This report has been submitted to Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer of the UK, and to the US Food and Drugs Administration

Please circulate widely, with all the hyperlinks included, to your elected representatives, wherever you are

A swine flu outbreak occurred in Mexico and the United States in April 2009 and spread rapidly around the world by human-to human transmission. The new type A H1N1 influenza virus is unlike any that had been previously isolated [1, 2], judging from the first data released in May. It is a messy combination of sequences from bird, human and swine flu virus lineages from North America and Eurasia. A senior virologist based in Canberra, Australia, told the press he thought that the virus could have been created in the laboratory and released by accident [3]. Some even suggest it was made intentionally as a bioweapon [4], while others blame the intensive livestock industry and extensive trafficking of love animals over long distances, which provide plenty of opportunity for generating exotic recombinants [5]. But what worries the public most is the mass vaccination programmes governments are putting in place to combat the emerging pandemic, which could well be worse than the pandemic itself.

Watchdog opposes fast-track vaccine for school children

The US government is intending to vaccinate all children in September when school re-opens, and the country’s vaccine watchdog National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)  has called on the Obama Administration and all state Governors to provide evidence that the move is [6] “necessary and safe”, demanding “strong mechanisms for vaccine safety screening, recording, monitoring, reporting and vaccine injury compensation.”

The US Departments of Health and Homeland Security had declared a national public health emergency in April soon after the swine flu outbreak. As a result, some schools were closed, people quarantined, and drug companies were given contracts worth $7billon to make vaccines that are being fast tracked by the Food and Drugs Administration [7]. That means they will only be tested for a few weeks on several hundred children and adult volunteers before being given to all school children this fall.

Furthermore, under federal legislation passed by Congress since 2001, an Emergency Use Authorization allows drug companies, health officials and anyone administering experimental vaccines to Americans during a declared public health emergency to be protected from liability if people get injured. US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has granted vaccine makers total legal immunity from any lawsuits that may result from any new swine flu vaccine. And some states may make the vaccination mandatory by law.

The NVIC is asking whether the states are prepared to obey vaccine safety provisions in the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which include: 1. Giving parents written information about vaccine benefits and risks before children are vaccinated; 2. Keeping a record of which vaccines the children get, including the manufacturer’s name and lot number; 3. Recording which vaccines were given in the child’s medical record; and 4. Recording serious health problems that develop after vaccination in the child’s medical record and immediately making a report to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

NVIC also wants to know if the states are prepared to provide financial compensation to children injured by the swine flu vaccines, whether parents will be given “complete, truthful information about swine flu vaccine risks”, and have the right to say “no” to vaccination.

Co-founder and president of NVIC Barbara Loe Fisher said [6]: “Parents and legislators should be asking themselves right now: Why are children the first to get experimental swine flu vaccines? Are schools equipped to get signed informed consent from parents before vaccination, keep accurate vaccination records and screen out children biologically at high risk for suffering vaccine reactions? Will people giving these vaccines know how to monitor children afterwards and immediately record, report and treat serious health problems that develop? And will states have the financial resources to compensate children who are injured?”

WHO and mass vaccination fever

The mass vaccination order has come from the World Health Organization (WHO) [8].  In early July 2009, a group of vaccination experts concluded that the pandemic is unstoppable, and Marie-Paul Kieny, WHO director on vaccine research said all nations will need access to vaccines, and that a vaccine should be available as early as September.

Critics point out that the ‘vaccination experts’ are dominated by the vaccine makers standing to gain from the enormously lucrative vaccine and antiviral contracts awarded by governments. But the decisive argument against mass vaccinations is that flu shots simply don’t work and are dangerous [9].

Flu shots ineffective and increase risks of asthma

There are widely acknowledged reasons why flu vaccines won’t work, as already pointed out with regard to the much touted vaccines against the ‘pandemic bird flu’ that has yet to materialize [10] (How to Stop Bird Flu Instead, SiS 35). The flu virus changes quickly – even without the help of genetic engineering in the laboratory, and especially with the help of the intensive livestock industry – whereas the vaccines target specific strains. Furthermore, flu vaccination does not give permanent protection, and must be repeated annually; the vaccines are difficult to mass-produce, and some strains won’t grow at all under laboratory conditions.

Numerous studies have documented that flu shots give little or no protection against infection and illness, and there is no reason to believe that swine flu vaccines will be different.

A review of 51 separate studies in 2006 concluded that flu vaccines worked no better than a placebo in 260 000 children ranging in age from six months to 23 months [11]. A report published in 2008 found flu vaccines in young children made no difference in the number of flu-related doctor and hospital visits [12].

On the other hand, a study of 800 children with asthma found that those receiving a flu vaccine had a significantly increased risk of asthma-related doctor and emergency room visits [13]; the odds ratios were 3.4 and 1.9 respectively. This was confirmed in a report published in 2009, which showed children with asthma who received FluMist had a 3-fold increased risk of hospitalization [14]

Flu vaccines are equally useless for adults, including the elderly, giving little or no protection against infection or illnesses including pneumonia (see [9]).

Toxic adjuvants in flu vaccines

Vaccines themselves can be dangerous, especially live, attenuated viral vaccines or the new recombinant nucleic acid vaccines [10], they have the potential to generate virulent viruses by recombination and the recombinant nucleic acids could cause autoimmune diseases.

A further major source of toxicity in the case of the flu vaccines are the adjuvants, substances added in order to boost the immunogenicity of the vaccines. There is a large literature on the toxicities of adjuvants.  Most flu vaccines contain dangerous levels of mercury in the form of thimerosal, a deadly preservative 50 times more toxic than mercury itself [9]. At high enough doses, it can cause long-term immune, sensory, neurological, motor, and behavioural dysfunctions. Also associated with mercury poisoning are autism, attention deficit disorder, multiple sclerosis, and speech and language deficiencies. The Institute of Medicine has warned that infants, children, and pregnant women should not be injected with thimerosal, yet the majority of flu shots contain 25 micrograms of it.

Another common adjuvant is alum or aluminium hydroxide, which can cause vaccine allergy, anaphylaxis, and macrophage myofascitis, a chronic inflammation syndrome, In cats, alum also gives rise to fibrosarcomas at the site of injection [15]. Numerous new adjuvants are no better, and could be worse. According to a recent review in a science and business pharmaceutical publication [15], most newer adjuvants including MF59, ISCOMS, QS21, AS02, and AS04 have “substantially higher local reactogenicity and systemic toxicity than alum.”

Current status of swine flu vaccines

Five different companies have been contracted to produce vaccines worldwide: Baxter International, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Sanofi-Aventis and AstroZeneca [16]. Already stretched beyond capacity, there is every intention to make smaller vaccine doses go further with a range of new adjuvants [17], with the blessing of the WHO (see later).

Flu vaccines are traditionally produced from non-virulent (attenuated or weakened) influenza viruses (see Box for a description of the viruses). To be effective, the genes of the non- virulent virus used must match those of the viral strain spreading in the population. Activation of the immune system by exposure to the non pathogenic form of the circulating pathogenic strain leads to the production of antibodies that will confer protection against the pathogenic strain. Producing the non-virulent virus involves first identifying and then recreating the subtypes of two of the virus’s surface proteins, haemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N), which determine the strain’s virulence and ability to spread, and are also the target proteins for vaccine production.

Seed viruses are first made to provide the starting material for large scale production of live non-virulent flu viruses. The seed viruses are approved by the WHO or the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA). The usual method of seed virus production is reassortment (see Box). Fertilized chicken eggs are injected with both a standard non-pathogenic influenza strain known to grow well in eggs and the strain that carries the genes expressing the desired vaccine H and N protein subtypes. The two viruses multiply, and their eight genome segments reassort with 256 possible combinations. The resulting recombinant viruses are then screened for the desired virus with the six genome segments that allow the standard strain to grow so well in eggs and the H and N genes from the circulating strain. The seed virus is then injected into millions of eggs for mass production of vaccine. This conventional method of seed stock production takes about one to two months to complete [20].

Cell culture systems may eventually replace chicken eggs. Baxter International applied for a patent on a process using cell culture to produce quantities of infecting virus, which are harvested, inactivated with formaldehyde and ultraviolet light, and then detergent [21].  Baxter has produced H5N1 whole virus vaccines in a Vero cell line derived from the kidney of an African green monkey, and conducted phase 1 and 2 clinical trials with and without aluminium hydroxide as adjuvant [22, 23]. The main finding was that the toxic adjuvant did not increase neutralising antibodies against the vaccine strain. Baxter has agreed to ship H1N1 vaccine by the end of July or early August 2009 but details of the production of that vaccine have not yet been released to the public [16].

In December, a Baxter facility in Austria sent a human flu vaccine contaminated with the deadly H5N1 live avian flu virus to 18 countries, including the Czech Republic, where testing showed it killed the ferrets inoculated [24].  Czech newspapers questioned whether Baxter was involved in a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic.

Norvatis, another big pharma, announced on 13 June that it, too, has produced a swine flu vaccine using cell-based technology and the proprietary adjuvant MF59®. The MF59® adjuvant is oil based and contains Tween80, Span85, and squalene [25]. In studies of oil-based adjuvants in rats, the animals were rendered crippled and paralyzed. Squalene brought on severe arthritis symptoms in rats, and studies in humans given from 10 to 20 ppb (parts per billion) of squalene showed severe immune system impact and development of autoimmune disorders [26].

Novartis was in the news in 2008 for a clinical trial of a H5N1 vaccine in Poland. The trial was administered by local nurses and doctors who gave the vaccine to 350 homeless people, leaving 21 died; and were prosecuted by the Polish police [27, 28]. Novartis claimed the deaths were unrelated to the H5N1 vaccine [29], which had been “tested on 3500 other people without any deaths.”

GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccine will be made up of antigens of the recently isolated influenza strain, and also contains its own proprietary adjuvant system AS03 that has been approved in the EU along with its H5N1 bird flu vaccine in 2008. According to the European Public Assessment Report [30], AS03 adjuvant is composed of squalene (10.68 milligrams), DL-α-tocopherol (11.86 milligrams) and polysorbate 80 (4.85 milligrams). The H5N1 vaccine also contains 5 micrograms thiomersal, as well as Polysorbate 80, Octoxynol 10, and various inorganic salts. The company is aggressively promoting various adjuvant systems as its ‘adjuvant advantage’ that reduces the dose of vaccines [31].

A recent WHO survey of primary vaccine producers concluded that the potential output of 4.9 Billion doses of H1N1 vaccine per year is a best-case scenario, assuming among other factors that the most dose-sparing formulation (that will include toxic adjuvants) be selected by each manufacturer and that production will take place at full capacity. WHO Director-General, Dr .Margaret Chan,  and the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-moon, met with senior officials of vaccine manufacturers on 19 May and asked  them to reserve part of their production capacity for poor countries that would otherwise have no or little access to vaccine in the case of a pandemic [32].

The last mass-vaccination in the US was a disaster. In 1976, cases of swine flu were found in soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and one of them died, most likely of physical overexertion rather than from the infection [7]. This led to the launch of a mass vaccination of 40 million against a pandemic that never materialized. Thousands filed claims for injury. At least 25 died and 500 developed paralyzing Guillain-Barre syndrome [33, 34].

Swine flu syndromes mostly mild

As of 22 July 2009, the CDC listed a total of 40 617 cases in the US, with 319 fatalities, giving a fatalites/case ratio of 0.8 percent [35]; though the real death rate – among all cases of infection including the mild ones that go unreported – is probably much lower. Experts estimate that only 1 out of 20 cases are reported [36].

The UK is the worst affected European country, and the pandemic is in the headlines everyday in July. A new telephone helpline was set up on 23 July to let people get advice and tamiflu without seeing a doctor. In that week, there has been a record rise in cases to 100 000 and a total of 30 deaths so far [37], giving a fatalities/case ratio of 0.03 percent, a more accurate reflection of the actual death rate.

UK’s chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson has ordered the NHS to plan for as many as 65 000 deaths, with 350 a day at the peak [38]. There has been no plan as yet for mass vaccination; but the UK government has advance orders for 195 million doses of vaccine with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

The vaccine that GSK is developing will be tested on a limited number of people as the UK drug company reportedly [39] “weighs the pandemic danger against the risks of an unsafe shot.” This was criticized as “risky” by Prof. Hugh Pennington, a retired microbiologist at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. “By limiting clinical trials, Glaxo raises the danger that the vaccine dose isn’t properly calibrated, and could lead to shots that don’t protect people from the virus or at worse are unsafe,” Pennington said.

Pennington added that the shot’s ability to trigger the body’s defences is crucial and requires tests to determine the best dose and whether an adjuvant is needed to bolster the immunity. (As we know, GSK is definitely promoting its new range of toxic adjuvants.) He also referred to the Fort Dix incident in 1976 (see earlier).

France has ordered vaccines from Sanofi, GSK and Novartis, but sees no reason to ask vaccine makers to shorten or skip clinical trials [16]. Sanofi-Aventis, the French drug maker developing its own swine flu vaccine will begin testing the product in early August, and estimates it will need as much as two and a half months of tests before having a shot that’s “both safe and protective”, according to Albert Garcia, speaking for the company’s vaccine unit, “the vaccine will be ready in November or December, he said.

Baxter, however, will produce a vaccine by early August for clinical tests.

Glaxo also said it is developing a face mask coated with antivirals to prevent infection and boosting production of its Relenza drug for patients already suffering from swine flu.

There are obviously safer and more effective ways to combat the pandemic than mass vaccinations: washing hands often, sneezing into a tissue that can be safely disposed of, avoiding unnecessary gatherings, and delay opening schools – all advised by governments – and we would add, eating healthily, exercise, and getting enough vitamin D to boost your natural immunity [10].

References

1. New details on virus’s promiscuous past”, Jon Cohen, Science 2009, 324, 1127.

2. Garten RJ, Davis CT,Tussell CA et al.  Antigenic and genetic charaatcteristics of swine-origin 2009 A (H1N1) influenza viruses circulating in humans. Science 2009, 325, 197-201.

