Buried amid news stories about World Breastfeeding Week, World Suicide Prevention Day and World Rabies Day, the WHO has a small item giving the latest supposed count of ‘laboratory confirmed H1N1 cases. It is something on the order of 55,000 persons worldwide since this April at a factory pig farm in Veracruz Mexico a small child got ill and the world was told of a deadly new ‘Swine Flu’ that was allegedly spreading from pig to person. Yet the US Government is gearing up as if it ere preparing for the new outbreak of the dreaded 1918 ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic. The reality does not support the government response. Is something else going on?
Although neither the WHO nor the US Government’s Centers for Disease Control nor the Robert Koch Institute nor the Pasteur Institute nor any government or private agency in the world has yet to scientifically isolate, to photograph with means of electron microscopy and to list the chemical characteristics of the ‘novel H1N1 Influenza A virus’ as it is now officially called, the WHO has seen fit to declare a global “Pandemic Alert” Phase 6 alarm.
WHO sounds the Pandemic Gong
What is conveniently obscured in most all media accounts of the WHO is the definition of their ‘pandemic’ declaration. A look at the official definition reveals that it relates merely to the number of countries in a given WHO region reporting cases of a given disease. Specifically, Phase 5, just below Pandemic is defined as ‘sustained community level outbreaks in two or more countries in one WHO region. Phase 6 includes the Phase 5 conditions plus ‘sustained outbreaks in at least one other country in another WHO region.’
In her June 11 statement declaring, almost triumphantly, that WHO criteria had been met to declare an official Phase 6 ‘pandemic,’ meaning they claim to have found the symptoms in a specific number of countries, WHO’s Director-General, Harvard-trained Dr Margaret Chan declared, ‘On present evidence, the overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms and make a rapid and full recovery, often in the absence of any form of medical treatment.’ She then added, ‘Worldwide, the number of deaths is small…we do not expect to see a sudden and dramatic jump in the number of severe or fatal infections.’ Oh? That’s interesting. Then why the alarm? Mutations? Of what?
Chan even admits the possibility that most if not all the deaths being so far attributed to H1N1, the factor that creates the most panic in ignorant populations, might have been what epidemiologists call ‘opportunistic infection’, namely that a person already seriously ill catches a flu or severe cold and dies from complications. Chan states, ‘Many, though not all, severe cases have occurred in people with underlying chronic conditions…most frequently seen include respiratory diseases, notably asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, and obesity.’ Those deaths are now tallied in the list of H1N1 caused deaths. No one bothers to look closely. The number of AIDS deaths perhaps declines as the same people are now tallied as victims in the now more popular H1N1 tally.
WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan, never one to shy from a good chance to deliver a panic sound bite, recently while agreeing the virus is ‘pretty stable,’ warned it ‘could’ still change into a more deadly form, perhaps mixing with the H5N1 bird flu virus circulating widely in poultry. The world ‘could’ be hit by a meteorite and be pulverized into oblivion as well.
Obama gears up the Pandemic machine
In the United States, the Obama Administration has strong-armed the US Congress to appropriate 300% more money for Swine Flu ‘preparedness’ than Congress planned. Responding to lobbying by the Obama administration, the US Congress has approved an eye-popping $7.65 billion for the non-proven pandemic influenza.
Curiously enough, the money was included in a $106 billion supplemental appropriation bill for funding the military wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The war on pig flu now seems to rank alongside the Ware on Terror the war on Iraqis and Afghanis as US policy priority.
Most of the pandemic money is for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but the bill includes $350 million to increase state and local capacity for responding to H1N1. The bill provides $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2009 money and $5.8 billion in “contingent emergency appropriations” for HHS and the CDC.
The funds are to be used for expanding surveillance, increasing federal stockpiles of drugs and medical supplies, and developing, buying, and administering vaccines.
The $350 million in state and local money, according to the House summary, is intended to help public health departments hire and train staff members, buy equipment to improve diagnostic capabilities, distribute antivirals and personal protective equipment from federal and state stockpiles, improve communication and maintain disease-reporting hotlines, and address other challenges, such as hospital surge capacity.
In substantially increasing the funding, Congress decided not to take funds from the stimulus and the Pentagon BioShield program of medical countermeasures against biological and other unconventional weapons. The new money will give a major ‘shot in the arm’ to the pharmaceutical giants like Roche, maker of Don Rumsfeld’s favourite ‘antiviral’ Tamiflu, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and other global vaccine giants.
A Curious German warning
Not to be left behind in the contest to see which world disease agency can spread the most needless panic, the Berlin-based Robert Koch Institute is doing its share to fuel the necessary angst to fuel mass vaccination frenzy in the population. Joerg Hacker, head of the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases stated, ‘It’s possible the virus has mutated. In autumn the mutated form could spread to the northern hemisphere and back to Germany.’ Now that’s really pretty scary sounding.
Mr Hacker no where presents the scientific basis for his alarming conclusion, but then no journalist present bothered to even ask. That would be perhaps impolite.
Even the CDC and WHO admit that symptoms of swine flu are mild. But we are being bombarded with propaganda from WHO, CDC and now Robert Koch Institute telling us that this Swine Flu H1N1 ‘could evolve’ into something more aggressive.
Germany has a reported 275 ‘confirmed’ cases of H1N1. Yet there exists no test that confirms presence of H1N1 virus as even the WHO and CDC admit, so one might wonder how they have been confirmed for what? To her credit, at least to date Chancellor Merkel has chosen not to go berserk as has the Obama Administration to prepare billions of taxpayer dollars for a virus which to date has not even been confirmed as the sole cause of a single human death and whose effects otherwise are comparable to a bad cold and disappear within normally five days. Are we being taken for absolute idiots?
*F. William Engdahl is author of the new book, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order (Third Millennium Press.). He may be reached via his website at www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.
