By Simeon Bennett
Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) — Adrian Gibbs, the virologist who said in May that swine flu may have escaped from a laboratory, published his findings today, renewing discussion about the origins of the pandemic virus.
The new H1N1 strain, which was discovered in Mexico and the U.S. in April, may be the product of three strains from three continents that swapped genes in a lab or a vaccine-making plant, Gibbs, and fellow Australian scientists wrote in Virology Journal. The authors analyzed the genetic makeup of the virus and found its origin could be more simply explained by human involvement than a coincidence of nature.
Their study, published in a free, online journal reviewed by other scientists, follows debate among researchers six months ago, when Gibbs asked the World Health Organization to consider the hypothesis. After reviewing Gibbs’ initial three-page paper, WHO and other organizations concluded the pandemic strain was a naturally occurring virus and not laboratory-derived.
“It is important that the source of the new virus be found if we wish to avoid future pandemics rather than just trying to minimize the consequences after they have emerged,” Gibbs and colleagues John Armstrong and Jean Downie said in today’s eight- page study.
Gibbs and Armstrong are on the emeritus faculty at the Australian National University in Canberra and Downie is affiliated with the Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology Laboratory Services at Sydney’s Westmead Hospital, according to the study.
While the exact source of the new H1N1 strain is a mystery, their research has “raised many new questions,” they said. The authors compared the genetic blueprints of flu strains stored in the free database Genbank and found the pandemic virus’s nearest ancestors circulate in pigs.
‘Simplest Explanation’
While migratory birds may have acted as conduit for their convergence, human involvement in bringing them together is “by far the simplest explanation,” Gibbs said in a telephone interview today.
Gibbs wrote or coauthored more than 250 scientific publications on viruses, mostly pertaining to the plant world, during his 39-year career at the Australian National University, according to biographical information on the university’s Web site.
“Knowing Adrian Gibbs, he will have thought through it pretty logically and come to that conclusion,” Lance Jennings, a clinical virologist with Canterbury Health Laboratories in Christchurch, New Zealand, said in a telephone interview. “It’s up to someone else to try and prove it or disprove it.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Singapore at sbennett9@bloomberg.net
SOURCE: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=ajw2AS.d1wK8
Can the VA is given H1N1 influenza vaccine?
Since the elderly are more likely to contract the H1N1 flu I wonder if the VA will the shots or not. Maybe liberals send vaccine to Afghanistan for the Taliban to keep healthy. Liberals do everything possible to slow the progress of the struggle there. Limit in which our troops can fight and discourage them in homes after the snipers. Obama keeps ignoring terrorism and the media is more than happy to oblige.
You’re right. Do not call them illegal aliens, illegal aliens and not call terrorists, terrorists. Political correctness is killing people. Take a look at Fort Hood. Look at what people say.
Swine flu fever: Americans ‘battle’ for H1N1 shots

By F. William Engdahl
Latest reports of what is being called a deadly Swine Flu outbreak in Ukraine according to on sight reports appear to be a political concoction by a threatened government to avoid election defeat and possibly declare martial law. The details indicate how convenient the current WHO “Swine Flu” H1N1 “pandemic” scare is for regimes in trouble.
Worldwide media reports in recent days have painted a picture of Ukraine as being under the Black Plague or worse. One of the most egregious panic-mongers has been Pittsburgh Swine Flu “mapper” Dr Henry Niman who earlier falsely predicted H5N1 Avian Flu would mutate into a deadly human-to-human pandemic. It didn’t.
Niman’s map of the spread of alleged H1N1 Swine Flu since April has given WHO, the US Government and CNN and major media a convenient graphic to create the image of a new type of “bubonic plague” threatening mankind unless we react with massive doses of untested vaccines from such unscrupulous pharma bigs like GlaxoSmithKline or Novartis or Roche with its dangerous Tamiflu drugs.
Early on Niman reported about events in Ukraine: “The rapid rise in reported infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in the past few days raise concerns that the virus is transmitting very efficiently the spike in fatalities and the frequency in hemorrhagic cases in Ukraine have raised concerns.” Niman added the alarming note, “The number of infected patients has almost doubled to just under million, compared to the report two days ago.”
That’s pretty scary stuff. It conjures images of the reports of the Black Death in 1348 which is said to have killed up to 60% of Europe’s population. Though that history has been challenged, the image as well as the equally terrifying if incorrect panic image of the so-called Spanish Flu of 1918, are being applied in Ukraine.
Reality check?
The WHO, the de facto criminal organization responsible for declaration of the H1N1 Pandemic last summer, allowing Governments like the USA and Ukraine to declare martial law and a national state of emergency, suspending all rights and imposing arrests and detentions, has validated the dubious Ukraine claims of out-of-control spread of Swine Flu. A WHO press statement November 3 declared, “Laboratory testing in Ukraine has confirmed pandemic H1N1 influenza virus in samples taken from patients in two of the most affected regions. As the pandemic virus has rapidly become the dominant influenza strain worldwide, it can be assumed that most cases of influenza in Ukraine are caused by the H1N1 virus.”
The WHO added, “The outbreak in Ukraine may be indicative of how the virus can behave in the northern hemisphere during the winter season, particularly in health care settings typically found in Eastern Europe. Given the potential significance of this outbreak as an early warning signal, WHO commends the government of Ukraine for its transparent reporting and open sharing of samples.” The samples have been sent to the WHO Mill Hill Influenza Reference Lab in London, not exactly inspiring confidence in a scientifically honest report given the record of UK health authorities in manipulating data to please the vaccine giants like GlaxoSmithKline.
