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Superstar CBS Reporter Blows the Lid Off the Swine Flu Media Hype and Hysteria | Mercola.com

Sharyl Attkisson is a CBS News correspondent and investigative reporter. She’s covered Capitol Hill since February 2006 and has been a Washington-based correspondent there since January 1995. She was also part of the CBS news team that received the Edward Murrow Award in 2005 for overall excellence. Additionally, she received an Outstanding Investigative Journalism Emmy in 2002 for a series on the Red Cross.

In case you didn’t realize it, Sharyl Attkisson is the investigative reporter behind the groundbreaking CBS News study that found H1N1 flu cases are NOT as prevalent as feared.

In fact, they’re barely on the radar screen.

How did this startling information come about, and why is the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) painting a different picture entirely? I spoke directly with Sharyl Attkisson to find out.

Two Videos

The first video is an amazing interview I did with Sharyl about ten days ago and what the bulk of this article is based on.

The second video is brand new and was done at noon yesterday in which I was videoed in the CBS studio in downtown Chicago. Sharyl was gracious enough to invite me to be on with Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former director of the NIH. We both were in agreement about the swine flu and opposed to the stance the CDC is taking, but we had different views on mammograms.

Please also watch the second interview as it is very entertaining.

Getting Started on the Swine Flu Trail

Ms. Attkisson says:

“The reason I looked into this is a couple of months ago, I got tips from three or four different segments of public healthcare, with folks telling me the CDC has recommended that they go ahead and stop testing for and counting swine flu cases.

Each different entity that contacted me was concerned, thinking that this should not be happening. They really felt that it was necessary for the swine flu to continue to be tracked in some details. So I went about trying to find out why this decision was made and what the ramifications would be.

… I started by contacting the CDC and the HHS and asking some basic questions. I felt like I pretty much got stonewalled with some of the information I really needed to get at, especially what I needed from the states data, and information on the rationale behind this decision to stop counting and testing for swine flu.”

Because the CDC did not initially respond to Attkisson’s requests, she contacted all 50 states directly, asking for their statistics on state lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in July. She also asked states, one by one, to help explain the rationale behind the CDC’s decision to stop tracking H1N1 cases.

Attkisson continues:

“One of my good sources within the government said to me that they’re either trying to, in his opinion, over-represent the swine flu numbers or under-represent by not counting them anymore. He said, “You need to find out which it is.” And so to find out which it might be, I really wanted to see the data that the CDC had at the time it made the decision to quit counting the cases.”

What Her Investigative Report Reveals

If you listen to most media outlets and even to government agencies, you get the impression that virtually every person who has visited their physician with flu-like symptoms in recent months has H1N1, with no testing necessary because, after all, there’s an epidemic.

We are all being led to believe that every case diagnosed as “swine flu” or even as “flu-like illness” is, in fact, swine flu.

But Attkisson’s investigation revealed a very different picture right from her first contact with individual states. She explains:

“Across the country, state by state, they were testing [for H1N1] until CDC told them not to bother. They were testing, in general, the cases most likely to be believed to have been swine flu based on a doctor’s diagnosis of symptoms and risk factors such as travel to Mexico.

These special cases were going to state labs for absolute confirmation with the best test — not the so-called ‘rapid testing,’ but the real confirmation test.

Of those presumed likely swine flu cases out of approximately every hundred of what was tested, only a small fraction were actually swine flu. In every instance, perhaps the biggest number of cases that were swine flu was something like 30%. The smallest number was something like 2% or 3%.

Maybe there’s one state where it was just 1%.

The point is, of the vast majority of the presumed swine flu cases recognized by trained physicians, the vast majority were not flu at all. They weren’t swine flu or regular flu; they were some other sort of upper respiratory infection.

And here is the clincher that it seems the CDC just doesn’t want the American public to know …

The CDC explained that one of the reasons they quit counting was because of all the flu that’s out there, most are swine flu. Well, that’s true. Most of the flu that was out there was indeed swine flu, but they failed to say that most of the suspected flu was nothing at all. And I think that’s the caveat the public just didn’t know,” Attkisson explains.

She gives even more striking examples of the numbers the investigative report revealed. For instance:

  • In Florida, 83 percent of specimens that were presumed to be swine flu were negative for all flu when tested!
  • In California, 86 percent of suspected H1N1 specimens were not swine flu or any flu; only 2 percent were confirmed swine flu.
  • In Alaska, 93 percent of suspected swine flu specimens were negative for all flu types; only 1 percent was H1N1 flu.

