‘Unchecked influence of health industry lobbyists’ means bill could be weakened in the future, union’s reps say
The newly-formed nurses’ “mega-union” has issued a scathing indictment of the Senate health bill expected to be voted on this week, calling it a “deeply flawed” piece of legislation that could make the US health care system’s problems worse.
National Nurses United, the US’s largest nurses’ union since it was formed earlier this month, issued a statement Monday implying that it doesn’t support the health care reform bill championed by the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
“It is tragic to see the promise from Washington this year for genuine, comprehensive reform ground down to a seriously flawed bill that could actually exacerbate the health care crisis and financial insecurity for American families, and that cedes far too much additional power to the tyranny of a callous insurance industry,” said NNU co-president Karen Higgins, a registered nurse.
The nurses’ statement implied that it would be better if Congress passed no reform legislation, rather than the current proposed bill. NNU co-president Deborah Burger dismissed arguments that the bill can be improved in the future, and that it marks the start of a comprehensive overhaul of the US health care system.
“Those wishful statements ignore the reality that much of the expanded coverage is based on forced purchase of private insurance without effective controls on industry pricing practices or real competition and gaping loopholes in the insurance reforms,” said Burger.
And Jean Ross, another NNU co-president, said it’s likelier that the health care bill will be weakened, rather than strengthened, in the coming years, “due to the unchecked influence of the health care industry lobbyists and the lessons of this year in which all the compromises have been made to the right.”
The NNU’s statement lists what it sees as 10 major flaws with the bill, including the bill’s mandate requiring individuals to purchase health insurance, without doing enough to reduce insurance costs; no limitations on health insurance monopolies in certain states and cities; and “reduced reproductive rights for women.”
The NNU also points to little-discussed provisions in the bill it says put the lie to the idea that the bill will stop insurance companies from canceling policies on account of pre-existing conditions.
– Provisions permitting insurers and companies to more than double charges to employees who fail “wellness” programs because they have diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol readings, or other medical conditions.
– Insurers are permitted to sell policies “across state lines”, exempting patient protections passed in other states. Insurers will thus set up in the least regulated states in a race to the bottom threatening public protections won by consumers in various states.
– Insurers can charge four times more based on age plus more for certain conditions, and continue to use marketing techniques to cherry-pick healthier, less costly enrollees.
– Insurers may continue to rescind policies for “fraud or intentional misrepresentation” – the main pretext insurance companies now use to cancel coverage.
National Nurses United is a member of the umbrella labor group AFL-CIO. Last week, the AFL-CIO’s president, Richard Trumka, called the Senate health bill “inadequate and too tilted toward the insurance industry.” The NNU’s criticism this week indicates that the labor movement is lining up against the Senate version of the health bill, which — unlike the House version — doesn’t include any sort of public option.
Earlier this month, as the union was being formed, NNU Co-President Burger criticized the health bill — even before the Medicare buy-in was removed.
“What we’ve got now isn’t really health care reform, it’s a reshuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanicas far as our patients are concerned, and we’re going to make sure that we … have universal health care that is truly universal and has eliminated the insurance companies,” she told Reuters.
Families struggling in the midst of a deep recession who earn a combined total greater than $88,200 and don’t have their health care covered by their employer will be hit with a mandatory annual fee of about $15,000 according to the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the final Senate Obamacare bill.
As we highlighted yesterday, the health care bill would introduce a raft of new taxes that would inevitably lead to higher costs that would be passed on to the public. A Boston Globe analysis revealed that there were at least 19 new taxes contained in the legislation which is set to be passed on Christmas Eve.
On top of this, a CBO analysis identifies five facts about the bill that will financially devastate families with an annual income greater than 400 percent of the federal poverty level.
Under Obamacare, Americans will be forced to buy government-approved health insurance and anyone earning a middle class wage will have to pay for it out of their own pocket. Federal subsidies will only be provided for people who are not offered coverage by their employer and earn below the 400 percent poverty level.
Employers will not be required to offer their workers coverage, being subject to a $750 annual penalty if they fail to do so, a figure most analysts say is not high enough to prevent employers from dropping their plans, meaning that more people will be forced to buy government health care.
“The Senate health care bill gives employers two powerful incentives to stop offering health insurance coverage to their workers,” writes Terry Jeffrey. “First, if an employer does offer coverage, its lower-wage workers will lose the federal insurance subsidy they would otherwise get. Secondly, if an employer does not offer coverage, the $750-per-worker fine it faces will be far less than the premiums it would pay if it did offer coverage.”
Costs are also set to soar as a result of insurance companies being hit with federal mandates that increase their risk.