3. Virologist to make his case for lab origin of swine flu”, Peter Duveen, Opednews.com, 4 July 2009, http://www.opednews.com/articles/Virologist-to-make-his-cas-by-Peter-Duveen-090630-103.html

4. Is swine flu a biological weapon?”, Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com 27 April 2009, http://www.prisonplanet.com/is-swine-flu-a-biological-weapon.htm

5. CDC confirms ties to virus first discovered in U.S. pig factories” Michael Greger, 3 May 2009, http://www.hsus.org/farm/news/ournews/swine_flu_virus_origin_1998_042909.html

6. “Swine flu vaccine should not be given to children in schools”, Barbara Loe Fisher, National Vaccine Information Center, 22 July 2009,
http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/July-2009/Swine-Flu-Vaccine-Should-Not-Be-Given-to-Children.aspx

7. “Now legal immunity for swine flu vaccine makers” F, William Engdahl,  Global Research 20 July 2009, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14453

8. Swine flu pandemic now ‘unstoppable’: WHO official”, Agence France-Presse 13 July 2009, Calgary Herald, http://www.calgaryherald.com/Swine+pandemic+unstoppable+official/1788693/story.html

9. What are the dangers of mandatory swine flu vaccination? Dr. Mercola, June 2009, http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/archive/2009/07/15/What-are-the-Dangers-of-Mandatory
Mandatory-Swine-Flu-Vaccination.aspx

10. Ho MW. How to stop bir flu instead of the vaccine-antiviral model. Science in Society 35. 40-42, 2007.

11. Smith S, Demicheli V, DiPietrantoni C, Harnden AR, Jefferson T, Matheson NJ and Rivett A. Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy children. Cochrane Database Systematic Review 2006, Jan 25: CD004879. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16437500

12. Szilagyi PG, Fairbrother G, Griffin MR et al. Influenza vaccine effectiveness among children 6 to 59 months of age during 2 influenza seasons: a case-cohort study. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2008, 162, 943-51. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18838647

13. Christy C, Aligne C, Auinger P, Pulcino T and Weitzman M. Effectiveness of influenza vaccine for the prevention of asthma exacerbations. Arch. Dis Child 2004, 89, 734-5, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=15269071

14. Flu vaccination may triple risk for flu-related hospitalization in children with asthma, 25 May 2009, http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/703235

15. Petrovsky N, Heinzel S, Honda Y, Lyons AB. New-age vaccine adjuvants, friend or foe? BioPharm International 2 August 2007, http://biopharminternational.findpharma.com/biopharm/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=444996&sk=&date=&pageID=5

16.  “Update: 1-Baxter can take no more H1N1 flu vaccine orders”, Bill Berkerto, 16 July 2009, Reuters.  http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsnews/idINN1644290820090716?rpc=33

17. H1N1 ‘swine flu’ vaccine, postnote, May 2009, number 331, http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/postpn331.pdf

18. Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) CDC, 18 November 2005, http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/gen-info/flu-viruses.htm

19. Olsen B, Munster VJ, Wallensten A, Waldenstrom J, Osterhaus ADME and Fouchier RAM. Global patterns of influenza A virus in wild birds. Science 2006, 312, 384-8.

20. Hood E. Environews Innovations 2006 Environmental Health Perpectives 114,A108-111.

21. Kistner,O,Tauer,C, Barrett,N. Mundt,W. Method for Producing Viral Vaccines  2009 Patent application  US2009/0060950A1

22. Ehrlich HJ, Müller M, Oh HM, Tambyah PA, Joukhadar C, Montomoli E, Fisher D, Berezuk G, Fritsch S, Löw-Baselli A, Vartian N, Bobrovsky R, Pavlova BG, Pöllabauer EM, Kistner O, Barrett PN; Baxter H5N1 Pandemic Influenza Vaccine Clinical Study Team. A clinical trial of a whole-virus H5N1 vaccine derived from cell culture. N Engl J Med. 2008 Jun 12;358(24):2573-84.

23. Ketel.W,Dekker,C,Mink,C,Campbell,J,Edwards,K,Patel,S,Ho,D,Talbot,H,Guo,K,Noah,D,Hill,H.Safety and immunogenicity of inactivated, Vero cell culture-derived whole virus influenza A/H5N1 vaccine given alone or with aluminum hydroxide adjuvant in healthy adults Vaccine 2009 in press doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2009.03.015

24.  “Bird flu mix-up could have spelled disaster”, NewScientist 6 March 2009, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126983.400

25. Kenney RT and Edelman R. Survey of human-use adjuvants. Expert Review of Vaccines April 2003; 2(2):167-88, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12899569?ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.
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26. “Vaccines may be linked to Gulf War Syndrome”, Chiroweb.com, June 12, 2000, http://www.chiroweb.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=31730

27. “Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland”, Mathew Day, Telegraph, 2 July 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/2235676/Homeless-people-
die-after-bird-flu-vaccine-trial-in-Poland.html

28. “Homeless people die after trials of bird-flu vaccine”, 10 July 2008, Pharmaceutical Portal for Poland, http://www.pharmapoland.com/next.php?id=62409

29. “Polish industry not dented by deaths”, Emma Dorey, Entrepreneur, 21 July 2008, http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/181991358.html

30. Pandermrix = European Public Assessment Report [EMEA] 27 September 2009, http://www.emea.europa.eu/humandocs/Humans/EPAR/pandemrix/pandemrix.htm

31. Vaccine adjuvant system technology background information. GlaxoSmithKline, accessed 25 July 2009, http://www.gsk.com/media/flu/flu-adjuvant.pdf

32. Collin N, de Radiguès X, Kieny MP; the World Health Organization H1N1 Vaccine Task Force.New influenza A(H1N1) vaccine: How ready are we for large-scale production? Vaccine. 2009 Jun 26 in press doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2009.06.034

33. 1976 swine flu outbreak, Wikipedia, 22 July 2009, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak

34. Haber P, Sejvar J, Mikaeloff Y and DeStefano F. Vaccine and Guilaain-Barre syndrome. Drug Saf 2009, 32, 309-23.

35. 2009 flu pandemic in the United States”, Wikipdeia, 22 July 2009, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_in_the_United_States

36. 2009 flu pandemic, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic

37. “Swine flu website overwhelmed by demand as new cases double in a week”, Owen Bowcott and Severin Carrell, The Guardian, 23 July 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/23/swine-flu-website-overwhelmed

38. “Swine flu: medical chief orders NHS to prepare for 65 000 deaths – with a toll of as many as 350 a day”, Daniel Martin, The Daily Mail, 17 July 2009,  T, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1200012/Swine-flu-Every-child-16-vaccinated–when.html

39.  “Glaxo to limit tests of flu vaccine, citing urgency”, Jason Gale and Trista Kelley, Bloomberg Press, 22 July 2009, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=apkg_4J.PCEw

Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus.

The medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, are being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus.

Authorities claim that the alleged victims received £1-2 to be tested with what they thought was a conventional flu vaccine but, according to investigators, was actually an anti bird-flu drug.

The director of a Grudziadz homeless centre, Mieczyslaw Waclawski, told a Polish newspaper that last year, 21 people from his centre died, a figure well above the average of about eight.

Although authorities have yet to prove a direct link between the deaths and the activities of the medical staff, Poland’s health minister, Ewa Kopacz, has said that the doctors and nurses involved should not return to their profession.

“It is in the interests of all doctors that those who are responsible for this are punished,” the minister added.

Investigators are also probing the possibility that the medical staff may have also have deceived the pharmaceutical companies that commissioned the trials.

The suspects said that the all those involved knew that the trial involved an anti-H5N1 drug and willingly participated.

The news of the investigation will come as another blow to the reputation of Poland’s beleaguered and poverty-stricken national health service. In 2002, a number of ambulance medics were found guilty of killing their patients for commissions from funeral companies.

A neglected phenomenon
One of the most commonly used terms in medical language is the word placebo. The placebo effect is used as a scale for evaluating the effectiveness of new drugs. But what exactly is the placebo effect and what are its consequences in the deterministic structure of Western medicine? The placebo effect has been frequently abused by health professionals to denote and stigmatise a fraud or fallacy. Alternative therapies have often been characterised as merely placebos. But the placebo effect is not a fraudulent, useless or malevolent phenomenon. It occurs independently of the intentions of charlatans or health professionals. It is a spontaneous, authentic and very factual phenomenon that refers to well-observed but uninterpreted and contingent therapies or health improvements that occur in the absence of an active chemical/pharmacological substance. Make-believe drugs—drugs that carry no active chemical substances—often act as the real drugs and provoke therapeutic effects when administered to patients.
In many drug trials, the manufacturers of the drug sadly discover that their product is in no way superior to the effect of a placebo. But that does not mean that a placebo equates to a null response of the human organism. On the contrary, a placebo denotes nonchemical stimuli that strongly motivate the organism towards a therapeutic course. That is, the placebo effect is dependent not on the drug’s effectiveness but solely on therapeutic intention and expectation.
Effects of positive and negative thinking
The placebo effect has been often misunderstood as a solely psychological and highly subjective phenomenon. The patient, convinced of the therapy’s effectiveness, ignores his symptoms or perceives them faintly without any substantial improvement of his health; that is, the patient feels better but is not healthier. But can the subjective psychological aspect of the placebo effect account for all of its therapeutic properties? The answer is definite: the placebo effect refers to an alternative curative mechanism that is inherent in the human entity, is motivated by therapeutic intention or belief in the therapeutic potential of a treatment, and implies biochemical responses and reactions to the stimulus of therapeutic intention or belief.
But placebos are not always beneficial: they can also have adverse effects. For example, administering a pharmacologically inactive substance to some patients can sometimes bring about unexpected health deteriorations. A review of 109 double-blind studies estimated that 19 per cent of placebo recipients manifested the noceboeffect : unexpected deteriorations of health. In a related experiment, researchers falsely declared to the volunteers that a weak electrical current would pass through their head; although there was no electrical current, 70 per cent of the volunteers (who were medical students) complained of a headache after the experiment.
In a group of patients suffering from carotid atherosclerosis, prognosis and progression of the disease were burdened when their psychological health was bad (i.e., they were affected by hopelessness or depression). In another group of carotid atherosclerosis patients, prognosis and progression were burdened not only by hopelessness but also by hostility. In patients with coronary heart disease, hopelessness was a determinative risk factor. Social isolation, work stress and hostility comprised additional risk factors. Positive or negative thinking seems to be a decisive risk factor for every treatment, perhaps even more important than medical intervention.
The nocebo effect appears to have a specific biological substrate. A group of 15 men whose wives suffered from terminal cancer participated in a small perspective study. After their wives’ deaths, the men experienced severe grief that caused immunodepression. The spouses’ lymphocytes for a period of time after their wives’ deaths responded poorly to mitogenes. Grief had assaulted their immune system. The study proposed that grief and grief-induced immunodepression resulted in high-level mortality of the specific group.
A short history of a small miracle
The term placebo (meaning "I shall please") was used in mediaeval prayer in the context of the phrase Placebo Domino ("I shall please the Lord") and originated from a biblical translation of the fifth century AD. During the 18th century, the term was adopted by medicine and was used to imply preparations of no therapeutic value that were administered to patients as "decoy drugs". The term began to transform in 1920 (Graves), and through various intermediate stages (Evans and Hoyle, 1933; Gold, Kwit and Otto, 1937; Jellinek, 1946) was fully
transformed in 1955 when it finally claimed an important portion of the
therapeutic effect in general. Henry K. Beecher, in his 1955 paper "The
Powerful Placebo", attributed a rough percentage of 30 per cent of the overall therapeutic benefit to the placebo effect.
In certain later studies, the placebo effect was estimated at even higher, at 60 per cent of the overall therapeutic outcome. In a recent review of 39 studies regarding the effectiveness of antidepressant drugs, psychologist Guy Sapirstein concluded that 50 per cent of the therapeutic benefits came from the placebo effect, with a poor percentage of 27 per cent attributed to drug intervention (fluoxetine, sertaline and paroxetine). Three years later Sapirstein, along with a fellow psychologist Irving Kirsch, processed the data from 19 double-blind studies regarding depression and reached an even higher percentage of therapeutic results attributed to the placebo effect: 75 per cent of depression therapies or ameliorations were placebo induced!
Hróbjartsson and Gøtzsche (2001 1 4, 2004) doubted the effectiveness of the placebo phenomenon, attributing it solely to the subjective factors of human psychology. And indeed, there is a major aspect of the placebo effect related to psychology. In two studies where placebos were exclusively administered, the placebo effect seemed to be effected from the subject’s perception of the applied therapy, i.e., two placebo pills were better than one, bigger pills were better than smaller, and injections were even better.
The placebo induced a reaction not only to the therapy but also to its form, suggesting that the placebo phenomenon is shaped according to the personal symbolic universe of the patient. Before the placebo response occurs, human perception has already interpreted the applied therapy and has prepared a certain response to it. It would appear that not only chemical but also non-chemical stimuli participate in the motivation of the human organism towards therapy.
But is the placebo reaction solely a psychological phenomenon
or does it have additional tangible somatic effects?
One of the more dramatic events regarding placebo therapy was reported in 1957 when a new wonder drug, Krebiozen, held promise as the final solution to the cancer problem. A patient with metastatic tumours and with fluid collection in his lungs, who demanded the daily intake of oxygen and the use of an oxygen mask, heard of Krebiozen. His doctor was participating in Krebiozen research and the patient begged him to be given the revolutionary drug. Bent by the patient’s hopelessness, the doctor did so and witnessed a miraculous recovery of the patient. His tumours melted and he returned to an almost normal lifestyle. The recovery didn’t last long. The patient read articles about Krebiozen’s n o t delivering what it promised in cancer therapy. The patient then had a relapse; his tumours were back. His doctor, deeply affected by the aggravation, resorted to a desperate trick. He told his patient that he had in his possession a new, improved version of Krebiozen. It was simply distilled water. The patient fully recovered after the placebo treatment and remained functional for two months. The final verdict on Krebiozen, published in the press, proved the drug to be totally ineffective. That was the coup de grâce for the patient, who died
a few days later.
In spite of the melodrama of the Krebiozen case, there is no single case or personal testimony that can denote or prove a therapy to be effective. Statistical studies, not personal testimonies, can verify a proposed therapy’s effectiveness, and wellplanned studies are able to concur that the placebo phenomenon has somatic properties. One such study was implemented in 1997. The two study groups consisted
of patients with benign prostatic hypertrophy. One group took actual
medication while the control group received placebo treatment. The placebo recipients reported relief from their symptoms and even amelioration of their urinary function.18 A placebo has also been reported to act as a bronchodilator in asthmatic patients, or to have the exact opposite action—respiratory depression— depending on the description of the pharmacological effect the researchers gave to the patients and therefore the effect the patients anticipated. A placebo proved highly efficient against food allergies and, subsequently, impressively effective in the sinking of biotechnologies on the stock market. How could that be? Peptide Therapeutics Group, a biotech company, was preparing to launch on the market a novel vaccine for food allergies. The first reports were encouraging. When the experimental vaccine reached the clinical trials stage, the company’s spokesperson boasted that the vaccine proved effective in 75 per cent of the cases—a percentage that usually suffices to prove a drug’s effectiveness. But the good news didn’t last long. The control group, given a placebo, did almost as well: seven out of 10 patients reported getting rid of their food allergies. The stock value of the company plunged by 33 per cent. The placebo effect on food allergies created a nocebo effect on the stock market! 2 0 In another case, a genetically
designed heart drug that raised high hopes for Genentech was clobbered by a placebo.
As aptly put by science historian Anne Harrington, placebos are "ghosts that haunt our house of biomedical objectivity and expose the paradoxes and fissures in our own self-created definitions of the real and active factors in treatment". The placebo’s pharmacomimetic behaviour can even imitate a drug’s side effects. In a 1997 study of patients with benign prostate hypertrophy, some patients on a placebo complained of various side effects ranging from impotence and reduced sexual activity to nausea, diarrhoea and constipation. Another study reported placebo side effects as including headaches, vomiting,
nausea and a variety of other symptoms.
The placebo effect in surgery
But how deep can the placebo effect trespass into the well-defined area of medicine? Surely it can’t joust with medicine’s strike force; it cannot challenge surgery. Or can it? In 1939, an Italian surgeon named Davide Fieschi invented a new technique for treating angina pectoris (chest pain due to ischaemia or lack of blood/oxygen getting to the heart muscle, usually due to obstruction of the coronary arteries).24 Reasoning that increased blood flow to the heart would reduce his patients’ pain, he performed tiny incisions in their chests and tied knots on the two internal mammary arteries. Three quarters of the patients showed improvement; one quarter of them was cured. The surgical intervention became standard procedure for the treatment of angina
for the next 20 years. But in 1959, a young cardiologist, Leonard Cobb, put the Fieschi procedure to the test. He operated on 17 patients: on eight of them he followed the standard procedure; on the other nine he
performed only the tiny incisions, letting the patients believe that they’d had the real thing. The result was a real upset: those who’d had the sham surgery did as well as those who’d had the Fieschi technique. That was the end of the Fieschi technique and the beginning of the documented surgical placebo effect.
In 1994, surgeon J. Bruce Moseley experimented with the surgical placebo. He split a small group of patients suffering from osteoarthritis of the knee into two equal groups. Both groups were told that they would undergo arthroscopic surgery, but only the first group got the real thing. The other group was left virtually untreated, with the doctor performing only tiny incisions to make the arthroscopic scenario credible. Similar results were reported in both groups.
Moseley, stunned by the outcome, decided to perform the trial with a larger statistical sample in order to reach safer conclusions. The results were replicated: arthroscopic surgery was equal therapeutically to the placebo effect. The placebo had found its way into surgical rooms. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of surgical placebo arose in a groundbreaking 2004 study. In the innovative field of stem-cell research, a new approach was taken with Parkinson’s disease. Human embryonic dopamine neurons were implanted through tiny holes in the patients’ brains. Once again, the results were encouraging. And once again, the procedure failed to do better than a placebo. In this case, the placebo involved tiny holes incised in the skull without implantation of stem cells. As the researchers confessed, "The placebo effect was very strong in this
study".
But how can it be that the therapeutic expectancy alone often produces results equal to those from actual surgery? It appears that the mind is exerting control over somatic processes, including diseases. The biochemical traces of this influence are only beginning to be outlined. Modern research indicates a biological, tangible substrate to the placebo effect.
Somatic pathways
In the mid-1990s, researcher Fabrizio Benedetti conducted a novel experiment whereby he induced ischaemic pain and soothed it by administering morphine. When morphine was replaced by a saline solution, the placebo presented analgesic properties. However, when naloxone (an opiate antagonist) was added to the saline solution, the analgesic properties of the water were blocked. Benedetti reached the conclusion that the placebo’s analgesic properties were a result of specific biochemical paths. Naloxone blocked not only morphine but also endogenous opioids—the physical pain-relievers.
The endogenous opioids, endorphins, were discovered in 1974 and act as pain antagonists. Benedetti’s suggestion of a placebo-induced release of endorphins was supported by findings produced with MRI and
PET scans. Placebo – induced endorphin release also affects heart rate and respiratory activity. As researcher Jon-Kar Zubieta described, "…this [finding] deals another serious blow to the idea that the placebo effect is a purely psychological, not physical, phenomenon".
Further findings support the notion that the placebo effect presents a biochemical substrate in both depression and Parkinson’s disease. Analysing the results of PET scans, researchers estimated the glucose metabolism in the brains of patients with depression. Glucose metabolism under placebo presented differentiations that were similar to those caused by antidepressants such as fluoxetine. In patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease, a placebo injection promoted dopamine secretion in a similar way to that caused by amphetamine administration. Benedetti demonstrated that the placebo effect provoked decreased activity in single neurons of the subthalamic nucleus in patients with Parkinson’s disease.
From numerous research findings, it is logical and rather safe to conclude that there is a biochemical substrate to the placebo effect. But what is more intriguing to it is its relation to perception. It would appear that perception and the codes and symbols that the animate computer, the brain, utilises in order to process internal and external information strongly determine the potency and form of placebo response.
In a recent study, patients were purposely misinformed that they had been infected by hazardous bacilli and they subsequently underwent treatment. However, there were no bacilli and the treatment administered was a placebo. Guess what? Some of the study subjects developed infection-like conditions that were not treatable by the placebo medication. The mind interpreted the fictional bacilli as hazardous and instructed the body to respond to them as if they were real.
Despite the placebo’s potency and its importance for a new perception of health where body and mind heavily interact, large numbers of scientists continue to regard the placebo as an insignificant systematic error, a troublesome nought. According to cancer researcher Gershom Zajicek: "There is nothing in the pharmacokinetic theory which accounts for the placebo effect. In order to keep the theory consistent, the placebo effect is regarded as random error or noise which can be ignored."
One of the most perceptive placebo researchers was Stewart Wolf, "the father of psychosomatic medicine", who as early as 1949 had given it a thorough description. Wolf not only defended the placebo as a non-fictional and very "real" phenomenon but also described the placebo’s pharmacomimetic behaviour. He was perhaps the first researcher to correlate the placebo effect not only with psychology and predisposition but also with perception. More than half a century ago, he stated that "the mechanisms of the body are capable of reacting not only to direct physical and chemical stimulation but also to symbolic stimuli, words and events which have somehow acquired special meaning for the individual".
In this context, a pill is not merely an active substance but also a therapeutic symbol and thus the organism is able to respond not only to its chemical content but also to its symbolic content. Likewise a bacillus, beyond its physical properties, acquires symbolic properties that can cause an organism’s reaction even in the absence of the bacillus.
The presence and extent of the nocebo effect should also be studied in regard to drug resistance. Perhaps drug resistance is a multifactorial phenomenon involving not only microbial evolutionary aptness but also human psyche mechanics. Placebo and nocebo phenomena might prove fundamental not only on the personal level but also in the public health arena.
They might even provide the foundation stone for a new model of health, a new medicine that was envisioned by Wolf in the 1950s: "…in the future, drugs will be assessed not only with reference to their pharmacologic action but also to the other forces at play and to the circumstances surrounding their administration".
Five centuries ago, Swiss alchemist and physician Paracelsus (1493–1541) wrote: "You must know that the will is a powerful adjuvant of medicine." It seems that our scientific arrogance has blinded us to the teachings of the past.
About the Author:
Peter Arguriou was born in Greece in the summer of 1973. He studied medicine at the University of Athens Medical School, but left disappointed by the mechanistic perceptions governing medicine. Later, he briefly studied classical homoeopathy at the Aegean University under Alternative Nobel Prize winner George Vithoulkas. He writes for the Greek press and is the author of eight books (fiction, science fiction, poetry—most of them still unpublished). He is a member of the Hellenic MENSA and currently is working on a book regarding novel epidemics, bad science, the gene promise, the media travesty in coverage of science news, orchestrated propaganda and the corruption of the scientific establishment by big business and political agendas.
Article from: nexusmagazine.com

