As I predicted after bird flu, the H1N1 hype, and the recent ‘outbreaks’ last year, it was only a matter of time before the next media chimera was conjured up to market the next vaccine. So here it comes – serve it up: Bexsero – our savior from meningitis.
Too bad the disease is practically nonexistent. Not that that’s ever been an obstacle before…
By now we’ve all seen the stories about the ‘outbreaks’ of type B meningitis in November 2013, at UC Santa Barbara and at Princeton: 4 cases and 8 cases, respectively. [1,2,4]
Remember, the CDC now defines an outbreak as 3 or more cases in the same location. [5 ]
Cases of what, you might ask? Anything they can sell as a new disease.
In last November’s event, we have 4 cases and 8 cases of bacterial meningitis B. In a population of 300 million.
For the past decade, bacterial meningitis has been averaging between 500 – 1000 cases per year, according to CDC. [5] They don’t cite sources for those figures. It’s probably less. Thing is, it’s been dropping.
So now the task was how to capitalize on all the press about the 12 meningitis cases at the 2 universities. CDC states that they have to respond – they have to ‘do something’ when there’s this much media. [5]
Enter Bexsero vaccine. First, let’s get some basic non-Wiki, non Google facts straight:
1. Bexsero has never been tested or approved in the US.
2. It has been approved in the EU and Australia. The UK rejected it.
3. Bexsero was recently given Breakthrough Therapy Designation status by the FDA [3] in order to bypass normal clinical trials.
Same way they did with swine flu in 2009.
Breakthrough Therapy designation? This is a new term FDA bureaucrats made up to allow an untested, unlicensed vaccine to be used on a population, under the guise of urgency.
As with any new vaccine being considered, when you read about Bexsero, it helps to keep their fixed goal always in mind: they want to get it added to the mandated schedule, for every single infant.
No one is mentioning that there is already a meningitis vaccine on the present Schedule – Prevnar – which is claimed to protect against bacterial meningitis. Since 2002. Prevnar is supposedly for otitis media. It was never actually tested for meningitis protection. They just make the claim.
But Bexsero is going to be in addition to Prevnar. Now they want a new untested vaccine on the Mandated Schedule, for every 2 month old.
Let’s review the alphabet soup. There are 2 types of meningitis:
viral and bacterial.
Of the bacterial there are 5 main serogroups: types A, B, C, W, and Y.
Only types B, C, and Y are found in the US.
Still with me? OK. The CDC estimates there are about 500 cases of bacterial meningitis per year in the US, [5] so they divide that number by 3. No science or sources given for this, – that’s just the figure they use.
OK, so that means they claim about 160 cases of type B every year in the US – population 300 million. But even with the 2 ‘outbreaks’ causing all the media, the total annual number of cases has not increased at all.
So there’s certainly no indication of a new epidemic, no matter how the press tries to spin it..
In a press conference in Nov 2013, Amanda Cohn of CDC claimed that the reason there are so few cases of meningitis in the US is due to the high rate of vaccination with the old MCV4 and Prevnar vaccines, which have been on the Schedule since 2002. That claim is completely unfounded. Like all diseases, meningitis declined on its own, irrespective of the vaccine.
They always do that. We saw it when they tried to create the hysteria for bird flu and swine flu. Same exact MO: start hyping an old disease and say there’s a new threat. Even though there is no new increase. And then just keep talking and talking about it.
MAD MATH
Years of research in CDC archives have given me some insight into how they obtain figures for disease. On the one hand they are fond of giving broad ranges off the top of their heads, which then get quoted and requoted [the Babel Effect] and suddenly these guesses become dogma.
There are 2 reasons why they guess:
1. most of the cases of disease are not lab tested and are diagnosed by symptoms only, often on the phone. Someone calls in with headache and stiff neck – they are counted as a case of meningitis.
2. If the cases were so carefully tested by culture and by titer as they claim, [3] there would be exact figures for the annual figures for all types of meningitis. You can’t have it both ways. Estimates equals untested. Exact figures are tested.
This is the kind of obvious sloppiness nobody notices. But it’s pervasive, and it’s policy. The antithesis of legitimate science.
Remember, CDC statements and policy always always cheerlead for the vaccine manufacturer.
Their lack of science is shocking. A reporter asked Cohn about the difference between a strain and a serogroup, and her bumbling answer showed she really didn’t know at all. Read it yourself: [5]
This is the representative of CDC whose assignment was to sell this vaccine to the American public. And it worked! They don’t even have to send good liars any more.
DEFINE TERMS
Any medical dictionary will tell you that a bacterial serogroup contains a common antigen, or foreign protein, in their outer capsule.
A bacterial strain is a subset of a species, having some minor but distinguishable difference, sharing a common DNA. There are wild strains – in nature – and laboratory strains. Laboratory strains all descend from a single organism.
This entry level of science is evidently beyond the CDC’s chosen representative.
