Effect Measure

It’s an influenza vaccination program’s worst nightmare. In Israel, four elderly and chronically ill patients have died of cardiac arrest within days of receiving influenza vaccinations:

Israel suspended flu vaccinations nationwide on Sunday after four men who had been inoculated died in the past week, the Health Ministry said.

“I ordered to stop the vaccinations until things are made clear,” Israeli Health Minister Yacov Ben Yizri told reporters.

“We have started to investigate everything related to this case,” he said. The ministry said it had asked the French firm Sanofi-Aventis, which manufactured the vaccine, to conduct its own investigation.

Hospital officials said all the men were aged 52 to 76 and had suffered from ailments including diabetes and heart disease. (Reuters Alertnet)

As we’ve noted here before, sudden deaths occur in the usual course of events and when tens of thousands of people, predominantly elderly, are being vaccinated, sudden deaths in temporal proximity to the vaccination are bound to occur. Still, the facts cannot help but be worrisome, even if you are aware of the possibility of coincidence. In this case three of the four received vaccine from the same lot and at the same health center. It would be rash to dismiss this out of hand, even though there is no obvious reason why an influenza vaccine could cause this kind of fatal outcome.

Meanwhile the worried well are streaming into the health care system:

Hagit Mezig, whose 58 year old mother Aliza Ben Shevo was vaccinated a week ago came worried to the HMO branch.

Speaking with Ynet she said: “I came here to see how we can arrange tests for her. I’m concerned and anxious, I plan to bring my mother in for a thorough exam. This is the first year that she’s gotten the vaccination and you can never know if the effects might not be long-term. Worried relatives keep calling me, wanting to know if everything’s ok.”

Haim Levy, a 58 year old heart failure patient, was vaccinated last week at the Kiryat Gat branch.

“I heard about the case,” he said, “and came here but the branch director spoke with me and told me that there is nothing to worry about, that there’s no connection. But I intend to run down to the hospital for an exam because I’m a high-risk patient. (YNet)

A vaccinaton program’s worst nightmare.

Comments

#1 william
October 23, 2006

There is no vaccine against tuberculosis:

Researcher Lawrence Broxmeyer onThe Hush-Hush Epidemic of 2006 – Med-America Research
News Released: October 23, 2006
(PRLEAP.COM) A couple of weeks ago, internist/researcher Lawrence Broxmeyer relates, the BBC ran a piece which talked about a poorly publicized partnership between the International Red Cross and WHO designed to control and treat drug-resistant strains of a deadly infection which at this moment threatens Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

To this point Bird Flu has never really has materialized, but this current epidemic had and as far as well-published researcher Lawrence Broxmeyer is concerned, they just might be from one and the same cause.

What is this disease, which in Europe and Asia alone presently causes 450,000 identifiable cases annually, 70,000 from new strains? Is it a �virus� regarding which Bird Flu mavens and virologists are constantly talking about mutations and changing strains? No, to be certain, it is tuberculosis.

The Red Cross, said Lawrence Broxmeyer, has already proclaimed that today we face the most serious situation regarding TB since World War II, and urged European leaders to do more, to �wake up�. And although The World Health Organization has already detected �hot zones� with the highest incidence along the borders of the European Union (EU), WHO has also found significant levels of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis throughout the Baltic, eastern Europe and central Asia.

Authorities at WHO see this as a real emergency, said Lawrence Broxmeyer, whose study �Bird Flu, H5N1 and The Pandemic of 1918: The Case For Avian Tuberculosis� had just been featured at the time the BBC news broke.

In his previous study in The Journal Of Infectious Diseases, lead researcher Broxmeyer was able to destroy even the most virulent forms of AIDS tuberculosis inside the body�s white blood cells by a novel technique. But in his latest publication Lawrence Broxmeyer warned that 1918 could happen again due to the exact same situation of mutational tuberculosis which presently looms over Europe and Asia.

Not only has Lawrence Broxmeyer�s historical account of the Pandemic of 1918 been proclaimed �riveting� by well-known scientific writer Ron Falcone, but it is a concise and superbly documented chronicle as plausible as anything yet written regarding what could have caused this event, during which up to 100 million people perished in a short time, the worst pandemic in history.