The mainstream media and government are communicating that the economy is on a positive track toward recovery while downplaying the likelihood of another economic catastrophe similar or worse than that experienced in the fourth quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009. In actuality, there is a significant chance that the US will experience a severe economic collapse, beyond what has already been experienced, either this year or within the next few years. If there is a perceived, sustainable economic rebound before this happens, do not be fooled – the underlying economic problems still exist and will likely eventually surface in economic collapse.

This following analysis further explores this warning by describing:

1. The 4 key reasons an economic collapse is likely imminent
2. Why these 4 reasons make the economy vulnerable
3. Warning signs and triggers to monitor to foresee a collapse before it happens
4. What can result from an economic collapse
5. Ideas for preparation

The 4 Key Reasons an Economic Collapse is Likely Imminent

1. The U.S. has unprecedented, massive amounts of current and coming debt.
2. Foreign countries have experienced their own crises, and they cannot offer added levels of debt funding for the U.S. Even if they could, they are unlikely to do so.
3. Productivity is declining, and everything the government is doing is further hurting productivity.
4. The U.S. is printing unprecedented, massive amounts of money and no longer has an ability to control inflation and deflation.

1. The U.S. has unprecedented, massive amounts of current and coming debt.

1. Over $11.4 trillion in current debt and growing
2. $1.8 trillion deficit in current budget – $9.3 trillion over next decade (likely to be higher)
3. Outstanding future debt of $43 trillion to $102 trillion from entitlements
4. Debt Comparison to U.S. GDP

A. Over $11.4 trillion in current debt and growing

U.S. federal debt is now over $11.4 trillion. As this graph is slightly outdated, you can imagine how far off the graph the line will need to go to chart the increase.

B. $1.8 trillion deficit in current budget – $9.3 trillion over next decade (likely to be higher)

The $3.6 trillion budget most recently passed is estimated to incur a $1.8 trillion deficit. The deficit is estimated to add up to $9.3 trillion over next decade. These are estimates by the government, but they include economic assumptions that have already been exceeded.

For example, the budget assumes a max of 8.1% unemployment. We are now at 9.4% unemployment. This means the deficit will most likely be larger than projected.

Even with the current estimates, the deficit line on the outdated graph below will go far off the chart. Also, the federal debt discussed above (bullet "A") will increase over time by the amount of the deficit.

C. Outstanding future debt of $43 trillion to $102 trillion from entitlements

The U.S. has made long-term commitments to fund Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Because of the increase in the retiring Baby Boomer population and the continuing increase in medical costs in the U.S., the demand on these payments is also increasing. Additionally, the U.S. government borrows from already-collected funds to undertake additional spending, adding to the entitlement funding problem.

The coming added debt estimates from entitlements are as low as $43 trillion and as high as $102 trillion. To put these debt levels in context, total U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is about $14.1 trillion and falling.

Graph from a 2008 U.S. Government Accountability Office report

As the above U.S. Government Accountability Office graph is outdated from 2008, here are a few important points to note:

1. The graphed values are based on the $43 trillion low-end estimate as of 2008. There are several other estimates all the way up to $102 trillion.
2. Since this graph was created, there are already significant increases required given the recently reported acceleration of the social security shortfall.
3. Increasing interest rates beyond 2008 projected levels are likely to add to the debt beyond what is stated here.
4. Likely slower GDP growth will increase the percentage of GDP stated here.

Healthcare reform is an attempt to ease the blow of the coming Medicare debt tsunami. While it is possible that this will have some medium-term effect on the debt outlay (to the detriment of healthcare quality, of course), on the contrary it is also quite possible that it will quickly add cost/debt, and regardless, the timing for these changes to take effect will have little impact for several years.

D. Debt Comparison to U.S. GDP

Below is a government-created graph of U.S. public debt (i.e. not including intragovernmental holdings, which bring the current debt total to $11.4 trillion) projections as a percent of GDP through the coming decades.

Graph from a 2008 U.S. Government Accountability Office report

As the above U.S. Government Accountability Office graph is outdated from 2008, here are a few important points to note:

1. We have already exceeded debt that is 50% of GDP and we are moving quickly past this level given our unexpectedly large current and projected budget deficits.
2. The data line must be shifted significantly to the left given the recently reported acceleration of the social security shortfall.
3. Increasing interest rates beyond 2008 projected levels are likely to add to the debt beyond what is stated here.
4. Likely slower GDP growth will increase the debt percentage of GDP stated here.

2. Foreign countries have experienced their own crises, and they cannot offer added levels of debt funding for the U.S. Even if they could, they are unlikely to do so.

The issuance of U.S. Treasury securities is how the government gets loans to fund its spending activity beyond what it collects in taxes. If you buy a Treasury, you are giving the government a loan, which it has to pay back to you with interest. About half of public-owned government debt is held by foreign creditors.

The 3 most significant U.S. debt holders are Europe (European Union and UK), Japan, and China. Japan and China make-up almost 50% of foreign held U.S. Treasurys at 21% and 24% respectively. It is unlikely that these lenders will continue funding U.S. debt to its requirements.

Largest Holders of U.S. Debt – U.S. Treasury (2009)

The 2 key reasons why the U.S. is losing support from its debt holders are:

1. Countries are experiencing their own crises and funding (and having trouble funding) their own stimulus
2. Countries do not like our currency devaluation as it hurts the value of the return on their U.S. Treasury investments.

Take a look at the recent status of the larges U.S. creditors:

Europe

Several EU countries and Russia are significant holders of U.S. debt. All of these countries have their hands full with economic problems in their own countries and with countries for which they are responsible within the EU. Take a look at the current landscape in Europe.

Countries in Europe that have recently collapsed or are on the brink of collapse:

- Iceland (collapsed) – Latvia (collapsed) – Russia (on brink) – Hungary (on brink) – Ukraine (on brink) – Additional Eastern Europe countries (on brink)

In recent time as Eastern European countries have attempted to emerge as viable economies they have become significant borrowers from Western Europe. As Eastern Europe feels pain, the banks and economies of Western Europe feel pain as well.

Failure to save East Europe will lead to worldwide meltdown – Telegraph (2009)

World Agenda: Eastern Europe’s economic collapse stalks the West – Times Online (2009)

Eastern Europe’s Economic Crash – Business Week (2009)

In addition to Russia’s severe economic struggles, they are signaling a move away from the U.S. dollar:

Russia to propose new reserve currency at G20 – Reuters (2009)

Russia Warns Against Relying on Dollar – New York Times (2009)

Russia plans to reduce U.S. Treasury holdings in its reserves – MarketWatch (2009)

While all Western Europe countries are struggling, here are a few noteworthy economic situations currently unfolding:

Britain

Will Britain go bankrupt? – MoneyWeek (2009)

George Soros: Britain may have to seek IMF rescue – Times Online (2009)

Germany

Germany’s slump risks ‘explosive’ mood as second banking crisis looms – The Telegraph (2009)

Spain

Spain’s Economic Outlook Grimmest in Europe – New York Times (2009)

Ireland

Is Ireland fated to be another Iceland? – Guardian News (2009)

Celtic Tiger tamed as economy collapses – The Independent (2009)

Ireland is ECB’s sacrificial lamb to satisfy German inflation demands – The Telegraph (2009)

Switzerland

Switzerland threatened with bankruptcy – CreditWritedowns (2009)

Japan (holds 21% of foreign held U.S. Treasurys)

Japan: Worst crisis since war’s end – CNN (2009)

Japanese exports plunge by nearly 50% – Guardian News (2009)

Japanese GDP falls at biggest rate since 1955 – MSNBC/Associated Press (2009)

China (holds 24% of foreign held U.S. Treasurys)

China is the largest creditor for the U.S. The country is currently growing at close to half the projected pace before the crisis. The lifeblood of their economy (exports) is declining rapidly, and unemployment is rising quickly.

