Back in 2005, headlines warned the U.S. and U.K. were facing a cataclysmic extermination event, with a calculated two million Americans succumbing to the bird flu; the best case scenario taking only 200,000 lives. The always reliable fearmonger Neil Ferguson at the Gates Foundation-funded Imperial College of London predicted as many as 200 million deaths worldwide. The virus, if it even existed, actually killed 78 people worldwide. Photos of overflowing hospital wards from the 1918 flu epidemic heightened the fear factor to a fever pitch. According to Dr. Paul A. Offit, a vaccine specialist at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, “H5 viruses have been around for 100 years and never caused a pandemic and probably never will.” Still, according to the NY Times, scientists and governments were congratulating themselves for averting a threat that never was by stockpiling worthless vaccines, pointlessly culling hundreds of millions of birds, and pouring money into preparation efforts.
The case of “the impending pandemic of the Avian Flu” might as well have been a fictional mini-series made for television, but as usual, reality is stranger than fiction. It would be hard to make up a story as filled with greed and political corruption as this one.
Well. A fool does in the end what the wise man does at the beginning, and this would certainly apply here. Reviewing the scientific facts is often a good place to start, but that did not happen in this case. Somehow they were able to translate the minuscule deaths that had occurred worldwide into somewhere between 200,000 to 2 million deaths from a virus that does NOT readily spread from birds to humans, nor between humans.
Most of the people who acquired the infection were, and still are, bird handlers in continuous contact with sick birds. How did anyone in their right mind envision similar circumstances in the United States? Research like this would typically be thrown in the trash if it did not strongly support some ulterior purpose.
What might that purpose have been?… Try greed.
At $100 per dose, the U.S. used taxpayer’s dollars to purchase some 20 million doses of the highly questionable Tamiflu, lining the pockets of then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who was president of Gilead Sciences when they created the drug. Tamiflu’, is an antiviral prescription medication, in pill form. This drug was made and marketed by Hoffmann–La Roche Holding AG of Switzerland, but was developed by Gilead Sciences Inc. of California in 1996.
“In January 1997, Donald Rumsfeld, a Board member since 1988, was appointed Chairman of the company [Gilead Science, the developer of Tamiflu]. He stood down from the Board in January 2001 when appointed United States Secretary of Defense at the start of George W. Bush’s first term as President. Federal disclosure forms indicate that Rumsfeld owned between US$5 million and US$25 million in Gilead stock. The rise in Gilead’s share prices from US$35 to US$57 per share will have added between US$2.5 million to US$15.5 million to Rumsfeld’s net worth.” Taken from a Halloween 2005 article on CNN Money by By Nelson D. Schwartz, of Fortune (Rumsfeld’s Growing Stake in Tamiflu).
When it leaked out, the Pentagon issued a curt statement to the effect that Secretary Rumsfeld had decided not to sell but to retain his stock in Gilead, claiming that to sell would have indicated something to hide.’ That agonizing decision won him reported added millions as the Gilead share price soared more than 700% in just a few more weeks.
A Dangerous Cure for a Phony Danger
Tamiflu was approved based on faulty science because the manufacturer withheld pertinent information concerning its safety. Is it also because an artificially-created public health scare can be used to “justify” legislation to enforce mandatory vaccination and the incarceration (in already-prepared detention camps) of all who refuse?
“Oseltamivir’s benefits in those who are otherwise healthy do not appear to outweigh its risks….. [and] no benefit has been found in those with other health problems” – Coenen, B; Van Puyenbroeck, K; Verhoeven, V; Vermeire, E; Coenen, S (2013). “The Value of Neuraminidase Inhibitors for the Prevention and Treatment of Seasonal Influenza: a Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews” from Dr. Tom Jefferson’s article on the subject in PloS one.
