Forgotten vials of smallpox found in storage room

Yahoo News

ATLANTA (AP) — A government scientist cleaning out an old storage room at a research center near Washington made a startling discovery last week — decades-old vials of smallpox packed away and forgotten in a cardboard box.

The six glass vials were intact and sealed, and scientists have yet to establish whether the virus is dead or alive, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

Still, the find was disturbing because for decades after smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, world health authorities said the only known samples left were safely stored in super-secure laboratories in Atlanta and in Russia.

Officials said this is the first time in the U.S. that unaccounted-for smallpox has been discovered. But at least one leading scientist raised the possibility that there are more such vials out there around the world.

The CDC and the FBI are investigating.

It was the second recent incident in which a U.S. government health agency appeared to have mishandled a highly dangerous germ.

Last month, scores of CDC employees in Atlanta were feared exposed to anthrax because of a laboratory safety lapse. The CDC began giving them antibiotics as a precaution.

The freeze-dried smallpox samples were found in a building at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, that has been used by the Food and Drug Administration since 1972, according to the CDC.

The scientist was cleaning out a cold room between two laboratories on July 1 when he made the discovery, FDA officials said.

Officials said labeling indicated the smallpox had been put in the vials in the 1950s. But they said it's not clear how long the vials had been in the building, which did not open until the 1960s.

No one has been infected, and no smallpox contamination was found in the building.

Smallpox can be deadly even after it is freeze-dried, but the virus usually has to be kept cold to remain alive and dangerous.

In an interview Tuesday, a CDC official said he believed the vials were stored for many years at room temperature, which would suggest the samples are dead. But FDA officials said later in the day that the smallpox was in cold storage for decades.

"We don't yet know if it's live and infectious," said Stephan Monroe, deputy director of the CDC center that handles highly dangerous infectious agents.

The samples were rushed under FBI protection to the CDC in Atlanta for testing, after which they will be destroyed.

Peter Marks, deputy director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Research and Evaluation, said the discovery was unexpected but not a total shock. He added, however, that "no one's denying we should have done a better job cleaning out what was there."

In at least one other such episode, vials of smallpox were found at the bottom of a freezer in an Eastern European country in the 1990s, according to Dr. David Heymann, a former World Health Organization official who is now a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Heymann said that when smallpox samples were gathered up for destruction decades ago, requests went out to ministers of health to collect all vials.

"As far as I know, there was never a confirmation they had checked in with all groups who could have had the virus," he said.

Dr. Donald "D.A." Henderson, who led the WHO smallpox-eradication effort and is now a professor at the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh, said it is highly unlikely more such stashes will be discovered. But he conceded "things were pretty casual" in the 1950s.

Decades ago, he recalled, "I came back from many a trip carrying specimens, and I just put them in the refrigerator until I could get them to a laboratory. My wife didn't appreciate that."

Smallpox was one of the most lethal diseases in history. For centuries, it killed about one-third of the people it infected, and left most survivors with deep scars on their faces from the pus-filled lesions.

The last known case was in Britain in 1978, when a university photographer who worked above a lab handling smallpox died after being accidentally exposed to it through the ventilation system.

Global vaccination campaigns finally brought smallpox under control. After it was declared eradicated, all known remaining samples of live virus were stored at a CDC lab in Atlanta and at a Russian lab in Novosibirsk, Siberia.

The labs take extreme precautions. Scientists must undergo fingerprint or retinal scans to get inside, they wear full-body suits including gloves and goggles, and they shower with strong disinfectant before leaving the labs.

There has long been debate over whether to destroy the stockpile.

Many scientists argue that any remaining samples pose a threat and that the deadly virus should be wiped off the planet altogether. Others contend the samples are needed for research on better treatments and vaccines.

At its recent annual meeting in May, WHO put off a decision again.

The Truth About GMO’s

Daily Censored
By Guest Contributor Jim

What is a genetically modified organism (GMO)? It is an organism that arises from the genetic material (DNA) of a host animal, plant or bacteria that has been altered by the insertion of a gene from another species. This process is referred to as “genetic engineering” (GE) or “genetic modification” (GM).

The biotech industry spin is that this process is safe and predictable and uses terms like “engineering” and “splicing” to create the impression of a highly controlled, precise process. It is not. It is unpredictable, imprecise, invasive and violates the host’s DNA and produces products that are unstable. This is due in part to the fact that genetic material is not static but fluid and dynamic.