Freedom of Information and Getting the Truth Out
It is not easy for journalists to access this type of information, and they often have to wait weeks, months or even years for information from the CDC and the FDA — information that is readily available and supposed to be clearly public.

Attkisson expands on the difficulties she faced in trying to get simple data regarding swine flu cases in the United States:

“They [CDC’s public affairs] quit communicating with me when I pressed on why I couldn’t get certain information. They just wouldn’t answer my emails anymore. So I had to file a Freedom of Information request, which is usually my last choice because I know I was going into a deep black hole many times and I’ll never get an answer.

But in this case, I got an interesting response on October 19 from the CDC when I had asked for some simple, public documents that would have been easy for them to obtain too quickly.

Journalists are allowed to ask for expedited processing of their Freedom of Information request because, for obvious reasons, they’re working on a story that may have public impact or be of public interest. The agencies are not supposed to use the Freedom of Information Law to obstruct or delay the release of this information.

This may be the first time I was denied that expedited processing from Freedom of Information that we’re entitled to as members of the press; a letter from HHS or Health and Human Services (the CDC is under HHS) said to me that one of the reasons they’re denying my expedited processing is because this is not a matter of ‘widespread and exceptional media or public interest.’

In other words, the CDC doesn’t think these questions about swine flu prevalence and these other things that we’ve been asking are, at least in their opinion in this letter, not a matter of widespread and exceptional media or public interest.”

Yet, while the CDC expressed that questions about swine flu prevalence were not a matter of widespread media or public interest, the President had declared the swine flu a national public health emergency!

The inconsistencies at the CDC are nearly incomprehensible.

The Ramifications of the Swine Flu Policy

According to Attkisson’s CBS News study, when you come down with chills, fever, cough, runny nose, malaise and all those other “flu-like” symptoms, the illness is likely caused by influenza at most 17 percent of the time and as little as 3 percent! The other 83 to 97 percent of the time it’s caused by other viruses or bacteria.

So remember that not every illness that appears to be the flu actually is the flu. In fact, most of the time it’s not.

Curiously, the CDC still advises those who were told they had 2009 H1N1 (and therefore should be immune to getting it again) to get vaccinated unless they had lab confirmation.

But because very few people have actually had a lab-confirmed case of H1N1 (and in most cases those people told they had swine flu probably did not), this means nearly everyone is still being advised to get the swine flu vaccine.

Attkisson has been one of the few to speak out against this flawed system and point out the serious ramifications that come when a public health agency is secretive about their health data.

Attkisson says:

“From a public and journalistic standpoint, I believe the mistake comes when you don’t fully disclose to the public as you go and discover the mistakes. Try to disclose and fix things that come up.

Everybody understands that there isn’t a perfect system, but I think you need to be upfront with them, explain what you’re doing, and explain what you’re discovering. If you’ve made a mistake or you feel like you need to correct something, say that, too, but don’t just try to keep information from the public.”

I couldn’t agree more, and Attkisson’s CBS News report has stood out like a bright light of truth among all the clouds of misinformation.

If you’d like to learn more about the report and its findings, you can read all the details in the past article CBS Reveals that Swine Flu Cases Seriously Overestimated.

Source: Mercola.com

Resources:
H1N1 Videos

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Immunization H1N1 Vaccine Commentary | Liberty International

Be aware the H1N1 swine flu is being touted by government and health agencies worldwide as the next pandemic and are selling millions of vaccines.

In our opinion the fear of pandemic is being intentionally created without considering the side effects and possible health consequences of this and other vaccines which remain controversial at best.

Additionally, the nasal mist introducing a live virus which may make the receiver contagious if they breath or sneeze near others. Become informed!

You can view a few selected videos here and download a State of Oregon brochure and find out more about personal, religious or medical exemptions.

Nobody can force you or your child to take a vaccine!

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Ron Paul Rocks on CNBC Squawk Box 11/13/2009

A basic truth is that we may only loan what we have. If we have a dollar, we may loan a dollar. Yet, under the fraud of fractional reserve banking, banks loan ten times the money they actually have.

Fractional reserve banking is a Ponzi scheme whereby banks create money out of thin air through fraudulent book keeping, loaning non-existent money out at interest. It is no different than counterfeiting. In collusion, factional reserve banks counterfeit up to 10 times the amount of money that they actually have deposited, and charge interest on it all. Since money represents labor, fractional reserve bankers are effectively robbing the value of everyone’s labor through this fraudulent scam.

