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(NaturalNews) As the anticipated July release date for Baxter's A/H1N1 flu pandemic vaccine approaches, an Austrian investigative journalist is warning the world that the greatest crime in the history of humanity is underway. Jane Burgermeister has recently filed criminal charges with the FBI against the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (UN), and several of the highest ranking government and corporate officials concerning bioterrorism and attempts to commit mass murder. She has also prepared an injunction against forced vaccination which is being filed in America. These actions follow her charges filed in April against Baxter AG and Avir Green...

Exposure to the H1N1 pandemic flu virus could protect people from H5N1 bird flu, the Emerging Health Threats Forum has reported. Research suggests that previous infection with the pandemic influenza virus strain could provide some immunity against the H5N1 virus. Experts speculate that this could protect against severe illness from bird flu. The H5N1 strain, kept under watch for its pandemic potential, has so far proved lethal in 60% of people infected with it. Kristien Van Reeth and colleagues at Ghent University infected pigs with a closely related “predecessor” to the current pandemic strain of the flu virus. Four weeks...

By John Gever, Senior Editor Military doctors can use a portable polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing device to diagnose novel H1N1 flu infections in troops overseas, the FDA announced. The emergency authorization was approved "to better protect our troops," said FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, MD, in a statement. The device, called JBAIDS (Joint Biological Agent Identification and Diagnostic System), is a rugged, suitcase-sized instrument that can run PCR-based molecular diagnostic tests. It has been under development for several years by a consortium of military health research centers, the CDC, and academic medical laboratories. The development program began in the...

Australian pharmaceutical firm, Biota, has said that Phase III trials of its new influenza drug laninamivir (CS-8958) have shown that a single inhaled dose of the drug was as effective as 10 doses of Roche’s Tamiflu administered orally over a 5 day period. The drug is a second generation neuraminidase inhibitor and is based on zanamivir, the active ingredient in Relenza, which Biota sold to GlaxoSmithKline. The study was conducted by Japanese pharma firm Daiichi Sankyo, which co-owns the drug, and included 1000 patients that had confirmed, naturally acquired influenza A or B. Preclinical studies have shown laninamivir to be...

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Two existing drugs used to treat osteoporosis may be effective in killing influenza viruses, including the new H1N1 swine flu and the H5N1 bird flu viruses, researchers in Hong Kong have found. The two drugs are pamidronate and zoledronate, which are marketed by Novartis AG under the brand names Aredia and Reclast, respectively. In their experiment, the researchers exposed human cells that had been infected with the influenza viruses to the two drugs. They observed that the drugs triggered extra production of a type of white blood cell called yd-T cells, which went on to kill...

<p>Relatives of the city's first swine flu fatality say they are ready to sue the city for $40 million.</p> <p>Mitchell Wiener's widow Bonnie and his three sons, Adam, Jordan and Farrell, filed a notice of claim alleging the city was negligent in dealing with the outbreak that swept through the city three months ago.</p>

Enlarge ImageTrouble spots. In mice infected with the H5N1 virus, deposits of phosphorylated alpha-synuclein (arrows) in dopamine neurons may be a sign of neurodegeneration. Credit: H. Jang et al., PNAS Early Edition (2009) Decades after the 1918 influenza pandemic, epidemiologists noted an uptick in the number of people with diminished mobility and other neurological symptoms reminiscent of Parkinson's disease. But despite this and other hints, the idea that viruses can trigger neurodegenerative disease has remained controversial. Now researchers report new evidence for such a link: Mice infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus lose the same dopamine-releasing neurons that...

Human noses too cold for bird flu Bird flu may not have become the threat to humans that some predicted because our noses are too cold for the virus to thrive, UK researchers say. An Imperial College London recreation of the nose's environment found that at 32 degrees Celsius, avian flu viruses lose function and cannot spread. It is likely that the viruses have adapted to suit the warmer 40 degree environments in the guts of birds. A mutation would be needed before bird flu became a human problem, they said. Published in the journal PLoS Pathogens, the study also...

As reports of a unique form of swine flu erupt around the world, the inevitable question arises: Is this the big one? Is this the next big global flu epidemic that public health experts have long anticipated and worried about? Is this the novel virus that will kill millions around the world, as pandemics did in 1918, 1957 and 1968? The short answer is it's too soon to tell. "What makes this so difficult is we may be somewhere between an important but yet still uneventful public health occurrence here — with something that could literally die out over the...

The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses. And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria. “At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark. “But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.” The...

