Flooding back into my brain, as I read this headline, were headlines you might not remember, from 1976; "World is on Brink of Killer Flu Epidemic"..."Swine Flu immunization: 'Go' at last" ... "World-wide alert for Killer flu virus"... "President takes swine flu injection to allay scare". All of which added up to one case which was ordinary swine flu, no killer virus at all. But that's not what the world was told. There's money to be made out of fear.
So what do we have here?
"Bird Flu" has been talked about in the media now, for exactly how long?
If a bird flu vaccine was at your doctor's surgery today, would YOU line up, convinced that being jabbed with a vaccine for a virus which changes it's genetic composition faster than you blink, would "beat" bird flu?
There is a huge disconnect here. Sorry, that's not quite accurate. There is a huge "connect" here with conditioning, and the "kaching" of the till ringing, after people flood into their doctors in fear, responding to the scaremongering anthem which every pharmaceutical company just loves to hear.
This is far more of a cash cow, than any bird flu.
Rather than a heavy blog about science, I want to tell you today, the story of America's mafia "Godfather", Carlo Gambino, who in 1976, was top dog at the age of 74. Naturally, he was a hated man. An ardent church goer, and a callous murderer. Somehow, the two are to me, a total oxymoron, but that is irrelevant.
There were many people who wanted him dead, and there weren't too many people who would be sorry to see him gone. But the person who wanted him dead most was the rival mafia gang boss called Carmona Galente who was "young" at 65 years of age. His nickname was "Lillo" and "the cigar". He controlled the remnants of the Joseph Bonanno Family, with Time magazine quoting one Mafia source as saying: "Lillo would shoot you in church during High Mass."
Galente knew that Gambino had heart issues. He also had heard Dr A. J. Morris on the Phil Donohue show, talking about how dangerous this vaccine was, and many elderly people had died after having the swine flu vaccine. Gambino had "security" down to a T, so any thought of Galente physically knocking Gambino off wasn't an option.
Because in those days, as today, flu vaccines (which aren't tested in people with chronic conditions in the first place) were portrayed as safe and effective and especially needed by those who, if they got sick, might die, Galente saw a window of opportunity and took it. As the story goes, Galente infiltrated the lower ranks of Gambino's organisation, paying someone hansomely to bow and scrape and convince Gambino that the Swine Flu vaccine was essential to survival. Eleven days after the swine flu shot, Gambino died.
As the Times heading of 15th October 1976 rang out, Mafia boss died 'after flu jab conspiracy'.
I'm sure many would be shocked at what I'm about to say, but when my father was in the retirement village, I had two decades to watch and absorb the fact that after flu vaccines were given to the elderly in a home, usually on the same day, the following two months were the best times to see if flats or rooms had become available. Even my father noticed just how many of his friends there, keeled over after a flu shot. Of course, the standard reply was that at that age, you could kick the bucket at any point. "Nothing to do with any vaccine". Doesn't alter the observation we've made, that the time when there are most rest home vacancies are in the period after the flu shot. Not the end of winter when you'd most expect it, but... just after the flu shot.
On this mafia occasion, Galente wasn't stupid. Gambino was. One Swine Flu shot lead to the biggest upheaval in the Mafia world with the leaders of the 21 world-wide "ruling" mafia families attending a "summit" meeting held in New York's Kennedy Airport to decide who was going to take over Gambino's multi-million dollar empire.
All of which underlines, yet again, in more ways than one, that a vaccine isn't "Just a Little Prick" at all. It just might lead to upheavals of monumental proportions.
