New Federal Government disinformation campaign!

M. ALEXANDER OTTO; The News Tribune
Published: April 15th, 2006 01:00 AM

Federal health officials at a meeting Friday in Tacoma downplayed the risk bird flu poses to humans, contrasting earlier warnings from the federal government.

“There is no evidence it will be the next pandemic,” Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said of avian flu. There is “no evidence it is evolving in a direction that is becoming more transmissible to people.”

Gerberding spoke at the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center at a pandemic flu conference that drew 1,200 people from across the state, mostly health department officials and others involved in emergency planning.

Other officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and elsewhere joined her. Gov. Chris Gregoire and several upper-level state officials also spoke.

Gerberding’s comments on bird flu contrast earlier statements from the federal government that tended to emphasize worse-case scenarios.

In a November letter to the public, for instance, President Bush encouraged preparing “ourselves, our nation, and our world to fight this potentially devastating outbreak of infectious disease.”

The concern is that the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus will mutate into a form passed easily between people.

visit to encourage state planning

Audience questions Friday about buying surgical masks and stockpiling food showed the concern Bush’s comments and others have raised.

But Gerberding noted that, though the disease has killed “gazillions of birds,” it has killed about 100 people out of about 200 sickened worldwide. The victims were in intense, daily contact with sick flocks, often sharing the same living space. Two people have become infected from person-to-person contact.

She did not say what had changed the thinking of health care officials about bird flu, but said that, at this point, there is “no reason to think it ever will” pass easily between people.

Given those facts, bird flu, like SARS, swine flu and other once widely publicized health threats, might never become a significant human illness.

The visit by Gerberding and the other federal officials was part of a 50-state tour to encourage state and local planning for pandemics, terrorism and other health emergencies.

Such preparedness would be especially important, since local officials would be the first to learn of problems, and a full federal response couldn’t be expected for a few days.

It was announced at the meeting that Washington state has been granted $2 million federal money to help with planning.

Several officials said state and local planning in Washington already is among the best in the nation.

“We have an effective state strategy,” Gregoire said, noting the need for constant fine-tuning and updating. “Today we talk about pandemic flu. In 10 years it will be something else” – the important thing is to be ready for whatever comes.

easy precautions to take

Even if bird flu never causes significant problems for people, Gerberding said, the focus on it encourages emergency planning “that will save lives whether there is a pandemic or not.”

She and other federal officials said H5N1 bird flu likely will reach the United States, because bird flu and its many strains occur naturally in migratory birds.

When that happens, “it does not signal the start of a pandemic” or a threat to the food supply, said Richard Raymond, an undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Cooking meat to 160 degrees will destroy the virus, he said – in addition to destroying salmonella, “which sickens more people than H5N1 ever will even if there is a pandemic.”

Gerberding cautioned that when H5N1 is detected in the United States, “there will be temptation for the press to make this into something it is not. We will need responsible journalism” to prevent irrational panic.


http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/5663788p-5080102c.html

She is deliberately spreading disinformation to keep the masses placated. That may be her new assigned task.

Whenever I ask Government representatives from DHS about the obvious Human to Human transmission in Indonesia they all pretend to be dumb and say they know nothing about Dr. J.

From an article a month ago:

"PETER CAVE: Are you seeing mutations in the virus in Indonesia?

ANDREW JEREMIJENKO: Yes, that's a good question. We are seeing mutations in the human virus. We are not seeing that same mutation in the bird virus. And that's of great concern.

Basically, when you do an investigation of a bird flu case, you should try to find the virus from the human and match it up with the virus from the bird and find the cause.

Now, in Indonesia, the investigations have been sub-optimal, and they have not been able to match the human virus to the poultry virus, so we really do not know where that virus is coming from in most of these human cases.

PETER CAVE: Does it suggest it's going through an intermediary before it's infecting humans?

ANDREW JEREMIJENKO(correction by me - ren234): It's a possibility that we can't rule out. I think they really need to do a lot more investigations. So far the closest match we have to the human virus is from a cat virus. So the cat could be an intermediate. We really don't know what's happening yet. They need to do more studies, they need to get better investigators on the ground to work out what is happening in Indonesia, and it needs to be done urgently."

Remember, the Indonesians (for the most part) are not keepers of house cats and do not raise them as pets like we do. They are not getting their human cases of Bird flu from cats, and they obviously are not getting them from the birds (because the viruses test to be different) so the only logical conclusion is that they are getting the virus from a human resevoir.

