The Ruthless Truth blog

US scientists discover antibodies that neutralize 90 pct. of known HIV strains

By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, July 8th, 2010 — 10:53 pm

US researchers have discovered two powerful antibodies that neutralize more than 90 percent of all known strains of the HIV virus in the lab, new research released Thursday showed.

NIH-led scientists discovered the antibodies known as VRCO1 and VRCO2 that prevent most HIV strains from infecting human cells. The find is a potential breakthrough for advancing HIV vaccine design, and antibody therapy for other diseases.

The authors, whose work is published in the July 9 issue of Science, also were able to demonstrate how one of these disease-fighting proteins gets the job done.

"The discovery of these exceptionally broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV and the structural analysis that explains how they work are exciting advances that will accelerate our efforts to find a preventive HIV vaccine for global use," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health.

"In addition, the technique the teams used to find the new antibodies represents a novel strategy that could be applied to vaccine design for many other infectious diseases," Fauci stressed in a statement.

Story continues below…

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The team of virologists found that the two antibodies were produced naturally and found in the blood of HIV-positive people.

They were able to isolate these antibodies using a new molecular device they developed. It zeroes in on specific cells that make antibodies against HIV. The device is an HIV protein scientists modified to react only with antibodies specific to the site where the virus binds to cells it infects.

Leading two research teams were NIAID scientists Peter Kwong, Ph.D., John Mascola, MD, and Gary Nabel, MD, Ph.D.

"We have used our knowledge of the structure of a virus — in this case, the outer surface of HIV — to refine molecular tools that pinpoint the vulnerable spot on the virus and guide us to antibodies that attach to this spot, blocking the virus from infecting cells," explained Nabel.

Mascola added that: "the antibodies attach to a virtually unchanging part of the virus, and this explains why they can neutralize such an extraordinary range of HIV strains."

 

US scientists discover antibodies that neutralize 90 pct. of known HIV strains | Raw Story

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Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:21 EDT

"U.S. federal health authorities recommended … that doctors suspend using Rotarix, one of two vaccines licensed in the U.S. against rotavirus, saying the vaccine is contaminated with material from a pig virus," CNN reports.
The Rotarix vaccine, which is made by GlaxoSmithKline and was approved by the FDA in 2008, has already been given to about 1 million U.S. children along with 30 million worldwide. The vaccine was found to contain DNA from porcine circovirus 1.
"The FDA learned about the contamination after an academic research team using a novel technique to look for viruses in a range of vaccines found the material in GlaxoSmithKline’s product and told the company," FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg told CNN.
Sources: CNN March 22, 2010

Dr. Mercola’s comments:
One million U.S. children, and about 30 million worldwide, have already received GlaxoSmithKline’s Rotarix vaccine. Now a research team has discovered it is contaminated with "a substantial amount" of DNA from a pig virus.
What is pig virus DNA doing in a vaccine intended to prevent rotavirus disease, which causes severe diarrhea and dehydration?
It’s anybody’s guess, although CNN reported that GlaxoSmitthKline detected the substance in the cell bank and the seed used to make the vaccine, "suggesting its presence from the early stages of vaccine development."
It is actually common for vaccines to contain various animal matter, including foreign animal tissues containing genetic material (DNA/RNA), but even FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg told CNN:

"It [Pig virus DNA] should not be in this vaccine product and we want to understand how it got there.
It’s not an easy call and we spent many long hours debating the pros and cons but, because we have an alternative product and because the background rates of this disease are not so severe in this country, we felt that the judicious thing to do was to take a pause, to really ask the critical questions about what this material was doing in the vaccine, how it got there."

Disturbing Findings in Rotarix and Two Other Common Childhood Vaccines
Dr. Eric Delwart is the researcher who, along with colleagues, made the discovery of contamination in Rotarix. Their intent was reportedly to "show that live attenuated vaccine only contained the expected viral genomes and no other," but what they found told a different story.
Using new technology to test eight infectious attenuated viral vaccines, the results showed three of the vaccines contained "unexpected viral sequences":
1) A measles vaccine was found to contain low levels of the retrovirus avian leukosis virus
2) Rotateq, Merck’s rotavirus vaccine, was found to contain a virus similar to simian (monkey) retrovirus
2) Rotarix (GlaxoSmithKine’s rotavirus vaccine) was found to contain "significant levels" of porcine cirovirus 1
So in their tests, nearly 40 percent of the vaccines they tested contained viral contaminants. The implications of these findings on the alleged safety of the vaccine supply remains to be seen, but clearly there is contamination occurring that was a complete surprise to researchers, health officials and vaccine manufacturers alike.
As Barbara Loe Fisher, founder of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), said in her commentary on the Rotarix contamination issue:

