.
"The teacher told us we couldn't take it home."
"But Christina, I need to see it so I can support you. The school can't take away your freedom to show me what you are learning. Your Dad and I are responsible for you."
Christina agreed. She knew that Proverbs 22:6 told parents to train their children in God's ways. So she brought the work pages home the next day, and her mother began to read:
Make a list of ten people you care more about than others. Include yourself in the list.
Rewrite the names in the list in the order that you care about them.
Mrs. Mays pondered the strange assignment. "Why would they tell you to rank the people you love?" she asked. "And what does this have to do with Advanced English?"
Christina didn't know, so Mrs. Mays asked her teacher. She didn't explain. Already concerned about the lack of academics, the distorted views of Christianity in multicultural literature, and the use of intrusive questions and surveys to assess the beliefs and values of students and their families, Richard and Ramona Mays decided to teach their three daughters at home.
Today's reasons for homeschooling vary. Nick Peros, a California parent, grew concerned when his daughter Lydia told about him the daily classroom "circles" where students would share family problems. If a parent seemed "too strict", the class would dialogue and decide together on steps the student should take to resolve the conflict. "The peers were usurping the parents' role," he explained.
Many share his concern about the touchy-feely consensus groups which train children to conform to group decisions based on moral relativism and universal values. They don't want their children to compromise their faith or purity.
Others want to guard their children from pressure to participate in earth-centered rituals that invoke animal spirits or honor pantheistic gods. They wouldn't mind if schools only taught about other religions, but they worry about the new emphasis on "real-life" multicultural and environmental "experiences" that immerse children in pagan practices. Didn't God say "You shall have no other gods"? (Ex 20:3)
These parents face a dilemma. They want the freedom to guide their children's education, but what are the choices? There may be an uncompromising Christian school in their community, but many can't afford the cost. Teaching at home costs less money but requires more time. How do you decide?
Homeschooling friends stress the rewards: a flexible schedule, more time for family activities, a return to fact-based academics, and a loyal family that shares the same values and enjoys being together. Yet many parents lack the confidence to start. Doubts and questions tear at their confidence. "How could I teach?" they argue. "I never went to college. And even if I could teach, my children wouldn't learn the social skills they need." Facing what seems to be an impossible situation, some simply argue away the problem: "Maybe I'm wrong about the public schools. They may not be so bad after all."
Let's look again at these objections. Pull back the curtain of doubt and let the light of truth expose the main myths of homeschooling, then look with fresh eyes at the benefits. If you question your own adequacy, remember what God promised long ago: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Myth 1: They won't learn the needed social skills if I teach at home.
Fact: To the contrary, most homeschooled children learn healthy social skills from parents and Christian friends, not from peers with contrary values. Studies have shown that homeschooled children surpass their peers in public schools "in adaptability, cohesion, social adjustment, maturity and leadership; and lower levels in aggressive behavior, loudness and competitiveness. Homeschooled children tend to go on to occupations which are more entrepreneurial and professional. They tend to be more independently minded [and] more family oriented." [1]
In most public schools, children are socialized by their friends and classmates. Their values are formed through the "critical thinking" strategies used in classrooms from coast to coast to free students from traditional moral absolutes so they can "create their own" values. These tend to reflect the rampant amorality spread by popular movies, music, books, and television.
"What sold me on homeschooling was a visit from two young girls ­ the daughters of homeschooling friends," said Sarah Leslie, an Iowa mother of seven children.[2]) "They were polite, modest, confident, thoughtful, natural, and well able to keep up with adult conversation. They showed no sign of the rebellion parents are told to expect from their teenagers. I thought, 'If this is what homeschool socialization does, I want it for my kids."
Nick and Joan Peros, after a year of homeschooling their children in California, have also seen the difference. "They are free from the teasing, swearing, meanness, and peer pressures they faced a year ago," said Nick. "And they have plenty of friends. They're involved in baseball, a community chorus, and a drama group. We're getting the good part of socialization and leaving out the bad."
Many families join homeschooling co-ops. "We meet once a week with fifteen families," said Anne Peters, who began teaching by faith, unaware of the wonderful resources God had prepared for her family's success. "All follow the same history and science curriculum, and our children do oral presentations. Once a month we go on a field trip together. A year ago, our kids didn't want to leave their old school. We prayed for months asking that God would prepare their hearts. Now they don't want to go back!"
Myth 2: I could never teach! I don't have any degree.
Fact: If you can read, you can teach. With some motivation and a little research you can find the kind of homeschooling program that fits your family's needs.
"I wanted my children to learn how to learn," said Sarah Leslie, a busy mother who also publishes a magazine 2 with her husband and older children. "I don't stand over them and lecture all day long. We found that a good curriculum like A Beka walks them through the lessons and explains every step of the way. The children teach themselves and don't need to have help every ten minutes. They seldom ask, 'What does this mean' or 'How do I do that?'"
Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn, who began homeschooling their five children long before it became a national movement, would agree. "We don't have to know everything there is to know about chemistry or physics or biology, but we do have to teach our children how to teach themselves." They are convinced that parents make the best teachers regardless of educational background, and through their website[3] and catalog[4] they help provide parents with the encouragement and resources needed to succeed.
To appreciate the range of options available to starting families, scan the list of homeschool resources and suppliers. Pray that God lead you to the curricula best suited for your family. Even intimidating subjects like math can be conquered with programs such as Saxon math. "It breaks things down into pieces and takes you step by step," says Harvey Bluedorn. "The last book in the Saxon series is calculus. My son is an average child, but he was able to get through calculus without any help from a teacher."
Do you feel inadequate to teach high school science? Video courses makes science an adventure for the entire family. And Peterson's Guide to Independent Study lists all the high school and college correspondence courses available. Any lab equipment and chemicals needed for home experiments can be ordered by mail.
Finally, remember that "with God nothing will be impossible." When He asks you to "train up your child in the way he should go," He will surely enable you. (Luke 1:37; Proverbs 22:6)
Myth 3: My kids are going to a good school. Public schools may be changing in other parts of the country, but our school is different!
Fact: Your school may be trailing behind most others in implementing Goals 2000, but eventually all schools must conform to the law of the land.
Perhaps you have a Christian principal who is keeping the flood of intrusive surveys and pantheistic experiences out of your school. Maybe you have Christian teachers who have not yet been trained to facilitate the consensus groups which teach students to trade individual beliefs for collective thinking. Perhaps you are part of a Mom's in Touch group that prays each week that God would guard your school and keep children safe. If so, He probably is blocking some of the influences that prompt children in other schools to trade truth and facts for myth and feeling-based learning.
But soon your school, like all the others, must demonstrate that its students have learned the "higher order thinking skills", have been trained to conform to the group consensus, and have embraced global values. If the new student assessments fail to show the expected progress, your school will be punished. Teachers, principals, and school boards may be replaced, and your school would be forced to follow state guidelines based on national standards and international benchmarks. In the end, all must conform.
Goals 2000, our massive education law, which follows the blueprint prepared by UNESCO for its 1990 World Conference on Education for All, sets AD 2000 as the deadline for system-wide transformation. Its plan for retraining teachers would eliminate all who refuse to conform to politically correct standards. Those standards focus on affective (dealing with feelings and values) rather than academic learning. Christian teachers who resist using the new psycho-social strategies would not be certified.
Do you find it hard to believe this could be happening in America? Many do. Yet, whether we believe or not, this global revolution in education is transforming American minds and producing a "paradigm shift" ­ the public acceptance of a new world view that opposes biblical Christianity on every point. Like the proverbial frog in the pan of slow-warming water, most people simply flow with the changes.
CHRISTIANITY
Old Paradigm
HUMANISM
Transition
GLOBALISM
New Paradigm
BIBLICAL ABSOLUTES & VALUES
RELATIVE VALUES
GLOBAL ABSOLUTES & VALUES
The Bible reveals reality
Science alone explains reality
 Feelings and experience prove reality
God is personal (loves us) and greater than His creation
God is a crutch, an illusion
An impersonal universal god (pantheism) makes all things one (monism)
Teach personal responsibility
Teach human rights
Teach collective duties or responsibilities
Don't tolerate sin (but love sinners)
Tolerate all lifestyles
Don't tolerate dissenters (zero tolerance)
Trust God
Trust self
Trust the state
Never has it been more important to train children to see reality from God's perspective. The truths about our sovereign God, His creation, the world, our own human nature, the spiritual war that rages behind the scenes all have been turned upside down by the new global paradigm. It's up to parents to teach children to see everything through the filter of His Word. So, while public school children are immersed in myths and experiences that promote the global paradigm, we must immerse our children in God's truth. That takes time, and Deuteronomy 6:5-7 says it well:"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit walklie down, andrise up.
Does that sound like homeschooling to you? Keep in mind, unless we teach our children to know and follow His Word, they will not be ready for the spiritual battles ahead.
Education leaders are fighting hard for control over all children, not just those in government schools. Curfew laws, national standards and tests, work certificates, requirements for teacher certification that would include parents who teach at home these are some of the threats to our freedom.
We don't know what our earthly future holds, nor how long we may freely train our children to love and follow God. But we can trust the One who holds the future in His hands. One day-maybe very soon-He will come for His own. Between today and that glorious day, we may be tested in ways we can hardly imagine. Will our children be ready? Will you and I?
Now is the time to prepare. We can trust our Shepherd to provide all the time and strength we need to follow. Remember, "He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it." Count on it! (1 Thessalonians 5:24)

ENDNOTES
1. Harvey Bluedorn summarizing part of a study by Dr. Brian Ray, "Marching to the Beat of Their Own Drums: A Profile of Home Education Research," The National Home Education Research Institute (Home School Legal Defense Association, 1992).
2. The family worked together to publish a magazine: The Christian Conscience. It has been replaced by this website:  http://herescope.blogspot.com
4. Write to Trivium Pursuit, 139 Colorado Street, Suite 168, Muscatine, Iowa 52761.



