Timor Sea oil spill may have reached 63,000 barrels making it among the three worst in the country’s history


October 22, 2009
Bloomberg


(International) An oil spill from a leaking well off Western Australia may have polluted the Timor Sea with 10 million liters, about 63,000 barrels, of oil, making it among the three worst in the country’s history, the Greens said on October 22.

The Montara well may be spilling as much as 3,000 barrels of oil a day, a Greens senator said in a statement, citing information sourced by the party.

That is up to 10 times higher than the estimate from field operator PTT Exploration & Production Pcl (PTTEP), which puts the flow at about 300 to 400 barrels a day, a spokesman said by phone on October 22. Bangkok-based PTTEP is due to make a fourth attempt on October 23 to intercept the leak, 2,600 meters (1.6 miles) below the seabed, in an effort to plug it. Oil, gas and condensate began seeping into the Timor Sea from the well on August 21.

The opposition Liberal Party has called on the government to intervene in the operation should the next bid fail.

Australia’s department of resources, energy and tourism has calculated the well is leaking oil at a rate of 2,000 barrels a day, based on data from Geoscience Australia, the Greens said.

The estimate was made by department officials at a Senate hearing in Canberra yesterday, the senator said. By October 20, 457,000 liters of oil product, including 277,000 liters of oil, had been removed from the ocean, the marine safety authority said.

Aerial surveillance shows oil about 201 kilometers from the Western Australian coast and 257 kilometers off Indonesia, it said.

The oil currently poses no threat to environmentally sensitive reef areas, the authority said October 21. PTTEP has drilled a relief shaft at the Montara field to intercept the leaking well and plug it, and intends to halt the flow by injecting heavy mud.

Source:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aWGuIAo7gecc
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Panamanian Ship operator pleads guilty for concealing pollution from oil tanker


October 21, 2009
U.S. Department of Justice


(Texas) A Panamanian company that operated a 40,000- ton oil tanker ship that regularly made calls in multiple ports in Texas pleaded guilty today in federal court in Houston for deliberately concealing pollution discharges from the ship directly into the sea.

The operator of the M/T Georgios M, pleaded guilty to three felony violations of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships for failing to properly maintain an oil record book as required by federal and international law.

According to a plea agreement filed with U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, the company has agreed to pay a $1 million criminal fine along with a $250,000 community service payment to the congressionally-established National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

The money will be designated for use in the Flower Garden and Stetson Banks National Marine Sanctuary, headquartered in Galveston, Texas, to support the protection and preservation of natural and cultural resources located in and adjacent to the sanctuary.

According to the joint factual statement, from December 2006 until February 2009, senior engineering officers and crew members installed a bypass pipe known as a “magic pipe” in order to avoid the pollution control equipment on-board the ship.

The senior engineers then directed junior engineers to connect the so-called “magic pipe” and deliberately discharge sludge and oily waste directly into the ocean.

The senior engineers also made false entries in the oil record book to conceal the fact that the pollution control equipment had not been used.

The crewmembers then attempted to conceal the discharges on February 19, 2009 during a Coast Guard boarding at the port in Texas City, by providing the falsified oil record book to the boarding crew.

Source:
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/October/09-enrd-1133.html
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After the Billionaires Plundered Alabama Town, Troops Were Called in ... Illegally


By Mark Ames
AlterNet
October 24, 2009


Editor's Note:

The shocking transfer of public wealth to Wall Street's pockets is illustrated vividly in Mark Ames' article below, which covers some very disturbing recent events in Alabama, where billionaires and banks are squeezing the locals so hard that they're literally going bankrupt just for flushing their toilets, where violence and the threat of violence are reaching a boiling point and where even the Posse Comitatus Act is under threat. "We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all," said one Goldman Sachs vice-chairman recently. Well, here's a tale of the kind of inequality the finance industry expects citizens to tolerate.

One of this year's more disturbing stories that were ignored was the illegal Army occupation of Samson, Alab., in March following a shooting spree that raged across two towns by a disgruntled worker, leaving 11 people dead.

As I wrote at the time, Michael McLendon, 27, went on a killing rampage following years of relentless corporate exploitation and harassment against him, his mother (whom he mercy-killed), and the entire rural Alabama region, which suffered like so many parts of rural America at the hands of billionaire goons like chicken oligarch Bo Pilgrim of Pilgrim's Pride notoriety.

One of the creepiest details to emerge in the shooting rampage were reports that troops from nearby Fort Rucker were brought into Samson and other surrounding areas to patrol the streets.

This is a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, every freedom-loving American's worst nightmare.

And now, finally, the Army officially agrees that its occupation of the Alabama streets was illegal, according to an internal report the Associated Press got a hold of, following a Freedom of Information Act filing:

An Army investigation found that soldiers should not have been sent to man traffic stops in a small Alabama town after 11 people were killed in March during a shooting spree. An Army report released to the Associated Press on Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request said the decision to dispatch military police to Samson from nearby Fort Rucker broke the law. But an Army spokesman said no charges have been filed following the Aug. 10 report.

The report from the Department of Army Inspector General found the use of military personnel in Samson violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits federal troops from performing law-enforcement actions. The names of those involved were redacted from the report.

According to the report, the officer's "intent was to be a good Army neighbor and help local civilian authorities facing a difficult, unique tragedy affecting the local community. There were no apparent adverse collateral effects to the support provided."

Indeed.