In 2005, President George W. Bush pushed for and won $7.1 billion in emergency funding to prepare for an influenza pandemic that was not even yet on the horizon. Donald Rumsfeld, who engineered the 1976 Swine Flu swindle, was AGAIN—- Defense Secretary. The United States placed an order for 20 million doses of Tamiflu at a price of $100 per dose. It cost the taxpayers around $2 billion. Conflict of Interest? Also, in March 2005, Britain’s Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair, ordered the UK Government to buy enough Tamiflu drugs to supply 14 million of its British citizens.
And then, the World Health Organization was hyping up the hysteria by declaring a Swine flu Pandemic; warning that governments worldwide should launch emergency response plans for late 2009 or early 2010 as a pandemic was “imminent.”
Do You See a Pattern Here? How many billions did our US Government spend on Swine flu to line Rumsfeld and big pharma pockets? Propaganda from friends in Washington and other high places to instill a scenario of panic by fear-mongering to rob the taxpayers? Go Figure!
The Tamiflu vaccine was linked to the deaths of 12 Japanese children, some of which suddenly jumped out of buildings. Neuropsychiatric incidents in children, including seizures, loss of consciousness, and delirium were linked to the vaccine. Tamiflu was later shown in studies to cause Psychosis, Delusions and Paranoia, but FDA would ignore its ineffectiveness and side effects and say its ‘OK’ for Newborns?
Manufactured Fear
President Bush instilled panic in the US by claiming a minimum of 200,000 Americans will die from the avian flu pandemic and, but it could be as bad as 2 million deaths and hospitalization of another 10 million. Further, he called for the military to be ready to enforce travel restrictions, lockdowns, and closings for days and weeks at a time. The government produced a report, now missing from the White House website but viewable on Archive.org, that proposed what amounts to military rule and nationalization.
Scare stories filled world media. Then, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced he had budgeted more than $1 billion to stockpile the vaccine, Oseltamivir sold under the name, Tamiflu. President Bush called on Congress to appropriate another $2 billion for Tamiflu stocks. Almost daily, the newspapers, radio stations and television programs pummeled Americans with news of a coming Avian Flu “pandemic” and the necessity of developing vaccines and instituting mandatory vaccination programs – – – for EVERYBODY!
President George W. Bush spoke repeatedly of a “Military Takeover In Case Of A Flu Outbreak.” (CNN October 4 & 5, 2005) and possible quarantine of the victims of bird flu! “I’m concerned about what an avian flu outbreak could mean for the United States and the world,” the President told reporters during a Rose Garden news conference.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 bans the military from participating in police-type activity on U.S. soil. It was enacted to prohibit the government from using the military to control or attack the citizens of its own country. Bush began discussing the possibility of changing or eliminating this law in the aftermath of the government’s sluggish response to civil unrest following Hurricane Katrina. If this had been done, it would have allowed the US government to use military troops against its own people (as was already done in the Waco tragedy).
Symptoms of Bird Flu
Let’s examine the widely heralded Avian Flu Pandemic and what impact it might have had on the U.S. and the World. What were the symptoms of bird flu in humans? According to the web site of the (WHO) World Health Organization (www.who.int/csr/don/2004_01_15/en/), the symptoms of avian influenza (Type H5N1) were:
- Fever
- Sore throat
- Cough
- And possibly, viral pneumonia
The web site of the (CDC) Centers for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/gen-info/facts.htm) gave the following symptoms for avian flu:
- Fever
- Cough
- Sore throat and muscle aches
- And possibly, pneumonia
Another area of the web site of the CDC at www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/professional/han020405.htm gives the following symptoms for Avian Flu:
- documented temperature of >38 degrees C (>100.4 degrees F ), AND one or more of the following:
- cough,
- sore throat,
- shortness of breath, AND
- History of contact with poultry (e.g. visited a poultry farm, a household raising poultry, or a bird market) or a known or suspected human case of influenza A (H5N1) in an H5N1-affected country within 10 days of symptom onset.
Please note: A temperature of 100.4 degrees Farenheit can be generated on a hot day in a totally healthy person who has NO disease whatsoever! This is a medical fact.
A cough can occur from a cold, allergies, asthma, air pollution, certain medications, from smoking, or many other causes. All these symptoms are non-specific, meaning they can occur in any combination with a host of medical conditions totally unrelated to bird flu OR regular flu.