A large part of the recent bird-flu hysteria was and still is fostered by a distrust among the lay and scientific community regarding the actual state of our knowledge regarding the bird flu or H5N1 and the killer �Influenza� Pandemic of 1918 that it is compared to. �And this distrust�, relates physician Lawrence Broxmeyer, �is not completely unfounded.� Traditionally, �flu� does not kill. Experts, including Peter Palese of the Mount School of Medicine in Manhattan remind us that even in 1992, millions in China already had antibodies to H5N1 meaning that they had contracted it and that their immune system had little trouble fending it off. Dr. Andrew Noymer and Michel Garenne, UC Berkeley demographers, reported in 2000 convincing statistics showing that undetected tuberculosis may have been the real killer in the 1918 flu epidemic. Aware of recent attempts to isolate the �Influenza virus� on human cadavers and their specimens, Lawrence Broxmeyer said that Noymer and Garenne had summed that: �Frustratingly, these findings have not answered the question why the 1918 virus was so virulent, nor do they offer an explanation for the unusual age profile of deaths.� Bird Flu as well as victims of the Pandemic, emphasized investigator Lawrence Broxmeyer, would certainly be diagnosed in the hospital today as Acu
#2 william
October 23, 2006

I know many of you will be furious with the information provided by Dr. Lawrence Broxmeyer at medamericaresearch.org
and I of course will be attacked as as a ranting fool as usual.
But please realize Dr. Broxmeyer is a respected medical researcher, and is no ranting fool. Please go to his website and clink on: Bird Flu, H5N1, and the Pandemic of l918: The Case for Avian Tuberculosis.
Before you automatically refuse to consider what Dr. Broxmeyer says, please think about what it would mean if the Spanish Flu Pandemic was caused by a combination of H1N1 and tuberculosis.
Would a bird flu vaccine stop extreme drug resistant
tuberculosis in combination with H5N1? Are bird flu patients that have died being tested for tuberculosis?
Please keep an open mind to this possibility, because there has already been enough dogma blocking scientific knowledge in regard to H5N1. For instance, sick chickens are probably not the only vector infecting humans with H5N1 now matter how many times the bird flu experts say so it is sick chickens that are the danger.
#3 mary in hawaii
October 23, 2006

William: your quote ” in 1992, millions in China already had antibodies to H5N1 meaning that they had contracted it and that their immune system had little trouble fending it off” seems at odds with other data we’ve been hearing. Could this 1992 H5N1 be the low path type? Otherwise I have to be a little suspicious of data that goes completely against everything we have been hearing regarding H5N1 pathology and the widespread testing that has been done for its antibodies in outbreak areas . Can someone out there help clarify this?
#4 crfullmoon
October 23, 2006

About the situation in Israel, I saw an article that said,
last week only the “high-risk” were getting the vax.

Any elderly patients with pre-existing chronic, life-theatening conditions might die during any week of time, and if those were the only ones getting the shot last week, it might make for odd-looking cluster. Hopefully they can find out the causes for the deaths/check if the vax was ok.
#5 william
October 23, 2006

Mary in hawaii,
First I want to say you are extremely insightful in your comments, and I always read your posts with great respect.
Second, please read this:
Doctor Broxmeyer, who I repeat is greatly respected in the medical research community, stated in his article on avian tuberculosis, in referring to the start of the Spanish Flu pandemic in Kansas in 1918:
“The lethal pig epidemic that began in Kansas just prior to the first human outbreaks was a disease of avian and human tuberculosis genetically combined through mycobacteriophage interchange, with the pig susceptible to both, as its involuntary lining culture medium.”
“What are the implications of mistaking a virus such as influenza A for what mycobacterial disease is actually causing? They would be disasterous, with useless treatment and preventive stockpiles.”
If Dr. Broxmeyer’s position is correct, this may imply that treating H5N1 human infections with anti-influenza vaccines and tamiflu may be useless in stopping a possible pandemic, and the result will be a disaster equal to the disaster of the pandemic of 1918.
If these so-called H5N1 viral infections are in reality
a combined avian and human tuberculosis, the use of anti-virus treatments to stop will be a disaster. Killing sick birds will not stop it.
The only way to slow it down would be to treat the combined avian human tuberculosis that is its cause. But now, with extremely resistant human tuberculosis exploding in South Africa, with doctors there extremely disturbed, after observing human infection of this tuberculosis spreading inside hospitals among patients and staff, the problem is serious.
If one examines the TB problem in Russian jails, one can get some idea of how difficult it would be to stop a combined avian human tuberculosis.
I am not a scientist, and this is a theory. I only ask that those with more scientific knowledge than I, to carefully examine the conclusions of Dr.Broxmeyer. If his work is ignored, a world disaster in the form of a tuberculosis pandemic may result.
#6 william
October 23, 2006