This is very frightening. Not only the evidence that the virus probably IS being transmitted person to person in places, but the fact that our government is clearly trying to discourage individuals from preparing.

After the Katrina fiasco - I would hope they would lean toward urging people to prepare even if there is no imminent threat.

I think we've all noticed the recent media campaign in this country to ease pandemic tension and encourage people NOT to worry about it.

I'm extremely disappointed in the "professionals" (used loosely) who are paid with our tax dollars to look out for our welfare.

Greetings All! I attended the WA Summit April 14 and would like to comment on 3 things that struck me as "odd". During Dr. Gerberdings' remarks, the question of why healthy people were dying came up. She said it was because the young, strong people were the first front of the population to become exposed. Someone in the audience
took exception to that comment (perhaps an informed individual) who shouted out "It's the ketone storm", at which point Dr. Gerberding mumbled an inocuious (sp)comment about that not being confirmed and quickly changing the subject. When asked if we, the audience, should buy masks, she said "not at this time". In addition, I heard nothing about N95 masks. She only
spoke of hospitals stockpiling masks. I guess we in the audience are either purchasing competition or not on the list to receive (sorry, I'll keep my opinions to myself). Lastly,she kept talking about H5N1, repeatedly saying this was the bird flu and not a threat to humans. She put up an impressive chart that included H1 through H8, many N's. Nowhere did I see or hear anything about H5N2 . What's up with that? I was so disgusted, I left early. What's going on?
    
    
    

Edited by Evergreen - April 15 2006 at 10:13am

Let me propose an alternative view, based on water cooler gossip from those who have contact.

 

I have no personal knowledge of the following- it is all hearsay.

 

Drs. Gerberding and Fauci have been the public face for the Administration on H5N1, along with Secreatry Leavitt. Recently the first two are downplaying the risk of human H5N1 at preceisely the time the birds may approach from Alaska, and Indonesia festers out of control with HUMAN H5N1 fatalities.

 

Why? Why now?

 

Speculation is that IF either

 

1. The Pandemic begins in the USA,

 

OR and this is a new OR-

 

2. The US Public Panics over H5N1

 

then Dr. Richard Carmona will take over.

 

Dr. Carmona is the Suregeon General and has extensive US Military experience. Former Green Beret and Trauma surgeon, he would be uniquely qualified  to manage an epidemic involving military assets.Bush is ready to push the milittary button on H5N1, he said so in his October 2005 press conference on the White House web site.

 

Word is Dr Gerberding still silently fumimg over losing internal Administration CDC budget battle.

 

Word is we will know Gerberding and Fauci have lost if we start getting unfavorable media leaks from the Administration about "overreacting".

Personally, I'd rather see people overreact and be prepared than have them lulled into believing it cannot, will not happen just before the caca hits the blades.

I'm going out for more preps.   

Aurora-

Evergreen wrote: Greetings All! I attended the WA Summit April 14 and would like to comment on 3 things that struck me as "odd". During Dr. Gerberdings' remarks, the question of why healthy people were dying came up. She said it was because the young, strong people were the first front of the population to become exposed. Someone in the audience took exception to that comment (perhaps an informed individual) who shouted out "It's the ketone storm", at which point Dr. Gerberding mumbled an inocuious (sp)comment about that not being confirmed and quickly changing the subject. When asked if we, the audience, should buy masks, she said "not at this time". In addition, I heard nothing about N95 masks. She only spoke of hospitals stockpiling masks. I guess we in the audience are either purchasing competition or not on the list to receive (sorry, I'll keep my opinions to myself). Lastly,she kept talking about H5N1, repeatedly saying this was the bird flu and not a threat to humans. She put up an impressive chart that included H1 through H8, many N's. Nowhere did I see or hear anything about H5N2 . What's up with that? I was so disgusted, I left early. What's going on?

Evergreen, you witnessed a paltry government disinformation effort. The Communist Chinese are the best at trying to do that.  (They are also the worst as far as believability.)

xx

Edited by NZ er - April 25 2006 at 3:08pm

Is she nuts??  (Dr. Julie Gerberding????)  Saying that Salmonella "which sickens more people than H5N1 ever will even if there is a pandemic" is like saying boils are alot more dangerous than H5N1 as everyone has had one.  How can she possibly compare the death rates of food poisoning to pandemic influenza?  She has totally lost it for me.

