New Worries About Gardasil Safety

*People are starting to wake up.*

Gabby Swank was a straight-A student and cheerleader.

But that was before she became very ill following the standard dose of three Gardasil vaccinations, Attkisson reports.

You know the commercial. It showed teenage girls saying “I want to be one less” who gets the HPV virus, which is linked to cervical cancer.

“It was like a big hype among my friends, because we’re like, ‘we’re gonna get it’ because we felt almost pressured by the commercials,” Gabby said.

Gabby got sicker after each shot, progressing to seizures, strokes and heart problems. It was her neurologist who suspected Gardasil was to blame.

“I think there are too many people having serious long-term side-effects,” said neurologist Dr. Dwight Lindholm.

Last fall, the government and vaccine maker Merck concluded there’s no link between Gardasil and serious adverse events like Gabby’s. But a new analysis calls that finding into question.

The National Vaccine Information Center, a private vaccine-safety group, compared Gardasil adverse events to another vaccine, one also given to young people, but for meningitis. Gardasil had three times the number of Emergency Room visits – more than 5,000. Reports of side effects were up to 30 times higher with Gardasil.

“If I’d have known, we never would have gotten the shot,” said Emily Tarsell, whose daughter, Chris, died three weeks after her third Gardasil shot. She was one of the 29 fatalities reported in two years. “And she’d be here to hug.”

Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder of the NVIC, said: “Now we know from this report that there are more reactions and deaths associated with Gardasil than with another vaccine given in the same age group. It’s irresponsible not to take action.”

Merck, the FDA and CDC question the value of the new analysis, say they continue to review the data, Gardasil remains safe and effective, and its benefits outweigh the risks.

Those who believe the vaccine hurt them aren’t convinced. Gabby isn’t cheering anymore and is too sick to even attend school.

“I struggle with guilt a lot, because I made the choice to get the shot for her,” said Gabby’s mom, Shannon Swank.

Meantime, Merck has asked the FDA to approve it for boys, who can pass on the cancer causing virus to girls, meaning the number of people getting Gardasil may double.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/06/eveningnews/main4781658.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4781658

1st US case of Marburg fever confirmed in Colorado

The first U.S. case of Marburg hemorrhagic fever has been confirmed in Colorado, and authorities say the patient — who contracted the rare illness while traveling in Uganda — has since recovered.

The disease, caused by a virus indigenous to Africa, spreads through contact with infected animals or the bodily fluids of infected humans. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Dave Daigle said no previous cases have been reported in the United States.

The patient had traveled to Uganda, visited a python cave in Maramagambo Forest in Queen Elizabeth Park and encountered fruit bats, which can carry the Marburg virus. The Ugandan government closed the cave after a tourist from the Netherlands died from Marburg in July.

The patient was treated at Lutheran Medical Center in January 2008 and sought follow-up care in July, after learning of the tourist’s death. The patient recovered and his or her identity wasn’t disclosed.

Pierre Rollin, acting chief of the Special Pathogens Branch of the CDC, said specialized tests of the initial sample taken in January 2008 confirmed the illness in the Colorado patient in December.

CDC officials said identifying the virus and how a patient contracted it can be difficult. It often depends on the quality of the sample being tested and the timing; samples taken early in the patient’s illness makes identification easier, Rollin said.

Marburg hemorrhagic fever is extremely rare. The CDC’s Web site counts fewer than 500 confirmed cases since the virus was first recognized in 1967. More than 80 percent of the known cases are fatal.

It has an incubation period of 5 to 10 days. The first symptoms are fever, chills and headaches, but symptoms worsen significantly after the fifth day of illness.

Lutheran hospital spokeswoman Kim Kobel said none of the staff and physicians who cared for the patient has developed symptoms.

Rollin said the CDC is testing hospital staff to see if any illnesses were undetected at the time.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5icwnbejl-iJTMsx_JWAIgMXlweOAD9671DF00

16 illegals sue Arizona rancher

*TOTAL INSANITY.*

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home.

His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as “the avenue of choice” for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.

