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SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER
“From the right to know and the duty to Sandra Steingraber Dr. Shiv Chopra must be fire-proof. As a vaccine and drug regulator for Health Canada for nearly forty years, he evaluated every red-hot topic in public health and tried to prevent harm from unsafe drugs, vaccines, and agricultural practices. He has survived to tell the tale and is now ready to raise more hell. His book on his forty-year experience as a Health Canada regulator is out this summer: Corrupt to the Core: Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower, Kos Inc. (519-927-1049). It has prefaces by three of Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award winners (Vanada Shiva, Maude Barlow and Samuel Epstein). Over the years, he tried (sometimes successfully) to stop our government from allowing Canadians to be exposed to ineffective and harmful vaccines, genetically modified foods, pesticides, carcinogenic antibiotics and hormones used in food-producing animals, and agricultural practices that promote Mad Cow Disease. He even went public with his findings, supported by Canada’s public service union; this resulted in legal battles initiated against him by our government, determined to shut him up. The courts, however, tended to find in favor of Dr. Chopra’s insistence to obey the law and protect public health, and instead ordered the government to shape up. The support of the courts, various tribunals, and Senate committee hearings of Dr. Chopra and many of his fellow scientists at Health Canada was highly unfavorable to corporate interests and, therefore, irksome to those prime ministers and ministers of health dependent upon corporate support. So, Drs. Chopra, Margaret Haydon and Gerard Lambert were fired from Health Canada in 2004 by then PM Paul Martin for “insubordination”. The reason provided was true, in a sense: they had steadfastly refused for more than three decades to subordinate themselves to corporate and government pressure to pass unsafe substances - doing which would have been in direct contravention of
Indeed, it is sobering to consider that most of the known toxins which made it onto the market and into our bodies did so despite the scientifically based objection of our Health Canada scientists. We now know that the presence in our environment and bodies of all these carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and neurotoxins was totally preventable, had our governments obeyed the law. Every historical era has had its characteristic problems, and that of ours, since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, has been the pursuit of wealth through known poisons. But the tide is turning. The verifiable science proving harm from pesticides, vaccines, and drugs is no longer just squeezing out from under the lid kept for so long on such information, but is turning into a veritable river that cannot be controlled. VACCINESDr. Chopra points out that vaccination unquestionably eradicated small pox. Only a few vials of it still exist in biological warfare and World Health Organization laboratories. The possibility of eradicating polio in the same way is reasonably open to scientific debate, he adds. However, all the usual childhood diseases, he observes, have been unsuccessfully fought with vaccination campaigns involving millions of children every year. Worst of all, these diseases appear with increasing frequency in those very populations that have been vaccinated for several generations. Clearly, something is wrong with these programs, the vaccines themselves, and he finds it alarming that “the list of vaccines which are being administered to young children has been enlarged to include many more viral and bacterial infections with little or no scientific rationale.” Indeed, it is outright bizarre how the US Centre for Disease Control publishes every year, without fail, that supposedly approximately 36,000 people die annually of the flu. This figure hasn’t changed in some two decades! Yet, the available statistics show that usually less than a hundred people, almost always elderly and/or immune compromised, die of the flu. Who is responsible for this nonsense and the scare-mongering associated with it? By the by, current research, reported by the International Vitamin D Council, has shown that merely taking more vitamin D (about 2,000 IU daily) reduces the incidence of the flu by more than 70%. Currently, those vaccination programs whose scientific basis is so flawed as to border on the absurd, involve vaccines against various childhood diseases not usually endemic, Hepatitis B, the bird flu, and now cervical cancer - Gardasil, which supposedly protects against the virus that may promote cervical cancer; in fact this vaccine only protects against three strains of vaginal warts which are not known to promote cancer. As for Hep B, even according to the CDC guidelines and Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, the standard textbook, it is virtually an exclusively adult disease, sexually transmitted by people with multiple partners, or through chronic intravenous drug use or contaminated blood transfusions. Yet, it is routinely given to children without a shred of epidemiological evidence to support such practice; side effects are frequent and serious, so much so that Vietnam was the first country to suspend its use in May 2007. Gardasil is already an unfolding public health disaster: during the first year of its use more than 3,500 adverse events were reported. No vaccine in history can compare in this regard. Between June 2006 and May 2007, some 1,637 were filed with the FDA in the
