TiLTNews Network: Earth Watch - Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference, not by safety. It is easy to clamor for government security when terrible things happen; but liberty is given true meaning when we support it without exception, and we will be safer for it ~ Dr. Ron Paul
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
The 19 Ingredients in McDonald’s Fries – Including a Form of Silicone Found in Silly Putty
Along with a petrol-based chemical
BY MIKE BARRETT
POSTED ON JANUARY 27, 2015
Ever wonder what makes up highly popular fast food, such as McDonald’s chicken nuggets or french fries? If the fast food giants recently launched ‘transparency campaign’ tells us anything, it’s that the public is increasingly demanding truth and change. But what McDonald’s ‘truth campaign’ isn’t telling us is that much of its food is lathered in questionable, health-compromising ingredients.
In the most recent transparency video from McDonald’s, Grant Imahara explains that there are 19 ingredients in America’s favorite fries, one of which is polydimethylsiloxane, which is used in the production of silly putty. This seemingly ‘essential’ french fry-Silly Putty ingredient has been making headlines, and I can tell you that it won’t be the last headline you see.
During his ‘investigation,’ he found that dimethylpolysiloxane is used in the making of McDonald’s fries along with a petrol-based chemical called tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ). While anyone might immediately suspect that these ingredients may pose a hazard (and you wouldn’t be wrong), Grant reassures viewers that these are both safe additives used for perfectly good reasons.
You can view the video below to see McDoanld’s segment on how its french fries are made, taking a tour through a McDonald’s factory.
Dimethylpolysiloxane is added for safety reasons to prevent cooking oil from foaming, while tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ) is applied as a food preservative. Can’t have fries that don’t last a few years, right?
Here are some of the questions and answers McDonald’s uses in an attempt to sway public opinion. Unfortunately, it doesn’t touch on the issues that are leading to a loss in profits for the mega-corp.
Of course finding such ingredients in the fast food giant’s french fries isn’t so surprising – much of McDonald’s’ food is tainted in more than one way. For example, containing over 70 ingredients, the McDonald’s sought after McRib is full of surprises — including ‘restructured meat’ technology that includes traditionally-discarded animal parts brought together to create a rib-like substance. It also contains a little-known flour-bleaching agent known as azodicarbonamide.
What do you think? Are these the reasons why McDonald’s is facing recent public rejection? It seems the fast food giant is attempting to make some changes, though maybe not fast enough.
About Mike Barrett:
Other Popular Stories:
- The 4 Worst Fast Food ‘Ingredients’ They Don’t Tell You About
- Even McDonald’s Rejects New GMO Potato in French Fries
- Wendy’s Natural Cut Fries Are Far From Natural
- 4 Fast Food Ingredients Way Worse than Horse Meat
- McDonald’s McRib Sandwich a Franken Creation of GMOs, Toxic Ingredients, Banned Ingredients
- Why You Should Avoid Fast Food at All Costs
Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/19-ingredients-mcdonalds-fries-including-form-silicone-found-silly-putty/#ixzz3Q8l7zNJj
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THIS CHART TELLS A STORY… AMERICA’S MIDDLE CLASS THRIVED AFTER WWII AND DIED UNDER OBAMA
The Davos World Economic Summit has long been a parade for the insider agenda
by MAC SLAVO | SHTFPLAN.COM | JANUARY 28, 2015
The Davos World Economic Summit has long been a parade for the insider agenda, putting the power players’ plans for the world’s economies on display as a preview to their playing out for the rest of the year.
But so far, the 2015 elite retreat in the Swiss Alps has proven to be full of apprehension, and even horror… with many of its own members expressing regret at the world they have built.
The Guardian reported:
The billionaires and corporate oligarchs meeting in Davos this week are getting worried about inequality… even the architects of the crisis-ridden international economic order are starting to see the dangers. It’s not just the maverick hedge-funder George Soros, who likes to describe himself as a class traitor. Paul Polman, Unilever chief executive, frets about the “capitalist threat to capitalism”. Christine Lagarde, the IMF managing director, fears capitalism might indeed carry Marx’s “seeds of its own destruction” and warns that something needs to be done.
The scale of the crisis has been laid out for them by the charity Oxfam. Just 80 individuals now have the same net wealth as 3.5 billion people – half the entire global population. Last year, the best-off 1% owned 48% of the world’s wealth, up from 44% five years ago. On current trends, the richest 1% will have pocketed more than the other 99% put together next year. The 0.1% have been doing even better, quadrupling their share of US income since the 1980s.
These billionaires are not concerned with a fair or truly equitable world, of course. But they may well be concerned about having pushed the system beyond the brink, and triggering global collapse or unrest as a result of things gone way too far.
On top of a bloated super-surveillance police state that is still expanding in the age of Big Data and continuing terrorism, it is a “wealth grab on a grotesque scale” that has stood out the most in 2015.
In 2015, it has become obvious that inequality has become just plain cynical, unsettling and, perhaps, downright revolutionary… and even the insulated, egocentric billionaires have taken notice.
Meanwhile, the Telegraph compiled a set of compelling reasons to think the world has fallen back into crisis, with a global economic meltdown perhaps looming overhead.
Charts compiled from 2014 data showed gloomy numbers in everything from stunted growth, mounting deflation, collapsing oil prices (and with it a collapsing Russian economy), conspicuously low central bank interest rates, mounting debt in Europe and the UK, new waves of the Euro-crises in Greece, Italy and Spain, and shortcomings in previous forecasts for growth by the IMF.
In short… well, things are not looking so great.
Along with the other factors mentioned above, this chart, published by the London Telegraph, shows what has happened to Americans as they struggled to tread water and keep afloat after 2008. For the United States, there have been some signs of improvement, but mostly for those already on top. And the general decline in the global rankings of economic freedom and civil liberties does not complement the widening inequality, either.
It illustrates the dramatic shift from the post World War II years of economic expansion to where we stand now…
As Neil Irwin reported for the NY Times:
Who benefits from rising incomes in an expansion has changed drastically over the last 60 years. Pavlina R. Tcherneva, an economist at Bard College, created a chart that vividly shows how.
Back in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, most of the income gains experienced during expansions — the periods from the trough of one recession until the onset of another — accrued to most of the people. That is to say, the bottom 90 percent of earners captured at least a majority of the rise in income.
With each expansion in sequence, however, the bottom 90 percent captured a smaller share of income gains and the top 10 percent captured more.
Post-WWII and the Burgeoning Middle Class
It’s not that things were ever perfect, but… here’s a glimpse into how most Americans – the “average” American in the middle or lower class was doing, overall, half a century or so ago. With a strong manufacturing and industrial sector, many had the opportunity for a good paying job, a home and some semblance of upward mobility. Not all was rosy, but by the numbers, things were on an even enough keel.
In short, the chart begins in 1949, when the income growth for most Americans outweighed that of the top 10% by a factor of four to one.
