If you only watch one documentary make it this one!

By sheer fluke Adam Curtis’ documentary Century of Self was one of first things I came across after rejecting TV.   In hindsight I couldn’t have found a more perfect introduction to how our world really operates.

If you think you are making informed choices and above manipulation think again. 

Curtis shows us how Sigmund Freud’s theory on how human beings are driven by our basest of fears and desires has been used for almost a century by governments and corporations to manipulate us into acquiesce and control the masses. 

Chilling and fascinating viewing.

Century of Self

Episode One:  Happiness Machines

Episode Two:  The engineering of consent

Episode Three:  There’s a policeman inside all our heads: he must be destroyed

Episode Four:  Eight people sipping wine in Kettering

I can’t recommend it highly enough as it’s essential background to most of what I post here.

Psychopaths hidden in plain sight

Would you trust a psychopath?  I can’t imagine many would answer yes to that question.

Would you trust yourself to recognise a psychopath?  That’s a little trickier as  psychopaths are notoriously intelligent, charming and deceptive.  Fortunately the odds are in our favour that we won’t come across many in our lifetime as they are a relatively rare breed.

Or are they?

The documentary The Corporation reveals the dominant institution of our time displays all the characteristics of  a psychopath:  It has no conscience, is manipulative, charming, glib, deceptive, parasitic, irresponsible, selfish, callous, promiscuous, impulsive, antisocial, and aggressive.  

The producers examine the rise of the corporation in our society and reveal, piece-by piece, that the organisations we trust to produce our goods and services, including our food and medicine, happen to tick all the boxes in the diagnostic criteria for a psychopath:

Fascinating viewing and well worth watching:

Part One

You can view the remaining parts on You Tube.

More about the film

Can you trust the “corporate citizens” who produce our drugs?

Corporate citizen!  There’s a concept so loaded with double-speak it could serve as the poster child for public relations spin.  I stumbled the term when Jane Burgermeister posted an brief entry about Novartis profiting from swine flu jab while the government pays for advertising and distribution costs and I found this little gem in the comments section:

“To improve patient health and well-being, Novartis medicines must have the complete confidence of those who prescribe and use them. As a corporate citizen, we are committed to this goal.”

http://www.novartis.com/about-novartis/corporate-citizenship/patien…

When the ache in my side had subsided I took a look at the site.  It is beautifully produced.  Someone has obviously been very well paid to elucidate the “four pillars of corporate citizenship”, espousing their attention to patient safety, people and communities, human rights, ethical marketing practices and environmental care.

It was all very reassuring.  Even with my die-hard cynicism about the pharmaceutical industry I momentarily found myself wondering if this was some sort of anomaly and I’d happened to stumbled upon the world’s first ethical pharmaceutical company. Thankfully an internal warning system flashes caution alarms should I entertain such naive thoughts.  It directed me to a google search instead.

Trying typing “novartis sued” into the search engine.

How to make an informed decision about the swine-flu vaccine

1.  Find out the name of the company that supplies the vaccine in your country (google news search,your health department website or ask your pharmacist).

2.  Find their consumer information leaflet AND their product information leaflet (They should be available on the company’s website or you can ask at your local pharmacy).  Be aware that consumer information leaflets have a tendency to be watered down and reassuring in tone.  So you need to make sure you get hold of an information sheet that clearly lists the expected side effects AND their incidence (how often they occur). 

3.  You’ll find because these vaccines are new and were rushed onto the market testing will have been limited, or not required, depending on which country in which you live.  Therefore there will be no “post-marketing surveillance” available yet – that is a record of the reported adverse side affects after it has been marketed to the public.  However, you can get some idea of the expected side effects from the company’s seasonal flu vaccine.  So hunt out that information as well.  Be aware however to check the ingredients of the swine flu vaccine with the seasonal flu vaccine to see if there are any differing ingredients.  If so you need to look them up.

4.  If you are really keen to make an informed decision hunt out the original study.  If you know how to read these studies they’ll be a minefield of information.  But you may be surprised by how much you can pick up just as a lay person by just putting on a your critical thinking hat.  The big advantage of doing so is that medical studies, particularly for vaccines, are notorious for saying something different in the body of the study to what is contained in the abstract and the conclusion.   Effectively this means you may find evidence in the body of the study which disputes or brings the claimed effectiveness and safety stated in the conclusion into question.  Don’t assume your doctor will have done this.  Some will, but many will just have read the information provided to them by the health department or, time-pressed, will only have read the abstract and conclusions.  (I have read CSL’s study, their product information sheet and their consumer information sheet and hope to share details of it in a few days.  I have also read the information which the health department has sent to the doctors and was shocked by how little relevant detail it actually gives to our doctors.)

