Archive for the 'BBQ' Category

LOLcaps

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

You may have seen there is ‘outrage’ from leftists and liberals in the UK that state handouts – benefits – are proposed to be capped at £24,000 per year. George Monbiot, for example, bleats until his green-eyes pop out of his misguided head about the rich, hard-working business people who should be punished for earning their money. Just when you think he has proposed the most stupid idea possible, he comes up with, instead of a benefits cap, a wages cap!

But back to benefits.

£24,000 net equivalent to an income of over £32,000 per year for a working family. Unfortunately many benefits claimants are sadly unable to survive on such a meagre sum when having to not work or contribute meaningfully to society for the privilege of receiving the money.

The BBQ, of all people, have provided an example of how a family would be affected by having their benefits reduced from over £30,000 to the proposed cap of just £24,000.

So, should tax-payers support these people? Let’s see how they struggle…

Current benefits: £30, 284 of money taken under threat of force from people who work for a living. More than half of it just as a reward for having bred uncontrollably.

£91 per week ‘other outgoings’: to keep the kids happy via consumerism, apparently. You don’t believe the crap about school trips, every week, do you?

£20 per week ‘entertainment’: your taxes buy this man a night out at the pub. Every week. Does he deserve this respite from his seven children and wife? Would you give him that money charitably?

£15 per week on SKY TV: ‘We get the Sky Movies package because we’re stuck in the house all week – otherwise we wouldn’t have any entertainment.’  How did people survive before SKY TV? Will the family unit collapse if they have to resort to library books and freeview? Or talking to each other, heaven forbid!

£30 transport: his eldest son is scamming him for most of this if he believes 5 return bus rides to college are £30.

£32 per week on mobiles: ‘My wife and I have mobile phones, and so do all of the teenage children. You try telling teenagers they’re going to have to do without their mobiles and there’ll be hell to pay.’ Your taxes are saving this man from growing a pair and keeping his children in a world of ‘whine and it shall be given’.

Energy: ‘ If they do cut our benefit we are going to have to choose between eating and heating the house properly.’ Or choose between mobiles and heating. Or beer and heating. Or fags and heating. NEVER believe these sob stories from ill-disciplined and spineless, willpower-lacking, idiocracy-generating fuckwits.

Rent £76 per week: As your state-sponsored incubus notes, this would be much more expensive were it private. Hence you are ACTUALLY paying much more than the £76 per week, as you are subsidizing the housing cost already, before a small portion of the cost is charged to, and then reclaimed by and from, our father-of-seven. All that admin costs too.

Shopping £240 per week. Includes food and household goods, 24 cans of lager, 200 cigarettes and a large pouch of tobacco. Has ‘Ray’ sent you so much as a card to say thanks for the fags and booze you buy him every week? And of course none of these ‘essentials’ could be sacrificed, which makes these proposed benefits cuts so damaging to people like Ray.

 

It’s easy to pick on people like Ray, and so it should be! He moans that “The market for my skills dried up 10 years ago – there’s a total lack of work in my area of expertise.” but has spent TEN YEARS breeding and little else. Retrain, do menial work, start a business, anything!

Stop supporting Ray and his work-shy ilk and let him remember where he left his self-respect, or let him rot in his own filth, before you find yourself sat at home on your recliner toilet chair watching nothing but this.

Home Truth Is Out There

Monday, November 28th, 2011

Data from a new study, published in the British Medical Journal, has been chewed up by the Fourth Estate and spat out to deliberately fear-monger against Home Birth.

See the Press Assoc., BBQ, Terriblybad for examples of the most widely reported ‘angle’ on the study.

Babies born to first-time mothers who choose a home birth are almost three times more likely to die or suffer a medical complication, according to a report.

I have read the study, linked above. The overall risk for a ‘serious adverse outcome’ did not reach statistical significance in home birth vs other birthplace cohorts. Only when a specific subset of data were analysed was a significant result reached.

And just to clarify the inflammatory quote above, see table 8.4 in the Appendix to the study for the data which show that your child does not have ANY more likelihood of dying at home compared to a ‘medical’ setting. In fact, the highest proportion of neonatal deaths were found in freestanding midwifery units. For what it’s worth.

However, having read the study and having tried to understand the data, I would like to present an alternate interpretation.

CHOOSING TO GIVE BIRTH IN AN OBSTETRIC UNIT HARMS YOU, AND HARMS YOUR BABY, BEFORE YOU EVEN ARRIVE

It’s true, and this brilliant study proves it.

THEN THEY HARM YOU SOME MORE

It’s true, and this brilliant study proves it.

Let me elucidate on the data which supports my hypothesis.

So, you are ‘low risk’ (defined by this study), gestation has gone very well (defined by this study), labour starts… at home you get on with things. Eventually a midwife usually arrives and checks you over.  At this stage only 5.4% of women at home had any kind of medical complication (meconium leaking, abnormal foetal heart rate and so on).

If, however, your labour starts and you have to leave home, get to hospital and do whatever they tell you to do before a midwife sees you… 19.5% of women showed 1 or more complications! 8x as many women in hospital had 2 or more complications than those women who stayed at home.  That’s a bad start.

So, baby is coming and those Obstetricians just can’t keep their hands away. If you’ve chosen hospital you have 4x more chance of little Chelsy being sucked out with a plunger (ventouse), 3.5x more use of metal salad servers (forceps), 5x more chance of being slit open (caesarean), almost 2x more chance of serious perineal trauma, 2x more blood transfusions, 5x less chance of a normal placenta delivery, 3x less chance to use natural pain relief such as water birth – but 4x more chemical pain relief (epidurals etc.), and, finally, 4x more chance of having your fanny slashed by a scalpel-happy medic.

Also, home birth rates better than midwife-led units in all these aspects.

Obstetric Unit births were classified as ‘spontaneous vertex’ (normal head-first) births in only 74% of cases.

At home your chance of a completely normal birth was 93%. Again higher than midwife-led units.

All this data is freely available in the study manuscript online and it’s online appendices.


				

The Manchester ID Card trials were a greater disaster than previously thought

Thursday, December 30th, 2010

After HRH Elizabeth the second officially killed the ID Cards bill (for the indigenous people of the UK only) we now read this story from the Manchester Evening News about what was actually going on at the time of the Manchester ID Card trials.

We can infer much from this, and also extrapolate to what is happening today:

Revealed: The full shambles of the ID card trial in Greater Manchester

Civil servants were urged to sign up their own families for ID cards as the controversial scheme flopped, it can be revealed today.

Confidential reports into trials of the controversial £30 cards, obtained by the M.E.N., expose for the first time the chaos that surrounded their introduction.

The £1bn scheme was launched in Greater Manchester in November last year but proved a hugely expensive failure, with only 13,200 people signing up.

It was scrapped by the coalition government days after it came to power.

Today the M.E.N. can reveal how:

  • Senior Whitehall officials were urged to email friends and relatives encouraging them to buy cards because of fears about the level of demand
  • UK and overseas border guards refused to recognise the cards – with one traveller chased through an Italian airport after trying to use one as ID
  • The Home Office discovered the cards could stop some credit cards from working properly

The cards – which contained fingerprint and other biometric details – were championed by the previous Labour government as a way of preventing terrorism and identity theft.

The documents highlight particular concern about low take-up by staff at Manchester Airport –

By April this year, only 15 per cent of airside workers had enrolled for a card.

Reports reveal how the airport took the unusual step of appointing a full-time ‘National Identity Card Administrator’ to drive up demand and considered a competition to promote the scheme.

The report also said: “One participant complained that the identity card interfered with other cards kept in the same wallet.”

The ID scheme – which cost £292m before it was axed – was initially championed by Labour minister as an anti-terror measure that would allow them to keep track of people in the UK.

But public pressure eventually forced them to concede that the cards should not be compulsory. Manchester was chosen to pilot the scheme but all 13,200 cards issued have now been cancelled.

Participants who forked out £30 for the documents have been told they will not get refunds.

The Home Office refused to comment on any of the problems cited in the reports

Damian Green, the home office minister, said: “The Identity Card Scheme was intrusive, bullying, ineffective and expensive.”

But Leigh Labour MP Andy Burnham, who previously oversaw the biometric cards while a Home Office minister, said: “The Tory-Lib Dem government are trying to make the cards a totem of what our government stood for– but I think they were a good idea and many people are still be in favour of them.”

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/

And there you have it.

only 13,200 certifiably insane signed up for the ID Card; we knew that the uptake was very small, but what we did not know was that senior Whitehall officials were urged to email friends and relatives to encourage them to buy the cards because demand was so small.

We did not know that UK border guards did not recognize the cards. That is just completely ABSURD.

The staff at Manchester Airport, bless them, held fast and refused to knuckle under, with only 15% of them taking the card. This is highly significant, since the jobs of these people might have been on the line if they refused.

We did not know that they appointed an NIR Administrator to drive up demand.

The question here is (and you know the answer) why did we not know all of this at the time it was happening?

BBQ was there ‘reporting’ what was happening in Manchester, with its vox pops and biased articles; surely they must have known about the low uptake, the NIR Administrator and the ridiculous scene of a man not having his ID Card at the borders of ‘his own country’.

Its a 1000% guaranteed fact that the BBC was aware of all of this and did not report it. We at BLOGDIAL know for a fact that they were involved in setting up NO2ID for their vile propaganda pieces; its a very safe bet that they withheld these sensational and game changing stories because they knew that if they reported them, the ID Card fiasco’s collapse would be accelerated.

Readers of BLOGDIAL know what we think of Andy Burnham. That he is still saying in public that ‘ID Cards are a good idea’ at this stage, when the Queen has just destroyed his ‘good idea’, with the entire nation galvanized against them, is simply staggering.

That man is an unrepentant, unctuous, evil little socialist. Period.

Now for the comments on this article…

Comrade Burnham would think they were a good idea wouldn’t he…moron.
Anthony Cutt (30/12/2010 at 12:42)

I like it!

