Originally published March 3 2009
The 1918 Influenza Pandemic, Vaccines and Flu Shots
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) Following the breaking news today that Baxter International, Inc. (a U.S. drug company) shipped live avian influenza in vaccine materials distributed to 18 countries, it's worth reviewing a bit of history about the 1918 influenza pandemic.
This provides a picture of what might have happened if the bird flu viral strains had not been detected and halted. It also raises the question: Are drug companies tempting Mother Nature by working with live viruses in their vaccines? All it takes is one mistake (like we almost just had) and the 2009 Influenza Pandemic could be unleashed...
See my full story on this issue here: www.NaturalNews.com/025760.html
Authors' Quotes on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic
Below, you'll find selected quotes from noted authors. Feel free to quote these in your own work provided you give proper credit to both the original author quoted here and this NaturalNews page.
Only five types of influenza are known to infect humans: HI, H2, H3, and Nl or N2. The avian influenza viruses H4, H5, and H7 make birds sick but usually don't infect humans. That may be about to change, however. In addition to its technical designation, when the flu becomes a human infection, each of the different influenza A viruses is given a common name corresponding to the place of outbreak or origin: the Spanish flu of 1918 or the Hong Kong flu of 1968. The word "influenza" is derived from the Latin influentia, to influence.
- Beating the Flu: The Natural Prescription for Surviving Pandemic Influenza and Bird Flu by J. E. Williams
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Influenza is called the "last of the great uncontrolled plagues," and some epidemiologists believe that we are imminently due for an influenza epidemic of plague proportions like that of 1918.
- Viral Immunity by J. E. Williams, O.M.D.
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A review in The Lancet suggests that influenza vaccination of infants is useless. Each and every year at this time medical officials come out to remind us of our mortal danger. However, they advocate medical procedures that do little to nothing to protect us, but cost billions nonetheless. Dr. Eleanor McBean was an on-the-spot observer of the 1918 influenza epidemic and said, "As far as I could find out, the flu hit only the vaccinated. Those who had refused the shots escaped the flu. My family had refused all the vaccinations so we remained well all the time.
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Just over thirty years ago, in 1976, the Centers for Disease Control investigated and confirmed that a severe influenza outbreak at Fort Dix, New Jersey, had been caused by the "swine flu" -- an influenza A-type virus. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare grew concerned that the United States might be about to see another large national flu pandemic, involving numbers of influenza deaths reminiscent of the flu pandemic of 1918. The federal government deemed it prudent to vaccinate all Americans. In October 1976, the National influenza Immunization Program officially began.
- The Autoimmune Epidemic by Donna Jackson Nakazawa
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The infamous 1918 influenza, which spun around the planet in the last year of World War I, ended up killing more people than the Great War itself. Though it was called the "Spanish" flu, it most likely originated in Asia. In America, the first outbreak occurred on a military base in Kansas in the vicinity of a pig farm. The 1918 pandemic is believed to have killed up to 40 million people worldwide, including 675,000 Americans. Many more got sick but survived. The 1918 flu killed more soldiers engaged in the war than the combat of the trenches.
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Avian flu is feared because it could provoke a repeat of the influenza pandemic of 1918. The 1918 flu, or H1N1 virus, was -- like the avian flu -- an influenza A virus. Like that earlier flu, avian flu unleashes an unusual hurricanelike storm of immune-system signaling proteins called cytokines, which signal the immune system to combat microbial invaders. Cytokines signaling to the immune system to fight disease is a good thing, but when cytokine levels are elevated for too long and their signaling becomes uncontrolled, they can hijack the body's immune system to turn against the body itself.
- The Autoimmune Epidemic by Donna Jackson Nakazawa
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Experts believe that the current avian H5N1 influenza strain, "bird flu," has the potential to become a human pandemic in proportions that could dwarf the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed millions and is, to date, the deadliest influenza outbreak in modern history. Flu hunters, influenza experts who follow viral outbreaks, identify hot spots, study the disease in the laboratory, investigate its genetic code, and create theoretical worst-case scenarios in order to understand the disease and predict its path, all agree on one thing: It's only a matter of time before the next outbreak happens.
- Beating the Flu: The Natural Prescription for Surviving Pandemic Influenza and Bird Flu by J. E. Williams
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Fear of influenza deaths in numbers similar to the 1918 flu epidemic led to a recommendation that the federal government vaccinate all Americans. When insurance companies refused to provide coverage to the vaccine manufacturers, the government agreed to accept liability for claims of adverse events. This obstacle having been cleared, the National influenza Immunization Program (NIIP) officially started in October of 1976.
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Given the increasing virulence and frequency of other viruses, it seems certain that a more potent influenza virus will appear. In the temperate regions, like North America and Europe, flu outbreaks occur every winter and epidemics approximately every eight to ten years. Worldwide influenza pandemics occur every ten to forty years, and in the last century the world experienced three: the Spanish flu of 1918; the Asian flu in 1957; and the Hong Kong flu in 1968.
- Viral Immunity by J. E. Williams, O.M.D.
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If a strain of influenza emerged that retained these traits and added others like resistance to antiviral drugs and the ability to outsmart vaccines, we'd be in big trouble. A super flu is a viral infection that has all the ancestral traits of influenza, is drug-resistant, has undergone genetic mutations that make it possible for it to spread from human to human, no one has immunity to, and is extremely contagious and virulent. Pandemic influenza, like the Spanish flu of 1918, is much more virulent than regular flu.