China exports down 25% – Washington Post (2009)

China Puts Joblessness for Migrants at 20 Million – New York Times (2009)

ADB Cuts China 2009 GDP Forecast On Global Crisis – Wall Street Journal (2009)

China is making loud signals about the declining value of their U.S. Treasury holdings, and backing up their words with consistent moves from long-term treasury holdings to short-term treasury holdings. They are also quite vocal about the need for the world to move away from the U.S. dollar to a new global currency.

Wen Voices Concern Over China’s U.S. Treasuries – The Wall Street Journal (2009)

China Takes Aim at Dollar – The Wall Street Journal (2009)

China pushes SDR as global super-currency – Reuters (2009)

A ‘Copper Standard’ for the world’s currency system? – The Telegraph (2009)

China’s gold reserves jump, making nation No. 5 holder – MarketWatch (2009)

China’s central bank frets over Fed bond purchases – MarketWatch (2009)

China’s Short-Term Treasury Binge – The Wall Street Journal (2009)

China is quickly diversifying their investments away from the U.S. so that they do not have so much dependence on exports to the U.S. and the declining value of their U.S. Treasury holdings. They are doing this by investing in other country’s tangibles and through focusing more on growing their own domestic economy.

China said to mull buying oil with foreign reserves – MarketWatch (2009)

China Starts Investing Globally – New York Times (2009)

China’s shopping spree – The Independent (2009)

China overtakes the US as Brazil’s largest trading partner – The Telegraph (2009)

Brazil Turns to China to Help Finance Oil Projects – The Wall Street Journal (2009)

Most recent statistics show China’s holdings of U.S. Treasurys now likely at nearly half of China’s GDP. Given the country’s troubled economic situation in the crisis, signals of looking for a U.S. dollar alternative, and the diversification of their investments into other country’s tangibles and their own domestic economy, China is not a reliable source for ongoing elevating levels of U.S. debt.

3. Productivity is declining, and everything the government is doing is further hurting productivity.

Economic productivity is were value is created, which enables the government to collect the money it requires (i.e. in the form of taxes) to pay for its spending and debt. Additionally, productivity enables U.S. citizens to grow their savings and makes them more likely to invest the savings in U.S. Treasurys (i.e. debt). In our current situation, not only is productivity declining, but the government is overwhelmingly hurting the ability for productivity to grow at a pace that would allow our debt to be managed.

Signs of declining productivity:

-GDP is declining

-Corporate earnings are down

-Layoffs/unemployment is up

-Productivity centers like automotives and manufacturing suffering

-Venture capital is suffering

-Private equity is suffering

-Mergers & acquisitions (M&A) and IPOs are suffering

-Technology, biotech, and other cutting edge industries are suffering

-Exports are suffering

-Growing population of retiring baby boomers

-Low international competitiveness in education; not in PISA top 20 of math, science and reading

-Personal and business savings are low

-Personal and business debt is stretched

What government is doing to hurt productivity for the long-term:

-Causing regulatory uncertainty through bailouts and changed rules/laws

-Protectionist policies are being implemented

-Tax structure hurts productivity – corp taxes, increases on cap gains, talk of national sales tax, etc.

-Attacking property rights/contracts

-Crowding out investment and industry with special public works projects

-Nationalization of industries – auto, banks, and more to come

-Welfare and unemployment entitlements expansion

-Unionism is getting more government support

-Implementing stifling health care reform

-Economically invalid environmental approach

-Adding equal opportunity laws

4. The U.S. is printing unprecedented, massive amounts of money and no longer has an ability to control inflation and deflation.

There is a common fallacy that the definition of inflation is rising or higher prices. Instead, inflation is actually an increase in the supply of money to a level that devalues the currency’s purchasing power. Higher prices are not inflation, but a result of inflation; when there is more money to buy the same amount of stuff, the prices of the stuff rise. Inflation harms the economy as it causes the following:

1. Errors in economic calculation (organizational planning) for entrepreneurs
2. Products and services become more expensive before incomes can rise to afford them.
3. Dilution of the value of the dollar.

As described above, the U.S. cannot rely on other countries’ or our own productivity to manage our exorbitant debt. Rather than allowing defaults on this debt, the government is resorting to unprecedented amounts of money printing:

1. $10.5 trillion committed, $2.7 trillion spent for crisis bailouts
2. $1.2 trillion Fed balance sheet expansion – expected to expand to $4.5 trillion by September ’09. Much of the purchases for this expansion are illiquid, long-term assets that are not easily sold when the money supply needs to be reined in as inflation escalates.
3. Included is $300 billion dollars for Treasury bond purchases (i.e. quantitative easing) expected to expand to $1 trillion in purchases, especially since interest rates are quickly becoming uncontrollable.

Here is the recent history of the Fed’s balance sheet:

Here are the implications for the monetary base:

You may ask yourself why we haven’t yet experienced inflation given all this money printing. What is actually happening is we are experiencing less deflation (contraction of the money supply, and appreciation of the dollar) than we otherwise would have without the money printing. Any kind of economic stabilization in the near future would cause the excess reserves (held-back credit) now in the banking system to quickly infiltrate throughout the economy and inflation would ensue. However, it’s important to note that economic stabilization is not a requirement for inflation to surface and we could see inflation before any kind of recovery.

Why These 4 Reasons Make the Economy Vulnerable

Imagine if a guy named John took on a bunch of debt above the level of income and potential income that would allow the debt to be paid off. John then tries to float the debt by taking on new debt to pay off old loans hoping eventually he would make enough income to pay off all of the debt – except his income continues to decline. Eventually creditors would not be willing to lend to him and he would default and need to start over.

This is the state of the U.S. government, except for one difference; the government’s ability to print money to eventually pay off the debt at a diluted value. However, this makes the government’s economic situation worse off than John, who would have defaulted. The below information more directly outlines the current U.S. situation.

1. Because of the government’s bailout philosophy and long-term policy plans, U.S. debt will continue to grow larger. Eventual rising interest rates will add to this debt load.
2. The debt has to be paid off – If it is not paid off, we will default and collapse.
3. Productivity and taxes normally pay off debt, but we are becoming less productive and tax revenues are declining rapidly. Also, dramatic tax increases to cover debt are counterproductive to the economy. Even a good case turnaround in productivity is not likely to be enough to service the rapid debt growth.
4. We are resorting to printing money to pay off the debt, but this devalues the dollar, which hurts our creditors when they are paid back with money of less value than they lent out.
5. Major creditors, such as China and Russia, are swiftly switching their policies to have less dependence on the U.S. dollar.

These factors alone can cause a flee from the U.S. dollar (i.e. a currency crisis), which would have a catastrophic effect on the economy. In the near term, it is not likely that a given country would make a bold move to run from the dollar as it would hurt their own economy to harm one of their most important customers (i.e. U.S. imports). However, much international tension has built during the crisis that makes the international community more likely to run away from the dollar in the case of an unknown event (e.g. another financial catastrophe, a natural catastrophe, a significant terrorist attack, another war, etc.)

On top of these factors and despite what the mass media is communicating about "green shoots" and economic recovery, the U.S. economic situation is not getting better. There are several economic factors existing and forming that could cause an exacerbation of the current situation to trigger a full breakdown of our economic system.

Status of the Banking System

At the core of our economic system is the banking system. Despite the mass media and government’s claims, the banks are in bad shape with significant threats to their survival approaching in the near future:

1. The government’s bank stress test results were not good, but still depicted U.S. banks as much healthier than they actually are. 

a.  The criteria used for the worst case economic scenario was about as bad as the current economic situation, and will most likely be surpassed within the year.

b.  Recently changed accounting rules propped up the financial condition of the banks to favor better test results.

c.  The banks argued aggressively with the government to release better than actual results so that shareholders and customers would not lose faith.

d.  The tests were performed in a short period of time. Past bank stress tests have historically been quite inaccurate, and that is under testing processes performed over significantly longer time periods.

e.  The tests focused on 19 banks making up about 70% of the banking industry. The other 30%, which are smaller more localized banks, face different kinds of current and approaching problems.

2. The banks need more capital to survive, hence the government bailouts and capital-raise requirements. The government estimates the banks will need about $600 billion to cover approaching losses. Given this total and the allotment to each loss category, it is highly likely that the estimate will miss the mark by hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars. Several significant problems that have not yet hit the banks and were underrepresented in the stress tests are:

a.   Residential Mortgages – estimated $1.1 trillion to $2.6 trillion in losses approaching from non-subprime Alt-A and Option ARM mortgages. Take a look at the below Credit Suisse graph to see the magnitude of resets approaching.

b.   Commercial Real Estate – estimated $1 trillion+ losses starting in 2009 through 2013; 60% of commercial real estate lending comes from non-stress-test banks (smaller/regional banks)

c.   Corporate loans and bonds – estimated $390 billion in losses to come

d.   Credit card and auto loans – estimated $350+ billion in losses to come; most of the losses by 2010

e.   Leveraged buyout (LBO) exposure – several hundred billion dollars in likely private equity leveraged buyout losses stemming from $1.4 trillion in deals made in 2006 and 2007

f.   Interest rate swaps (IRS) – these derivatives add several trillion dollars of exposure in the event of volatile and/or rising interest rates.

Note: The TALF and other government programs are supposed to help stifle the blows from the coming residential and commercial real estate losses. However, so far the TALF has been extremely ineffective. Less than $20 billion out of $1 trillion has been activated because the associated underlying assets are not deemed as good investments. Additionally, most of the key approach through these programs is to support the asset-backed securities and to refinance risky loans. The ability to refinance is highly problematic with dramatically declining residential and commercial real estate values, let alone rising interest rates.

The diagram below depicts how the underlying problems are likely to play out within the banking sector, a current linchpin to the U.S. economy.

Diagram 1: Likely Progression of the U.S. Banking Sector and its Economic Impact

Below is further explanation of the above diagram:

1. Given the banks current conditions and coming wave of losses (residential real estate, commercial real estate, LBOs, etc) described above the diagram, the banks will likely need to be nationalized as the government will not allow them to collapse.
2. This will be done by converting bank debt to equity and diluting non-government shareholders.
3. This does not remove the underlying asset and capitalization problems. Instead, the government will print money and take on more debt to cover the losses.
4. The money printing and increased debt supply will cause a natural rise in interest rates (i.e. to drive demand to buy U.S. debt) and decline of the dollar. If higher interest rates stifle the ensuing inflation, they will also further hurt the economy (e.g. causes more defaults, harder for lending, etc). If inflation continues despite higher interest rates, hyper-inflation is likely to ensue causing an economic collapse.

Other Noteworthy Factors

1. California (13% of U.S. GDP), New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and other states are having multi-billion dollar budget deficit problems because of rapidly declining tax revenue and over-spending. If this doesn’t lead to further bailouts (and therefore more money printing and/or debt), their infrastructures and economies will further breakdown before a leaner spending structure can emerge.
2. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation has a $33.5 billion dollar deficit (tripled in the last six months). They also estimate that the auto sector has $77 billion in underfunded liabilities, with $42 billion not funded at all. Pension breakdown is likely to continue to rise with state pension stress rising and as the auto sector triggers additional pension cancellation in other sectors.
3. Obviously rising unemployment, expiring unemployment benefits, prematurely rising interest rates, rising oil prices, and a weakening stock market will only exacerbate and add to the banking and broader economic problems outlined.

The banking and economic conditions, combined with the U.S. debt situation and money-printing practices, can lead to economic breakdown or more money printing to stave off the economic breakdown. The latter is the more likely case given the government’s economic philosophy and direction during the crisis. However, this strategy only delays the inevitable as the underlying problems still exist. The resulting catch-22 of inflation and rising interest rates are what can cause catastrophe.

The economic dangers of inflation were touched on in an earlier section, but there are also several significant economic dangers of spiking interest rates:

1. Loans (personal and business) based on adjustable rates are more likely to default or become more difficult to service.
2. People and businesses are less likely to borrow or be able to borrow, which can actually be a good thing, but slows the economy in the short-term.
3. The interest on budget deficits and the national debt increases, adding significantly to the country’s debt load.
4. Interest rate swaps (i.e. hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives) run risk of default.

The U.S. interest rate and inflation conundrum is unavoidable as debt is too large, productivity is too low, and money printing is our way of remedying the situation. The U.S. is vulnerable to an economic collapse through spiking interest rates, extremely high inflation (i.e. hyperinflation), or both spiking interest rates and extremely high inflation. The below diagram depicts the dangerous spiral.

Diagram 2: Inflationary Spiral Toward Collapse

Unprecedented Situation

Because of America’s great history and foundations of patriotism, many have said that we’ve been through this before, the country is resilient, we’ve always figured it out, and we will again. Positive thinking can certainly work wonders, but it is also important to not let it cloud the logic behind the critical nature of the current U.S. situation. The U.S. has been a great country, but history shows that even great countries can fail.

As the first several graphs on this page depict, the U.S. is in a situation of unprecedented debt, deficits, and money printing. Additionally, the recent economic crisis has triggered problems in several sectors, and there are new, large problems on the horizon. All of this while policy direction shows little sign of an ability to fuel significant economic growth that might solve U.S. debt problems and cushion the coming economic blows. 

The comparison has been made of our current situation to Japan’s "lost decade" or the U.S. Great Depression with the assumption that this crisis likely can’t exceed the pain of those periods. However, there are many differences in today’s U.S. economic situation that remove much of the relevance of a comparison. Aside from these differences, key underlying factors that spared Japan and the U.S. from a severe economic collapse were:

1. Japan had high savings rates and high demand for their exports (core to their economy) from healthy countries elsewhere. Although Japan did not experience a severe collapse, 20 years later their stock market is still around 80% lower than its peak before their crisis and they are experiencing continued economic stagnation.
2. In the Great Depression and different from today’s status, the U.S. had:
   1. High savings rates
   2. Excellent productivity increases to fuel the move out of the depression
   3. Countries with the wherewithal to purchase a strong base of exports from a key producer
   4. No weighty entitlement programs hanging over to add gargantuan debt levels to large preexisting debt
   5. High proportion of high character citizens that were not reliant on entitlement programs and better knew the value of hard work

Scenarios for the U.S. economy:

The conditions described to this point are enough to cause a severe economic catastrophe. However, the recent crisis combined with the current monetary policy direction, add extra elements to the equation that make catastrophe more likely.

Scenarios #1 and #2 below both stem from the Fed’s plan to inflate (increase the money supply to cover the output gap) its way out of the crisis and eventually pull back the money supply once the economy begins to grow. The Fed knows it must rein in the money supply once growth begins, because if they do not, inflation will become uncontrollable. It is important to note that this has never worked in the past without experiencing  heavy economic pain. However, the main problem with the Fed’s current situation (unlike past crises and inflationary periods) is that they have virtually no ability to pull back. The Fed cannot effectively sell its balance sheet assets to rein in the money supply because:

1. The political nature of the assets they have purchased and are propping up
2. The long-term nature of the assets they have purchased
3. The political nature of forcing interest rates up to appropriate levels

Even if they could sell off significant enough levels of balance sheet assets and increase interest rates to rein in money, an economic breakdown would follow because of the newly removed support of the latest grown asset bubbles within the economy.