The trend gradually declined, moving from 80% of income growth in the bottom 90% in 1949-1953 to just 55% in the years 1975-79.
During those years, most Americans steadily enjoyed relatively high wages and general prosperity.
Energy Crisis and Stagflation of the 1970s
The 1970s represented a turning point, however, with several stages of the oil crisis hitting in 1973 and 1979. Foreign policy led to OPEC hiking energy prices; Americans in turn saw rationing and a rise in the cost of living; middle class wealth and job opportunity took a dive.
The beginning of deindustrialization meant that, more and more, Americans weren’t producing actual goods; manufacturing was in decline, and many good jobs were soon shipped over seas.
Meanwhile, wealth on a global stage flowed through the petrodollar, which was, in turn, recycled on Wall Street, making speculators and banking houses – not good and production – the center of the economic universe.
Deregulation and Unfettered Speculation in the 1980s and 1990s
Thus, the increases in income as wealth changed dramatically in the following decades, starting in the year 1982 and continuing to 2000 and the end of the century.
During the presidencies of Republicans Ronald Reagan and George Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, income growth patterns flipped from their post-war patterns, with the top 10% suddenly outpacing everyone nearly 3-to-1, and regular folks seeing a noticeable decrease in their earnings.
In short, the middle class in decline. And things were getting even worse for those at the bottom.
The deregulation atmosphere of the 80s represented a complete upheaval of the post-war middle class boom.
As Wall Street’s predatory capitalism became the law of the land, a full 80% of income growth went to those at the top, while middle and lower class wealth suddenly staggered to a 29% share.
The 90s continued this trend, with income growth for the bottom 90% dropping to 27%.
This fast-paced era of “free market” (crony) capitalism – as defined and enhanced by Wall Street – only set the stage for what was to come, however.
The Walls Come Down: End of Glass Steagall and Rise of Derivatives Intro 21st Century
For those looking back after the 2008 financial collapse, these are the years in which the Glass Steagall Act, which had separated commercial and investment banking since the 1930s, was repealed with the handiwork of Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, Rubin’s deputy and successor.
Meanwhile, since the mid-90s, the derivatives market was opened up for big business, despite the warnings of such regulators as Brooksley Born, then head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Under these important developments, the cynical years of the George W. Bush presidency – initiated by a Supreme Court decision, and not by the electoral process – became even worse.
Income growth for most people ground to a halt, with the total income growth for the lower and middle classes reaching only 2% (meaning most had no meaningful rise in income at all).
Meanwhile, income growth for the top 10% soared to 98% of all increases. America’s richest took it straight to the bank, in an era of massive speculation during a huge housing bubble that would soon come crashing down.
Much has been said about the 2008 financial crisis, but the “too big to fail” banks were signposts for an opportunistic class of Americans who had profited by their own rules when opportunity was dwindling for most people.
After the brink, when taxpayers bailed out the banks, things became even worse for average Americans who found themselves in the so-called “bottom 90%.”
During the Obama years, when many Americans perceived America’s first black president as redistributing vast amounts of wealth to the lower classes, income dropped sharply, with negative growth for 90% of Americans for the first time since World War II.
There was no such leveling out, but a sharpening of the growing disparity nationwide. Obama is a corporatist, not a socialist.
During the period since 2009, when most Americans saw an average drop of 16% in income, the top 10% increased their wealth by a mind-boggling 116%. Their earnings more than doubled, while the average population struggled with less and less. Things reached a point of total us vs. them…
The Occupy Wall Street crowd called it the 1%, but it is much worse than that. The issue is a tiny, tiny few (numbering only a few thousand) who now effectively own it all.
They make the rules, they break the rules, and, well, they just rule. Period.
Could the picture be any clearer?
This video shows how America’s perception of the wealth gap underplays the reality, and compounds the problems, and further reveals that in reality, the bottom 40% in the United States have, well, next to nothing to show for themselves in terms of economic wealth:
As for the Middle Class – currently dead, in limbo or alternately M.I.A., columnist Harold Meyerson argues:
The extinction of a large and vibrant American middle class isn’t ordained by the laws of either economics or physics. Many of the impediments to creating anew a broadly prosperous America are ultimately political creations that are susceptible to political remedy. Amassing the power to secure those remedies will require an extraordinary, sustained, and heroic political mobilization. Americans will have to transform their anxiety into indignation and direct that indignation to the task of reclaiming their stake in the nation’s future.
Perhaps that means the Middle Class could be once again revived, if ever sanity reentered the picture, if the bums were kicked out and those guilty of outright treason in the financial and political arenas were finally rounded up and held accountable.
But don’t hold your breath… just hold onto what you’ve got, if you can.
Obamacare program costs $50,000 in taxpayer money for every American who gets health insurance, says bombshell budget report
- Stunning figure comes from Congressional Budget Office report that revised cost estimates for the next 10 years
- Government will spend $1.993 TRILLION over a decade and take in $643 BILLION in new taxes, penalties and fees related to Obamacare
- The $1.35 trillion net cost will result in 'between 24 million and 27 million' fewer Americans being uninsured – a $50,000 price tag per person at best
- The law will still leave 'between 29 million and 31 million' nonelderly Americans without medical insurance
- Numbers assume Obamacare insurance exchange enrollment will double between now and 2025
By DAVID MARTOSKO, US POLITICAL EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 16:38 EST, 26 January 2015 | UPDATED: 18:32 EST, 26 January 2015
It will cost the federal government – taxpayers, that is – $50,000 for every person who gets health insurance under the Obamacare law, the Congressional Budget Office revealed on Monday.
The number comes from figures buried in a 15-page section of the nonpartisan organization's new ten-year budget outlook.
The best-case scenario described by the CBO would result in 'between 24 million and 27 million' fewer Americans being uninsured in 2025, compared to the year before the Affordable Care Act took effect.
Pulling that off will cost Uncle Sam about $1.35 trillion – or $50,000 per head.
SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE REPORT
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THE $2 TRILLION DOLLAR MAN: President Barack Obama was in India on Monday when the Congressional Budget Office reported the federal government's gross costs for a decade of Obamacare will be $1.993 trillion
+3
PROMISES: Obama pledged in 2009 during a speech before a joint session of Congress that his health insurance proposal would cost $900 billion over ten years – a far cry short of current numbers
The numbers are daunting: It will take $1.993 trillion, a number that looks like $1,993,000,000,000, to provide insurance subsidies to poor and middle-class Americans, and to pay for a massive expansion of Medicaid and CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program) costs.
Offsetting that massive outlay will be $643 billion in new taxes, penalties and fees related to the Obamacare law.
That revenue includes quickly escalating penalties – or 'taxes,' as the U.S. Supreme Court described them – on people who resist Washington's command to buy medical insurance.
It also includes income from a controversial medical device tax, which some Republicans predict will be eliminated in the next two years.