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REVEALING QUOTES ON THE GOALS OF PSYCHIATRY AND PSYCHOLOGY




The actual aims and results of psychiatric and pharmaceutical-promoted forced "mental health" testing and the resulting "necessary treatments" may become more apparent when you examine the statements of the leaders, founders, and theorists of psychiatry and psychology.



Psychiatry's Views on Conservatives
"In August 2003, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the results of their $1.2 million taxpayer-funded study. It stated, essentially, that traditionalists are mentally disturbed. Scholars from the Universities of Maryland, California at Berkeley, and Stanford had determined that social conservatives, in particular, suffer from ‘mental rigidity,’ ‘dogmatism,’ and ‘uncertainty avoidance,’ together with associated indicators for mental illness."
Source: B.K. Eakman, Chronicles, October 2004, pp. 28-29.
"Political conservatism as motivated social cognition" By Jost, John T.; Glaser, Jack; Kruglanski, Arie W.; Sulloway, Frank J. APA Psychological Bulletin, May 2003, Vol 129(3), p 339-375

Any questions on who they want to drug into being silent and obedient?  Don't think they have a different opinion of liberals or anyone who is outspoken or wants to improve society.  Read on for more!

Psychiatry's Views on Education
"Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It’s up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well – by creating the international child of the future"
Dr. Chester M. Pierce, Psychiatrist, address to the Childhood International Education Seminar, 1973

"We have swallowed all manner of poisonous certainties fed us by our parents, our Sunday and day school teachers, our politicians, our priests, our newspapers, and others with a vested interest in controlling us. ‘Thou shalt become as gods, knowing good and evil,’ good and evil with which to keep children under control, with which to impose local and familial and national loyalties and with which to blind children to their glorious intellectual heritage… The results, the inevitable results, are frustration, inferiority, neurosis and inability to enjoy living, to reason clearly or to make a world fit to live in."
Dr. G. Brock Chisholm, President, World Federation of Mental Health

Teaching school children to read was a "perversion" and high literacy rate bred "the sustaining force behind individualism."
John Dewey, Educational Psychologist

The school curriculum should "…be designed to bend the student to the realities of society, especially by way of vocational education… the curriculum should be designed to promote mental health as an instrument for social progress and a means of altering culture…"
Report: Action for Mental Health, 1961

"Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished ... The social psychologist of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at: first, that influences of the home are 'obstructive' and verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective ... It is for the future scientist to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen."
Bertrand Russell quoting Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the head of philosophy & psychology who influenced Hegel and others – Prussian University in Berlin, 1810

"…through schools of the world we shall disseminate a new conception of government – one that will embrace all of the collective activities of men; one that will postulate the need for scientific control and operation of economic activities in the interests of all people."
Harold Rugg, student of psychology and a disciple of John Dewey

"Education does not mean teaching people to know what they do not know – it means teaching them to behave as they do not behave." 
National Institute of Mental Health
(NIMH) sponsored report: The Role of Schools in Mental Health

"This is the idea where we drop subject matter and we drop Carnegie Unites (grading from A-F) and we just let students find their way, keeping them in school until they manifest the politically correct attitudes. You see, one of the effects of self-esteem (Values Clarification) programs is that you are no longer obliged to tell the truth if you don’t feel like it. You don’t have to tell the truth because if the truth you have to tell is about your own failure then your self-esteem will go down and that is unthinkable."
Dr. William Coulson, explaining Outcome Based Education (OBE) Info

"Education is thus a most power ally of humanism, and every public school is a school of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday school, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teachings?"
Charles F. Potter, Humanist

"Men are built, not born…. Give me the baby, and I’ll make it climb and use its hands in constructing buildings of stone or wood…. I’ll make it a thief, a gunman or a dope fiend. The possibilities of shaping in any direction are almost endless…"
John B. Watson, psychologist, founder of "Behaviorism"

"Of course, Behaviorism 'works.' So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviorist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public".
W. H. Auden

"Despite rapid progress in the right direction, the program of the average elementary school has been primarily devoted to teaching the fundamental subjects, the three R’s, and closely related disciplines… Artificial exercises, like drills on phonetics, multiplication tables, and formal writing movements, are used to a wasteful degree. Subjects such as arithmetic, language, and history include content that is intrinsically of little value. Nearly every subject is enlarged unwisely to satisfy the academic ideal of thoroughness… Elimination of the unessential by scientific study, then, is one step in improving the curriculum."
Edward Lee Thorndike, pioneer of "animal psychology"

"We can therefore justifiably stress our particular point of view with regard to the proper development of the human psyche, even though our knowledge be incomplete. We must aim to make it permeate every educational activity in our national life…. We have made a useful attack upon a number of professions. The two easiest of them naturally are the teaching profession and the Church: the two most difficult are law and medicine."
Dr. John Rawlings Rees, "Strategic Planning for Mental Health", June 18, 1940

"Psychology, and child-study stand first in order among the required subjects of technical nature… The course of child-study is supplementary to the prescribed courses in systematic and applied psychology."
1899 Teachers College Course

"...a student attains 'higher order thinking' when he no longer believes in right or wrong".  "A large part of what we call good teaching is a teacher´s ability to obtain affective objectives by challenging the student's fixed beliefs.  …a large part of what we call teaching is that the teacher should be able to use education to reorganize a child's thoughts, attitudes, and feelings."  
Benjamin Bloom, psychologist and educational theorist, in "Major Categories in the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives", p. 185, 1956

"The educational system should be a sieve, through which all the children of a country are passed. It is highly desirable that no child escape inspection."
Paul Popenoe, Behavioral Eugenist and co-author: "Sterilization for Human Betterment"


Psychiatry's Views on Religion
"Religion (is) a universal obsessional neurosis."
Sigmund Freud, defining spiritual belief

"Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires."
Sigmund Freud

"The religions of mankind must be classed among the mass-delusions of this kind. No one, needless to say, who shares a delusion ever recognizes it as such..."
Sigmund Freud

"Civilization runs a greater risk if we maintain our present attitude to religion than if we give it up."
Sigmund Freud

"In short, the nature of the hallucinations of Jesus, as they are described in the orthodox Gospels, permits us to conclude that the founder of the Christian religion was afflicted with religious paranoia."
Psychiatrist Dr. Charles Binet-Sangle: La Folie de Jesus (The Madness of Jesus), 1910 

"…Jesus Christ might simply have returned to his carpentry following the use of modern psychiatric treatments."
William Sargant, British psychiatrist, 1974

"No one knows just how the idea of a soul or the supernatural started… It probably had its origin in the general laziness of mankind."
John B. Watson, behavioral psychologist

"This dogma (the soul) has been present in human psychology from earliest antiquity. No one has ever touched the soul, or has seen one in a test tube, or has in any way come into a relationship with it as he has with the other objects of his daily experience."
John B. Watson, behavioral psychologist

"I regard myself as one of the most dangerous enemies of religion"
Sigmund Freud

"The soul or consciousness, which played the leading part in the past, now is of very little importance; in any case both are deprived of their main functions and glory to such an extent that only the names remain. Behaviorism sang their funeral dirge while materialism – the smiling heir – arranges a suitable funeral for them."
Statement delivered at the Sixth International Congress of Philosophy at Harvard University

"…humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially faith in the prayer-hearing God, assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and to be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith." "Traditional moral codes… fail to meet the pressing needs of today and tomorrow…" "Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful… The total personality is a function of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context. There is no credible evidence that life survives the death of the body."
The Humanist Manifesto 2, 1973

"All neurotics seek the religious"
Psychologist Carl Jung

"It should be recognized that an acceptance of the mental health viewpoint… carries an obligation to examine critically some of the teaching of the churches in the light of present-day insight into what seems to be essential to wholesome personality development and into what is now known to be detrimental to the growing personality of the child."
Psychiatrist at World Federation of Mental Health (WFMH) Conference

"Pastoral psychology understands itself as a help for the communities in view of ‘group dynamic’ proceedings –e.g., the processes of rivalization, or the search for scapegoats, harmonization or shifting guilt, which… can determine life in a community so strongly that the succession of Jesus Christ is no longer paid heed"
The German Association for Pastoral Psychology Magazine – Ways To Man

"What is the relationship between wholeness and holiness?… What does personal responsibility mean in the light of the findings or psychoanalysis? Do the words right and wrong, have any further usefulness in the light of our new knowledge of compulsive behavior patterns? I believe it’s one of the tragedies of Christianity that it has got itself all mixed up with morality…"
Canon Sydney Evans, National Association for Mental Health, 1967

"The word soul has lost its meaning and even its plausibility…. Faith, hope and love can no longer be seen simply as virtues or graces; they are processes in flesh and blood… (the clergyman) will find that whether he wants it or not, he is also a front-line mental health worker or he will be so regarded by the specialists in mental health. It is on the pastoral role and the tasks of shepherding that the psychological disciples have the greatest impact in theological work."
Paul Pruyser, psychologist, author: "The Seamy Side of Current Religious Beliefs"