Unlike biotech industry claims, GE is radically different from hybridization, cross-breeding, selective breeding or cross-fertilization which are all sexual processes which occur in nature all the time. They clearly know their claims are false, as does the FDA. The major biotech firms are Monsanto, Dupont, Dow Chemical, Bayer Cropscience and Syngenta.

The two major GE technologies are 1) insect resistance (Bt) due to a gene from a soil bacteria (Bacillus thuringiensis) and 2) herbicide tolerance to Roundup (glyphosate).

Only five GM crops are widely grown: Soybeans (94%), Canola (90%), Cotton (90%), Corn (88%) and sugar beets. About 50% of papaya is GM, all from Hawaii and small amounts of yellow summer squash, zucchini and alfalfa. About 70% of all processed foods contain GE ingredients.

In 1999, 671 scientists from 76 countries signed an open letter to all governments, which declared as follows. “We call for the immediate suspension of all environmental releases of genetically modified crops and products, both commercially and in open field trials for at least five years; for patents on living processes, organisms, seeds, cell lines and genes to be revoked and banned; and for a comprehensive public inquiry into the future of agriculture and food security for all.

Internal documents of the FDA, (not available to the public until a lawsuit forced their release), revealed that their scientists warned that GM foods might produce toxins, allergies, nutritional problems and new diseases.

Rats fed GM potatoes suffered damaged immune systems; their white blood cells responded sluggishly; the thymus and spleen showed damage and they had smaller brains, livers and testicles. Some had enlarged intestines and pancreas, while others had partial atrophy of the liver. A proliferation of cells in the stomach and intestines indicated a potential for cancer. These serious health effects developed after only ten days and persisted for 110 days (equivalent to about ten years of human life).

In September,1999 the first recorded case of a serious reaction to GM corn occurred. It turned out to be Starlink corn. Hundreds of people got sick and over 50 people contacted the FDA and 28 people’s reactions fit the profile of anaphylactic shock. The EPA did not approve Starlink for human consumption but the FDA did.

In an unpublished study by Calgene, Inc., laboratory rats fed the GM Flavr-Savr tomato developed stomach lesions and 7 of the 40 died within two weeks. The study was sent to the FDA for review and the tomato was eventually approved without further study.

In 2003 as many as 100 villagers living near GE corn plots in southern Philippines became ill when the corn came to flower. Terjo Traavik of the Northern Institute of Gene Ecology found antibodies in the villagers to the CRY 1 Ab gene produced by the corn.

In 2001/2002 twelve dairy cows died after eating Syngenta’s Bt 176 corn. About 10 years later in India, a dozen cattle died three days after eating GE cotton plants.

A 1997 study revealed that rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone), a genetically engineered hormone injected into cows greatly increases IGF-1 (insulin growth-like factor) levels by as much as 360% in their milk. In 1991 it had been established that IGF-1 was critically involved in the growth of human breast cancer cells. A 1998 paper in Science reported a study of 15,000 white men with elevated IGF-1 levels were four times more likely to contract prostate cancer. A 1998 Lancet study showed that pre-menopausal women with high levels of IGF-1 are seven times more likely to contract breast cancer.

A 2002 report by the Royal Society of the UK said that genetic modification could lead to unpredicted, harmful changes in the nutrition of food and recommended that potential health effects of GM foods be rigorously researched before being fed to pregnant or breast-feeding women, elderly people, babies and those suffering from chronic disease.

Hospitals Are Mining Patients' Credit Card Data to Predict Who Will Get Sick

Business Week
By Shannon Pettypiece and Jordan Robertson

Imagine getting a call from your doctor if you let your gym membership lapse, make a habit of buying candy bars at the checkout counter, or begin shopping at plus-size clothing stores. For patients of Carolinas HealthCare System, which operates the largest group of medical centers in North and South Carolina, such a day could be sooner than they think. Carolinas HealthCare, which runs more than 900 care centers, including hospitals, nursing homes, doctors’ offices, and surgical centers, has begun plugging consumer data on 2 million people into algorithms designed to identify high-risk patients so that doctors can intervene before they get sick. The company purchases the data from brokers who cull public records, store loyalty program transactions, and credit card purchases.