So it would’ve been possible for the government to quarantine a person for an indeterminate period of time, jeopardizing the person’s job and income, if he or she has a cough on a hot day! (Remember, the symptoms are: a temperature of >100.4 F AND one or more of the following: cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, OR contact with any type of bird.
2. What are the symptoms of REGULAR flu (NOT avian flu)? These are also given on the CDC’s web site at www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm. They are the following:
- Fever of 100.4 degrees F or higher
- Headache
- Extreme tiredness
- Dry cough
- Sore throat
- Runny or stuffy nose
- Muscle aches
Stomach symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, also can occur but are more common in children than adults.
3. Question: How does anyone differentiate the symptoms of AVIAN FLU (bird flu) from the symptoms of REGULAR FLU?
Answer: As a physician, I (Lorraine Day, M.D.) can tell you that it is IMPOSSIBLE to tell the difference!
“How many people die each year from REGULAR FLU (NOT bird flu)?
“The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) states, “Every year in the United States, on average, 36,000 people die from flu.” (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm)
But this is a deliberate deception by the CDC!
“Below are the actual number of flu associated deaths from 1999 to 2002 from the CDC National Vital Statistic Reports
(http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr52_13.pdf):
- 753 deaths in 2002 (page 16 of report)
- 257 deaths in 2001 (page 16 of report)
- 1,765 deaths in 2000
- 1,665 deaths in 1999
“How does the CDC get from 753 flu deaths to its statement that 36,000 flu deaths occur annually?
“By combining flu deaths with pneumonia deaths. The CDC National Vital Statistic Report for 2002 lists Influenza and Pneumonia as the 7th leading cause of death in 2002. You probably already guessed it – only 753 of those deaths were flu-associated and the rest of the 36,000 were pneumonia-associated. If all flu-associated deaths are removed, pneumonia associated deaths still ranks number 7 by itself. The media used the false 36,000 deaths number in its coverage – 50 times the actual 2002/2003 number.
“Are the 257 to 1,765 reported annual flu deaths from 1999 to 2002 even accurate?
“No. It is not possible to determine the actual number of deaths caused by the flu because the CDC has no death certificate category for deaths caused only by the flu. The CDC has three basic categories of flu deaths:
- influenza plus pneumonia
- influenza plus other respiratory manifestations/symptoms
- influenza plus other manifestations/symptoms (non-respiratory)”
“Health professionals may try to justify the legitimacy of combining flu deaths with pneumonia deaths with the statement that “influenza leads to pneumonia.” But the facts do not support this frequent, broad misstatement by health professionals.
“The American Lung Association (ALA) describes pneumonia as having over 30 different causes (one being the influenza virus). Neither the CDC nor ALA know the specific causes of the pneumonias that resulted in death. However, we do know that influenza was not the major cause.
“Keep in mind that the influenza vaccine provides no protection from bacterial infections. The National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Disease as well as other health agencies estimate that the single bacteria – streptococcus pneumoniae – is responsible for 15% to 50% of ALL cases of pneumonia in the US, including up to 40,000 deaths annually (http://www.nlaid.nih.gov/factsheets/pneumonia.htm)
“Pneumonia is also caused by other bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus (staph), Pertussis (whooping cough), Streptococci, and Mycoplasma pneumoniae (a common cause of “walking” pneumonia). There are also many non-infectious causes of pneumonia such as asthma, aspiration of fluids, immunodeficiency, etc.
“So, it stretches credibility to assert that the flu causes pneumonia when, in fact, the data shows that it only causes a small minority of cases of pneumonia.”
CDC, Media Hype The Flu – Facts Show Different Picture Health Supreme by Sepp Hasslberger. Statistics compiled by Frank Hartman. http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2004/11/06/cdc_media_hype_the_flu_facts_show_different_picture.htm
The bird flu epidemic hoax reminds us just how uncommon “common sense” is. Folks, where was the sound basic science? How do they make the giant leap of faith that 60 deaths would translate to 2 million or even 200,000 deaths in the United States from a virus that does NOT readily spread from birds to humans, or humans to humans? Research like this would typically be thrown in the trash if it did not strongly support some ulterior purpose.