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Fiji Water: So cool, so fresh, so bad for the environment?

fiji_water_sleepishlyBy Sarah Gilbert

The story of Fiji Water, as detailed in a startling and detailed investigative piece in Mother Jones magazine this month, seems familiar. Leafing through the story, I found myself trying to remember where I’d read this tale before; like an old melody at the back of my brain, it hovered, just beyond memory.

Suddenly it came to me: it’s Dole, it’s West Indies Sugar Corporation, it’s the old, old story. A company located in a lush, tropical location with a totalitarian government that welcomes foreign interests with deep pockets. It doesn’t tax them, gives them access to the country’s most precious natural resources, and stands by with heavy artillery in hand, protecting them while they strip the country.

Meanwhile, the country’s citizens struggle with terrible poverty, hunger and squalid conditions. The only part of the story that Fiji Water has not yet repeated is the inevitable depletion of the resource — in this case, a 17-mile-long aquifer to which Fiji Water has “near-exclusive access” — and the subsequent abandonment of the country.

What makes this story so difficult to swallow is how eagerly the U.S. seems to have embraced Fiji’s co-owners Stewart and Lynda Resnick. On this side of the Pacific, the pair cheerfully line the pockets of any political figure in sight (they supported both McCain and Obama in the past election) while selling Fiji’s best, cleanest water at a huge profit. On the other side of the ocean, the people of Fiji suffer under terrible water conditions that have led to outbreaks of typhoid and parasitic infections.

It appears that America has embraced the Resnicks: Lynda brags that she knows “everyone in the world, every mogul, every movie star.” These relationships have proven handy, as the Resnicks have reaped $1.5 million a year in water subsidies for their almond, pistachio and pomegranate crops in the U.S.

These agricultural water subsidies must be viewed in context: the stress from travelling to pollinate the almond “monoculture” crops like the ones the Resnicks grow, along with the pesticides they sell, are considered to be some of the major reasons that bees are succumbing to colony collapse disorder. And the Resnicks control an enormous amount of California water infrastructure that was built by public funds. They have a 48 percent interest in the Kern Water Bank, which was meant to collect water from aqueducts and the Kern River and to redistribute this water in times of drought.

The Resnicks and their Paramount Farms and Paramount Citrus could use the water to irrigate their fields (which are already subsidized by the government), or they could sell it to municipalities. According to critics, the Resnicks are “trying to ‘game’ the water market the way Enron gamed the energy market.”

So the Resnicks are not known for their even-handedness with politicians or water, and their practices in the U.S. are not the greenest of all possible greens. In fact, they could share responsibility for many of our environmental woes. They could have a hand in California’s future water shortages, during which they could profit gloriously. All the while, they are loudly and proudly marketing Fiji Water as the most environmentally friendly bottled water company in the world.

This, of course, is not saying much. Bottled water is notorious for its position in top five lists of “what not to do” for the planet. One day, future civilizations will look back on this decade and wonder in disbelief why it was that we pumped water out of one part of the planet, encased it in plastic, then encased it again for shipping, and spent many many non-renewable resources to bring it to another part of the planet where clean water was already plentiful. It’s patently ridiculous.

The story is disturbing because of the truths it tells us about ourselves and our society. It’s not just the water thing. It’s the marketing. Lynda Resnick has been repeatedly described as a marketing genius for her ability to transform Fiji Water into a must-have accessory for environmentally-conscious celebrities and politicians, despite its heavy use of plastic and questionable commitment to environmentally sustainable practices. And oh, we are drinking the marketing at far greater rates than we are drinking the water. Our celebrities both enormous (Obama, Paris, and their ilk) and minor (the geekarati at the SXSW festival) can’t live without it. So neither can we. Whatever celebrities sell us? YUM. Damn the consequences.

It’s troubling, at the end of the story, that the company is not, as Anna Lenzer writes in her follow-up to the story (after Fiji Water spokesman Rob Six defended his company) doing anything about the military junta now controlling Fiji. “A UN official . . . in a recent commentary . . . singled out Fiji Water as the one company with enough leverage to force the junta to budge.”

The commentary, by the way, was titled “Why Obama should stop drinking Fiji water.”

Source: Daily Finance & Mother Jones

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Bernanke, BATF, Border Patrol, Digital TV, and the Power of the Sheriff | Reality Report

FederalReserveIn this edition Gary Franchi presents another update from Ron Paul on the Audit of the the Federal Reserve system and a shocking admission from Ben Bernanke that he’s clueless about where the money is, and he provides a story about the new global currency, and presents an update from the pastor that was beat up by the Border Patrol.

