The Health Forum

A place for open discussions – with no cover ups – about health issues

by Richard Seah

In a major victory for medical freedom, councillors in Big Island, Hawaii, have voted almost unanimously – by 7 to 1 – in support of a resolution that rejects mandatory vaccination and protects the rights of citizens to be exempted from vaccines.

The vote by the Big Island of Hawaii Council demonstrated the power of local community activists to rebuke “top down” policies advancing “mandatory” vaccinations during declared emergencies. It urges State and Federal legislators in Hawaii “to amend vaccine laws to include medical, religious, and philosophical exemptions from any vaccine program,” including those declared urgent by health officials.

The vote is said to reflect a nationwide trend of increasing public distrust of official proclamations of vaccination safety and efficacy. A solid majority of medical doctors, and nearly 70% of parents polled by Consumer Reports, feared the new vaccines and were determined not to recommend them. After exhaustive research conducted by Council researchers and attorneys, and many drafts, the Resolution stated:

“there is insufficient scientific evidence proving that vaccines are safe or effective, therefore it is not in the best interest of public health to recommend vaccinations without exemptions.

Whereas, in the wake of potential harm to the individual and the public from vaccinations, and the vacillating interpretation of ‘vaccine science, it is in the public’s best interest to amend the vaccine laws to include the right of medical, religious, and philosophical exemptions from any vaccination program.”

Council Vice Chair Naeole-Beason said:

“This is a victory for health freedom, common sense, and U.S. Constitutional entitlements. I am very proud of our Council who put public safety ahead of special interests.”

Dr. Leonard Horowitz, a Harvard-trained authority  in vaccinations and emerging diseases who advised the research committee. added: “This is a win for ‘We the People’.”

Not surprisingly, opposition to the resolution came from two medical doctors – Chiyome L Fukino, the Department of Health Director, and Sarah Y. Park, Chief of the State’s Disease Outbreak Control Division. They claimed that “a number of inaccuracies pertaining to immunization were cited in the Resolution . . . ,” but failed to show any or send anyone to the County meeting to defend their views.

Hawaii’s State and Federal lawmakers will vote on the Resolution next.

by Richard Seah

A new study published by the British Medical Journal (on 8 December 2009) has cast more doubts on the effectiveness of the flu drug, Tamiflu, as well as on its manufacturer, Roche Pharmaceuticals.

The study, led by Professor Chris del Mar of the Cochrane Collaboration, found no evidence that Tamiflu prevents serious complications, hospitalization, or death in people that have the flu. It further suggests that Roche, the Swiss company that manufactures and markets Tamiflu, may have misled governments and physicians by withholding vital information through not publishing critical studies that showed the drug to be ineffective.

But Roche maintains that it “has never concealed (or had the intention to conceal) any pertinent data.” And the company now says it will publish all the study data on a password-restricted website.

The latest findings come from a re-evaluation of an earlier 2006 study by Cochrane, which is a highly respected not-for-profit organisation that evaluates the effectiveness of various treatments. In that earlier study, Cochrane Collaboration generally agreed with claims by Roche that Tamiflu reduces:

• hospital admissions by 61%
• complications as bronchitis, pneumonia, and sinusitis by 67%
• and lower respiratory tract infections requiring antibiotics by 55%.

That 2006 Cochrane review was based largely on a paper that looked at 10 studies, all of them funded by Roche. But following concerns expressed by a Japanese doctor about the lack of medical evidence on Tamiflu’s effectiveness, the Cochrane team decided to re-examine the earlier study. In doing so, they found that only two of the 10 studies had ever been published in medical journals. Those two studies showed the drug had very little effect on complications compared to a placebo.

Meanwhile, attempts to trace the data from the remaining eight studies were not entirely successful. Said Prof Chris del Mar:

“The most important finding we found, which is a change from the previous review, was that we didn’t have enough data to know whether it reduces the complications of influenza.

There was a study written by professor Laurent Kaiser from Geneva in Switzerland, which was a summary of about 10 different trials that had been conducted by Roche Pharmaceuticals. When we actually put the data together and analysed them, we found that we couldn’t draw the conclusions that [professor] Kaiser had drawn. And so we felt very insecure about that. In fact we didn’t think it was proper to use those data.

“When we wrote to [professor] Kaiser and said ‘can you give us these data because we need to sort it all out properly’, he wrote back and said, ‘I’m very sorry I don’t have the data’. That’s a very weird thing to say. And he referred us to Roche. He said, ‘You’ll have to go and talk to the pharmaceutical company that funded it’.”

