Live Avian Flu Virus Placed in Baxter Vaccine Materials Sent to 18 Countries

• Is Big Pharma trying to heal us or kill us ? Toronto Sun reports :
  
  The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.
  
  And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.
  
  “At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.
  
  “But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.” The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.
  
  The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.
  
  Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter’s part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.
  
  On Friday, the company’s director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected. “It was live,” Christopher Bona said in an email.
  
  The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine — including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a licence is expected shortly — at a facility in the Czech Republic.
  
  People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted. Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.
  
  While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people. That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created. There is no suggestion that happened because of this accident, however. “We have no evidence of any reassortment, that any reassortment may have occurred,” said Andraghetti.
  
  “And we have no evidence of any increased transmissibility of the viruses that were involved in the experiment with the ferrets in the Czech Republic.”
  
  Baxter hasn’t shed much light — at least not publicly — on how the accident happened. Earlier this week Bona called the mistake the result of a combination of “just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure.” He said he couldn’t reveal more information because it would give away proprietary information about Baxter’s production process.
  
  Andraghetti said Friday the four investigating governments are co-operating closely with the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Control in Stockholm, Sweden.
  
  “We are in very close contact with Austrian authorities to understand what the circumstances of the incident in their laboratory were,” she said.
  
  “And the reason for us wishing to know what has happened is to prevent similar events in the future and to share lessons that can be learned from this event with others to prevent similar events. … This is very important.”
  
• Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor writes in Vaccines as Biological Weapons? Live Avian Flu Virus Placed in Baxter Vaccine Materials Sent to 18 Countries :
  
  Deerfield, Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Baxter International Inc.has just been caught shipping live avian flu viruses mixed with vaccine material to medical distributors in 18 countries. The “mistake” (if you can call it that, see below…) was discovered by the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The World Health Organization was alerted and panic spread throughout the vaccine community as health experts asked the obvious question: How could this have happened?
  ……..
  Or, put another way, Baxter is acting a whole lot like a biological terrorism organization these days, sending deadly viral samples around the world. If you mail an envelope full of anthrax to your Senator, you get arrested as a terrorist. So why is Baxter — which mailed samples of a far more deadly viral strain to labs around the world — getting away with saying, essentially, “Oops?”But there’s a bigger question in all this: How could this company haveaccidentally mixed LIVE avian flu viruses (both H5N1 and H3N2, the human form) in this vaccine material?
  
  Was the viral contamination intentional?
  The shocking answer is that this couldn’t have been an accident. Why? Because Baxter International adheres to something called BSL3(Biosafety Level 3) – a set of laboratory safety protocols that prevent the cross-contamination of materials. As explained on Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosaf…):
  
  “Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents, and are supervised by competent scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. This is considered a neutral or warm zone. All procedures involving the manipulation of infectious materials are conducted within biological safety cabinets or other physical containment devices, or by personnel wearing appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment. The laboratory has special engineering and design features.”

• It is bad enough that governments all over the world have been warning about the likely pandemic flu. Now we find out we cannot trust Big Pharma to handle such bio-hazardous material in a safe manner.

• Who knows whether it was intentional? But I sure would like to know what really happened? And I sure would like to see the people responsible fired!
  
• Paul J. Watson adds in ‘Accidental’ Contamination Of Vaccine With Live Avian Flu Virus Virtually Impossible :
  
  Czech newspapers are questioning if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.
  
  The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.
  
  “The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.
  
  Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 – otherwise known as the human form of avian flu, one of the most deadly biological weapons on earth with a 60% kill rate – were received by labs in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia.
  
  Initially, Baxter attempted to stonewall questions by invoking “trade secrets” and refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated with H5N1. After increased pressure they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident. This was seemingly an attempt to quickly change the story and hide the fact that the accidental contamination of a vaccine with a deadly biological agent like avian flu is virtually impossible and the only way it could have happened was by wilful gross criminal negligence.
  ….
  According to a compiled translation from Czech newspaper stories, the media over there is asking tough questions about whether the contamination was part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic.
  
