UK aiming to inoculate about 30 people an hour in a “military-style operation”

Swine flu vaccine to be cleared after five-day trial
By Jon Ungoed-Thomas, Times Online, July 12, 2009

Holden said it would be the biggest campaign in response to an outbreak since mass vaccination against smallpox in 1962. He said surgeries would be aiming to inoculate about 30 people an hour in a “military-style operation”.

The path of a popular medicine from the laboratory to the chemist or doctor’s surgery can involve years of clinical trials on a select group of patients.

When the new vaccine for swine flu arrives in Britain, regulators said this weekend, it could be approved for use in just five days.

Regulators at the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) said the fast-tracked procedure has involved clinical trials of a “mock-up” vaccine similar to the one that will be used for the biggest mass vaccination programme in generations. It will be introduced into the general population while regulators continue to carry out simultaneous clinical trials.

The first patients in the queue for the jab - being supplied to the UK by GSK and Baxter Healthcare - may understandably be a little nervous at any possible side effects. A mass vaccination campaign against swine flu in America was halted in the 1970s after some people suffered Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disorder of the nervous system.

However, regulators said fast-tracking would not be at the expense of patient safety. “The vaccines are authorised with a detailed risk management plan,” the EMEA said. “There is quite a body of evidence regarding safety on the trials of the mock-up, and the actual vaccine could be assessed in five days.”

The UK government has ordered enough vaccine to cover the entire population. GPs are being told to prepare for a nationwide vaccination campaign.

Dr Peter Holden, the British Medical Association’s lead negotiator on swine flu, who has been attending Department of Health meetings on the outbreak, said GPs’ surgeries were prepared for one of the biggest vaccination campaigns in almost 50 years.

He said although swine flu was not causing serious illness in patients, health officials were eager to start a mass vaccination campaign, starting first on priority groups. First, the jabs would reduce the chances of a shortage of hospital beds because of people suffering from swine flu. Second, it would reduce the effect on the economy by ensuring workers were protected from the virus.

“The high-risk groups will be done at GPs’ surgeries. People are still making decisions over this, but we want to get cracking before we get a second wave, which is traditionally far more virulent.”

Holden said it was likely the elderly would be given their seasonal flu jab as well as the swine flu vaccination. The new vaccine is likely to require two doses.

Details of the inoculation plans emerged after the death of a patient, reportedly a middle-aged man, at a hospital in the Basildon area of Essex. The victim had no underlying health problems, but officials say there is no evidence the swine flu virus had mutated into a more dangerous strain.

Holden said it would be the biggest campaign in response to an outbreak since mass vaccination against smallpox in 1962. He said surgeries would be aiming to inoculate about 30 people an hour in a “military-style operation”.

The Department of Health said it had still not finalised which groups would be vaccinated first, but children, frontline health workers, people with underlying illnesses and the elderly are likely to take priority.

The European Commission is also identifying population groups which it believes should get priority. It is keen to ensure that countries such as the UK, which had ordered supplies of the vaccine in advance, do not cause inequities in treatment elsewhere in Europe.

It warned health ministers in a note circulated last month that if the vaccines were more readily available in some countries it could cause “vaccine tourism/shopping in other member states”.

About 15 people have died of swine flu in Britain, but most of those infected get only mild symptoms. According to the latest figures from the Health Protection Agency, the UK has had 9,718 confirmed cases of the disease.

Arkansas State Health Department: Mandatory Vaccines Are Constitutional

Legal council tells concerned caller that American citizens must accept enforced shot in event of mass swine flu vaccination program
Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet.com, June 26, 2009

A member of the public who was concerned about a mandatory mass vaccination program in light of the swine flu pandemic called the Arkansas State Health Department for advice only to be told that mandatory vaccines were constitutional and could be enforced at gunpoint by the government if necessary.

The editor of the popular blog “Pissed Off Former Democrat” phoned the legal council at the Arkansas State Health Department to seek advice about obtaining waiver forms for a future mass swine flu vaccination program.