£292 million later & Andy Burnham still thinks they’re a good idea?
Let me tell you something Andy: I shall probably vote Labour come the next election but not if idiots like yourself are still around.
Ivor Rash, Oldham (30/12/2010 at 12:43)

Oldham, up North, where they vote Labour, hates Burnham.

“The Tory-Lib Dem government are trying to make the cards a totem of what our government stood for”

They were. Money p****d against the wall on unnecessary, unwanted & unworkable ideas by an incompetent & inefficient government.
Anthony Cutt (30/12/2010 at 12:50)

The image has cracked; these scumbags cannot lie anymore, thanks to the internets. People have a vocabulary to defend themselves with, thanks to the internet; its a vocabulary that you will not be able to collect from any Broadsheep newspaper, the BBC, Sky or any MSM news source.

I signed up for an ID card but it got stolen.

It’s hard to type when you’ve had to saw off your fingerprints & difficult to see when you’ve had to have a cornea transplant!
NoSignOfHealthToBeWellAdjustedToASickSociety, Tameside (30/12/2010 at 13:00)

I lol’d!

Yes a lot of people are in favour of them, Sun readers and other sub normal cretins mainly.
PeteB, Hyde (30/12/2010 at 13:35)

I can feel your anger! It makes you stronger, gives you focus!

Stretch out with your hate BOY!

I’d be willing to bet that far more Guardian readers are in favour of ID cards. Personally, I wouldn’t have got one even if it had been made compulsory. I already have a passport, a driving licence and my Army ID. If they’re not enough to prove my identity, tough.
John Evans (30/12/2010 at 13:04)

When the army goes against the State, then the State is in big trouble. I have no doubt that there are more secret documents that detail revolt from the Police and the Military. We already know that BALPA came out against them unanimously. They killed this because it was offensive to everyone once the truth of how it actually works was spread virally.

But still there a number of morons in Greater Manchester who would SERIOUSLY consider voting for Andy Burnham come the next election, even in light of his absolutely obserd remarks!

Says it all…… To think the likes of him and many others in the LIE BOUR camp who still support the I.D card system beggars belief!
Red Army (30/12/2010 at 13:09)

They are truly human garbage, the whole lot of them.

You may read the rest of the comments at your leisure.

BLOGDIAL is offering £10 cash bounty for UK ID Cards; if you have one, we want to buy it from you. I am going to set them in a frame as a trophy to our victory in bringing this disgusting, immoral and vile scheme down. Email us!

Now for the extrapolation.

As you know ID Cards have been abolished only for the British; they still exist for the ‘wogs’.

What do you think the BBC is not reporting about the uptake of these Apartheid style cards by the dirty foreign invaders?

I guarantee you that the uptake of these cards amongst foreigners is even less than the uptake in the Manchester trial, and once the news of the racist nature of these cards spreads virally to all the victims of this abominable crime, you can be sure that there will be a blanket refusal to interface with the system.

ID Cards for foreigners will collapse just like the ID Cards for Brits collapsed, because if no one carries them, even the UK ‘authorities’ will not recognize them; they will be literally useless.

These racist cards will never reach critical mass, and of course, there are all the problems of an Apartheid state where millions of ‘honorary whites’ are also living unsegregated who, by law, are not required to carry an ID Card or show it upon demand.

Its a recipe for disaster of course, but it seems like the painful and expensive process has to be gone through before ID Cards can be completely eradicated for good.

A commenter gets the gist of this:

So what’s happened to the “full-time ‘National Identity Card Administrator’” now that the scheme has been scrapped and he has nothing to administrate.

I doubt he has been sacked. More likely he’s been given a new job title, a pay rise and an assistant.
ebble, manchester (30/12/2010 at 13:37)

This is what it is all about; fleecing human beings as if they were cattle, creating an ID Card ecosystem where there are guaranteed jobs for decades administrating, examining, reporting, issuing, replacing, repairing, distributing and interfacing with these diabolical cards.

But you know this!

BBC sinks to its lowest point EVER

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

Make sure that you have no coffee next to your keyboard, or in your mouth, because if you do, you WILL splutter or spill over your keyboard it as you watch this unprecedented, foul, loathsome and appalling display of inhuman nastiness:

As you all know, we do not have any time for protesters, demonstrators or people who are for the State its theft and wealth redistribution, but for the love of everything decent in the world, this man with Cerebral Palsy is a total hero for sitting calmly whilst being subjected to one of the most disgusting displays of vile behaviour that I have ever seen in my entire life.

All of you who still believe that the BBC is a ‘fair’, necessary, unbiased, professional and beneficial organisation, take note; what you have just watched is a manifestation of the true nature of the BBC and the people who control it.

This is what they are really like, right to the bone. At all other times, they are merely pretending to be human beings, with soft voices, seemingly reasonable opinions and lack of bias.

You are paying for this. Literally and figuratively. You pay this man’s salary. You pay for the whole sick and twisted organisation. You paid for this presenter and his attempt to humiliate and vilify a man who cannot even push his own wheelchair.

And they have the GALL to ask for the ‘License fee’ to be INCREASED.

It should be ABOLISHED Period, the BBC should encrypt its signal and anyone who wants to pay for this sort of trash can do so if they like seeing human beings treated like this. Anyone who does not concede that the BBC has GOT TO GO is FOR what we have just seen.

Absolutely UNBELIEVABLE.

Obama: Yes we Canute!

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

The Copenhagen Accord is based on a proposal tabled on Friday by a US-led group of five nations – including China, India, Brazil and South Africa – that President Barack Obama called a “meaningful agreement”.

The accord includes a recognition to limit temperature rises to less than 2C (3.6F)

Canute the politician

Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings. For there is none worthy of the name but God, whom heaven, earth and sea obey”.

So spoke King Canute the Great, the legend says, seated on his throne on the seashore, waves lapping round his feet. Canute had learned that his flattering courtiers claimed he was “So great, he could command the tides of the sea to go back”. Now Canute was not only a religious man, but also a clever politician. He knew his limitations – even if his courtiers did not – so he had his throne carried to the seashore and sat on it as the tide came in, commanding the waves to advance no further. When they didn’t, he had made his point that, though the deeds of kings might appear ‘great’ in the minds of men, they were as nothing in the face of God’s power. […]


Swine flu: go to bed and take a statistic

Friday, December 11th, 2009

BBQ reports that:

Swine flu less lethal than feared

The swine flu pandemic is “considerably less lethal” than feared, chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson says.

A study led by Sir Liam found a death rate of just 0.026% in those infected, the British Medical Journal reported.

This links to the article in the British Medical Journal:

Mortality from pandemic A/H1N1 2009 influenza in England: public health surveillance study

Which states:

Initial reports of 208 deaths between 1 June and 8 November 2009 were received. Of these, 138 met the case definition as being related to pandemic A/H1N1. The others were excluded from analysis because the initial clinical suspicion was not borne out by investigation and hence the case definition was not met (n=56) or because they did not yet fulfil the case definition but death certification or results of postmortem tests were outstanding (n=14). An estimated 540 000 people (range 240 000-1 100 000) in England had symptomatic pandemic A/H1N1 infection in the study period. With this denominator, the case fatality rate was 26 (11-66) deaths per 100 000 cases.

My emphasis.

So H1N1 flu is considerably less lethal than other pandemic strains. Also, the vaccine has been pushed at young adults and children as being particularly at risk. However, Sir Liam’s own statistical analysis concludes:

The paper showed the estimated death rate was lowest among children aged five to 14, with around 11 deaths per 100,000 population.

It was highest for those aged over 65, with 980 per 100,000.

So, mortality is 0.026%.

Or is it?

The Health Protection Agency has carried out studies looking for evidence of antibodies to H1N1, denoting exposure, in the general population and concludes that:

Millions more than thought have already had swine flu, Government scientists say

‘Normal’ flu has a symptomatic/asymptomatic ratio of around 1:1, which means only 50% of people who contract the virus will show any symptoms and end up on the statistical database as a flu victim. This ratio seems to be even lower with H1N1, with as few as 1 in 10 children (the “highest risk group”) showing symptoms. Therefore at least 2, and possibly up to 5, times as many people as estimated have had swine flu.

But! Sir Liam, in his BMJ study, only used confirmed cases of swine flu to work out the mortality rate. If we look at the current death toll of 283 as 0.026%, this implies around 1.08 million people have had swine flu.

If we factor in the other 50%-80% of non-reported cases, we end up with an actual mortality rate of 0.013% – 0.0052%. At the upper rate (0.013%) this means over 23 million people would need to get swine flu in order to generate 3000 deaths, which is at the lower end of the deaths from ‘normal’ winter flu.

In spite of this, we are still being treated to heart-string non-journalism like this, from state propagandists BBQ:

The family of a woman who died from swine flu after giving birth have urged all pregnant women to get vaccinated against the virus.

Despite seeming to state that she died from syptoms not normally associated with flu, but noted in many post-partum problems:

She was later transferred to London’s Royal Brompton Hospital for specialist treatment, but died on November 29 after developing complications including deep vein thrombosis and bleeding on her brain.

A personal and familial tradegy, yes. A reason to get every pregnant woman vaccinated, definitely no.

As a final aside on swine flu, around 70% of those people with symptoms have been given Tamiflu. Here is a nice report which suggests Tamiflu is… er… shit. More of your money wasted, scammed from an ignorant government into the pockets of BigPharma. Roche is also accused of hiding trials data on the effectiveness of Tamiflu. You can look it up. Scamiflu!

State your preference

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Yet another politician fails to understand the problem of the BBC:

BBC ought to ‘actively look for some Conservatives to be part of their news-gathering team’, says shadow minister

The shadow culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, […] speaking at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch today, said the BBC had acknowledged that those who wanted to work there had centre-left views and quoted its former political editor, Andrew Marr, who in 2007 described the corporation as having an “innate liberal bias”.
[…]

Guardian

Any political bias from a publicly funded broadcaster is a bad thing, but inevitable. The real issue is not that the BBC should engage in discrimination to ensure ‘balanced reporting’ but that a broadcaster is funded by a coercive licensing system and there is still a State broadcaster (i.e. one mandated by a Royal charter).