5.  Do a risk assessment.  That is: (a) work out how many deaths and adverse reactions there have been to date from the swine flu and work those out as a percentage of the population (b) work out how many deaths and adverse reactions will be expected from the vaccine, multiplied over the population.  Compare those figures.  That will give you an assessment of your risk to date.  It does not take into account projected deaths if the incidence of infection dramatically rises.  It’s extremely difficult how accurate estimates may be.  The best you can do is try your best to sort out fact from hype, which unfortunately entails a bit of research. (No. 6 & 7)

6.  Find out the incidence of normal seasonal flu deaths in your country.  See how that compares with deaths so far due to swine flu.  How many fold will swine flu have to increase to reach the normal level?  Yes that’s right INCREASE to meet the normal level.  Do the same with the incidence of swine flu in the world as compared to the normal seasonal flu.  (I’ll cheat and tell you that one, but feel free to check the WHO site where I found both figures.  There were  just under 5000 cases of swine flu at the end of October – six months into the pandemic – compared to 250,000 to 500,000 case of normal flu per annum. 

No doubt you’ll then ask the obvious question, “Then why has this been declared a pandemic?”

Then the real reasearch begins…

Reported adverse reactions not reflecting the true incidence of side effects

ACT Health Minister Katy Gallagher fears Canberrans are becoming complacent about swine flu.  She suggests it may be “because it’s a new vaccine perhaps people have concerns about it,”

She reassures us “nationally there’s only been 15 reports of adverse events and they’ve all been very mild.”

Only fifteen very mild reports?  Really?

If I happen to know two people in Australia who’ve had adverse reactions (the other two were from Canada), one of whom was hospitalised, you can pretty much guarantee that 15 reports is nowhere near an accurate representation of the real incidence of side effects, nor is it accurately reflecting the severity of those reactions.

This is hardly surprising as the government’s Adverse Drug Reactions Advisory Committee (ADRAC) admits that less than 10% of reactions are currently reported through their system.  Other estimates suggest that figure is closer to 1%.  With 22 million people in the country the odds are certainly stacked against me knowing 13.33% of the individuals who’ve had reactions, which tends to suggest that even the 1% is highly inflated.

So I’m sending out a plea:  if you take the swine-flu vaccine (or any drug for that matter) and you have a reaction please take the time to make a report.  And if happen to know anyone else who has a reaction please encourage them to do likewise.  Only when people start reporting their side effects will we have any hope of seeing the real incidence of adverse reactions reflected in the official figures.

If you live in Australia details on how to make a report can be found at The Therapeutic Goods Association website. You might also like to make a report to The Australian Vaccination Network who keep an independent register of adverse reactions.  If you live overseas you can refer to the relevant drug regulatory body.

Simple questions to antidote swine-flu media hype

Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle

As an antidote to swine media hype and fear mongering I like to use my own experience to gauge the need for the vaccine.

It’s as simple as a couple of questions:

How many people do I know who have contracted the swine flu?

(In the past six months, including the entire winter period.)

• Five family members of someone from work – test status unknown
• A friend and her son – not tested
• 1 friend of my daughter – test status unknown
• 2 extended family members – test status unknown
• 1 extended family member – incorrectly diagnosed as swine flu by GP, found to be a bee sting when they arrived at hospital!

Total personally known incidence of swine flu in six months of ‘pandemic’:

• Swine flu:  9 possible incidents and 1 incorrectly diagnosed
• Complications:  Zero
• Hospitalizations:  Zero
• Deaths:  Zero

How many people do I know who have been vaccinated against swine flu?

(In one month since vaccination began.)

• 2 elderly neighbours of a coworker – reaction unknown
• 1 co-worker’s 93 year-old grandmother – no reaction
• 1 friend of my daughter absent from school for two days, sick from swine flu vaccine
• A friend of her friend ended up in hospital after vaccination
• Cousin received email from a friend that his four grandchildren were vaccinated.  Two children had no reaction.  One had a high temperature and fever – doctor stated it was not related to vaccine, despite parents insisting it started after vaccination.  One child rushed to hospital with severe reaction put on oxygen and steroids.

Total personally known incidence of swine flu vaccination in one month since vaccination began:

• Vaccinated:  9
• Complications:  4
• Hospitalizations: 2
• Deaths: Zero

Let me think about that:  no complications from swine flu in six months, four complications, including two hospitalizations from the vaccine in one month. 