"In recent years pastoral counselors have separated from their parishes and emerged as a psychotherapy profession…. This professionalization process includes a shift away from parish-based counseling to counseling centers or medical settings, declining interest in religious practices and convictions, increased interest in psychological practices and theories, the charging of fees, and increased institutional and professional barriers to those individuals perceived as poor counseling clients or unable to pay…. There is also… growing deviation from a religious orientation to a pseudopsychiatric orientation."
American Journal of Psychiatry, March 1986

"We can therefore justifiably stress our particular point of view with regard to the proper development of the human psyche, even though our knowledge be incomplete. We must aim to make it permeate every educational activity in our national life…. We have made a useful attack upon a number of professions. The two easiest of them naturally are the teaching profession and the Church: the two most difficult are law and medicine."
Dr. John Rawlings Rees, "Strategic Planning for Mental Health", June 18, 1940

"To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas..."
G. Brock Chisholm, psychiatrist and co-founder of the World Federation of Mental Health

"The danger is that these psychologies may, to one degree or another, replace Christianity without most people even noticing that any substitution has taken place."
Christianity Today, 1994



Psychiatry's Views on Creating a Slave Society
"We can choose to use our growing knowledge to enslave people in ways never dreamed of before, depersonalizing them, controlling them by means so carefully selected that they will perhaps never be aware of their loss of personhood."
Carl R. Rodgers, Former President of the American Psychological Association (APA)

Teaching school children to read was a "perversion" and high literacy rate bred "the sustaining force behind individualism."
John Dewey, Educational Psychologist

"It will of course, be understood that directly or indirectly, soon or late, every advance in the sciences of human nature will contribute to our success in controlling human nature and changing it to the advantage of the common wheel."
Edward Thorndike, Key Psychology Theorist, member of the "Eugenics Committee of the USA"

"We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated. The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. . . Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. . . . We must electronically control the brain. Someday armies and generals will be controlled by electronic stimulation of the brain."
Dr. Jose M.R. Delgado, Director of Neuropsychiatry at Yale University Medical School, Congressional Record, No. 26, Vol. 118, Feb. 24, 1974. Delgado was reported as part of the "MK-Ultra" CIA mind-control program.

"The reduction of intelligence is an important factor in the curative process… The fact is that some of the very best cures that one gets are in those individuals whom one reduces almost to amentia (feeble-mindedness)…"
Dr. Abraham Myerson, Harvard Psychiatrist, 1942

"Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished ... The social psychologist of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at: first, that influences of the home are 'obstructive' and verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective ... It is for the future scientist to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen."
Bertrand Russell quoting Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the head of philosophy & psychology – Prussian University in Berlin, 1810

"One of the least understood strategies of the world revolution now moving rapidly toward its goal is the use of mind control as a major means of obtaining the consent of the people who will be subjects of the New World Order."
K.M. Heaton, The National Educator

"Those of us who work in this field see a developing potential for nearly a total control of human emotional status, mental functioning, and will to act. These human phenomena can be started, stopped or eliminated by the use of various types of chemical substances. What we can produce with our science now will affect the entire society." A "utopia" could be found – providing "a sense of stability and certainty, whether realistic or not."
Attributed to psychiatrist Nathan Kline, 1967

". . . yet almost everyone attributes human behavior to intentions, purposes, aims and goals. . . . as if they had wills, impulses, feelings, purposes, and other fragmentary attributes of an indwelling agent.  We shall not solve the problems of alcoholism and juvenile delinquency by increasing a sense of responsibility. It is the environment which is 'responsible' for the objectionable behavior, and it is the environment, not some attribute of the individual, which must be changed.  "If all else fails, punishable behavior may be made less likely by changing physiological conditions. Hormones may be used to change sexual behavior, surgery (as in lobotomy) to control violence, tranquilizers to control aggression, and appetite depressants to control overeating."
Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner in "Beyond Freedom and Dignity"

"Of course, Behaviorism 'works.' So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviorist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public."
W. H. Auden

"The plea for the predominance of learning to read in early school life because of the great importance attaching to literature seems to be a perversion."
John Dewey in "The Primary Education Fetich" 

"The State is the absolute reality and the individual himself has objective existence, truth and morality only in his capacity as a member of the State."
Hegel (who influenced Karl Marx)


Psychiatry's Views on America
"America is a mistake, admittedly a gigantic mistake, but a mistake nevertheless."
Sigmund Freud

America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but, I am afraid, it is not going to be a success.
Sigmund Freud


Psychiatry's Views on World Government
"Principles of mental health cannot be successfully furthered in any society unless there is progressive acceptance of the concept of world citizenship. World citizenship can be widely extended among all peoples through applications of the principles of mental health."
National Association for Mental Health, 1948

"To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas...
Dr. G. Brock Chisholm, psychiatrist and co-founder of the World Federation of Mental Health

"One of the least understood strategies of the world revolution now moving rapidly toward its goal is the use of mind control as a major means of obtaining the consent of the people who will be subjects of the New World Order."
K.M. Heaton, The National Educator


Freud on Marxism
"The strength of Marxism obviously does not lie in its view of history or in the prophecies about the future which it bases upon that view, but in its clear insight into the determining influence which is exerted by the economic conditions of man upon his intellectual, ethical and artistic reactions."
Sigmund Freud


Involuntary Psychiatric Commitment
"...legal systems have been established in a majority of states for involuntary and compulsory hospitalization and treatment of neurosis. These state laws have been based on a prototype bill published originally by the Federal Security Agency of the Public Health Service, now a part of the Department of Health, Education & Welfare. Entitled a Draft Act Governing Hospitalization of the Mentally Ill, it is, in fact, a skeleton bill designed for adoption uniformly by federal, state, and territorial governments to radically alter commitment procedures... if you won't consent to voluntary treatment, a police officer can arrest you. You can be subjected to 3 to 5 days of treatment of the psychiatrist's choosing before you even get a hearing to protect your rights in most states. Treatment can include electric shock treatments, chemotherapy, hypnosis or conceivably a frontal lobotomy... Basically, all that is necessary to revoke all the constitutional rights of any citizen is to accuse him of being mentally-ill." 
John A. Stormer, "None Dare Call it Treason"

"In all my research on violence for a book published several years ago, I had not seen one credible study — meaning that the small amount of research done in this area is not worth a damn - showing that society has more to fear from patients labeled "mentally ill" than other people in the community. For example, there has never been any appropriate follow-up of patients that has determined whether the absence of treatment leads to violence. The very foundation of forced treatment is ideology and fear-mongering and not science."
Nicholas Regush, Editor, redflagsdaily.com


Psychiatry Promoting Euthanasia, Eugenics, Racism
"Should it turn out that in spite of in the new-born is a weakly and ill-bred child, then a gentle death will be provided for him by the medical board, which decides over the citizenship papers of the society, let’s say through a small dose of morphine… (The parents) will not give themselves over to rebellious feelings for long but will try it fresh and happily a second time, if they are permitted to do so and have a certificate granting them the right to the procedure."
Dr. Alfred Ploetz in 1895; German psychiatrist who founded eugenics in Germany, paving the way for the horrors of Hitler's genocide.

"It was only through the political work of Hitler that the meaning of racial hygiene has become publicly manifest in Germany, and it is only due to him that our thirty-year-old dream to put racial hygiene into practice has become a reality."
Dr. Ernst Rudin, Nazi psychiatrist, explaining how psychiatrists in Germany originated the ideas of genocide which Hitler later executed.
Note: Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger published Rudin's article in the U.S.: "Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need"

"The most effective race preserving measure is that which gives the greatest support to the natural defenses....We may and we must rely on the healthy instincts of the best of our people...for the extermination of elements of the population loaded with dregs. Otherwise, these deleterious mutations will permeate the body of the people like the cells of a cancer."
Konrad Lorenz, Nazi lecturer in psychology, University of Konigsberg, 1940


Psychiatry's Views on Morality and Families
"If the race is to be freed from its crippling burden of good and evil it must be psychiatrists who take the original responsibility"
Dr. G. Brock Chisholm, psychiatrist and co-founder of the World Federation of Mental Health

"The re-interpretation and eventually (sic) eradication of the concept of right and wrong which has been the basis of child training, the substitution of intelligent and rational thinking for faith… are the belated objectives of practically all effective psychotherapy.  The fact is, that most psychiatrists and psychologists and other respectable people have escaped from these moral chains and are able to observe and think freely."
Dr. G. Brock Chisholm, 1945

"...the pretense is made, as it has been made in relation to the finding of any extension of truth, that to do away with right and wrong would produce uncivilized people, immorality, lawlessness and social chaos.  The fact is that most psychiatrists and psychologists and other respected people have escaped from moral chains and are able to think freely."
Dr. G. Brock Chisholm in: Psychiatry: Journal of Biology and Pathology of Interpersonal Relations 9, no. 1, February 1946

"Old conventions, customs and values… to be challenged… The aim should be to control not only nature, but human nature." He recommended two slogans for "spreading world-wide the gospel of mental hygiene": "To learn to think internationally" and "The necessity to disarm the mind."
Dr. J.R. Lord, psychiatrist

"Free sexual intercourse between young males and respectable girls" was urgently necessary or society was "doomed to fall a victim to incurable neuroses which reduce the enjoyment of life to a minimum, destroy the marriage relation and bring hereditary ruin on the whole coming generation."
Sigmund Freud

"The family is now one of the major obstacles to improved mental health, and hence should be weakened, if possible, so as to free individuals and especially children from the coercion of family life."
International Congress on Mental Health, London, 1948

"Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It’s up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well – by creating the international child of the future"
Psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce, Address to the Childhood International Education Seminar, 1973