In fact as part of a broadly market based nation any sense of balance or ‘reality’ is compromised by reliance on what is essentially tax revenue – and it shows in the broadcasting.

As the State broadcaster it is no wonder that people with a bias towards State provision of services work there. Its governing structure is like a mini House of Lords; Government suggested officials being appointed with no public accountability.

The funding of the BBC through coercion has a noticeable effect on its broadcasting which is, especially the news, broadly antagonistic to private enterprise and supportive of governmental intervention in peoples affairs (viz. any article in the last year on economics).

If the BBC financed itself through a market mechanism (subscription, pay per view, commercials, syndication, investment options, etc.) then there would be no need for it to be ‘balanced’ or to address MPs concerns that their party is not fairly represented – it would be freed from the need to make checks and balances to its reporting and it would be free to interrogate politicians to a greater extent.

Naturally the BBC points to the poor programming by ITV and obvious bias of SKY when you make these points and it says it would degenerate to their level. There is no reason to expect this to be true unless their journalists and programme makers are so woeful they cannot survive competitively.

A report commissioned by the corporation in June 2007 found that while there was no evidence of conscious bias, “individuals exercise on occasion a largely unconscious self-censorship out of a misguided attempt to be ‘correct’ in their thinking”.
[…]

The problem with self-censorship and attempts at ‘impartiality’ is that these attempts are based on the perception of the broadcaster/journalist (and their working environment) and so the process is flawed. It is far better for journalists to report fully as they see the situation and any bias to be apparent and ripe for criticism (as in print media). A self-censoring mind is not one that can take on board new information unless it fits with the prepared template it cannot evaluate new information correctly – it cannot learn and therefore it cannot enable learning. Hence a self-censoring reporter censors not just themselves but against their whole audience.

“I think the important thing with the BBC is that it belongs to all of us. We have these debates because it is very important that the BBC is representative. […]

The BBC does not ‘belong’ to all of us, the public cannot sell their ‘share’ or demand changes of its content, it is not ‘property’.
The BBC cannot be representative (of the public) because individuals cannot truly represent others, it should stop trying and it should raise money in a way that its bias can be accepted, i.e. privately and without coercion.

Free Tamiflu

Monday, July 20th, 2009

HMG is wasting more money setting up a ‘Swine Flu Hotline’, where at least 2000 underpaid minions are waiting ask you a number of set questions which will tell if you have Swine Flu. A correct response will get you a ‘scrip for antivirals.

Won’t it be open to abuse?

Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, has himself admitted people will be able to cheat the system.

It will not be long before the “correct” answers that will get people anti-viral drugs will appear on the internet somewhere.

However, the government accepts this is the price it is willing to pay for relieving the pressure on the health service.

Sir Liam says he believes it will only be a “minority” of people who do abuse it.

There are also safeguards in place. Everyone in the country has a unique flu number so if they try to get anti-virals more than once the NHS will know.

So, it’s your taxes, and HMG admits “this is the price it is willing to pay for relieving the pressure on the health service”, so go for it! Get your free Tamiflu and stock it up for when a real virus hits.

NHS Doctor lacks power of thought – shocker!!!

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

NHS Blog Doctor, one “Dr John Crippen” has linked to a Blogdial post on MMR:

The champagne corks will be popping to night at JABs

First, we are Blogdial.

We are not JABS, we have no links to JABS and we do not in any way suggest that our opinions are shared by JABS, and vice versa.

before they dance round the mumbo-jumbo pole to sing “Soomer is a-comin’ in.” Their MMR scaremongering has been successful. There is now a major outbreak of measles.

With insults as poor as the above, Dr Crippen deserves to see a wicker man from the inside. However, he only presents a straw man argument.  There is not a major outbreak of measles.  And if anyone is scaremongering it is the likes of Dr Crippen, HMG and BBQ who present a relentless tax-sponsored campaign to scare parents into permiting their children to be jabbed with whatever They deem necessary. It has been MMR, it is now HPV (as we have discussed before) and will soon be chickenpox (as we have discussed before).

Furthermore, the post to which Dr Crippen links was obviously too complex in its arguments for him to understand. Dr Crippen accuses us of scaremongering when in fact that post simply highlights;

  1. how government policy has restricted patient choice
  2. how it is the restricted choice of vaccine which is now limiting uptake
  3. how HMG could alter this policy, but refuse
  4. how, rather than change policy, HMG pass blame onto parents refusing MMR – as is their choice
  5. how the NHS, Dr Crippen included, fail to support parental choice and exacerbate the problem
  6. how it is HMG, NHS, BBQ and now Dr Crippen – and not parents –  doing all the fearmongering

Health chiefs in Wales are dealing with a “massive” measles outbreak, with numbers already four times the highest figure recorded over the past 13 years.

Lies, damned lies… and very selective reporting. If, for instance, one looked at all the years of measles cases one may say something like “the outbreak is among the 20 lowest number of cases per year in recorded history.”

BBC Heaven forbid that we should start using nasty inflammatory words like “epidemic” or “pandemic” about this illness that could be eradicated were it not for the gullible worried-well lapping up noxious propaganda from the Wakefield brigade.

Patronising tosh. There would not be so many “worried well”, as Dr Crippen calls them, were it not for the deliberate scare-mongering of the health industry. No worried well, no mass market for HPV vaccine, no mass market for chickenpox vaccine, no mass market for statins over-the-counter, no multi-billion dollar industry in unneccessary vitamins and supplements. The ‘worried well’ do not go to the doctors asking for vaccine X, health screen Y or treatment Z  for no reason: – it is because the have been subject to a targeted marketing campaign based on fear, guilt and scaremongering by the health industry.  And the NHS is an integral piece of the health industry. The worried well are exactly the market targeted by BigPharma for vaccines against relatively inoccuous diseases like chickenpox.

And over the last year I have read precisely ZERO articles suggesting a link between MMR and autism (“noxious propaganda from the Wakefield brigade”). In contrast, there is a wealth of “noxious propaganda” telling me I am endangering myself, my children and the health of the nation if I fail to give my kids MMR. A wealth of “noxious propaganda” telling me how evil a disease measles is in 21st Century Britain. Just look at the noxious propaganda on the BBQ alone!

To compare, search the BBC for ‘MMR autism’ and the latest hit is over a year ago. And that is a report of the GMC hearing against the original researchers.

Still, it’s a thought.

No, it’s not.  There is no thought in your post at all, and that is the problem, Dr Crippen.

The NHS news line reports today that there are fewer cases of swine flu in the UK than there are cases of measles. And in Wales, there are two hundred times more cases of measles than of influenza.

Why is it not on the front page of every newspaper?

Maybe because some editors are keeping it in perspective? Maybe because only BBQ is in the pay of HMG? Just a  thought.

The Dehumanizers strike back

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

A valiant soldier alerted me to this:

Another arsehole here…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8057785.stm

Advocates of home birth have, within the last month, claimed that “the vast majority of women have low-risk pregnancies”.

In fact, by all accepted standards, more than half of women have, or will develop, risk factors that make home birth unwise.

He FAILS by not pointing out – or not even realizing, more likely – that the “accepted standards” are those which he and his ilk have determined.

100% correct.

Now.

This article was written by Professor Philip Steer who is a man, not a woman. He is, “British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology editor-in-chief”.

What is ‘Obstetrics’?

Obstetrics (from the Latin obstare, “to stand by”) is the surgical specialty dealing with the care of women and their children during pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium. Midwifery is the non-medical equivalent. Veterinary obstetrics is the same concept for veterinary medicine.

[…]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstetrics

So, now you have all that you need to know.

This man, this MALE, has based his entire career on treating pregnancy and birth as if they were a medical condition and not a perfectly natural occurrence that does not, on average require intervention of any kind.

I can tell you this; if MEN gave birth instead of WOMEN, NO MAN ON THIS PLANET WOULD PUT UP WITH THE NONSENSE THAT THE OBSTETRICS INDUSTRY FORCES UPON WOMEN.

The fact of the matter is that only in the west are women subjected to the complete insanity and degradation of unnecessary obstetric procedures.

The fact that there is a ‘population problem’ in the world proves that obstetric intervention is totally over the top in the west. The majority of women in the world give birth OUTSIDE OF A HOSPITAL, and it is so successful, that there are ‘TOO MANY PEOPLE BEING BORN’.

The fact of the matter is the people who practice Obstetrics are doing it mostly for the money. They attack midwifery and home birth because midwives and home birth, should they become the norm, would totally decimate their incomes, industry and prestige.

All the statistics show that Home Birth is safer than hospital birth. There is no refuting this; what the BBC has done, once again, is promote the medical industrial complex by publishing its propaganda. They do it all the time. Here is another piece that just appeared saying that everyone should be taking medicine to lower their blood pressure as a matter of routine:

Blood pressure pill action urged

Everyone aged 55 and over should be taking drugs to lower their blood pressure, a London-based expert says.
Epidemiology expert Professor Malcolm Law said blood pressure drugs cut the risk of heart attack and stroke even for those with normal blood pressure.

His conclusion, published in the British Medical Journal and backed by other experts, is based on a review of 147 studies, involving 464,000 people.

However, the Stroke Association warned the drugs could have side-effects.

This is yet another article from the BBC without a named author. They do this to protect the identity of the person who accepted money to write this story on behalf of the PR companies that work for the drug companies. They know perfectly well that if the name of the author was given in every instance, someone would be able to correlate the stories and trace them to PR companies and cash payments for placement of these stories on the BBC news website.

This is why they deserve all the contempt that they get.

But I digress.