Information on consumer spending can provide a more complete picture than the glimpse doctors get during an office visit or through lab results, says Michael Dulin, chief clinical officer for analytics and outcomes research at Carolinas HealthCare. The Charlotte-based hospital chain is placing its data into predictive models that give risk scores to patients. Within two years, Dulin plans to regularly distribute those scores to doctors and nurses who can then reach out to high-risk patients and suggest changes before they fall ill. “What we are looking to find are people before they end up in trouble,” says Dulin, who is a practicing physician.

For a patient with asthma, the hospital would be able to assess how likely he is to arrive at the emergency room by looking at whether he’s refilled his asthma medication at the pharmacy, has been buying cigarettes at the grocery store, and lives in an area with a high pollen count, Dulin says. The system may also look at the probability of someone having a heart attack by considering factors such as the type of foods she buys and if she has a gym membership. “The idea is to use Big Data and predictive models to think about population health and drill down to the individual levels,” he says.

While Carolinas HealthCare can share patients’ risk assessments with their doctors under the hospital’s contract with its data provider, the health-care chain isn’t allowed to disclose details, such as specific transactions by an individual, says Dulin, who declined to name the data provider.

If the early steps are successful, though, Dulin says he’d like to renegotiate to get the data provider to share more specific details with the company’s doctors on their patients’ spending habits. “The data is already used to market to people to get them to do things that might not always be in the best interest of the consumer,” he says. “We are looking to apply this for something good.”

Many patients and their advocates are voicing concerns that Big Data’s expansion into medical care will threaten privacy. “It is one thing to have a number I can call if I have a problem or question; it is another thing to get unsolicited phone calls. I don’t like that,” says Jorjanne Murry, an accountant in Charlotte who has Type 1 diabetes and says she usually ignores calls from her health insurer trying to discuss her daily habits. “I think it is intrusive.”

Health advocates and privacy experts worry that relying more on data analysis also will erode doctor-patient relationships. “If the physician already has the information, the relationship changes from an exchange of information to a potential inquisition about behavior,” says Ryan Holmes, assistant director of health care ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

Data brokers have revealed few details on what they sell to health-care providers, and those acquiring the data are often barred from disclosing which company they purchased it from. Acxiom (ACXM) and LexisNexis (ENL) are two of the largest data brokers that collect information on individuals. Acxiom says its data are supposed to be used only for marketing, not for medical purposes or to be included in medical records. LexisNexis says it doesn’t sell consumer information to health insurers for the purpose of identifying patients at risk.

While some patients may benefit from data collection, hospitals also have a growing financial stake in knowing more about the people they care for. Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, hospital pay is becoming increasingly linked to quality metrics rather than the traditional fee-for-service model in which hospitals are paid based on the numbers of tests or procedures they perform. As a result, the U.S. has begun levying fines on hospitals that have too many patients readmitted within a month and rewarding hospitals that fare well against clinical benchmarks and on patient surveys.

Apollo Astronaut: Climate Alarmism Is the ‘Biggest Fraud in the Field of Science’

CNS News
by Craig Bannister

Climate alarmism is "the biggest fraud in the field of science" and the 97% consensus claim is nonsensical, Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham tells MRCTV in a preview of his presentation at the upcoming Heartland Institute climate conference, July 7-9.

"Since about 2000, I looked farther and farther into it," Col. Cunningham (USMC, Ret.) tells MRCTV in an exclusive interview. "I found that not one of the claims that the alarmists were making out there had any bearings, whatsoever. And, so, it was kind of a no-brainer to come to the conclusion."

Cunningham rejects the notion of man-made climate, not only as fact - but also as even qualifying as an actual "theory":

"In the media, it was being called a theory. Obviously, they didn't know what it means to be a theory."

"If we go back to the warmist hypothesis - not a theory, but, a hypothesis - they've been saying from the very beginning that carbon dioxide levels are abnormally high, that higher levels of carbon dioxide are bad for humans, and they thought warmer temperatures are bad for our world, and they thought we were able to override natural forces to control the earth's temperature. So, as I've looked into those, that's the problem that I've found, because I didn't find any of those to be correct - and, they certainly were not a theory, it was just their guess at what they wanted to see in the data they were looking at."


