Last week’s articles led to many questions and comments. If you agree that deliberate and gross overstating of flu deaths by the government is bad, how about hiding flu vaccine deaths? And how much margarine was actually foisted on the poor heart patients in the NIH-funded study? You won’t believe the answer.

Regarding our story on influenza death statistics, Arnold writes:

“Even these numbers are questionable at best. The CDC announced last year that they would no longer count actual deaths from swine flu, but would use computer modeling to give an estimate of the number of deaths. The assumptions about rate of spread built into the program gives a preordained result. Arguing with these ‘authorities’ is almost impossible.”

It seems clear that the government doesn’t want the American public to have statistics on swine flu fatalities—it would be too embarrassing for them. Moreover, they clearly intend to keep fabricating the overall flu numbers—probably because they have a vested interest in the vaccine industry.

And Jan writes:

“Did we notice that there were no statistics on the number of deaths caused by the flu vaccines? [Editor’s note: Jan is referring here to the flu vaccine, not the flu itself.] My neighbor, who trained boxers, was a boxer, and jogged five miles a day, was left paralyzed from the neck down by a flu shot last year. His wife took him home and nursed him until he can now walk with a walker, but is still very much disabled and will be for the rest of his life—from a flu shot….

Since 1990, the US government has collected reports of adverse health events that follow the administration of vaccinations. This database, called the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), is available for anyone to search or download. Its search engine, however, is clunky. We suggest readers spend some time at the National Vaccine Information Center’s VAERS search page. It pulls up the same government data, but offers a better user interface, more powerful search capabilities, and more extensive reporting.

Our search revealed that between 1988 and 2010, there were 792 deaths following the administration of one of five different types of flu vaccine, including the H1N1 vaccine, with a major spike in 2009. These are reported deaths only—of course the actual numbers may be significantly higher. If one broadens the search to include all serious adverse events, the number jumps to 5,345.

Regarding our story on the flawed omega-3 study, Elaine writes:

“Not too surprising considering that Unilever supplied the margarine for the study, saving the researchers from having to pay for the ‘study.’ Not exactly ‘clean-hands’ science. As always, follow the money.”

The researchers state that the study was funded jointly by the Netherlands Heart Foundation and our National Institutes of Health. Unilever, which makes an omega-3 enriched margarine, provided the margarines, but they didn’t provide any direct funding. Please note: this means that the National Institutes of Health, the pinnacle of conventional medicine in the US, thought it was just fine to give heart patients four tablespoons of trans fat each day for 3½ years. The NIH surely knew that a study in a leading medical journal found that five teaspoons (not tablespoons!) of trans fat per day increased the risk of a heart attack by 77%. And in this case the margarine was given to heart patients who had already had heart attacks. The NIH should be ashamed of itself.

A reader writes:

“I don’t like that the material is copyrighted so that I can’t post it to my web forum. I think you should use a Creative Commons license to spread the word.”

Thanks for raising this important topic.

Actually, we do use the Creative Commons license. It’s noted at the bottom of every ANH-USA webpage: “Copyright © 2010 Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA). Permission granted to forward, copy, or reprint with date and attribution to ANH-USA. Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.”

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