The facts about childbirth are that sometimes, a mother and her unborn child can get into distress during labor, and at those times, obstetricians can save lives. That is a fact, and I am thankful for obstetric practitioners, for the work that they do, and the lives of the mothers and children they have saved.

But.

If obstetricians try and influence the direction that birthing takes away from natural birth and towards the mechanized birth by using FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt), simply because they do not want to lose clients and money, then they need to be sharply put in their places.

Women are not animals, and pregnancy is not a medical condition. It is up to the woman to decide how she should give birth.

If she wants to give birth alone, that is her affair. If she wants an elective Caesarean that is also her business. If this is not the case, then women become a form of property, that falls under the control of the state or some other monster; in the west, pregnant women are increasingly the property of the state under the control of Obstetricians. This is totally unacceptable, and as I say above, no man would ever accept it.

What is worrying about this article is the following lie:

In fact, by all accepted standards, more than half of women have, or will develop, risk factors that make home birth unwise.

Think about the words:

‘By all accepted standards’…. WHOSE STANDARDS?
‘Risk factors’ … WHOSE ASSESSMENT OF RISK?
‘Unwise’ … WHOSE WISDOM?

The standards of an obstetric practitioner will be different from another person’s standards. Because we are dealing with PEOPLE and not MACHINES, the wishes of the mother trump everything, no matter what anyone says. The same goes for risk; it is up to the mother to decide what level of risk she wants to take with ANYTHING she does, not just pregnancy and birth. If an obstetrician can make a decision or assessment of risk and force a decision on a pregnant women, then that woman becomes PROPERTY at that instant.

Women are wise. The know how to give birth, (especially after the first time) and they know how to assess risk. They have a right to assess risk and to make decisions for themselves and their children. Anyone who gets in the way of that by force is a beast, and should be put down like one.

Women in the west are now sharing information about home birth, and finding that they want to give birth just like everyone else in the world does. Medical professionals are LIVID that they are going to be pushed out of the loop. Well, thats just tough shit. Women come before your desires for money, and if all women in the west want home birth, you have no choice but to accept that and sit patiently until your services are needed.

All of my friends who have children have opted for home birth. They all did it at home, and some of them delivered their children by themselves. The return to natural birth is now unstoppable. Medicalized birth will fade into history like the prohibition of alcohol; it will be seen as an insane aberration of the twentieth century.

The choice the medical community have to make is wether or not they want to be the enemies of their patients or their dutiful servants. I am sure that all women would prefer the latter.

Finally, ‘home birth’ is not anti technology any more than people who choose organic food are anti technology; they are exercising quality control. Take for example, the services of Caroline Flint, whose services are not about home birth, but about the woman having total control over her pregnancy and birth. She will look after you during your pregnancy, and if you want an elective Caesarean, she will arrange that for you. This is the thing the Obstetricians fear the most; being supplanted by and having their incomes at the mercy of Midwives.

The BBC is the threat

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

Thanks to a vigilant lurker, we have this gem from BBQ / BBC:

Italy police warn of Skype threat

By David Willey
BBC News, Rome

The police’s use of wiretaps has forced some criminals on to the internet
Criminals in Italy are increasingly making phone calls over the internet in order to avoid getting caught through mobile phone intercepts, police say.

Officers in Milan say organised crime, arms and drugs traffickers, and prostitution rings are turning to Skype in order to frustrate investigators.

The police say Skype’s encryption system is a secret which the company refuses to share with the authorities.
Investigators have become increasingly reliant on wiretaps in recent years.
Customs and tax police in Milan have sounded the alarm.

They overheard a suspected cocaine trafficker telling an accomplice to switch to Skype in order to get details of a 2kg (4.4lb) drug consignment.

Use of wiretaps by prosecutors in Italy has grown exponentially in recent years.

Heated debate
Investigators say intercepts of telephone calls have become an essential tool of the police, who spend millions of dollars each year tracking down crime through wiretaps of landlines and mobile phones.

But the law may be about to change.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing government has drawn up a bill which would restrict police wiretaps to only the most serious crimes.

Much crime reporting in the Italian media is based on leaks of wiretaps and leading politicians, including Mr Berlusconi himself, have found to their embarrassment that details of their private telephone conversations have sometimes been leaked to newspapers.
Under the new law reporting of details of criminal investigations obtained through wiretaps would become illegal until a final verdict has been delivered.

Given the extreme slowness of Italian justice, this would mean that details of cases now before the courts might be reported by the press only in 15 years time.

Not only have Italian journalists been protesting at the new draft bill, but a heated debate is also going on about it within the country’s highest body for the administration of justice – the supreme council of the magistrature, composed of the country’s top judges.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7890443.stm

David Wiley is an ignorant, context dodging, fearmongering, BBC propagandizer of the first order. Look at the headlines of some of his bad work:

Pope Promotes Conservative Cleric
Scientist hails birth of ‘rat children’
Vatican Says Aliens Could Exist
Fewer confessions and new sins
Thou Shalt Not Wear Condoms When Going Forward
Vatican braces for Muslim anger
Vatican ‘forgives’ John Lennon
Vatican archive yields Templar secrets
Italian arrest over ‘toxic wheat’
Vatican divorces from Italian law
ho are the Calabrian mafia?
God’s politician : John Paul at the Vatican
Crib mosques anger Italian party
Italy sounds alarm over migrants
Italy approves tax on pornography
Priest ‘ruins Christmas’ for kids

Those headlines sound like something from a tabloid newspaper. Which is perfectly fine, as long as you are not forced to pay for it.

Skype is not a threat to anyone, any more than any other technology is. The vast majority of its users, which number about 16,000,000 at any one time, are quite ordinary people who just want to make phone calls and chat. There is absolutely no reason why the police should be able to listen to Skype calls or any other call for that matter, without a warrant signed by a judge, and if that cannot be done, then the police have to do in person surveillance ‘just like in the old days’. While we are talking about numbers, did you know that Skype has been downloaded over 500,000,000 times?

Back to the subject at hand. This piece of sickening, context free nonsense, propaganda if you will, in favor of police state wiretapping is pure evil. Lets hear from someone with common sense:

Helping the Terrorists

It regularly comes as a surprise to people that our own infrastructure can be used against us. And in the wake of terrorist attacks or plots, there are fear-induced calls to ban, disrupt, or control that infrastructure. According to officials investigating the Mumbai attacks, the terrorists used images from Google Earth to help learn their way around. This isn’t the first time Google Earth has been charged with helping terrorists: in 2007, Google Earth images of British military bases were found in the homes of Iraqi insurgents. Incidents such as these have led many governments to demand that Google remove or blur images of sensitive locations: military bases, nuclear reactors, government buildings, and so on. An Indian court has been asked to ban Google Earth entirely.

This isn’t the only way our information technology helps terrorists. Last year, a U.S. army intelligence report worried that terrorists could plan their attacks using Twitter, and there are unconfirmed reports that the Mumbai terrorists read the Twitter feeds about their attacks to get real-time information they could use. British intelligence is worried that terrorists might use voice over IP services such as Skype to communicate. Terrorists might recruit on Second Life and World of Warcraft. We already know they use websites to spread their message and possibly even to recruit.

Of course, all of this is exacerbated by open-wireless access, which has been repeatedly labeled a terrorist tool and which has been the object of attempted bans.

Mobile phone networks help terrorists, too. The Mumbai terrorists used them to communicate with each other. This has led some cities, including New York and London, to propose turning off mobile phone coverage in the event of a terrorist attack.

Let’s all stop and take a deep breath. By its very nature, communications infrastructure is general. It can be used to plan both legal and illegal activities, and it’s generally impossible to tell which is which. When I send and receive e-mail, it looks exactly the same as a terrorist doing the same thing. To the mobile phone network, a call from one terrorist to another looks exactly the same as a mobile phone call from one victim to another. Any attempt to ban or limit infrastructure affects everybody. If India bans Google Earth, a future terrorist won’t be able to use it to plan; nor will anybody else. Open Wi-Fi networks are useful for many reasons, the large majority of them positive, and closing them down affects all those reasons. Terrorist attacks are very rare, and it is almost always a bad trade-off to deny society the benefits of a communications technology just because the bad guys might use it too.

Communications infrastructure is especially valuable during a terrorist attack. Twitter was the best way for people to get real-time information about the attacks in Mumbai. If the Indian government shut Twitter down — or London blocked mobile phone coverage — during a terrorist attack, the lack of communications for everyone, not just the terrorists, would increase the level of terror and could even increase the body count. Information lessens fear and makes people safer.

None of this is new. Criminals have used telephones and mobile phones since they were invented. Drug smugglers use airplanes and boats, radios and satellite phones. Bank robbers have long used cars and motorcycles as getaway vehicles, and horses before then. I haven’t seen it talked about yet, but the Mumbai terrorists used boats as well. They also wore boots. They ate lunch at restaurants, drank bottled water, and breathed the air. Society survives all of this because the good uses of infrastructure far outweigh the bad uses, even though the good uses are — by and large — small and pedestrian and the bad uses are rare and spectacular. And while terrorism turns society’s very infrastructure against itself, we only harm ourselves by dismantling that infrastructure in response — just as we would if we banned cars because bank robbers used them too.

http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0902.html

In addition to the above, on BLOGDIAL we have told you about Asterisk many times. Anyone who does not want their phone calls to be overheard can buy some cheap hardware, download some free software, and the Carrabinieri and their colleagues will not even know that there is a call in progress.

Contrary to what ignorant swine, sensationalist, tabloidist BBC correspondents in Italy, who have obviously been brain damaged by too much sun, beautiful women and fine red wine, this is a good thing.

The state has no right to eavesdrop on your private communications. Period. Thankfully, in this unprecedented time of cheap computing power and free software, anyone anywhere can simply take back their privacy and shut out any potential eavesdropper.