For a lot of Americans, the sight of troops occupying their towns is their worst nightmare come true -- part of the reason that America came into existence was to create a country where this sort of thing would never happen, even if the Army's sole intent was to be a good neighbor and help old ladies cross the streets.

Strangely enough, there was almost no media coverage of the occupation -- you had to rely on various right-wing outlets like CNSNews.com, whose article I blogged at the time, or the left-wing Democratic Underground.

But what even the right-wing anti-government people won't report is the true reason why the Army was called out in the first place, something that goes right back to the cause of the shooting rampage: billionaire exploitation of the local Alabamans, not just by the chicken oligarch, but from higher up the predator food chain -- Wall Street banking behemoth JP Morgan Chase.

You see, thanks to a combination of corporate-tax holidays (which reduce local revenues), billionaire greed like the sort that bankrupted Pilgrim's Pride, and Wall Street investment-banking scams on places like Alabama that result in corrupted local officials and bankrupted municipalities, counties and states -- now, there's no money left to fund local police forces, as the U.S. Army report reveals:

The soldiers arrived in the hours after the shootings, which stretched the town's tiny police force and county officers to the limit with several different crime scenes. The report said troops were dispatched after the Geneva County Sheriff's Office and Samson Police requested assistance from Fort Rucker to relieve law enforcement at traffic checkpoints around the crime-scene area.

As I wrote earlier this year, Pilgrim's Pride hooked up with Wall Street to leverage itself into bankruptcy while enriching the executives' family and a handful of insiders at the expense of tens of thousands of Americans workers:

In 2006, Pilgrim's Pride, then the second-largest chicken processor in the world, made a huge gamble that will seem familiar to anyone who's been following the financial crash: the company borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars, leveraging itself well beyond its means, in order to acquire a rival company and become the nation's No. 1 chicken processor, slaughtering 45 million chickens per week.

That might have given the executives a nice, big hard-on, but it also meant they would have to come up with more money to pay for all that debt. So the company did do what every post-Reagan company has done and gotten away with: it made the workforce pay for the executives' bonuses.

That meant squeezing lower-middle-class workers for more work for less pay, or in Pilgrim's case, more work for no pay: In August 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit against Pilgrim's Pride accusing it of grossly undercompensating its employees. That same year, 10,000 Pilgrim's Pride employees launched a class-action lawsuit demanding compensation for their work.

The damage extended well beyond Pilgrim's Pride's plants. With bankruptcy came huge unpaid local tax bills, leading to further layoffs and reduced services for the already-beleaguered locals:
Suwannee County could be out about $2 million if Pilgrim's Pride doesn't pay its property-tax bill, according to property appraiser Lamar Jenkins.

The biggest taxpayer in the county filed for bankruptcy protection Dec. 1. Now it's not clear when -- or if -- the bill will be paid.

"It's certainly going to put a hurt on the budget of the county," Jenkins told the [Suwanee] Democrat by phone Thursday. Jenkins said the unpaid bill represents 7.4 percent of the money local schools get from property taxes; 5.3 percent of county funds from that source; and 8 percent of the money the Suwannee River Water Management District receives from local property-tax revenues.

A spokesman for Pilgrim's did not respond to a request for comment.

Bo Pilgrim, the head of Pilgrim's Pride, once told his Texas church that he was worth over $1 billion before the market crash, and he's still worth hundreds of millions. His rapacity was boundless, and in the end it was the undoing of Pilgrim's Pride -- not the Pilgrim family, mind you, which is still filthy disgusting rich, but the company is through.

Last month, 64 percent of Pilgrim's Pride was sold to JBS, a Brazilian beef giant, making it the largest meat company in the world, topping America's Tyson. The American cattle industry tried to block the deal, which it says could result in the destruction of the American beef industry, but the Justice Department already approved JBS' takeover.

In the billionaires' Third World model for America, it makes awful sense that a Brazilian meat company would take control of a bankrupt, corrupt American chicken company. For Wall Street and the billionaires, the more they destroy in America, the richer they get, consequences be damned. And anyway, it's not like Pilgrim's Pride was a model of corporate responsibility while under American ownership; just read some of the comments on this recent Reuters article:

Gilmer, Texas, Sep. 8, 2009 -- working as a supervisor in mt pleasant plant use to be injoyable, but lately they expect you to work 50/70 hours for no extra pay. pilgrims pride does not care about family life just their money. Everyone is afraid to say anything, because upper management may let you go with no warnning because you voiced your oppion

Robert, Carrollton, Ga. -- i work carrollton,ga former goldkist plant we were goldkist 1 plant now we fill like we in pure hell working for pilgrim pride these people want you to kiss there ass and work three times hard for same money no rasied in two years old chicken farmer

Doddridge, Ark. -- While I was raising chickens for Pilgrim's Pride, I became friends with many lower management employees of the company. The manner in which they were terminated was just simply unmerciful. While the growers had the brunt of the financial devastion, many that were nearing retirement were left with no prospects of employment in the near future. I know some that have had to uproot their families and settle for a considerable more modest lifestyle with their retirement benefits in doubt after a number of years of employment. It is just a shame that Bo Pilgrim has pocketed the money of many hard working people. I still believe Bo needs to be in the jail cell next to Bernie Madoff.

The comments section is where you'll find the real, unvarnished, ungrammatical rage among America's cheated majority, because for the most part, people are too desperate and afraid to complain in public.

But here's the rub: Selling Pilgrim's Pride to a Brazilian meat monopoly doesn't mean things will get better for Alabamans. Just weeks after the buyout was announced, Pilgrim's Pride closed another plant, this one in northern Alabama.