"There are lots of questions about how the manufacturer of Rotarix vaccine and the FDA both missed the pig virus DNA contaminating the original seed stock and all doses of Rotarix vaccine given to more than one million American children in the past few years.
Is there state-of-the-art technology that is being used by private laboratories but not by drug companies and the FDA?
Why did the independent team of scientists, who found the contamination, notify the vaccine manufacturer first rather than also immediately reporting their finding directly to the FDA?
What about the significance of finding bird viral DNA in measles vaccine and the monkey viral DNA in RotaTeq vaccine?"

There are clearly a lot of unanswered questions right now. At the very least, it certainly makes you wonder what other "unknown" contaminants are lurking in vaccines. At worst, we could be injecting children with substances that could potentially cause serious health problems down the road.
Animal Ingredients Common in Vaccines
You should know that it is very common for vaccine manufacturers to use cells from animals and birds in their manufacturing process.
To put this in perspective, Barbara Loe Fisher has explained what animal material is par for the course in manufacturing the Rotarix vaccine for your children:

"Rotarix is a genetically engineered vaccine that GSK created by isolating human rotavirus strain infecting a child in Cincinnati and using African Green monkey kidney cells to produce the original viral seed stock from which all Rotarix vaccine has been made.
In the FDA licensing process, Rotarix had to meet certain FDA standards, that included demonstrating the vaccine was not contaminated with, for example TSE (Transmissable Spongiform Encephalopathy or "mad cow" disease, a brain wasting disease) or with cow viruses because bovine (cow) serum was used to prepare the original viral seed stock.
Porcine trypsin, an enzyme in the pancreatic juice of a pig, was also used to make the viral seed stock."

So the fact that Rotarix contains animal material is not a surprise … it’s the type of animal material, an unexpected variety, that has even the FDA raising their eyebrows.
Why it’s Dangerous to Have Various Animal DNA in Vaccines
Both the FDA and GlaxoSmithKline spokespeople continue to state that no safety risk has been uncovered from the contamination, at least not yet.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said "a substantial amount" of the DNA was found in the vaccine. But, he stressed, "there is no evidence that it causes any disease. … There is no evidence that it ever does anything."
Dr. Paul Offit added, "The PCV1 virus they found is an orphan virus, i.e., it is not associated with disease".
Of course there are no studies provided or have ever been done to show this, it doesn’t stop them from making these statements without any facts to back up their safety assurance, despite the fact that SV40 from monkeys has been associated with cancer in multiple studies.
History has shown that it can indeed be very dangerous when an animal virus unintentionally enters the vaccine supply.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the polio vaccine, which is still given in the United States, typically four times during a child’s first 16 months of life, was widely contaminated with the monkey virus, SV40, which had gotten into the vaccine during the manufacturing process (monkey kidney cells, where SV40 thrived, were used to develop polio vaccines).
In lab tests, the virus was found to cause several different types of cancer, including brain cancer, and now SV40 is showing up in a variety of human cancers such as lung, brain, bone and lymphatic.
According to the authors of The Virus and the Vaccine: The True Story of a Cancer-Causing Monkey Virus, Contaminated Polio Vaccine, and the Millions of Americans Exposed, leading scientists and government officials turned their heads to repeated studies showing that SV40 was in the vaccine, and even today some well-known agencies are still dismissing study results.
The virus is even showing up in children too young to have received the contaminated vaccine, and some experts are now suggesting the contaminated virus may have been in the polio vaccine up until as late as 1999.
It is because of risks like this that Barbara Loe Fisher said:

"With mounting evidence that cross-species transfer of viruses can occur, the United States should no longer be using animal tissues to produce vaccines."

This is also the same reason why Donald Miller, a cardiac surgeon and professor of surgery at the University of Washington, suggests in his more User-Friendly Vaccination Schedule that if you choose to get your child vaccinated against polio, you request only an inactivated (dead) virus vaccine that is cultured in human cells, not monkey kidney cells.
The United States no longer uses the live oral polio vaccine, so parents don’t really have to ask for the injected version. However, if you live internationally, this is still an issue.
Are the Benefits of Rotarix Worth the Risks?
Even without a potential contamination scare, there are serious risks to every vaccine. So before vaccinating you really need to be certain that the benefits will outweigh those risks.
In the case of Rotarix, along with RotaTeq (a similar vaccine made by Merck), the benefits are very questionable, especially if you live in the United States or another developed country.
Rotavirus is very contagious and does cause more than 500,000 deaths in young children each year, but this is mostly in developing countries. In the United States, rotavirus is responsible for only "several dozen" deaths a year, according to Hamburg.
Typically, when a child in the United States contracts rotavirus, and most do, only rest and fluids are required to recover. This infection also provides natural immunity that will protect your child for life.
As NVIC writes,

