"Whole bacterial" Pneumonia Vaccine Approaches Human Trials

Keep 'em scared!

One could post everyday about news articles relating to the vaccine madness that has overtaken the planet. This recent article that appeared in NEW ATLAS is a case in point. The article quotes a Professor Paton as saying:

The pneumococcus is the biggest bacterial killer on the planet. It's the most common cause of pneumonia, which is responsible for about 20 per cent of deaths from all causes in children under five years in developing countries. Globally, the pneumococcus accounts for about two million deaths a year. 

In developed countries, the death rate from pneumonia for children under five years in much lower. For example, in New South Wales:

There were 1,010 deaths from influenza and pneumonia in 2016 (9.2 deaths per 100,000 population) and just under 92% of these were in persons aged 65 years and over (65.3 deaths per 100,000 population in that age group). Death rates from influenza or pneumonia are very low in all other age groups. Source

One could argue that the lower death is due to widespread vaccinations but the article points out that the current vaccines are not all that effective. To quote the Professor again:

Professor James Paton, a director at GPN Vaccines and Director of the University of Adelaide's Research Centre for Infectious Diseases, says that the current pneumococcal vaccine works by targeting the complex carbohydrates that coat the outside of the Streptococcus pneumoniae bacterium, which is the main cause of pneumonia. He points out that this vaccine, which costs more than US$100 a shot, only covers 13 types of these complex carbohydrates, when there are 98 structurally distinct types.

A new pneumonia vaccine that is claimed to be effective against all strains of
Streptococcus pneumoniae is a step closer to human clinical trials
(Credit: lightsource/Depositphotos)

The reasons for the high death rate from pneumonia in developing countries are the same ones that made measles such a deadly killer in the middle of the 19th century in Britain and other countries. It is crowded living conditions, poor hygiene and sanitation, and nutritional deficiencies that undermine the health of babies and infants in these countries, making them susceptible to infection. Address these issues and the death rates plummet. But where's the money in that?

Professor Paton is working on a new vaccine:

The new vaccine developed by GPN Vaccines in partnership with The University of Adelaide works by removing the complex carbohydrates that form an outer coating of the Streptococcus pneumoniae bacterium, exposing the surface proteins that are common to all serotypes of the bacteria. The immune system of individuals that have previously been exposed to those surface proteins or vaccinated can mount a defense against the infection. 

The vaccine is a proprietary engineered strain of Streptococcus pneumoniae that has been cultured and inactivated by being exposed to gamma rays – hence its name, Gamma-PN. The company has previously conducted pre-clinical studies where intranasal vaccination with Gamma-PN protected animals against lethal pneumococcal sepsis caused by a number of different Streptococcus pneumoniae strains.

If it's effective, it's going to be expensive and it's not going to be given out free to developing countries. These countries will need to purchase it out of their health care budgets, leaving that much less money to spend on infrastructure projects to improve sanitation and crowded living conditions. The politicians in these countries are easily persuaded by the pharmaceutical industry to make such purchases. Both parties profit but the living conditions of the poor remain unchanged and this is the real cause of the mortality. If the children of the poor do receive a jab of this new vaccine, their already weakened immune systems will cause them to fall prey to some other pathogen.

Biotechnology and the New World Order

There's always interesting news items to be found at The Jerusalem Post. This morning, the content in one particular article from January 31st, 2019 caught my eye. 

A journalist, Hagay Hacohen, was attending a workshop in Tel Aviv hosted by Science Abroad, an organisation that "aims to make connections between Israeli scientists currently out of the country and present them with paths to return home and find meaningful work". 

During the lunch break, the journalist talks to various participants attending the workshop. It was one particular chat that caught my attention:

I return to the buffet table and seek out Elad Eliahoo, who pioneered a novel way to castrate cats without requiring an operation. 

Cats are among the most destructive species on the planet. This is not their fault; they’re furry predators humans favour and provide food and shelter to, and in warm countries, like Israel, street cats breed into fantastic figures and eat anything they can catch – whether mice or rare birds. 

Eliahoo was able to design a virus that carries an active component that causes the cat’s immune system to attack sex hormones, which means cats who get the shot do not go into heat and do not reproduce. Not only that, he adds, but the virus affects only the cat it was injected into and is highly unlikely to travel to other species. 