According to the AP:

A chicken-processing plant owned by Pilgrim's Pride Corp. is shutting down this week after almost six decades, putting more than 600 people out of work and creating ripples that will be felt all over town.

The city of almost 20,000 is preparing for the end of a relationship that began in 1952 when James Beasley founded Sweet Sue Poultry, which originally ran the plant. Owners included Beatrice Foods and ConAgra before Pilgrim's Pride purchased the business in 2003.

Which looks a lot like an even more depressing Pilgrim's Pride story from a few months earlier, this from rural Arkansas. The town of Clinton filed a lawsuit in June against Pilgrim's Pride, accusing it of turning the town into a "ghost town":

"With its largest and sole remaining employer, Pilgrim's, now evacuated, the city faces a crisis of revenue, bond payments and economic devastation, and as a result of the Pilgrim's evacuation is threatened with becoming a modern-day ghost town," the lawsuit filed by the city said. "This serious economic situation is, however, a direct consequence of Pilgrim's illegal purpose in shuttering the Clinton plant and operations."

This story is repeated all over the rural South. So guess who put together the deal that bankrupted Pilgrim's Pride? Lehman Bros., the king of bankruptcy.

On the other side of the deal, serving Gold Kist, was Merrill Lynch, which also collapsed last year. But Merrill's banker in the Pilgrim's Pride acquisition is still doing well, thank you very much. In fact, he was recently hired by JPMorgan Chase as vice chairman of mergers and acquisitions.

Which makes perfect sense, because JPMorgan Chase has been laying waste to Alabama on a level that makes Pilgrim's Pride's destruction look downright humanitarian. JP Morgan Chase has plundered so much wealth from one county in Alabama, using a complex derivatives scheme and old-fashioned bribery, that some locals are calling it "Armageddon." According to Bloomberg:

In its 190-year history, Jefferson County, Ala., has endured a cholera epidemic, a pounding in the Civil War, gunslingers, labor riots and terrorism by the Ku Klux Klan. Now this namesake of Thomas Jefferson, anchored by Birmingham, is staring at what one local politician calls financial "Armageddon."

The spectacle -- a tax struck down, about 1,000 county employees furloughed, a politician indicted over $3 billion in sewer debt that may lead to the largest municipal bankruptcy in history -- has elbowed its way up the ladder of county lore.

"People want to kill somebody, but they don't know who to shoot at," says Russell Cunningham, past president of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Jefferson County's debacle is a parable for billions of dollars lost by state and local governments from Florida to California in transactions done behind closed doors. Selling debt without requiring competition made public officials vulnerable to bankers' sales pitches, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for borrowing gone awry.

The county bet on interest-rate swaps, agreements that a representative of New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. told commissioners could reduce their interest costs. Instead, the swaps -- covering more than $5 billion in all -- blew up during the credit crisis after ratings for the county's bond insurers fell.

JPMorgan, through spokeswoman Christine Holevas, declined to comment for this story.

Yeah, why bother commenting to the public when you own the bastards? JPMorgan, which took $25 billion in direct bailout money and tens of billions more in backdoor subsidies and handouts, just posted a massive $3.6 billion quarterly profit, and has set aside at least $11.1 billion for management bonuses. Meanwhile, Alabamans can't afford to flush their toilets.

This is what inequality looks like. From Wall Street, it must look extremely appealing; for the rest of America, it's a nightmare that's only getting worse.

So far, it's clear that Birmingham and the entire Jefferson County are following the wretched script of a typical Third World scenario, where the Wall Street bankers corrupt the politicians and eventually bankrupt the place and then, while the corpse is still warm and the bankruptcy deals are cut, Wall Street makes sure it's first in line to profit off the chaos it created, while its corrupt local shill (in this case Birmingham's mayor) takes the fall for the crime of accepting the JP Morgan bribes … and the locals get screwed worst of all, paying off the bill for years or decades.

Just this week, it emerged that Goldman Sachs, employer of Brian "Inequality Is Good" Griffiths, bilked the state of New Jersey using a similar scheme involving interest-rate swaps on bonds that don't even exist. According to Bloomberg, New Jersey is considering raising its gasoline tax to pay the $1 million a month they have to pay out to Goldman for the scam -- a regressive tax that once again takes from the struggling middle class and poor, and puts in the pockets of the billionaires.

Meanwhile, over in Jefferson County, Ala., there's so little left to steal from the impoverished locals that Wall Street has been forced to come up with a new, grotesquely evil plan to line their pockets: taxing the local residents for taking a shit:

In August, Bank of New York Mellon Corp., as trustee for owners of about $3 billion in sewer warrants, filed suit in Jefferson County Circuit Court seeking an appointed receiver for the sewer system. The receiver should have authority to raise rates enough to meet the debt service, the bank said in the complaint, which is pending. The sewer system is already charging customers about 300 percent more to drain bathtubs or flush toilets than a dozen years ago.

By one county estimate, average annual bills are now about $750, compared with the national average of $331, according to a 2007 survey by the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Clean Water Agencies, a coalition of utilities.

It's impossible to boost them enough without putting them beyond the means of many residents, County Commissioner Jim Carns says. "We're like a guy making $50,000 a year with a $1 million mortgage."

In Wall Street's eyes, Alabamans really do shit gold.

The thing now will be to convince the locals to use their toilets rather than, say, gas to heat their homes.