“Policies purchased through the exchanges (or directly from insurers) would have to meet several requirements: In particular, insurers would have to accept all applicants, could not limit coverage for pre-existing medical conditions, and could not vary premiums to reflect differences in enrollees’ health,” according to the CBO.
This will inevitably force insurance companies to pass higher costs on to the public.
As a consequence of all these factors, families whose employers drop their plan will be forced to buy it on their own – at a cost of over $15,000 dollars a year.
“Average premiums per policy in the nongroup market in 2016 would be roughly $5,800 for single policies and $15,200 for family policies under the proposal,” states the CBO.
Jeffrey predicts that families being hit with a federally mandated $15,000-per-year insurance bill will provoke a “rebellion”.
“When that happens, the liberals will not say: We made a mistake. We never should have forced families out of their employer-based health insurance and required them to purchase a $15,000 policy,” he writes. “They will say: We told you so. We cannot trust these greedy insurance companies. We need a single-payer system so the government can provide everyone with health care. Just like they did in the Soviet Union.”
You’ve heard it before, how the pharmaceutical industry has a giant “revolving door” through which corporations and government agencies frequently exchange key employees. That reality was driven home in a huge way today when news broke that Dr. Julie Gerberding, who headed the CDC from 2002 through 2009, landed a top job with Merck, one of the largest drug companies in the world. Her job there? She’s the new president of the vaccine division.
How convenient. That means the former head of the CDCwas very likely cultivating a relationship with Merck all these years, and now comes the big payoff: Heading up a $5 billion division that sells cervical cancer vaccines (like Gardasil), chickenpox vaccines and of course H1N1 swine flu vaccines, too.
So what’s the problem with all this? The problem is thatprivate industry and government health offices such as the CDC or FDA should never be so cozy. When they are, it creates an environment of collusion between Big Government and Big Pharma. We’ve already seen this with the government-led push for swine flu vaccines that are manufactured (and sold) by drug companies like Merck.
You might even say that the CDC already functions as the marketing division of the pharmaceutical industry. It was the CDC that pushed so hard for swine flu vaccines, even amid the obvious realization that swine flu was no more dangerous than seasonal flu. To this day, the CDC still hasn’t bothered to recommend vitamin D for the prevention of either seasonal flu or swine flu. It remains heavily invested in the lucrative vaccine approach — an approach that just happens to financially benefit the very corporationsthat are hiring ex-CDC employees like Dr. Gerberding.
How to triple your salary by selling out to industry
Getting a job offer from Big Pharma, by the way, is one of the most-desired career paths for many CDC employees (and FDA workers, for that matter). It’s easy to accomplish it, too: Just operate in your government position as if you were a Big Pharma lackey. If you produce enough good businessfor the drug industry, sooner or later they’ll offer you a lucrative position that doubles or triples your government salary (or even better).
Now, I don’t want to lump all CDC employees in this same pathetic group, because there are indeed a great many bright, honest scientists working at the CDC who do excellent work tracking pandemics and trying to save lives. They are overshadowed, however, by those ambitious profit seekers who see their CDC job as merely a stepping stone for a far better-paying job at a major drug companies. And by any measure, Dr. Gerberding just cashed in big.
Her actual salary at Merck hasn’t been publicly released yet, but given that she’s heading up a $5 billion vaccine industry, it’s probably not chump change. I’d bet she’s now making at least ten times the salary of the President of the United States (and probably a lot more).
So now, Dr. Gerberding’s new job involves the incessant promotion of yet more vaccines — a job not very different from the one she held at the CDC, come to think of it. More vaccines for more diseases afflicting more people… it’s just another day at Merck, where the world is never so healthy that it doesn’t need one more mandatory vaccine.
As a special bonus to Merck in all this, Dr. Gerberding has a wealth of contacts not merely throughout the CDC, but also at the World Health Organization. When you’re the former head of the CDC, the top public health officials of the world are literally just one call away. But starting today, that call is a commercial, corporate-sponsored call, not a public health call. There’s a huge difference.
Does Dr. Gerberding suffer from an “ethics deficiency?”
My question in all this is whether Dr. Gerberding has any real ethics when it comes to issues like vaccines and public health. If she does have such ethics, why would she accept a job with a company that has been engaged in outright scientific fraud? (http://www.naturalnews.com/027582_M…)
Why would she go to work for a company that maintained a “hit list” of doctors to attack and “neutralize?” This is true — it came out in recent court documents (http://www.naturalnews.com/027116_M…).