WHO “strongly recommends early treatment with the antiviral drugs, oseltamivir or zanamivir, for patients who meet treatment criteria, even in the absence of a positive laboratory test confirming H1N1 infection.” That means Tamiflu, the highly dangerous drug whose major shareholder includes former Pentagon head Don Rumsfeld. And it means GlaxoSmithKline, maker of the reportedly equally dangerous rival Relenza drug. The drugs produce precisely the symptoms of severe lung complications found in flu and in some cases have reportedly caused death.
Ukrainian election geopolitics
The bizarre developments in Ukraine over the past two weeks are being blamed inside the country on intense Ukrainian election politics. In four months national elections in Ukraine are due. Among rival candidates are Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her chief rival, Arseniy Yatseniuk.
Since Washington financed and organized the 2004 Orange Revolution that brought a pro-NATO Victor Yushchenko in as President, Ukraine politics has been a geopolitical tug-of war between Moscow and Washington. How the current political games around allegations of H1N1 panic play into that tug of war is not yet clear.
The recent speech in Warsaw by Vice President Joe Biden offering Poland and the Czech Republic a “new and improved” version of US anti-missile defense against Russia only four weeks after Obama announced the US was backing out of a controversial earlier missile defense plan for the two eastern European countries underscores the shambles of US strategic policy towards Russia. Russia has been quick to take advantage as might be expected, as a US missile shield on its borders, as I detail in Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, gives the US a long-sought nuclear primacy over its only potential strategic rival on the planet. At that point the resistance of the rest of the world to incalculable or objectionable US policies, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia or wherever, becomes moot.
It’s clear Moscow has been working quietly to bring Ukraine, an original part of Kiev Rus, and a strategically essential part of the Russian economy, back into a more friendly “NATO-free” relationship after five years of Orange Revolution chaos in Ukraine under Yushchenko. .
Yatseniuk, a 35 year old former banker and aide to Washington’s darling, President Viktor Yushchenko, has charged that Tymoshenko is deliberately fostering unnecessary panic in order to impose martial law and suspend elections that she might well lose to Yatseniuk.
There definitely are political games going on by one or another faction in the economically devastated Ukraine. Oleksandr Bilovol, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Health, claims the outbreak of flu cases in Ukraine has been essentially contained in 11 out of 25 Ukrainian regions, with the number of people allegedly stricken with H1N1 only 15% higher than figures reported in previous years. “Figures in other the regions are in line with 2007 and 2008,” Bilovol said. As well the number of reported deaths is also in line with deaths annually attributed to ordinary influenza.
Tymoshenko declared the outbreak as the threat of the third level the highest possible to unlock spending of up to 3 billion hryvnias to combat the swine flu. Among measures imposed by the decree include shutting down schools and public gatherings for three weeks across Ukraine, with the government also considering introducing restrictions on movement of people between the regions.
Yatseniuk said the ban on public gatherings spreads fear and panic helping Tymoshenko to promote herself on television, while hindering other presidential candidates to campaign.
Yatseniuk is Tymoshenko’s biggest rival as both compete for votes in western regions of Ukraine. He is perhaps the only candidate that may challenge Tymoshenko in the first round of vote on January 17, 2010 to enter the runoff with opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych.
Yatseniuk said the panic spread by the government helps overshadow issues politically damaging to Tymoshenko, including pedophile and the murder scandals involving Tymoshenko lawmakers, and Ukraine’s dismal economic performance.
Prime Minister Tymoshenko, whatever the real facts of the case, is using the WHO Swine Flu panic scenario to the hilt. In a recent statement, she stated, “We cannot relax even for a moment because the World Health Organization predicts two more waves of flu, including the bird flu, are expected in Ukraine. There is no alternative to vaccination. The entire world is going this way” A day earlier she admitted she was not vaccinated and that she prefers “like all other people” plans to rely on garlic, onion and lemon as a way of preventing the flu.
Ukraine Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn accuses Tymoshenko as well, declaring, “You’ve organized the flu epidemic in order to avoid responsibility for not supplying heat to houses, schools, higher educational establishments, and kindergartens,” he said in Parliament. And Orange Revolution President, Yushchenko has declared there was no reason for declaring an emergency in Ukraine. “There are no such reasons,” Yushchenko said. “I am not a supporter of measures that freeze the country, restrict its operation to levels that is hard to justify.”
Ihor Popov, Deputy Chief of Staff to Yushchenko, said that in case of emergency the election, which is due on Jan. 17, 2010, would have to be “rescheduled.”
Germany joins Swine Flu corruption
Not only is the Ukrainian government apparently using fears of Swine Flu pandemic to change the domestic political calculus, and President Barack Obama using the fears to impose an unnecessary state of emergency. Now it comes out that the responsible German health authorities are caught in a corrupt conflict of interest with the very pharma giants profiting from government decisions on “anti-swine flu” vaccines.
The recent issue of the German weekly Der Spiegel, reports that members of the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza (ESWI), which claims to be an independent scientific advisory body advising EU member governments on policies regarding H1N1 influenza, is anything but independent. It’s being financed by Big Pharma. ESWI claims it brings together scientific “key opinion leaders in influenza.” However the sole financial backers are 10 pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline — manufacturer of the German swine flu vaccine — and Roche — producer of the antiviral drug Tamiflu.
The group lists Walter Haas as one of its scientific advisors. Haas coordinates Germany’s flu pandemic preparedness measures at the Robert-Koch-Institut (RKI), the federal institute for disease research. ESWI portrays itself as an independent group of scientists. But even the organization’s own statute tells a different story, describing its role as advising politicians and health authorities on “the benefits and safety of influenza vaccines and antivirals” and initiating “a policy for antiviral provisions.”
The degree of fraud, deceit, official coverup and outright criminal endangerment of the broad population by the current Swine Flu hysteria is seemingly without precedent.
SOURCE: http://www.whale.to/vaccine/ukraine3.html