Do you think I’ll be taking the vaccine?  

It might be a bit early for people in the northern hemisphere to use their personal experience gauge the reactions of the vaccine, as it has only just been introducted, but try asking those questions a few weeks down the track.

The Fluoride Deception

The basic arguments against fluoridation of our water are:

• it is unethical
• it is unsafe
• it is unnecessary
• it is ineffective
• it is unscientifically promoted and pushed by corporate interests

The amount of evidence to support these claims is astounding. 

It’s easy to present an argument for either side of any contentious issue if keep that argument out of context and just deal with available facts.  The missing element in so many of these issues is the political and historical context.  Put that in place and all of a sudden one side falls over. 

The best starting point to put the issue in context is the following interview with investigative reporter Christopher Bryson.

The Fluoride Deception

Fluoride:  Four arguments against the fluoridation of water supplies by Dr Mark Diesendorf Bsc, PhD Sdyney & Murdoch Universities

50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation by Dr Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry, St Lawrence University, NY

The Absurdities of Water Fluoridation by Paul Connett, PhD

The evidence that fluoride is harmful is overwhelming by Dr Hardy Limeback

Professional Perspectives on Water Fluoridation

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

A couple of websites

Fluoride Action Network

Fluoride Australia

The Hidden Agenda:  Fluoride Deception

Australian news

Unfortunately late last year Queensland, the last remaining state that did not adhere to a water fluoridation program, began to add fluoride to its water supply.  Barely a few months later about 20 times the recommended fluoride was accidentally added to Brisbane ‘s water supplies.

In July this year Australia’s (ironically named) food safety authority decided to allow the voluntary addition of fluoride into bottled water.

And two regional Victorian towns, Ballarat and  Yarrawonga, will also begin fluoridation this month.

Modern Medicine the New World Religion

French philosopher, Olivier Clerc has produced a fascinating book about how beliefs influence medical dogmas and practices.  He explains how modern medicine has taken on the characteristics of Christianity.

Medicine, then, has become the new world religion. The specific myths, beliefs, and rites of Christianity have been unconsciously projected into medicine since Pasteur. As I explain in detail in the next chapters, we can establish very close parallels between Christianity and modern medicine. In brief:

• physicians have taken the place of priests; 
• vaccination plays the same initiatory role as baptism, and is accompanied by the same threats and fears;
• the search for health has replaced the quest for salvation;
• the fight against disease has replaced the fight against sin;
• eradication of viruses has taken the place of exorcising demons;
• the hope of physical immortality (cloning, genetic engineering) has been substituted for the hope of eternal life;
• pills have replaced hosts;
• donations to cancer research take precedence over donations to the Church;
• a hypothetical universal vaccine could save humanity from all its illnesses, as the Savior has saved the world from all its sins;
• the medical power has become the government’s ally, as was the Catholic Church in the past; 
• “charlatans” are persecuted today as “heretics” were yesterday, and dogmatism rules out promising alternative medical theories;
• the same absence of individual responsibility is now found in medicine, as previously in the Christian religion;
• patients are alienated from their bodies, as sinners used to be from their souls.

He explains how, driven by our fears, we create a belief system and then rationalise those beliefs:

 “…fears found in the depths of our consciousness, which remain the hidden determining factors for most of our actions.  These fundamental fears — fear of death, mostly, but also fear of evil, fear of suffering, fear of separation, fear of solitude — have led humanity, at all times throughout history, to make up all kinds of beliefs in an effort to exorcise these fears. Then, with the development of science and the rise of intellectualism, mankind has tried to justify rationally these beliefs, hidden under the cloak of medicine and life sciences.

In other words, there are three levels inside us:

 

1. a core of fears, from which we have learned to protect ourselves by covering it with
2. a layer of beliefs, which make us feel safe (even though those fears have not disappeared), this layer being itself dissimulated under:
3. an intellectual varnish , a rational façade which give us the illusion of having transcended superstitions and beliefs, and which shelters us from our fears, keeping us barricaded behind intellectual knowledge.

Fears and childish hopes are still manipulating us. We are still told that the source of our problems is outside of us, and that the solution can only come from the outside, as well. We are not allowed to do anything by ourselves and we must have the mediation of physicians-priests, the administration of drugshosts, and the protection of vaccines-baptism.

I though that was of particularly interesting given the current situation with the swine flu vaccine.