This blows my mind. Scientists, like Eliahoo, are currently able to hijack an immune system, give it commands, and design a delivery system for it. In theory, one could design such a virus to sterilise a specific community or to kick in if cells even begin to signal they are on the way to becoming a cancer cell.

Eliahoo explains that the shot is cheaper and easier to use than capturing cats, operating on them, and releasing them in the same spot, but my mind is at a different point by now. I’m thinking about the cat-sterilising virus getting out of hand and wiping out other species, such as humans. 

Eliahoo gives me a highly patient look and explains that “the virus is not going to complete its life cycle, because we removed huge chunks of its genetic sequence so it can’t reproduce. To regain these chunks, the virus will have to find another virus and take them off it, which is so unlikely to be almost nil.” 

I use the classic line spoken by Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park (1993): “Life finds a way.” Eliahoo thinks about that for a moment, and then shares with me that vaccines against rabies are already given to feral animals using just such a mechanism.

This was the first I had heard of such a virus. If it is effective, then the implications are chilling if one believes the global elite are intent on reducing the population of the planet to around 500 million people. If a similar virus targeting humans was engineered, it could be easily added to the aggressively promoted annual flu vaccinations that many people receive.

Inscription on the Georgia Guidestones

There's no information I can find about this virus. There is a product called Calchlorin described by the PARSEMUS FOUNDATION as:

A low-cost nonsurgical neuter shot for male dogs, cats, and other animals ... not patented and thus available in the U.S. and every country with access to the two ingredients (calcium chloride dihydrate, and pharmaceutical-grade or food-grade pure ethyl alcohol). Can be ordered by veterinarians from a reputable compounding pharmacy ... or can be prepared under sterile conditions.

There is little incentive for this product to be promoted because veterinarians profit mightily from surgical castration. The "holy grail" of birth control for dogs and cats must target females and this is what Elad Eliahoo's cat virus purports to do. So why no news?

Elad Eliahoo works at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is currently involved in three major research projects (source):

1. the association between animal welfare and the reproductive system, including the development of non-surgical sterilisation methods; 
2. improving reproductive health and fertility in dairy cows; 
3. investigating human prenatal placenta conditions such as foetal growth restriction and preeclampsia, via relevant animal models, as well as by in-vitro and ex-vivo approaches.

Maybe it's simply too early in his research and more work needs to be done. However, such a virus would likely not be well received by veterinarians as it would reduce their revenue. More significantly, it would cause a general unease in the population. As the journalist asked of Elad Eliahoo, can the virus spread to humans? The more conspiratorial would ask: is such a virus being developed for humans? It wouldn't be long before someone suggested that the virus was being secretly incorporated into vaccines in an attempt to depopulate the planet or reduce the fertility of certain ethnic groups.

It would be better to suppress news about the virus completely and continue work on it in secret, especially the development of a virus that targets human reproduction. If such a virus were developed then it would be an effective bioweapon that could be delivered using the Trojan Horse of vaccinations, especially flu vaccines that target the young and healthy. Such crazy thinking is unlikely to find its way into mainstream media.

The global elite will not be getting flu shots or if they do, they will be different from what the sheeple receive. It will be interesting to see whether news of this "infertility virus" makes it into the mainstream or whether a blanket of silence descends upon it. Any secret biotechnology research by Israel is to be viewed with suspicion and maybe this casual disclosure by a prominent researcher to an enquiring journalist is all that will ever surface of this virus. Meanwhile:

The Elephant in the Room Part 1

This article, titled "New treatments for peanut allergies only raise same old questions for me", is written by the person born around 1992 who has peanut allergy herself and is writing about a potential new and effective treatment for combating this allergy:

So when recently sparked optimistic headlines after releasing clinical trial results that its allergy product, AR101, would reduce the risks linked to an accidental exposure to peanuts, I received the usual wave of questions from friends, co-workers and my parents: Would you try it? Could this help? 

Aimmune, based in Brisbane, California, is just one company eyeing the prize. Childhood peanut allergy diagnoses increased more than 20 percent in the United States from 2010 to 2017. The global market for relief is worth as much as $2 billion. The French drugmaker DBV Technologies is also working to commercialise a peanut allergy patch. Other companies, including industry giant Sanofi, are following their lead.

On 19th October 2018, I made a post about a potential Peanut Vaccine and this current article just reinforces the fact that a very profitable industry has sprung up around peanut and other allergies. There is even a new category of medical specialist, the paediatric allergist, that has arisen to combat this scourge.