If they're right, Obamacare's per-person cost would be even higher.
President Barack Obama pledged to members of Congress in 2009, as his signature insurance overhaul law was being hotly debated, that 'the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years.'
It would be a significant discount if the White House could return to that number today.
Obama in '09: Obamacare won't add one dime to deficit PRICEY: The federal government will spend $50,000 for each person recruited to buy insurance or neroll in free Medicaid through the Obamacare exchanges In that same speech, Obama claimed that there were 'more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.' $900 billion spent on those people would equate to no more than $30,000 each – less than two-thirds of what the CBO now says the program will cost when the dust settles. The CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation, a group of members from both houses of Congress, prepared Monday's report on the overall direction of the federal budget. They estimated that 'the net costs of the coverage provisions of the ACA [Affordable Care Act] will rise sharply as the effects of the act phase in from 2015 through 2017.' Those costs will 'rise steadily through 2022' before leveling off for three years, the groups' economists determined. But even at that point, the Obamacare program will cost the governemnt 'about $145 billion' each year. That number doesn't include the insurance premiums and out-of-pocket health care costs paid by Americans – only the government's role in implementing the law and paying for its guarantees. And the law will still leave 'between 29 million and 31 million' nonelderly Americans without medical insurance, says the CBO. 
Exclusive: Spending- why 'red' states shoulder the deepest cuts under Tyrant Obama | Reuters
Exclusive: Spending- why 'red' states shoulder the deepest cuts under Obama | Reuters
BY ANDY SULLIVAN
WASHINGTON Wed Jan 28, 2015 10:26am EST
Red states see the deepest cuts under Obama
Jan 28 (Reuters) - As Washington has tightened its belt in recent years, the budget cuts have sliced most deeply in states where President Obama is unpopular, according to an analysis of federal spending by Reuters.
Between the 2009 and 2013 fiscal years, funding for a wide swath of discretionary grant programs, from Head Start preschool education to anti drug initiatives, fell by an average of 40 percent in Republican-leaning states like Texas and Mississippi.
By contrast, funding to Democratic-leaning states such as California and politically competitive swing states like Ohio dropped by 25 percent.
Though Congress sets overall spending levels, the Obama administration determines where much of that money ends up. Lawmakers also have curtailed their ability to direct money to their home states when they adopted a ban on spending in 2011 known as "earmarks."
That has given administration officials more power to steer money to places that might return the favor with votes, said John Hudak, an expert on federal spending at the centrist Brookings Institution who worked with Reuters on the analysis.
"In the context of the Obama administration, swing states and blue states are doing better than red states," said Hudak, who uncovered similar spending patterns by previous presidents in his book "Presidential Pork."
"I would suggest these numbers would tell us there is politicization going on," he said.
For the analysis, Reuters divided the U.S. into three categories: Republican-leaning "red" states where Obama got less than 45 percent of the vote in the 2012 election; competitive "purple" states where he won between 45 percent and 55 percent of the vote; and Democratic-leaning "blue" states where he won more than 55 percent of the vote.
Red, purple and blue states have all shouldered steep spending cuts after a 2011 budget deal, the analysis found. But those cuts have not been doled out evenly.
Discretionary grant funding to red states like Mississippi fell by 40 percent to $15 billion between fiscal 2009 and fiscal 2013, the most recent year for which reliable figures are available. Purple states like Ohio and North Carolina saw a smaller drop of 27 percent, to $19.8 billion, and blue states saw a yet-smaller drop of 22.5 percent, to $27.6 billion. (The tally does not include disaster aid handed out after Hurricane Sandy, which went largely to blue states like New Jersey.)
The disparity doesn't show up in payments like Medicaid that are distributed through pre-set formulas. It also does not appear in Obama's 2009 recession-fighting Recovery Act. It only shows up in federal aid that is most directly controlled by the administration: "project grants," which are doled out on a competitive basis by career civil servants and political appointees.
Of course, many factors other than politics come into play. Some states aren't good at writing grant proposals - researchers at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, for example, found that poor planning has hurt that state's ability to compete for federal dollars. A governor from an oil-producing state may be less inclined to pursue green-energy grants.
But the disparity can't be fully explained by these factors. At Reuters' request, Hudak ran a statistical analysis of spending over this period, controlling for differences in population,economy, percentage of elderly residents, miles of federal highway and the number of research universities and hospitals.
Red states still came up short. After 2011, the average red state got 15 percent fewer grants and 1.3 percent fewer grant dollars than the average swing state. That comes out to roughly 500 grants and $15 million for an average-sized red state like Tennessee - enough to pay for 115 additional police officers or upgrade a rural airport to handle larger planes.
PLAYING POLITICS
Veterans of both Democratic and Republican administrations say privately that politics often come into play with such grants. Money to help upgrade a train depot may not boost a president's approval rating in a state where he is deeply unpopular, but it might make a difference in a competitive state like Colorado.
This approach isn't unique to Obama. Under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Hudak found that purple states got about 7.3 percent more grants and 5.7 percent more grant dollars than states that were firmly in one camp.
The Obama administration did not explain why Republican-leaning states have borne the steepest budget cuts, and several Democratic lawmakers declined to comment.
"The administration supports allocating federal grants based on objecting criteria that will help protect taxpayer dollars and ensure that lawmakers are responsible and accountable to the American people," the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement to Reuters.
Project grants, which totaled $74 billion in the fiscal year ending September 2013, help pay for everything from homeless assistance to agricultural research. But they are also a good publicity tool for a president looking to show voters how he's making a difference in their communities.
As Obama ran for re-election in 2012, administration officials traveled to battleground states to announce good news: $45 million for a manufacturing research center in Ohio; $8.2 million for a tech incubator in Gainesville, Florida; $18 million to extend a rail system in Charlotte, North Carolina. Each generated favorable coverage in local news outlets.
Those announcements were less common in states where Obama had no hope of winning over his Republican rival Mitt Romney.
Ohio, a key battleground state, won 10,232 grants in the fiscal year that ended in September 2012, just before the election - an increase of 21 percent over fiscal 2009. Ruby-red Texas saw the number of grants it was awarded over that period drop by 37 percent, to 10,775, according to Reuters figures.
In dollar terms, according to Reuters data, the difference was just as dramatic. Grant money for Texas dropped 43 percent, to $4.0 billion, over that time period. Dollars to Ohio declined 16.5 percent, to $2.0 billion.
EARMARK NOSTALGIA
The big problem for lawmakers? They lost their ability to influence the flow of that money. Before the earmark ban, states with elected officials who oversee spending on the Senate Appropriations Committee got about 7.6 percent more grant dollars than other states, Hudak found. After the 2011 earmark ban, evidence of clout disappeared.
Republican Representative John Culberson used to insert earmarks into spending bills to steer medical research and other projects to his Houston-area district. Since the ban took effect, he says he's had trouble getting the administration to pay for border control, harbor dredging and even send aid to mop up after a chemical plant explosion.