Gary will also present to you the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms response to Tennessee and Montana’s recent legislation against federal intervention in their state firearms laws. He will also share what a recent IBM employee thinks will happen to the new swath of frequencies recently opened up by the abandonment of the analog TV signal, and present part one of a series on The Power of the Sheriff, presented by Sheriff Mack.

Resources:
Video

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We The People Stimulus Package (Video)

Bob Basso author of “Common Sense” plays the role of Thomas Paine to ignite the fire of change in America. Patriotism and Pride for America lead Thomas Paine to help take back America!

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We The People Stimulus Package (Video)

Bob Basso author of “Common Sense” plays the role of Thomas Paine to ignite the fire of change in America. Patriotism and Pride for America lead Thomas Paine to help take back America (9,356,576+ views on YouTube)!

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CNBC Anchors Mortified That Ron Paul Was Allowed Air Time

Ben BernankeSteve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, Feb 26th, 2009

CNBC anchors were left dumbfounded and acted overtly cantankerous yesterday after Congressman Ron Paul’s opening statement at the House Financial Services Committee was broadcast live to an audience of millions.

CNBC went live to the House, clearly without knowing that the Texas Congressman had the initial Republican statement at the hearing of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

After the Congressman spent two and a half minutes lecturing Bernanke on sound money principles, warning that the financial crisis cannot be solved by merely creating credit out of thin air, CNBC cut back to the studio.

Anchors Erin Burnett and Mark Haines were so perturbed by what they had just heard that they immediately cut to a commercial break:

Haines: “This is not going as planned”

Burnett: “No it is not”

Haines: “We were told that there would be a very limited number of opening statements, and it seems to be getting out of control.”

Burnett: “Here’s what we forgot, everybody is taking this live, you know what that means? Why would they miss an opportunity for free air time?”

Haines: “We’re going to take a commercial break and get them out of the way, so that when something really substandard [he must mean substantial?] is happening, we don’t have to interrupt them.”

The Congressman’s speech was powerful and eye opening:

“This is the end of an era,” said Paul, “we can’t reinflate the bubble….if we think that we can reinflate this bubble by artificially creating credit out of thin air and calling it capital, believe me we don’t have a prayer of solving these problems – we have a total misunderstanding of what credit is versus capital.”

Of course, in the eyes of the corporate media shills for the Fed, the Treasury, and Wall Street Paul’s words were “out of control”. How dare he speak such sense and actively question the logic of the almighty ones, our only hope, our saviors (who also happen to be the very same set of criminals that led us down the path to economic ruin in the first instance).

Then again, how could we expect anything else from the likes of CNBC’s Burnett and Haines, who have previously demonstrated a total lack of understanding of the underlying causes of the financial crisis, even commenting that gold has “no inherent value”.

Research related articles:

  1. Ron Paul Grills Bernanke: “You Can’t Reinflate The Bubble”
  2. CNBC Analyst: Global Bank, Global Currency Within 15 Years
  3. Ron Paul: Bernanke Deliberately Destroying Dollar
  4. Ron Paul Slams “Born-again Budget Conservatives”
  5. Ron Paul Hits Out At “Arrogant” Greenspan
  6. Ron Paul: Secretive Elite Control America
  7. CNBC Host Recommends Statins be Put in the Water Supply
  8. Obama Win Will Not Change Rigged Economy
  9. Paul Lectures Bernanke: U.S. Moving Towards Fascism
  10. Why The Fed Allowed Derivatives Trading on a Sunday
  11. Ron Paul: Greenspan, Bernanke Should Be Criminally Charged
  12. Ron Paul: Stimulus Packages Will Turn Recession Into A Depression

Source: InfoWars

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Final Version of the Economic Stimulus Plan: How It Impacts Your County (e.g., Jackson County, Oregon)


President Obama has just signed a $790+ billion “stimulus” package for the economy, but do you really believe that will actually help our local economy (or just make government bigger, increase the debt and put more burden than ever on the rest of us)?

If you want to see where the money is being spent (your share of the $2,600 per capita increase in the federal debt) for the “Economic Stimulus Bill” read the following summary:

• Senate Final Stimulus Bill Summary

Articles:
• Oregon Governor Targets Federal Stimulus Dollars
• Senate Stimulus Bill

Your fair share?

The State of Oregon will have to compete for it’s share of the $30 billion slated for the states. At last count Jackson County was slated to receive only $400,000 of that money.