As I wrote a few months ago, Jefferson County residents have become so desperate that they're being forced to choose between water and heating, as this article shows:

As nighttime temperatures plunged in Birmingham, Ala., last October, Dora Bonner had a choice: either pay the gas bill so she could heat the home she shares with four grandchildren, or send the Birmingham Water Works a $250 check for her water and sewer bill.

Bonner, who is 73 and lives on Social Security, decided to keep the house from freezing.
"I couldn't afford the water, so they shut it off," she says.

Bonner's sewer bills have risen more than fourfold in the past decade. So have those of others in Jefferson County, which has 659,000 residents and includes Birmingham, the state's largest city.


The logical outcome of the billionaires' plundering of Alabama is the same thing that happens all over the Third World: violence, fear and calling in the troops, the only way to secure the billionaires' dirty profits:

In August and September … Jefferson County residents got a taste of what bankruptcy might look like. As the county began putting about 1,000 workers on leave without pay, one disgruntled employee allegedly e-mailed bomb threats to officials and was promptly arrested, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.

Lines soon formed outside the courthouse as such tasks as renewing driver's licenses slowed.

A kind of legal civil war broke out when three county agencies -- the sheriff's department, an indigent-care hospital and the tax-assessor's office -- sued the county commission to stop the budget cuts on the grounds that they posed a danger to public safety.

Bettye Fine Collins, the commission president, declared the situation, "our Armageddon."

The state's response is right out of the Central America banana republic playbook: When there's no money left for the people, send in the troops.

The cuts in the sheriff's department budget were so severe that he was planning to call in the National Guard to keep order:

The sheriff in Alabama's most populous county may call for the National Guard to help maintain order, a spokesman said Tuesday, as a judge cleared the way for cuts in the sheriff's budget, and lawmakers reached a compromise they hope will end the budget crisis.

In light of all of this, the Army's brief, illegal occupation of a string of towns in Alabama this past spring no longer looks like a freak one-off, but rather a logical progression in the ongoing billionaire plunder of America.

It gives new meaning to what MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan is calling "corporate communism."

Not only are banking billionaires on permanent state wealthfare, but even worse, as the wealth available becomes increasingly scarce and there isn't enough left to satisfy the billionaires' grotesque appetites and regular citizens' needs to flush their toilets or heat their homes, we're heading to the point that all Third World countries come to -- calling out the troops to ensure that the peasants pay their tithes to their absentee masters in New York and Connecticut and don't get all uppity like those Europeans.

Now you can see why Alabamans are loading up on so many weapons. That makes sense. Now they need to understand who the real enemy is. Not the make-believe liberal bogeymen of their nightmares. Rather, Alabamans should focus their anger on the real-world billionaires who are making this country a living hell.

Read more of Mark Ames at eXiledonline.com. He is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond.
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/143485/
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CodePink Founder Jodie Evans Challenges Obama Up Close and Personal on His Afghanistan Policy


By Don Hazen
AlterNet
October 17, 2009


Everyone in the universe by now knows that the progressive anti-war group CodePink has plenty of chutzpah. But co-founder Jodie Evans really doesn't mess around. She went straight to the top and challenged Barack Obama face-to-face on his visit to San Francisco on Thursday night at a high-priced fund raiser at the Westin St. Francis hotel.

Armed with the signatures of thousands of Afghan women who don't want Obama to send more troops, and for the U.S. occupation to come to an end after a reconciliation process, Evans had an intimate on-on-one with the president, where she told him explicitly that women need to be at the table in any negotiations to alter or end the war. She was wearing a pink shirt with "End The Afghan Quagmire" written on it, and showed her sartorial splendor to Obama.

Evans told me later that the evening at the Rain Forest Action Network fundraiser at the Bentley Reserve that Obama was friendly and listened carefully -- you can see in the video that he has his arm around her -- but that he didn't quite get her message at first. According to Evans, when she raised the issue of women and war, he said, "Well we have Hillary and the Ambassador. And I said no, the Afghan women. And he said oh."

How did Evans manage to have this little chat with the President? Well, the old fashioned way. She paid for it. Realizing that they had an opportunity to get through to the Commander-in-Chief unfiltered, a supporter forked over $30,400 for two tickets to attend the super-intimate gathering, where only the crème de la crème of big money donors were hanging with the president.

Earlier in the month, Evans recently visited Afghanistan over a ten-day period along with a group of CodePink activists, and she was clear in a recent AlterNet article about what she saw -- a humanitarian crisis: "The United States has spent a quarter of a trillion dollars in eight years of military action: what have we achieved? Most of the country is in worse condition, the bordering countries are less stable and death fills the air. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan is ranked 181 out of 182 countries for human development indices. Life expectancy has fallen to 43 years since the U.S. invasion. Forty percent of the population is unemployed, and 42 percent live on less than $1 a day."

There is a schism among American feminist groups, where some -- particularly Ms. Magazine and its parent group The Feminist Majority Foundation -- support escalation in Afghanistan as a strategy for protecting women's rights. But many other women -- particularly activists like the women of CodePink, who have a long anti-war history -- think that is a huge mistake and insist that most of the women in Afghanistan do not want more military, more war.