Allowing unlicensed vaccine to be administered to an entire university in a situation of less than 10 cases is unprecedented, a radical departure in policy, even for them. In fact, it’s so unscientific that even the FDA won’t accept these 14,000 rushed vaccinations at Princeton and UCSB as clinical evidence in the approval process! [3]
Novartis owns the license in the EU vaccine. It was rejected by the UK, incidentally. [4] . With all the media hoopla, Novartis is now trying for the US license.
The emergency vaccine they imported from the EU for the UCSB/Princeton ‘outbreaks’ was the Novartis product. Novartis sent the universities 30,000 doses, free of charge. [3]
Curiously, the CDC didn’t think the vaccine was safe enough to recommend for faculty – just students! Even though it’s licensed in the EU and Australia for everybody. But when the new vaccine goes through all the red tape and gets approved, which is likely to happen sometime this year, it will be given to all infants beginning at 2 months, and will be the same vaccine: type B meningococcal. The science won’t change. Just the politics.
Is anybody listening to this?
College kids aren’t really that interested in science, apparently. Too busy on FB. At UCSB, 8 students over a 6 month period were diagnosed with the same type B meningitis. This occasioned over 90% of the school to voluntarily submit to a completely experimental unlicensed vaccine from Europe, instead of the traditional antibiotics approach. Typical reason, reported in school paper: ‘Better to be safe than sorry.’
I couldn’t agree more. That’s the precise reason NOT to vaccinate. Too bad you guys didn’t read enough to know the difference. Too naïve to recognize the standard rabid marketing pattern of a new vaccine. Outbreak? 8 students? Wow.
Another fact is that 5-10% of normal Americans have type B meningococcal bacteria in their bodies that never cause disease. It’s been that way forever, most likely. So of the 500 cases per year, who gets them? Crowded dirty diseased drug infested crack ghetto environments, primarily. [5]
So – goes back to the whole Germ Theory religion: the germ or the terrain. Even Pasteur admitted he was wrong about that one on his deathbed. Remember? “Le germe c’est rien…”
They can’t sell terrain. Only germs have market value.
TRADITIONAL ANTIBIOTICS
These new meningitis vaccines are experimental. According to an article that Cohn herself supposedly co-authored 2 years ago, [5] the preferred treatment for bacterial meningitis is antibiotics. Antibiotic therapy has supposedly worked fine for the past several decades, as long as they were taken in the first 2 weeks. So what‘s the hurry now all of a sudden with these isolated ‘outbreaks’ of a few college kids—now suddenly unproven unlicensed vaccines are an emergency to import vaccines all the way from Europe?
Any time something this illogical appears in medicine, the reason is typically fiscal, not physical. If Pfizer and Novartis get approval for their new meningitis B vaccines and they get added to the mandated schedule for 2 month olds, as well as later, that will mean perhaps a billion$ in added annual revenue.
Think this might be a factor?
After you’ve studied vaccine lore for a couple decades, it starts to dawn on you: this is the only factor. How are they doing? In 2013 Novartis reported sales of $57.9 billion in the US alone. [3]
“Every hero needs a villain.” That’s from MI1, remember where the evil scientist actually creates a new disease in order to market a vaccine. Well they’re not smart enough to do that in real life, so they do the next best thing: they create the illusion of the villain. And they’re able to do that by the pervasive control over media. Convince an undiscriminating public that an ordinary disease which is not even increasing, might become a plague unless we produce and mandate a new vaccine for general use.
There it is: the most brilliant marketing strategy in history.
This meningitis story is losing momentum. Pretty hard to keep the nonexistent threat in people’s minds. There have been no further cases since last November’s few. It’s past summer of the following year. And the vaccine won’t be ready till the end of 2014 at best. Look for another major false scare just before approval. Watch for the shoo–in. You can bet on it.
One final prediction I can practically guarantee. I’ll lay odds on it if I have any players out there: as soon as the vaccines are approved and added to the schedule, the “outbreaks” – the threat – will disappear. It won’t be back. Happens every single time.
Remember you read it here, April 2014.
References
1. Do-Hyeong Myeong – Novartis seeks licensure for Bexsero vaccine in the U.S.
The Princetonian – April 3, 2014
http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2014/04/with-safety-data-from-thousands-of-students-novartis-seeks-licensure-for-bexsero-vaccine-in-the-u-s/
2. Bruger, K – Meningitis Vaccine Clinic Starts Monday at UCSB
The Santa Barbara Independent, 20 Feb 14
www.independent.com/news/2014/feb/20/meningitis-vaccine-clinic-starts-monday-ucsb/
3. Novartis meningitis B vaccine Bexsero® receives FDA Breakthrough Therapy designation in the US. Novartis website,
April 07, 2014
http://www.novartis.com/newsroom/media-releases/en/2014/1774805.shtml
4. 8,000 Students Become Guinea Pigs for Unapproved Vaccine
November 26, 2013
http://2012thebigpicture.wordpress.com/tag/centers-for-disease-control-and-prevention/
5. CDC Press Briefing
Status of Serogroup B Meningitis Cases in the United States 25 Nov 13
http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2013/t1125-serogroup-b-meningitis.html