Why would she take a job with a company that has a pattern of threatening doctors who speak out against its drugs? (http://www.naturalnews.com/026420_M…)
Why would she be okay with the idea of working for a company that commits scientific fraud by hiding documents showing its drugs to be dangerous? (http://www.naturalnews.com/024072_Z…)
Why would she want to collect a paycheck from a company that has been caught hiring ghost writers to pen “independent” science papers submitted to science journals, when they were actually crafted by Merck? (http://www.naturalnews.com/023052_M…)
Why would she feel comfortable representing a company that committed blatant scientific fraud with its Vytorincholesterol drug study? (http://www.naturalnews.com/022485_s…)
Maybe Dr. Gerberding is fine with all this. Maybe she has really “flexible” ethics. Or maybe she suffers from an “ethics deficiency” — an epidemic disease for which Merck apparently has no vaccine at all.
In any case, she’s now allied herself with a company engaged in so many repeated acts of fraud that in my opinion all its executives should be arrested and prosecuted for crimes against humanity. Those executives will now include Dr. Gerberding, it seems.
Did the CDC cover Merck’s back?
You might say, though, that she hasn’t done anything yet for Merck. But check this out: As a previous NaturalNews story explains, when a fourteen-year-old girl named Jessica died following a cervical cancer vaccine injection (made by Merck), the CDC covered for Merck and pointed the finger at the girl’s birth control pills.
Care to guess who was heading the CDC at the time of this maneuver? Dr. Julie Gerberding, now a top Merck executive.
You pat my back and I’ll pat yours.
For years, under the lead of Dr. Gerberding, the CDC has maintained a rather bizarre position that Merck’s vaccines are so safe that all side effects should be dismissed outright. This is explained in a Dallas Morning News article (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon…), among other places.
The CDC, in other words, has been running defense for Merck for many years, downplaying vaccine side effects and insisting that Merck’s vaccines are safe. Now that the president of Merck’s vaccine division and the former chief of the CDC are one and the same, it brings up obvious questions of whether there was some level of ongoing collusion between the CDC and Merck and how deeply Dr. Gerberding might have been involved.
Some of the word games played by Dr. Gerberding demonstrate amazing Clintonian-like speech patterns designed to deflect blame from Merck’s vaccines. Listen to this exchange where Dr. Gerberding indirectly admits that vaccines can cause autism (or as she says, “Autism-like symptoms,” which is exactly the same thing, as the symptoms define the disease in the first place). Watch it yourself in this segment on YouTube — this is a must see video segment on the link between vaccines and autism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh-n…
Who else is on the Merck team at the CDC?
That the CDC’s chief would be offered one of the very top jobs at Merck now makes me wonder just how deep the culture of collusion between Merck and the CDC really goes. How many other CDC employees are in line for future job offers from Merck — and what might they do in order to win those jobs?
There’s a solution to all this, of course: Pass a law that bans employees of the CDC, FDA, FTC, EPA or USDA from ever working for pharmaceutical companies. The people who run the regulatory agencies and public health offices should never be allowed to leap into employment at the very same companies they were once regulating. There’s just too much risk of cross-contamination of influence, which is why we have the corruption and collusion problems we’re seeing today with the FDA, FTC and CDC, all of which seem to be operating as marketing extensions of the pharmaceutical industry.
As long as the revolving door remains wide open between Big Pharma and Big Government, there will be a strong tendency towards corporate collusion that betrays the people whom government is supposed to serve. Instead of our government serving the People, in other words, it increasingly exists to serve the interests of Big Business. And big business doesn’t get much bigger than Big Pharma.
After all, inventing fictitious disease, creating pandemic panics, then selling questionable patented drugs to gullible consumers is a lucrative business model. And now the official job of the former head of the CDC is to make sure it all stays that way. So roll up your sleeves, folks: There’s a vaccine with your name on it, and Dr. Gerberding is here to make sure Merck sticks it to ya.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The little town of Libby, Mont., isn’t mentioned by name in the Senate’s mammoth healthcare bill, but its 2,900 citizens are big winners in the legislation, thanks to the influence of Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
After pushing for years for help for residents, many of whom suffer from asbestos-related illnesses from a now-closed mineral mining operation, Baucus inserted language in a package of last-minute amendments that grants them access to Medicare benefits.
He didn’t advertise the change, and it takes a close read of the bill to find it. It’s just one example of how the sweeping legislation designed to remake the U.S. health care system and extend coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans also helps and hurts more narrow interests, often thanks to one lawmaker with influence or bargaining power.
Here’s a look at some other winners and losers in the latest version of the legislation, which was expected to survive an initial test vote in the Senate around 1 a.m. Monday.
WINNERS
_Cosmetic surgeons, who fended off a 5 percent tax on their procedures.