"We have swallowed all manner of poisonous certainties fed us by our parents, our Sunday and day school teachers, our politicians, our priests, our newspapers, and others with a vested interest in controlling us. ‘Thou shalt become as gods, knowing good and evil,’ good and evil with which to keep children under control, with which to impose local and familial and national loyalties and with which to blind children to their glorious intellectual heritage… The results, the inevitable results, are frustration, inferiority, neurosis and inability to enjoy living, to reason clearly or to make a world fit to live in."
Dr. G. Brock Chisholm, co-founder of the World Federation of Mental Health

"Where is the direction of influence going to run? It’s going to run – and the research confirms this again and again – it’s going to run from the experienced to the inexperienced. The net outcome of sex education, styled as Rogerian encountering, is more sexual experience."
Dr. William Coulson, Psychologist

"Public life, politics and industry should all of them be within our sphere of influence…. If we are to infiltrate the professional and social activities of other people I think we must imitate the Totalitarians and organize some kind of fifth column activity!  If better ideas on mental health are to progress and spread we, as the salesmen, must lose our identity… Let us all, therefore, very secretly be ‘fifth columnists.’"
Dr. John Rawlings Rees, co-founder of the World Federation for Mental Health

"Society's excessively moralistic and punitive reactions toward pedophiles go far beyond what I consider to be the gravity of the crime."
Dr. Richard Garner, clinical professor of child psychiatry, quoted in Insight Magazine, 1999

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, for there are plenty of others."
Otto Rank, Psychologist, Diary, 1904


Quotes About the Psychiatric and Psychological Industries
"The danger is that these psychologies may, to one degree or another, replace Christianity without most people even noticing that any substitution has taken place."
Christianity Today, 1994

"So we must shun the false guides of men and their false religions, babbling psychologists, wordy psychiatrists and polluted politicians, all of which have built up such tremendous reputations as colossal failures. Look at the messes they have made, know them by their rotten fruits, reject them for their fruits."
The Watchtower (Catholic publication), W-52 1/15, p53

"The second reason for our critical times is modern man's rejection of God's Word the Bible. Enemies such as Wellhausen and his prejudiced school of higher critics, Darwin and his evolutionists, Freud and his theories, Marx and his atheistic revolutionists-all these have played a sinister role in destroying the guiding influence of the Bible for many; especially since so many of the clergy have adopted such worldly wisdom... According to Freud, one of psychiatry's chief authorities, religion is a great illusion that man will get rid of someday. Psychiatry stresses, "Know thyself," as if an enlightened self-love is sufficient for successful living. More than ignoring God, (psycho)analysts often contradict God by advising those with guilty consciences that fornication, adultery and sodomy are not wrong in themselves. The charge rightly has been made that such counsel tends to exterminate the conscience".
The Watchtower, W-63 1/15, p37-8

"Recent research has shown, that the vast majority of people who are violent do not suffer from mental illnesses."
American Psychiatric Association website

"... the proponents of the mental health program have been quick to elaborate a series of legislative proposals.... This is the age-old subterfuge of the collectivist, whose only solution for any problem, be it economic, social or political, is the passage of another law, the imposition of another tax, and the establishment of another bureau."
Dr. Lewis Alesen, former surgeon and president of the California Medical Association, 1960

"The mental health establishment has snowed the American people: it launches the most unimaginable brutal psychological and physical assault on human beings in distress, calls this 'medical treatment', and then blames the outcome on 'mental illness'. 
Seth Farber, PhD

"So part of what we're seeing is nothing more than the creation of a larger market for drugs. If you think about it, as long as we draw as big a circle as possible, and expand the boundaries of mental illness, psychiatry can have more clients and sell more drugs. So there's a built-in economic incentive to define mental illness in as broad terms as possible, and to find ordinary, distressing emotions or behaviors that some people may not like and label them as mental illness."
Robert Whitaker, in the August 2005 American Friends Service Committee's "Street Spirit." Whitaker is the author of "Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill"

"Most of the almost innumerable books, pamphlets, and other publications issued by the sponsors of the mental health program are purposely and craftily disingenuous, disguising its real and ultimate purpose: ... the ultimate reduction of every individual in this world, except the favored few who conceive of themselves as possessed of an incomparable genius in their ability to direct the affairs of others, into... a common servile obeisance to his master, the State...."
Mental Robots, by Dr. Lewis Albert Alesen

The techniques of brainwashing developed in totalitarian countries are routinely used in psychological conditioning programs imposed on school children. These include emotional shock and desensitization, psychological isolation from sources of support, stripping away defenses, manipulative cross-examination of the individual’s underlying moral values by psychological rather than rational means. These techniques are not confined to separate courses or programs...they are not isolated idiosyncracies of particular teachers. They are products of numerous books and other educational materials in programs packaged by organizations that sell such curricula to administrators and teach the techniques to teachers. Some packages even include instructions on how to deal with parents and others who object. Stripping away psychological defenses can be done through assignments to keep diaries to be discussed in group sessions, and through role-playing assignments, both techniques used in the original brainwashing programs in China under Mao.
Thomas Sowell, writing in Forbes, 1991

"A growing proportion of many school budgets is devoted to counseling and other psychological services. The curriculum is becoming more therapeutic: children are taking courses in self-esteem, conflict resolution, and aggression management. Parental advisory groups are conscientiously debating alternative approaches to traditional school discipline, ranging from teacher training in mediation to the introduction of metal detectors and security guards in the schools. Schools are increasingly becoming emergency rooms of the emotions, devoted...to repairing hearts. What we are seeing....is the psychologization of American education."
Atlantic Monthly, April 1993

In the old days during electroshock "we used to break arms… leg(s) and elbows."
Dr. Harry Bailey, Psychiatrist

"Psychology is the science of intellect, characters, and behavior of animals, including man."
Edward Lee Thorndike, pioneer of "animal psychology"

"...every person who comes into this office who has had an experience with another therapist has some kind of horror story to tell, about some major failing on the therapist's part, including, quite often, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, things that cross the boundary of mere bad technique and come pretty damn close to the criminal."
Thomas Maeder, clinical psychologist: "Wounded Healers", Atlantic Monthly, January, 1989, p. 38

"The changes one sees when electroshock is administered are completely consistent with any acute brain injury, such as a blow to the head from a hammer. In essence, what happens is that the individual is dazed, confused, and disoriented, and therefore cannot remember or appreciate current problems."
Dr. Lee Coleman, psychiatrist, 1977

"Over the years it [the National Committee for Mental Hygiene] has championed for the promotion of 'mental health' despite the fact that nobody knows what it is or how to do it."
E. Fuller Torrey, psychiatrist, "Nowhere To Go", Harper and Row, 1988

"The field of mental health is highly subjective, capricious, and dominated by whims, mythologies, and public relations. In many ways it is a pop culture with endless fads but with no real substance."
Dr. Walter Fisher, Assistant Superintendent, Elgin State Hospital, in "Power, Greed, and Stupidity in the Mental Health Racket"

"If we are to infiltrate the professional and social activities of other people I think we must imitate the Totalitarians and organize some kind of fifth column activity. If better ideas on mental health are to progress and spread we, as the salesmen, must lose our identity ... Let us all, therefore, very secretly be 'fifth columnists'."
Dr. John Rawlings Rees, psychiatrist "Strategic Planning for Mental Health", Mental Health, v.1 no.4, p. 103-6

"[it is] a high class kind of subversion, very high class. We're not second story burglars. We go right in the front door."
Mike Gorman, psychiatric publicist, remarking on National Institute of Mental Health fundraising tactics in Drew, "The Health Syndicate", The Atlantic Monthly, December 1967, P. 76

"What do you do when you don't know what to do? No wonder there are more suicides among psychiatrists than in any other profession."
Psychiatrist R. D. Laing, Wisdom, Madness, and Folly, p. 126

"...Now it is time to ask the original question; who truly profits from the Psychiatric Interventions? I can provide a list, in order of who profits the most. #1. Pharmaceutical companies make billions on psychotropic medicines. #2. The Hospital probably makes between $500 and $1000 a day on the patient. #3. The Psychiatrist makes from $100 to $300 per visit. ..."
Baker Act (Florida) discussion

"Much of today's psychiatric science is based on wish, myth, and politics..."
Loren Mosher, M.D., Former Chief of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia, The National Institute of Mental Health

"It is the 'zoomorphic' or 'rattomorphic' fallacy -- the expressed or implicit contention that there is no essential difference between rat and man -- which makes American psychology so profoundly disturbing."
Ludwig von Bertlanffy, Robots, Men and Minds. NY, George Braziller (1967), pp. 15-16.

