WASHINGTON (AFP) — New York medical workers took legal action October 15 to halt a massive swine flu inoculation program being rolled out across the United States, claiming the vaccines have not been properly tested.
Lawyers for the group filed a temporary restraining order in a Washington federal court against government medical regulators they claim rushed H1N1 vaccines to the public without adequately testing their safety and efficacy.
“None of the vaccines against H1N1 have been properly tested,” attorney Jim Turner, one of half a dozen lawyers working on the case, told AFP.
The complaint filed Thursday argued that far from preventing a massive outbreak of swine flu, the “live attenuated influenza virus nasal mist vaccine could trigger” an H1N1 pandemic.
Officials at the National Institutes of Health have said that trials of swine flu vaccine began in August and delivered results last month, showing that the vaccine was well tolerated and produced a robust immune response in older children and adults in good health with just a single dose.
But Turner insisted that “the FDA did not do the proper testing to show safety and efficacy of this vaccine, which is under the law a new drug.
“When I say test data, I don’t mean some professor at some medical school somewhere infected some students and said ‘I don’t see any problems.’
“What I mean is carefully conducted double-blind placebo-controlled studies, trials done in accordance with FDA regulations, and a whole series of them to look at dosing… which are then reviewed by FDA scientists.
“None of that has been done on this vaccination and we’re saying the law requires it to be done,” Turner said.
The suit was brought on behalf of a group of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel in New York, where health care professionals who see patients are required to be vaccinated against H1N1, Turner said.
If the complaint is upheld, it would stop the roll-out of the H1N1 vaccine nationwide, said Turner, who accused public health officials of hyping the swine flu outbreak.
“Officials have said the virus is so much like the ordinary flu virus that they don’t need to do special new drug testing on it because it’s just the same old virus with a minor change to it,” he said.
“We’re saying, if that’s the case, then all the hype about this thing being a worldwide threat is misplaced and they’ve stampeded the state of New York into taking an action they never would have taken if it were just another flu.”
October 6, some 2.4 million doses of nasal spray vaccine made of attenuated (weakened), but live, H1N1 virus were delivered to state and local health authorities around the United States.
Karen Lancaster, a spokeswoman for the MedImmune, which manufactures the nasal spray H1N1 vaccine, told AFP that the company has had a seasonal flu vaccine made with weakened live virus on the market since 2003.
On October 13, millions of doses of injectable vaccine were delivered and administered to people in groups deemed to be at particular risk from swine flu, including children and health care professionals.
U.S. public health officials want to vaccinate tens of millions of Americans by year’s end against swine flu, which has claimed more than 4,500 lives worldwide since an outbreak of H1N1 was first reported in Mexico in April.
Editors Note: What should be included in the lawsuit is the lack of oversight by the FDA or the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) when they contracted with Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) pharmaceutical companies in May and July 2009 for nearly $700 million worth of oil-and-water bulk adjuvant.
Contracts are only awarded to companies that have a patented product on the market. Novartis produces MF59, an oil-based adjuvant, and GSK produces four oil-based adjuvants (AS01, AS02, AS03, and AS04.)
Not one of these adjuvants is licensed by the FDA. In fact, there are no oil-based adjuvants licensed in this country. What makes this even more disconcerting is the fact that the mainstream media is reporting that none of the new H1N1 vaccines will be adjuvanted. If this were true, then the new H1N1 vaccine would have no ability to produce the antibodies we have been taught to believe are necessary for immunity to a particular antigen.
We must remember that one of the reasons Gulf War Illness (GWI) was linked to the anthrax vaccines administered to American soldiers was the discovery of squalene antibodies being produced in several victims of GWI.
Laboratory analysis led to the discovery of varying amounts of squalene (an oil) in several batches of anthrax vaccines slated for use by the U.S. military. For readers unfamiliar with this topic, Vaccine A: The Covert Government That’s Killing Our Soldiers and Why GI’s Are Only the First Victims by Gary Matsumoto is required reading. (IC)