Of course nowhere does the 26 year old author of the article under discussion allude to vaccinations as a possible source of her allergy. She simply accepts her condition and has some decidedly odd notions as revealed by this quote:

A colleague's young daughter who was born with multiple allergies used that very treatment, as did a younger cousin of mine who, for the first several years of her life, was allergic to almost everything but fruits and vegetables. 

That phrase "born with multiple allergies" makes ones eyes pop. She seems to believe that allergies are genetic or the result of exposure in utero (perhaps to peanuts that the mother has ingested). She does allude in the article to Big Pharma profiteering:

Tina Sindher, a pediatric allergist at Stanford University, pointed out that the Aimmune pill is a repackaged, clinically tested version of that homegrown oral therapy many allergists have been using. DBV's peanut patch, Viaskin, to a lesser extent, is the same - more convenient, perhaps, and more regulated, but still a variation on the existing medical approach. 

"This concept has been around for a long time," she said. What's new is the addition of labour, standardisation and federal oversight - which companies then say demonstrates increased value. 

It highlights a pattern I've noticed from my reporting: Drugmakers develop medication that refines a low-tech remedy, run a clinical trial to secure FDA approval and then sell it at a higher price. 

For pharma, it's a logical way to profit.

Logical indeed. She doesn't seem too troubled by the profiteering. Interestingly, she makes the observation that "my twin brother was allergy-free until about a year ago. Adult onset peanut allergy isn't that uncommon)". I haven't heard anything about adult onset peanut allergies. Something to investigate further. Her now ten year old brother however, is allergic to peanuts. The disturbing thing about articles like this is that no suspicion is cast on vaccinations as a possible cause of the allergies. Like autism, auto-immune diseases, ADHD and so on, these are simply afflictions to befall some unlucky children. Who knows why? 

Meanwhile, the elephant is still in the room but nobody is talking about it.

Click here for Part 2

Man on the Moon

If you believe they put a man on the moon, man on the moon

If you believe there's nothing up their sleeve, then nothing is cool

This is the repetitive, driving refrain that runs through REM's song "Man on the Moon". Should we believe that "they put a man on the moon"? Certainly the prevailing orthodoxy says we should. The question is in the news because an American basketball player, Stephen Curry, said he believed they hadn't. To quote from this online news source:

Curry was a guest on the Winging It podcast, hosted by Vince Carter and Kent Bazemore of the Atlanta Hawks. The Warriors guard was supposed to talk about the endless comparisons to dynamic rookie point guard Trae Young, but things veered off script. At one point, the players were talking about the sounds dinosaurs make when Curry abruptly changed the subject to his belief that human beings have never landed on the moon. 

"We ever been to the moon," he asked. 

The others agreed the answer was no. 

"They're going to come get us," Curry replied. "Sorry, I don't want to start conspiracies." 

If he's indeed serious, Curry joins an exclusive group of elite NBA ball-handlers who seem to believe the world has been spoon-fed science lies. The other star in that group: Boston Celtics flat-earther Kyrie Irving, who drew the ire of science teachers everywhere when he said he believes the world we inhabit is shaped more like a basketball court than an actual basketball.

Notice how Curry's querying the reality of humans landing on the moon is quickly linked to another basketball player's belief in a flat earth. NASA responded thus:

"We'd love for Mr Curry to tour the lunar lab at our Johnson Space Center in Houston, perhaps the next time the Warriors are in town to play the Rockets," a NASA spokesman, Allard Beutel, told the New York Times. "We have hundreds of pounds of moon rocks stored there, and the Apollo mission control. 

"During his visit, he can see firsthand what we did 50 years ago, as well as what we're doing now to go back to the moon in the coming years, but this time to stay." 

According to Popular Science, astronauts have brought back 842 pounds of moon rocks for study, including some that are 200 million years older than Earth's oldest rocks.

