posted November 15, 2005 02:57 PM              

Sean Gonsalves
Cape Cod Times
11.09.05

The major news outlets have been giving lots of coverage to yet another dreadful warning coming from the Bush administration -- the looming "bird flu pandemic." (Cue the sound track of Hitchcock's classic "The Birds").
Best case scenario, reports the Associated Press, a minimum of 200,000 people will die from an avian flu pandemic, but it could be as many as 2 million deaths in America alone. Yikes.

Ah, the power of fear. Edmund Burke, the intellectual father of conservatism, would be impressed. In Burke's "On the Sublime and Beautiful" (1757), he wrote: "No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear."

President Bush didn't let Burke down. At an Oct. 4 press conference, he talked about the possibility of having a military-enforced quarantine.

"And who best to be able to effect a quarantine? One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move....I think it's an important debate for Congress to have." Lord knows, the president loves a good "debate."

Not that he's predicting an outbreak, he said, "but we better be thinking about it. And we are. And we're more than thinking about it; we're trying to put plans in place."

Included in those plans are billions of dollars to buy Tamiflu, the most sought-after flu remedy in the world.

If you dig a little deeper you'll find that a California biotech company called Gilead owns the rights to Tamiflu. And guess who was Gilead's former chairman? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who served as Gilead chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001.

Fortune magazine's senior writer Nelson Schwartz reports that Rumsfeld still owns between $5 million and $25 million in Gilead stock.

The Bush administration is one of biggest Tamiflu buyers. In July, the Pentagon ordered $58 million worth of Tamiflu and Congress is being urged by the president to approve another multi-billion dollar purchase.

Rumsfeld recused himself from being involved in Gilead decisions. An unnamed Pentagon official told Fortune that Rummy considered selling his stock but a private securities lawyer "advised him that it was safer to hold on to the stock and be quite public about his recusal rather than sell and run the risk of being accused of trading on insider information."

Every time you turn around, up pops another "coincidence." Bush has deep ties to the oil industry and oil companies are making record profits. A "war on terror" is being waged and who gets the multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts? Companies with ties to the Bush administration.

The rebuilding of the Gulf Coast? More money for Bush cronies. And now, the president just happens to be reading a book about the 1918 influenza outbreak and decides to start preparing the public for another possible major threat from which Rumsfeld stands to handsomely profit.

By the way, the British Medical Journal noted last week that "the extensive media coverage of avian influenza... has caused confusion and increasing concern that bird flu will imminently cause a human pandemic."

However, "the lack of sustained human-to-human transmission suggests that this avian virus does not currently have the capacity to cause a human pandemic."

I wonder if all those folks who feel so strongly about NBA players wearing suits are just as concerned about the ethics of the Hitchcock gangstas wearing suits in the White House.

posted November 15, 2005 03:06 PM              

hehe, how are you, this is depressing stuff.

anytime the government treats you like a herd to get a vaccine, I'd stay away
My children and myself, do not do this

what's really in it, and how do you control
the population
tell them they need this
or they will be a statistic

it's crazy how OOC it is

posted November 16, 2005 04:42 AM              

yes, this vaccine stuff is rather
disheartening.....and it's
hard to know exactly what the real
agenda is, isn't it?

my life though, relatively speaking,
is alright....love is all around me,
i can feel it, when i let it into
my consciousness...and that's the
nicest thing, wouldn't you agree?

brilliant, as usual, petron....

thanks for making me smile.

posted November 16, 2005 02:30 PM            

This is a flu strain that will not only rapidly wipe out the poulty industry (especially in areas where life is very mobile) but can also mutate to cause numerous human deaths.

Let's look at the big picture.. if the government doesn't take a proactive stance and people die, what would the hue and cry be concerning that decision?

posted November 16, 2005 02:43 PM              

the fact is, the government's knows so much more, than we are willing to admit
Otherwise, this world would be a better place
witholding information
keeps us ignorant to the reality
of Government's and their purposes

How did we achieve Atlantic=s, or Lemuria
we had the Secret of 13
The Master God
we even took his month away
and the natural timepiece of the Universe
scarificing our senses
note, that is the 12 vibration.

the secrets are all within
the Truth is there
we are children of God, each and every one of US.

posted December 24, 2005 09:38 PM              

Tamiflu could make avian flu pandemic worse

23.12.05

The only drug available against a threatened pandemic of avian flu may be useless for many of those infected and could make the pandemic worse, say scientists.

The warning came after a study of 13 Vietnamese patients infected with avian flu and treated with the anti-viral drug Tamiflu found two developed a resistant virus which contributed to their deaths.

Seven of the 13 patients died.

The New England Journal of Medicine, which publishes the findings today, describes them as "frightening". Governments are stockpiling Tamiflu to be used as the first line of defence against a pandemic.

posted May 01, 2009 09:57 PM            

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted May 01, 2009 09:57 PM            

------------------
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted May 01, 2009 09:59 PM            

------------------
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted May 01, 2009 10:02 PM            

------------------
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted May 01, 2009 10:03 PM            

------------------
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~