It makes their lives even worse, if that is possible, while the discredited President Karzai, whose re-election seems fatally tainted by fraud and corruption and the warlords who control chunks of the countryside, shows little interest in supporting women's rights -- a recent law "explicitly legalizes marital rape as well as forcing women to dress and make themselves up (while in the home, of course) according to their husband’s demands, outlawing the ability to leave the home without a husband or a good reason to do so, and automatically granting custody of children to the male relatives (fathers or grandfathers)," according to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

In a recent CodePink video interview, Afghan Parliament member Roshanak Wardak makes the position clear: "Most of the women do not want more troops -- they need support to sustain their lives." The CodePink delegation spoke with journalists, doctors, activists, NGOs, members of government and average Afghan women. The main message they heard is they "want the U.S. investment to reflect what is needed to bring peace. They need investment in the people of Afghanistan."

"In truth, 90 percent of U.S. funding to Afghanistan is used for military; only approximately 10 percent has been used for any kind of development."

Meanwhile, President Obama continues to deliberate over whether to send tens of thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, while Vice President Biden seems to be in an influential position to help resist military pressure for escalation.

Biden has been the leading skeptic in the administration toward Gen. Stanley McChrystal's call for escalating the war with 40,000 more troops. Biden's argument appears to be that the strategy should focus more on taking out top Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan with drones and Special Forces and shifting security responsibility to the Afghans.

Time will tell which of the arguments wins the day.

Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet.
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/143340/
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Washington Health Department Suspends Mercury Restrictions for Swine Flu Vaccine


Mercola.com
October 17 2009


In preparation for swine-flu vaccinations next month, the state of Washington's Health Department has temporarily suspended a rule that limits the amount of a mercury preservative in vaccines given to pregnant women and children under the age of 3.

Thimerosal has been eliminated from most vaccines in the United States, and the compound may be linked to autism. But it will be added to the bulk of swine-flu vaccines.

Thimerosal will be added to the vaccine because it is being produced in vials that contain enough medication for 10 shots. The mercury compound kills bacteria, lowering the risk that the drug will be contaminated by needles used to withdraw separate doses.

A smaller amount of mercury-free vaccine will be produced in single-dose vials. Nasal sprays do not contain mercury but are not recommended for children under the age of 2 and pregnant women, because they contain live, weakened virus.

Five biopharmaceutical companies have been awarded massive contracts by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for development and production of more than 195 million doses of swine flu vaccine.

The companies -- Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, MedImmune, Australian drug maker CSL, and Sanofi-Pasteur -- will likely make a great deal of money.

Drug companies have sold $1.5 billion worth of swine flu shots, in addition to the $1 billion for seasonal flu they booked earlier this year. These inoculations are part of a much wider and rapidly growing $20 billion global vaccine market.

"The vaccine market is booming," says Bruce Carlson, spokesperson at market research firm Kalorama, which publishes an annual survey of the vaccine industry. "It's an enormous growth area for pharmaceuticals at a time when other areas are not doing so well," he says, noting that the pipeline for more traditional blockbuster drugs such as Lipitor and Nexium has thinned.

As always with pandemic flus, taxpayers are footing the $1.5 billion check for the 250 million swine flu vaccines that the government has ordered so far and will be distributing free to doctors, pharmacies and schools. In addition, Congress has set aside more than $10 billion this year to research flu viruses, monitor H1N1's progress and educate the public about prevention.

Drugmakers pocket most of the revenues from flu sales, with Sanofi-Pasteur, Glaxo Smith Kline and Novartis cornering most of the market.

But some say it's not just drugmakers who stand to benefit. Doctors collect copayments for special office visits to inject shots, and there have been assertions that these doctors actually profit handsomely from these vaccinations.

Sources:
Seattle Times September 29, 2009
The Scientist September 23, 2009
ABC News October 14, 2009


Dr. Mercola's Comments:

As reported by the Seattle Times, Washington's Department of Health (DOH) has decided to suspend the rule that limits the amount of thimerosal in vaccines that can be administered to pregnant women and infants under the age of three.

Thimerosal contains 49.6 percent mercury by weight, and is added to vaccines as a preservative. It also helps kill germs, so it prevents multi-dose vials from spreading infection.

As of July 1, 2007, pregnant women and children under the age of three were prohibited from receiving vaccines with a mercury content exceeding:
1.0 mcg per 0.5 ml dose for influenza vaccines (which equals 2 mcg/ml)
0.5 mcg per 0.5 ml dose for all other vaccines (which equals 1 mcg/ml)

The rule includes a suspension of limits clause, authorizing the Secretary of the Washington State DOH to temporarily suspend these limits if the Secretary or local health officer declares an outbreak of vaccine-preventable disease, or a shortage of a vaccine that meet the statutory requirements above.

It’s worth noting that, fortunately, the Washington DOH routinely purchases mercury-free flu vaccines for infants under the age of three. However, pediatric patients aged 3-18 get flu vaccines that contain mercury…

According to Secretary of Health, Mary Selecky, the rule will be suspended for six months, and applies only to vaccines against the swine flu.

But then it gets interesting. The Seattle Times quotes Selecky as saying that “the preservative, thimerosal, has never been linked to any health problems.” The article goes on to state that a “vocal minority” believes the compound could be linked to autism.

When a state Secretary of Health doesn’t even acknowledge the truth (or is ignorant of the facts as they relate to health), you know something’s seriously wrong.

Below I will show you just how many ways there are to prove they’re not speaking the truth...

Why were Mercury Limitations Suspended?

According to Health Secretary Selecky, “pregnant women and young children are considered at high risk for swine flu, and lifting the mercury limits will give them quicker access to the vaccine.”

Folks, this is insanity on top of madness.

Infants and pregnant women may be at higher risk of suffering complications from the flu, but they’re also the absolute most vulnerable to damage from mercury exposure!