mary in hawaii,
I also wanted to add this important quote from the article:
“That thousands of pigs died in the Autumn of 1918 was only complicated by the fact that bird or fowl TB also called Avian tuberculosis or Mycobacterium.aviam could infect birds as well as hogs and cattle…and humans. And to round out this picture, human Xa. tuberculosis, although primarily affecting humans, could also be transmitted to hogs and cattle.”
Mary, sadly, the spread of extreme resistant human TB in South Africa could be the start of a world TB pandemic. It is possible some of these patients have a combined avian human TB that is totally resistant to drugs of any kind.
And this same combined avian human TB may spread through airborne transmission and kill millions, while influenza vaccines and Tamiflu is being stockpiled all over the world.
In England it costs 100,000 pounds to treat just one patient with extreme drug resistant TB, and sometimes the patient dies anyway. And in South Africa, those with HIV and TB infections often die rapidly.
The first line drugs are useless against extreme drug resistant TB, and the second line drugs are extremely toxic.
So if this is an Avian Human TB, which may be extremely resistant to first line and second line drugs, if the drugs cost 100,000 pounds per patient, if the drugs are very toxic, and infection is airborne, then Houston we have a problem.
Also, veterinarians should be examining dogs, birds, cats, and pigs in Indonesia to determine if they have TB.
And what happens if your cat infects you with this TB?
What happens then?
If this is a TB pandemic forming, science will not be ready for it, because all energy is devoted to influeza vaccines and Tamiflu.
#7 william
October 23, 2006

Mary in Hawaii,
Another quote to clarify:
“In 1917 it was estimated that 25% of deaths from TB in adults was caused by animal TB.”
“Although pigs could be infected by human TB as well, the most prevalent TB found in the autopsied bodies was far and away fowl or bird TB (M.avium).
#8 Joe in Australia
October 23, 2006

William, there are seven comments (now eight) on this thread. Five of them are yours.

Please shut up.
#9 william
October 23, 2006

joe in Australia,
please shove it up your ass
#10 revere
October 23, 2006

William: I would have put it differently but my sentiments would be the same. Comment threads are for conversation, not monologs.You are hogging up conversation space. You need to exercise somes self discipline.
#11 Tom DVM
October 23, 2006

You guys are funny…I need a good chuckle…please continue.
#12 Monotreme
October 23, 2006

And now for a comment about the actual post – Looks like the deaths were a coincidence after all:

“Flu Vaccines To Continue In Israel After Health Ministry Gives Green Light

After deciding that the four deaths were not linked to flu shots, the Health Ministry in Israel has decided to resume vaccinations. Health Minister, Yaacov Ben-Yizri, announced that vaccinations will resume this evening.

Yaacov Ben-Yizri said the Ministry had held consultations with all the expert teams nationwide, and they completely ruled out any association between the four deaths and the flu shots.”

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=54831
#13 mary in hawaii
October 24, 2006

william: I agree that drug resistant tb is probably every bit as serious a “pandemic” threat – albeit slightly slower…maybe – as avian influenza. And whether they combine in patients or not, the fact that they might run concurrently is horrific to contemplate. With its extreme drug resistance, what the mode of transmission is (pigs, humans, whatever) is somewhat immaterial IMO. There is essentially no cure, and no immunity. We probably, as a species, stand a better chance of surviving the flu. And drug resistant TB is only one of many bacterial strains that are becoming almost impossible to control or cure, partly due to misuse/overuse of antibiotics for viral illnesses and – at least as damning if not more so – the use of antibiotics in beef cattle and other livestock who otherwise would die of the diseases caused by the horrific conditions under which they are maintained, penned up next to one another thigh deep in their own urine and feces 24 -7.

So no, I don’t disparage what you are saying. I think it is important. And I haven’t heard of WHO or any country taking preventative measures – certainly nothing of the magnitude that has been undertaken with regards to H5N1 – to stop its spread, which I agree should be done. I sure wouldn’t want to get on an airplane with someone who had xdr TB, but probably have. I think some attention might be given on this blog to a discussion of just how contagious TB is, how virulent, and what measures could be undertaken to keep this outbreak of xdrTB contained, if that is even possible in today’s world.

However, the one question I asked is the one you never answered, regarding the purported ” in 1992, millions in China already had antibodies to H5N1 meaning that they had contracted it and that their immune system had little trouble fending it off.” This seems contrary to almost everything I’ve heard so far about H5N1, so I am skeptical and asking the rest of the readers for input. Thanks.
#14 David
October 24, 2006

Mary in Hawaii: I wanted to try to help out with your question to William about the “millions in China” comment. — Ok, I know a several weeks ago I said I would just sit back and listen, but I just can’t keep my mouth closed (my nickname in grade school was motor mouth, awarded to me by the teachers). I will still try to abstain from making any controversial or argumentative statements… but it is hard!!! — I read the paper William referenced, and there is not a footnoted reference to this statement. So, I googled it, and interestingly one of the hits was to the old Effect Measure site: http://effectmeasure.blogspot.com/2005/12/shortridge-paper.html (a good re-read if you have the time as it has a response to this claim).