"The Obama administration approaches the federal government the same way the Chicago machine politicians approach the Chicago public treasury: it's to be used for their own benefit," he said.
Some Republicans worry they've handed too much control to the administration. But Congress, under the watch of Republican House Speaker John Boehner, isn't likely to lift the earmark ban any time soon.
"Speaker Boehner is proud of the reforms we have put in place," spokesman Michael Steel said, "and believes more should be done to ensure that Washington makes responsible decisions about taxpayers' money."
(Reporting by Andy Sullivan)
BY ANDY SULLIVAN
WASHINGTON Wed Jan 28, 2015 10:26am EST
Red states see the deepest cuts under Obama
Jan 28 (Reuters) - As Washington has tightened its belt in recent years, the budget cuts have sliced most deeply in states where President Obama is unpopular, according to an analysis of federal spending by Reuters.
Between the 2009 and 2013 fiscal years, funding for a wide swath of discretionary grant programs, from Head Start preschool education to anti drug initiatives, fell by an average of 40 percent in Republican-leaning states like Texas and Mississippi.
By contrast, funding to Democratic-leaning states such as California and politically competitive swing states like Ohio dropped by 25 percent.
Though Congress sets overall spending levels, the Obama administration determines where much of that money ends up. Lawmakers also have curtailed their ability to direct money to their home states when they adopted a ban on spending in 2011 known as "earmarks."
That has given administration officials more power to steer money to places that might return the favor with votes, said John Hudak, an expert on federal spending at the centrist Brookings Institution who worked with Reuters on the analysis.
"In the context of the Obama administration, swing states and blue states are doing better than red states," said Hudak, who uncovered similar spending patterns by previous presidents in his book "Presidential Pork."
"I would suggest these numbers would tell us there is politicization going on," he said.
For the analysis, Reuters divided the U.S. into three categories: Republican-leaning "red" states where Obama got less than 45 percent of the vote in the 2012 election; competitive "purple" states where he won between 45 percent and 55 percent of the vote; and Democratic-leaning "blue" states where he won more than 55 percent of the vote.
Red, purple and blue states have all shouldered steep spending cuts after a 2011 budget deal, the analysis found. But those cuts have not been doled out evenly.
Discretionary grant funding to red states like Mississippi fell by 40 percent to $15 billion between fiscal 2009 and fiscal 2013, the most recent year for which reliable figures are available. Purple states like Ohio and North Carolina saw a smaller drop of 27 percent, to $19.8 billion, and blue states saw a yet-smaller drop of 22.5 percent, to $27.6 billion. (The tally does not include disaster aid handed out after Hurricane Sandy, which went largely to blue states like New Jersey.)
The disparity doesn't show up in payments like Medicaid that are distributed through pre-set formulas. It also does not appear in Obama's 2009 recession-fighting Recovery Act. It only shows up in federal aid that is most directly controlled by the administration: "project grants," which are doled out on a competitive basis by career civil servants and political appointees.
Of course, many factors other than politics come into play. Some states aren't good at writing grant proposals - researchers at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, for example, found that poor planning has hurt that state's ability to compete for federal dollars. A governor from an oil-producing state may be less inclined to pursue green-energy grants.
But the disparity can't be fully explained by these factors. At Reuters' request, Hudak ran a statistical analysis of spending over this period, controlling for differences in population,economy, percentage of elderly residents, miles of federal highway and the number of research universities and hospitals.
Red states still came up short. After 2011, the average red state got 15 percent fewer grants and 1.3 percent fewer grant dollars than the average swing state. That comes out to roughly 500 grants and $15 million for an average-sized red state like Tennessee - enough to pay for 115 additional police officers or upgrade a rural airport to handle larger planes.
PLAYING POLITICS
Veterans of both Democratic and Republican administrations say privately that politics often come into play with such grants. Money to help upgrade a train depot may not boost a president's approval rating in a state where he is deeply unpopular, but it might make a difference in a competitive state like Colorado.
This approach isn't unique to Obama. Under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Hudak found that purple states got about 7.3 percent more grants and 5.7 percent more grant dollars than states that were firmly in one camp.
The Obama administration did not explain why Republican-leaning states have borne the steepest budget cuts, and several Democratic lawmakers declined to comment.
"The administration supports allocating federal grants based on objecting criteria that will help protect taxpayer dollars and ensure that lawmakers are responsible and accountable to the American people," the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement to Reuters.
Project grants, which totaled $74 billion in the fiscal year ending September 2013, help pay for everything from homeless assistance to agricultural research. But they are also a good publicity tool for a president looking to show voters how he's making a difference in their communities.
As Obama ran for re-election in 2012, administration officials traveled to battleground states to announce good news: $45 million for a manufacturing research center in Ohio; $8.2 million for a tech incubator in Gainesville, Florida; $18 million to extend a rail system in Charlotte, North Carolina. Each generated favorable coverage in local news outlets.
Those announcements were less common in states where Obama had no hope of winning over his Republican rival Mitt Romney.
Ohio, a key battleground state, won 10,232 grants in the fiscal year that ended in September 2012, just before the election - an increase of 21 percent over fiscal 2009. Ruby-red Texas saw the number of grants it was awarded over that period drop by 37 percent, to 10,775, according to Reuters figures.
In dollar terms, according to Reuters data, the difference was just as dramatic. Grant money for Texas dropped 43 percent, to $4.0 billion, over that time period. Dollars to Ohio declined 16.5 percent, to $2.0 billion.
EARMARK NOSTALGIA
The big problem for lawmakers? They lost their ability to influence the flow of that money. Before the earmark ban, states with elected officials who oversee spending on the Senate Appropriations Committee got about 7.6 percent more grant dollars than other states, Hudak found. After the 2011 earmark ban, evidence of clout disappeared.
Republican Representative John Culberson used to insert earmarks into spending bills to steer medical research and other projects to his Houston-area district. Since the ban took effect, he says he's had trouble getting the administration to pay for border control, harbor dredging and even send aid to mop up after a chemical plant explosion.
"The Obama administration approaches the federal government the same way the Chicago machine politicians approach the Chicago public treasury: it's to be used for their own benefit," he said.
Some Republicans worry they've handed too much control to the administration. But Congress, under the watch of Republican House Speaker John Boehner, isn't likely to lift the earmark ban any time soon.
"Speaker Boehner is proud of the reforms we have put in place," spokesman Michael Steel said, "and believes more should be done to ensure that Washington makes responsible decisions about taxpayers' money."
(Reporting by Andy Sullivan)
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
UK GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCES PLAN TO REMOTELY CONTROL VEHICLES
http://www.infowars.com/uk-government-announces-plan-to-remotely-control-vehicles/
State to seize control of cars via wi-fi sensors to reduce "traffic congestion" & global warming
by PAUL JOSEPH WATSON | JANUARY 27, 2015
The UK government today announced a plan to remotely control vehicles on roads using wi-fi technology in order to reduce traffic and offset global warming, the latest manifestation of the ‘Internet of Things’ that will stir up concern amongst privacy advocates.