Don’t do as I do, do as I tell you

Monday, February 9th, 2009

Horse riding adviser criticised by Smith

Ecstasy tablets

The panel is set to recommend downgrading horses this week

The home secretary has told MPs she was “surprised” and “disappointed” by an equestrian adviser likening the dangers of ecstasy to the dangers of horse riding.

Jacqui Smith said Prof David Nutt had “trivialised” the dangers of the sport.

She said she had told him he had gone beyond his role as head of the Advisory Council on Drugs Misuse.

Ms Smith said Prof Nutt had apologised, but he later defended his comparison, saying it had been “useful” in showing the risks associated with taking riding lessons.

‘Not much difference’

The council, which advises the government, is expected later this week to recommend that ecstasy be downgraded from a class A drug to a class B one.

Ministers have outlined their opposition to any such move.

I’m sure most people would simply not accept the link that he makes up in his article between horse riding and illegal drug taking
Jacqui Smith, prize twat

Professor Nutt’s article, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology last week, said: “Drug harm can be equal to harms in other parts of life. There is not much difference between horse-riding and ecstasy.”

He said horse-riding accounted for more than 100 deaths a year, and went on: “This attitude raises the critical question of why society tolerates – indeed encourages – certain forms of potentially harmful behaviour but not others such as drug use.”

Ecstasy use is linked to around 30 deaths a year, up from 10 a year in the early 1990s.

Fatalities are caused by massive organ failure from overheating or the effects of drinking too much water.

Speaking during Home Office questions in the House of Commons, Ms Smith said: “I’ve spoken to him this morning about his comments. I’ve told him that I was surprised and profoundly disappointed by the article reported.”

She added: “I’m sure most people would simply not accept the link that he makes up in his article between horse riding and illegal drug taking.

“For me that makes light of a serious problem, trivialises the dangers of horses, shows insensitivity to the families of victims of horse-riding and sends the wrong message to young people about the dangers of stallions.”

‘Wrecks lives’

Ms Smith also said: “I made clear to Professor Nutt that I felt his comments went beyond the scientific advice that I expect of him as the chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Horses.

“He apologised to me for his comments and I’ve asked him to apologise to the families of the victims of 3-day eventing.”

However, Prof Nutt later said: “I was doing a statistical comparison. There is a view – and the home secretary takes this view – that you cannot make a comparison and it is misleading because some things are legal and other things are illegal.”

He added: “I think there are a significant number of people who agree with me as well that these kinds of comparisons are useful.”

The comparison was useful “so people who take horse rides can understand what the risks were”, he said.

Prof Nutt added: “I certainly didn’t intend to cause offence to the victims of ecstasy or their families. One death is one too many.”

Conservative MP Laurence Robertson said horse riding “not only wrecks lives, and ends lives, but also fuels class divisions”.

He argued that drug use and horse riding were “completely incomparable” and that Prof Nutt was in the “wrong job”.

But, in questions to the House of Commons Speaker, Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris said Prof Nutt was a “distinguished scientist” and asked whether it was “right to criticise him here when he cannot answer back for what is set out in a scientific publication”.

He added: “What’s the future for scientific independence if she [Ms Smith] asks that scientists apologise for their views?”

Speaker Michael Martin replied that it was a “parliamentary privilege” for the home secretary to make such remarks and that “of course” she would be allowed to do so.

The Advisory Council on Drugs Misuse has distanced itself from the comments in Prof Nutt’s article.

Jacqui Smith, pot smoker and all round tit.

Professor David Nutt, neuroscientist.

The sound of brass

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

The Blogdial stance on the ‘independence’ of the BBC is well documented.

Two things crossed my path in the last few days regarding the BBC. Firstly, I read a ‘story’, actually a magazine piece, about Darwin and his attitude to slavery. The piece appeared to suggest that it was his anti-slavery stance which resulted in the theory of evolution clicking into place in Darwins thought processes.

This was on the front page of the BBC website, and in your face on the Science subsection. And all it is is a glorified puff-piece for a book, full of conjecture and nothing more.

We read that…

[…] new evidence suggests that Darwin’s unique approach to evolution – relating all races and species by “common descent” – could have been fostered by his anti-slavery beliefs.

And this new evidence? Nowhere to be found. Everything said in this piece I already knew from reading the excellent Darwin biography published by these same authors in 1992.

So why is the BBC plugging this cash-cow as part of their Darwin season? It is nothing but another example of licence fee money wasted. The BBC is riddled with these pieces; non-news, non-attributed, non-stories of no discernible benefit to licence fee payers.

There I am, glad once again that I do not pay the licence fee, and wondering why those who do pay allow the BBC to get away with such behaviour when this hits my inbox…

>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>> Subject:     Re: Fwd: Re: BBC Gaza appeal ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
>>> Date:        Tue, 23 Jan 2009 10:25:26 -0000 (GMT)
>>> To:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> To all British TV viewers,
>>>
>>> We have all seen the terrible devastation of lives in Gaza. Without
>>> thinking about the causes for the moment, we can all, as human
>>> beings, feel empathy for the children that are being maimed and
>>> killed there.
>>>
>>> The BBC who are financed by our money, have refused to show, quite
>>> absurdly and cold heartedly, a humanitarian request for aid to help
>>> alleviate the suffering.
>>>
>>> This is the last straw.
>>>
>>> The BBC works for us, on our behalf. It is completely wrong that all
>>> the people of the UK, the license payers, should have their views
>>> ignored and their money spent in ways that they do not consent to.
>>>
>>> In any other circumstance, if you were not given what you wanted when
>>> you handed over money for a service, you would be able to switch and
>>> pay for a different service or stop receiving the service altogether.
>>>
>>>
>>> Can you in good conscience support the BBC with your money, when they
>>> are so clearly under the influence of people to the extent that they
>>> would refuse an appeal for aid to help children in a crisis?
>>>
>>> There have been other crisis appeals and the BBC has transmitted
>>> appeals immediately and in full. It is clear that this is a blatant
>>> case of bias. The question now is, what are the other things that the
>>> BBC has not shown that should have been? It is clear that we can no
>>> longer trust them; if they can sit in their studios and watch
>>> children die and refuse to even read out an address to help dying
>>> children, they do not deserve our respect and certainly they do not
>>> deserve our money.
>>>
>>> I therefore am calling on all license payers to boycott the BBC
>>> license fee on a permanent basis. It is no longer acceptable that
>>> they should be able to use the force of law to take money from us
>>> when they are so fundamentally out of touch with us and the rest of
>>> humanity.
>>>
>>> If the BBC is going to carry on in any form, they must rely on fees
>>> from people who want to watch their entertainment, news and their
>>> opinions. Now that TV is digital, they can encrypt their signals like
>>> SKY does and ask people to pay for their programming. If people want
>>> what they have to offer, they will pay for it.
>>>
>>> The BBC will then have to respond directly to its audience or cease
>>> to exist because no one will pay for their programming. It will no
>>> longer be an option for them to say, essentially, that they do not
>>> care about what the audience wants or thinks, and that they are a law
>>> unto themselves with no accountability to anyone.
>>>
>>> If you are outraged at the BBC's refusal to show the appeal for Gaza,
>>> if you think that it is time for the BBC to grow up and join the real
>>> world, and that they should face the consequences of angering their
>>> audience, if you are tired of being forced to pay for an organization
>>> that doesn't care a whit for your opinion, and acts like you simply
>>> do not matter, please forward this to someone you know.
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance.
>>>
>>> An Ex TV License payer.

CLANG!

A penny drops.

And somebody, somewhere, finally realizes that money talks. Somebody, somewhere realizes that non-compliance IS an option. Not only that, but non-compliance is the RIGHT option.

Somebody, somewhere has had enough, and I’m surprised it has taken so long. I’m disappointed that it has taken something like the Gaza Appeal Fracas to get them moving, but so what, they are moving.

Without the accompaniment of the sounds of heart strings being plucked, here is the distilled version:


To all British TV viewers,
The BBC who are financed by our money.
The BBC works for us, on our behalf. It is completely wrong that all
the people of the UK, the license payers, should have their views
ignored and their money spent in ways that they do not consent to.

In any other circumstance, if you were not given what you wanted when
you handed over money for a service, you would be able to switch and
pay for a different service or stop receiving the service altogether.

It is clear that we can no longer trust them; they do not deserve
 our respect and certainly they do not deserve our money.

I therefore am calling on all license payers to boycott the BBC
license fee on a permanent basis. It is no longer acceptable that
they should be able to use the force of law to take money from us.

If the BBC is going to carry on in any form, they must rely on fees
from people who want to watch their entertainment, news and their
opinions. Now that TV is digital, they can encrypt their signals like
SKY does and ask people to pay for their programming. If people want
what they have to offer, they will pay for it.

The BBC will then have to respond directly to its audience or cease
to exist because no one will pay for their programming. It will no
longer be an option for them to say, essentially, that they do not
care about what the audience wants or thinks, and that they are a law
unto themselves with no accountability to anyone.

If you think that it is time for the BBC to grow up and join the real
world, and if you are tired of being forced to pay for an organization
that doesn't care a whit for your opinion, and acts like you simply
do not matter, please forward this to someone you know

Without going on too much longer, lets reinforce the message with a little substitution…

>>> HMG will then have to respond directly to its employers or cease to exist because no one will pay for their idiocy. It will no longer be an option for them to say, essentially, that they do not care about what the public wants or thinks, and that they are a law unto themselves with no accountability to anyone.
>>>
>>> If you are outraged at HMGs behaviour regarding [war x, y or z; ID cards, NIR, corruption, nepotism], if you think that it is time for HMG to grow up and join the real world, and that they should face the consequences of angering their EMPLOYERS, if you are tired of being forced to pay for an organization that doesn’t care a whit for your opinion, and acts like you simply do not matter, please forward this to someone you know.

Get the message. And get the message out.