Here are possible scenarios for the U.S. economy:

Scenario #1: Hyperinflation

Hyperinflation is the dramatic devaluing of the currency in the case of a mishandled money supply increases by the central bank. This has happened many times in many countries in recent and distant history, and is most likely when a country has a fiat money system (currency backed by no assets), a lack of confidence in the government, and significant national debt that the country cannot manage to service. To understand the conditions that lead to hyperinflation and the results that stem from it take a look at the hyperinflation periods experienced by Zimbabwe, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, and others. Once hyperinflation begins, government tools used to fight it may stop the process, but deep economic pain is not avoided. As outlined at the beginning of this section, the Fed has put itself in a unique situation in which these tools are unlikely to be effective.

Scenario #2: Deflationary spiral

As the Fed continues to put trash onto its balance sheet (which it has continually done during this crisis) and prices rise from inflation, there can come a point where the collapsing asset prices of the Fed’s purchases will cause a panic for lenders (people and countries) to sell those assets at the highest possible price – getting their dollars back before the asset prices fall. As the economy prior to this scenario will be in pain from higher prices, there will be no production to replace the perceived value of the Fed balance sheet. The Fed will not be able to meet this elevated demand. Dollars would be quickly sucked out of the market causing them to spike in value (the opposite of inflation). Global currencies in turn collapse with the increase of the dollar and exports are halted. Locally, as the dollar rises dramatically, prices collapse and borrowing is stopped making the economy motionless. [Arbitrary Vote came aware of this particular deflationary scenario through an article by Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker blog]

Scenario #3: Long term stagnation and economic deterioration

The government’s bailout and money printing policies distort pricing, hinder economic calculation, perpetually increase interest rates, cause fascist corruption, and leave no ability for genuine economic productivity to increase as entrepreneurs and businesses are discouraged from participating in the economy. Ultimately this is likely to create an environment that makes one of the above collapse scenarios more likely, but stagnation and slow decline can last for many years if not decades.

Scenario #4: Another economic boom and more dramatic bust

In the unlikely event that the Federal Reserve succeeds at credit expansion to turn the economy back to significant growth, the new growth will be based on the same artificial fundamentals as our recent two bubbles – the dot com bubble and the housing bubble. A new bubble would be larger and more far reaching than ever and would burst harder than ever, sure to break what should have been allowed to break during the last two bursts, but with added problems from the most recent government remedies.

Scenario #5: War

The worst case scenario, and hopefully the least likely, is war. Throughout history times of economic stress have spurred on wars for various reasons (protectionism, government breakdown and disorder, desperation, the belief that it is an economic net positive, etc).

Scenario #6: Sudden revolutionary breakthrough to avoid collapse

All of the above scenarios are doom and gloom scenarios. Unfortunately that is the reality of the situation. However, there is a reason for hope no matter how unlikely this scenario may be to transpire. A revolutionary breakthrough, similar in economic magnitude to the industrial revolution or the information revolution, could ignite powerful, genuine growth that would allow the U.S. to grow its way out of its dire circumstances. We have no way of knowing if this will take place, but a couple possibilities might be an artificial intelligence revolution or a breakthrough in a ubiquitous energy source, such as cold fusion. 

Warning Signs and Triggers to Monitor to Foresee a Collapse Before it Happens

One event or a combination of several events can signal or trigger an economic collapse. Below are several events to keep an eye on to gauge the likelihood of a collapse:

An strong increase of treasury yields/interest rates – 10-year bonds are used to set mortgage rates. The Fed has tried to suppress these rates through expanding the Fed balance sheet and quantitative easing. Rates dropped shortly after announcing their plans, but have risen against their will since. A strong move above 4 or 5% on the 10-year yield could signal the abandonment of faith in U.S. Treasurys, or the ability for the U.S. to pay back the loans with money of held value. A spike in this rate can trigger a run on treasuries and a stifling of the economy. Additionally, the 1-month T-bill spiking above the current 0-.25% level could have a harmful effect.

A failed treasury auction – Throughout the year, the Fed holds auctions to sell Treasurys so that it may borrow money to fund the budget deficit. There can come a time when the supply of those Treasurys is so high and demand for them so low that not all treasuries offered are sold. This is a failed auction. We have already had a few auctions this year that did not fail, but interest rates on the treasuries had to be raised to entice people to participate, which sends signals that U.S. debt is not very attractive. If an auction were to fail, the consequences could be a run on the U.S. dollar.

A U.S. debt rating downgrade – The credit ratings agencies (Moody’s, S&P, Fitch) rate U.S. treasurys just as they would any loan. The U.S. has long held a AAA rating on its debt. A downgrade of the U.S. credit rating would send a loss of confidence to its creditors and potential creditors which could cause rates to rise and an abandonment of the dollar.

A strong drop in the U.S. dollar index – A declining value of the U.S. dollar is a sign that inflation (the increase in the supply of money) is increasing and confidence is being lost in the currency. A strong dip in value could cause an abandonment of the dollar.

A bank holiday – Although unlikely given the potential for bank nationalization, a bank holiday could be ordered if the government believes the public has lost confidence in the banks and fears a run on the bank deposits. Bank business would be halted for a day or so to allow the government to absorb or prepare for potential losses. 

Bank nationalization – Given the high probability of U.S. banks experiencing losses beyond existing losses and those projected through the stress tests, the government has put in place triggers to convert bank debt to equity. This is the technical way of saying that the government is taking increased ownership in the banks under the premise that it will instill confidence and health in the banking system. This process will be accompanied with the announcement that the ownership will only be temporary, but the magnitude of the situation makes this highly unlikely. As Diagram 1 above depicts, nationalization does not solve the underlying problems and can lead to a worsened economic situation.

Another economic boom – If a collapse does not happen first, eventually the Fed’s massive money printing and credit expansion could artificially boost economic indicators and GDP. Given the likelihood that this would reach all parts of the economy (i.e. rather than just housing or a given sector) the size of the unjustified over-investment could lead to a much more powerful and deep economic bust.

Other economic signs and triggers – In conjunction and in addition to the signs and triggers outlined above, significant stress in the following economic areas could contribute to or trigger an economic collapse:

• Commercial real estate defaults
• Alt-A and Option ARM residential mortgage defaults
• Credit cards and auto loan default increases
• Life insurance company struggles from falling stock market
• Private equity problems from past leveraged buyouts
• Retail struggles
• Oil prices rising
• Food shortages from recent record droughts around the world
• Default on commodities futures contracts
• Interest rate swap defaults from rising interest rates
• Pension collapse
• Corporate bond defaults
• Municipal bond defaults
• State fiscal collapses
• Collapse of Eastern European countries or other countries to spur contagion

Unknown disaster – Other events that could trigger economic turmoil in the economy’s vulnerable state are:

1. Natural disaster (hurricane, earthquake, flooding, pandemic, etc)
2. Unnatural disaster (terrorist attack, escalation of international tensions such as Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, etc)

What Can Result From an Economic Collapse?

Imagine if the money you have in your savings account, checking account, or U.S. treasurys, which you thought were all safe places save your hard-earned money, lost half or even 90% of their value overnight. This is exactly what can happen in our current situation. This can have a catastrophic effect on the economy and social well-being.

Further economic deterioration leads to rising unemployment. Unemployment benefits eventually run out. The government has added an extension to unemployment benefits, but hundreds of thousands of people are passing the time limit of the extension. People will have devalued dollars and in many cases no income or hope of income at all.

Historically this type of financial stress on a mass basis often leads to civil unrest. In an extreme economic crisis, unrest is possible in the U.S. because of:

1. General desperation from extreme financial hardship
2. Racial tensions because Obama ratings may drop and blame could be placed – Various races may attempt to place blame on one another.
3. Class tension because of a large percentage of the population receiving entitlements and bailouts (handouts) while producing nothing. Entitlement and bailout outlays are increasing while ability to produce/create is decreasing.
4. Class tension because handouts will eventually have to be cut back which will cause more stress and anger
5. Class tension because of the mass perception of corporate and executive greed

Ideas for Preparation

With so many possibilities of how the U.S. economic situation can play out, it is difficult to know exactly how to prepare. Below are some ideas that may be helpful as you evaluate your own personal situation.

Protect your finances

A major challenge will be to protect your finances, especially since the normal safe-havens of treasurys, money markets, and cash are no longer safe. Verify what has been written within this webpage with other sources and evaluate your own situation accordingly. Arbitrary Vote is not offering investment advice, but here are a few ideas to help you think about such an unfamiliar situation:

• Don’t play the stock market unless you are intimately familiar with the economic situation and investing. There will be continued extreme volatility in the markets and a lot of known and unknown triggers for industries to collapse, while very few winners will emerge. PE ratios are still quite high. The stock market will rise if there is inflation, but the business and currency values won’t. For example, Zimbabwe had the greatest performing stock market in the world during their hyperinflation, yet their economy was in complete collapse.
• Diversify your investments. Precious metals such as gold and silver are strong with uncertainties in inflation, government, and currencies. Have at least a little gold and silver in your house as a safety fund. Also various other commodities do well in economic crises. Food/agriculture commodities could be a nice idea as they usually do quite well in inflationary environments, and food shortages are likely to be prevalent in the near future as recent major droughts and population growth are effecting food supply and demand.
• Minimize your fixed income investment exposure, such as money markets, CD’s, savings accounts, or U.S. Treasurys. The amount of money you have in cash should be minimal and as liquid as possible so that you can move money to safer places in anticipation of a crisis. Note that you want to try to figure out where to put your money before the crisis happens, as once it happens, it will be too late as your money will have already lost its value.
• If you have significant debt, there are two sides to the payoff argument. One side says pay off debt as quickly as possible so that you don’t run the risk of it becoming more expensive in a deflationary environment or with rising interest rates. The other side says don’t feel the need to pay off quickly as debt becomes cheaper for you as inflation kicks in; plus the government’s policy moves are likely to eventually give your debt relief anyway. Evaluate your unique personal situation and come to the best conclusion for yourself.
• If relevant, get pension dollars as quickly as possible, or at least a strong understanding of your pension’s status and funding source. Pensions are extremely pained and may not be reliable sources of income.
• If relevant, accelerate receiving social security payments. Social security is extremely pained and a run can be made on it. Additionally, the government is likely to decrease payment amount and extend the point at which benefits may be claimed. Aside from the payment amount decreasing, the value of the dollar amount will decrease because of inflation.
• Thinking of buying a house? Housing prices may still have a long way to go down for the following reasons:

1. Foreclosures are still rising.
2. Another heavy wave of defaults is on the way from non-subprime Option ARM and Alt-A mortgages.
3. In many cases where the Option ARM and Alt-A problems don’t cause foreclosure, they will cause early sales that will add to inventory and/or push prices down further.
4. Many are leaving major residential real-estate states such as California, Florida, Michigan, New York, etc adding to inventory and/or hurting prices in those areas.
5. Layoffs are continuing.
6. Interest/mortgage rates are rising.
7. Loans are harder to get considering interest rates and bank reluctance.
8. The government’s activity is artificially propping up housing prices (even though prices are still declining).
9. The banks will eventually have to start moving foreclosed assets off of their books at lower prices or they will face bankruptcy/nationalization. Both scenarios are not good for housing prices.

This means lowered demand and excess and increasing supply. This translates to falling prices that will take a long time to bottom with a slow turnaround after the bottom. Keep in mind that after Japan’s housing bubble and bust in the 80′s, housing prices are still about 80% lower than they were at their peak.

This does not mean there aren’t still a few decent buys out there. Be sure people are moving to and not away from the area where you are buying, and viewing the purchase as a long-term living investment (as opposed to a 2 or 3 year flip) will likely be your best bet. After all, houses are real and valuable assets that act as shelter and will still be standing even if the surrounding economy takes an unprecedented dive.

Other preparation measures to think through

• Protect yourself and your family
• Be aware of increasing crime
• Self-defense skills could be valuable
• Owning a gun may be valuable
• A stock of extra preservable food
• Communication plans and meeting plans with your family in case of emergency
• Evaluate your city or region and its demographics, government, and economic situation. An accessible second home or family/friend home as a retreat may be valuable depending on where you live. Additionally, it may make sense to begin evaluating your country in a similar manner. Aside from the potential future safety issues in the U.S., you may be surprised to hear that the country ranks 6th on The Heritage Foundation & Wall Street Journal’s Index of Economic Freedom and 36th on the Reporters Without Borders’ 2008 Press Freedom Index.
• Educate yourself – Understanding the situation and the potential outcomes is a major step toward proper preparation. Don’t take this website’s word for it. Compare mainstream and non-mainstream media and information sources and look at the facts yourself. Investigate economics, political, and financial books, blogs, and websites. A few suggestions are: Meltdown by Tom Woods, Peter Schiff books and blogs, Jim Rogers books and blogs, Ron Paul books and blogs, Mises.org, etc.

Some of these measures may sound extreme. All of it may not be necessary. However, in this environment, being mentally and physically prepared for the worst case scenario is a wise strategy as anything less, but potentially still harmful, will be easier to deal with.

If you have any questions, thoughts, opinions, ideas, or helpful information, feel free to post or discuss them within the forum. Updates based on new information and the evolving situation will be posted at the bottom of this webpage.

Note: All of the graphs within this report are cited. In the interest of time, much of the other statistics are not. Arbitrary Vote is happy to provide citations and background information on any of this information at your request.

UPDATE:  Hope and Solutions

Before and since posting this “Warning” page, a few private comments have been submitted claiming that Arbitrary Vote harps about the problems of the world, but does not offer hope through proposed solutions.
If you dig deeper within several of the main pages of the website (e.g. industry regulation, healthcare, climate change, etc.) you will find suggestions for solutions; there will be more to come. While specifics are mentioned, the overriding theme of the solution ideas is that it is impossible to find all solutions through one person or single group of people (e.g. the government). Instead, free markets will offer the widest range of possibilities to most efficiently find the best solutions.
Hope lies in the next blossoming of this approach just as it has blossomed many times in world history to provide the greatest periods of economic growth and improvements in living standards our species has ever experienced. The application of this approach includes, but is not limited to: fixing healthcare, solving global warming, regulating the economy, regulating industries, minimizing hunger, etc. It is a system of freedom based on the merit of individuals and their rights to their own private property. It produces the many ideas that improve our living standards and chances of survival as a species.
As it stands, the government is swiftly building on its monopoly on ideas and property, while its citizenry stands by believing it will fashion them into the right solutions. It is implementing a system that has failed every time attempted throughout history. Not only has it failed to produce, but it has ended painfully in all instances. The magnitude of its reach and momentum is overwhelming to any individual wanting it to change. This can easily drain hope from all who realize this.
The Arbitrary Vote website is alerting you of the truth behind the causes and consequences of the problems we face; the biggest problem being our society’s approach to solving problems. It is not up to Arbitrary Vote to find the specific solutions.  It is up to each of us, not as a government, but as individuals, to think, work, and create them. This is what has worked in the past, and this is real reason for hope.
With that said, it helps to clearly understand the inherent problems of government, the superior potential of following sound economic principals, and why these contradicting forces make it unlikely to solve major problems. Aside from the introduction to these concepts that Arbitrary Vote provides, deeper understanding can be found through Mises.org, Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty, and other suggested organizations, books, and blogs dispersed throughout this website and beyond.
One can live their life each day blindly hoping problems will be solved and things will get better by means of their government. They may be sorely disappointed as have the many in the past who have taken the same route. Wouldn’t your hope be better founded if you took the action to solve the problem yourself?

http://www.arbitraryvote.com/

The U.S. is the most prosperous nation on earth. Prosperity has led to the comfort of its citizens. Mainstream media and government have long been the predominant channels for educating the broad public on affairs that directly affect their lives. What they communicate is generally what is believed and accepted.

