Yet another story the US media kept quiet. This is from the April 15, 2004 online issue of "Nature" (April 22 hard copy) magazine. "On 13 April, Acambis in Cambridge, UK said it had stopped recruiting patients into a large clinical trial of the [ACAM2000 smallpox] vaccine because three people had developed myopericarditis - swelling of the heart muscle and surrounding tissue. The US goverment has already ordered millions of doses of the new vaccine. But the latest finding makes it unlikely that it will be given to civilians unless there is an emergency." Also unreported by the US media: in the US, ACAM2000 trials researchers wanted to use children aged 2-5 years old. (see http://www.researchprotection.org/infomail/0902/28.html

Cheryl Seal writes, "Responsible journalists, judges, physicians, lawyers, and veterans' advocates have spoken out on the anthrax vaccine. But why should Bush listen to the truth? He and his pals can create their own slithery reality - they control the mainstream media and the top end of the justice system. Just offer the right person a juicy government contract, a piece of favorable legislation, or a six-figure corporate job and voila! For every journalist of courage and conscience, there are dozens of Judith Millers, David Frum, and Michael Fumentos. For every responsible physician like Dr. Meryl Nass, who has spoken out tirelessly against the vaccine, Bush has a dozen hired-hack doctors/experts happy to do and say anything required for the right price. For every Emmett Sullivan who can't be bought off, Bush has a Rehnquist and Scalia lined up in the wings."

As if on demand, the FDA delivered an instant approval of the anthrax vaccine for use against inhalation of the pathogen - approval that came within weeks of judge Emmet Sullivan's decision to bar mandatory vaccination, and within days of the Pentagon's placing a $30 million order for the vaccine with Bioport. Stars and Stripes reports, "On Wednesday, while siding with the government to lift the ban, Sullivan remarked from the bench he found last week's FDA rule 'highly suspicious,' coming on the heels of his injunction. 'Only after the issuance of an injunction, up pops a federal rule supporting the government's position,' a skeptical Sullivan told lawyer Shannen Coffin, a Justice Department attorney representing the Pentagon. 'And you're telling me it's coincidental.?... I'd stand on a stack of Bibles and tell you it's coincidental,' Coffin told Sullivan." You notice Coffin said she'd stand on a stack of Bibles, not SWEAR on a stack of Bibles!

On December 22, Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that mandatory anthrax vaccination is illegal. But on January 2, Bush told the Pentagon to go ahead and order $30 million in anthrax vaccine from his daddy's pals' company, BioPort anyway, essentially thumbing his nose at Sullivan. Bush also said he was SURE the court decision would be reversed. Now, on Jan. 7, that is just what happened. What kind of intimidation and pressure did the White House bring to bear...or, more likely, what kind of deals were cut in back rooms? In any case, it is becoming clearer by the day that Bush uses the American judicial system as his personal rubber stamp.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons praised the federal court decision to bar the military from the mandatory administration of the anthrax vaccine, which has been associated with a high rate of negative side effects - some lethal. "The judge correctly made a distinction between treatment and experimentation. First, it is likely that an adversary would use a strain against which the vaccine is not effective. Second, there were extremely limited clinical trials before this vaccine was licensed. And third, the adverse reactions to the anthrax vaccine are high - one-third higher than the government's own threshold of risk...military doctors have told us that they would resign, rather than comply with the vaccination mandate."

"Saying American soldiers should not be used as 'guinea pigs for experimental drugs,' a federal judge Monday ordered the Pentagon to stop mandatory anthrax vaccinations started in 1998. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said he was persuaded by plaintiffs in a class action suit that the vaccine is experimental and being 'used for an unapproved purpose' -- that is, for exposure to airborne anthrax as well as exposure through the skin. 'Absent an informed consent or presidential waiver, the United States cannot demand that members of the armed forces also serve as guinea pigs for experimental drugs,' Sullivan said."