Well, the obvious retort to that is that you don't have to go to the moon to collect rocks from the moon. To quote from Wikipedia:

Moon rocks on Earth come from three sources: those collected by the United States Apollo program manned lunar landings from 1969 to 1972; samples returned by three Soviet Luna programme unmanned probes in the 1970s; and rocks that were ejected naturally from the lunar surface. The Apollo missions collected 2,200 samples weighing 382 kilograms (842 lb). Three Luna spacecraft returned with 301 grams (10.6 oz) of samples. More than 300 lunar meteorites have been collected on Earth, representing more than 30 different meteorite fall events (none witnessed), with a total mass of over 190 kilograms (420 lb). Some were discovered by scientific teams (such as ANSMET) searching for meteorites in Antarctica, with most of the remainder discovered by collectors in the desert regions of northern Africa and Oman. 

 Admittedly, the mass of lunar meteorites is only half the alleged mass of Apollo samples (420 pounds versus 842 pounds). Embarrassingly for the Russians, they collected less than a pound! Should we believe the Apollo astronauts collected this impressive weight of moon rock? The prevailing orthodoxy says we should.

And yes, it is almost 50 years since the first humans set foot on the moon. That's a long time. The landings took place at a time when Richard (Tricky Dicky) Nixon was President of the United States. He resigned in disgrace on August 9th 1974. No humans have visited the Moon since December 14th 1972. All the moon landings took place on his watch, at a time when the United States was losing the war in Vietnam and there was fiscal uncertainty due to the country abandoning the gold standard in 1971 and embracing the petrodollar in its place.

These facts hardly disprove that humans landed on the moon. However, like vaccinations, anthropogenic global warming or 9/11, there is no middle ground in the debate. You either believe the official story or you don't. There are certainly grounds for querying what really happened in the Apollo missions with a provenly corrupt President overseeing the operations. However, an impartial assessment of all the facts is certainly not what NASA wants. If you doubt the official narrative then you're no different from a flat earther denying that the world is a round. Even though NASA says that humans are going back to the moon "in the coming years", the fact is that it's almost exactly 46 years since the last humans allegedly landed on the moon.

It doesn't affect a basketball player's career to query the moon landings but that's not the case in other areas of employment. I would surmise that any teacher or academic who questioned the orthodoxy would not have her or his career prospects enhanced. Any scientist or person working in government departments, in the United States or elsewhere in the world, would be similarly disadvantaged. Notice I said "questioned" and not "challenged". To be branded a deviant thinker, a person simply needs to express doubt.

Of course, Stephen Curry is only one of many people around the world who do not believe the official narrative. Why should we believe what our politicians, scientists and government agencies tell us? Thankfully more and more are choosing not to or at least to question what they are being told. In doing so, it's important to avoid the dichotomy (belief or non-belief) that the powers-that-ought-not-to-be have cultivated. I really don't know if the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon or not but I have my doubts. That's all that's required: doubt. Doubt is healthy. Doubt begets doubt. It is a good thing to sow the seeds of doubt in others. Eventually it leads to people questioning the entire narrative.

Climate Orthodoxy

Temperatures on track for 5-degree rise
by 2100 after another hot year

Thus screamed the heading to an newspaper article that continued:

This year is on course to be the fourth hottest year on record, trailing only the three previous years, as rising levels of greenhouse gases warm the planet, the World Meteorological Organisation said. 

Up to October 31, mean temperatures in 2018 were an estimated 0.98 warmer than the average for 1850-1900, according the UN agency's provisional State of the Global Climate report. 

“We are not on track to meet climate change targets and rein in temperature increases,” said Petteri Taalas, WMO Secretary-General. “Greenhouse gas concentrations are once again at record levels and if the current trend continues we may see temperature increases 3 to 5 degrees by the end of the century." 

The WMO report comes days ahead of a global climate summit in Katowice, Poland, where nations will discuss progress on implementing the goals of the Paris climate accord signed three years ago keep temperatures to 1.5-2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Australia's delegation will be led by Environment Minister Melissa Price.

Figure 1

https://public.wmo.int/en

So the WMO Secretary-General says "we may see temperature increases 3 to 5 degrees by the end of the century", plucking the figures seemingly out of thin air. The heading of the Brisbane Times article thus includes the upper limit of his prediction with the intended result that anybody perusing the newspaper can hardly fail to miss this unsettling prediction.

For anyone who bothers to read the article, there is the inevitable graph included in a screenshot of a tweet from a so-called "climate scientist" Gavin Schmidt, described (source) as a "climatologist, climate modeller and Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, and co-founder of the award-winning climate science blog RealClimate".