  “Was this just a criminal negligence or it was an attempt to provoke pandemia using vaccination against flu to spread the disease – as happened with the anti-B hepatitis vaccination with vaccines containing the HIV virus in US? – and then cash for the vaccines against H5N1 which Baxter develops? How could on Earth a virus as H5N1 come to the ordinary flu vaccines? Don’t they follow even basic precautions in the american pharma companies?” states the translation.
  
  The fact that Baxter mixed the deadly H5N1 virus with a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses is the smoking gun. The H5N1 virus on its own has killed hundreds of people, but it is less airborne and more restricted in the ease with which it can spread. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which as everyone knows are super-airborne and easily spread, the effect is a potent, super-airbone, super deadly biological weapon.
  ….
  Spreading bird flu would create an instantaneous surge of demand for bird flu vaccines. The profits that vaccine companies such as Baxter International could reap out of such a panic are astronomical.
  
  In addition, as we have previously reported, those that have a stake in the Tamiflu vaccine include top globalists and BIlderberg members like George Shultz, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
  
  Authorities in both Europe and the U.S. have openly detailed plans for martial law, quarantine and internment should a bird flu pandemic occur.
  
  The other motivation, as we have exhaustively documented on this website for years, is the fact that elites throughout history have openly stated that they want to see a world population reduction of around 80 per cent. Shocking stories like this take the plausibility of that narrative out of the realms of conspiracy theory and into the dangerous reality of conspiracy fact.
  …..
  This is not the first time that vaccine companies have been caught distributing vaccines contaminated with deadly viruses. In 2006 it was revealed that Bayer Corporation had discovered that their injection drug, which was used by hemophiliacs, was contaminated with the HIV virus. Internal documents prove that after they positively knew that the drug was contaminated, they took it off the U.S. market only to dump it on the European, Asian and Latin American markets, knowingly exposing thousands, most of them children, to the live HIV virus. Government officials in France went to prison for allowing the drug to be distributed. The documents show that the FDA colluded with Bayer to cover-up the scandal and allowed the deadly drug to be distributed globally. No Bayer executives ever faced arrest or prosecution in the United States.
  
• See also :
  
  Alex Jones – Weaponized Avian Flu ?
  US Air Force Study Suggests 2009 Influenza Pandemic in 1996
  Is the World Heading Towards Pandemic Avian Flu ?
  Bayer Exposed (HIV Contaminated Vaccine)!

Swine Flu Smoking Gun? CDC was Combining Flu Viruses in 2004

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 by: Sherry Baker, Health Sciences Editor

(NaturalNews) Last week, when what is now called a "swine flu" was first reported to be infecting and killing some people in Mexico, health officials noted it was a strain of flu never before seen. In fact, it is technically incorrect to call this simply a "swine" flu. Analyses showed it's a mixture of swine, human and avian viruses, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Moreover, it is genetically different from the fully human H1N1 seasonal influenza virus that has been circulating globally for the past few years. Bottom line: the new flu virus contains DNA from avian, swine viruses (including elements from European and Asian viruses) and human viruses.

So did this curious mixture just develop naturally, out of the blue? Is it the result of inhumane farming practices, as the Humane Society of the United States (http://www.hsus.org/) has suggested, that exposes immune-compromised pigs to all sorts of animal and human feces?

Well, maybe. But let's go back and look at the facts to see if any other scenario could be possible.

First of all, there's the troublesome detail that the virus has elements that come from multiple continents. Then there's the fact that true swine flu is only rarely transmissible to humans -- this flu is spreading human-to-human, most likely because it contains DNA from human flu.

Could someone have deliberately mixed these viruses together? Is that possible? Absolutely.

Was this virus mixing being done artificially in the lab, or had it already been done? Yes.

Who was blending potentially viruses in labs? Were those horrible generic boogie men known to Americans far and wide as "terrorists" doing it? There's no proof of bioterrorism at work here yet. However, there is evidence the United States government has been working on concocting new flu virus blends.

So could the hysteria-provoking, new swine flu have escaped from a lab? Or was it deliberately released as some kind of test? When these kinds of questions are asked, the knee-jerk reaction of the mainstream media (MSM) is to giggle and talk about "conspiracy theories" and to joke about wearing tinfoil hats.