My other comment would be that the 1992 antibodies, if indeed for H5N1, would have to be a “low path” version since the “discovery” of “high path” dates to 1997. It may have developed and brewed a little earlier than that, but I don’t think it could have been around in 1992 at the level to have had millions in China encounter it without us noticing a lot of dead birds (or pigs or cats or dogs or other animals for those who think it is brewing somewhere other than in birds).

If you google: ‘peter palese mount school of medicine 1992 china h5n1 antibodies’ you will see some interesting results. Also, go to http://medamericaresearch.org/ and read a few of Dr. Broxmeyer’s papers and you will find that he blames just about every medical ailment short of broken bones on Mycobacterium tuberculosis. I am not qualified to critique his work, but just as most people are skeptical of cure-alls, I find myself a little skeptical of a ‘sick-all.’ I also found it a little interesting that in the conclusion of his paper he castigates other researchers with the “old adage” that “You get what you look for.” Seems to me he is doing the same thing… but, after all, that is human nature…
#15 mary in hawaii
October 24, 2006

Thanks, David. Pretty much what I had guessed, but very nice of you to confirm it with good references. (And I too was the class “motor mouth” all through school, so….cheers!
#16 Bill Sardi
October 31, 2006

Even with available antibiotic therapy, extreme-drug resistant XDR-TB is sweeping the globe now, carried in the lungs of air travelers. The combination of XDR lung-TB (a bacterial infection)and the flu (an upper or lower respiratory virus)can be devastating, filling the lungs with fluid so quickly (~1 hour)as to lead to the quick demise of subjects usually before they get to an emergency care center. Now that there is a fully antibiotic resistant strain of TB encircling the globe, it’s only a matter of time till KwaZulu Natal XDR strain of TB matches up with a virulent form of influenza, as it did in 1918. To more fully understand the problem, see my report at http://www.knowledgeofhealth.com/report.asp?story=The%20Unexpected%20Plague&catagory=Tuberculosis

Drug-resistant bacteria are now prevalent, mostly in hospitals since this is where antibiotics are used and drug-resistant strains develop. Mankind faces an uncertain future. Will the plagues of old return?

With running to the doctor for prescription medicine out of the question (the antibiotics don’t work) and flu vaccines ineffective or unavailable on a mass scale, what now? Read Dr. John Cannell’s riveting report about sunshine, vitamin D and influenza. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=51913

High-dose vitamin D supplements provide a measure of protection against an over-responsive immune system filling the lungs with fluid.

Another remedy is fresh-crushed garlic, which effectively kills all manner of bacteria and viruses. Garlic pills generally do not deliver allicin, the active ingredient in garlic, but a newly developed buffered garlic pill has been demonstrated to counter the effects of stomach acid and effectively produces allicin in the digestive tract. See the report at http://www.garlicbreakthrough.com

Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc.
San Dimas, California
#17 tony m
December 26, 2006

David when you say you are not qualified you mean it. What’s this?: “……..read a few of Dr. Broxmeyer’s papers and you will find that he blames just about every medical ailment short of broken bones on Mycobacterium tuberculosis. I am not qualified to critique his work, but just as most people are skeptical of cure-alls, I find myself a little skeptical of a ‘sick-all.’

I have read them all, each article is more intriguing and plausible than the next. David do the math. TB kills 2 million people a year and it is estimated that this is only 10-15% of those who have it. In the clinical wards, were you in medicine, you would know that its a rule-out in just every disease you find there. So in those diseases and conditions which have either no known cause or a questionable cause, he’s just filling the gaps.
#18 Doug
February 5, 2007

It’s pleasing to see Bill Sardi’s mention of John Cannell, MD, and his report connecting vitamin D3 deficiency to influenza and influenza-like illness. Probably more important than the report, however, is his article in the peer-reviewed Journal of Epidemiology and Infection, “Epidemic Influenza and Vitamin D.” Here’s the URL of the article’s abstract.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=469543

It won’t fit very many people’s heroic or tragic narratives, but it’s possible that “bird flu” mortality will be avoided, on an individual basis, by daily physiological dosing of vitamin D3, at or around 5000 I.U. per day. If it helps to know, that’s just half of my own routine, daily winter-time intake.