Malaria Vaccine

"Because the way each person's body deals with the disease is different and we can't predict what you will do if you get exposed to the disease," According to a BBC News report, "the world's first vaccine against malaria will be introduced in three countries - Ghana, Kenya and Malawi - starting in 2018." Three doses are required, spaced three months apart, and then a fourth dose eighteen months later. Without the fourth dose, the benefits decline rapidly. As it is, the vaccine benefits less than four in ten children. The pilot will involve 750,000 children of whom half will get the vaccinations. The funding is coming from the usual suspects:

• Gavi - The Vaccine Alliance (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation)
• Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria
• Unitaid
• WHO (World Health Organisation)
• GSK (GlaxoSmithKline)

An earlier article in The Guardian dated 30th June 2016 is less positive:

As the vaccine wears off, the study shows that children living in areas where there is high transmission of the disease end up with more infections than those who have never had a jab – known as the malaria rebound effect. Unvaccinated children – if they survive malaria – develop some natural immunity over the years.

One has to be skeptical of yet another vaccine being added to the hefty number that children already receive. How effective will be the collection and collation of the data relating to 750,000 children in these countries? The pilot involves a control group of 375,00 who get no vaccinations and the same number in the vaccinated group whose vaccine regime extends over 27 months.

To quote from The Guardian article again:

Dr David Kaslow, vice-president for product development at Path, a non-profit international organisation that has been a key player with the pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline, said up to six doses could be needed to maintain the protective effect.

Six doses of a vaccine? With this in mind, one would suppose that this vaccine, rolled out across Africa and South East Asia, would be a big money spinner for the pharmaceutical companies involved. If the benefits are dubious, well so what and given the reported rebound effect, drawbacks may outweigh benefits. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has a long history of criminal activity so this company's involvement in anything should be enough to raise suspicions.

Developing countries are an excellent venue for testing out new vaccines. GSK was convicted for killing 14 babies during vaccine trials in Argentina in 2012. It was fined less than US $100,000 for the offences (source). The problem with vaccines is not the vaccines themselves but the way they are brought to market. The pharmaceutical companies oversee the trials, there is little independent testing because of the expense involved. They lobby governments to push the vaccines via the healthcare infrastructure in various countries. If they can persuade governments to mandate the vaccine, all the better. They ensure that mainstream media carries news of the supposed benefits of vaccines.

The more sophisticated the health care services of a country, the more warmly vaccines are embraced. In developing countries, there is well-deserved skepticism about the benefits of vaccinations but not so in countries like Australia. The elderly dutifully line up for their flu shots. From neonate to teenager, the young are subjected to a plethora of shots to protect them allegedly from a dangerous, pathogen-filled world. Any reservations about the number of vaccines received or their scheduling is howled down as being a matter for health care professionals to decide. Of course, any criticisms from within the health care community are rare and any person bold enough to voice concerns risks ostracism from her or his fellow professionals. There seems to be no middle ground. One is either for or against vaccines.

ABC News recently carried this news article: Are you an unvaccinated adult? Here's what you need to know about catching up. The article goes on to suggest the following:

• MMR — measles, mumps, rubella — approximately $35.00 per dose
• Varicella (chicken pox) — approximately $80.00 per dose
• Hepatitis B — approximately $20.00 per dose
• Poliomyelitis (polio) — approximately $39.99 per dose
• Tetanus/whooping cough/diphtheria — approximately $45.00 per dose
• Influenza (flu) — approximately $20.00
• Hepatitis A — approximately $65.00 per dose
• Human Papillomavirus (HPV/Gardasil) — approximately $200.00 per dose
• Haemophilus Influenzae Type B (Hib) — approximately $24.95 per dose
• Meningococcal C — approximately $100.00 per dose

This amounts to well over A$600. The government will actually cover these costs for an individual up until the age of 20, which means that taxpayers are footing the bill. One comment by a doctor in the article is revealing: Because the way each person's body deals with the disease is different and we can't predict what you will do if you get exposed to the disease. This observation could be applied equally well to vaccines. It's clear that in certain individuals the reaction to a vaccination can be unpredictable and sometimes catastrophic. The argument always is that the benefits of vaccines outweigh their drawbacks. For those who suffer catastrophic reactions, this is of little comfort.

Can it be that vaccines are less about public health and more about private profits? What happens when we follow the money trail? The following quote from ENCOGNITIVE.COM is revealing:

The vaccine industry was worth about $23 billion in 2014 and expected to reach $42 billion by 2020. That's big business. The pharmaceutical industry as a whole is BIG Business, thus the moniker Big Pharma. Below are some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, as of October, 2014. After looking at these numbers, you'll understand why they're called BIG Pharma and how it is that they're able to steer and dictate public health policies. Almost every single public policy pertaining to drugs and vaccines was drafted by the pharmaceutical industry--it is able to do this by showering money on those it seeks to influence.
Big Pharma's sphere of influence extends from journalists to doctors: 

• TV Networks (advertising),
• Scientists (research grants),
• Researchers (research grants, salary),
• Doctors (kickbacks, consulting fees, prescriptions, legal bribery),
• Government Bureaucrats (revolving door, stock options),
• Universities and Colleges (endowments, research grants, tuition sponsorships)
• Public Health Officials (revolving door, stock options),
• Politicians (campaign contributions, revolving door),
• Journalists (paid stipends, through TV network owners)
• Consumers (mass advertising, fear-mongering/scare tactics through media).