But here's the potential smoking gun, the facts that suggest a potential source of the pandemiccould be CDC labs. And at the very least, this possibility deserves thoughtful examination and research.

The University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) is hardly a place most Americans have heard about and, apparently, the Center's web site has news the MSM isn't familiar with, either. But information they published years ago has now taken on an urgent importance. CIDRAP, along with the Canadian newspaper Canadian Press (CP), revealed back in 2004 that the CDC was launching experiments designed to mix theH5N1 (avian) virus and human flu viruses. The goal was to find out how likely it was such a "reassortant" virus would emerge and just how dangerous it might be. Of course, it's logical to wonder if they also worked with the addition of a swine flu virus, too.

Here's some background from the five-year-old report by the University of Minnesota research center: "One of the worst fears of infectious disease experts is that the H5N1 avian influenzavirus now circulating in parts of Asia will combine with a human-adapted flu virus to create a deadly new flu virus that could spread around the world. That could happen, scientists predict, if someone who is already infected with an ordinary flu virus contracts the avian virus at the same time. The avian virus has already caused at least 48 confirmed human illness cases in Asia, of which 35 have been fatal. The virus has shown little ability to spread from person to person, but the fear is that a hybrid could combine the killing power of the avian virus with the transmissibility of human flu viruses. Now, rather than waiting to see if nature spawns such a hybrid, US scientists are planning to try to breed one themselves -- in the name of preparedness."

And CDC officials actually confirmed the government had plans for the research. The CIDRAP News folks did a great job covering this important issue, which was apparently mostly ignored by the MSM back in 2004, and CIDRAP News wrote to the CDC for information. This e-mail produced an answer from CDC spokesman David Daigle who admitted the CDC was working on the project in two ways. "One is to infect cells in a laboratory tissue culture with H5N1 and human flu viruses at the same time and then watch to see if they mix. For the human virus, investigators will use A (H3N2), the strain that has caused most human flu cases in recent years," the CIDRAP story stated. This co-infection approach was described as slow and labor-intensive. However, it was a way to produce a new virus that appeared to be closer to what develops in nature.

There was another, faster way CDC scientists could create the mix, too. Called reverse genetics, it involves piecing together a new virus with genes from the H5N1 and H3N2 viruses. Reverse genetics had already been used successfully to create H5N1 candidate vaccines in several laboratories, the CDC's Daigle wrote. "Any viable viruses that emerge from these processes will be seeded into animals that are considered good models for testing how flu viruses behave in humans... The aim will be to observe whether the animals get sick and whether infected animals can infect others," he revealed in his e-mail.

What's more, the CP reported the CDC had already made hybrid viruses with H5N1 samples isolated from patients in Hong Kong in 1997, when there was the first outbreak of that virus, dubbed the "Hong Kong flu". It is not clear if the results of that research were ever published. Back in 2004, Dr. Nancy Cox, then head of the CDC's influenza branch, would tell the CP only: "Some gene combinations could be produced and others could not."

The CP's report noted that the World Health Organization (WHO) had been "pleading" for laboratories to do this blending-of-viruses research. The reason? If successful, these flu mixes would back up WHO's warnings about the possibility of a flu pandemic. In fact, Klaus Stohr, head of the WHO's global flu program at the time, told the CP that if the experiments were successful in producing highly transmissible and pathogenic viruses, the agency would be even more worried -- but if labs couldn't create these mixed flu viruses, then the agency might have to ratchet down its level of concern.

The 2004 CIDRAP News report addressed the obvious risks of manufacturing viruses in labs that, if released, could potentially spark a pandemic. However, the CDC's Daigle assured the Minnesota research group the virus melding would be done in a biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory. "We recognize that there is concern by some over this type of work. This concern may be heightened by reports of recent lab exposures in other lab facilities," he told CIDRAP. "But CDC has an incredible record in lab safety and is taking very strict precautions."

Five years later, we must ask more questions. Were those safety measures enough? Was the CDC creating or testing any of these virus mixes in or near Mexico? What other potentially deadly virus combinations has the US government created? Don't US citizens, as taxpayers who funded these experiments, have a right to know? And for all the residents of planet earth faced with a potentially deadly global epidemic, isn't it time for the truth?