Trial continues Monday in the federal lawsuit, which seeks $32 million in actual and punitive damages for civil rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress and other crimes. Also named are Mr. Barnett’s wife, Barbara, his brother, Donald, and Larry Dever, sheriff in Cochise County, Ariz., where the Barnetts live. The civil trial is expected to continue until Friday.

The lawsuit is based on a March 7, 2004, incident in a dry wash on the 22,000-acre ranch, when he approached a group of illegal immigrants while carrying a gun and accompanied by a large dog.

Attorneys for the immigrants – five women and 11 men who were trying to cross illegally into the United States – have accused Mr. Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape.

The immigrants are represented at trial by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which also charged that Sheriff Dever did nothing to prevent Mr. Barnett from holding their clients at “gunpoint, yelling obscenities at them and kicking one of the women.”

In the lawsuit, MALDEF said Mr. Barnett approached the group as the immigrants moved through his property, and that he was carrying a pistol and threatening them in English and Spanish. At one point, it said, Mr. Barnett’s dog barked at several of the women and he yelled at them in Spanish, “My dog is hungry and he’s hungry for buttocks.”

The lawsuit said he then called his wife and two Border Patrol agents arrived at the site. It also said Mr. Barnett acknowledged that he had turned over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol since 1998.

In March, U.S. District Judge John Roll rejected a motion by Mr. Barnett to have the charges dropped, ruling there was sufficient evidence to allow the matter to be presented to a jury. Mr. Barnett’s attorney, David Hardy, had argued that illegal immigrants did not have the same rights as U.S. citizens.

Mr. Barnett told The Washington Times in a 2002 interview that he began rounding up illegal immigrants after they started to vandalize his property, northeast of Douglas along Arizona Highway 80. He said the immigrants tore up water pumps, killed calves, destroyed fences and gates, stole trucks and broke into his home.

Some of his cattle died from ingesting the plastic bottles left behind by the immigrants, he said, adding that he installed a faucet on an 8,000-gallon water tank so the immigrants would stop damaging the tank to get water.

Mr. Barnett said some of the ranch´s established immigrant trails were littered with trash 10 inches deep, including human waste, used toilet paper, soiled diapers, cigarette packs, clothes, backpacks, empty 1-gallon water bottles, chewing-gum wrappers and aluminum foil – which supposedly is used to pack the drugs the immigrant smugglers give their “clients” to keep them running.

He said he carried a pistol during his searches for the immigrants and had a rifle in his truck “for protection” against immigrant and drug smugglers, who often are armed.

ASSOCIATED PRESS DEFENDANT: Roger Barnett said he had turned over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol since 1998.

A former Cochise County sheriff´s deputy who later was successful in the towing and propane business, Mr. Barnett spent $30,000 on electronic sensors, which he has hidden along established trails on his ranch. He searches the ranch for illegal immigrants in a pickup truck, dressed in a green shirt and camouflage hat, with his handgun and rifle, high-powered binoculars and a walkie-talkie.

His sprawling ranch became an illegal-immigration highway when the Border Patrol diverted its attention to several border towns in an effort to take control of the established ports of entry. That effort moved the illegal immigrants to the remote areas of the border, including the Cross Rail Ranch.

“This is my land. I´m the victim here,” Mr. Barnett said. “When someone´s home and loved ones are in jeopardy and the government seemingly can´t do anything about it, I feel justified in taking matters into my own hands. And I always watch my back.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/09/16-illegals-sue-arizona-rancher/

Subjects mom, dad to ‘sincerity test’ after filing vaccination exemption

*Pathetic. I cannot believe this…what reality am I living in?? YOU DO NOT HAVE RIGHTS ANYMORE. Got it? Now, go out there and get mad. Go to the link and look at the video.*

A mother and father in New York were subjected by their school district’s attorney to a faith “sincerity test,” which ultimately ruled their beliefs were too questionable to qualify for a religious exemption to mandatory student immunization.

Ron and Rita Palma filed the exemption with their son’s school district in 2006 after coming to the conclusion the year before that the required vaccinations violated their conscience and sense of God’s leading for their family.