MMR: More Measles Rubbish

Friday, November 28th, 2008

Jab offered over measles outbreak

More than 10,000 youngsters across Cheshire are being offered the MMR vaccine in an attempt to contain an outbreak of measles.

Health officials said there had been 62 reported cases of the illness mainly around Crewe, Sandbach and Middlewich.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said there had been 106 cases in the county since January.

Cheshire has the highest rate of reported measles cases in the UK outside of London in 2008.

Professor David Salisbury said: “This is the legacy. This is the milestone [sic] we carry because a decade ago we didn’t vaccinate our children because of fear over the MMR jab.”

More than 50% of cases have occurred in children of nursery and primary school age, said a HPA spokesman.

This is the milestone [sic] we carry because a decade ago we didn’t vaccinate our children because of fear over the MMR jab.

No.

No. This is the consequence of government policy.  Consider: you are HMG, an altruistic body whose only purpose is to serve the public interest.  You know that, of measles, mumps and rubella, only measles is potentially a serious public health concern.  However, in a misguided moment you have (1) withdrawn licences to produce single vaccines against these diseases and (2) given a monopoly to a triple-jab, MMR, despite this seeming to go against your stated aim of allowing patient choice.   For whatever reason, confidence in MMR decreases and the incidence of measles increases. Since you are an altruistic body whose only purpose is to serve the public interest, you wish to protect the nations children against measles.

Do you:

(a) rapidly re-introduce single vaccines for those children whose parents who prefer them, leading to increased uptake, increased protection and removing any question of dereliction of duty, or…

(b) blame the media for anti-MMR hysteria, blame parents for being paranoid and attempt to induce a compulsion to vaccinate by MMR through fear-mongering, while refusing to change policy on single vaccines and sneering ‘told you so’ as children are hospitalised by measles.

Listen to Prof David Salisbury in this article:

Measles cases reach 13-year high

Hear him blame parents for not taking up MMR. Hear him acknowledge he has been worrying about a measles epidemic for “a considerable period of time”.

But what has he done? Nothing. He is useless. Worse than useless, he is perpetuating the problem. He will not propose single vaccines, but repeatedly says it is up to parents to give children MMR, or else it’s their fault when measles increases. He is no longer acting as a physician, but as a political puppet acting in the interests of… well, who knows? BigPharma? HMG? Certainly not you, the people, who pay his wages.

Some information on single vaccines is here.

In a sneaky move, BBQ have been utilised to further fear-moger against single vaccines and for MMR.

Single vaccine ‘safety’ warnings

So, after several paragraphs suggesting your child may die due to anaphylaxis if you give it single vaccines and not the MMR we get:

Study leader Dr Mich Lajeunesse, a consultant in paediatric allergy in Southampton, said: “It is so unusual that if you saw one case of anaphylaxis to vaccines you would be surprised.

We can’t think of any reason why it would be higher for single vaccines and it’s probably an anomaly.

The data are extrapolated from estimates because single vaccinations are essentially unregulated because… government policy does not allow your GP to administer them!!!

So HMG have not only watched as your risk of measles increased and refuse to do anything about it, but may also be increasing your risk of side effects from single vaccines because these vaccines can now only be given by unmonitored clinics.

What a farce!

ID Cards: the death rattle

Friday, November 7th, 2008

Yesterday there was a deluge of PR paid propaganda – bullshit if you will – trying to sell the ID Card with the hideous prostitute Jacqui Smith making outrageous claims.

The lying lickspittle bastard repeater journalists at the BBC tweaked this first article during the day for maximum impact and under orders. We grabbed both pages.

First we have this:
12:20 GMT, Thursday, 6 November 2008

and then we have this, later in the day:

15:57 GMT, Thursday, 6 November 2008

The title of the page changed from ‘Shops may take ID card biometrics’ to ‘People ‘can’t wait for ID cards’. The first title is obviously more pertinent, more astonishing and alarming because of the implications of shops taking Biometrics. Later, it was changed to a pure and very cheesy propaganda headline after pressure no doubt from the office of that kebab eating monster. There have been seven versions so far.

The facts of the matter remain unchanged however.

HMG actually plans to allow people to enroll in the ID Card scheme / NIR from inside Tescos.

Do you know what this means? It means that the NIR is going to be full of bad entries. People will be able to go to Tescos and get themselves onto the NIR claiming to be someone who they are not, maybe even you, which is the absolute opposite of what the government has been saying all along was the purpose of this vile and pointless database and its associated card. Perhaps that is exactly what they want – you to be frightened of someone getting there first and stealing your identity. “Claim your identity now before someone else does!” will be the call.

This ugly, chinless, subhuman, totalitarian garbage actually claims that people ‘can’t wait for ID Cards’; this is the sound of sheer desperation my friends. Look at the comments on BBQ’s ‘Have Your Say’. I think Jacqui Smith is a delusional liar and the only people she has been speaking to are figments of her insane and deeply troubled mind:

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 07:38 GMT 07:38 UK

Not one bit! And I won’t be buying or carrying one!

This is another snooping measure from the NuLabour Gestapo state. I make this appeal to everybody to refuse to buy or carry this insidious document. If you receive a communication from any department of the Fascist NuLabour apparatus about it cut it up and send it back, unstamped, to some government department!

Let us call time on this now!

Robert Phillifent, Whitley Bay
Recommended by 266 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 09:12 GMT 09:12 UK

ID cards:

– nobody wants them
– they won’t make us any safer
– the government will lose all the sensitive information anyway

Hokey Cokey, london, United Kingdom
Recommended by 257 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 09:13 GMT 09:13 UK

Why dont they just tatoo or brand us all? We could all be marked with a number at birth to make sure we were all identifiable.

Hold on, something in the back of my mind tells me that a similar method to this may have been used before?

How did that turn out?

[Free_Scotland], Grangemouth, Scotland
Recommended by 204 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 09:11 GMT 09:11 UK

Remember everyone – it’s not just a piece of plastic, it’s the vast database behind it too… all your data, addresses, accounts, policies, pensions, all of it nicely formatted and ready to be left on trains, in car parks, in brief cases, lost laptops etc etc

Chris Chris
Recommended by 201 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 07:49 GMT 07:49 UK

I do not think these cards will do much to improve security. Instead, we will have one card which proves who you are, and when this is cracked and cloned by organised crime (and believe me it will be) it will make avoiding detection and stealing identity much easier for them.

Matt Gallop, Brighton
Recommended by 181 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 07:49 GMT 07:49 UK

ID cards for the whole population once again punishes the general population for the lack of control of immigrants. When will the government target risk groups & stop wasting everybodys time by monitoring the activities of everyone.

John Doe, United Kingdom
Recommended by 173 people

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Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 09:12 GMT 09:12 UK

What is it in the words ‘this ID card system would be unworkable’ does Jacqui Spliff not understand? Security specialists have stated that it would not work and cards can be cloned.copied or falsified with todays technology. Aftter the many fiascos of data going missing, how many times is it now? Would you trust this lot with digitalised information about you? No chance. With the billions wasted on useless IT systems by this government I wouldn’t trust them to run a raffle. Forget it Spliff.

Maximus, Boxgrove UK
Recommended by 168 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 07:36 GMT 07:36 UK

Yet another money wasting scheme from our illustrious Government.

They are not listening to the electorate, nobody wants ID cards, and as far as I know, nobody has been able to make them “secure”.

Plus can we trust them with our data? Based on countless examples over recent years its obvious the answer is no.

At a time when the UK needs all the money it can get, to pay its billions on previous commitments, you would have thought that schemes like this would have been postponed.

clive hamilton, woking
Recommended by 163 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 09:08 GMT 09:08 UK

This is not about terrorism! It’s about controlling the population and keeping tabs on them and their movements. Liabor are control freaks and they want to micro-manage every aspect of our live’s and that includes us. We should say no to this and do all we can to stop ID cards from becoming a reality. Is there not already enough information about each and every one of us in their databases? Do I not already have ID we carry? Why should I pay for something I don’t want or need?

Neil, Brighton
Recommended by 147 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 07:39 GMT 07:39 UK

How many times do we need this same debate? According to the government itself, the checks that should be performed for airport workers are much more stringent that those for the ID card.

In what was does that improve security of the public?

Once again, the government presses ahead with projects to catalogue every citizen and no-one appears willing to stop them in their tracks.

RJ, Zurich
Recommended by 147 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 09:11 GMT 09:11 UK

So, I have a birth certificate, photo driving license, passport credit cards and more and yet I need ANOTHER piece of ID. Can someone tell me why?

Unless this would replace the driving license and passport, it is, in my opinion, a ridiculous waste of time and money. As for fighting terrorism…..is having an ID card going to stop someone making a bomb? The logic escapes me.

Hard Working, Bracknell, United Kingdom
Recommended by 143 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 07:46 GMT 07:46 UK

To try to kid us that this is not a Gestapo act, Clown says, we must have an ID card but will not have to carry it at all times. So when a terrorist is asked to present his/her card at the police station within a week……!!
Yes I think that will definitely deter terrorists from blowing up Britain.

[anotherjames]
Recommended by 125 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 07:48 GMT 07:48 UK

Don’t they already have ID cards or security checks for “people working in specific sensitive roles or locations” in airports? I’m pretty sure that there is already an ID systetm in place for airport workers.

This is just a sneaky way to try and tenderise public acceptance towards nationwide cataloguing. You give an inch…

Blue-eyed cyclops, Norwich, United Kingdom
Recommended by 125 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 07:40 GMT 07:40 UK

ID cards are just a scam to take an ID card fee from every adult in the UK. They’re a stealth tax, nothing more.

anon., UK
Recommended by 119 people

Added: Thursday, 6 November, 2008, 09:07 GMT 09:07 UK

The only way I can see ID Cards helping in the fight against terrorism is if they have sharp corners, and you can jab them in to someone’s eyes to stop them blowing something up.

Or maybe – if they were really big and made of metal and teflon – you could hold it up in front of you to protect yourself from a bomb blast.