For more information:
"New flu is a genetic mix", http://www.reuters.com/article/dome...

"CDC to mix avian, flu viruses", http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/co...

"CDC to conduct avian flu pandemic experiements", http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNe...

WHO raises pandemic threat level as more flu cases confirmed in California

BY RAW STORY 

Published: April 27, 2009 
Updated 12 hours ago 

Homeland Security Committee member calls for closure of U.S.-Mexico border

The World Health Organization has raised its pandemic threat level regarding what has become known as swine flu to level four, but has not yet declared the spreading virus a global pandemic. Moments after the WHO’s announcement, four more cases of swine flu were confirmed across California. The virus has reportedly killed 149 in Mexico thus far. More than 2,000 are believed infected.

“The United States advised Americans against most travel to Mexico and ordered stepped up border checks in neighboring states,” reported the Associated Press. “The European Union health commissioner advised Europeans to avoid nonessential travel both to Mexico and parts of the United States.”

New York Democrat Eric Massa, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, called for closure of the U.S.-Mexico border until the situation is contained.

“The public needs to be aware of the serious threat of swine flu, and we need to close our borders to Mexico immediately and completely until this is resolved,” said Massa ina statement published to his Web site. “The CDC and the WHO are monitoring this situation closely and I call on all Americans to pay attention and follow their instructions as this situation develops. I have complete faith in our medical professionals and look forward to a swift conclusion to this problem. I am making this announcement because I see this as a serious threat to the health of the American public and I do not believe this issue is receiving the attention it needs to have in the news.”

“Right now we don’t think the facts warrant more active testing or screening of passengers coming in from Mexico,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, noted Philadelphia newspaper The Bulletin.

“The DHS Secretary said TSA officials would conduct passive screening of those entering in to the country from Mexico. No travel warning for Mexico has been issued at this time, despite the outbreak, officials said.”

The total number of infected in the United States was 44 at time of this writing. None of the U.S. cases have been lethal.

“Other U.S. cases have been reported in Ohio, Kansas [and] Texas…” reported the Associated Press. “Worldwide there were 73 cases, including six in Canada, one in Spain and two in Scotland.

‘While the total cases were still measured in hundreds, not thousands, Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said the epidemic was entering an extremely dangerous phase, with the number of people infected mushrooming even as authorities desperately ramped up defenses,” noted AP.

Three of the new California cases confirmed on Monday involved people in San Diego and Imperial County on the Mexican border.

The other new case involved a student at a school in Sacramento in northern California. St Mel’s Catholic School was shut after a student was taken ill with flu-like symptoms, Sacramento health officials said.

St Mel’s, which has about 275 students, is expected to be closed until Wednesday. The student at the center of the health alert was not identified. Health officials said the student had not travelled to Mexico but another pupil had been in the country during the Easter break.

Meanwhile workers at Los Angeles International Airport — where 45 flights from Mexico land daily — were disinfecting restrooms and taking other measures in an attempt to halt the spread of the disease.

Airport spokeswoman Nancy Castles said cleaners “paying additional attention to sanitizing door knobs, handrails and faucets on a regular basis.”

The Center for Disease Control has outlined basic guidelines for flu avoidance on its Web site.

FLASHBACK: CDC to mix avian, human flu viruses in pandemic study

Jan 14, 2004 (CIDRAP News) – One of the worst fears of infectious disease experts is that the H5N1 avian influenza virus now circulating in parts of Asia will combine with a human-adapted flu virus to create a deadly new flu virus that could spread around the world.

That could happen, scientists predict, if someone who is already infected with an ordinary flu virus contracts the avian virus at the same time. The avian virus has already caused at least 48 confirmed human illness cases in Asia, of which 35 have been fatal. The virus has shown little ability to spread from person to person, but the fear is that a hybrid could combine the killing power of the avian virus with the transmissibility of human flu viruses.

Now, rather than waiting to see if nature spawns such a hybrid, US scientists are planning to try to breed one themselves—in the name of preparedness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will soon launch experiments designed to combine the H5N1 virus and human flu viruses and then see how the resulting hybrids affect animals. The goal is to assess the chances that such a "reassortant" virus will emerge and how dangerous it might be.