Figure 2

The graph is below a photo of firefighters battling a blaze in England with the caption: Firefighters work on a wildfire on Winter Hill near Bolton, England. Extreme temperatures, particularly warm ones, have again been prominent in 2018, on course to be one of the hottest years in history.

Let's break the news article down into its components:

• overly sensational heading
• dire pronouncement from a prestigious international organisation (here the WMO)
• dramatic photograph of firefighters battling a conflagration
• suitably supporting graph from a climate scientist

I'm not attempting here to confront any details in the WMO report but just to focus on the highly biased manner in which climate news is presented by the mass media. Despite evidence to the contrary, the message being conveyed is clear: the world is getting warmer. You must believe this or else you are a climate denier who has chosen to ignore the irrefutable climate science and the climate facts as presented by the world's leading climate scientists. You must be a climate skeptic and a deluded fool.

Figure 3

As with vaccinations, there is no middle ground when it comes to man-made global warming. It's all or nothing. It is the prevailing orthodoxy to which you must adhere.

Clearly there is an agenda

Root Canals: Drilling For Dollars

The dental procedure known as root canal has become ubiquitous. Even if a person hasn't been subjected to it, that person is bound to know someone who has.

I never suspected that there were any health dangers associated with the procedure until one days, years ago, I did a simple search on the Internet linking root canal and health problems. Of course, a lot of the results addressed the potential health problems that a root canal could remedy. However, there were others that warned about its risks. Here is a 2015 video in which a person who underwent the procedure talks about the consequences to her health:

Generally, it's difficult to link later health problems directly to root canal because their onset may take years to manifest. You might think that, unlike vaccinations, this dental money-maker is performed only on adult teeth but you'd be wrong. Here is a quote from a pediatric dentistry website:

Root canal treatment is a safe and effective way to stop many kinds of tooth pain, and to keep a tooth from being lost due to decay or injury. But if a root canal is recommended for your young child, you may wonder why: Isn't that baby tooth going to fall out in a few years anyway? 

That's true — the primary (baby) teeth typically are shed between the ages of 6 and 12 years. Yet there are some good reasons for trying to save baby teeth for as long as possible with root canal treatment, rather than simply extracting any that are damaged by trauma or infection. 

For one, primary teeth have the same functions as adult teeth — and a missing tooth at any age can cause problems with speech and eating. Baby teeth also have another important role: They serve as guides for the proper placement of the permanent teeth. 

Without primary teeth to guide them in, permanent teeth tend to emerge in a crooked fashion, often becoming tilted or crowded because of inadequate space. This can result in bite problems that may require extensive orthodontic treatment later.

The 2007 scandal in the United States surrounding Small Smiles, a chain of Medicaid dental clinics for children, is an extreme example of how the lust for profits from baby root canals can get out of hand. To quote from the news article:

Parents weren’t allowed to sit with their children during treatment. Young children were routinely strapped to papoose boards, immobilised with Velcro straps. And she showed me a bonus check for beating production goals while acknowledging that she, like other dental staff, conducted x-rays on children even though they weren’t certified, a clear violation of Maryland law.

The key danger with root canal is the potential for bacteria, especially anaerobic, to proliferate in the tubules of the dentine and to later spread throughout the body. It would be a rare dentist who would ever warn a recipient of this danger. Like vaccinations, there is simply too much money to be made for the practice to be overturned anytime soon. The following story deserves to be quoted in full because it shows that some oral surgeons at least are aware of the dangers posed by root canals:

Root Canals and Heart Disease: My Personal Story

By: Dr. David Friedman

We’ve all known or heard of someone who died suddenly of a heart attack for no apparent reason. That 50 year old neighbour, seemingly healthy with no history of cardiovascular disease, found dead in his back yard after having a massive heart attack. What if this deadly heart attack could have been prevented by a simple visit to a dentist? Sadly, I could have been that man found dead on his lawn, had it not been for a dentist who saved my life. 

Those that know me say I make the energiser bunny look lethargic. I wake up each morning with vigour and I always embrace the day with zest. I believe in seizing life to its fullest. About a year ago that all changed. My zig no longer zagged. I started going to bed tired and waking up even more exhausted. I was experiencing headaches and having a hard time concentrating. I went to see my doctor who did a complete physical and he discovered I had developed high blood pressure!! What?! How could that be possible? I’m a nutritionist. I eat clean and I exercise regularly. When the results of my blood test came back, I learned that I had elevated C-reactive protein (CRP). CRP is produced by the liver and rises when there is inflammation throughout the body. CRP is considered one of the major predictors of a future heart attack. My CRP measured a staggering 9.8 mg/L! Anything above 3.0 is considered a very high risk for heart attack and stroke. 