A report released today by Ofcom, the government-controlled body which regulates communications in the United Kingdom, lays out a blueprint that could be realized in as soon as 10 years where cars would communicate with each other to “reduce congestion”.
The proposals are being billed by some media outlets as a means of solving traffic jams and taking the stress out of finding a parking space, while also serving to reduce “greenhouse gases” and offset global warming.
However, buried in the report is a detail that will horrify many libertarians and privacy advocates. The state plans to achieve this new high-tech solution by fitting sensors in all cars that would wirelessly send information to a “central traffic control system”. The control system would then react by imposing remote speed limits on each vehicle, a “shockwave effect” which would cause each one to brake and accelerate in unison.
In other words, in the name of reducing traffic and helping the environment, the government could at any time seize control of your vehicle against your will.
Such a system would also obviously empower the government to keep a flawless and permanent database of the precise travel details of every single driver in the country, which would likely be utilized for criminal investigations.
“M2M sensors in cars and on the roads monitor the build up of congestion and wirelessly send this information to a central traffic control system, which automatically impose variable speed limits that smooth the flow of traffic,” states Ofcom. “This system could also communicate directly with cars, directing them along diverted routes to avoid the congestion and even managing their speed.”
“M2M sensors could also be attached to the mechanical parts of a car, such as ABS wheel rotation sensors to measure speed. This information could be wirelessly communicated to nearby cars, which have onboard computers that process and react to this information.”
Image: Ofcom
Car manufacturer Nissan is also developing a similar system to be implemented in Japan.
The blueprint was revealed at the same time it emerged that the U.S. Justice Department had built a national database for real-time tracking of vehicles, “a secret domestic intelligence-gathering program that scans and stores hundreds of millions of records about motorists,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
The proposal serves to underscore the privacy and civil liberties threat posed by so-called “smart technology” and the ‘Internet of Things’.
In a 2012 Wired Magazine interview, former CIA director David Petraeus hailed the advent of every device being connected to the Internet as a transformational boon for “clandestine tradecraft”.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com.
» Double Standard: CIA Leaks and Planted News Stories Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
by KURT NIMMO | INFOWARS.COM | JANUARY 27, 2015
On Monday, a former CIA employee, Jeffrey Sterling, was convicted of giving classified information to a New York Times reporter.
The leak concerned an effort by the CIA to sabotage plans for an Iranian nuclear reactor.
“The disclosures placed lives at risk,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “And they constituted an egregious breach of the public trust by someone who had sworn to uphold it.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Udo Ulfkotte, the editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, says the CIA routinely plants stories in the establishment media, including stories that are not only untrue, but resulted in the death of thousands of people.
Ralph Lopez writes for Digital Journal:
Among the stories Ulfkotte says he was ordered to plant in his newspaper over the years was a story that Libyan President Moammar Gaddafi was building poison gas factories in 2011.
Bogus chemical weapons stories appeared in the media prior to the invasion of Libya that ultimately resulted in the death of 30,000 people.
Similar fake stories used as war propaganda in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq were summarily dismissed as “intelligence failures.”
While Holder and the U.S. justice system claim Mr. Sterling’s leak to the media constitutes “an egregious breach of the public trust,” no such criticism is directed at the CIA, which has controlled the corporate media for decades.
In fact, CIA control of the media is viewed as perfectly normal.
“From the Agency’s perspective, there is nothing untoward in such relationships, and any ethical questions are a matter for the journalistic profession to resolve, not the intelligence community,” renowned journalistCarl Bernstein wrote in the late 1970s after revelations by the Church Committee.
On Monday, a former CIA employee, Jeffrey Sterling, was convicted of giving classified information to a New York Times reporter.
The leak concerned an effort by the CIA to sabotage plans for an Iranian nuclear reactor.
“The disclosures placed lives at risk,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “And they constituted an egregious breach of the public trust by someone who had sworn to uphold it.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Udo Ulfkotte, the editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, says the CIA routinely plants stories in the establishment media, including stories that are not only untrue, but resulted in the death of thousands of people.
Ralph Lopez writes for Digital Journal:
Among the stories Ulfkotte says he was ordered to plant in his newspaper over the years was a story that Libyan President Moammar Gaddafi was building poison gas factories in 2011.
Bogus chemical weapons stories appeared in the media prior to the invasion of Libya that ultimately resulted in the death of 30,000 people.
Similar fake stories used as war propaganda in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq were summarily dismissed as “intelligence failures.”
While Holder and the U.S. justice system claim Mr. Sterling’s leak to the media constitutes “an egregious breach of the public trust,” no such criticism is directed at the CIA, which has controlled the corporate media for decades.
In fact, CIA control of the media is viewed as perfectly normal.
“From the Agency’s perspective, there is nothing untoward in such relationships, and any ethical questions are a matter for the journalistic profession to resolve, not the intelligence community,” renowned journalistCarl Bernstein wrote in the late 1970s after revelations by the Church Committee.
The actual scope and severity of CIA control of the corporate media, however, will never be known, as Bernstein wrote:
During the 1976 investigation of the CIA by the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Senator Frank Church, the dimensions of the Agency’s involvement with the press became apparent to several members of the panel, as well as to two or three investigators on the staff. But top officials of the CIA, including former directors William Colby and George Bush, persuaded the committee to restrict its inquiry into the matter and to deliberately misrepresent the actual scope of the activities in its final report. The multivolurne report contains nine pages in which the use of journalists is discussed in deliberately vague and sometimes misleading terms. It makes no mention of the actual number of journalists who undertook covert tasks for the CIA. Nor does it adequately describe the role played by newspaper and broadcast executives in cooperating with the Agency.
During the 1976 investigation of the CIA by the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Senator Frank Church, the dimensions of the Agency’s involvement with the press became apparent to several members of the panel, as well as to two or three investigators on the staff. But top officials of the CIA, including former directors William Colby and George Bush, persuaded the committee to restrict its inquiry into the matter and to deliberately misrepresent the actual scope of the activities in its final report. The multivolurne report contains nine pages in which the use of journalists is discussed in deliberately vague and sometimes misleading terms. It makes no mention of the actual number of journalists who undertook covert tasks for the CIA. Nor does it adequately describe the role played by newspaper and broadcast executives in cooperating with the Agency.
A 5-Year-Old Girl Just Died of the Very Strain of Flu She Was Vaccinated Against
Melissa Melton
Activist Post
Cue the pro-vaccine crowd’s b.s. arguments as to why this is doesn’t matter and we should all keep taking the risk shooting up our children in the hopes this won’t happen to us.