CDC officials confirmed the plans for the research as described recently in media reports, particularly in a Canadian Press (CP) story.

Two ways to make hybrids
The plans call for trying two methods to create hybrid viruses, CDC spokesman David Daigle told CIDRAP News via e-mail. One is to infect cells in a laboratory tissue culture with H5N1 and human flu viruses at the same time and then watch to see if they mix. For the human virus, investigators will use A (H3N2), the strain that has caused most human flu cases in recent years, according to the CP report.

The other method is reverse genetics—assembling a new virus with sets of genes from the H5N1 and H3N2 viruses. Reverse genetics has already been used to create H5N1 candidate vaccines in several laboratories, according to Daigle. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said recently it would soon launch a clinical trial of one of those vaccines.

Of the two methods, the co-infection approach was described as slower and more laborious, though closer to what happens in nature.

Any viable viruses that emerge from these processes will be seeded into animals that are considered good models for testing how flu viruses behave in humans, according to Daigle. The aim will be to observe whether the animals get sick and whether infected animals can infect others.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been "pleading" for laboratories to do this research, because it could provide some evidence to back up the agency's warnings about the risk of a flu pandemic, according to the CP report.

Klaus Stohr, head of the WHO's global influenza program, was quoted as saying that if none of the hybrids caused disease, the agency might be inclined to dial down its level of concern. But if the experiments produce highly transmissible and pathogenic viruses, the agency will be more worried, he said.

Safety precautions
Because of the obvious risks in creating viruses with the potential to spark a pandemic, the work will be done in a biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory at the CDC in Atlanta, Daigle told CIDRAP News.

"We recognize that there is concern by some over this type of work. This concern may be heightened by reports of recent lab exposures in other lab facilities," he said. "But CDC has an incredible record in lab safety and is taking very strict precautions."

Daigle said the US Department of Agriculture requires that highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses be treated as "Select Agents" and that research on them must be done in BSL-3 labs with "enhancements." These include "special provisions to protect both laboratory workers and the environment."

BSL-3 is the second highest level of laboratory biosecurity. It is used for work with pathogens that may cause serious or potentially lethal disease if inhaled, such as tuberculosis or St. Louis encephalitis, according to the CDC.

CDC experiments with HPAI viruses have to pass reviews by the agency's Institutional Biosafety Committee and Animal Care and Use Committee, Daigle said. The facilities involved are inspected by the USDA and the CDC's Office of Safety and Health, and staff members who work with Select Agents require special clearance.

It's been done before
The upcoming experiments will not break entirely new ground for the CDC, the CP story revealed. The agency already has made hybrid viruses with H5N1 samples isolated from patients in Hong Kong in 1997, when the virus first caused human disease.

The results of that research have not yet been published, and the CDC has said little about them. In the CP report, Dr. Nancy Cox, head of the CDC's influenza branch, commented only, "Some gene combinations could be produced and others could not."

Daigle added little to that. He said, "The reassortment work with the 1997 isolate was intermittently interrupted with SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] and then the 2004 H5N1 outbreak. We are currently concentrating our efforts on understanding the pathogenicity of the 2004 strains (non-reassortants) in mammalian models."

He said the CDC hopes to prepare a report on that research "in the near future."

See also:

CDC information on biosafety levels
http://www.cdc.gov/od/ohs/symp5/jyrtext.htm

Mexican Swine Flu Pandemic Risk

Jason Gale
Bloomberg
April 24, 2009

Disease trackers are trying to determine whether a previously unseen strain of influenza in the U.S. is related to more than 130 cases of severe respiratory illness in Mexico and may spark a pandemic.

A new variant of H1N1 swine influenza has sickened at least seven patients in California and Texas, the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. Mexico’s Health Minister Jose Cordova canceled classes in the capital, Mexico City, today and recommended citizens avoid public places after 20 fatalities from an illness possibly caused by a flu virus.

Scientists in both countries and Canada are studying the illnesses to determine whether they pose a larger public health threat. A pandemic can start when a novel influenza type-A virus, including swine flu, begins spreading, since no one has a natural immunity. The so-called 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which may have killed as many as 50 million people, began when an avian flu virus jumped to people, experts said.

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