What might the purpose of these scare tactics be you ask?
Well how about the United States purchasing huge quantities of antiviral drugs and an increase in flu vaccine production, along with purchasing 20 million doses of the highly questionably effective Tamiflu at $100 per shot. So those 20 million doses the government authorized cost U.S. taxpayers $2 BILLION.
When the U.S. Congress asked Roche, the maker of Tamiflu, to suspend its patent and have others make it because they could not likely keep up with the demand, Roche refused saying Tamiflu is hard to make and it would take another company three years to “get up to speed.” What they were really saying is they could care less about the public. What their primary focus was on was to not share their windfall profits mandated by the U.S. Congress.
History Repeats Itself
Investigative journalist Ida Honorof for decades published a consumer newsletter and broadcast a regular radio program. Honorof received a first prize award from Associated Press for investigative journalism. The Los Angeles Times and other publications credited her with breaking some of the biggest horror stories of our time.
Ida Honorof wrote, “The most brazen, obscene electioneering ploy” ever and added that it was proposed by the President “and his coterie of scientific hacks, fabricated to cause pure unadulterated panic and guarantee political capital, rammed through without consideration of people’s health and lives and approved by a band-wagon Congress” eager to make the nation’s “health” a bipartisan concern.
The above quote was not written about the bird flu epidemic, but the 5 million swine-flu vaccine program of 1976. The hastily contrived program for swine flu resulted in hundreds of Guillain Barre Syndrome paralysis victims as well as countless deaths for a flu pandemic that never materialized.
The pocketbook purloining proposed by the Senate is more than 3,000 percent greater than that of 30 years ago! Has your paycheck increased 3,000 percent in the last 30 years?
In 2014, due to safety concerns, the government suspended dangerous research that could make the bird flu virus more easily transmitted to humans. It was a wise decision, but unfortunately, short-lived.
In February 2019, Science Magazine revealed a troubling discovery: “Last year, a U.S. government review panel decided to let the research resume. They actually want scientists to figure out how to make the avian flu more likely to kill us all and what’s more, they’re not telling us why.“
Do they want a pandemic? Because this is how you get a pandemic. Anyone who’s read a book like The Stand knows this is how you get a pandemic. Not only did the government approve the experiments, but they are also paying for them.
Here are additional details from The New York Times:
Two research teams, in Wisconsin and the Netherlands, have been told by the Department of Health and Human Services that their work is eligible for research funding from the United States government. The Wisconsin group was notified in October, and the Dutch group in January, a spokeswoman for H.H.S. said in an email.
Despite requests from The New York Times on Thursday and Friday, officials from H.H.S. did not explain why they had not announced their decisions on the two labs at the time they were made.
Spokeswomen for H.H.S. and the National Institutes of Health said the decision to lift the moratorium had already been announced in December 2017 when N.I.H. disclosed that the studies would be allowed, but only after newly created expert panels judged each proposal to be safe and scientifically sound. (source)
The lack of information about the decision and how it was reached have provoked outrage from many scientists.
They oppose the research because they say it could create mutant viruses that might cause deadly pandemics if they were unleashed by lab accidents or terrorism.
The experiments, which were conducted by teams led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin in Madison and the University of Tokyo and Ron Fouchier at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, sparked worldwide fears when they were first revealed in 2011.
Here’s a bit of history on the controversial experiments, from Science Magazine’s report:
In 2011, Fouchier and Kawaoka alarmed the world by revealing they had separately modified the deadly avian H5N1 influenza virus so that it spread between ferrets. Advocates of such gain of function (GOF) studies say they can help public health experts better understand how viruses might spread and plan for pandemics. But by enabling the bird virus to more easily spread among mammals, the experiments also raised fears that the pathogen could jump to humans. And critics of the work worried that such a souped-up virus could spark a pandemic if it escaped from a lab or was intentionally released by a bioterrorist. After extensive discussion about whether the two studies should even be published (they ultimately were) and a voluntary moratorium by the two labs, the experiments resumed in 2013 under new U.S. oversight rules.