The body produces CRP during the general process of inflammation which is why it is called the “marker” for inflammation in the body. Your level of CRP is a good indicator of how at risk you are for developing cardiovascular problems.   In fact, research shows CRP predicts cardiovascular risk more accurately than a person’s cholesterol levels. Data from the Physicians Health Study, a clinical trial involving 18,000 apparently healthy doctors, found that elevated levels of CRP were associated with a 300% increase in the risk of heart attack. 

In addition to an elevated CRP, my white blood cell levels were also high, meaning my body was clearly fighting some type of infection. This internal inflammation was causing a chronic low grade fever, high blood pressure of 170/110; normally my levels are 120/82, and a resting heart rate of 90; normally I’m at 50. With all these factors, I had “the perfect storm” for a massive heart attack! I immediately went to a cardiologist who performed a stress test, EKG and a nuclear heart scan. The findings showed my heart was normal and I had no blockage whatsoever. This was great news; however, I was anything but normal. As the months progressed, I felt even more miserable! No one could give me any answers. I only knew my body was suffering from systemic inflammation but I had no idea why. 

Then one day while at a writer’s convention in California I met a dentist named Dr. P. Piero, from Michigan. He had just authored a book and was sharing it with me. As I thumbed through the pages, I noticed a section on C- reactive protein.  I asked him why a dental book would have a section on this inflammatory marker? What he told me next would finally bring answers on why I was having so many health issues. Dr. Piero told me that the number one cause of elevated CRP is a bacterial infection in the gums (i.e. a tooth abscess). This creates inflammation inside the gums, which enters the blood stream and travels throughout the body. I explained to him that I did not have any tooth pain so this couldn’t be the culprit. He then asked me if I have had any root canals? I told him I’ve had three. Dr. Piero shared that in a root-canaled tooth, the nerve is destroyed so I may feel no pain. 

When I got back home, I made an appointment with an Endodontist who discovered one of my root-canaled teeth was so badly abscessed it had eaten away part of my jaw bone! I made an appointment with an oral surgeon who had to extract the entire tooth and cut out the infection in my jaw bone using a tiny saw. The excruciating pain I experienced was beyond words! He would later pack cadaver bone inside the hole in my jaw, which will need to sit for approximately 6 months before I can get a dental implant. 

The oral surgeon that performed the procedure explained that a root-canaled tooth is essentially “dead” which makes it silent incubators for highly toxic bacteria which can make their way into the bloodstream leading to a number of serious medical conditions—many not appearing until decades later.  Within two days of having this failed root canal removed, I felt alive again! My energy, drive, endurance was back to normal! My heart rate and blood pressure were normal. After getting another blood test, I was happy to see my CRP was now at a normal level of 1.4 mg/L! 

If you are told by your dentist that you need a root canal, there is a safer alternative. Instead of opting to keep a dead tooth that will rot in your mouth, opt for a dental implant. Trust me, it’s MUCH cheaper in the long run and safer! Had I not met Dr. Piero, I feel certain I would have ended up a healthy nutritionist found dead in my yard from a fatal heart attack. 

The next time you go to your doctor ask him to check your CRP level.  I believe this should be a routine part of everyone’s annual physical. There are two tests for CRP. One can show a non-specific elevation of CRP that occurs with general inflammatory changes in the body; the other test is called hs-CRP – highly sensitive CRP – which is a measure of inflammation in blood vessels. This is the test needed to help establish heart disease risk. Thankfully, more and more doctors are realising the importance of measuring hs-CRP levels along with cholesterol to determine the risk of heart disease and to evaluate disease progression and prognosis in those who already have cardiovascular disease. Be sure and ask your doctor for this test to determine if you are at risk.

I was about to quote from an article that appeared on a website belonging to the Toxic Elements Research Foundation (TERF), a non-profit research foundation dedicated to stimulating interest in the research community as well as informing the public to become aware of potential problems associated with dental materials and procedures. However, closer inspection revealed that TERF was simply a very basic website, last updated in 2009, and the work of a single person by the name of Jamie Tolle. There were good quotes to be had from the site and reference was made to a ground-breaking "study" that was soon to be released to a waiting world. However, it was clear that there was no research foundation. Sources always need to be checked.