"A psychiatrist is a man who has studied medicine, which he does not practice, but practices psychology, which he has not studied."
Dr. Harriet Babcock, former Chief Psychologist, Bellevue Hospital

"Few legislators who passed these mental health laws realized that (Brock) Chisholm and his associates defined mental illness as a sense of loyalty to a particular nation, a sense of loyalty to a moral code, and strict adherence to concepts of right and wrong. Chisholm has been obsessed for years with the idea that instilling concepts of right and wrong, love of country and morality in children by their parents is the paramount evil."
John A. Stormer, None Dare Call it Treason, Chapter IX, Mental Health

"The very term ['mental disease'] is nonsensical, a semantic mistake. The two words cannot go together except metaphorically; you can no more have a mental 'disease' than you can have a purple idea or a wise space". Similarly, there can no more be a "mental illness" than there can be a "moral illness." The words "mental" and "illness" do not go together logically. Mental "illness" does not exist, and neither does mental "health." These terms indicate only approval or disapproval of some aspect of a person's mentality (thinking, emotions, or behavior).
Psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey, in "The Death of Psychiatry", 1974

"Contrary to the popular public conception, this happenstance is NOT a form of health care, but the result of a fraudulent system being granted police powers by the State. By calling the harmless 'insane', (who statistics prove to be no more violence-prone than the average citizen, unless hopelessly deranged by damaging psychiatric 'treatment'), dangerous and justifying their own existence by the 'need' to deal with that inflated 'danger', the mad-doctors themselves pose the greatest threat to liberty, property and democracy in our times."
Citizens for Higher Ethical Standards in Medicine

"Mental illness is often used as an ad homonym to discredit the individual. This has been a common use of psychiatric diagnosis in psychiatry in Russia. " ... there are two main groups [of schizophrenia patients] ... 1) people admitted to the mental hospital long before they had been political dissenters ... 2. others who ... have put forward complex social and economic theories as alternatives to orthodox Marxism..."
Wing, cited in "Pseudoscience in Psychology", by Dr. Szasz, p. 126

"Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you."
 Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist and psychologist, who praised both Hitler and Musolini

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.."
J. Krishnamurti

"In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults". 
Thomas Szasz

"Involuntary mental hospitalization is like slavery. Refining the standards for commitment is like prettifying the slave plantations. The problem is not how to improve commitment, but how to abolish it".
Thomas Szasz

"Psychiatric expert testimony: mendacity masquerading as medicine."
Thomas Szasz

"We have lost the art of living; and in the most important science of all, the science of daily life, the science of behavior, we are complete ignoramuses. We have psychology instead."
D. H. Lawrence

"They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me."
English playwright Nathaniel Lee (on being consigned to a mental institution)

"...the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology.... The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen. As yet there is only one country which has succeeded in creating this politician’s paradise." 
The Impact of Science on Society by Bertrand Russell

"Nothing has harmed the quality of individual life in modern society more than the misbegotten belief that human suffering is driven by biological and genetic causes and can be rectified by taking drugs or undergoing electroshock therapy.  ...  If I wanted to ruin someone's life, I would convince the person that that biological psychiatry is right - that relationships mean nothing, that choice is impossible, and that the mechanics of a broken brain reign over our emotions and conduct.  If I wanted to impair an individual's capacity to create empathetic, loving relationships, I would prescribe psychiatric drugs, all of which blunt our highest psychological and spiritual functions."
Peter R. Breggin, M.D., in the foreword to "Reality Therapy in Action" by William Glasser, M.D., p. xi

"A Trojan horse full of dangerous psycho-fantasies has been professionally prepared for us by Christian psychiatrists and psychologists...  At the base, such therapies stand upon dogma, not scientific observations, and the dogma is the odious one of Freud and his followers who were some of the century's most anti-Christ teachers.  No amount of well-intentioned refinement of deadly doctrines will make them clean for Christians."
Dr. Hilton P. Terrell, M.D.

"Advocates of psychiatric drugs often claim that the medications improve learning and the ability to benefit from psychotherapy, but the contrary is true.  There are no drugs that improve mental function, self-understanding, or human relations.  Any drug that affects mental processes does so by impairing them."
"Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Drugs"by Peter R. Breggin, M.D. & David Cohen, Ph.D.

"Psychotherapy may be known in the future as the greatest hoax of the twentieth century."
Dr. Lawrence LeShan, former president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology

"Nearly half a century has passed since Watson proclaimed his manifesto. Today, apart from a few minor reservations, the vast majority of psychologists, both in this country and in America, still follow his lead. The result, as a cynical onlooker might be tempted to say, is that psychology, having first bargained away its soul and then gone out of its mind, seems now, as it faces an untimely end, to have lost all consciousness."
Sir Cyril Burt in British Journal of Psychology, Vol. 53, No. 3, 1962, p. 229.

"...there is no evidence that the benefits of psychotherapy are greater than those of placebo treatment"
An analysis of psychotherapy versus placebo studies, by Leslie Prioleau, et al., The Behavioral and Brain Sciences Vol. 6, p. 275, 1983

"These misguided myth-makers have encouraged us to believe that the infinite mysteries of the mind are as amenable to their professed expertise as plumbing or an automobile engine.  This is rubbish.  In fact these talk therapists, practitioners of cosmetic psychiatry, have no relevant training or skills in the art of living life.  It is remarkable that they have fooled us for so long.  ... Cowed by their status as men of science, deferring to their academic titles, bewitched by the initials after their names, we, the gullible, lap up their pretentious nonsense as if it were the gospel truth.  We must learn to recognize them for what they are - possessors of no special knowledge of the human psyche, who have, nonetheless, chosen to earn their living from the dissemination of the myth that they do indeed know how the mind works".
Psychiatrist Garth Wood, M.D., in "The Myth of Neurosis", 1986

"In the 14-year period between 1950 and 1964, more American deaths occurred in state and county mental institutions than in all of the nation's armed conflicts beginning with the Revolutionary War and ending with the Persian Gulf War.  Between 1965 and 1990, the total number of mental-hospital inpatient deaths exceeded the number of battle deaths in the same wars by 70 percent.  Inpatient deaths topped out at 1,103,000 during this 25-year period, compared with 650,563 recorded deaths in battles."
Kelly Patricia O’Meara: "The Forgotten Dead of St. Elizabeth's", Insight Magazine, June 16, 2001

"The similarities between street drug abuse and psychotropic prescription drug use are disturbing. Both types are toxic. Both can cause psychosis, damage the brain and other organs, and even cause death. And neither type of mind-altering drugs, legal or illegal, treats disease. It's important to recognize that the only significant difference between many prescription psychotropic drugs and street drugs such as "speed" and "downers" is that prescription drugs are legal."
Neuro-psychiatrist Sydney Walker in "Dose of Sanity"

"Clearly this business of treating minds, particularly this big business of treating young minds, has not policed itself, and has no incentive to put a stop to the kinds of fraudulent and unethical practices that are going on."
Pat Schroeder, U.S. Representative, 1992




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October 16, 2009

swine flu info

My midwives had an excellant package of info about swine flu when I was there for my HCG tests last month.
Since I have many friends who are currently pregnant and worried about this flu I thought I would post it.


Swine Flu Timeline

The swine flu appeared this past spring and seemingly morphed into a worldwide contagion of global pandemic status overnight.  Click HERE to see the timeline and recall the chronology of events.  USA Today offers a U.S. map of confirmed swine flu cases by state


H1N1 and Flu Vaccine Facts

FACT 1:
Swine flu is not deadly.  Swine flu lacks the deadly genes which made the 1918 pandemic more dangerous.  It is mild and has resulted in fewer deaths in the U.S. and worldwide than the annual seasonal flu.  The level six pandemic alert issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) is not related to virulence.  It merely captures the spread, from human-to-human, with community-level outbreaks occurring in more than one WHO region.  Our public health officials are planning an unprecedented, large-scale vaccination program, potentially targeted at almost half of the U.S. population, because they fear that the virus could mutate and become more deadly as it continues to transit through humans. [Note: if the virus does mutate, then it's not clear that the vaccine they've developed will work anyway.]  States are being told to plan for the worst.  Tom Jefferson, MD recently stated: "Sometimes you get the feeling that there is a whole industry almost waiting for a pandemic to occur."  The Lancet urges caution over the swine flu vaccine, telling countries to carefully assess risks and benefits to avoid the repeat of past  problems with mass-vaccination.

FACT 2
Effectiveness of the flu vaccine is questioned.  It does not appear to reduce flu-related hospitalizations in asthmatic children.   Some question whether we fully understand the long-term effects and the tradeoffs we are making by getting an annual flu shot.  There is no evidence flu vaccine works in infants and young children.  Hospitalization rates are higher in children who get flu shots.  Yet the CDC announced that the highest priority targets for the vaccine include children 6 to 59 months of age. And Secretary Sebelius agreed that schoolchildren should be first in line.  For a good summary of the concerns related to swine flu vaccination, read Swine Flu: To Vaccinate Or Not by Marc Girard, MSc, MD, a consultant in drug monitoring and pharmacoepidemiology (European expert, AEXA).

FACT 3: 
Pregnant women are also a primary target for the swine flu vaccine.  Our public health officials are pushing hard on both swine and seasonal flu shots for pregnant women and this is being picked up by the press, as in this New York Times Essay: Pregnancy Is No Time To Refuse A Flu Shot However, some parents are choosing to dig a little deeper.  If you click on any flu vaccine package insert and search using the word "pregnant," you will see that flu shots are a Category C pharmaceutical for which safety and effectiveness have not been established.  The American Journal of Perinatology reported in a 2004 flu vaccine study:

Women who received influenza vaccine had the same risk for influenza-like illness compared with unvaccinated women, adjusting for women's age and week of delivery. When asthma visits were excluded from the outcome measure, we also found no difference in the risk of outpatient visits for vaccinated and unvaccinated women.  Hospital admissions for influenza or pneumonia for women in the study population were quite rare and no women died of respiratory illness during pregnancy. Infants born to women who received influenza vaccination had the same risks  for influenza or pneumonia admissions compared with infants born to unvaccinated women, adjusting for infant's gender, gestational age, week of birth, and birth facility.
Dr. Kent Holtorf, an infectious disease expert, is interviewed on Fox News saying: I have more concern about the swine flu vaccine than I do about the disease.  And yet, in Health Day News, an NYU physician tells pregnant women: Any fear of vaccines is greatly outweighed by the benefit of being inoculated against an emerging virus. Who should pregnant women believe?  What if the mom miscarries or the baby is born with birth defects? Should any physician or public health official make this very personal decision for you? Read Who Should Get the Swine Flu Vaccine?  in Telegraph UK  which describes some of the ethical issues facing governments during the upcoming months.