_Nebraska, Louisiana, Vermont and Massachusetts. These states are getting more federal help with Medicaid than other states. In the case of Nebraska – represented by Sen. Ben Nelson, who’s providing the critical 60th vote for the legislation to pass – the federal government is picking up 100 percent of the tab of a planned expansion of the program, in perpetuity. Vermont and Massachusetts get temporary increases in the federal share of their Medicaid tabs. In Louisiana, moderate Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu negotiated $100 million for 2011 before announcing her support for the legislation.
_Beneficiaries of Medicare Advantage plans – the private managed-care plans within Medicare – in Florida. Hundreds of thousands of them will have their benefits grandfathered in thanks to a provision tailored by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., that also affects a much smaller number of seniors in a few other states.
_Longshoremen. They were added to the list of workers in high-risk professions who are shielded from the full impact of a proposed new tax on high-value insurance plans. (Electrical linemen were already included, along with policemen, firefighters, emergency first responders and workers in construction, mining, forestry, fishing and certain agriculture jobs.)
_Community health centers. They got $10 billion more in the revised bill, thanks to advocacy by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
_A handful of physician-owned hospitals being built around the country – including one in Bellevue, Neb. – which would be permitted to get referrals from the doctors who own them, avoiding a new ban in the Senate bill that will apply to hospitals built in the future. Without mentioning Nebraska or other states by name, the Senate bill pushes back some legal deadlines by several months, in effect making a few hospitals that are near completion eligible to continue receiving referrals from the doctors who own them. The provision was described by a pair of health industry lobbyists who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely. Chalk up another win for Nelson.
_AARP, the lobby for elderly people. The new Democratic bill has about $1 billion in extra Medicaid payments to states that provide visiting nurses and other in-home or community services to prevent low-income people from needing to be admitted to hospitals. In House-Senate bargaining, AARP also is expected to win one of their top priorities: a full closing of the so-called “doughnut hole,” the gap in Medicare’s coverage of prescription drugs.
_Doctors and hospitals in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming, who will get paid more than providers elsewhere under formulas in the bill.
LOSERS
_Tanning salons, which are getting hit with a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services, replacing the cosmetic surgery tax.
_Progressives. They had to give up on their long-held dream of a new government-run insurance plan so that Democratic leaders could lock down the necessary votes from moderates.
_People making over $200,000 a year. A proposed 0.5 percent increase in the Medicare payroll tax was bumped up to 0.9 percent in the latest version, putting the tax at 2.35 percent on income over $200,000 a year for individuals, $250,000 for couples.
_Generic drug makers. They fought unsuccessfully to block 12 years of protection that makers of brand-name biotech drugs – expensive pharmaceuticals made from living cells – will get against generic would-be competitors.
—
Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.
According to the free speech bastion “China Daily – China’s Global Newspaper” worldwide population control is the key to striking a deal on a global-warming treaty.
Ah…Copenhagen. I’m sure the Danes are proud of their global-warming summit, but the rhetoric is getting pretty scary.
Zhao Baige is a member of the chinese delegation in Denmark, and she’s proud of her nation’s population control laws. “Dealing with climate change is not simply an issue of CO2 emission reduction,” she says, “but a comprehensive challenge involving political, economic, social, cultural and ecological issues, and the population concern fits right into the picture.”
As I pointed out a couple days ago, every living human is a veritable CO2 factory. Folks like China’s dictators, and Obama’s science advisor John Holdren, see that as a problem we can fix with forced sterilization, forced abortion, and governments who confiscate children.
The United Nations is in agreement. According to a 2009 report from the UN Population Fund, “Calculations of the contribution of population growth to emissions growth globally produce a consistent finding that most of past population growth has been responsible for between 40 per cent and 60 percent of emissions growth.” The report goes on to claim that if we could just halt population growth, “it might result in 1 billion to 2 billion fewer tons of carbon emissions.”
For years, China has had stringent laws in place aimed at reducing the population growth by limiting the number or children a family can have, and aborting pregnancies that would result in the birth of more girls.
Zhao Baige defends her government’s practices. “I’m not saying that what we have done is 100 percent right, but I’m sure we are going in the right direction,” she said, “now 1.3 billion people have benefited.”
Unfortunately, the “benefits” provided by the draconian measures seem to be minimal at best, since despite them, China is still the world’s number one polluter.
So, just to sum up, the world’s most polluting nation wants to limit the number of kidsyouhave, Obama’s science advisor has a plan to help with that, and if you want twins, you’d better hurry the hell up. The world has no intention of indulging your selfish, planet-destroying, multi-child wishes.
When it comes to the flu, the track record of experts who oppose the views of the World Health Organization (WHO) have been consistently correct in their facts and assertions. Simply put, if the WHO makes a recommendation, it must be opposed to arrive at the truth of the matter. The recent WHO announcements on flu mutations are an excellent example of this phenomenon.