Via Daily Mail:A five-year-old girl has died in hospital three days after developing a strain of the flu that she was vaccinated against – as a deadly outbreak of the virus continues to sweep across the country.The vaccine… didn’t magically save her. Why? Because vaccines are not magical saviors (despite what Big Pharma and its biggest customer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would have people believe).
Keira Driscoll was prescribed steroids and a nebulizer at a Quick Care clinic after she started feeling unwell with a cough and a fever at her home in Clark County, Las Vegas, last Sunday.
But just hours later, she collapsed. Her mother, Tiffany Driscoll, frantically performed CPR on her small body, before she was rushed to hospital. There, she was found to have influenza A.
Despite medics’ best efforts, Keira could not be resuscitated and she was placed on life support. On Tuesday, her parents made the heartbreaking decision to turn off the machine the next day.
The CDC just got done admitting last week that more than 3/4ths of the people who take the shot this year are going to get the flu anyway but the agency stupidly continues to tell people to get the shot they admit probably won’t protect them from diddly squat!
Why? Someone has money to make, obviously.
That’s after the CDC admitted this year’s flu vaccine is the wrong strain. They’re saying it’s maybe 23% effective. Not very good odds and, yet again, like we live in crazy land, they’re still telling people to get the shot anyway even though they know it’s ineffective.
The seasonal flu isn’t supposed to be “deadly” anyway, just by the way. The reason so many things like the flu or even measles are deadly these days is because so many people are nutritionally deficient. Maybe if our food wasn’t junk, and our water and air weren’t poisoned, we’d be hearing a lot less of these stories in the first place.
The fact of the matter is, even the studies that have come out to compare vaccinated with unvaccinated people have shown that the flu vaccine is not nearly as effective in people who have received previous flu vaccines! This study, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, looked at 7,315 enrollments during eight seasons and ultimately found:Vaccine-induced protection was greatest for individuals not vaccinated during the prior 5 years.
Wait … WHAT?
Here are the details:In the analysis using 5 years of historical vaccination data, current season vaccine effectiveness (VE) against H3N2 was significantly higher among vaccinated individuals with no prior vaccination history (65%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 36%–80%) compared with vaccinated individuals with a frequent vaccination history (24%; 95% CI, 3%–41%; P = .01). VE against B was 75% (95% CI, 50%–87%) and 48% (95% CI, 29%–62%), respectively (P = .05). Similar findings were observed when analysis was restricted to adults 18–49 years.Let’s just take that first number against H3N2. Sixty-five percent? That’s the general rate of vaccine effectiveness? Well WOO HOO. What about the other 45%???Sixty-five percent isn’t even that high anyway considering these people are taking a shot filled with chemicals and heavy metals that bypasses their natural immune systems and all the risks that go along with that. But that 65% protection is for unvaccinated people.
Check out the protection for the good little citizens who take their government-recommended flu cocktail every year: 24%.
ONLY TWENTY-FOUR PERCENT.
Even against flu strain B, those same vaccinated people only get 48% protection.
How well does that bode for people running around like chickens with their heads cut off shrieking, “Don’t forget to get your flu vaccine every year or you’ll die THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING AHHHHHH!!!”
Think about if you bought anything and it only worked 24% or 48% of the time…? Wouldn’t you throw that piece of crap in the garbage or return it to the store for a refund? Or would you just dutifully keep buying pieces of crap that suck?
Well, too late with a vaccine; you already shot yourself up with heavy metals, antibiotics, genetically modified viruses, preservatives like formaldehyde and emulsifiers like polysorbate 80 — which has been linked to gastrointestinal problems, heart attacks, strokes, impaired immunity and tumor growth for starters — and which studies have shown helps all the other chemicals in said shot more easily bypass your blood brain barrier and permeate your gut.
In fact, this whole situation has caused a flu vaccine “paradox”:Pharmaceutical companies and the larger medical community absolutely don’t want studies conducted that compare the health of unvaccinated individuals to those who get regular vaccines – even when they find a troubling “paradox.” Yet, this story showing the results of seasonal flu vaccines can already show a link to unintended consequences.No, it doesn’t make any sense. It never did. It never will.
They say since building more sensitive immune testing equipment, that they haven’t seen increase in (seasonal?) flu illnesses among vaccine recipients versus unvaccinated individuals. They are dubbing it a “blunted protection to seasonal flu.” From CBC:But researchers in several countries have found a blunting or “interference” effect between previous seasonal vaccines and reduced levels of vaccine protection in later years for some strains.
What?? If vaccines are supposed to “immunize” or give the immune system a boost, and the CDC in the U.S. is telling everyone to go ahead and get ineffective flu vaccines for added protection – then how can past vaccines run “interference” and knock out the effects of future vaccines? This attempt at damage control doesn’t make any sense…. [emphasis added]
Even though this little girl died from the very strain of flu the people who sold her parents the vaccination promised it would protect their baby from, the establishment media is pathetically still trying to twist this in a pro-vaccaination agenda light, calling this year’s flu season a “deadly epidemic” and scaremongering just like they always do every single year per the script.
You know how many kids have died of the flu (children who likely already had compromised immune systems and other health issues to begin with) this year? Fifty-six.
You want to know what a real “deadly epidemic” is?
Try 100,000 people dying EVERY YEAR after taking pharmaceutical drugs AS PRESCRIBED. (That doesn’t even begin to count the thousands who die from abusing their prescriptions or we’d be here all day.)
Every time someone dies it’s sad, especially when a child passes away who was just starting to live her life, but ask yourself, “Which of these things is a real deadly epidemic?” (Hint: It’s not the flu.)
But hey, go get your vaccines because the government, which was forced to admit the vaccines don’t even work this year, said so.
Melissa Melton is a writer, researcher, and analyst for The Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared, and a co-creator of Truthstream Media with Aaron Dykes, a site that offers teleprompter-free, unscripted analysis of The Matrix we find ourselves living in. Melissa also co-founded Nutritional Anarchy with Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper, a site focused on resistance through food self-sufficiency. Wake the flock up!
A 5-Year-Old Girl Just Died of the Very Strain of Flu She Was Vaccinated Against
Activist
Tue, 27 Jan 2015 15:06:00 GMT
Sunday, January 25, 2015
» Greek Anti-EU Party Wins Election Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
» Greek Anti-EU Party Wins Election Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
Greek people vote to throw out the banksters
by INFOWARS.COM | JANUARY 25, 2015
A coalition party comprised of independent politicians, including democratic socialists, left-wing populist and green left groups, in addition to Maoist, Trotskyist, eurocommunist and eurosceptic elements has won the general election in Greece.
“It is a historic victory, we still have to see if it will be a big historic victory,” Syriza spokesman Panos Skourletis told Greece’s Mega TV.
“It sends a message against austerity and in favor of dignity and democracy.”