Of course, if fears of a pandemic can be heightened to the point of hysteria, then vaccines can be fast-tracked and administered to all who are gullible enough to take them. Here are the big players in the pharmaceutical game (from ENCOGNITIVE.COM):

Big Pharma by the Numbers 

Sanofi
Approximate 2014 revenue (USD): $42 billion
Market capitalization (total market value of stocks, USD): $138 billion
Headquarter: Paris, France
Stock exchange: NYSE (ADR), Euronext 

GlaxoSmithKline
Approximate 2014 revenue (USD): $24 billion
Market capitalization (total market value of stocks, USD): $106 billion
Headquarter: Brentwood, England
Stock exchange: NYSE (ADR), London 

Merck
Approximate 2014 revenue (USD): $42 billion
Market capitalization (total market value of stocks, USD): $156 billion
Headquarter: Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, USA
Stock exchange: NYSE 

Johnson & Johnson
Approximate 2014 revenue (USD): $76 billion
Market capitalization (total market value of stocks, USD): $280 billion
Headquarter: New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
Stock exchange: NYSE 

Eli Lilly and Co.
Approximate 2014 revenue (USD): $21 billion
Market capitalization (total market value of stocks, USD): $70 billion
Headquarter: Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Stock exchange: NYSE 

Novartis
Approximate 2014 revenue (USD): $56 billion
Market capitalization (total market value of stocks, USD): $237 billion
Headquarter: Basel, Switzerland
Stock exchange: NYSE (ADR), SIX (Swiss Exchange) 

Astellas
Approximate 2014 revenue (USD): N/A
Market capitalization (total market value of stocks, USD): 3.52 trillion Yen
Headquarter: Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Stock exchange: TKO (Tokyo Stock Exchange) 

Roche Holding Ltd.
Approximate 2014 revenue (USD): $90 billion
Market capitalization (total market value of stocks, USD): $246 billion
Headquarter: Basel, Switzerland
Stock exchange: OTCMKTS, SIX (Swiss Exchange) 

Pfizer Inc 
Approximate 2014 revenue (USD): $47 billion
Market capitalization (total market value of stocks, USD): $177 billion
Headquarter: New York, New York, USA
Stock exchange: NYSE 

The first legal duty of a public listed company: maximise profit for shareholders.

Assad Gas Attack

An article on Quartz (link) began as follows:

In the aftermath of reports suggesting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad had once again unleashed a deadly chemical weapon on civilians, at least one Western leader—embattled by human rights criticism at home—immediately responded with class and clarity. Issuing a bullish statement on Twitter, this leader called for a full investigation and declared, “there can be no future for Assad in a stable Syria.” 

That leader, of course, was British prime minister Theresa May. While usually one would expect such a strong statement to come from the US—the traditional leader of the free world—it was the leader of the UK who set the tone on Tuesday.

This nausea-inducing article was written by Max de Haldevang who reports on Quartz's global politics desk. His obsessions include Cities & Urban Development, and Global Corruption. He has reported in Mexico and London for Reuters, in Russia for The Moscow Times and worked for NBC at the Rio and Sochi Olympics. He speaks Russian and Spanish, and has degrees from Cambridge and Columbia. Source.

It's hard to stomach phrases like responded with class and clarity to describe someone like May and the traditional leader of the free world to describe a country like the United States. So who is Max de Haldevang, the author of such idiotic comments? Well, he's clearly not very old so we shouldn't be too hard on him. He's just trying to make his mark in the world of mainstream journalism. He's the guy on the right and looks like a teenager but must be older.

The article from where the photo was taken describes him as having been awarded a Reuters Fellowship from the Overseas Press Club Foundation at the Foundation’s 2015 Annual Scholar Awards Luncheon held at the Yale Club in New York City. The other guy in the photo is the Pulitzer-Prize winning David Rohde, now of Reuters. 

Further investigation shows that Rohde has more than a Pulitzer Prize as a claim to fame:

While in Afghanistan, Rohde was kidnapped by members of the Taliban in November 2008, but managed to escape in June 2009 after seven months in captivity. While he was in captivity, The New York Times collaborated with a number of media outlets, including al-Jazeera and Wikipedia, to remove news of the kidnapping from the public eye.

Rohde has reported on detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US government's roundup of Muslims following 9/11. While clearly mainstream, he seems to have a reasonable track record. Aspiring journalists like de Haldevang must establish their reputations in a very competitive arena. He was one of 15 aspiring foreign correspondents selected by a panel of leading journalists from a pool of 175 applicants from 50 different colleges and universities.

His LinkedIn account shows him as having finished a B.A. (Hons) in Modern Languages at Cambridge between 2009 and 2013. He's since completed an M.A. in Russian Studies at Columbia University 2014-2016. This would put him in his mid-twenties I guess. It's a pity talented individuals like him are forced into mainstream journalism where their motivation to delve behind the scenes of world events will be actively discouraged by those who decide whether stories will be published or not.

The real story about the alleged Assad gas attack is why he would have launched it at such an inopportune time. Here is a video in which Ron Paul discusses the event:

As for Theresa May, her barking about the need to remove Assad is no different from Tony Blair's barking about the need to remove Saddam Hussein before he could unleash his non-existent weapons of mass destruction. May has no class whatsoever. However, Reuters is head-quartered in London and maybe de Haldevang is hoping for a posting there. After all, following his Reuters Fellowship he was assigned to Mexico City. Maybe he's still there and his fatuous article for Quartz is a ploy to garner British friends in high places who will put in a good word for him at the Reuters desk in London.