"The CDC estimates that, by age 3, almost every US child has had a case of rotavirus. Once a child has been infected with a strain of rotavirus, he or she develops antibodies and is either immune for life or has a milder case if infected with that same strain in the future.
Most healthy children, who are infected with several strains of rotavirus in the first few years of life, develop lifelong natural immunity to rotavirus infection."

The rotavirus vaccine, meanwhile, has shown little benefit for rotavirus rates in the United States. According to NVIC:
"Today, even though almost all US infants receive vaccines for rotavirus, and despite efforts to improve the management of childhood rotavirus-associated diarrhea, hospitalizations of children in the U.S. with the disease have not significantly declined in the past two decades."
Along with showing little benefit for a disease that is typically entirely treatable with fluids and rest, a recent drug review by the FDA found that Rotarix is associated with a significant increase in pneumonia-related deaths in children, compared to a placebo.
So with this particular vaccine, children are taking on serious risks with what appears to be very little benefit — and that was before the contamination was uncovered.
The moral of the story?
Whatever you do, please do your homework before subjecting your children to any vaccine. A great way to get started is to simply use the Search Feature at the top of each of my Web pages and search my site as it contains a litany of research on vaccine safety, and the lack thereof.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/207163-The-FDA-Shuts-Down-Common-Infant-Vaccine-After-Startling-Discovery

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Dr. Mercola
Sat, 17 Apr 2010 20:52 EDT

In an important OpEd piece from the Washington Examiner, Barbara Hollingsworth sets the record straight about Gardasil:

"Cervical cancer accounts for less than 1 percent of all cancer deaths – so it was somewhat surprising when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration fast-tracked approval of Gardasil, a Merck vaccine targeting the human papilloma virus that causes the disease.
As of the end of January 2010, 49 unexplained deaths following Gardasil injections have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. By contrast, 52 deaths are attributed to unintended acceleration in Toyotas, which triggered a $2 billion recall."

There has been no recall for Gardasil, however. In fact, as Hollingsworth points out, it is required for sixth-grade girls in D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and many other states.
Unfortunately, "Merck denies any of the deaths are related to its vaccine, and the parents involved can’t prove they were," Hollingsworth writes.
India Suspends Gardasil!
Unlike in the United States, The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has told two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, to halt its Gardasil vaccine study, which was slated to test the vaccine in about 32,000 girls between the ages of 10 and 14.
DNA India reports:

"The program is part of a two-year study to look into the utility of a vaccine in public health programs and acceptability of Gardasil.
The program was marred by controversy after four deaths and complications among 120 girls were reported after vaccination. The girls complained of stomach disorders, epilepsy, headaches and early menarche."

Sources:
Washington Examiner March 30, 2010
DNA India April 8, 2010
Dr. Mercola’s Comments
It is indeed suspicious that the FDA put Gardasil on a fast-tracked approval process. What many people fail to appreciate is that the human papilloma virus is a sexually transmitted disease, not a virus you can get by shaking someone’s hand.
Further, they were surely well aware that at least 50 percent of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives – and 90 percent of the time the virus clears up on its own within two years, and does not lead to cancer.
Why Are We Wasting Our Resources on this Vaccine?
Cervical cancer is just not that common to begin with. There were just over 11,000 new cases diagnosed in 2009, and about 4,000 women died of the disease that year, according to the American Cancer Society.
Cervical cancer killed 12 times fewer people in 2009 than did hospital-acquired infections … yet the FDA chose to fast-track the Gardasil vaccine? It just doesn’t add up.
That is a TOTAL of 4,000 deaths in the US for the year. While even one death is tragic, it is important to keep these numbers in perspective. All this time, effort and energy is being invested to save 4,000 lives.
This entire program is being initiated with virtually no long-term safety studies or effectiveness rates.
Just this month in India, the country’s government suspended the Gardasil vaccination study that was supposed to test the vaccine in about 32,000 girls. The program was halted because four girls died after receiving the vaccine, and more than 120 others reportedly suffered stomach disorders, epilepsy, headaches, early menarche and other adverse events.
In the United States, meanwhile, where we’ve had over 17,000 adverse reactions and 59 deaths, the vaccine is still being recommended.
Yet if we were to implement a program to optimize everyone’s vitamin D levels we could save 200,000 deaths from cancer a year
That is FIFTY times the number of lives that are reportedly being saved by Gardasil for what most likely would be a less expensive program. And you can rest assured many of those saved would be some of the 4,000 that would have died from cervical cancer.
Serious Side Effects, Including Unexplained Death, Common
Merck only studied the Gardasil vaccine in fewer than 1,200 girls under 16 prior to it being released to the market under the fast-tracked road to licensure. To date, most of the serious side effects, including deaths, that occurred during the pre-licensure clinical trials and post marketing surveillance have been written off as a "coincidence" by Merck researchers and government health officials.
But it is becoming clear that these reactions are more than just coincidence; this vaccine appears to be one of the most dangerous on the market.
In an analysis comparing the vaccine to another for meningitis (Menactra), the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) found that Gardasil was associated with:

• At least twice as many emergency room visit reports (5,021)
• Four times as many death reports (29)
• Seven times as many disabled reports (261)
• Three to six times more fainting reports

As of March 2010, there were more than 17,600 reports of adverse reactions regarding the Gardasil vaccine in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.
Among them are 59 deaths, 18 of which were among girls under the age of 17.
When previously healthy teenagers die within days of receiving a vaccination, there needs to be a serious investigation performed, at the very least.
Unfortunately, a staggering majority (about 89 percent) of all adverse reaction reports filed for Gardasil are so incomplete they cannot be used to perform the follow-up required to find out what happened, what caused the problem, and most importantly, how to avoid it from happening to others.
This is why NVIC is currently petitioning President Barack Obama and Congress on behalf of families to investigate Gardasil vaccine deaths and serious injuries. If you agree that these, and countless other cases like them, sound like more than a "coincidence," please sign the Petition to Investigate Gardasil Vaccine Risks Now!
Help Spread the Truth about Gardasil
Despite its serious side effects and growing list of adverse reactions, in October, 2009 the FDA also approved Gardasil for use in boys to prevent genital warts … so now this dangerous vaccine is putting all young people at risk.
Most Americans have blindly placed their trust in the vaccine makers and in federal health agencies, whose responsibility is to ensure that drugs and vaccines licensed for public use are safe, effective and necessary.
Yet this is often not the case.
As Barbara Loe Fisher, President and co-founder of NVIC, said:

"I have a sense of déjà vu as the story of Gardasil vaccine plays out real time. There are striking parallels between how those operating the mass vaccination system reacted in the 1980′s to persistent reports that the DPT vaccine was harming more children than originally assumed, and the way they are reacting now to persistent reports that Gardasil is more reactive than it was originally assumed.
Assumption of safety is no substitute for proof of safety.
And turning away from human suffering in order to protect the status quo is not the way to run a government that needs the trust and support of the people.
In the 18th century, Queen Marie Antoinette looked down at a starving people pleading for bread to stay alive and said "Let them eat cake." It is time for everyone in government, industry and medicine to take a different approach to persistent reports of vaccine injuries and deaths or risk metaphorically suffering the same fate that ended the monarchy in France.
In the 21st century, today’s peasants don’t have pitchforks – they have laptops, desktops, smartphones and the internet."

Again, I urge you to sign the Investigate Gardasil Vaccine Risks Now! petition and also share the truth about Gardasil with your friends and family.
Over the years it has become very clear that those responsible for protecting your health are not looking out for your best interest and that of your children.
And if they won’t do it, then it is up to you and me to do it.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/207128-Time-for-the-Truth-about-Gardasil

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United Press International
Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:13 EST

© Unknown

The H1N1 virus should be included in the 2010-2011 flu season — northern hemisphere — vaccine, World Health Organization officials in Switzerland said.
WHO officials recommended viruses for influenza vaccines for next year’s influenza season include:

– A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)-like virus.
– A/Perth/16/2009 (H3N2)-like virus.
– B/Brisbane/60/2008-like virus.

A/Wisconsin/15/2009 is an A/Perth/16/2009 (H3N2)-like virus and is a 2010 southern hemisphere vaccine virus, WHO officials said.
The WHO convenes technical meetings in February and September each year to recommend viruses for inclusion in influenza vaccines for the northern and southern hemispheres.
The recommendation relates to the influenza vaccines for the forthcoming influenza season in the northern hemisphere 2010-2011, but a recommendation will be made in September 2010 relating to vaccines that will be used for the influenza season in the southern hemisphere 2011, WHO officials said.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/203205-WHO-Add-H1N1-to-seasonal-flu-vaccine

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