Most people have figured out by now that we can trust the WHO as much as we can trust a baby to not spill milk. They have consistently usedscientific fraud to conduct their policies on the H1N1 pandemic. Now, they are consistently downplaying what appears to be a virulent mutated or recombined H1N1 strain at least ten times the lethality of the swine flu observed earlier this year.
The agency recently reaffirmed its position that the pandemic vaccine is as safe as the seasonal flu vaccine. Meanwhile a surge of deaths inCanada and Japan and severe side-effects have been reported from the vaccine.
The World Health Organization said last week that the H1N1 vaccine had been completely cleared of blame for 41 deaths which health authorities worldwide had investigated after suspicions they might have been caused by the inoculation.
The global number of swine flu deaths has jumped by more than 1,000 in a week, according to the latest figures from the WHO themselves.
In late August, FOX News reported that doctors had announced a severe form of the H1N1 virus that goes straight to the lungs, causing severe illness in otherwise healthy young people and requiring expensive hospital treatment.
There is growing concern over the discovery of mutated strains of the H1N1 virus. “This mutation could increase the ability of the virus to affect the respiratory tracts and, in particular, the lung tissue,” said a statement from the French Health Surveillance Institute.
Last week, the WHO tried to dampen fears about mutations seen in the swine flu virus in several countries, noting that both mutations had been found in very few people.
A change that created Tamiflu resistance has been found in about 75 people around the world, said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, chief flu adviser to the W.H.O.’s director general.
Dr. Fukuda also said W.H.O. scientists were “not sure” of the level of threat posed by a separate mutation that helps the virus reach the lungs. It has been found in Norway, Ukraine, Brazil, China, Japan, Mexico and the United States, in both serious and mild cases.
Even though a more lethal version of the virus has infected almost 2 million people and left more than 400 dead in the Ukraine, Dr. Fukuda insists that “experts still need to see whether the mutation — whose shorthand name in virology is D222G or D225G — is becoming more common, and how often it leads to severe disease,” he said.
One isolate from Ukraine with the mutation had changed so that swine flu vaccine probably would not protect against it well, Britain’s national medical laboratory reported last Friday.
Virologist Timothy Lee stated “there is currently little debate among infectious disease specialists that we’re dealing with a recombined strain with a much higher CFR [case fatality rate] than standard H1N1.”
Lee stated that D225G is currently circulating worldwide and by stealth since most samples that are being collected are from the upper respiratory tract, while D225G is mostly affecting in the lowest portions of the lungs. “This strain is specifically attacking the inferior [lowest] portion of the lungs which is the largest and most critical pulmonary branch…it is almost as if the virus knows where to most effectively kill its host.”
On November 17th, the WHO lied to the world by stating:
“Preliminary tests reveal no significant changes in the pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus based on investigations of samples taken from patients in Ukraine….Preliminary genetic sequencing shows that the virus is similar to the virus used for production of the pandemic influenza vaccine, reconfirming the vaccine’s efficacy at this time.”
The comments were made after sequences had been generated which showed that four of four fatal cases in Ukraine had the receptor binding domain change D225G. This change had been predicted because it is the type of change expected for the large number of deaths which were linked to the rapid destruction of both lungs. The failure of WHO to consider such a change significant raises serious concerns about the agency’s credibility and scientific underpinnings.
The failure of WHO to correctly report on the receptor binding domain after the sequences had been generated destroys confidence in the agency at a most crucial time. In addition to targeting of the lungs and a reduction in vaccine efficiency, Tamiflu resistance is on the rise and one of the fatal D225G cases in France has additional viral changes which raise concern at a time when WHO is posting situation updates which are not credible.
These statements by WHO, at a time of extremely peril, are both scandalous and hazardous to the world’s health.
U.S. health authorities have made pregnant women one of the highest priority groups for getting the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, but is it actually safe for pregnant women and their babies? Well, the truth is that miscarriage reports from pregnant women who have taken the H1N1 swine flu vaccine are starting to pour in from all over the nation. Vaccines and pregnancy simply do not mix safely. In fact, the package inserts for the swine flu vaccines actually say that the safety of these vaccines for pregnant women has not been established.
What you are about to read below should shock and anger you. If they are telling us that the swine flu vaccine is not safe for children under 6 months of age, then why in the world would it be safe for pregnant women and their babies? That doesn’t make an ounce of sense, does it?