“Bluntly rejecting the punishing economics of austerity, Greece on Sunday appeared poised to send a warning signal to the rest of Europe as exit polls showed the left-wing, anti-austerity Syriza party with a strong lead in national elections as the party’s tough-talking, charismatic leader, Alexis Tsipras, seemed certain to become the country’s next prime minister,” The New York Times reports.
The so-called “troika,” the tripartite committee led by the European Commission with the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, bailed out the Greek government in 2010 and 2012 to the tune of 240 billion euros (or $283 billion).
Austerity measures included in the bailout include wage cuts for public sector employees, cuts to monthly pensions, cuts to health and education spending, and increased taxes across the board, including a value-added tax increase.
Additionally, the Greek government promised to sell off its Hellenic Telecom to Deutsche Telekom for 400 million euros and selling stakes in various banks, utilities, ports, airports and land holdings.
The austerity measures led to widespread demonstrations in Greece, including 100,000 peaceful protesters gathering before the Greek parliament in 2011.
Greek people vote to throw out the banksters
by INFOWARS.COM | JANUARY 25, 2015
A coalition party comprised of independent politicians, including democratic socialists, left-wing populist and green left groups, in addition to Maoist, Trotskyist, eurocommunist and eurosceptic elements has won the general election in Greece.
“It is a historic victory, we still have to see if it will be a big historic victory,” Syriza spokesman Panos Skourletis told Greece’s Mega TV.
“It sends a message against austerity and in favor of dignity and democracy.”
“Bluntly rejecting the punishing economics of austerity, Greece on Sunday appeared poised to send a warning signal to the rest of Europe as exit polls showed the left-wing, anti-austerity Syriza party with a strong lead in national elections as the party’s tough-talking, charismatic leader, Alexis Tsipras, seemed certain to become the country’s next prime minister,” The New York Times reports.
Greeks elect new parliament amid EU withdrawal concerns
The so-called “troika,” the tripartite committee led by the European Commission with the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, bailed out the Greek government in 2010 and 2012 to the tune of 240 billion euros (or $283 billion).
Austerity measures included in the bailout include wage cuts for public sector employees, cuts to monthly pensions, cuts to health and education spending, and increased taxes across the board, including a value-added tax increase.
Additionally, the Greek government promised to sell off its Hellenic Telecom to Deutsche Telekom for 400 million euros and selling stakes in various banks, utilities, ports, airports and land holdings.
The austerity measures led to widespread demonstrations in Greece, including 100,000 peaceful protesters gathering before the Greek parliament in 2011.
CDC's Own Data: Vaccine-Infant Death Link | GreenMedInfo | Blog Entry
CDC's Own Data: Vaccine-Infant Death Link | GreenMedInfo | Blog Entry
Posted on: Friday, January 23rd 2015 at 1:45 pm
Written By: Sayer Ji, Founder
The CDC's own research has found that the long denied vaccine-SIDS link is real.
If you believe the official pronouncements of top governmental health agencies like the CDC and FDA, all the vaccines in the present day schedule are a priori safe and effective.
Not only are you told that they can't harm you, but that not taking them can kill you.
Parents are under even more pressure. They are told that refraining from vaccinating their infants or children will greatly increase their risk of dying or being disabled. Worse, they are increasingly labeled as 'crazy' and 'irresponsible' anti-vaccine zealots who are putting the lives of others in danger.
But what happens when the actual evidence from the scientific and clinical literature produced by these very agencies contradicts their own vaccine policies?
This is exactly what has happened with the publication of a new study in the Journal of Pediatrics titled ,"Adverse Events following Haemophilus influenzae Type b Vaccines in the Vaccine Adverse Event ReportingSystem, 1990-2013," wherein CDC and FDA researchers identify 749 deaths linked to the administration of the Hib vaccine, 51% of which were sudden infant death linked to the administration of Hib vaccine.
The CDC has boldly denied that there is any evidence supporting a causal link between vaccines and infant death, despite the fact that their own webpage on the topic acknowledges that "From 2 to 4 months old, babies begin their primary course of vaccinations. This is also the peak age for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)." Written off as coincidence, the CDC suggests that stomach sleeping is the primary modifiable risk factor.
Because SIDS is the 3rd leading cause of death in infants, and because the U.S. has one of thehighest infant mortality rates in the developed world, one would think that more progress would have been made toward understanding its causes. Perhaps, as explored in this past article, the signal of harm is being ignored. Neglect and suppression of available data has recently been exposed with the confession of a top CDC vaccine scientist who was compelled to covered up data revealing an autism-MMR link in African-American boys.
In the new study, the CDC and FDA researchers themselves acknowledge "the scarcity" of postlicensure safety data on HiB vaccines in today's vaccination schedule. They evaluated reports involving the currently licensed Hib vaccines received from January 1, 1990, through December 1, 2013 available on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
Presently, the CDC recommends 4 doses of the HiB vaccine at the following ages: 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 12 months through 15 months.
The HiB vaccine is described on the CDC website as "very safe" and "effective" at preventing HiB disease, which it states can be deadly. They list "most common side effects as usually mild and last 2 or 3 days," including "redness, swelling, and warmth where the child got the shot" and "fever". Nowhere is there listed death or disability as a possible side effect.
In stark contrast to these statements the study uncovered the following highly concerning results:
VAERS received 29,747 reports after Hib vaccines; 5179 (17%) were serious, including 896 reports of deaths. Median age was 6 months (range 0-10.22 months). Sudden infant death syndrome was the stated cause of death in 384 (51%) of 749 death reports with autopsy/death certificate records. The most common nondeath serious AE categories were neurologic (80; 37%), other noninfectious (46; 22%) (comprising mainly constitutional signs and symptoms); and gastrointestinal (39; 18%) conditions. No new safety concerns were identified after clinical review of reports of AEs that exceeded the data mining statistical threshold.
Consider also that VAERS is a passive surveillance system, which suffers from profound underreporting. According to the VAERS site's own disclaimer:
"Underreporting" is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS. The term, underreporting refers to the fact that VAERS receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events. The degree of underreporting varies widely. As an example, a great many of the millions of vaccinations administered each year by injection cause soreness, but relatively few of these episodes lead to a VAERS report.
According to Barbara Loe Fisher, founder of the National Vaccination Information Center, underreporting may result in overlooking 99% or higher of all vaccine associated injuries:
"Former FDA Commissioner David Kessler estimated in a 1993 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that fewer than 1 percent of all doctors report injuries and deaths following the administration of prescription drugs. This estimate may be even lower for vaccines. In one survey that our organization conducted in New York in 1994, only 1 doctor in 40 reported to VAERS."
Considering the influence of underreporting, these deaths represent only the tip of the iceberg of vaccine-induced infant morbidity and mortality caused by HiB vaccines. The study also mentioned an earlier analysis which found that infant death is the most common cause of death reported by all vaccine linked reports on VAERS, "accounting for almost one-half of all deaths reported."