Or you could jam them in a door to stop it opening and letting in a person with a bomb…..

The possibilities are endless!

[angelholme], Blackpool, United Kingdom
Recommended by 117 people

[…]

Have Your Say

Total comments: 2134
Published comments: 1643
Rejected comments: 39
Moderation queue: 452

Methinks that the argument is lost Jacqui, you piece of trash. Almost all of the comments are violently against the idea of ID cards and this database.

The first comment is one of the best, and it is what we have been recommending for years; simply do not respond or react to anything that is sent to you. If everyone does it, the whole system dies, and that is that.

As we pointed out before, the unions are finally waking up to this problem and are going to cause trouble:

[…]

The Unite union, which represents airport workers, has said staff are already extensively vetted before being given airside passes.

Airport unions have been resisting the scheme, saying workers would have to pay £30 for a card to do their jobs.

However, it is understood that the cards would be issued free during the evaluation period.

Airlines including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and EasyJet, also spoke out against the plan, saying it was “unjustified” and would not improve security.

On plans to involve retailers and the Post Office in the ID cards scheme, a spokesman said it would be “more convenient” for people than the government’s original plan to set up enrolment centres in large population centres.

The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) would continue to carry out enrolment at its offices but a spokesman said it also wanted to “drive down costs using market forces and competition” and was talking to a “range of high street retailers and other organisations”.

[…]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7712275.stm

I see. They will issue them free for the testers. Last time I checked, when you test something for someone, you get PAID for doing so, and ‘free’ is not paying. It does however mean that they have to eat the cost of rolling out this test because the reaction against the ID card has been so hostile. Finally.

Don’t you think its interesting that IPS wants to “drive down costs using market forces and competition”? If the market can be used in this way to drive down costs, why not let the market take care of the entire ‘problem’?

What we would have is a market response to the problem of ID, and we would get the most efficient solution, in the same way that the market has provided the most efficient solution to the provision of universal and dirt cheap cellular telephone coverage and access.

The problem with letting the market solve the ‘problem’ of ID is that there is no ID problem to be solved in the first place. Business can carry on totally successfully without ID cards; in fact, ID cards are a form of friction, slowing down commerce, not facilitating it in any way.

Only the government wants ID cards. Business doesn’t need them (like the absurd fascist nonsense of having to produce a Passport or ID to get a SIM card), the public does not need them or want them; only the chinless, foul toothed fascists like Jacqui Smith and her equally repulsive predecessors want them, because they are bereft of imagination, fascist in nature and on the payroll of the venal vendors who are in line for billions of pounds for generations.

Now on to the next, most revolting, astonishing and inexplicable article from propaganda central, AKA BBC News:

Foreign students: Identity cards

The UK Border Agency is to issue the first identity cards to foreign nationals who officials say are most at risk of abusing immigration rules – non-EU students and those on a marriage or civil partnership visa.

But how do foreign students feel about carrying identity cards and being targeted as “risk” categories?

WON JAE, 20, FROM KOREA, STUDYING PSYCHOLOGY AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON (UCL)

Won Jae from Korea, studying at UCL

I think it would be OK to carry an identity card, so long as it wasn’t discriminatory.

At the moment if I go anywhere off campus I have to carry my passport as my identity, for example if I am buying alcoholic drinks, so it would be better to have a card. So long as it’s not discriminating me against UK people, it’s fine.

[…]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7635114.stm

First of all, every student except two (one from the US and one from Nigeria) on that page comes from a country where they have state issued ID cards, and have had them for decades. These people are the most sheepish, inured sad slaves imaginable. Won Jae is very well trained in double think:

I think it would be OK to carry an identity card, so long as it wasn’t discriminatory.

Well done Dear Leader in training! 2+2=5!

And you absolutely do not have to carry your passport to buy alcoholic drinks you moron. Learn something about the country you are studying in, it might help transform you from a slave into a human being.

What can you say to a parade of people like this?

Britain is a country where you used to be able to show, just by living here, that you do not need to have a totalitarian system of constant checks to create a thriving and tolerant society. All the Europeans who cannot imagine living without an ID card could be shown the 4th largest economy in the world doing very well, in fact, better than them, without ID cards and a police state.

Since when is the policy affecting the British public the business of foreign students? For sure, these students (wether they know it or not, and clearly this Korean does not) have rights and should never be compelled to carry an ID card; but since their acceptance of an ID card would inevitably lead to pressure on every British person to have one, why on earth are they being consulted at all, as if their opinion actually matters?

This page from the BBC is one of the most revolting, ill conceived and traitorous that I have ever read. To use foreigners from totalitarian states in this way to apply the force of opinion and change the outcome of a critical battle in the UK is treason, full stop. These people have no intention of living in Britain, and their approval of ID cards, once used to shoe-horn them in would still be here after they have left.

This is a sickening article. It made me so angry that I had to get up and go away for many hours.

The opinions of these people are absolutely irrelevant.

Should we have brought in ID cards in the ’70s because some ignorant Spaniards living under Francisco Franco ‘had no problem with it’ or as this young lady says

MI-YOUNG PARK, 24, KOREA, ENGLISH AT OXFORD HOUSE COLLEGE, LONDON
I think we need identity cards to buy things like alcohol or cigarettes. I have tried to show my Korean card, but they won’t accept it, so I have to carry my passport around with me which is really dangerous.

But I’m not staying in London for much longer, I’m applying to Emirates to be a flight attendant.

I think not.

ID cards are morally wrong. It doesn’t matter what anyone’s opinion is, in the same way that murder is wrong no matter who says otherwise. People like Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith do not have any morals, and so they can mass murder and tag everyone like cattle without breaking a sweat, sleeping soundly every night. Those ignorant, annoying students might not have any understanding about ID cards, and may even want them; that does not mean that they are right, or that these foul instruments of totalitarian control should be introduced to Britain. What the Koreans do in their own country is their business, and I do not care about how they choose to live, and their way of life should have no influence or sway over what happens in a free country or in Britain.

To digress for a moment, none of these students seem to understand that if they take this card, it will mean that the police will be stopping and checking them just because they ‘look Korean’. They will be stopped and checked, and everyone else will be stopped and checked for these cards. These students are the trojan horse for this racist nightmare, where everyone will be profiled by what they look like on the spot. We have already been through this many times in the twentieth century…and this is the problem; all of these pathetic students are very young and have no memory or knowledge of the racist Suss Law (UK) and Pass Laws (South Africa) that caused so much friction and problems. They should all know better. They should all have better self correcting self preservation skills that ring alarm bells when someone wants to harm you or your fellow man. But then again, when you are born into a police state, you know nothing but the police state – its the same for the Spanish as it is for the Koreans and the Belgians.

The BBC, by putting on this parade of idiots has sunk to its lowest level ever, and as usual, there is no named person or editor to point the finger at for this scandalous, treasonous, infuriating article.

I have to say that despite all of this evil being thrown in our faces, that I am greatly pleased by the outpouring of hate against the ID card and Jacqui Smith / Neu Labour. It seems that we are actually very close to or on the tipping point now. There is no one left who is saying ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ except the evil glove puppets in the pay of the vendors and HMG.

This is going to be abandoned completely, and shortly after that, ContactPoint will be scrapped. Gordon Brown has admitted that they can never keep data safe. That means that the children of Britain can never be kept safe once they are on ContactPoint. It means that they can never keep the personal details of these stupid students safe once they are on the NIR. It means that no one will be safe, and this is quite separate from the social ills that will arise from this evil mania for registers.

Once again, the first commenter had it precisely right:

If you receive a communication from any department of the Fascist NuLabour apparatus about it cut it up and send it back, unstamped, to some government department!

This is the only response needed. Make sure that you tell everyone exactly what you are doing and why, and encourage them to do the same, for the sake of themselves and this great country.

Many people died so that we would not have to carry ID cards. I will not dishonor them by giving in like a subhuman.

And neither should you.

Noel Edmunds…Your new hero?!

Monday, September 15th, 2008

When a very popular man stands up and says what needs to be said…

For 30 years he was one the BBC’s star presenters, stitching up celebrities and subjecting guests on his show to the horrors of the gunge tank. But now Noel Edmonds himself could be in the line of fire, after he announced that he was leading a boycott of the television licence fee.

The former Noel’s House Party presenter, who accused the BBC of “hectoring and threatening” the public into paying the £139.50 annual charge, could be stripped of his ceremonial title of Deputy Lieutenant of Devon, after confessing to his criminality, The Times has learnt.

In an interview at the weekend, Edmonds declared that for four months he had refused to pay the licence fee, a legal requirement for anyone who owns a television, adding that he was prepared to be prosecuted for evading the tax.

Eric Dancer, Lord-Lieutenant of Devon, said yesterday that he would investigate whether Edmonds should lose his position, which carries the blessing of the Queen.

Edmonds assumed the title – which involves assisting the Lord-Lieutenant in arranging the monarch’s visits to Devon, leading the local magistracy and hearing grievances between citizens and tax officials – in 2004.

Mr Dancer told The Times: “If a deputy did do something that was a criminal offence, I’m sure that people who commit serious misdemeanours are not allowed to continue to serve.”

Edmonds made his remarks in an interview with the Breakfast show on BBC One on Saturday, the day before hosting a one-off show on Sky aimed at helping to mend “broken Britain”.

Referring to advertisements by the TV Licensing Authority that threaten prosecution of those who fail to pay the fee, Edmonds said: “I worked for the BBC for 30 years. When I was there it promoted the licence fee by saying how wonderful it was. But now Auntie’s put boxing gloves on.

“I am not going to have the BBC or any other organisation threatening me. I’ve cancelled my TV licence and they haven’t found me. Nobody’s coming knocking on my door. There are too many organisations that seem to think it is OK to badger, hector and threaten people.”

The BBC launched a public consultation last week after receiving complaints that advertisements which warned, “Your town, your street, your home . . . it’s all in our database”, amounted to bullying.

