How NIH Uses U.S. Tax Dollars to Secure Profits for Vaccine Developers and Manufacturers

It is no secret that huge conflicts of interest exist between vaccine promoters and vaccine makers. Pediatrician and vaccine developer Paul Offit, for example, who is one of the nation’s leading promoters of mandatory use of government recommended vaccines, holds a $1.5 million research chair at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, funded in part by Merck.¹ Julie Gerberding left her post as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where she oversaw the creation of national vaccine policies, to head Merck vaccines.² Former Texas governor Rick Perry recommended state-wide inoculation of all 11- and 12-year-old girls with Merck’s Gardasil vaccine after his chief of staff left to work at Merck.^{3 4}

Just as disturbing are the millions of dollars that officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) dole out to academic institutions and vaccine manufacturers to improve vaccine technology, find new, lucrative markets and boost vaccine marketability—functions that guarantee the profitability of corporations, but do not always ensure the well being of taxpayers, the public and patients.

Once upon a time, before passage of the Bayh-Dole Act by Congress in 1980 and the push for lucrative “technology transfer” business arrangements between federal agencies and for-profit corporations, inventions developed with federal funding were owned by the U.S. Government and not industry. Today, taxpayer-supported research to develop new drugs and vaccines is voraciously patented by universities and drug companies for outsized Wall Street profits when the research rightfully belongs to taxpayers.⁵

Development of the human papillomavirus (HPV) Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines is a case in point. The initial research was funded by the NIH, National Cancer Institute, University of Rochester, Georgetown University and the University of Queensland, which licensed them to Merck and GlaxoSmithKline.^{6 7} In 2015, Merck made $1.9 billion on its Gardasil franchise.⁸

Soon, aggressive domestic and overseas marketing of the expensive HPV vaccines began, even as the vaccines themselves got poor marks for both safety and effectiveness. In 2006, consumer advocacy groups had protested the FDA’s fast tracking of Gardasil vaccine to licensure, citing inadequate safety data.⁹ Reports of sudden collapse/fainting (syncope) and serious neurological and immune system problems after Gardasil vaccinations emerged immediately after the vaccine was licensed.¹⁰

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https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-07/death-spiral-obamacare-premiums-may-soar-much-91-next-year

The largest hikes are being sought by CareFirst, which is seeking a 64% increase in Virginia, and a whopping 91% increase in Maryland for its PPO. Other insurers are following suit.

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/65682/the-rising-cost-of-living%C2%A0is-becoming-a-humanitarian.html

According to experts, housing should only make up 28% of your total monthly household expenses. However, in many areas of the America today, housing costs up to 40% or more of the average worker’s take-home pay.

When you factor in all the other expenses people have just to survive – car insurance, health insurance, utilities, phone bills, food – suddenly, you have a whole lot of people with a whole lot of month left over once their budget runs out. And this ever-rising cost-of-living coupled with stagnant wages is quickly creating a humanitarian crisis not just in America, but globally.

A Tale of Two Cities

Two of the cities where rent prices have risen the fastest are Denver, CO and Seattle, WA. With the arrival of legal marijuana, patients from across the nation flocked to the Denver metro area in hopes of finding a cure, or at least a treatment that worked. The booming tech industry likewise brought a housing boom to the Seattle area.

In Denver, in order for a single adult with one child to live comfortably, that wage earner must earn an average of $28.08 per hour. The vast majority of jobs; however, start at an average wage of under $15 per hour.

Likewise, in Seattle, while the average wage is over $70,000 given the high-tech nature of the economy, the average rent now costs over $2,400. So even though, on average, people are earning higher wages, they simply are not enough to keep up with the skyrocketing costs of housing in the area.

It’s Not Just Housing Prices Rising

If rents and housing costs were all that were skyrocketing while wages stagnate, people might be able to find a way to make it work, even given the way rent has skyrocketed. But it’s not just housing prices rising precipitously that has put many in an economic pinch. The costs of fuel, healthcare, food and needed medications are also on the rise.

This is true not just in the United States, but globally as well. Prices in Australia, for example, have far outstripped the cost-of-living increases those reliant on social services depend upon to make ends meet, hitting pensioners and the disabled particularly hard. Even in Australia, where those reliant on services received a 1% increase, prices continue to climb by 2.4%, leaving people further and further behind economically and forcing them to make tough choices between food and other necessities of living.

Rising fuel prices really put the economic pinch on people, particularly those who face long commutes to work daily. On average in the United States, gasoline prices have risen 34% since this same time last year. This translates into commuters paying hundreds, if not thousands, more annually to get to the same job where, given the cost-of-living increases, workers actually earn less than they have in the past.

Sadly, for Americans, there is little hope for relief in sight under the current administration. By passing sweeping tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have now turned their gaze toward continuing to slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And in the midst of the current housing process, HUD Secretary Ben Carson just last week proposed changing the rules for those who receive rent vouchers, effectively tripling the rent of the poorest and most vulnerable Americans.

Tough Times Calling for Tough Choices

The rising cost-of-living coupled with stagnant wages have thrown families around the globe into economic crisis. Parents are being forced to choose between life-giving food and medicine for their children and paying rent. And nearly half of all Americans do not have even a spare $400 in savings to cover an unexpected emergency such as a car repair or doctor’s bill.