FACT 4:
Flu vaccines have a controversial history.  Many adults and health practitioners opt against receiving the shot and claim to feel worse after getting flu vaccines.  Eileen Avery, MS, RN and Associate Director of the New York State Nurses Association recently delivered testimony to the State Hospital Review and Planning Council.  New York's nurses say no to swine flu vaccines and the state regulation requiring every health-care worker to be vaccinated against H1N1.  Flu vaccine package inserts list a worrisome array of adverse events that occur in temporal association with the shot, including paralysis, anaphylaxis, convulsions, thrombocytopenia and others.  Studies demonstrate a causal relationship between influenza vaccine and Guillain Barre Syndrome.  The 1976 swine flu vaccine campaign was a big failure The flu killed one person.  The vaccine killed over two dozen people and sickened about 500.  In Reflections on the 1976 Swine Flu Vaccine Program, the CDC admitted "expect the unexpected, it will always happen:"

  1. Children did not respond to the initial vaccine formulation,
  2. Liability for "untoward" events after vaccination became a major issue,
  3. "Excess" cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome appeared among recipients of the vaccine,
  4. The pandemic failed to appear.
And while they concluded that it is always better to overreact than underreact when it comes to public health, among the observations they offered:

  1. There was public suspicion that the program was politically motivated, rather than a public health response to a possible catastrophe,
  2. The decision to begin immunization was worthy of serious question and debate, 
  3. All policy decisions entail risks or benefits to the decision maker; risks or benefits to those affected by the decision.
Watch this November 1979 episode of 60 Minutes, available on youtube as part 1 and part 2, on the 1976 swine flu vaccine campaign.  Mike Wallace talks with President Gerald Ford, Judy Roberts (a victim injured by the vaccine) and David Sencer, MD, former head of the CDC who was responsible for the failed vaccination program and was compelled to resign in disgrace.  Note the discussion about the safety concerns, lack of informed consent, and the provocative, fear-based television ads urging Americans to get vaccinated.  Listen to Michael Hatwick, MD, responsible for 1976 swine flu vaccine surveillance, tell about the risk of vaccine-related neurological disorders that was evident from a review of the literature.  Listen to Sencer say that no one ever warned him this could be possible.

FACT 5:
Safety testing cannot be rigorously and adequately performed in time.  Results from clinical trials take months to be reported, and Canada recently announced that they will not be rushedU.S. H1N1 clinical trials began in early August in healthy adults first, followed by children as young as six months of age and pregnant womenAnd while it appears that one dose of the H1N1 vaccine is sufficient to provoke immunity in most adults and children over 10 years of age, two doses will be required for our youngest and most vulnerable children.  The Swiss drug maker disclosed that its Novartis swine flu vaccine is likely to be on the market before the trial finishes. It will be a year-long trial of 6,000 people in the U.S., Britain and Germany.  The U.S. has ordered $979 million of their bulk vaccine and adjuvant.  In total, we have committed to 251 million swine flu vaccine doses.

FACT 6: 
Most H1N1 vaccine doses will likely contain controversial ingredients including thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative that was removed from most pediatric vaccines after a contentious and bitterly-fought battle pitting public health officials against parents and consumer safety activists.  ABC News discusses thimerosal and the swine flu vaccine HERE, offering the CDC perspective and admitting that its inclusion will give some parents pause.  There is also significant concern regarding the possible use of squalene-based adjuvants ASO4 and MF59 which were both used in the anthrax vaccine given to U.S. soldiers.  Read what investigative journalist Gary Matsumoto thinks about squalene in vaccines.  Adjuvants are used when we need more vaccine.  It helps to make a smaller amount of antigenic viral material go a longer way by reducing the amount of vaccine needed per dose.  Scientists know that adjuvants cause more injury so it's a troubling tradeoff for those who believe that the vaccine will work. More vaccine = more are protected = more vaccine-related injuries?  Less vaccine = fewer are protected = fewer vaccine-related injuries?  Dr. Joe Mercola tell us more about squalene HERE.

FACT 7:
If you get H1N1, you will have either have lifelong immunity or you will be immune for a very long time. In fact, the elderly, who are usually a high priority target for the seasonal flu vaccine, are not for the swine flu vaccine.  The elderly appear to have enhanced immunity due to prior exposure to a virus that is related to the one that we see now. A person who gets a specific influenza and recovers generally has immunity to that specific virus for a period of time, usually a decade or two says Dr. Otis Brawley, Chief Medical Officer, American Cancer Society. This fall, how many of the one million Americans who now have or had H1N1 will be told that they should have their antibody levels titered before getting the vaccine?  And if the virus reassorts and mutates, then yes, it's possible that you would no longer be immune.  But that also means that the vaccine, developed many months earlier based on the seed virus at that point in time, is also unlikely to work anymore.

FACT 8:
There's a tremendous amount of money at stake.  If you troll the mainstream rags, you can read what analysts are saying about the swine flu.  You'll see words such as boon, bonanza and windfall.  Here's a Forbes piece: Swine Flu - A Shot in the Arm for Glaxo.  ABC reports Firms Look to Prevent Swine Flu Pandemic Turn A Profit.  Those making vaccines, antivirals, face masks and hand sanitizers are looking pretty.  And Huff Po: Swine Flu Profits: Drug Companies Reap Billions.  And don't think for one moment that this is a new trick.  Every few years, they return to the till and our politicians oblige.  Back in 2006, Bush asked Congress for $7.1 billion to prepare for avian flu.  If it keeps working, they'll keep asking.  You wouldn't expect otherwise, now, would you?

FACT 9:
Every state in the country has ordered swine flu vaccine and the CDC has committed to reporting every Friday on how much H1N1 vaccine is available to the states and how much has been ordered.  To access your state's updated information, click on the CDC spreadsheet HEREThe CDC recommends that certain groups receive the vaccine first but they have declined to prioritize rankings within these targets.  They include pregnant women, babies, school-aged children, young adults to age 24, and emergency and health care workers.

Recommended Websites and Articles

Helpful websites and articles as you conduct your research include:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
World Health Organization
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Red Cross on Pandemic Flu
National Vaccine Information Center
Natural News
Mercola.com

60 Minutes - Swine Flu 1976 - November 4, 1979
The Washington Post - Officials Are Urged To Heed Lessons of 1976 Flu Outbreak, May 9, 2009

Contrarian voices to consider

Swine Flu: What I Believe by Catherine Austin Fitts
Fitts served as managing director and member of the board of directors of the Wall Street investment bank Dillon, Read & Co. Inc., as Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development in the first Bush Administration
Maher uses his comedic training to challenge the boundaries of politics and political correctness on national television.  His September 25 Twitter post circled the globe. 
Swine Flu, the CIA, and Fidel Castro (Beyond Chron) April 29, 2009
With... the tacit backing of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officials, operatives linked to anti-Castro terrorists introduced African swine fever virus into Cuba in 1971.  - San Francisco Chronicle, January 10, 1977

Flu vaccine injuries and casualties?


Seasonal and Swine Flu Vaccine Package Inserts

Part of your flu vaccine research should include an advance review of the package inserts for the specific vaccines that you are evaluating.  Vaccine package inserts disclose information from the manufacturer related to safety, efficacy and other details relating to licensure of the product.  These include adverse events, clinical pharmacology (composition, uses, effects), and medical contraindications.
Swine Flu Vaccine Package Inserts
  1. CSL
  2. MedImmune
  3. Novartis
  4. Sanofi
Seasonal Flu Vaccine Package Inserts
  1. CSL (AFLURIA)
  2. GlaxoSmithKline (Fluarix)
  3. GlaxoSmithKline (FluLaval)
  4. Novartis (Fluvirin)
  5. Sanofi (Fluzone)
  6. MedImmune (Flumist)
(Package inserts for all FDA-approved vaccines can be found HERE)

And HERE is the CDC's Vaccine Information Statement (VIS) on the H1N1 vaccine. 

Vaccinating In Schools

The CDC recently posted School-Located [H1N1] Vaccination Planning Materials and Templates.  Since Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius first announced that children are likely to be vaccinated first, in their schools, parents and school administrators have been asking questions.  There are special concerns related to the prospect of administering vaccines in schools:  

  1. Increased Risk of Mistakes.  Since school personnel do not typically vaccinate children, there is an increased risk that medical mistakes will be made, particularly when considering expedited vaccination in a large group setting, and the possible need for more than one dose to be given several weeks apart.  Potential errors include improper administration of vaccine, duplicate administration of seasonal and H1N1 vaccines, and administration of shots to children whose parents did not provide advance authorization. 
  2. Special Medical Care Required.  There is specialized medical care that may need to be offered.  Some children are allergic to components of vaccines.  Severe, even fatal, reactions to vaccine may occur in some.  If school vaccinations are carried out, will qualified doctors or nurses be available to provide life-saving medical care on the spot?  If a child dies on site, what protocols are in place to notify the parents?  Would the vaccine campaign be halted?  Would this traumatize children who witness the event or see ambulance and police cars on the school campus?
  3. Specific Reporting Required.  The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 outlined specific requirements including reporting to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System.  Will schools comply?
  4. Who Pays For Injuries?  When children are harmed or killed by government-mandated vaccines, they are eligible to file a claim with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.  President Obama has urged all Americans to get their swine flu shots.  Secretary Sebelius says school kids to go first, with shots given in schools.  No one has mentioned issues of liability and legal recourse.  One thing we know, the vaccine industry is off the hook.  We granted them liability protection over twenty years ago.
  5. Children May Resist.  Certain children may not cooperate with vaccinations being given in a school setting, particularly without a familiar doctor or parent present.  This physical resistance can lead to unintentional injury to nurses, doctors, or children, and create unforeseen legal consequences for the schools and/or medical professionals giving the vaccines. 
  6. Contamination of Vials and Syringes.  The injection-form H1N1 vaccines are mostly in multi-dose vials, and contain thimerosal (49.6% ethyl mercury).  Injection syringes and needles will need to be replaced for every single vaccine recipient.  If only the needle tips are changed, Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B, HIV, and other diseases can be easily spread amongst vaccine recipients. This recently occurred at a Long Island (NY) pain management practice: Growing Focus on Reused Medical Vials (New York Times).  Bacterial contamination can also occur readily in these vials.  The multi-dose vials must be shaken before each administration of vaccine to avoid giving the final recipient a bolus dose of thimerosal/mercury that is much greater than 25 mcg.  