Arbitrary Vote aims to provide to its readers an alert about the direct and underlying causes of America’s economic troubles while elucidating the consequences of leaving the country’s current direction unchanged.
Few of the concepts within this website are new, but are seldom heard by the broad public. While the presentation of concepts is simple, the website allows readers to dig deeper toward background facts and theory that elaborate on simplified statements. Additionally, the community nature of the website enables interaction and debate around the issues, which certainly can influence the core website content.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com

There are still large numbers of people amongst the general public, in academia, and especially those who work for the corporate media, who are still in denial about the on-the-record stated agenda for global population reduction, as well as the consequences of this program that we already see unfolding.

We have compiled a compendium of evidence to prove that the elite have been obsessed with eugenics and its modern day incarnation, population control, for well over 100 years and that goal of global population reduction is still in full force to this day.

The World’s Elite Are Discussing Population Reduction

As was reported only last month by the London Times, a “secret billionaire club” meeting in early May which took place in New York and was attended by David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, Bill Gates and others was focused around “how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population”.

We questioned establishment media spin which portrayed the attendees as kind-hearted and concerned philanthropists by pointing out that Ted Turner has publicly advocated shocking population reduction programs that would cull the human population by a staggering 95%. He has also called for a Communist-style one child policy to be mandated by governments in the west. In China, the one child policy is enforced by means of taxes on each subsequent child, allied to an intimidation program which includes secret police and “family planning” authorities kidnapping pregnant women from their homes and performing forced abortions.

Of course, Turner completely fails to follow his own rules on how everyone else should live their lives, having five children and owning no less than 2 million acres of land.

In the third world, Turner has contributed literally billions to population reduction, namely through United Nations programs, leading the way for the likes of Bill & Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet (Gates’ father has long been a leading board member of Planned Parenthood and a top eugenicist).

The notion that these elitists merely want to slow population growth in order to improve health is a complete misnomer. Slowing the growth of the world’s population while also improving its health are two irreconcilable concepts to the elite. Stabilizing world population is a natural byproduct of higher living standards, as has been proven by the stabilization of the white population in the west. Elitists like David Rockefeller have no interest in “slowing the growth of world population” by natural methods, their agenda is firmly rooted in the pseudo-science of eugenics, which is all about “culling” the surplus population via draconian methods.

David Rockefeller’s legacy is not derived from a well-meaning “philanthropic” urge to improve health in third world countries, it is born out of a Malthusian drive to eliminate the poor and those deemed racially inferior, using the justification of social Darwinism.

As is documented in Alex Jones’ seminal film Endgame, Rockefeller’s father, John D. Rockefeller, exported eugenics to Germany from its origins in Britain by bankrolling the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute which later would form a central pillar in the Third Reich’s ideology of the Nazi super race. After the fall of the Nazis, top German eugenicists were protected by the allies as the victorious parties fought over who would enjoy their “expertise” in the post-war world.

As Dr. Len Horowitz writes, “In the 1950s, the Rockefellers reorganized the U.S. eugenics movement in their own family offices, with spinoff population-control and abortion groups. The Eugenics Society changed its name to the Society for the Study of Social Biology, its current name.”

“The Rockefeller Foundation had long financed the eugenics movement in England, apparently repaying Britain for the fact that British capital and an Englishman-partner had started old John D. Rockefeller out in his Oil Trust. In the 1960s, the Eugenics Society of England adopted what they called Crypto-eugenics, stating in their official reports that they would do eugenics through means and instruments not labeled as eugenics.”

“With support from the Rockefellers, the Eugenics Society (England) set up a sub-committee called the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which for 12 years had no other address than the Eugenics Society. This, then, is the private, international apparatus which has set the world up for a global holocaust, under the UN flag.”

In the latter half of the 20th century, eugenics merely changed its face to become known as “population control”. This was crystallized in National Security Study Memorandum 200, a 1974 geopolitical strategy document prepared by Rockefeller’s intimate friend and fellow Bilderberg member Henry Kissinger, which targeted thirteen countries for massive population reduction by means of creating food scarcity, sterilization and war.

Henry Kissinger: In the now declassified 1974 document, National Security Memorandum 200, Kissinger outlines the plan to use food scarcity as a weapon in order to achieve population reduction in lesser-developed countries.

The document, declassified in 1989, identified 13 countries that were of special interest to U.S. geopolitical objectives and outlined why population growth, and particularly that of young people who were seen as a revolutionary threat to U.S. corporations, was a potential roadblock to achieving these objectives. The countries named were India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia and Colombia.

The study outlined how civil disturbances affecting the “smooth flow of needed materials” would be less likely to occur “under conditions of slow or zero population growth.”

“Development of a worldwide political and popular commitment to population stabilization is fundamental to any effective strategy. This requires the support and commitment of key LDC leaders. This will only take place if they clearly see the negative impact of unrestricted population growth and believe it is possible to deal with this question through governmental action,” states the document.

The document called for integrating “family planning” (otherwise known as abortion) with routine health services for the purposes of “curbing the numbers of LDC people,” (lesser-developed countries).

The report shockingly outlines how withholding food could be used as a means of punishment for lesser-developed countries who do not act to reduce their population, essentially using food as a weapon for a political agenda by creating mass starvation in under-developed countries.

“The allocation of scarce PL480 (food) resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production,” states the document.

Later in the document, the idea of enforcing “mandatory programs” by using food as “an instrument of national power” is presented.

The document states that the program will be administered through the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), thereby “avoiding the danger that some LDC leaders will see developed-country pressures for family planning as a form of economic or racial imperialism; this could well create a serious backlash.”

As Jean Guilfoyle writes, “NSSM 200 was a statement composed after the fact. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the U.S. had worked diligently behind the scenes to advance the population-control agenda at the United Nations, contributing the initial funding of $1 million.

A Department of State telegram, dated July 1969, reported the support of John D. Rockefeller III, among others, for the appointment of Rafael Salas of the Philippines as senior officer to co-ordinate and administer the UN population program. The administrator of the UN Development Program reported confidentially that he preferred someone such as Salas who had the “advantage of color, religion (Catholic) and conviction.”

A comprehensive outline of what is contained in the National Security Memorandum document can be read at http://www.theinterim.com/july98/20nssm.html

Evidence of the actual consequences of this program can be found with the link between vaccines and sterilization, as well as other diseases such as cancer, in both the west and the third world.

In the following video clip, after an introduction by Alex Jones, women of the Akha tribe who live predominately in Thailand, describe how they miscarried shortly after taking vaccines when they were eight months pregnant. The videos below highlight the efforts of supporters of the Akha tribe to get answers from the University of Oregon and the United Nations, who provided funding for the vaccination and sterilization programs.

Further evidence of the link between vaccinations, birth control, cancer and other diseases can be researched here.

In the 21st century, the eugenics movement has changed its stripes once again, manifesting itself through the global carbon tax agenda and the notion that having too many children or enjoying a reasonably high standard of living is destroying the planet through global warming, creating the pretext for further regulation and control over every facet of our lives.

As we have tirelessly documented, the elite’s drive for population control is not based around a benign philanthropic urge to improve living standards, it is firmly routed in eugenics, racial hygiene and fascist thinking.

The London Times reports that the secret billionaire cabal, with its interest in population reduction, has been dubbed ‘The Good Club’ by insiders. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Anyone who takes the time to properly research the origins of the “population control” movement will come to understand that the Rockefeller-Turner-Gates agenda for drastic population reduction, which is now clearly manifesting itself through real environmental crises like chemtrails, genetically modified food, tainted vaccines and other skyrocketing diseases such as cancer, has its origins in the age-old malevolent elitist agenda to cull the human “chattel” as one would do to rodents or any other species deemed a nuisance by the central planning authorities.

Sterilization And Eugenics Returns In Popular Culture

We are now seeing the return of last century’s eugenicist movement through the popular promotion of sterilization as a method of birth control.

A popular women’s magazine in the UK recently featured an article entitled, Young, Single and Sterilized, in which women in their 20’s discussed why they had undergone an operation to prevent them from ever having children. The article is little more than PR for a “women’s charity” called Marie Stopes International, an organization that carries out abortions and sterilizations and was founded by a Nazi eugenicist who advocated compulsory sterilization of non-whites and “those of bad character”.

In the article, sterilization is lauded as an “excellent method of birth control” by Dr. Patricia Lohr of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.

The article includes an advertisement that encourages women to seek “more information about sterilization” by contacting Marie Stopes International. We read that, “Over the past year, a quarter of the women who booked a sterilisation consultation with women’s charity Marie Stopes were aged 30 or under.”

Marie Stopes was a feminist who opened the first birth control clinic in Britain in 1921 as well as being Nazi sympathizer and a eugenicist who advocated that non-whites and the poor be sterilized.

Stopes, a racist and an anti-Semite, campaigned for selective breeding to achieve racial purity, a passion she shared with Adolf Hitler in adoring letters and poems that she sent the leader of the Third Reich.

Stopes also attended the Nazi congress on population science in Berlin in 1935, while calling for the “compulsory sterilization of the diseased, drunkards, or simply those of bad character.” Stopes acted on her appalling theories by concentrating her abortion clinics in poor areas so as to reduce the birth rate of the lower classes.

Stopes left most of her estate to the Eugenics Society, an organization that shared her passion for racial purity and still exists today under the new name The Galton Institute. The society has included members such as Charles Galton Darwin (grandson of the evolutionist), Julian Huxley and Margaret Sanger.

Marie Stopes, the Nazi and pioneering eugenicist who sent love letters to Hitler, honored recently by the Royal Mail.

Ominously, The Galton Institute website promotes its support and funding initiative for “the practical delivery of family planning facilities, especially in developing countries.” In other words, the same organization that once advocated sterilizing black people to achieve racial purity in the same vein as the Nazis is now bankrolling abortions of black babies in the third world.

While the issue of abortion is an entirely different argument, most would agree that no matter how extreme it sounds, a woman has the right to sterilize herself if she so chooses, just as a man has the right to a vasectomy.

But when a magazine aimed primarily at young women all but encourages girls as young as 20 to have their fallopian tubes tied in order to prevent the “irritation” of children entering their lives and then advertises an organization founded by a Nazi eugenicist that can perform the operation, something has to be amiss.

Even more shocking than this is the fact that the majority of people in the UK routinely express their support for society’s “undesirables” to be forcibly sterilized by the state, harking back to a time when such a thing was commonplace right up to the 1970’s in some areas of America and Europe.

As we highlighted at the time, respondents to a Daily Mail article about Royal Mail honoring Marie Stopes by using her image on a commemorative stamp were not disgusted at Royal Mail for paying homage to a racist Nazi eugenicist, but were merely keen to express their full agreement that those deemed not to be of pure genetic stock or of the approved character should be forcibly sterilized and prevented from having children.

“A lot of people should be sterilized, IMO. It’s still true today,” wrote one.

“Just imagine what a stable, well-ordered society we’d have if compulsory sterilisation had been adopted years ago for the socially undesirable,” states another respondent, calling for a “satellite-carried sterilisation ray” to be installed in space to zap the undesirables.

Shockingly, another compares sterilization and genocide of those deemed inferior to the breeding and culling of farmyard animals, and says that such a move is necessary to fight overpopulation and global warming. Here is the comment in full from “Karen” in Wales;

We breed farm animals to produce the best possible stock and kill them when they have fulfilled their purpose. We inter-breed pedigree animals to produce extremes that leave them open to ill-health and early death. It is only religion that says humans are not animals. The reality is that we are simply intelligent, mammalian primates.

The world population of humans has increased from 2 billion to 6.5 billion in the last 50 years. This planet can support 2 billion humans comfortably. 6.5 billion humans use too many resources and leads to global warming, climate change and a very uncertain future for all of us – humans and all other life sharing this planet with us.

Marie Stopes believed in population control and in breeding the best possible humans. So did Hitler. Neither of the aims are bad in themselves. It is how they are achieved that is the problem. The fact that we still remember Marie Stopes is an achievement in itself.

The nature of these comments is so fundamentally sick and twisted that one is tempted to dismiss them as a joke – but these people are deadly serious. Presumably they would also agree with China’s one child policy, which is routinely enforced by intimidation as young pregnant women are grabbed off the streets by state goons and taken to hospitals where forced abortions are carried out.

Now with popular women’s magazines advising women in their 20’s where they can go to be sterilized and ensure a lifetime of partying and carefree sex, it’s no surprise that experts predict that by 2010 one in four western women will be child free for life.

The yearning to have children is the most beautiful, natural and innate emotion either a man or a woman can possibly experience. That is not to say that it’s always wrong for some people not to have children – extreme circumstances can justify such a decision. But to have yourself sterilized because you find children to be an “irritant” and want to live a life free of responsibility or consequences is an awful message to send to young women, especially in the sex-saturated entertainment culture that we are now forced to endure.

Furthermore, the outright promotion of Marie Stopes International as ‘the place to go’ to get sterilized if you’re under 30 is stomach-churning considering the fact that the origins of this organization can be found in Nazi ideology, racist and backward early 20th century eugenics and a long-standing agenda to cull the population of undesirables, an abhorrent belief still held by elites across the planet today.

Genocidal Population Reduction Programs Embraced By Academia

One such individual who embraces the notion that humans are a virus that should be wiped out en masse for the good of mother earth is Dr. Eric R. Pianka, an American biologist based at the University of Texas in Austin.

Dr Erik Pianka, the American biologist who advocated the mass genocide of 90% of the human race and was applauded by his peers.

During a speech to the Texas Academy of Science in March 2006, Pianka advocated the need to exterminate 90% of the world’s population through the airborne ebola virus. The reaction from scores of top scientists and professors in attendance was not one of shock or revulsion – they stood and applauded Pianka’s call for mass genocide.

Pianka’s speech was ordered to be kept off the record before it began as cameras were turned away and hundreds of students, scientists and professors sat in attendance.