Why would you want to risk neurological dysfunction to potentially avoid a bout of the flu?

And I say “potentially,” because it’s also been proven again and again that flu vaccines do NOT reduce the occurrence of the flu!

In short – Flu shots do not work.

As it stands, only about 15 percent of the vaccine supply will be made available as mercury-free single-dose vials, but those shipments are slated to arrive later. The first flu vaccine shipments are in the form of a nasal spray (FluMist) containing live virus’, which are not recommended for pregnant women or infants under the age of two.

Massive Profiteering Underway

As reported by The Scientist, five biopharmaceutical companies have been awarded massive contracts by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for development and production of more than 195 million doses of swine flu vaccine.

The Seattle Times puts the total estimated number of vaccine doses to be manufactured at 250 million.

Either way, according to Business Week, wealthier countries like the U.S. and the U.K. will pay just under $10 per dose, while developing countries would pay less.

Do the math.

Is it any wonder you’re being bombarded with apocalyptic messages about the significant threat posed by swine flu?

CSL has contracts to supply $180 million worth of bulk antigen to the U.S.

MedImmune will supply 40 million doses of its live attenuated nasal spray swine flu vaccine for more than $450 million

Sanofi-Pasteur is providing more than 100 million doses of monovalent swine flu vaccine, a $690 million order

Glaxosmithkline is estimating sales of its swine flu vaccine and its anti-viral medication, Relenza, will reach about $5 billion by January 2010.

The swine flu vaccines stand poised to be incredible blockbusters if this hyped up vaccine drive is successful. Already, drug companies have sold $1.5 billion worth of swine flu shots, in addition to the $1 billion for seasonal flu they booked earlier this year. ABC News quotes Bruce Carlson, spokesperson at market research firm Kalorama, as saying, "The vaccine market is booming. It's an enormous growth area for pharmaceuticals at a time when other areas are not doing so well."

And who's footing the $1.5 billion bill for the 250 million swine flu vaccines that the government has ordered so far and will be distributing free to doctors, pharmacies and schools?You are! In addition to that, Congress has set aside more than $10 billion this year to research flu viruses, monitor H1N1's progress and educate the public about prevention.

High Time to Put an End to Bold-Faced LIES!

Part of the propaganda that allows this vaccine drive to move ahead at full speed is to make statement like: “Thimerosal has never been linked to any health problems.”

Unfortunately, for everyone out there who believes that state health officials are reliable sources of information, this is a flat out lie.

So let’s put an end to this worn-out arbitrary catch-phrase used by people who either don’t know better, or don’t want YOU to know better.

Writing for GenerationRescue.org, Teresa Binstock, a researcher in Developmental & Behavioral Neuroanatomy, also addresses this fallacy.

“Once again, a highly placed public figure has presented a misleading or inaccurate statement wherein thimerosal is erroneously described as harmless,” she writes, and proceeds to list some of the most recent studies showing the exact opposite of what the Health Secretary puts out as “truth.”

Studies CONFIRMING Thimerosal as a Health Hazard

You deserve to know the facts, so here’s a compilation of recent studies and research clearly showing that thimerosal DOES HAVE a very real, detrimental impact on health, and that mercury toxicity is a reality in those suffering from the type of neurological damage seen in autistic children.

Most of these are from GenerationRescue.org and Fourteenstudies.org’s websites, which are great resources as they provide copies of the full studies so you can review all the evidence for yourself:

Environmental Health Perspectives, August, 2005
Fourteenstudies.org
States: “This study demonstrates clearly and unequivocally that ethyl mercury, the kind of mercury found in vaccines, not only ends up in your brain, but leaves double the amount of inorganic mercury as methyl mercury, the kind of mercury found in fish. This work is groundbreaking because little is known about ethyl mercury, and many health authorities have asserted that the mercury found in vaccines is the "safe kind." This study also delivers a strong rebuke of the Institute of Medicine's recommendation in 2004 to no longer pursue the mercury-autism connection."

Excerpt:"A recently published IOM review (IOM 2004) appears to have abandoned the earlier recommendation [of studying mercury and autism] as well as back away from the American Academy of Pediatrics goal [of removing mercury from vaccines]. This approach is difficult to understand, given our current limited knowledge of the toxicokinetics and developmental neurotoxicity of thimerosal, a compound that has been (and will continue to be) injected in millions of newborns and infants."

Cell Biology and Toxicology April 9, 2009 [Epub Ahead of Print]
Exerpt: “In conclusion, MT-1 and MT-3 mRNAs but not MT-2 mRNA are easily expressed in the cerebellum rather than in the cerebrum by the injection of low-dose thimerosal. It is thought that the cerebellum is a sensitive organ against thimerosal. As a result of the present findings, in combination with the brain pathology observed in patients diagnosed with autism, the present study helps to support the possible biological plausibility for how low-dose exposure to mercury from thimerosal-containing vaccines may be associated with autism.”

Annals of Epidemiology September 2009: 19(9);659
Male infants who received thimerosal-containing hepatitis-B vaccinations had a three-fold risk of developing autism.

Neurotoxicology October 1, 2009
The above findings are confirmed in this study wherein infant primates injected with just ONE dose of thimerosal-containing hepatitis B vaccine manifested significant developmental delays.

Brain Research September 9, 2009 [Epub Ahead of Print]
Study concluded that injecting thimerosal into suckling infant rats, and adult rats, impairs sensitivity to pain, apparently due to activation the endogenous opioid system.

