by Michael Kane
November 2, 2005

from FromTheWilderness Website

Since 9/11 the Bush Administration has been consistently eroding citizens’ rights to choose what treatments we put into our bloodstreams. If the Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005 becomes law, that erosion of health freedom will be entering its final stage.

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) the right to authorize mandatory vaccinations and drugging once a state of emergency is implemented. This new act will exempt pharmaceutical companies from any liability for death or injury as long as their drug or vaccine has been designated as a “countermeasure.”¹

UPI has just reported that an experimental – and seemingly deadly – anthrax vaccine being tested by both the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and HHS may have already been added to the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) for emergency use.² If this new law is enacted, the controversial AIG (anthrax immune globulin) vaccine could be labeled as a “countermeasure,” giving its manufacturer impunity if it is deployed from the SNS. Unfortunately, such a scenario would not be the first time an anthrax vaccine caused injury and death to humans.³

FTW (FromTheWilderness) recommends everyone read the UPI report thoroughly and carefully.

Some contenders for the coveted “countermeasure” title would include the anti-viral drug Tamiflu, BioPort’s despicable anthrax vaccine, VaxGen’s “next generation” anthrax vaccine, the ABthrax anthrax drug⁴ , multiple smallpox vaccines, and Cipro, to name a few.

If a “countermeasure” kills or injures people, the victims and their families will have no legal recourse in the courts. If the proposed act becomes law, the injured parties will have to plead their case to the Secretary of HHS. He alone determines whether any compensation might be warranted.

But there is a gigantic catch.

It must be proven that not only is the pharmaceutical company in question guilty of wrongdoing, but that they did so willfully. So if it is deemed an accident, a mistake, or incompetence that caused death or injury, there is no liability whatsoever. It is almost impossible to prove a pharmaceutical manufacturer willfully caused harm through their product, especially once the process is removed from the legal system and placed in the Whitehouse. This “accountability” clause has been added for the Senate to save face even though it does not protect citizens’ rights and is effectively useless.

If the legislation is passed, it will set up the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA). This agency will operate secretly, exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. BARDA is the marriage of Big Pharma and Big Government, with the happy couple reigning side by side as they determine which drugs and vaccines will be anointed as “countermeasures.”

Biowarfare expert Jerome Hauer, who was named as a “person of interest” in the crimes of 9/11 by Michael Ruppert in Crossing The Rubicon, has just left his position as assistant secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness at HHS. FTW believes he is likely preparing to become a member of BARDA. The legislation that will create BARDA is on fast track in the Senate, and there is no individual in the country more “qualified” to be a member of this agency if, or when, it is created.⁵

BARDA eliminates what the industry calls the "valley of death" in biomedical research. According to Mary M. Shaffrey writing in JournalNow.com, the term refers to the gap between the point when companies have found potential medicines and vaccines for such diseases as smallpox or anthrax, but before they are ready to be verified in clinical trials.⁶

So does this mean we are the guinea pigs now?

Shaffrey writes:

One key aspect of the bill is that the government will cover the liability risk for companies that manufacture drugs for use in a bioterror attack. Because the testing for these countermeasures will be limited, it will be unclear whether they are 100 percent effective until they are needed after an attack. [emphasis added]⁷

It is also unclear how many deaths and injuries each “countermeasure” will cause.

They continue:

Over the course of the typical 10-year period from a drug's conception to full government approval, a company can expect to make billions off a single drug, and that's before it's sold on the wide scale.⁸

www.Legitgov.org is asking people to write and call the Senators supporting this bill to voice our disdain of their actions. It is a righteous call, but don’t hold your breath.

The Senate is Big Pharma’s best friend, and while everyone is thoroughly distracted by the fact that the Bush Administration is finally in hot water, this bill is all but certain to become law. The indictment of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, is blinding everyone to the fact that Big Pharma is about to have its deepest, darkest dream come true – immunity from lawsuits.

And those in the Senate who are actually criticizing the bill are only doing so from the standpoint that it does not address the bird flu “epidemic” with more fervor.
 

BIRD FLU

Obviously this legislation is related to the current media flurry surrounding H5N1 avian flu. But the facts are being intentionally muddied by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other interests who clearly have an ulterior agenda.