According to Professor Del Mar, Roche never gave out the data that the research team requested, but only some tables of data that were not what they needed.

Cochrane said Roche offered the data “under conditions we thought unacceptable, and what was offered to us was insufficient to analyze properly.” So now, Roche is accusing the Cochrane researchers of conducting an incomplete review, because those eight studies had been left out.

Prf Chris del Mar added:

“I can only speculate. It would be pure guesswork. But I do know that this is a drug which has made a lot of money based on the conclusions drawn from this and maybe they’re not keen for other scientists to scrutinise it in the way that the Cochrane Collaboration does.

“I do think that we need the data before we can draw conclusions and that’s why we’ve had to withdraw that conclusion that we had previously made. It’s something that makes me feel that we were rather naive as an organisation. I think this does call into question a lot of things about scientific debate and I am worried about it.”

Adding to the suspicion, two former employees of a large communications company, Adis International, have come forward with documents showing they had ghostwritten some of the published studies of Tamiflu. One of the ghostwriters revealed:

“The Tamiflu accounts had a list of key messages that you had to get in. It was run by the [Roche] marketing department and you were answerable to them. In the introduction . . . I had to say what a big problem influenza is. I’d also have to come to the conclusion that Tamiflu was the answer.”

All in, the latest Cochrane study evaluated 20 published trials. It concluded that drugs like Tamiflu are, at best, are modestly effective against flu symptoms in otherwise healthy adults and that there is a “paucity of good data” to support claims that such drugs can prevent complications from flu.

by Richard Seah

Among alternative, natural treatments for the flu, probably the most surprising are osteopathy and chiropractic. These are manipulation therapies where all the practitioner does is make some adjustments to re-align your bone structure. They are most commonly sought for aches and pain.

I made a surprising discovery back in 2005 when I had a bad flu (H1N1 wasn’t active then but the scare at that time was over the bird flu) and my osteopath friend remarked that I “didn’t trust him”.

I was taken aback. What did he mean? “You never come to me for treatment,” he said. “Don’t you know that osteopathy is very effective for treating the flu?”

Sorry, no. Although I knew the osteopath for 16 years, I never knew that osteopathy could treat the flu. I decided to give it a try. Within minutes, my breathing became deeper, my cough became shallower, I started feeling very much better.

Some weeks later, I was surfing the Internet when I found an article about osteopathy and the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918:

The mortality rate in US medical hospitals fell between 30 percent and 40 percent, with the exception of a rate of 68 percent in medical hospitals in New York City…

The American School of Osteopathy, now the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine of A. T. Still University of Health Sciences, in Kirksville, MO, contacted all their alumni. This effort culminated in 2,445 osteopaths responding in treating 110,122 patients with influenza, with a resulting mortality of 0.25 percent. One of the few osteopathic medical hospitals, 400-bed Massachusettes Osteopathic Hospital, in Boston, also reported a mortality of 0.25 percent for that period.

I searched chiropractic, which is similar to osteopathy, and found this:

Chiropractors at the Palmer School of Chiropractic adjusted 1,635 cases, with only one death. Outside Davenport, chiropractors in Iowa cared for 4,735 cases with only six deaths – one out of 866. During the same epidemic, in Oklahoma, out of 3,490 flu patients under chiropractic care, there were only seven deaths. It was chiropractic’s success in caring for flu victims that led to the profession’s licensure in many states.

The idea that adjusting the body – particularly the spine – can fight the flu might seem far fetched. But not if you understand the basic tenet of osteopathy and chiropractic: “structure governs function”. It means that the structure of the body influences the function of the body and its many systems, including the immune system. By restoring the structure of the body to its optimal balance, all the various body functions – including immune function – will get better. And natural immunity is the most powerful weapon against the flu, more so than any man-made drug!

This idea is not new. About 2,400 years ago, Hippocrates said: “Look to the spine for the cause of disease.” Also, many Eastern forms of martial arts and health practices, including yoga, taiqi, qigong, karate, aikido, etc, emphasise the importance of keeping the spine straight.

Is it scientific? A “partial list” compiled by the World Chiropractic Alliance cites 109 scientific references linking osteopathic / chiropractic treatment to improved immune function.

Fixing the back is, of course, not the only way to boost immunity and fight the flu. I highlight it because it seems so unlikely, yet has an impressive track record.

As John Yeo pointed out in an earlier article, homeopathy, too, has a proven track record, with a mortality rate of only about 1 percent during the Spanish flu outbreak. There are lots and lots of other ways to build up immunity and prevent as well as fight the flu. It is not difficult to find them. We need only to look outside the box called “medical science”.