Gardsail is based on fraudulent science. During trials, the placebo vaccine contained nothing but the aluminum in a neutral liquid, so that adverse events in the placebo group helpfully masked those found in the group given the actual vaccine: the reactive placebo thus artificially created the appearance of safety in the experimental vaccine. This means that in fact Gardasil was never safety tested at all! Merck, its manufacturer, is hoping to make more than $ 1 billion this year with Gardasil; they are hurting for money badly after having been ordered last year to pay more than $ 4 billion to people injured by Vioxx. Possibly the worst vaccine is MMR which supposedly provides immunity against mumps, measles, and rubella. More than 4,900 families filed law-suits after their children became autistic within days of getting this shot. While the industry vehemently denied this causal link, citing many industry-sponsored medical research papers to support them, the first of these cases was won in court on November 9 of 2007, because the causal link to the child’s neurological damage from the vaccine was incontrovertible. (The most comprehensive analysis on the MMR-autism connection is found in Evidence of Harm by David Kirby for which in 2006 he won the top award for investigative journalism in the
Reaction to this court ruling was swift: the CDC backpedaled in March this year and “no longer expresses a preference” for combining all those vaccines into one (which increases the amount of neurotoxic preservatives). Predictably, the industry is also pulling out all the stops to maintain profits and escape responsibility: the US Supreme Court heard arguments in February in the case of Warner-Lambert Co. v. Kent that may result in a ruling that consumers cannot sue pharmaceutical companies for any damages caused by drugs and vaccines. The vaccine industry was worth $ 6.9 billion in 2007. Global Industry Analysts Inc. projects earning of $ 19.2 billion by 2010. Yet apart from small pox, vaccines have done nothing to increase longevity and arguably nothing to protect against disease since vaccines so often spawn other, worse diseases. All vaccines are potentially neurotoxic and may cause or promote brain damage (including Alzheimer’s), autism, or asthma. In 1993 the US got their Comprehensive Child Immunization Act, which is not only federally funded, but provides for $100 payment to vaccine clinics for every child vaccinated. The vaccine business has been booming ever since. The prestigious mainstream Cochrane Library Review, which studies the effectiveness of drugs and therapies, now insists it is time to do “some real research into vaccine effectiveness”, as reported by the BBC on September 25, 2007. Cochrane researcher T. Jefferson observed “vaccines are a business, like any other. The only difference is that governments are co-sponsors with industry … overestimation of the threat by the target diseases, suppression of data on adverse events, and exaggeration of effectiveness are frequent. In the case of population vaccination programs, both governments and industry have conflicts of interest. Beware!” The National Institutes of Health reviewed thirty years of data and reported in 2005: “We could not correlate increasing vaccination coverage after 1980 with declining mortality rates in any group.” This proliferation of bogus science promoting harmful vaccines would at least in Canada not have taken place, had our government obeyed the safety requirements of the law governing Health Canada on which Dr. Chopra insisted starting in the mid-1970s. ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE A second area of concern in Dr. Chopra’s career was the rapid development of antibiotic resistance, wholly avoidable and caused primarily by the prophylactic use of antibiotics in food-producing animals and the reckless over-prescribing habits doctors fell into. Rarely bothering to check if the infection is in fact bacterial rather than viral (for which antibiotics are never indicated, resulting in weakened immunity), doctors generally prescribe some broad-spectrum variety, instead of the specifically correct one, which requires testing the patient’s body fluids first. When even simple bacterial infections became resistant to all available antibiotics (especially tuberculosis, killer No 1 in the 19th century and now once again a leading cause of death), enormous efforts were expended by the World Health Organization, and the medical associations the world over, to teach doctors to be exceedingly cautious in the use of these drugs. Yet, the lion’s share of antibiotic production goes to their prophylactic use in food-producing animals, thereby being an indispensable cash cow for their manufacturers. Dr. Chopra