I am so upset. I was so excited to be pregnant after trying for a year. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I joined this birth club and I was due June 25th. We have two healthy boys with no history of miscarriage. Everything was going great. Last Monday, I got the H1N1 vaccine thimerosal reduced (mercury reduced for pregnant women). On Tuesday morning, I started cramping and on Wednesday I started bleeding heavily. My hcg was 50 on Wednesday and I was almost 6 weeks along so it was low. They still thought that I might be pregnant but on Friday my hcg was down to 22. I am an emotional wreck. I feel like I had a healthy baby and I caused this by getting the H1N1 vaccine. My doctors pushed it. I researched online and there have been many miscarriages after the H1N1 vaccine but they haven’t been reported since it is hard to say what caused the miscarriages. I hope that I did not cause this. I wish everyone the best.
Tayla08
I don’t have an answer for you, but a friend of a friend just had a miscarriage 2-3 days after getting the shot. She was 7weeks. She had no previous history of m/c… No one can answer if they’re related…it hasn’t been out long enough and there haven’t been any studies done on pregnant women. I will tell you, that it has made up my mind on getting it…I won’t and I’m not going to get it for my DD either. My daughter and I both had H1N1 last week, and although it truly sucks…I think I’ll take my chances. One doctor will tell you to get it and the next will tell you not too…you have to do what’s in your heart.
90707
my heart goes out to you as i recently miscarried as well and was due in june. i had a healthy heart beat at 6wks. then at 7.5 wks my son got the h1n1 mist vaccine which has live vaccine in it. the nurse said to be careful b/c it could technically spread if he rubbed his nose and touched a surface etc. the next night i miscarried and 5 days later was diagnosed with h1n1. i work from home, kids are home, hadnt been anywhere during that time. so the chances that it is all related are very high. the flu mist vaccine warns for immunocompromised patients (which includes prego) to stay away from recipients of the flu mist for 21 days.
I got the flu vaccine (regular not H1N1) at 8 weeks pregnant. Three days later I miscarried. I am not going to get the H1N1.
Regrets:
I got both vaccines on Thursday. I was 9 weeks pregnant. I miscarried on Sunday. I was told by several doctors to get these vaccines. Now I wish I followed my gut feeling and not get them at ALL!
:
i work in a hospital like setting and was told ‘the benefits outweigh the risks” 1am i got the vaccine, 3am i started bleeding and craming, 3pm miscarried. you decide
sue:
I had the H1N1 vaccination and 24 hours later had a miscarriage.
Linda Hill:
My daughter in law was 10 weeks pregnant and had the H1N1 vaccine on Friday that night she miscarried.
SoSorry:
I was so ready to get the H1N1 vaccine last week and they were only giving them to pregnant women. I was 6 weeks along and got it and the next day I started cramping and miscarried. I already had two healthy pregnancies and never miscarried or had any problems. My doctors think I am crazy to think it was the H1N1 but if no one looks into this than other women will not know. I am so sorry that I got it.
Connie:
I also received the H1N1 vaccination on October 22nd, 2009 and went into labor on October 25th, at 16 weeks pregnant and we just heard the heartbeat and everything was fine with my pregnancy on October 16th, 2009, then on October 28th my water broke then on October 29th, I delivered a stillborn baby boy, and no one can tell me why…Everyone wants to say it did not come from the shot but I believe it did. My baby was growing at the correct pace and everyone wants to brush off the vaccination. I say if you have the vaccination and suffer a miscarriage if they are able to perform an autopsy have it done.
I also agree something needs to be done and looked more into with this vaccination because most women are being advised it’s just something that happens, but I also had two healthy children normal pregnancies and when I received this vaccination with my third pregnancy, my baby is gone.
sioux falls, south dakota:
I received the H1N1 vaccine on October 16th and started experiencing cramping on the 22nd. I was nearly 17 weeks pregnant and gave birth to a stillborn baby boy on the 23rd. Like many of the other women here, the first thing I suspected was the H1N1 vaccine. I immediately asked a nurse at the hospital if that would have anything to do with it. Without hesitation, she told me “absolutely not.” I had reservations about getting the vaccine, but followed the advice of my long trusted family doctor. In a follow up appointment with my doctor 3 days after I lost my baby, I asked him if the vaccine would have had any adverse effects on my baby. He also said that it was not possible. I don’t believe that my doctor was necessarily lying to me, he was simply following the accepted practices and opinions of his field. I do, however, believe that as a nation, we are being lied to. This vaccine is NOT safe during pregnancy. There has not been enough testing done to determine this and there are far too many “coincidences” for this to be anything but a result of a vaccine that was hastily pushed into production and distribution in an effort to stop widespread panic. I have read so many stories in defense of the vaccine that will talk about how common miscarriages are, but I would challenge you to ask ANY health care professional how common second trimester miscarriages are. My baby was doing perfect developmentally and I had felt him move earlier that day. My heart goes out to all of you out there who have had to go through the same heartache and loss that I have had in the last couple of weeks. There is no reason that any woman or family should have to go through this. Get the word out to all of the pregnant women that you know. I know that if I had heard that women had been losing their babies shortly after they received the vaccine, I would have followed my gut and not gotten it myself. Maybe then Wyatt would have had a chance at life.
