Hilary's Desk

You know the old saying, “where there’s smoke there’s fire”. In the World Health Organisation’s case, it’s a blazing inferno. Not only is Dr Fukuda fighting for WHO’s reputation through clenched teeth, he appears not to realise just how deep is the hole he’s digging for himself is. What Fukuda also forgets is that not everyone is ignorant to the machinations of drug companies, so let’s take a wee walk down history lane to discuss a few seemingly unrelated events. Remember this from 9 October 2008?  Read Full Blog

What do scientists know about the flu vaccine? Not much really, in spite of it being used for years. This particular blog is not for the faint hearted. Read Full Blog

You know, I have no problem with scientific principles but I sure have problems when science has no principles. It beggars belief when you read the headlines in a newspaper which says, "More than half million (USA) kids get bad drug reactions". Okay, okay... maybe that's true. Read further, and you'll see it is. But these drug reactions are elective drugs like penicilin, paracetamol, and 'stuff'. Then further down, we read, "similar numbers of hospitalized children - about 540,000 yearly, also have bad reactions to drugs including side effects, medicine mix-ups and accidental overdoses." Okay? Parents are admonished to pay close attention when their children are started on medicines, since "first-time" medication exposures may reveal an allergic reaction." Fine. But. There's a very big BUT here. Read Full Blog

Here we go again. Another media beat up. Make a huge story out of... what??? An influenza virus which has caused thousands of cases, which in that horribly polluted smoggy lung coughing place called Mexico City, has caused serious pneumonia in some of them, which killed just over 100 of them.  Some thousands of cases you say?  Maybe.  Cruising all the medical reports, it's pretty obvious that there are far more cases than we're being told. More importantly, why call this the "Swine flu pandemic"?  Where did the media get that idea from?  Maybe some medic whose repeatedly cried wolf, and really needs to justify their job?  They made a cash cow out of the non-existent bird flu, so why not bolster Wall street yet again.  What a sound-bite to get the adrenalin running! "Swine Flu epidemic here to kill us all"!  It's time the media got real, and started doing some real journalism; real reading; and asking some real questions. Like... who called this particular strain a swine flu virus? Why has there been absolutely NO contact with pigs in even ONE case, anywhere in the world? Unlike the media, a professional medical organisation called PROMED has questioned the name "swine flu". They say it's a human flu.  But just what sort of human flu? Where did it come from? This is what PROMED has to say: Read Full Blog

In the Escape section of Sunday Star Times, March 1, 2009, journalist Karen Tay, who admits to viewing beauty and skincare products as sacred miracle potions, was researching their true cost to her body, and the environment. “While researching this story, I learnt many unpleasant truths about my beauty products…” Read Full Blog

You remember all the paranoia about that pandemic cash-cow called bird flu? You remember that the New Zealand humoured whatsisname... Rumsfeld??   ... who profits gazillions from the company that makes Tamiflu, by buying a few million dollars worth of a useless drug, which wasn't necessary, and is now well past it's use-by date? Well, don't hold your breath, about either the value of Tamiflu, or whether Bird Flu will naturally find it's way here any time soon, or that any vaccine with be worth having. Read Full Blog

Today, the New England Medical Journal published a study hailing the influenza vaccine given to mothers, as a valuable protection to stop babies getting the flu. The study project from Bangladesh was called “Mother’s Gift”. A bit like Gardasil’s inventor’s medical article, before Gardasil was licenced, called, “God’s gift to women: The Human Papilloma Virus vaccine.” [PMID:16920633] The unwritten assumption emanating from both studies is that nothing stands between us, and the universal use of this vaccine.  Read Full Blog

Today's Sunday Star Times, has a letter penned by Paul Rutherford, Karori, Wellington. It's tragic that Rutherford (hopefully) "believes" the words he actually penned; sobbingly sad that the Sunday Star Times printed them at all, and indicative of the appalling state of knowledge in the media today, when editors and journalists at the Sunday Star Times, can't see how off the mark the letter was in the first place, and award it the "winning words". Read Full Blog

Today, we are told that  for the 2008 season flu vaccine, the American FDA had decided to include three viruses rather than the usual one or two. Read Full Blog

Five days after Dr Trotman said the flu vaccine didn’t work in healthy normal people (blog entry 27 July), various news outlets around the world commented on a new study in the 2 August edition of the Lancet, showing that the flu vaccine did nothing to prevent pneumonia in healthy elderly living in the community, aged between 65 and 94 years of age. Read Full Blog