Since the federal debt is increasing at $2,600 per capita for this single expenditure alone (that’s a future obligation for each individual in the country, every man, woman and child), wouldn’t it be a better idea to organize our own local capital and resources to provide for our own needs instead of relying on government to do this for us?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to stop relying on the federal government to bail us out, and start doing this ourselves?

So let’s do the math.

According to the 2006 census Jackson County has a population of 197,071 (updated to 198,615 according to recent statistics on the county website). In effect each of us in Jackson County owes an additional $2,600 to the Federal Reserve Bank (or roughly $520,000,000 given a population of 200,000). That’s a lot of money theoretically leaving Jackson County (if indeed the Fed ever called in the debt).

If each of us in Jackson County had the ability (and the desire) to pool our own local capital of $2,600 per capita and funded our own developments and capital projects (instead of the trickle down effect from Washington DC), we’d have a capital fund in excess of $520,000,000 (that’s right millions of dollars, five times the annual budget of the City of Ashland) instead of a mere trickle down of $400,000 from the Economic Stimulus Plan.

Something is terribly wrong with this economic picture.

  • Problem 1 is we cannot create money out of thin air the way the government and banks do.
  • Problem 2 is government spending at this magnitude will not only increase the debt per capita, but devalue the currency (meaning you’ll get less bang for the buck, in effect less purchasing power). This will make the economy worse, not better for most of the people.

Yet all those smart people in Washington DC (and a few newly elected) don’t seem to understand the consequences of such spending for the rest of us. You get my drift?

Now, it’s up to us to do something about it.

How can we refocus our efforts to the LOCAL AND REGIONAL community? What positive and hopeful visions and projects would you like to bring to the table and invest your time, effort, energy and resources (including money)?

U.S. Public Debt

The United States total public debt, commonly called the national debt, or U.S. government debt, is the amount of money owed by the federal government of the United States to holders of U.S. debt instruments. Debt held by the public is all federal debt held by states, corporations, individuals, and foreign governments, but does not include intragovernmental debt obligations or debt held in the Social Security Trust Fund. Types of securities held by the public include, but are not limited to, Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, TIPS, United States Savings Bonds, and State and Local Government Series securities.[1]

As of February 12, 2009, the total U.S. federal debt was $10.76 trillion [2], or about $37,703 per capita. Of this amount, debt held by the public was roughly $6.45 trillion.[3] In 2007, the public debt was 36.8 percent of GDP [4], with a total debt of 65.5 percent of GDP.[5] The CIA Factbook ranked the total percentage as 23rd in the world.[6]

Public debt is the amount owed by the government to its creditors, whether they are nationals or foreigners. External debt is the debt of all sectors of the economy (public and private), owed to foreigners. In the U.S., foreign ownership of the public debt is a significant part of the nation’s external debt. The Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of the Department of the Treasury, calculates the amount of money owed by the national government on a daily basis.[7][8][9][10] Source: U.S. Public Debt


The estimated population of the United States is 305,670,162 so each citizen’s share of this debt is $35,252.68. Source: U.S. Debt Clock

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Twenty Bailout Banks Cut Lending: Nationalization Considered

capitalbldg1-288Although a main purpose of the Troubled Asset Relief Program was to increase bank lending, a new report casts doubt that recipients of TARP funds are following through. The AP reports the “20 largest banks that received government rescue funds slightly reduced their lending to consumers and businesses in the last three months of 2008.”

The report “is the latest sign that the bailout has done little to increase bank lending.” According to the Washington Post, “The banks that got the most government money, Bank of America and Citigroup, led the retreat.” The Wall Street Journal adds that Treasury officials acknowledge that “the expected decline in fourth-quarter lending was a sign that the program wasn’t working as intended.”

Greenspan: Banks Need Billions More The Financial Times reports former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said yesterday that the Obama administration “will have to go back to Congress for more money to recapitalise the banking system.” Greenspan’s “comments suggest the need for hundreds of billions of dollars over and above the funds remaining” in the TARP.

Graham: GOP Open To Nationalizing Banks The Financial Times reports, “Nationalization is gaining rapid acceptance among Washington opinion-formers,” including Republicans. The Times notes that Sen. Lindsey Graham “says that many of his colleagues, including John McCain…agree with his view that nationalization of some banks should be ‘on the table’.”

US Has Lost $86.5 Billion On Preferred Shares The Hill reports that the federal government “has lost $86.5 billion in the stock market since the end of October courtesy of the Wall Street bailout.”

Source: USNews.com