Toxicology & Environmental Chemistry September-October 2008: 90(5);997-1008
Male infants who received thimerosal-containing hepatitis-B vaccinations were nine times as likely to be receiving special education services

Generation Rescue Survey of 9,000 boys, aged 4-17, in California and Oregon, found that vaccinated boys had a 155 percent greater chance of having a neurological disorder than unvaccinated boys. Vaccinated boys were 224 percent more likely to have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and 61 percent more likely to have autism.For boys in the 11-17 age bracket, the results were even more pronounced. Vaccinated boys were 158 percent more likely to have a neurological disorder, 317 percent more likely to have ADHD, and 112 percent more likely to have autism.

Report to the Legislature on the Principle Findings from The Epidemiology of Autism in California: A Comprehensive Pilot Study by the MIND Institute, October 2002, concluded that the rise in autism cannot be explained by better diagnosis and expanded diagnostic criteria, but rather is a real event, likely propelled by “environmental exposures to substances such as mercury; viral exposures; autoimmune disorders; and childhood vaccinations."

Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology 2006: 214; 99-108
This French study used a new, sophisticated measurement for environmental toxicity by assessing porphyrin levels in autistic children. It provides clear and unequivocal evidence that children with autism spectrum disorders are significantly more toxic than their neurotypical peers.

Journal of American Physicians and Surgeon, 2003
Exerpt: "The data from this study, along with emerging epidemiological data showing a link between increasing mercury doses from childhood vaccines and childhood neurodevelopmental disorders, increases the likelihood that mercury is one of the main factors leading to the large increase in the rate of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. It is hoped that removing thimerosal from all childhood vaccines will contribute to a decline in the numbers of new cases of autistic spectrum disorders."

Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health 2007: 70; 837-851
This study reviewed the case histories and medical profiles of nine autistic children and concluded that eight of the nine children were mercury toxic and this toxicity manifested itself in a manner consistent with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Neuropediatrics, August 2006
Exerpt: "There was significant difference in blood mercury levels between cases and controls, which persists after adjustment for age, gender and parental occupational status. The geometric mean blood mercury level was also significantly higher in children with inattentive and combined subtypes of ADHD. CONCLUSION: High blood mercury level was associated with ADHD. Whether the relationship is causal requires further studies."

International Journal of Toxicology 2003: 22; 277-285
Fourteenstudies.org
States: “This recent study demonstrates that the levels of mercury in the birth hair of autistic children were significantly lower than their control peers. While this may at first appear contradictory, it highlights one of the critical insights to understanding mercury poisoning and autistic children: many autistic children are non-excretors of mercury. This means their capacity to excrete mercury is significantly lower than their neurotypical peers and contributes to their condition.”

Journal of Pediatrics, May 2000: 136; 679-681
This study measured mercury levels in infants before and after the administration of a Hepatitis B vaccine containing thimerosal and found that a "comparison of pre and post-vaccination mercury levels showed a significant increase in both preterm and term infants after vaccination."

Neurotoxicology January 2005: 26; 1-8
Study demonstrates that thimerosal lowers or inhibits your body's ability to produce glutathione, an antioxidant and your body's primary cellular-level defense against mercury. Excerpt: "Thimerosal-induced cytotoxicity was associated with depletion of intracellular Glutathione in both cell lines...The potential effect of Glutathione or N-acetylcysteine against mercury toxicity warrants further research as possible adjunct therapy to individuals still receiving Thimerosal-containing vaccines."

Environmental Health Perspectives, July 2006
Study demonstrates that very low-levels of Thimerosal can contribute to immune system disregulation.

Molecular Psychiatry July 2004; 1-13
Study demonstrates how thimerosal inhibits methylation, a central driver of cellular communication and development. Exerpt: "The potent inhibition of this pathway [methylation] by ethanol, lead, mercury, aluminum, and thimerosal suggests it may be an important target of neurodevelopmental toxins."

Molecular Psychiatry September 2004; 1-13
Fouteenstudies.org
States: “This work by Columbia University Doctors explores whether genes are important in determining if mercury exposures akin to those in childhood immunizations can disrupt brain development and function. It is the first known scientific study done specifically on ethlymercury administered in a way similar to the vaccine schedule. Dr. Hornig discussed the study before Congress in September 2004.”Excerpt: "The premise of our research is that if mercury in vaccines creates risk for neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, genetic differences are likely to contribute to that risk. Earlier studies, however, did not use the form of mercury present in vaccines, known as thimerosal, and did not consider whether intramuscular, repetitive administration during early postnatal development, when the brain and immune systems are still maturing, might intensify toxicity. Our predictions were confirmed. Using thimerosal dosages and timing that approximated the childhood immunization schedule, our model of postnatal thimerosal neurotoxicity demonstrated that the genes in mice that predict mercury-related immunotoxicity also predicted nuerodevelopmental damage. Features reminiscent of those observed in autism occurred in the mice of the genetically sensitive strain."

Toxicological Sciences 2003: 74
Study demonstrates the potent toxicity of thimerosal on brain cells.

Autoimmunity Reviews June 2005: 4(5):270-275
Study demonstrates the clear link between ethylmercury [from thimerosal] and autoimmune responses.