  7. Dangers of Live Virus Vaccines.  The nasal spray-form H1N1 vaccine (MedImmune) contains live attenuated virus.  Viral shedding and contamination are always a risk with live virus vaccines.  Administration of nasal spray vaccines  in schools could lead to unintentional spreading of disease in the most vulnerable population segment, our children. Additionally, attenuated or weakened viruses have the ability to un-attenuate themselves, and cause the very disease they are expected to prevent.  Regular seasonal Flu-Mist has caused death in some children, whether due to improper administration into the nasal mucosa, or a fatal neurologic reaction to the vaccine components as covered in this New York Times article. Seasonal Flu-Mist is contraindicated for children and adults with asthma and Multiple Sclerosis.  These individuals would have to receive the shot version of the flu vaccine.  It is likely this contraindication would apply to the H1N1 nasal spray vaccine as well.  MedImmune just announced its live virus nasal spray vaccine is ready to ship end-September.
  8. Real Time Monitoring.  There will be a great need to properly evaluate side effects in children who receive the H1N1 vaccines on a county basis, a state basis and a national basis, to ensure the side effects from vaccine are not debilitating and severe, and do not outweigh their benefit.  Is anything presently set up, or being set up, to monitor this? Who will have the power of law to make a decision to halt the vaccination campaign if a significant problem with the vaccine, or vaccines used, is identified?  How quickly can they act?  Note: the Swine Flu vaccination campaign of 1976 was halted after only 10 weeks as the severity of vaccine reactions, including at least 25 deaths from the vaccine,outweighed any vaccination benefits.
What should you do if your school decides to administer seasonal and/or swine flu vaccines?
  1. Find out the details: which shots, when will they be administered, are parents able or required to be there.
  2. Do your research.  Investigate the different possible formulations.  Request copies of package inserts to read prior to administration.  Review whether your child might have family history of chronic disease, autoimmune or neurological disorders that might put her at risk, for the diseases and the vaccines. 
  3. Decide which, if any, shots that you will want your child to receive.
  4. Write a letter to your children's school(s) regarding your specific requests, i.e., no vaccines or only one of the two flu shots.  Request confirmation of their receipt of your letter.
  5. Keep them home on those designated vaccination days if you do not want your children to be vaccinated in school.
  6. Accompany them if you want your children to be vaccinated in school, so you can be sure they receive what you want, so you can record the lot number and brand name of the vaccines received, and so you can offer some comfort to your children.
  7. Express your concerns.  If you are worried about vaccinating in schools, consider writing a letter to your school superintendent.

Protecting Your Family

Vaccines seem to be the only major tool in our public health officials' toolbox to combat the swine flu.  Even though  USA Today reports: Flu Vaccine For Fall Won't Protect Against Swine Flu, Reuters says that the First Defense Against Swine Flu is the Seasonal Flu Vaccine.  Why is this?  Why so much emphasis on vaccines?

Our prevailing model for understanding infectious disease morbidity, mortality and transmission is quite simple.  It says that germs are static and cause disease.  To deal with the disease, we must kill the germ.  We use vaccines so our bodies will manufacture antibodies, dispatch the disease and develop immunity.  There is one problem with the model, however.  In every single epidemic, pandemic and plague, scientists have never been able to explain why some people contract the disease and die... and why others do not. The pat response that "some people are different" doesn't illuminate and certainly doesn't satisfy.  Could it be that there are other mechanisms at work affecting the human immune system?  If we understood them better, could they help arm us with safer, more effective and less costly tools to respond to all manner of infectious disease and of course the occasional global pandemic? No one is permitted to say that any natural substance is a substitute for vaccines.  Setting aside the topic of vaccination for a moment, here's what we know about supporting the immune system naturally:

Eat Well.  Your diet matters.  Don't make your body slog through fast food burgers, fries and soda to hunt down the nutrition it needs.  You know the drill.  Start with lots of colorful fresh fruits and vegetables.  Eat a good variety of them, don't forget the green leafy veggies, and steer towards organic produce to avoid the pesticides.  When it comes to protein, go for high quality and non-animal when possible.  This means a small amount of grass-fed and organic meat, wild-caught seafood and more nuts, seeds and beans.  Drink a lot of pure spring water, about one ounce for each pound of body weight.  If you use a reverse osmosis filter, add back minerals.  If you drink tap water, try to filter out the chlorine and fluoride. 

Get Up and Out.  In moderation, exercise and sunshine are proven to be good for you. 

Reduce Stress.  Whether emotional or oxidative, our bodies experience stress the same way.  It takes its toll on your immune system.  Find out what works for you.  Whether it's mediation and yoga or scrapbooking and photography, take your mind off your troubles and find a therapeutic outlet.

Snooze and Shower.   A good night's sleep and consistent hygiene practices are also keys to keeping well. Your home is your castle but remember that staying clean and healthy isn't just about washing your hands and taking out the garbage.  Take some time to learn about ways to reduce household toxicity, too.  The products you bring into your home, from cleansers to furniture, might outgas or leave toxic chemical residues.  Again, don't make your body work harder than it has to.  If you are spending precious energy excreting toxins, you will have lowered reserves when the flu comes to town.  And if you are wanting a hand sanitizer for you or your children, consider using something effective but a bit more gentle this season.  Health food stores stock brands which rely upon effective essential oils.  Or Dr.Larry Rosen tells you how you can make your own.

Supplement and Fortify.  Beyond the basics of vitamin C and echinacea, we're learning more about the role of vitamins, herbs, nutritionals and homeopathy to support the immune system.  Here's a short and incomplete list to consider researching for your family:
  1. Vitamin D.  Read about the work of John Jacob Cannell, MD and the Vitamin D Council.  Pharmacological doses of vitamin D stimulates the body to make its own antimicrobial and antiviral peptides.  It also plays a role in suppressing inflammation.  Odds are that you're deficient.  Seven out of ten children have low levels of vitamin D.
  2. Probiotics and Transfer Factor.  The role of probiotics in supporting gastrointestinal health is not new. Our GI tract represents about 70% of our entire immune system.  New research points to a positive role for probiotic supplementation and the prevention of colds in children and can help those who are already ill with various conditions.  Brands to consider include 4Life and Chisolm Biological Labs.
  3. Precursors to Glutathione.  Glutathione is described as the master antioxidant that assists the body in removing toxins.  It is produced in the liver and plays a key role in intermediary metabolism, immune response and health. Supplementing with glutathione has been difficult because it is not well-absorbed through the GI tract.  A new patented product called ProImmune contains the precursors to glutathione that help stimulate the body's production of intracellular glutathione.
  4. Antioxidants.  Vitamin C is a time-tested favorite but can cause diarrhea in large quantities so  many people like to experiment with dosage.  Green tea extract appears promising as a source of health-promoting antioxidants.  And did you know that elderberries have been used for centuries to cure the symptoms of colds and the flu? They contain anthocyanins, a powerful flavonoid. Located in the pigment of this fruit, these antioxidants have the ability to stimulate your body's immune system to fight unwelcome invaders. In placebo-controlled, double-blind studies, sambucus has been found to effectively treat influenza. Elderberry inhibits neuraminidase, the enzyme used by the virus to spread infection to host cells. If you're curious, read more about it in Prevention, Wikipedia and Wildman Steve Brill.
None of the above advice is recommended as a substitute for medical treatment prescribed by your doctor and individuals should consult qualified medical professionals to determine appropriateness, including potential interactions with current medications.

Six Health Providers' Views (plus "Dr. Microsoft")

(1) Dr. Larry Rosen - pediatrician

Larry Rosen, MD is a board-certified pediatrician with a holistic, integrative practice.  He offers us this article on Influenza: Considerations For Prevention and Treatment that appeared in the September 2009 issue of Greening Your Life, from the Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology. He addresses the following questions:
  1. What is the swine flu and what makes it different from the regular flu?
  2. How bad is this new flu, really?
  3. I keep hearing about a new flu vaccine.  Is this flu vaccine safe?  Does it work?
  4. Are there other ways to prevent the flu?
  5. What's the best way to treat the flu?

