Swine Flu - Fact or Fiction?

Dr. Mercola has an article about the recent swine flu scare. Read it here.

Here's an excerpt:

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This is NOT the First Swine Flu Panic

My guess is that you can expect to see a lot of panic over this issue in the near future.  But the key is to remain calm -- this isn't the first time the public has been warned about swine flu. The last time was in 1976, right before I entered medical school and I remember it very clearly. It resulted in the massive swine flu vaccine campaign.

Do you happen to recall the result of this massive campaign?

Within a few months, claims totaling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the vaccine. The vaccine was also blamed for 25 deaths.

However, several hundred people developed crippling Guillain-Barré Syndrome after they were injected with the swine flu vaccine. Even healthy 20-year-olds ended up as paraplegics.

And the swine flu pandemic itself? It never materialized.

More People Died From the Swine Flu Vaccine than Swine Flu!

It is very difficult to forecast a pandemic, and a rash response can be extremely damaging.

As of Monday April 27, the worldwide total number of confirmed cases was 82, according to WHO, which included 40 cases in the U.S., confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control.  But does that truly warrant the feverish news headlines?

To put things into perspective, malaria kills 3,000 people EVERY DAY, and it's considered "a health problem"...  But of course, there are no fancy vaccines for malaria that can rake in billions of dollars in a short amount of time.

One Australian news source,³ for example, states that even a mild swine flu epidemic could lead to the deaths of 1.4 million people and would reduce economic growth by nearly $5 trillion dollars.

Give me a break, if this doesn't sound like the outlandish cries of the pandemic bird-flu I don't know what does. Do you remember when President Bush said two million Americans would die as a result of the bird flu?  

In 2005, in 2006, 2007, and again in 2008, those fears were exposed as little more than a cruel hoax, designed to instill fear, and line the pocketbooks of various individuals and industry. I became so convinced by the evidence AGAINST the possibility of a bird flu pandemic that I wrote a New York Times bestselling book, The Bird Flu Hoax, all about the massive fraud involved with the epidemic that never happened..

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So, what do you think? Is this just another scare tactic from the government and the media? Or even a way to pave the path of national healthcare?

1:01 PM - Apr. 29, 2009 - post comment

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Um, there is no swine flu vaccine. This is a new strain, a vaccine hasn't been developed yet. Now, if you mean to argue that this could be used to drive the creation and the purchase of such a vaccine, fine, but no one has died yet of a vaccine that doesn't exist.

Anonymous - 9:47 PM - Apr. 29, 2009

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The vaccine that was mentioned in the excerpt of the Mercola article was the vaccine for the 1976 flu.

All I'm putting up for debate is that there is the possibility that we are being played by the media and that swine flu isn't such a big deal.

MotherJoy - 12:20 AM - Apr. 30, 2009

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I'm a conspiracy theorist!

Seems like they're priming us to get ready for the vaccine. No thanks, we'll pass, just like all of the other vaccines. Not interested in using my children as experiments. But humor me for just a second...did you notice that Kathleen Sebelius was confirmed on the exact day the "panic" level was raised???? Hmmmm...wonder if the pandemic will quietly disappear now that the oober left winger has been confirmed. Sorry, I've been wanting to get on my soapbox all day.. LOVE reading your blog. Are you married to Glen Beck? Just kidding! :)
Blessings! Tammy :)

wellgrounded - 11:09 PM - Apr. 30, 2009

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