Cunningham urges Americans to look at the data and decide for themselves, instead of taking anyone else's word for it:

"You go out and take a look at it and you find out that a lot of it is pure nonsense and wishful thinking on the part of the alarmists who are looking for more and more money to fall into their hands."

"Don't believe it just because your professor said it. You gotta go take a look at it. Go back and look at the history of temperature and carbon dioxide, and you look at the value of carbon dioxide, and how it's a benefit today."

Cunningham notes that, while climate alarmists are concerned that the atmosphere currently contains 400 parts per million of CO2, that's only a tenth of the level his spacecraft had to reach before causing concern. In his Apollo craft, an alarm would go off when CO2 reached 4,000 parts per million and, in today's space shuttle, the trigger is 5,000. And, in submarines where crewmen may be on three-month missions, CO2 has to reach 8,000 parts per million before the alarm is activated.

"In one area after another, we find these people overly concerned about, one, the danger they're trying to push on us and, secondly, the claim that we can somehow or other control the earth's temperature by affecting it," Cunningham says.

"I can't say we don't have any impact, at all, but it'd be so miniscule and so tiny, that it wouldn't be worth any effort."

So, what does dictate the Earth's temperature? Cunningham says it's well-established that "principle controllers" are natural forces like sun, ocean temperature, and even volcanic activity.

Thus, he calls climate alarmism "the biggest fraud in the field of science":

"The case is, to me, really, it's laughable to find somebody who claims to be a serious scientist - that he would buy into this. So, I would really question anybody who claims to be a scientist doing this - so, what they do is try to control the nomenclature."

"To me, it's almost laughable, it's the biggest fraud in the field of science, certainly in my lifetime, maybe the biggest one in centuries."

"If you go back and you look at the data that has been well-documented over the years, you can look and see, for example, that right now both carbon dioxide and temperature are simultaneously at one of the lowest levels in at least the last 600-800 million years. The last time they were both together at this low a level, more or less, was 300 million years ago, and if you go back go back about 500-600 million years ago, carbon dioxide was 15 times higher than what it is now. So, what I'm getting at is this, the history shows you that most of this is just plain nonsensical today."

"And, the amazing thing to people like me... is that there are people that believe the nonsense they're being fed."

The media are largely to blame for public misconceptions - not because they're intentionally misleading the public, but because they "just don't want to go into the time and trouble to find out." "If they do go into it and look at it for themselves, they become a lot more neutral in their presentation," he says.

Worst of all, Cunningham says, media are promoting the "nonsensical" claim that there's scientific consensus accepting the hypothesis of man-made climate:

"When they're out propagating this so-called 97% of scientists believe we're controlling the temperature - I mean, that's the most nonsensical, stupid number in the world - and all they have to do is do a little research on Google - I'm not going to do it for them - go in there and take a look and you find out that's a ridiculous statement that people are making - and even the president makes a statement like that."

"If you have a totally anonymous survey of real scientists involved in this field, I would almost guarantee you that you going to have a majority that are not going to agree with the alarmists."

"I can only tell you that, even back in the days of Apollo, we didn't have to face this kind of nonsense," Cunningham concludes.

Secret studies proving Monsanto sells poison

Rappoport's Blog
by Jon Rappoport

Claire Robinson has written a stunning article exposing hidden proof Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide is poison:

“The glyphosate toxicity studies you’re not allowed to see,” gmwatch.org, July 2, 2014.

Glyphosate is the main ingredient in Roundup, Monsanto’s product, which is used in hurricane-like proportions on GMO crops.

Robinson doesn’t baldly assert these secret studies prove the poisonous nature of Roundup, but her piece certainly leads to that conclusion.

Here are the facts:

In China, this year, the Ministry of Agriculture admitted that legalizing the import of Roundup was based on a single toxicology test done in St. Louis.

Monsanto then stated, as Robinson reports, “that the study constituted its own commercial secret, adding that the company had never disclosed the study anywhere in the world and did not agree to disclose it now.”

Why not? Because the study proved Roundup was safe? Are you kidding?

In Europe, two studies on Roundup toxicity are also hidden in the closet.

The European Food Safety Authority and German regulators, Robinson states, “have refused… requests to release the studies, on the grounds that they are commercially confidential information.”