From TomPaine.com: "Rachel Lacy's story is simple. She received five shots in one day and later became ill and died. In her case, the Army's admission comes after seven months of denials that vaccines caused her death. Dr. Winkenwerder asserts that her death is a "rare and tragic case," but investigations by United Press International and CBS News suggest that there have been a rash of unexplained deaths and illnesses among both deployed and non-deployed soldiers following vaccination. For instance, the Army has attempted to attribute pneumonia deaths overseas to Iraqi cigarettes and dust, when virtually identical cases have occurred in domestically based soldiers who were vaccinated. The Army ignores the possibility that these deaths were caused by vaccines, despite Navy doctors having linked anthrax vaccine to a pneumonia-like auto-immune disorder called hypersensitivity pneumonitis."

Annette Fuentes writes: "Lyn Redwood's son Will was a healthy, happy baby who met all the normal developmental standards--he was walking and talking by one year. About three months later, however, he began to regress, losing speech, avoiding eye contact and appearing miserable. 'He didn't seem happy anymore,' Redwood said in a recent interview. 'He just wanted to sit in his infant seat and watch videos over and over again.' Doctors initially blamed hearing problems for Will's decline. Neurologists told the parents that their son had global and receptive speech delay. At age 5, the boy was diagnosed as autistic by his school. Seeking answers to her son's condition, Redwood turned to the Internet in 1999 and began a search that led to startling discoveries about thimerosal."

Annette Fuentes writes: "Eli Lilly faces hundreds of civil lawsuits from parents who blame thimerosal for their autistic children. But the pharmaceutical giant has powerful friends in the White House and in Congress. The elder George Bush sat on Lilly's board of directors in the 1970s, and White House Budget Director Mitch Daniels was a Lilly executive. Lilly CEO Sidney Taurel was named by President George W. Bush to the Homeland Security Advisory Council. In November 2002, Congress passed a provision, tucked into a spending measure for homeland security, to indemnify Eli Lilly from lawsuits and require families to seek compensation through the federally funded Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. It was repealed in February 2003 after public outcry. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) still hopes to pass a similar bill."

Nature magazine reports, "A new report fuels fears that mutated vaccine might seed new bouts of poliomyelitis, even after the disease is stamped out. Its findings will inform the ongoing debate on how to phase out the vaccine. The global vaccination programme has confined the paralysing polio virus to just seven countries in Africa and Asia. Doctors hope to wipe out these pockets as early as next year, and to certify the world polio-free by 2007." However, this goal is complicated by a nasty little discovery: "The common oral polio vaccine (OPV) contains a live virus that can mutate into a disease-causing form and spread." Meanwhile, Bush is spreading a live-strain vaccine for an even deadlier disease around the globe via US soldiers that could also, quite possible, mutate: anthrax. (see http://www.aphis.usda.gov/lpa/pubs/fsheet_faq_notice/fs_ahanthravac.pdf.)

"Less than a year after Resident Bush announced a smallpox vaccination plan to protect Americans in the event of a terrorist attack, a fraction of the expected number of health workers have been immunized and the much ballyhooed program is dead in the water. Federal health officials say they're not ready to declare the program dead, but they readily acknowledge it's ailing. 'The fact is, it's ceased,' says Ray Strikas of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 'not that anyone's issued an edict to say stop'... Earlier in the week, he told USA Today that the pace of new vaccinations dropped dramatically in April after well-publicized reports of unexpected heart problems associated with the vaccine. At the peak, hundreds of health workers were vaccinated. Now, it's down to 'a few per week'... Even before the heart problems emerged, the plan met early opposition from doctors, nurses and other groups concerned about vaccine risks and issues of liability and compensation."

A new Moonie UPI report states that unexplained blood clots are among the causes of "mystery deaths" that have been felling U.S. soldiers - not just in Iraq, but here in the states. The common denominator seems to be anthrax or smallpox vaccines. NBC correspondent David Bloom died in April of a blood clot in his lung after collapsing. "Some of the soldiers who died suddenly had complained about symptoms suffered by Bloom -- including pain in the legs that could indicate problems with blood clots. "If there is a significant number of deaths of this type, it would make you wonder what was going on," said Rose Hobby, whose brother-in-law, Army Spc. William Jeffries, died of a massive lung blood clot and swelling of his pancreas on March 31 after being evacuated from Kuwait. "How many others are out there?"