- Beating the Flu: The Natural Prescription for Surviving Pandemic Influenza and Bird Flu by J. E. Williams
- Available on Amazon.com
Though little attention is paid to a possible connection between fibromyalgia and influenza A, some experts suggest it is an overlooked syndrome. In one research paper, Allen Tyler, a medical doctor and naturopathic physician, reports that fibromyalgia was not seen before the 1918 flu pandemic. In his research, he found that 90 percent of fibromyalgia patients tested positive for influenza A antibodies.
- Viral Immunity by J. E. Williams, O.M.D.
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The experts hope that a pandemic influenza will be nothing more than a more severe version of seasonal nuisance flu, but they're not betting on it. Viral dynamics are a mystery. We could be in for a super flu. During a pandemic, symptoms may not follow the usual course. If the coming one is anything like the 1918 influenza pandemic, inflammation may not be confined to the lungs, like regular flu, but could affect the brain, liver, and other body tissues. The virus could even bypass the respiratory system entirely.
- Beating the Flu: The Natural Prescription for Surviving Pandemic Influenza and Bird Flu by J. E. Williams
- Available on Amazon.com
The 1918-19 epidemic of Spanish influenza killed 20-40 million people in less than a year, causing more deaths than all the massive military casualties of World War I. In the spring of 1918, the German Army's assault on Paris was halted by this flu. It not only affected Europeans, but an unbelievable 80 percent of the United States Army's death toll was from the Spanish flu that killed 43,000 American soldiers between 1917 and 1919 -- nearly as many as died in combat in the Korean War some thirty years later.
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During the conquest of the Americas, upward of 95 percent of indigenous people in North America, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America were wiped out by smallpox and influenza. The last major killer pandemic, the Spanish flu of 1918, caused an estimated 50 million deaths and possibly as high as 100 million in a single year. It reached even remote corners of the globe. The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was more like a Biblical prophecy come true than a medical disease.
- Beating the Flu: The Natural Prescription for Surviving Pandemic Influenza and Bird Flu by J. E. Williams
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This tablet is made from the combined strains of influenza virus from the major flu epidemics since 1918. The combined strains are then homeopathically prepared and potentized. No ill effects have ever been reported from the "cold and flu" tablet, and the rate of protection has been high. In the flu epidemic of 1918 to 1920, the homeopaths lost only 1 percent of their patients, as opposed to 30 to 40 percent under allopathic care.
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The 1918 outbreak was directly linked with the Great War (World War 1). The influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1 behind the flu pandemic was unusually severe and deadly. What made it that way? At no time in history was the world exposed to such massive and 24-hour pollution created by the fumes and smoke resulting from continuous bomb and grenade explosions, the burning of entire cities, the effects of mustard gases and other biological weapons by Germans. Nobody remained uninfluenced by it.
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Quotes on Flu Shots
A study from the Netherlands showed that among two groups of elderly people, one that received flu shots and one that received a placebo, the group receiving the flu shot only had a 1 percent lower incidence of flu than the placebo group! Flu shots are not without side effects. Studies have shown that as many as one in 10 people who get a flu shot experience flu symptoms within a week.
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There are no controlled trials that show that a flu shot prevents deaths in children or the elderly. The only positive studies are of patients with COPD, probably because COPD patients have marginal lung function and preventing any flu infections will have a greater impact. Dr. Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist working for the Cochrane Collaboration in Rome, Italy, a nonprofit organization that conducts analyses of published clinical trials, led a group that performed a comprehensive review of the published data on flu vaccines.
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Just as the vaccination against hepatitis will give a false positive, the innocuous flu shot will create the same mistaken result. The New York Times reported, "Some blood donors who received the Beijing flu shot were testing positive to HFV... Upon further blood testing, the 'positive' HIV tests were determined to be 'false-positive.'" A more scholarly examination appeared in the American Journal of Epidemiology, which noted that in December 1991, "U.S. blood centers reported an unusual increase in donations that tested falsely reactive" for HIV antibodies and other infections.
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The decision was to compensate anyone who got the disease within ten weeks of a swine flu shot. The cases were to be tried by federal district judges, without a jury, and so it would be up to the judges to decide who had a legitimate claim and who did not. The law allowed people to file claims within two years after their injuries, and the claims steadily dribbled in. In September 1977, 743 claims had been filed, seeking $325,671,708 in damages. There were also 67 claims of wrongful death, including 19 of death from Guillain-Barre syndrome, and these claims sought an additional $1,032,948,179.
- Flu : The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic by Gina Kolata
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With each new flu shot, on the other hand, your immune system becomes more depleted and the side effects become more pronounced and severe. And, you may still get the flu anyway... The bottom line is that there is no real advantage in having a flu shot. And certainly, given the frailty of so many of the oldest members of society, there is absolutely no reliable way of telling whether the flu or something else may have led to their death. The death rate in and out of the flu season is actually about the same. But then, as we have seen with AIDS, statistics can be manipulated in ways that support theories which have only one objective, to keep the medical business going.
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In 1999 a bizarre flu-like illness struck millions, the flu shot seemingly offering little if any protection. Instead of lasting the typical week or so, symptoms persisted as long as six weeks, severely weakening infected individuals. Yet, it was Dr. Lederberg who described the return of the cycle of epidemic infection, not nationally but, rather, globally. He predicts that a pandemic, that is a global epidemic afflicting untold millions, perhaps billions, will strike at any moment. His view is shared by the majority of microbiologists. The viruses of the current era are highly invasive.
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