Rather than accept the standard exemption form, however, the Bayport-Blue Point Union Free School District demanded the couple meet with school attorney David Cohen. The Palmas have twice been compelled to sit down with Cohen to be interrogated about their faith and their convictions about vaccines.

“If you believe God is on your side,” Cohen asked in the most recent of the two interviews, conducted last fall, “does that mean he’s not on the side of someone who believes in immunization?”

“Do you have conversations with God? Has God told you not to immunize?” the attorney asked. “Explain it to me.”

Cohen described to the Palmas’ attorney that the purpose of the interview was two-fold: to determine whether the Palmas’ beliefs are actually religious, as opposed to philosophical or political; and to determine whether the beliefs are “sincerely and genuinely held.”

The school district’s most recent interrogation of the Palmas was videotaped, and a segment shows  the attorney, Cohen, while the Palmas and their attorney sit off-screen.

Rita Palma told WND that being compelled to defend her faith before an attorney and answer questions about her family’s lifestyle, diet, medicinal choices and personal convictions was “unbelievably invasive.”

“It’s almost beyond words what we were put through,” Palma said. “It’s such an abusive power, it’s so arrogant that ‘outrageous’ doesn’t even label it correctly. It’s something you can’t even imagine that somebody would take it upon themselves to do – to judge the sincerity of your belief.

“Particularly in a school district,” Palma said, “taking it upon themselves to judge your relationship with God? Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

Not only were the Palmas grilled, however, their attempts to file religious exemptions were also ultimately denied.

Following both interviews, the first in 2006 and the last in 2008, the school district deemed the Palmas’ beliefs were not sincerely held.

“This determination,” wrote the school in 2006, “was made based upon your meeting with the school attorney and information which we received, which significantly calls into question your stated beliefs.”

Rita Palma explained to WND that her choice not to immunize her children was a decision of conscience and of following God’s leading. In the interview with the lawyer, Palma further explained that she sees a distinction between medicine as a healing for sickness and vaccines, which she described as injecting a sickness as step toward heath. The latter, she insisted, violates her understanding of trust in God and his design for the body.

The school district’s denial, however, cited a medical test Palma gave her son as evidence that her beliefs are too inconsistent to be sincerely and genuinely held.

The district’s second denial, in 2008, further criticized the Palmas, a self-described Catholic family, for misquoting the Bible and claimed that if their objection was truly a matter of religious conviction, they could have sought something other than public school for their son.

The Palmas appealed the original denial to the state’s commissioner of public education, only to be denied again.

Now, with the help of New York State Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried, the Palmas are working to prevent other parents from enduring the same interrogation or contra-conscience mandatory immunization of their children.

Gottfried, chair of the state Assembly’s health committee, has sponsored New York bill A00883, which amends state law to ban “sincerity tests” and states, “The current common practice of government agencies scrutinizing and judging a parent’s religious beliefs is inappropriate in a democracy that values the First Amendment.

“There could be concern that some parents might falsely claim a religious exemption,” the bill continues. “But it is greatly outweighed by the burden that the intrusive, prolonged inquiry imposes on bona fide objectors forced to defend their religious beliefs.”

WND contacted the offices of attorney David Cohen for response or comment but received no reply.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=88232

128 killed in Australia’s worst fire disaster

*It continues…*

The death toll from Australia’s wildfires has risen to 128, and authorities said they expect the number to go higher.

Authorities counted more victims overnight as they reached further into a huge zone scorched by blazes that ripped across southeastern Victoria state over the weekend.

Victoria police spokeswoman Marika Sengler said the confirmed death toll on Monday afternoon was 128.

At least 750 homes were destroyed in the fires that in some cases razed entire towns.

Officials say they expect the toll to go higher as investigators move into areas not yet reached.

Australia’s previous deadliest fires were in 1983, when blazes killed 75 people and destroyed more than 3,000 homes in Victoria and South Australia.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jlUCqDbfvOMgcnOmIjSnqFNni6iQD967Q55G2