In other words, the studies are owned by a corporation(s).

No problem. Nothing is riding on the results of those studies except the health of the population of Europe.

In 2011, a group called Earth Open Source issued a report: “Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?”

Robinson writes: “The report found that industry’s own studies conducted in the 1980s and 1990s showed that glyphosate causes birth defects in experimental animals. While the industry studies themselves are held by the German government and remain secret, the Earth Open Source authors examined Germany’s summary report on the studies, which is in the public domain. This report was submitted to the EU Commission and led to glyphosate’s European approval in 2002.”

What?!

Germany’s summary report invented various “redefinitions” of birth defects that downplayed their significance, and Roundup was approved for sale.

And again, the actual studies are being held secret.

Let’s see. Studies on the toxicity of Roundup are hidden by Monsanto and government regulators. The studies are called “corporate property.” That’s the justification.

“We own this science and we’re not releasing it. But don’t worry, it’s not important, you’re safe, Roundup is safe, it’s all good.”

Here’s the bottom line. If corporate science is used to justify the safety of corporate products, then that science must be made public in every detail, so it can be examined by people who don’t owe their souls to the corporations.

Anyone who stands in the way of this happening is a rank criminal.

But in this respect, we live in a lawless society. Government protects the corporations and itself.

The US Justice Department wouldn’t arrest and prosecute Monsanto executives who hide toxicity data in a million years.

But poisoning Americans? No problem.

Study: Smoking Marijuana May Prevent Head And Neck Cancers

DProgram Net
(CancerPreventionResearch) 

Could smoking marijuana really prevent cancer? A recent study suggests that moderate marijuana use is associated with reduced risk of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), better known as head and neck cancers. Numerous recent studies have shown that cannabinoids have anti tumor effects which most likely explains why marijuana smokers are less likely to get head and neck cancers.

Study conclusion:

Our study suggests that moderate marijuana use is associated with reduced risk of HNSCC.

We found that moderate marijuana use was significantly associated with reduced risk of HNSCC. This association was consistent across different measures of marijuana use (marijuana use status, duration, and frequency of use). Further, we observed that marijuana use modified the interaction between alcohol and cigarette smoking, resulting in a decreased HNSCC risk among moderate smokers and light drinkers, and attenuated risk among the heaviest smokers and drinkers.

Read the full study: A Population-Based Case-Control Study of Marijuana Use and Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Related:  Cannabis Helps 3-Year-Old Beat Cancer Better Than Chemo

New gov’t document lists ‘Fukushima release along west coast of US’ as possible factor in birth defect cluster

ENE News

Washington State Department of Health (.pdf), June 16, 2014:

Anencephaly Cluster Investigation — Central Washington, 2010-2014 [CDC: Congenital anomaly resulting in babies missing parts of brain/skull... almost all die shortly after birth] 

Environmental Exposure Hypotheses considered by DOH: [...] Radiation from Fukushima release 

Radiation from Fukushima: [...] No reported increase in anencephaly after Fukushima release along west coast of US

Fetal Deaths, 1992-2012 — Washington State Department of Health, Oct. 2013: 

In 2011, Washington had its highest levels ever recorded (1992-2012) for:

Total fetal deaths — 20% above 2010, record high 

Deaths via congenital abnormalities (such as anencephaly) – 60% above 2010, record high 

Deaths via complications of placenta, etc. — 20% above 2010, record high 

Levels returned to historical norms in 2012

See also: Reporters in Japan write about rise in birth defects for 2011 — University won’t publish data on malformed babies after many years of doing so; Not releasing figures for Fukushima, other prefectures

And: MD: Infant deaths up for Canada’s west coast after Fukushima (VIDEO)

Related:  CNN: “Horrible medical mystery… alarming rate of birth defects” in Washington — Babies missing parts of brain, skull — Mother outraged at gov’t — Nurse: “It’s very scary… absolutely something going on...”

Ed. - According to a paper published in the Open Journal of Pediatrics by the Radiation and Health Project, "Fukushima fallout appeared to affect all areas of the United States, and was especially large in some, mostly in the western part of the nation." Birth defects involving the thyroid have been reported in newborns subsequent to the Fukushima accident, and surveillance of an increased risk for breast cancer in young women exposed to the nuclear fallout over the next ten years is therefore warranted.