and his colleagues warned against this abuse of antibiotics and pointed out their carcinogenic properties, when used over long periods of time and saturating the food supply which then also initiates a bacterial evolutionary arms race that has resulted in the untreatable “hospital bugs”. There are currently entire classes of antibiotics and hormones which are both used in food-producing animals; none of them should be so used. Dr. Chopra fought vigorously and unsuccessfully to keep off the market antibiotics such as Baytril and hormones like Revelor-H; they were finally banned more than a decade after his warnings because of the undeniable harm they caused. Published in April 2006 were the results of the decision taken by Australia, some twenty years ago, to drastically restricted prophylactic antibiotic use in food producing animals, and the total prohibition in the whole of Europe. Those countries are almost totally free of hospital bugs and the antibiotic resistance in dangerous bacteria stands at about 2% - compared to 64% in North America. THE VALUE OF RESISTENCEWinston Churchill used to say: “Never, never, never give up.” There lies hidden in the stubborn resistance to lies and abuse, and the determination to make lazy or corrupt authority face reality, an energy that eventually transforms the system. Truth is not a concept, nor even an ideal – it is a living force. Mahatma Gandhi famously said: “Truth is God – not God truth.” The universal creative principle we call God arises only through submission to reality as it is, not as we want it to be. Dr. Chopra and his fellow scientists tackled vaccines, many drugs, antibiotic resistance as well as genetic engineering, the use of rendered slaughterhouse waste, pesticides, and sewage-based sludge for fertilizer. They examined the science, considered the potential consequences, spoke the truth as best as they knew how, and did not shut up when told to do so. As public guardians they acted in the spirit of Gandhi who taught that “in order to fight injustice, one has to make it visible.” His book is not only an eye-opener but helps us to find ways to get our government and ourselves off drugs. Sources and Resources: S. Cave, MD. What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Children’s Vaccinations, Warner, 2001 S. Chopra, Corrupt to the Core: Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower, Kos, Summer 2008 call 519-927-1049 R. Fitzgerald, The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health, Dutton, 2007 D. Kirby. Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic, St. Martin’s Press, 2005 Jeffrey M. Smith, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, Yes! Books, 2008 W. Wagner & R. Steinzor eds. Rescuing Science from Politics,
For verifiable information on scientific research about vaccines: Dr. Sherri Tenpenny’s writings, videos, and bibliographies www.Dr.Tenpenny.com For vaccine ingredients and known toxicities according to different manufacturers tested www.van.org.uk and www.vaclib.org and www.informedchoice.info/cocktail For vaccine exemption forms in PDF format plus relevant legal information on all vaccination situations: babies, adults, emergencies, epidemics etc. got to www.vran.org or call 250-355-2525 or e-mail eddawest@netidea.com. For all Vitamin D-related information go to International Vitamin D Council via Google For antibiotic resistance: Scientific American, January 2007 issue has an editorial and an article providing a full overview of the problem. Also: N.K. Peters et al. Journal of Infectious Diseases, March 12, 2008 issue; Clinical Infectious Diseases, May 15, 2006. A special issue of International Medical Veritas Association, February 2008 available via Google. The Journal of Biological Chemistry, vol. 283 (10) p. 6402 ff. Details on the US Supreme Court in the pending case of Warner-Lambert Co. v. Kent are available on NaturalNews.com, February 26, 2008. On MMR, Tamiflu and Gardasil vaccines: New York Times, March 8, 2008; www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0503; www.ageofautism.com; www.ahrp.org These websites also provide the information on Tamiflu and detailed articles on this vaccine are in the March 14, 2008, issue of the newsletter available through veracare@ahrp.org. The Gardasil material comes from www.lifesite.net Sept. 20, 2007; www.NewsWithViews.com March 16, 2007; New England Journal of Medicine vol 356, issue 19, 1991; the product insert for Gardasil provided by Merck; the aluminum details were posted on www.youtube.com October 6, 2007; on safety issues of Gardasil also see FDA transcript from 2001: www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/cber01.htm#Vaccines and www.NVIC.org; on Tamiflu side effects see http://drdoyle.tripod.com and The Medical Post, December 19, 2006; re flu vaccine see http://www.lungusa.org/atf/cf and Nexus Magazine vol 13/issue 2, February-March 2006 available through www.nexusmagazine.com; the quotations from the researchers at the Cochrane Library review and the National Institutes of Health findings of 2005 are in Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, December 2006. On the vaccine industry generally: |
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