This “epidemic” of bird flu has killed a mere 67 people throughout the world since 1997, while other flu strains kill 40,000 people a year in this country alone. Bird flu exists, and it could indeed mutate toward a pandemic-inducing level of infectivity in humans. But it appears that the virus has yet to be properly isolated.

Thus far H5N1 (bird flu) has only been “isolated” through PCR — polymerase chain reaction — a powerful analytic technique whose inventor, Kary Mullis, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1993. Dr. Mullis has been unwavering in his position that PCR cannot be used to properly and accurately isolate a virus. Only isolation through purification is considered the gold standard in virology.⁹

FTW interviewed medical researchers and microbiologists and found that thus far, no scientific papers have been published showing that H5N1 has been properly isolated through purification in any of the 67 human deaths attributed to bird flu. Only PCR has been used. If anyone can show this statement to be incorrect, please do so immediately by providing citations to the scientific paper(s) showing H5N1 has been isolated through purification.

Assuming such scientific documentation doesn’t exist (as it appears not to), just what is going on?

The WHO is forcing the pieces to fit into a pre-determined puzzle – an alternative agenda. The 67 deaths supposedly caused by bird flu need to be thoroughly examined and the virus itself needs to be isolated via purification before any discussion of treatment can begin. But this is not the intent of the WHO, the U.S. Government, or Big Pharma.

While this reporter does not always agree with the conclusions of Dr. Leonard Horowitz, he was entirely correct when he recently wrote:

Little to no data is available on these [67] individuals [the alleged victims of bird flu] who most commonly had immune-compromising medical conditions. Further, all deaths were in Asian countries with questionable health services.¹⁰

$8 billion of emergency government funding has been allotted towards whatever the next “super flu” will be, whether it is H5N1 or something else. Secretary of HHS Michael Levitt was recently quoted as saying,

“If it isn‘t the current H5N1 virus that leads to an influenza pandemic, at some point in our nation‘s future another virus will.” ¹¹

Tamiflu, the drug expected to reap the biggest financial gain from bird flu, will also benefit the current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who owns stock in the company that originally patented the drug. Rumsfeld’s stake in Gilead Sciences Inc. is reportedly between $5 and $25 million, and as the bird flu scare has spread through the media the stock has risen dramatically.¹²

We are seeing a culmination of greed, fear, and lies comparable to that which brought our military onto Iraqi soil. This gravy train is on a deadly rush-to-market collision course with public health; its victims will be American citizens considered collateral damage in the “war on terror.”

Big Pharma needs the liability bailouts given by the Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005 because they know their products will cause deaths. And if their “countermeasures” merely sit and rot in the Strategic National Stockpile, they are sure to make even more money filling the SNS all over again.



References

1. While the Homeland Security Act did provide liability bailouts for Eli Lilly’s vaccine mercury preservative thimerasol (contained in every flu shot), the Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005 goes much further with its “countermeasure” program, as FTW has previously reported.
2. “Anthrax treatment may be deadly,” by Steve Mitchell, UPI, October 27, 2005.
3. “VACCINE EPIDEMIC,” by Michael Kane, FTW, March 16, 2004.
4. “HHS to buy two anthrax drugs for testing,” Center for Infectious Disease Research Policy, October 6, 2005.
5. For detailed information on Jerome Hauer’s biography and his considerable involvement in the crimes of 9/11, see Crossing The Rubicon, chapter 23, pp. 418-426.
6. “Burr proposes agency to counter bioterrorism,” by Mary M. Shaffrey, JournalNow.com, October 17, 2005.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Note that PCR is the only technique ever used to allegedly confirm the presence of HIV; HIV has never been isolated through purification. In fact, accepting all that we’ve been told about the human immunodeficiency virus requires us to throw a century of virological science out the window.
10. “The Avian Flu Fright is Politically Timed,” by Dr. Leonard Horowitz, GlobalResearch.ca, October 12, 2005.
11. “Bush to Unveil Super-Flu Strategies on Tues.” by Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press, October 30, 2005.
12. “Rumsfeld growing stake in Tamiflu,” by Nelson D. Schwartz, CNNMoney, October 31, 2005.