Marina Rossi:
I recently got the H1N1 vaccine and miscarried 3 days later. I thought it could have been the vaccine but didnt ask. After finding this site I believe it was the vaccine. Sorry to everyone else out there who has just experienced a miscarriage.
kathy-sd:
I’m from a town of 2000 in SD, there are several women pregnant and we are all due within a few weeks of each other. Four of us got the H1N1 vaccine 2 weeks ago and one by one each of us started to have preterm contractions. We are all due in Nov and Dec so we are further along than most of the people that lost their babies. There is no way you can tell us that our preterm labor was not caused by the H1N1 vaccine. It may look like a “fluke” to some people when these women are scattered all over the country but we are talking about 4 of us in our small community. My heart goes out to all of you that lost your babies.
ashley:
Im not sure but not only myself, i know someone that withing 4 days of getting the shot we both miscarried, i was only 6 weeks and she was 4 months along, not sure if the shot caused it and cant find any other information but i am a little concerned about this coincidence.
Time Machine:
I got a flu shot in pregnancy, developed incredibly strange symptoms immediately (numb hands, feet and mouth, heart palpitations, sudden weakness in my legs, a bright red face), began bleeding and miscarried by 11 weeks. I had no idea there was mercury in most flu shots but once I found out after the fact, I was assured that I’d had the “mercury free” form. As it turned out, the shot wasn’t completely mercury free and, according to the EPA website, it still had 5,000 times the limit for mercury in drinking water– not to mention a list of other toxins (MSG, formaldehyde, etc.).
I’d had no idea the shots were so dirty. I guess I’d been under the impression they were something like sterile water and a dead virus, that’s it.
The strange symptoms– which I’d been told were “just pregnancy” lasted six months. No one could figure out what was wrong with me, why I couldn’t make stairs, why I felt like I’d been shot with novocaine. I learned later from a book by Jane Hightower that these were all symptoms of mercury exposure. I guess I’m one of those susceptible people. No one in my family is getting the H1N1– no one even gets regular flu shots anymore, we all read labels.
If you are a pregnant mother, please do not take the H1N1 swine flu vaccine. Instead, do everything that you can do to avoid public places and make sure to wash your hands more than you usually would. Take extra large doses of immunity building vitamins and research many of the great natural ways for fighting the flu that are out there on the Internet.
The truth is that if you do take the vaccine and then something happens, you will NOT be able to sue anyone (thanks to Congress). You will have to bear all the responsibility yourself. That doctor who kept pushing and pushing it on you will tell you that it could not have been the vaccine and that you probably would have miscarried anyway.
Do you honestly want to inject a vaccine that may contain mercury, formaldehyde, polysorbate 80 (associated with infertility), triton X100 (a strong detergent), phenoxyethanol (antifreeze) and a whole bunch of other toxic ingredients into your system when you know that your baby will absorb it too and has no defenses against most of these things?
In the very short video posted below, you will see one health expert explain to Sean Hannity that not even the swine flu vaccine package insert says that it is safe for pregnant women…..
The reality is that if you are pregnant, you need to hear what both sides have to say before ever subjecting your baby to the swine flu vaccine. You do NOT want to end up like one of the mothers above. Please help us out by sharing this information with as many people as you can. If you know of any additional H1N1 swine flu vaccine miscarriage horror stories please post them below in the comments section.
***UPDATE: More Stories From Our Own Readers***
AlinafromOz:
I had the normal Flu shot, and i had a misscarriage at 8wks… they told me it wasnt related pfftt yeah right and now no way in hell i would get a barely tested H1N1 vaccine..
Kayte:
My husband’s pregnant coworker (5 months along) called her doctor on the day they were giving the regular flu shots at work. He said she should get it. She did, and lost her baby the next week. This enrages and sickens me that the medical industry is pushing these shots on pregnant women and children, especially the new, little-tested, experimental H1N1 vaccine!
Kevin:
I work with someone who was 4 months pregnant. Her husband got swine flu, so both she and her son got the vaccine “just to be safe.” A week later, she had a miscarriage. Any supposed benefits from the vaccine are clearly outweighed by the tremendous risks.
JK:
I was in support of vaccines and was comfortable with the fact that there is a national database that records “all” vaccine reactions so they can see trends and such – which is the info I got from my doctor.