One of his main concerns centered around the fact that the company chosen to mass produce the swine flu vaccine, Baxter International, were recently caught in a scandal after it emerged they had sent out vaccines contaminated with the H5N1 avian flu virus to 18 countries from their Austrian branch. It was only by providence that the contamination was found after the batch was first tested on ferrets in the Czech Republic, before being shipped out for injection into humans. The ferrets all died and the shocking discovery was made.

Some Czech newspapers speculated at the time that Baxter was embroiled in a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic from which it would reap billions in profits from producing the vaccine to counter a bird flu outbreak.

As we have previously covered, the last time the government ordered a mass vaccination drive in response to a swine flu outbreak, the program had to be stopped short after the shots caused over 500 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a severe paralyzing nerve disease. 30 people died as a direct result of the vaccinations.

During the phone conversation, the legal council discusses the potential of a future mandatory swine flu vaccination program and states, “That’s constitutional, there’s no doubt about it….mandatory vaccinations are legal under the Supreme Court….absolutely.”

The caller responds, “I’m an American and I have a legal right to make my own decision whether or not someone sticks a needle in me,” to which the legal council responds, “That’s not true….no.”

“As a lawyer you believe that I don’t have the right to deny a vaccination,” asks the caller,” to which the legal council responds, “Absolutely….I don’t know why you have a problem with that….mandatory vaccines are constitutional,” adding that it doesn’t matter about personal or religious objections.

The caller then asks how the mandatory vaccine would be enforced by law, “for example somebody sticking a gun in my face,” to which the legal council responds, “you could be held liable.”

The legal council at the Arkansas State Health Department cites the 1905 Supreme Court case of Jacobson v Massachusetts to argue that governments can force citizens to take vaccines.

Less than 50 years before, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court also ruled that black people were slaves - property of their slaveowners with no inherent rights whatsoever.

22 years after Jacobson v Mass., in Buck v Bell, the Supreme Court also ruled that people designated “feeble-minded” by the government could be sterilized.

The fact that the Supreme Court made a ruling over 100 hundred years ago saying the government could inject people by force doesn’t make it morally or constitutionally justifiable.

To stick needles in people at gunpoint by government decree is blatantly unconstitutional under any reasonable definition of basic human rights or the freedoms enumerated by the founders in the constitution itself.

American Indians were rounded up and sent to death camps under legal orders, but that didn’t make it right or justifiable.

Hitler’s mistreatment of Jews, Gypsies, political dissidents, homosexuals and others who resisted government policies imposed during times of “emergency” in Nazi Germany was all perpetrated behind a thin veil of legality, but that didn’t make it right either.

As a member at the Prison Planet Forum points out, “Tyrannical evil loves to mask itself in the robes of righteousness, to justify itself with legal documents, to trample the very ideas of what Law and Right mean. Resisting that evil, rising against that tyranny, by saying No More. That is right.”

As we previously reported, Time Magazine has been preparing Americans to accept the idea of mandatory vaccinations, reporting on April 28th that a mass vaccination program is being readied to combat swine flu while also urging Americans to “trust that the government is working for the greater good” and to not resist draconian measures.

Listen to the phone call below.

Working Copy AR Health Dept Legal Vaccination Denial Call
by guyrazer

Swine flu shot campaign could involve 600M doses

By MIKE STOBBE, AP, Google News, June 27, 2009

ATLANTA (AP) — A potential fall swine flu immunization campaign may involve an unprecedented 600 million doses of vaccine, but health officials are still trying to figure out how to find enough workers to administer all those shots.

Officials are also looking at how to keep track of side effects if it's given at the same time as the seasonal vaccine. That could make it difficult to figure out which vaccine was causing the side effects.

At a Friday meeting of a national vaccine advisory committee, officials said a swine flu campaign could far eclipse the roughly 115 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine and the 150 million doses of childhood vaccines distributed each year.

Although about 300 million people live in the U.S., health officials say children and some adults may need two doses of the vaccine.