In these difficult economic times, it is imperative for nations to act to protect their most vulnerable. We must act not only at a national level, but at a global one. Until wages are brought back in line with rising prices, millions will continue to suffer and even die. To stop this crisis from growing worse, action on raising the minimum wage and ensuring a decent standard of life for all citizens must be taken swiftly.

http://www.newsweek.com/department-justice-takes-out-press-freedom-905976

The Department of Justice has scrubbed and revised language concerning press freedom and civil rights from its manual for federal prosecutors. In a broad revamping – the first in over 20 years – a subsection titled “Need for Free Press and Public Trial” was taken out. “The purpose of that review is to identify redundant sections and language, areas that required greater clarity, and any content that needed to be added to help department attorneys perform core prosecutorial functions,” Ian D. Prior, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, [said]. “Taken in isolation, I’m not sure how much we should read into the language changed in the DOJ manual,” Alexandra Ellerbeck, the North America program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, told Newsweek. Ellerbeck pointed out, however, that removing the “need for the free press” section is concerning, considering the level of hostility toward journalists. Since President Donald Trump has taken office, he has popularized the term “fake news”. The administration has also made repeated threats to go after leakers, Ellerbeck said. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in November there are 27 open leak investigations. In comparison, Sessions noted that during former President Barack Obama’s administration, the DOJ investigated “three per year.” Reporters Without Borders released its annual World Press Freedom Index last week and cited an increasing sense of “hostility” toward the media. The U.S. fell back two places in rankings.

Note: The NSA recently deleted the terms “honesty” and “openness” from its mission statement. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the manipulation of mass media.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/05/02/mobile-phone-cancer-warning…

Fresh fears have been raised over the role of mobile phones in brain cancer after new evidence revealed rates of a malignant type of tumour have doubled in the last two decades. The new study, published in the Journal of Public Health and Environment … set out to investigate the rise of an aggressive and often fatal type of brain tumour known as Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). [It found] that cases of GBM in England have increased from around 1,250 a year in 1995 to just under 3,000. The scientists at the Physicians’ Health Initiative for Radiation and Environment (PHIRE) say the increase of GBM has till now been masked by the overall fall in incidence of other types of brain tumour. The group said the increasing rate of tumours in the frontal temporal lobe “raises the suspicion that mobile and cordless phone use may be promoting gliomas”. Professor Denis Henshaw said: “Our findings illustrate the need to look more carefully at, and to try and explain the mechanisms behind, these cancer trends, instead of brushing the causal factors under the carpet and focusing only on cures.” The new study list causal factors aside from mobile phone use that may explain the GMB trend, including radiation from X-rays, CT scans and the fallout from atomic bomb tests in the atmosphere.

https://nypost.com/2018/04/30/chinese-companies-are-monitoring-employees-brains/

Chinese companies are picking their employees’ brains – literally – with mind-reading devices designed to improve efficiency and performance. Workers are being outfitted with safety helmet-like caps that monitor brain waves and send the information to computers that use artificial intelligence algorithms to detect emotional spikes, like depression, anxiety and rage. The Orwellian technology has been used on factory employees, train conductors and workers at State Grid Zhejian Electric Power. State Grid, which has 40,000 employees … said the company’s profits have increased by about $315 million since it implemented the surveillance caps in 2014. The government-funded brain-monitoring project, called Neuro Cap, has been implemented in more than a dozen factories and businesses. Jin Jia, an associate professor of brain science and cognitive psychology at Ningbo University, which is hosting the project, said the brain caps allow workers to be better managed. Qiao Zhian, professor of management psychology at Beijing Normal University, said the devices could give companies a competitive boost – but warned they could also violate privacy in the worst way. “There is no law or regulation to limit the use of this kind of equipment in China. The employer may have a strong incentive to use the technology for higher profit, and the employees are usually in too weak a position to say no,” he said. “The selling of Facebook data is bad enough. Brain surveillance can take privacy abuse to a whole new level.”

Note: While slightly less invasive than microchip implants, the use of devices like these by government and industry threatens to fully eliminate privacy.

One in 59 US children has autism, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new estimate represents a 15% increase from two years prior and a 150% increase since 2000. Autism spectrum disorder, a developmental disability, is characterized by problems with communication and social interaction with accompanying repetitive behavior patterns. The CDC launched the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network in 2000 to collect data that would provide estimates of the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disabilities. The agency … developed a methodology for estimating autism prevalence using information from children’s health and education records. The new estimated rate of autism in the United States is based on data collected from 11 communities in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee and Wisconsin. About 8% of all 8-year old children living in the US [live in these communities]. Overall, fewer than half of the children identified with autism had received their first diagnosis by the time they were 4 years old, the new CDC report finds. Also, the definition of autism has changed through the decades. In the past, more than half of children identified with autism also had intellectual disability, and now it’s about a third.

Note: The above article carefully avoids mentioning the link between autism and environmental toxins such as mercury additives in vaccines. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health news articles from reliable major media sources.