The cruel reality is that, just as with vaccinations, there is no research being carried about the long-term effects of root canals. Where would the funding for this come from? There are too many vested interests involved to get anything meaningful research off the ground. It's medical orthodoxy that vaccinations are safe. Doctors who question that do so at their professional peril and it's dental orthodoxy that root canals are safe. Dentists who question that do so at their professional peril. Of course, not many will question the procedure, because it's never raised as an issue in their training.

Pneumonia: More Fear Mongering

Here is the header from an article that appeared in today's Jakarta Post:

Pneumonia to kill nearly 11 million children by 2030, study warns

The article was taken from NEWS DESK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Paris, France on Tuesday, November 13th, 2018 at 03:04 am. The article goes on to say that:

Pneumonia will kill nearly 11 million children under five by 2030, experts warned Monday on a global day aimed at raising awareness of the biggest infectious killer of infants worldwide. 

While in the developed world the severe lung infection mainly affects the elderly, in developing nations it is children who bear the brunt, with hundreds of thousands dying each year from the easily preventable disease.

It continues:

A new analysis conducted by Johns Hopkins University and the aid group Save the Children using forecasts based on current trends showed more than 10,800,000 under-fives would succumb to the disease by the end of the next decade.  

Furthermore, a handful of countries are set to carry the highest burdens, with 1.7 million children set to die in Nigeria and India, 700,000 in Pakistan and 635,000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Yet there is some good news.  

The study, published on World Pneumonia Day, found that scaling up existing vaccination coverage, coupled with cheap antibiotics and ensuring good nutrition for children could save a total of 4.1 million lives. 

Of course, the article is intended to grab attention. Save the Children CEO Kevin Watkins, whose group operates health programs in some of the countries worst hit by the disease, called for prices of major existing pneumonia vaccines to be lowered "dramatically". It's unlikely that pharmaceutical companies will be lowering their prices. Instead the hope is that governments in developing countries will subsidise the cost from their health care budgets. Much needed funds are thus diverted from where they could be truly useful such as improving sanitation and nutrition.

In the nineteenth century, measles epidemics killed a great many children in England and other developed countries because families lived in vermin-infested, overcrowded and unventilated dwellings with primitive sanitation. Additionally, children ate poorly and sometimes not at all. When housing conditions and diet were improved, measles ceased to be a significant factor in childhood mortality.

It is the same of course with pneumonia which as the article admits "mainly affects the elderly in developed countries". In these countries, pneumonia does not take a significant toll of children because they are generally well-fed and adequately housed. It's a transparent ploy on the part of NGOs like Save the Children to attract funds but what organisations lie behind these NGOs. Well, the usual villains of course. One of this NGO's global partners is GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), laughingly described on the NGO's website as "a science-led global healthcare company on a mission to help people do more, feel better and live longer".

Ah no, GSK is, according to Wikipedia:

a British pharmaceutical company headquartered in Brentford, London. Established in 2000 by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham, GSK was the world's sixth largest pharmaceutical company as of 2015, after Pfizer, Novartis, Merck, Hoffmann-La Roche and Sanofi.

Of course, nobody is going to donate money to a pharmaceutical company and so GSK and other Big Pharma companies hide behind NGOs like Save the Children and push a very straight forward agenda: marketing their products. Save the Children and its current CEO have been mired in controversy lately. In July, as reported in this article in The Guardian: "(British) MPs question Kevin Watkins on failing to investigate claims of sexual misconduct by senior charity staff". Specifically:

Pauline Latham MP questioned Watkin’s decision to use £114,000 in charity funds on lawyers “to try and stop reports [of inappropriate behaviour] coming out”, adding that such money was likely to have been taken from funds raised by volunteers in the UK. 

Clearly, when donating money to NGOs like Save the Children, one needs to seriously consider how the money is being spent. However, if one were casually reading the article under discussion in the Jakarta Post or elsewhere, the simple takeaway would be that the pneumonia vaccine can save the lives of millions of children. If only it were that simple.

Vaccines damage the immune systems of children throughout the world but in developing countries, children's immunity is further compromised by overcrowded living conditions, poor sanitation and inadequate diet. These children do not need vaccines and yet limited health care funds are being diverted to this end.