Then, my daughter had a reaction to a vaccine at 18 months old. It was horrifying to watch her body swell for three days and not be able to do anything (Benadryl slowed the swelling, but couldn’t reverse it until three days had passed). I knew there were risks to vaccines, but it had seemed that the benefits outweighed the risks. I could have accepted that.
I was not prepared for the reaction of the medical community. My doctor’s office refused to admit it was a reaction – even while she was swelling! They were concerned about the swelling, asked me if I knew how it started, then, when I mentioned that I suspected the vaccine they sent me home and said I was imagining things. A few hours later she had to go to the ER. Later I took her to an allergist who confirmed that it was a reaction. He told me that a lot of people react to the 3rd DTaP shot – even if they’ve been fine before. Still, he encouraged me to continue getting all the shots except for the last DTaP.
No one ever reported any of this to the national database.
My pediatrician pressured me to get more shots for my kids, but I refused. I’ve recently found out my kids’ medical records falsely state that my kids DID get additional vaccines.
My daughter had been ahead on speech milestones at the time of the reaction, from that date (October) to the following July, she only learned 8 new words, and her language development froze. We’ve done three years of therapy now and she is in special ed.
Lynn:
My heart goes out to all who have suffered horrific events due to these vaccines. I have a beautiful 2 and 1/2 year old daughter who was born a month premature, at the time, all the health care practitioners involved in our lives strongly were pushing that she receive all the ‘necessary’ vaccines…. My mothers heart and gut reaction strongly said “no” but being a first time mom and feeling the pressures of our health care advisors I agreed to having her first set of shots done. Days later she developed a horrible ‘chest cold’ which never really cleared… she would have good days only to relapse into endless nights of trying to clear her little chest and holding her while she cried. Of corse….. none of this was vaccine related. Then came time for her second set of shots… oh boy…. the stomach aches began… but our health unit would not stop calling until I made an appointment to bring her in, so, I did…. only agreeing to a select few of the vaccinations, resulting in more congestion toped with ear infections and many bouts of anti biotics. Her condition quickly spiraled downward into 2am visits to the hospital for a Ventilator because her chest was so tight each breath was a huge effort. Each doctor who saw her assured me that this was more common than I thought and that she would likely ‘grow out of it’. Needless to say I will never let another vaccination needle touch her little body again. Weather our health system wants to admit it was related or not I cant help but believe that it was. Other than being small she was 100% healthy at birth and remained that way for 3 months…. until her first set of shots.
*UPDATE*DR. HOROWITZ WILL HOLD A PRESS CONFERENCE AT THE END OF THIS PROTEST AT 2PM FOR THOSE MEMBERS OF THE PRESS WHO WOULD LIKE TO ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT THE H1N1 VACCINE
Adrian Gibbs, the virologist who said in May that swine flu may have escaped from a laboratory, published his findings today, renewing discussion about the origins of the pandemic virus.
The new H1N1 strain, which was discovered in Mexico and the U.S. in April, may be the product of three strains from three continents that swapped genes in a lab or a vaccine-making plant, Gibbs, and fellow Australian scientists wrote in Virology Journal. The authors analyzed the genetic makeup of the virus and found its origin could be more simply explained by human involvement than a coincidence of nature.
Their study, published in a free, online journal reviewed by other scientists, follows debate among researchers six months ago, when Gibbs asked the World Health Organization to consider the hypothesis. After reviewing Gibbs’ initial three-page paper, WHO and other organizations concluded the pandemic strain was a naturally occurring virus and not laboratory-derived.
“It is important that the source of the new virus be found if we wish to avoid future pandemics rather than just trying to minimize the consequences after they have emerged,” Gibbs and colleagues John Armstrong and Jean Downie said in today’s eight- page study.
While the exact source of the new H1N1 strain is a mystery, their research has “raised many new questions,” they said. The authors compared the genetic blueprints of flu strains stored in the free database Genbank and found the pandemic virus’s nearest ancestors circulate in pigs.
‘Simplest Explanation’
While migratory birds may have acted as conduit for their convergence, human involvement in bringing them together is “by far the simplest explanation,” Gibbs said in a telephone interview today.
Gibbs wrote or coauthored more than 250 scientific publications on viruses, mostly pertaining to the plant world, during his 39-year career at the Australian National University, according to biographical information on the university’s Web site.
“Knowing Adrian Gibbs, he will have thought through it pretty logically and come to that conclusion,” Lance Jennings, a clinical virologist with Canterbury Health Laboratories in Christchurch, New Zealand, said in a telephone interview. “It’s up to someone else to try and prove it or disprove it.”
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