But concerns reignited after more papers and a series of accidents at federal biocontainment labs. In October 2014, U.S. officials announced an unprecedented “pause” on funding for 18 GOF studies involving influenza or the Middle East respiratory syndrome or severe acute respiratory syndrome viruses. (About half were later allowed to continue because the work didn’t fit the definition or was deemed essential to public health.) (source)
In case you are wondering what “gain of function” studies are (as I was), here’s an explanation from a 2014 statement from the National Institutes of Health:
For purposes of the deliberative process and this funding pause, “GOF studies” refers to scientific research that increases the ability of any of these infectious agents to cause disease by enhancing its pathogenicity or by increasing its transmissibility among mammals by respiratory droplets. (source)
That statement, which was published on October 16, 2014, concluded with this:
Public involvement in this deliberative process is key, and the process is thus designed to be transparent, accessible, and open to input from all sources. Consultation with the NSABB, the first step in this process, will take place October 22, and I encourage you to follow these deliberations closely. (source)
That transparency didn’t happen, and some scientists are upset because the government’s review will not be made public.
The lack of openness is “indefensible”
Harvard University epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch is one of the scientists who is not happy with the government’s decision, “After a deliberative process that cost $1 million for [a consultant’s] external study and consumed countless weeks and months of time for many scientists, we are now being asked to trust a completely opaque process where the outcome is to permit the continuation of dangerous experiments,” he told Science Magazine.
An HHS spokesperson told Science Magazine that the government cannot make the panel’s reviews public because they contain proprietary and grant competition information.
Isn’t it comforting to know the government is more concerned about protecting trade secrets than it is about protecting the public?
The government only confirmed its decision after Science Magazine learned of it and publicized the information.
Critics say the HHS panel should at least publicly explain why it thought the same questions could not be answered using safer alternative methods.
“Details regarding the decision to approve and fund this work should be made transparent,” said Thomas Inglesby, director of Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.
The lack of openness “is disturbing. And indefensible,” said Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers.
This virus poses an extremely significant threat to humans.
Back in 2012, Ebright told Scientific American that the deadly virus could pose a significant threat to humans:
“The primary risks are accidental release through accidental infection of a lab worker who then infects others — for which there are many precedents — and deliberate release by a disturbed or disgruntled lab worker, for which the 2001 US anthrax mailings provide a precedent. Bioterrorism and biowarfare also are risks.” (source)
And if you’re wondering how likely a lab accident is, here’s an article called A brief, terrifying history of viruses escaping from labs.
Lipsitch and Ingelsby outlined their concerns in an opinion piece for The Washington Post titled The U.S. is funding dangerous experiments it doesn’t want you to know about. Here are a few excerpts from that article.
Amazingly, despite the potential public-health consequences of such work, neither the approval nor the deliberations or judgments that supported it were announced publicly. The government confirmed them only when a reporter learned about them through non-official channels.
This lack of transparency is unacceptable. Making decisions to approve potentially dangerous research in secret betrays the government’s responsibility to inform and involve the public when approving endeavors, whether scientific or otherwise, that could put health and lives at risk.
***
No description of who reviewed these proposals has been provided. It is not stated what evidence was considered, how competing claims were evaluated or whether there were potential conflicts of interest.But creating potentially pandemic pathogens creates a risk — albeit a small one — of infecting millions of people with a highly dangerous virus. For this kind of research, there is no justification for keeping risk-benefit deliberations secret. (source)
They’re trying to turn the bird flu into the human flu.
In February 2009, Baxter International shipped 72 kg material to 16 laboratories in 4 countries. The material was marked as vaccine, but contained live H5N1 avian flu virus material as well as a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses.