Obviously, this is an appalling study. The death of even 1 child for a potentially ineffective medical intervention designed to prevent a rarely fatal illness is a tragedy. Nor can any single vaccine be proven to have prevented any single case of disease because the clinical outcome (end point) is a non-event. This is not the case, however, for vaccine side effects which can be linked directly to the vaccination event with plausible scientific mechanisms.
What is perhaps most astounding is the researcher's conclusion:
"Review of VAERS reports did not identify any new or unexpected safety concerns for Hib vaccines."
This callous disregard for the evidence -- evidence that clearly shows the CDC misrepresents the safety of the HiB vaccine -- speaks to the blind investment in vaccine policy decisions over human wellbeing. Millions of parents have listened to the CDC and FDA and believed that these vaccines not only work but are safe. Informed consent requires those undergoing a quasi-mandatory medical intervention like vaccination to know the true risks associated with it. Failing to do so is clearly a violation of this medical ethical protection against being abused, and in some cases disabled and even killed.
Sayer Ji is the founder of GreenMedInfo.com, an author, educator, Steering Committee Member of the Global GMO Free Coalition (GGFC), and an advisory board member of the National Health Federation.
He founded Greenmedinfo.com in 2008 in order to provide the world an open access, evidence-based resource supporting natural and integrative modalities. It is widely recognized as the most widely referenced health resource of its kind.
Posted on: Friday, January 23rd 2015 at 1:45 pm
Written By: Sayer Ji, Founder
The CDC's own research has found that the long denied vaccine-SIDS link is real.
If you believe the official pronouncements of top governmental health agencies like the CDC and FDA, all the vaccines in the present day schedule are a priori safe and effective.
Not only are you told that they can't harm you, but that not taking them can kill you.
Parents are under even more pressure. They are told that refraining from vaccinating their infants or children will greatly increase their risk of dying or being disabled. Worse, they are increasingly labeled as 'crazy' and 'irresponsible' anti-vaccine zealots who are putting the lives of others in danger.
But what happens when the actual evidence from the scientific and clinical literature produced by these very agencies contradicts their own vaccine policies?
This is exactly what has happened with the publication of a new study in the Journal of Pediatrics titled ,"Adverse Events following Haemophilus influenzae Type b Vaccines in the Vaccine Adverse Event ReportingSystem, 1990-2013," wherein CDC and FDA researchers identify 749 deaths linked to the administration of the Hib vaccine, 51% of which were sudden infant death linked to the administration of Hib vaccine.
The CDC has boldly denied that there is any evidence supporting a causal link between vaccines and infant death, despite the fact that their own webpage on the topic acknowledges that "From 2 to 4 months old, babies begin their primary course of vaccinations. This is also the peak age for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)." Written off as coincidence, the CDC suggests that stomach sleeping is the primary modifiable risk factor.
Because SIDS is the 3rd leading cause of death in infants, and because the U.S. has one of thehighest infant mortality rates in the developed world, one would think that more progress would have been made toward understanding its causes. Perhaps, as explored in this past article, the signal of harm is being ignored. Neglect and suppression of available data has recently been exposed with the confession of a top CDC vaccine scientist who was compelled to covered up data revealing an autism-MMR link in African-American boys.
In the new study, the CDC and FDA researchers themselves acknowledge "the scarcity" of postlicensure safety data on HiB vaccines in today's vaccination schedule. They evaluated reports involving the currently licensed Hib vaccines received from January 1, 1990, through December 1, 2013 available on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
Presently, the CDC recommends 4 doses of the HiB vaccine at the following ages: 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 12 months through 15 months.
The HiB vaccine is described on the CDC website as "very safe" and "effective" at preventing HiB disease, which it states can be deadly. They list "most common side effects as usually mild and last 2 or 3 days," including "redness, swelling, and warmth where the child got the shot" and "fever". Nowhere is there listed death or disability as a possible side effect.
In stark contrast to these statements the study uncovered the following highly concerning results:
VAERS received 29,747 reports after Hib vaccines; 5179 (17%) were serious, including 896 reports of deaths. Median age was 6 months (range 0-10.22 months). Sudden infant death syndrome was the stated cause of death in 384 (51%) of 749 death reports with autopsy/death certificate records. The most common nondeath serious AE categories were neurologic (80; 37%), other noninfectious (46; 22%) (comprising mainly constitutional signs and symptoms); and gastrointestinal (39; 18%) conditions. No new safety concerns were identified after clinical review of reports of AEs that exceeded the data mining statistical threshold.
Consider also that VAERS is a passive surveillance system, which suffers from profound underreporting. According to the VAERS site's own disclaimer:
"Underreporting" is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS. The term, underreporting refers to the fact that VAERS receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events. The degree of underreporting varies widely. As an example, a great many of the millions of vaccinations administered each year by injection cause soreness, but relatively few of these episodes lead to a VAERS report.
According to Barbara Loe Fisher, founder of the National Vaccination Information Center, underreporting may result in overlooking 99% or higher of all vaccine associated injuries:
"Former FDA Commissioner David Kessler estimated in a 1993 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that fewer than 1 percent of all doctors report injuries and deaths following the administration of prescription drugs. This estimate may be even lower for vaccines. In one survey that our organization conducted in New York in 1994, only 1 doctor in 40 reported to VAERS."
Considering the influence of underreporting, these deaths represent only the tip of the iceberg of vaccine-induced infant morbidity and mortality caused by HiB vaccines. The study also mentioned an earlier analysis which found that infant death is the most common cause of death reported by all vaccine linked reports on VAERS, "accounting for almost one-half of all deaths reported."
Obviously, this is an appalling study. The death of even 1 child for a potentially ineffective medical intervention designed to prevent a rarely fatal illness is a tragedy. Nor can any single vaccine be proven to have prevented any single case of disease because the clinical outcome (end point) is a non-event. This is not the case, however, for vaccine side effects which can be linked directly to the vaccination event with plausible scientific mechanisms.
What is perhaps most astounding is the researcher's conclusion:
"Review of VAERS reports did not identify any new or unexpected safety concerns for Hib vaccines."
This callous disregard for the evidence -- evidence that clearly shows the CDC misrepresents the safety of the HiB vaccine -- speaks to the blind investment in vaccine policy decisions over human wellbeing. Millions of parents have listened to the CDC and FDA and believed that these vaccines not only work but are safe. Informed consent requires those undergoing a quasi-mandatory medical intervention like vaccination to know the true risks associated with it. Failing to do so is clearly a violation of this medical ethical protection against being abused, and in some cases disabled and even killed.
Sayer Ji is the founder of GreenMedInfo.com, an author, educator, Steering Committee Member of the Global GMO Free Coalition (GGFC), and an advisory board member of the National Health Federation.
He founded Greenmedinfo.com in 2008 in order to provide the world an open access, evidence-based resource supporting natural and integrative modalities. It is widely recognized as the most widely referenced health resource of its kind.
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