Congressional Record
Extensions of Remarks by Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN), Committee on Government Reform, May 21, 2003

Fouteenstudies.org
States: “This extensive report was prepared by the staff of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness and was the result of a three-year investigation. The Committee on Government Reform, chaired by Congressman Dan Burton, initiated the investigation and compiled the testimony of hundreds of researchers and physicians, as well as representatives from the FDA and CDC, who presented to the committee.” Excerpt: "Mercury is hazardous to humans. Its use in medicinal products is undesirable, unnecessary and should be minimized or eliminated entirely. Manufacturers of vaccines and thimerosal, (an ethlymercury compound used in vaccines), have never conducted adequate testing on the safety of thimerosal. The FDA has never required manufacturers to conduct adequate safety testing on thimerosal and ethlymercury compounds...Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines is likely related to the autism epidemic. This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding injected thimerosal and the sharp rise of infant exposure to this known neurotoxin. Our public health agencies' failure to act is indicative of institutional malfeasance for self-protection and misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical industry."

Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 2006; 11(1); 8-13
Upon analysis of the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), researchers reported significantly increased odds ratios for autism, speech disorders, mental retardation and thinking abnormalities following vaccination with thimerosal-containing vaccines (DTP and Hib), compared to children who received a vaccine containing half the amount of thimerosal (DTPH).The American Academy of Pediatrics decided that this study was flawed because it relied on VAERS data, which as a “passive surveillance system” is no intended to be used for proving hypotheses.

I could go on, but by now I’m sure you get the picture.

To say that there is no evidence of link between thimerosal and biological damage is not a simple error or omission. It is an absolute lie, and you deserve better from your health officials.

Educational Resources

If you want even more than what I’ve included here, you can go to www.pubmed.com and search their medical database. Or look through Fourteenstudies.org’s site, which includes even more studies than I chose to include here. They have an impressive collection of evidence against thimerosal available.I also strongly urge you to review the vast supply of information available on the NVIC site, and join Barbara Loe Fisher in her urging to take action against the potential threat of mandatory swine flu vaccinations.Now more than ever, it's imperative that you educate yourself about vaccinations, influenza, vaccine risks, and the public health laws in your state, so you know what you're up against. You need to find out what your rights and options are under new public health laws that may require you and your children to get vaccinated or be quarantined.

Fighting Fire with Fire – Starting an Information Pandemic

If you can think of anyone who might benefit from this clarification of facts, please do not hesitate to forward this article. Share it with as many people as you can.

If our health officials refuse to see the truth, we will have to pry their blind eyes open.

Now YOU know a bit more about thimerosal.
What will you do with it?
Who will you tell?

Please continue to spread the message! Even the NY Times acknowledges that the readers of Mercola.com are playing a HUGE role, and are part of the reason why many parents are now actually refusing to vaccinate their children.

Related Links:
Warning: Swine Flu Vaccine Coming Soon
Flu Vaccine Exposed
Do NOT Let Your Child Get Flu Vaccine -- 9 Reasons Why

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Rape of Iraqi Women by US Forces as Weapon of War

Photos and Data Emerge


by Daya Gamage
US National Correspondent
Asian Tribune
Oct. 3, 2009

In March 2006 four US soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division gang raped a 14 year old Iraqi girl and murdered her and her family —including a 5 year old child. An additional soldier was involved in the cover-up.

One of the killers, Steven Green, was found guilty on May 07, 2009 in the US District Court of Paducah and is now awaiting sentencing.

The leaked Public Affairs Guidance put the 101st media team into a "passive posture" — withholding information where possible. It conceals presence of both child victims, and describes the rape victim, who had just turned 14, as "a young woman".

The US Army's Criminal Investigation Division did not begin its investigation until three and a half months after the crime, news reports at that time commented.

This is not the only grim picture coming out of Iraq U.S. forces being accused of using rape as a war weapon.

The release, by CBS News, of the photographs showing the heinous sexual abuse and torture of Iraqi POW's at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison opened a Pandora's Box for the Bush regime wrote Ernesto Cienfuegos in La Voz de Aztlan on May 2, 2004.

Journalist Cienfuegos further states “Apparently, the suspended US commander of the prison where the worst abuses took place, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, has refused to take the fall by herself and has implicated the CIA, Military Intelligence and private US government contractors in the torturing of POW's and in the raping of Iraqi women detainees as well.”

Brigadier General Karpinski, who commanded the 800th Military Police Brigade, described a high-pressure Military Intelligence and CIA command that prized successful interrogations. A month before the alleged abuses and rapes occurred, she said, a team of CIA, Military Intelligence officers and private consultants under the employ of the US government came to Abu Ghraib. "Their main and specific mission was to give the interrogators new techniques to get more information from detainees," she said.

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He later confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph in May 2009.

The London newspaper further noted “graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President Obama’s attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.”

Maj. Gen. Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President’s decision, adding: “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency. The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it.”

In April, Mr. Obama’s administration said the photographs would be released and it would be “pointless to appeal” against a court judgment in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

But after lobbying from senior military figures, Mr. Obama changed his mind saying they could put the safety of troops at risk.

In May, he said: “The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”

In April 2004, new photographs were sent to La Voz de Aztlan from confidential sources depicting the shocking rapes of two Iraqi women by what are purported to be US Military Intelligence personnel and private US mercenaries in military fatigues. It is now known, Cienfuegos wrote in May 2004, that hundreds of these photographs had been in circulation among the troops in Iraq. The graphic photos were being swapped between the soldiers like baseball cards.

Asian Tribune carries here three of the ‘Rape’ photographs which have brought criticism that the U.S. forces in Iraq have used rape as a weapon of war.

Source:
http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2009/10/03/rape-iraqi-women-us-forces-weapon-war-photos-and-data-emerge

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