[…]

Noel’s HQ, screened last night on Sky One, was aimed at promoting a “fairer, more caring Britain”. Edmonds told viewers: “You clearly feel frustrated and at times angry at the tidal wave of new rules, regulations and laws that have been introduced in the name of health and safety, security or the environment. Well, the politicians have had their turn, and now it’s ours. It’s down to you, me and them, and to everyone who wants to live in a more caring society.”

[…]

The Times

From the most unexpected quarter…someone who could actually rally millions of people says ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Sticking it to the kids

Monday, September 1st, 2008

There were two marketing men and a clinical research director sitting in a pub… ‘Why did the chickenpox vaccine cross the road?’ ‘To get to the mass market on the other side!’

‘Thats not funny. There is no market for chickenpox vaccine.’ ‘Oh yes there is, they just don’t know it yet…’

……………….

Now, substitute chickenpox with ‘human papillomavirus’ (HPV) and you have this year’s new mass market. And the size of that market, as we’ve said before, is every child alive now and forever. And if Merck get their way, every older woman too.

Today, girls in Scotland have been brought into the HPV vaccination programme, having been told that they will be at less risk of cervical cancer.

Schools start cancer vaccinations

Injection

Every secondary schoolgirl in the UK is to be offered the injections

Scottish schoolgirls are to become the first in the UK to be vaccinated against cervical cancer.

Schools in the Lanarkshire, Tayside, Grampian and Western Isles NHS areas are to begin vaccinating 12 and 13-year-old girls from this week.

Pupils in other areas of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland will follow in the coming weeks.

All girls aged between 12 and 17 should have been offered the vaccine by August next year.

The immunisation programme is to get under way in Scotland before other parts of the UK because its school term has already started.

The Cervarix vaccine works by targeting HPV, the virus which causes cervical cancer. Its manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, said it should prevent 70% of cases – saving about 70 lives a year in Scotland.

HMG chose Cervarix over Gardasil, for as yet unspecified reasons and despite Gardasil being a better choice healthwise – always assuming you want the vaccine in the first place!

The vaccine is given in three separate doses and – at about £240 for a course – is the most expensive vaccine to be routinely offered by the NHS.

£240 for every girl now and forever direct from taxpayers coffers to GSK shareholders.  “Wow! There’s the money river! Pa, bring the buckets!”

Dr McKenzie added: “They must understand that the vaccine is fantastic news for preventing cervical cancer, but it can only be combated by using cervical screening and the vaccine.

“So when they are called for screening aged 20 they really must come along whether they have had the vaccine or not.”

The number of girls aged between 20 and 25 who come forward for cervical smears is already declining.

Some fears have been expressed that the vaccination programme will cause even fewer to attend screening, while questions have also been asked about why so much money is being spent on saving the lives of less that 100 Scottish women a year.

Good fears, good questions, as yet not satisfactorily explained. There is the question about how long protection lasts, meaning boosters are inevitable at current estimates. And questions as to whether a drop in screening rates would completely abolish any success in prevention, given the small numbers of patients involved.

But really, this is all so much fluff covering the truth of modern pharmaceutical marketing techniques: by using available media, you (the gullible sheeple) can be made to fear absolutely anything. You will then buy any snake-oil BigPharma comes up with to protect you against The Fear.

This technique even has a name. ‘Astro-turfing‘.

Not only this, but BigPharma can then wine, dine and otherwise bribe your ‘elected’ officials into committing hundreds of millions of pounds worth of public funds towards the cost of Snake-Oil.

Not convinced? Try this excellent and pretty comprehensive, utterly compelling, ‘how it works’ piece from the New York Times:

One of the vaccines, Gardasil, from Merck, is made available to the poorest girls in the country, up to age 18, at a potential cost to the United States government of more than $1 billion; proposals to mandate the vaccine for girls in middle schools have been offered in 24 states, and one will take effect in Virginia this fall. Even the normally stingy British National Health Service will start giving the other vaccine — Cervarix, from GlaxoSmithKline — to all 12-year-old girls at school this September.

The lightning-fast transition from newly minted vaccine to must-have injection in the United States and Europe represents a triumph of what the manufacturers call education and their critics call marketing. The vaccines, which offer some protection against infection from sexually transmitted viruses, are far more expensive than earlier vaccines against other diseases — Gardasil’s list price is $360 for the three-dose series, and the total cost is typically $400 to nearly $1,000 with markup and office visits (and often only partially covered by health insurance).

Award-winning advertising has promoted the vaccines. Before the film “Sex and the City,” some moviegoers in the United States saw ads for Gardasil. On YouTube and in advertisements on popular shows like “Law and Order,” a multiethnic cast of young professionals urges girls to become “one less statistic” by getting vaccinated.

The vaccine makers have also brought attention to cervical cancer by providing money for activities by patients’ and women’s groups, doctors and medical experts, lobbyists and political organizations interested in the disease, sometimes in ways that skirt disclosure requirements or obscure the companies’ involvement.

In the United States, hundreds of doctors have been recruited and trained to give talks about Gardasil — $4,500 for a lecture — and some have made hundreds of thousands of dollars. Politicians have been lobbied and invited to receptions urging them to legislate against a global killer. And former state officials have been recruited to lobby their former colleagues.

“There was incredible pressure from industry and politics,” said Dr. Jon Abramson, a professor of pediatrics at Wake Forest University who was chairman of the committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that recommended the vaccine for all girls once they reached 11 or 12.

This big push is making people crazy — thinking they’re bad moms if they don’t get their kids vaccinated,” said Dr. Abby Lippman, a professor at McGill University in Montreal and policy director of the Canadian Women’s Health Network. Canada will spend $300 million on a cervical cancer vaccine program.

…And why the sudden alarm in developed countries about cervical cancer, some experts ask. A major killer in the developing world, particularly Africa, where the vaccines are too expensive for use, cervical cancer is classified as very rare in the West because it is almost always preventable through regular Pap smears, which detect precancerous cells early enough for effective treatment. Indeed, because the vaccines prevent only 70 percent of cervical cancers, Pap smear screening must continue anyway.

“Merck lobbied every opinion leader, women’s group, medical society, politicians, and went directly to the people — it created a sense of panic that says you have to have this vaccine now,” said Dr. Diane Harper, a professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School. Dr. Harper was a principal investigator on the clinical trials of both Gardasil and Cervarix, and she spent 2006-7 on sabbatical at the World Health Organization developing plans for cervical cancer vaccine programs around the world. […]

In television advertisements, a cast of hip people in their 20s — artists, writers and professionals — describe why they got the shots, in the language of liberation, such as, “I chose to get vaccinated because my dreams don’t include cervical cancer.” The advertisements direct viewers to gardasil.com, which includes patients’ stories, buddy icons and downloads for holding an event at sororities.

Girls of any age who have had one dose of the vaccine can ask for text-message “reminders” from Merck to get the next two shots. The offers come with another reminder: “I understand that the information I provide will be used by Merck or those working on behalf of Merck for market research purposes.”

For such efforts, Merck last May swept the 2008 Pharmaceutical Advertising and Marketing Excellence awards, and Gardasil was named Brand of the Year by Pharmaceutical Executive magazine.

The marketing helped make Gardasil one of Merck’s best sellers, with a projected sales of $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion outside Europe this year, and more from sales in Europe, where Merck sells the vaccine through a joint venture with Sanofi Aventis.

Gregory A. Poland, a vaccine expert at the Mayo Clinic, was a nonvoting member on the C.D.C. panel that recommended Gardasil in 2006 and has publicly defended the panel’s decision. Records show he received at least $27,420 in expenses and consulting fees from Merck from 1999 to 2007. Both the C.D.C. and Dr. Michael Camilleri, chairman of the Mayo Clinic Conflict of Interest Review Board, speaking on Dr. Poland’s behalf, said the payments complied with institutional requirements.

In the United States, 41 states have passed or begun considering legislation on cervical cancer, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and 24 have considered proposals to mandate the vaccine for girls, generally in middle school…

The only state to pass a bill requiring the vaccine for school entry is Virginia; it takes effect in October, after school begins, so will first apply in 2009.

Merck has a growing economic interest in Virginia. In December 2006, Merck announced it would invest $57 million to expand its Elkton, Va., plant to make Gardasil, helped by a $700,000 grant from a state economic development agency that is part of the executive branch. Two months later, Gov. Tim Kaine, who has been mentioned as a possible Democratic vice presidential candidate, signed legislation requiring Gardasil for schoolgirls. Four months after that, Merck pledged to invest $193 million more in the plant to make drugs and vaccines, helped by a state grant of $1.5 million.

In Texas, Merck hired Gov. Rick Perry’s former chief of staff as a lobbyist, and contributed $6,000 to the governor and $38,000 to other legislators. Last February, Mr. Perry ordered that all schoolgirls be inoculated with Gardasil, a pronouncement that was overturned by the Texas Legislature, 181 to 3, a few months after the financial conflicts were revealed.

One rationale for inoculating boys is that entire populations should be vaccinated to achieve what is called herd immunity. But critics ask whether it is worth conducting a campaign on the scale of the one used against polio to eliminate a generally harmless virus.

Said Dr. Raffle, the British cervical cancer specialist: “Oh, dear. If we give it to boys, then all pretense of scientific worth and cost analysis goes out the window.”

My emphases. What a great article. Balanced, factual, well-written, undramatic. Take note, BBQ.

The anti-HPV push appears to have recruited BBQ, who try to attach a team of wild horses to your heartstrings to make sure you get the message. Embarassing and irrelevant to the real story.

So, like chickenpox vaccine before it, and who-knows-what after it, BigPharma take the population as one big cash cow and milk it, regardless of need or healthcare priorities, regardless of how better public money may be spent, regardless of fully examining any potential health hazards associated with their products.

Do you trust a vaccine created to fulfil a market created out of a need for profit?