Saying the public was not ready to hear the information presented, Pianka began by exclaiming, “We’re no better than bacteria!”, as he jumped into a doomsday malthusian rant about overpopulation destroying the earth.

Standing in front of a slide of human skulls, Pianka gleefully advocated airborne ebola as his preferred method of exterminating the necessary 90% of humans, choosing it over AIDS because of its faster kill period. Ebola victims suffer the most tortuous deaths imaginable as the virus kills by liquefying the internal organs. The body literally dissolves as the victim writhes in pain bleeding from every orifice.

Pianka then cited the Peak Oil fraud as another reason to initiate global genocide. “And the fossil fuels are running out,” he said, “so I think we may have to cut back to two billion, which would be about one-third as many people.”

Later, the scientist welcomed the potential devastation of the avian flu virus and spoke glowingly of China’s enforced one child policy, before zestfully commenting, “We need to sterilize everybody on the Earth.”

At the end of Pianka’s speech the audience erupted not to a chorus of boos and hisses but to a raucous reception of applause and cheers as audience members clambered to get close to the scientist to ask him follow up questions. Pianka was later presented with a distinguished scientist award by the Academy. Pianka is no crackpot. He has given lectures to prestigious universities worldwide.

Indeed, the notion that the earth’s population needs to be drastically reduced is a belief shared almost unanimously by academics across the western hemisphere.

In 2002, The Melbourne Age reported on newly uncovered documents detailing Nobel Peace Prize winning microbiologist Sir Macfarlane Burnet’s plan to help the Australian government develop biological weapons for use against Indonesia and other “overpopulated” countries of South-East Asia.

From the article;

Sir Macfarlane recommended in a secret report in 1947 that biological and chemical weapons should be developed to target food crops and spread infectious diseases. His key advisory role on biological warfare was uncovered by Canberra historian Philip Dorling in the National Archives in 1998.

“Specifically to the Australian situation, the most effective counter-offensive to threatened invasion by overpopulated Asiatic countries would be directed towards the destruction by biological or chemical means of tropical food crops and the dissemination of infectious disease capable of spreading in tropical but not under Australian conditions,” Sir Macfarlane said.

The Victorian-born immunologist, who headed the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, won the Nobel prize for medicine in 1960. He died in 1985 but his theories on immunity and “clonal selection” provided the basis for modern biotechnology and genetic engineering.

Controversy surrounding the comments of another darling of scientific academia, geneticist James Watson, who told a Sunday Times newspaper interviewer that black people are inherently less intelligent than whites, should come as no surprise to those who are aware of Watson’s role in pushing the dark pseudo-science of eugenics.

Watson told the interviewer that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”.

Watson was the Head of the Human Genome Project until 1992 and is best known for his contribution to the discovery of DNA, an achievement that won him the Nobel Peace prize in 1962.

But what most people are unaware of is the fact that Watson has played an integral role in advancing the legitimacy of the eugenics/population reduction movement for decades.

Watson is a strong proponent of genetic screening, a test to determine whether a couple is at increased risk of having a baby with a hereditary genetic disorder.

Since such screening obviously increases the rate of abortions of babies considered “imperfect,” many have slammed its introduction as nothing more than a camouflage for eugenics or “voluntary eugenics” as British philosophy professor Philip Kitcher labeled it.

Watson’s advocacy of genetic engineering stretched to his call for the “really stupid” bottom 10% of people to be “cured”.

Watson even urged woman to be given carte blanche to abort babies should tests determine that they are likely to be homosexual, despite the vast body of evidence indicating homosexuality is a result of environment rather than genetic code.

The geneticist has gone so far as to promote the idea of creating a kind of Nazi super-race, where the attractive and physically strong are genetically manufactured under laboratory conditions.

“People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great,” said Watson.

Dr. Erik Pianka’s doomsday warning of the population bomb, for which he presented no evidence whatsoever, is complete pseudo-science. Populations in developed countries are declining and only in third world countries are they expanding dramatically. Industrialization itself levels out population trends and aside from this, world population models routinely show that the earth’s population will level out at 9 billion in 2050 and slowly decline after that. “The population of the most developed countries will remain virtually unchanged at 1.2 billion until 2050,” states a United Nations report. Conservation International’s own study revealed that 46% of the earth’s surface was an untouched wilderness, that is land areas not including sea.

Think about the magnitude of Pianka’s statements. He wants to kill nine out of every ten members of your family and he wants to kill them in one of the most painful and agonizing ways imaginable.

If Pianka, or ‘The Lizard Man’ as he likes to be called, is so vehement in embracing the necessity of culling the human population will he step forward to be the first one in line? Will he sacrifice his children for the so-called greater good of the planet? We somehow doubt it.

Will the students and other top academics who so enthusiastically greeted his ideas go home and kill themselves for the cause if it is so righteous?

It was noted how Pianka presented his argument with the kind of glee that you would see in a demented serial killer before dispatching his victim. This is an attitude we have encountered again and again. To discuss killing 90% of the world’s population via a horrific plague is sick enough within itself but you would at least expect its advocates to be serious and sober in their approach to the subject. The opposite seems to be the case, where the subject is aired in a context of lighthearted lip-smacking and hand-rubbing as if the individual was about to sink his teeth into a T-bone steak.

This window gives us a clear view of exactly why these deranged bastards encompass this ideology. They love death and their lives are motivated by dark influences very different to you or I.

Throughout history, elites have invented justifications for barbaric practices as a cover for their true agenda of absolute power and control over populations.

More Examples Of Population Reduction & Eugenics

From 1932 until 1972, the Tuskegee Study Group (pictured below) deliberately infected poor black communities in Alabama with syphilis without their consent and withheld treatment as the diseased rampaged through the town killing families.

In 1951 the Israeli government used US government provided technology to irradiate 100,000 Jewish children in a mass atomic experiment with an entire generation of Sephardi youths used as guinea pigs. 6,000 died immediately after the experiments and the rest suffered for the rest of their lives with debilitating illnesses and cancer.

As we have documented, members of the elite are quite open in their feverish lust to commit mass murder and ethnic cleansing. In the foreword to his biography If I Were An Animal, Prince Philip, another closet Nazi, wrote, “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.”

This is just one of many on the record statements where Prince Philip has advocated his desire to “cull” the surplus human population. In another speech, he even lambasted the fact that lives were saved in Sri Lanka through Malaria treatments because it meant there were three times as many mouths to feed.

One of the most chilling admissions of the elitists’ deadly intent to forcibly commit genocide to reduce global population came from the lips of the late Jacques Cousteau, the sainted environmental icon. In an interview with the UNESCO Courier for November 1991 the famed oceanographer said:

“The damage people cause to the planet is a function of demographics — it is equal to the degree of development. One American burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangaladeshes. The damage is directly linked to consumption. Our society is turning toward more and needless consumption. It is a vicious circle that I compare to cancer….”

“This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it.”

It is important to stress that this essay merely scratches the surface of both the stated goals of global population reduction from elitists and insiders, along with concrete examples of these programs being carried out. We could not possibly list them all in one article because this would take a book the length of an encyclopedia.

Further information is covered in Alex Jones’s Endgame, a pertinent segment from which can be viewed below.

By ESAM AL-AMIN

counterpunch.org

Since the June 12 Iranian presidential elections, Iran “experts” have mushroomed like bacteria in a Petri dish. So here is a quiz for all those instant experts. Which major country has elected more presidents than any in the world since 1980? Further, which nation is the only one that held ten presidential elections within thirty years of its revolution?

The answer to both questions, of course, is Iran. Since 1980, it has elected six presidents, while the U.S. is a close second with five, and France at three. In addition, the U.S. held four presidential elections within three decades of its revolution to Iran’s ten.

The Iranian elections have unified the left and the right in the West and unleashed harsh criticisms and attacks from the “outraged” politicians to the “indignant” mainstream media. Even the blogosphere has joined this battle with near uniformity, on the side of Iran’s opposition, which is quite rare in cyberspace.

Much of the allegations of election fraud have been just that: unsubstantiated accusations. No one has yet been able to provide a solid shred of evidence of wide scale fraud that would have garnered eleven million votes for one candidate over his opponent.

So let’s analyze much of the evidence that is available to date.

More than thirty pre-election polls were conducted in Iran since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main opponent, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, announced their candidacies in early March 2009. The polls varied widely between the two opponents, but if one were to average their results, Ahmadinejad would still come out on top. However, some of the organizations sponsoring these polls, such as Iranian Labor News Agency and Tabnak, admit openly that they have been allies of Mousavi, the opposition, or the so-called reform movement. Their numbers were clearly tilted towards Mousavi and gave him an unrealistic advantage of over 30 per cent in some polls. If such biased polls were excluded, Ahmadinejad’s average over Mousavi would widen to about 21 points.

On the other hand, there was only one poll carried out by a western news organization. It was jointly commissioned by the BBC and ABC News, and conducted by an independent entity called the Center for Public Opinion (CPO) of the New America Foundation. The CPO has a reputation of conducting accurate opinion polls, not only in Iran, but across the Muslim world since 2005. The poll, conducted a few weeks before the elections, predicted an 89 percent turnout rate. Further, it showed that Ahmadinejad had a nationwide advantage of two to one over Mousavi.

How did this survey compare to the actual results? And what are the possibilities of wide scale election fraud?

According to official results, there were 46.2 million registered voters in Iran. The turnout was massive, as predicted by the CPO. Almost 39.2 million Iranians participated in the elections for a turn out rate of 85 percent, in which about 38.8 million ballots were deemed valid (about 400,000 ballots were left blank). Officially, President Ahmadinejad received 24.5 million votes to Mousavi’s 13.2 million votes, or 62.6 per cent to 33.8 per cent of the total votes, respectively. In fact, this result mirrored the 2005 elections when Ahmadinejad received 61.7 per cent to former President Hashemi Rafsanjani’s 35.9 per cent in the runoff elections. Two other minor candidates, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezaee, received the rest of the votes in this election.

Shortly after the official results were announced Mousavi’s supporters and Western political pundits cried foul and accused the government of election fraud. The accusations centered around four themes. First, although voting had been extended several hours due to the heavy turnout, it was alleged that the elections were called too quickly from the time the polls were closed, with more than 39 million ballots to count.

Second, these critics insinuated that election monitors were biased or that, in some instances, the opposition did not have its own monitors present during the count. Third, they pointed out that it was absurd to think that Mousavi, who descended from the Azerbaijan region in northwest Iran, was defeated handily in his own hometown. Fourth, the Mousavi camp charged that in some polling stations, ballots ran out and people were turned away without voting.

The next day, Mosuavi and the two other defeated candidates lodged 646 complaints to the Guardian Council, the entity charged with overseeing the integrity of the elections. The Council promised to conduct full investigations of all the complaints. By the following morning, a copy of a letter by a low-level employee in the Interior Ministry sent to Supreme Guide Ali Khamanei, was widely circulating around the world. (Western politicians and media outlets like to call him “Supreme Leader” but no such title exists in Iran.)

The letter stated that Mousavi had won the elections, and that Ahmadinejad had actually come in third. It also promised that the elections were being fixed in favor of Ahmadinejad per Khamanei’s orders. It is safe to assume that the letter was a forgery since an unidentified low-level employee would not be the one addressing Ayatollah Khamanaei. Robert Fisk of The Independent reached the same conclusion by casting grave doubts that Ahmadinejad would score third – garnering less than 6 million votes in such an important election- as alleged in the forged letter.

There were a total of 45,713 ballot boxes that were set up in cities, towns and villages across Iran. With 39.2 million ballots cast, there were less than 860 ballots per box. Unlike other countries where voters can cast their ballots on several candidates and issues in a single election, Iranian voters had only one choice to consider: their presidential candidate. Why would it take more than an hour or two to count 860 ballots per poll? After the count, the results were then reported electronically to the Ministry of the Interior in Tehran.

Since 1980, Iran has suffered an eight-year deadly war with Iraq, a punishing boycott and embargo, and a campaign of assassination of dozens of its lawmakers, an elected president and a prime minister from the group Mujahideen Khalq Organization. (MKO is a deadly domestic violent organization, with headquarters in France, which seeks to topple the government by force.) Despite all these challenges, the Islamic Republic of Iran has never missed an election during its three decades. It has conducted over thirty elections nationwide. Indeed, a tradition of election orderliness has been established, much like election precincts in the U.S. or boroughs in the U.K. The elections in Iran are organized, monitored and counted by teachers and professionals including civil servants and retirees (again much like the U.S.)

There has not been a tradition of election fraud in Iran. Say what you will about the system of the Islamic Republic, but its elected legislators have impeached ministers and “borked” nominees of several Presidents, including Ahmadinejad. Rubberstamps, they are not. In fact, former President Mohammad Khatami, considered one of the leading reformists in Iran, was elected president by the people, when the interior ministry was run by archconservatives. He won with over 70 percent of the vote, not once, but twice.

When it comes to elections, the real problem in Iran is not fraud but candidates’ access to the ballots (a problem not unique to the country, just ask Ralph Nader or any other third party candidate in the U.S.) It is highly unlikely that there was a huge conspiracy involving tens of thousands of teachers, professionals and civil servants that somehow remained totally hidden and unexposed.

Moreover, while Ahmadinejad belongs to an active political party that has already won several elections since 2003, Mousavi is an independent candidate who emerged on the political scene just three months ago, after a 20-year hiatus. It was clear during the campaign that Ahmadinejad had a nationwide campaign operation. He made over sixty campaign trips throughout Iran in less than twelve weeks, while his opponent campaigned only in the major cities, and lacked a sophisticated campaign apparatus.

It is true that Mousavi has an Azeri background. But the CPO poll mentioned above, and published before the elections, noted that “its survey indicated that only 16 per cent of Azeri Iranians will vote for Mr. Mousavi. By contrast, 31 per cent of the Azeris claim they will vote for Mr. Ahmadinejad.” In the end, according to official results, the election in that region was much closer than the overall result. In fact, Mousavi won narrowly in the West Azerbaijan province but lost the region to Ahmadinejad by a 45 to 52 per cent margin (or 1.5 to 1.8 million votes).

However, the double standard applied by Western news agencies is striking. Richard Nixon trounced George McGovern in his native state of South Dakota in the 1972 elections. Had Al Gore won his home state of Tennessee in 2000, no one would have cared about a Florida recount, nor would there have been a Supreme Court case called Bush v. Gore. If Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards had won the states he was born and raised in (South and North Carolina), President John Kerry would now be serving his second term. But somehow, in Western newsrooms Middle Eastern people choose their candidates not on merit, but on the basis of their “tribe.”

The fact that minor candidates such as Karroubi would garner fewer votes than expected, even in their home regions as critics charge, is not out of the ordinary. Many voters reach the conclusion that they do not want to waste their votes when the contest is perceived to be between two major candidates. Karroubi indeed received far fewer votes this time around than he did in 2005, including in his hometown. Likewise, Ross Perot lost his home state of Texas to Bob Dole of Kansas in 1996, while in 2004, Ralph Nader received one eighth of the votes he had four years earlier.