Why is Dr. Gerberding visiting all 50 states to publicize and talk about something that will not happen? 

 

Look at what they are doing, not what they are saying.

I am frankly a little shocked that everyone isnt a prepper. If not BF then a terrorist attack that could be so bad it would stop everything, things like multiple suitcase bombs etc. If not that then a weather disaster. We live in a very different world, one in which we need to be prepared at all times. Most of the stuff we have talked about doing for BF I have done since 9/11. If a miracle came about and BF went away as Sars did, I will continue to prepare. That my friends is the World we now live in. God bless and good luck to all.

They are depending on you to have no memory.

I googled, looking for inconsistent statement. I did have to do some looking but here is a more moderate view/statement she made re: H5N1

WHITE HOUSE INTERVIEW November, 2005

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20051101.html

Here is an excerpt:

Sam, from Greensboro, NC writes:
Hi Dr. Gerberding, There has been a lot of talk lately about the Avian Flu, but it has recently been suggested by experts (and some administration officials) that the danger has been overstated. Do you think that this danger is really as imminent as many people believe? What do you think is the chance of a major outbreak in the US over the next few years? How does the risk of an outbreak in America compare to the risk in Europe? Thanks

Dr. Julie Gerberding
We’ve had three pandemics of influenza in the last century. One of them, the 1918-19 flu pandemic, was catastrophic. Right now, we do not have a pandemic. We have an avian influenza virus that only occasionally affects people and is not easily transmitted from one person to another. However, one thing we know about flu viruses is that they are unpredictable and it’s certainly possible that this virus could evolve and become more transmissible and set off the beginning of a potential pandemic. We can’t predict how likely that is. We can’t predict whether the next pandemic will be associated with this particular avian virus or some other strain of flu but we do know that it is more likely than not that someday a pandemic will occur and so the steps that we are taking to prepare for an avian pandemic will certainly help protect us whenever the next pandemic influenza strain occurs.

(My comment)- I know this is not earth shattering, but, her statement in November has a much different tone than the tone of the message she is sending today. Is this an effort to control population response/panic etc. now that the media is reporting more on this? It almost appears that the govt. psyops program does opposite of what the media does to keep the population in check. i.e. media focuses on H5N1 then govt. tamps down the concern.......No media coverage, then govt. raises the flag and concern on H5N1.....Makes perfect sense to me, oddly enough. Imagine the alternative....Media pushes concern and the govt. echoes this message....morally correct, yes......loss of some population control? Maybe. Remember, population control is through information and disinformation controlling expectations of the individual.

Who knows....but we should be aware of their options.

Hope this helps.

Scott

Maybe the governement feels this is a good way to get rid of a lot of poor Americans...kind of clean house.      Sad.

Edited by Sheba - April 20 2006 at 6:42am

Yeah, but if this is their underlying plan, won't it be ironic if the plan backfired and eliminated all of the rich folks.  BF doesn't care if you are rich or poor.  It's going to take whomever if does.  Doesn't it take the young and healthy, more times than not?   Well, the rich may not all be young but I would venture to say that they are likely healthier than the poor.  Perhaps, they should rethink this.    Peace.

I read somewhere that what Dr Gerberding said was that "There is no evidence that it will be the next pandemic" but "There is no evidence either that it will not be the next pandemic" and that the media is the one that put the swing to downplay it more.  Did any of the people that were there hear that part?  It is so hard to know what the truth is from the media.  So many times we hear about how there must be responsible journalism.  So what is responsible.....  telling us the truth and creating  panic or over downplaying it which will certainly cause more to die?

http://www.thegeorgiaguidestones.com/Message.htm

Somebody sent me the link above.  I have just finished scanning the site.

Frightening!  Very frightening.  To think that for a quarter of a century this group has projected a catastrophic reduction in the Earth's population all the way down to half a Billion people.  

AND, they want to practice genetic engineering once the population is reduced!  Hitler would be proud of this group. 

There is mention of the Illuminati.  I thought most of them were Jewish.  That would seem to be impossible under the circumstances. 

Guess I better do some studying on the topic. I really don't know who is what in this area.


Edited by JoeNeubarth - April 20 2006 at 11:18pm