OTHER BUGS ACTING BADLY _______________________________________________________ International experts to study ebola reston INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC and animal health experts arrived on Tuesday to start a joint risk assessment on the ebola reston contamination of local hogs, officials of the Agriculture department said yesterday. Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III (R), flanked by international experts, addresses a press conference in Manila for an update on the outbreak of ebola reston at two pig farms north of the capital. The experts are (L to R) Kate Glynn of World Organization for Animal Health, Juan Lubroth and Kazuyuki Tsurumi of the Food and Agriculture Organization,...

Researchers at Rutgers University and The University of Texas at Austin have reported a discovery that could help scientists develop drugs to fight the much-feared bird flu and other virulent strains of influenza. The researchers have determined the three-dimensional structure of a site on an influenza A virus protein that binds to one of its human protein targets, thereby suppressing a person's natural defenses to the infection and paving the way for the virus to replicate efficiently. This so-called NS1 virus protein is shared by all influenza A viruses isolated from humans - including avian influenza, or bird flu, and...

Scientists have discovered how bird flu adapts in patients, offering a new way to monitor the disease and prevent a pandemic, according to research published in the August issue of the Journal of General Virology. Highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus has spread through at least 45 countries in 3 continents. Despite its ability to spread, it cannot be transmitted efficiently from human to human. This indicates it is not fully adapted to its new host species, the human. However, this new research reveals mutations in the virus that may result in a pandemic. "The mutations needed for the emergence...

16:36' 24/03/2008 (GMT+7) After four years of research, scientists at the National Institute for Hygiene and Epidemiology have announced they will test type A/H5N1 vaccine on humans this April and the vaccine will be available on the market in 2009. Last stage of H5N1 vaccine There was good news for scientists at the National Institute for Hygiene and Epidemiology: the Ministry of Health agreed to let them test H5N1 vaccine on humans. The over-four year process of researching H5N1 virus carried out by the scientists is at last in the final stage. In early March 2008, a group of scientists...

17:46' 04/04/2008 (GMT+7) Scientists inject the vaccine in monkeys on Reu Island, Quang Ninh province in 2004. Vaccine and Biomedical Product Company 1 on April 3 injected a second dose of H5N1 vaccine in ten volunteers. Vietnam to produce H5N1 vaccine in 2009This test aims to verify the safety of H5N1 vaccine in humans. After the injection, all volunteers were in normal condition. These people will be monitored for seven days more to ensure the safety of the vaccine. On March 6, these people took the first dose of type A/H5N1 vaccine and no abnormal symptoms were recorded before they...

Ducks, people and rice paddies are the primary forces driving outbreaks of avian influenza in Thailand and Vietnam, and the number of chickens is less pivotal, scientists said on Wednesday. U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization experts and others looked at three waves of H5N1 bird flu in Thailand and Vietnam in 2004 and 2005. The virus has killed 236 people in 12 countries since 2003. They used computer modeling to study how various factors were involved in the spread of the virus, including the numbers of ducks, geese and chickens, human population size, rice cultivation and local geography. Even though...

Associated Press Chinese officials have confirmed that bird flu was to blame for killing chickens in poultry markets in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, Hong Kong's health bureau Sunday. China's Ministry of Agriculture notified the administration that the birds tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus, marking the country's fifth outbreak among poultry this year, Hong Kong's Food and Health Bureau said in a statement. The Ministry of Agriculture also said on its Web site that last week's outbreak in Guangzhou killed 114 birds and resulted in the slaughter of 518 others. But it has been contained, the...

MARGRAM (BIRBHUM): Hundreds of goats have died of an unknown disease over the past four days in Birbhum's Rampurhat block II. Some experts warned that if the H5N1 virus — which causes bird flu — has jumped from birds to mammals, it could be the turn of humans next. TOI met jittery villagers in Dakhalbati, one of the affected villages in Birbhum's Margram. Abdul Mohid, a farmer, said his goat was shivering and sneezing and saliva was oozing from its mouth. Mohid had called in a local vet, who could only say the animal was suffering from high fever but...

Officials in the Indian state of West Bengal say that the bird flu epidemic has spread to two more of the state's 19 districts, taking the total to nine. They say that the spread of the H5N1 virus means that even more chicken and duck will have to be killed than was originally estimated. On Monday officials said that around 2m birds would need to be culled - a figure that will now rise. Health experts have warned that the outbreak could get out of control.

WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - The H5N1 bird flu virus may sometimes stick to surfaces or get kicked up in fertilizer dust to infect people, according to a World Health Organization report published on Wednesday. The WHO team reviewed all known human cases of avian influenza, which has infected 350 people in 14 countries and killed 217 of them since 2003, and found that 25 percent of cases have no explanation. Most are passed directly from bird to people, they noted in their report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. And very rarely one person can infect another...