In an article for Forbes titled Scientists Resume Efforts To Create Deadly Flu Virus, With US Government’s Blessing, scientist and professor Steven Salzberg expressed concern over the decision to resume the research. He doesn’t hold back, beginning his piece with this statement:
For more than a decade now, two scientists–one in the U.S. and one in the Netherlands–have been trying to create a deadly human pathogen from avian influenza. That’s right: they are trying to turn “bird flu,” which does not normally infect people, into a human flu. (source)
Salzberg continues:
For those who might not know, the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide (3% of the entire world population at the time), was caused by a strain of avian influenza that made the jump into humans. The 1918 flu was so deadly that it “killed more American soldiers and sailors during World War I than did enemy weapons.”
Not surprisingly, then, when other scientists (including me) learned about the efforts to turn bird flu into a human flu, we asked: why the heck would anyone do that? The answers were and still are unsatisfactory: claims such as “we’ll learn more about the pandemic potential of the flu” and “we’ll be better prepared for an avian flu pandemic if one occurs.” These are hand-waving arguments that may sound reasonable, but they promise only vague benefits while ignoring the dangers of this research. If the research succeeds, and one of the newly-designed, highly virulent flu strains escapes, the damage could be horrific. (source)
Perhaps the most chilling statement from Salzberg is this:
This research has the potential to cause millions of deaths.
Way back in 2013, Lizzie Bennett warned about the risks of these experiments in the article Creating a Monster: Will Bird Flu Research Result in a Deadly Pandemic?:
Should H5N1 mutate sufficiently to move from a disease caught by those working in live bird markets, or those living and working with poultry in their immediate area, to a disease able to pass easily from human to human a pandemic is not just possible but extremely likely.
At the end of that piece, Bennett asked two important questions:
The fact is that bird flu will eventually mutate, the question is will science bring this down on us earlier than it would have happened naturally? Or will science save us by finding out how to stop the disease in its tracks?
“We are glad the United States government weighed the risks and benefits … and developed new oversight mechanisms. We know that it does carry risks. We also believe it is important work to protect human health,” Kawaoka said of being able to return to his research.
Exactly how dangerous is this research?
Here’s a quote that will give you a general idea of how dangerous this research is. Rebecca L. Moritz, a microbiologist specializing in biosafety and biosecurity, is involved with the bird flu research at the University of Wisconsin.
Ms. Moritz said local fire departments were directed not to enter the virus lab for any reason and if there was a fire, to let it burn. If someone working in the virus lab has a medical crisis, “first-responders are not able to reach them until they have been decontaminated by qualified lab staff,” she said. (source)
Let it burn.
Now imagine if scientists could figure out how to make this transmissible between humans.
Why is the government being so secretive about these experiments?
Call me crazy, but I can’t help but suspect the government has undisclosed reasons for allowing this research to continue. I doubt it is to create stockpiles of vaccines because science can’t even do that for season flu viruses – they mutate too fast.
Could it be that this research is being conducted to create a bioweapon? Or, is it possible that another country (perhaps China or Russia) is working on this as well, and the U.S. is trying to beat them to it?
Is there a possible threat we aren’t being told about? Perhaps it is past time to start preparing for a pandemic, because natural or man-made, it is likely coming.
About the Author
Dagny Taggart is the pseudonym of an experienced journalist who needs to maintain anonymity to keep her job in the public eye. Dagny is non-partisan and aims to expose the half-truths, misrepresentations, and blatant lies of the MSM.
- https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/02/14/i-was-right-about-the-bird-flu-hoax.aspx
- http://www.goodnewsaboutgod.com/studies/birdflu.htm
- https://www.facts-are-facts.com/news/bird-flu-epidemic-is-a-hoax
- https://archive.org/stream/TheGreatBirdFluHoax/The%20Great%20Bird%20Flu%20Hoax_djvu.txt
- https://www.theorganicprepper.com/bird-flu-research/
Chronology of Events Related to Avian Flu
Great Britain Government Begins Requiring Home-Grown Chickens to be Registered to Tackle Bird Flu
Report: Bird flu scam wipes out nearly 25 million birds nationwide