(2) Dr. Sanjay Gupta - CNN medical correspondent

Sanjay Gupta, MD is CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent.  And he offers the following "clear, concise answers about what a parent should do with a sick child," excerpted from Dr. Gupta Offers Advice to Parents on H1N1:
  1. As things stand now, the vast majority of children who develop flu-like symptoms this fall will have a few miserable days, and nothing more. And those days are best spent at home -- not in the ER or a doctor's office.
  2. If you are worried, you should call your pediatrician's office first. Don't take your child in without calling. Two reasons: Your child may not have H1N1, but could become exposed by being around sick children. And, after several hours of waiting, you are still likely to be told the basics -- plenty of fluids, rest and dose-appropriate acetaminophen for a fever. After all, it is still the flu we are talking about. Video Dr. Gupta talks preparedness with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
  3. One doctor told me a way to think about things that was helpful. He said "remove the term H1N1 from the equation." If your child had regular flu, would you take him to the hospital? If the answer is no, then don't take him/her to the hospital now.
  4. Yes, hearing between 30,000 and 90,000 could die from H1N1 is scary, but keep in mind -- around 40,000 people die from the regular or seasonal flu every year. The numbers may not be that much different, yet there is not panic about the regular flu. As things look now, H1N1 is causing only mild to moderate illness, not the widespread deaths people are worried about.
  5. There are some children who should be seen by their doctor.
  • Call your doctor if:
• A baby younger than 12 weeks has a fever greater than 100.4F
• A child, older than 12 weeks has a fever for three days
• A child's fever returns after a 12-24 hour time period
• A child is not passing urine or making tears for more than six hours
• A child does not smile or show interest in playing for several hours
  • Dial 911 if:
• A child cannot speak while trying to breathe
• Has a blue or dark purple color to the nail beds, lips or gums
• Is not responding to you because he is too tired or weak
One point that was reinforced to me over and over again by the pediatricians is the best place for a sick child is at home. And, with regard to school -- after 24 fever-free hours without the aid of medications, he or she can go back.

(3) Dr. Frank Lipman - director of Eleven Eleven Wellness Center

Frank Lipman, MD, is an integrative physician and the founder and director of Eleven Eleven Wellness, a center focused on preventive health care and patient education.  Read his Huffington Post article Swine Flu: What To Do?  Dr. Lipman summarizes his top five reasons for advising against the swine flu vaccine and offers fourteen power steps to strengthen your immune system.

(4) Marcella Piper-Terry - Defeat Autism Now! Practitioner

Marcella Piper-Terry, M.S. provides holistic coaching and information for families with autism, ADHD and other developmental disabilities.  Read her blog post Treating The Flu Naturally. She lists a variety of homeopathic and other supplements she used to treat her nine-year old daughter when she contracted the swine flu.  The closing lines of her post:
Purchasing enough supplements to cover every possible scenario during the flu season: $400....

Treating the flu without worrying about mercury or squalene from vaccinations: Priceless.

(5) Dr. Tedd Koren - chiropractor

Tedd Koren, DC is a doctor of chiropractic who researches, writes and lectures extensively on the subjects of vaccination safety, the history of childhood infectious diseases, and the role of chiropractic in supporting health.  He shares with us this piece: What Can We Do To Protect Ourselves From the Flu?  He looks to history to answer key questions about disease mortality rates and the effectiveness of various treatment modalities.  He asks us if there is a role for illness in promoting long-term self-healing. 

(6) Leslie Beck - dietician

Leslie Beck is a Toronto-based registered dietician at the MedCan Clinic and appears on CTV's Canada AM weekly.  Read her September 12th post Fight H1N1 With A Healthy Diet.  She tells readers about the role of Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Zinc, Echinacea, Ginseng, and Probiotics.  No surprises here.  Just another voice saying pretty much the same thing - eat well, get enough sleep, wash hands, exercise, and supplement with time-tested nutritionals and supplements.

(7) Dr. Microsoft - web-based tool

How about turning to your computer for a little advice?  Microsoft partnered with Emory University to deliver this interactive website: H1N1 Swine Flu Response Center. As reported by the Associated Press: Web tool helps advise when flu needs a doctor. You type in your age (for those over twelve) and answer questions about your symptoms and health status.  The idea behind the tool is to prevent overcrowding in hospital emergency rooms by directing those who may be worried but are not so ill to stay home.
And if another mention of hygiene makes you roll your eyes, maybe you're ready for a little handwashing science.  The British Medical Journal recently published the article: Physical Interventions To Interrupt Or Reduce The Spread Of Respiratory Viruses: Systematic Review. They cover various permutations of handwashing, barrier methods (i.e., masks), gargling, disinfection, and distancing.

Worry Now?

There's a lot that's not known, about the disease, the shot, the programs to administer the shots, and your freedom to choose.  The media headlines are certainly compelling enough to attract your attention, as they raise possibilities: hundreds of thousands killed by swine flu, military intervention, and storing the swine flu dead in freezer trucks. It's up to you to reconcile the information we have to-date, so you can decide how best to prepare and so you can also determine the extent to which we are all being primed or manipulated for what's to follow.
Here are some of the unknowns:
  1. Is the disease worthy of a vaccine?  This is the million dollar question, isn't it?  Are you worried enough about what swine flu can do that you will accept the risk of the vaccine?  As the virus passes through humans, it could adapt and become more mild. We've seen this happen with many other viruses that were once deadly.  Or, not. The alternative scenario is that the virus mutates and becomes more virulent.  It is this possibility that has attracted the attention and the mobilization our public health resources.
  2. Did they get the shot right?  That's on the CDC, for starters.  They created the reference virus strain and sent it to the vaccine manufacturers.  From what I've read, there is one strain and no antigen drift which is good news. That makes things easier.  The novel A(H1N1) virus is a reassortment of four strains of influenza virus A: one from human, one from birds and two from pigs. When it comes to the seasonal flu vaccine, our researchers don't always choose well.  It's rare when all three strains are a match. More often than not, they miss one or two and the vaccine is significantly less protective.  Development of flu vaccines is tricky, due to these issues of ressortment and antigen drift.  The more unstable proteins offer the strongest immune response because these play a greater role in the replication and intensity of the virus. The stable proteins do not afford strong immune protection but this can be enhanced with adjuvants.  More on how to make a swine flu vaccine.
  3. What's in the shot?  The possibilities are worrisome and some of them have been discussed.  But how do you have an intelligent discussion about the safety and efficacy of the unknown and the unconfirmed?  There are five swine flu vaccine manufacturers identified: Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi Pasteur, CSL Biotherapies and MedImmune.  Each company has its own area of expertise. and therefore, there are different vaccine formulations being manufactured: inactivated versus live virus vaccines, inclusion of mercury-based preservative, adjuvanted versus nonadjuvanted vaccines, and specifically the use of squalene-based adjuvants. Each formulation has its own safety considerations, each worthy of extensive dialogue and debate. 
  4. Who will get the shot?  The CDC announced that pregnant women and young children under age five are among the primary targets.  Secretary Sebelius announced that it is a voluntary program.  But we also that that the rules could change.  There are laws on the books that provide for extraordinary measures to be taken in the event of a public health emergency (Model States Emergency Health Powers Act).  Under what circumstances would these laws be invoked?  What would their implementation look like?  How much time would there be to weigh in and effect change?   Who's in charge anyway - the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Health & Human Services?  We do know that the Obama Administration is mulling new quarantine regulations, taking a look at rules that were first proposed by the Bush Administration about four years ago.  At the time, these included a "provisional quarantine" of three business days for those suspected of having illnesses listed in a presidential executive order.  Federal quarantines are highly unusual; the last two reported were in 2007 and 1963. 
  5. Will there be time for good safety studies to be done?  It's important to know that our prevailing understanding about vaccine safety and efficacy is based largely upon clinical evidence.  The large-scale, controlled studies have not been done and there is not clearly enough time to do them in time for this  fast-tracked vaccine. Secretary Sebelius assured Americans on national TV: Tests will be done.  We're going to listen to the science and not release a vaccine until we feel we got the dosage right and that it's safe and effective for people to be vaccinated.  We know that it takes time to do studies with integrity.  There are quality control  issues relating to sterility, specification, storage and stability.  There are preclinical trials on animals.  All vaccine formulations under consideration need to be evaluated.  In human clinical trials, you have to decide who to test.  All ages?  Healthy people only or sick people too?  Do you test pregnant women and evaluate for birth defects?  You also must decide for how long we follow the test subjects.  Do you watch for five days to ensure it doesn't cause anaphylaxis or do you follow them for years to check for other health outcomes, including cancer, infertility and chronic illness?  And human nature being what it is, in the face of a strict timeline and enormous institutional pressure to pull the trigger, what happens if something worrisome is uncovered?  Whether it's a space shuttle launch or  delivery of a pandemic flu vaccine, do you delay implementation or do you... go? 
I can't tell you what to do and and no one else can either.  Read Dr. Sears' recent blogpost.  He pretty much sums it up as he concludes: Worry or don't worry.  It's up to you.

[The information and products contained herein are not warranted for any particular use and all warranties, expressed or implied, including fitness for any particular use are expressly disclaimed.]

Take Action

If you're concerned about what you're hearing, if you're worried that there won't be time to weigh in once the facts are known, join others who are banding together to collaborate and take action now.  Click HERE for the Swine Flu Letter Writing Campaign to President Obama.  There are two versions of the letter; one for physicians and another for the rest of us.  Check back regularly for updates and new campaigns.  And pay attention to charges brought against Baxter and the World Health Organization alleging bioterrorism.  We can sit and contemplate why this piece of news was not deemed worthy of coverage by the mainstream press.  Or we can consider whether we would like the court system to determine whether these allegations have validity. Sending a paypal donation to investigative journalist Jane Burgermeister at vaccinelawsuit@gmail.comvaccinelawsuit@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it in support of her efforts doesn't mean dirty pool is afoot.  It just means that you don't know and you'd like those accountable to prove that it's not. 
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Words of Faith

"O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago." Isaiah 25:1

"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" -Matthew 6:27

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10

"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy." Psalm 126:5