Some observers note that when the official results were being announced, the margin between the candidates held steady throughout the count. In fact, this is no mystery. Experts say that generally when 3-5 per cent of the votes from a given region are actually counted, there is a 95 per cent confidence level that such result will hold firm. As for the charge that ballots ran out and some people were turned away, it is worth mentioning that voting hours were extended four times in order to allow as many people as possible the opportunity to vote. But even if all the people who did not vote, had actually voted for Mousavi (a virtual impossibility), that would be 6.93 million additional votes, much less than the 11 million vote difference between the top two candidates.

Ahmadinejad is certainly not a sympathetic figure. He is an ideologue, provocative, and sometimes behaving imprudently. But to characterize the struggle in Iran as a battle between democratic forces and a “dictator,” is to exhibit total ignorance of Iran’s internal dynamics, or to deliberately distort them. There is no doubt that there is a significant segment of Iranian society, concentrated around major metropolitan areas, and comprising many young people, that passionately yearns for social freedoms. They are understandably angry because their candidate came up short. But it would be a huge mistake to read this domestic disagreement as an “uprising” against the Islamic Republic, or as a call to embark on a foreign policy that would accommodate the West at the expense of Iran’s nuclear program or its vital interests.

Nations display respect to other nations only when they respect their sovereignty. If any nation, for instance, were to dictate the United States’ economic, foreign or social policies, Americans would be indignant. When France, under President Chirac opposed the American adventure in Iraq in 2003, some U.S. Congressmen renamed a favorite fast food from French Fries to “Freedom Fries.” They made it known that the French were unwelcome in the U.S.

The U.S. has a legacy of interference in Iran’s internal affairs, notably when it toppled the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. This act, of which most Americans are unaware, is ingrained in every Iranian from childhood. It is the main cause of much of their perpetual anger at the U.S. It took 56 years for an American president to acknowledge this illegal act, when Obama did so earlier this month in Cairo.

Therefore, it would be a colossal mistake to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs yet again. President Obama is wise to leave this matter to be resolved by the Iranians themselves. Political expediency by the Republicans or pro-Israel Democrats will be extremely dangerous and will yield serious repercussions. Such reckless conduct by many in the political class and the media appears to be a blatant attempt to demonize Iran and its current leadership, in order to justify any future military attack by Israel if Iran does not give up its nuclear ambition.

President Obama’s declarations in Cairo are now being aptly recalled. Regarding Iran, he said, “I recognize it will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude, and resolve. There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.”

But the first sign of respect is to let the Iranians sort out their differences without any overt –or covert –interference.

(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 Hills Biotechnology of Austria for producing contaminated bird flu vaccine, alleging this was a deliberate act to cause and profit from a pandemic.

Summary of claims and allegations filed with FBI in Austria on June 10, 2009

In her charges, Burgermeister presents evidence of acts of bioterrorism that is in violation of U.S. law by a group operating within the U.S. under the direction of international bankers who control the Federal Reserve, as well as WHO, UN and NATO. This bioterrorism is for the purpose of carrying out a mass genocide against the U.S. population by use of a genetically engineered flu pandemic virus with the intent of causing death. This group has annexed high government offices in the U.S.

Specifically, evidence is presented that the defendants, Barack Obama, President of the U.S, David Nabarro, UN System Coordinator for Influenza, Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, David de Rotschild, banker, David Rockefeller, banker, George Soros, banker, Werner Faymann, Chancellor of Austria, and Alois Stoger, Austrian Health Minister, among others, are part of this international corporate criminal syndicate which has developed, produced, stockpiled and employed biological weapons to eliminate the population of the U.S. and other countries for financial and political gain.

The charges contend that these defendants conspired with each other and others to devise, fund and participate in the final phase of the implementation of a covert international bioweapons program involving the pharmaceutical companies Baxter and Novartis. They did this by bioengineering and then releasing lethal biological agents, specifically the “bird flu” virus and the “swine flu virus” in order to have a pretext to implement a forced mass vaccination program which would be the means of administering a toxic biological agent to cause death and injury to the people of the U.S. This action is in direct violation of the Biological Weapons Anti-terrorism Act.

Burgermeister’s charges include evidence that Baxter AG, Austrian subsidiary of Baxter International, deliberately sent out 72 kilos of live bird flu virus, supplied by the WHO in the winter of 2009 to 16 laboratories in four counties. She claims this evidence offers clear proof that the pharmaceutical companies and international government agencies themselves are actively engaged in producing, developing, manufacturing and distributing biological agents classified as the most deadly bioweapons on earth in order to trigger a pandemic and cause mass death.

In her April charges, she noted that Baxter’s lab in Austria, one of the supposedly most secure biosecurity labs in the world, did not adhere to the most basic and essential steps to keep 72 kilos of a pathogen classified as a bioweapon secure and separate from all other substances under stringent biosecurity level regulations, but it allowed it to be mixed with the ordinary human flu virus and sent from its facilities in Orth in the Donau.

In February, when a staff member at BioTest in the Czech Republic tested the material meant for candidate vaccines on ferrets, the ferrets died. This incident was not followed up by any investigation from the WHO, EU, or Austrian health authorities. There was no investigation of the content of the virus material, and there is no data on the genetic sequence of the virus released.

In answer to parliamentary questions on May 20th, the Austrian Health Minister, Alois Stoger, revealed that the incident had been handled not as a biosecurity lapse, as it should have been, but as an offence against the veterinary code. A veterinary doctor was sent to the lab for a brief inspection.

Burgermeister’s dossier reveals that the release of the virus was to be an essential step for triggering a pandemic that would allow the WHO to declare a Level 6 Pandemic. She lists the laws and decrees that would allow the UN and WHO to take over the United States in the event of pandemic. In addition, legislation requiring compliance with mandatory vaccinations would be put into force in the U.S. under conditions of pandemic declaration.

She charges that the entire “swine flu” pandemic business is premised on a massive lie that there is no natural virus out there that poses a threat to the population. She presents evidence leading to the belief that the bird flu and swine flu viruses have, in fact, been bioengineered in laboratories using funding supplied by the WHO and other government agencies, among others. This “swine flu” is a hybrid of part swine flu, part human flu and part bird flu, something that can only come from laboratories according to many experts.

WHO’s claim that this “swine flu” is spreading and a pandemic must be declared ignores the fundamental causes. The viruses that were released were created and released with the help of WHO, and WHO is overwhelmingly responsible for the pandemic in the first place. In addition, the symptoms of the supposed “swine flu” are indistinguishable from regular flu or from the common cold. The “swine flu” does not cause death anymore often than the regular flu causes death.

Burgermeister notes that the figures for deaths reported for the “swine flu” are inconsistent and there is no clarity as to how the number of “deaths” has been documented.

There is no pandemic potential unless mass vaccinations are carried out to weaponize the flu under the guise of protecting the population. There are reasonable grounds for believing that the mandatory vaccines will be purposely contaminated with diseases that are specifically designed to cause death.

Reference is made to a licensed Novartis bird flu vaccine that killed 21 homeless people in Poland in the summer of 2008 and had as its “primary outcome measure” an “adverse events rate”, thereby meeting the U.S. government’s own definition of a bioweapon (a biological agent designed to cause an adverse events rate, i.e death or injury) with a delivery system (injection).

She alleges that the same complex of international pharmaceutical companies and international government agencies that have developed and released pandemic material have positioned themselves to profit from triggering the pandemic with contracts to supply vaccines. Media controlled by the group that is engineering the “swine flu” agenda is spreading misinformation to lull the people of the U.S. into taking the dangerous vaccine.

The people of the U.S. will suffer substantial and irreparable harm and injury if they are forced to take this unproven vaccine without their consent in accordance with the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, National Emergency Act, National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51, Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20, and the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza.

In the U.S. since 2008, Burgermeister charges that those named in her allegations have implemented new and/or accelerated the implementation of laws and regulations designed to strip the citizens of the U.S. of their lawful constitutional rights to refuse an injection. These people have created or allowed provisions to remain in place that make it a criminal act to refuse to take an injection against pandemic viruses. They have imposed other excessive and cruel penalties such as imprisonment and/or quarantine in FEMA camps while barring the citizens of the U.S. from claiming compensation from injury or death from the forced injections. This is in violation of the laws governing federal corruption and the abuse of office as well as of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Through these actions, the named defendants have laid the groundwork for mass genocide.

Using the “swine flu” as a pretext, the defendants have preplanned the mass murder of the U.S. population by means of forced vaccination. They have installed an extensive network of FEMA concentration camps and identified mass grave sites, and they have been involved in devising and implementing a scheme to hand power over the U.S. to an international crime syndicate that uses the UN and WHO as a front for illegal racketeering influenced organized crime activities, in violation of the laws that govern treason.

She further charges that the complex of pharmaceutical companies consisting of Baxter, Novartis and Sanofi Aventis are part of a foreign-based dual purpose bioweapons program, financed by this international criminal syndicate and designed to implement mass murder to reduce the world’s population by more than 5 billion people in the next ten years. Their plan is to spread terror to justify forcing people to give up their rights, and to force mass quarantine in FEMA camps. The houses, companies and farms and lands of those who are killed will be up for grabs by this syndicate.

By eliminating the population of North America, the international elite gain access to the region’s natural resources such as water and undeveloped oil lands. And by eliminating the U.S. and its democratic constitution by subsuming it under a North American Union, the international crime group will have total control over North America.

Highlights from the complete dossier

The complete dossier of the June 10th action is a 69 page document presenting evidence to substantiate all charges. This includes:

Factual background that delineates time lines and facts that establish probable cause, UN and WHO definitions and roles, and history and incidents from the April, 2009 “swine flu” outbreak.

Evidence the “swine flu” vaccines are defined as bioweapons as delineates in government agencies and regulations classifying and restricting vaccines, and the fear of foreign countries that “swine flu” vaccines will be used for biological warfare.

Scientific evidence the “swine flu” virus is an artificial (genetic) virus.

Scientific evidence the “swine flu” was bioengineered to resemble the Spanish flu virus of 1918 including quotes from Swine Flu 2009 is Weaponized 1918 Spanish Flu by A. True Ott, Ph.D., N.D., and a Science Magazine report from Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger et.al.

The genome sequence of the “swine flu”

Evidence of the deliberate release of the “swine flu” in Mexico

Evidence as to the involvement of President Obama that delineates his trip to Mexico which coincided with the recent “swine flu” outbreak and the death of several officials involved in his trip. Contention is made that the President was never tested for “swine flu” because he had been previously vaccinated.

Evidence as to the role of Baxter and WHO in producing and releasing pandemic virus material in Austria includes a statement from a Baxter official stating the accidentally distributed H5N1 in the Czech Republic was received from a WHO reference center. This includes delineation of evidence and allegations from Burgermeister’s charges filed in April in Austria that are currently under investigation.

Evidence Baxter is an element in a covert bioweapons network

Evidence Baxter has deliberately contaminated vaccine material.

Evidence Novartis is using vaccines as bioweapons

Evidence as to WHO’s role in the bioweapons program

Evidence as to WHO’s manipulation of disease data in order to justify declaring a Pandemic Level 6 in order to seize control of the USA.

Evidence as to the FDA’s role in covering up the bioweapons program

Evidence as to Canada’s National Microbiology Lab’s role in the bioweapons program.

Evidence of the involvement of scientists working for the UK’s NIBSC, and the CDC in engineering the “swine flu”.

Evidence vaccinations caused the Spanish killer flu of 1918 including belief of Dr. Jerry Tennant that the widespread use of aspirin during the winter that followed the end of World War I could have been a key factor contributing to the earlier pandemic by suppressing the immune system and lowering body temperatures, allowing the flu virus to multiply. Tamiflu and Relenza also lower body temperatures, and therefore can also be expected to contribute to the spread of a pandemic.

Evidence as to manipulation of the legal framework to allow mass murder with impunity.

Constitutional issues: the legality vs. illegality of jeopardizing the life, health and public good by mass vaccinations.

The issue of immunity and compensation as evidence of intent to commit a crime.

Evidence as to the existence of an international corporate crime syndicate.

Evidence of the existence of the “Illuminati”.

Evidence as to the depopulation agenda of the Illuminati/Bilderbergs and their involvement in the engineering and release of the artificial “swine flu” virus.

Evidence that weaponized flu was discussed at the annual Bilderberg meeting in Athens from May 14-17, 2009, as part of their agenda of genocide, including a list of attendees who, according to a statement once made by Pierre Trudeau, view themselves as genetically superior to the rest of humanity.

Media is keeping Americans clueless about the threat they are under

Jane Burgermeister is a dual Irish/Austrian who has written for Nature, the British Medical Journal, and American Prospect. She is the European Correspondent of the Renewable Energy World website. She has written extensively about climate change, biotechnology, and the ecology.

In addition to the charges currently under investigation that she filed against Baxter AG and Avir Green Hills Biotechnology in April, she has filed charges against WHO and Baxter among others concerning a case of exploding “swine flu” vials meant for a research lab on a busy IC train in Switzerland.

In her view, control of the media by the ruling elite has allowed the world crime syndicate to further its agenda unabated while the rest of the people remain in the dark about what is really going on. Her charges are an attempt to get around this media control and bring the truth to light.

Her greatest concern is that “in spite of the fact Baxter has been caught red handed nearly triggering pandemic, they are also moving ahead, together with allied pharma companies, with supplying the vaccine for pandemics.” Baxter is hurrying to get this vaccine to market some time in July.

For more information:
http://www.naturalnews.com/025760.html
http://birdflu666.wordpress.com/200…
http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/200906…
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/…

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, left, shares a word with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende during a round table at an EU summit in Brussels.

The European Commission and other EU officials are celebrating after the Prime Minister accepted on Thursday night the creation of European supervisors over national regulators.

Senior EU officials described how in return for a promise that Brussels regulators can not have power to tell the British government when, and by how much, to bail out banks, Mr Brown has given ground on a broad range of other supervisory powers.

"One year ago, if you had asked if was it possible to go so far as to have the Prime Minister of Britain accepting not only common principles but common systems of auditing and binding decisions at the EU level, then I think that no one would have believed it," said a senior official.

Meeting in Brussels, EU leaders are agreed on the need for better oversight of banks and financial institutions to prevent a repeat of last year’s crisis, which has tipped the global and European economy into its worst downturn for 70 years.

The proposals involve creating three pan-European watchdogs next year to ensure countries introduce new rules on supervision. Under the proposals, there is to be a European Banking Authority in London, an Insurance Authority in Frankfurt, and a Securities Authority in Paris. All European leaders agreed today to their creation.

The new bodies will have the authority to ensure European Union market laws are implemented similarly in every country.

There is also to be the establishment of a new European Systemic Risk Board that would monitor the build-up of risks to stability in the region.

According a draft EU summit communiqué, Mr Brown has also lost a battle to keep control of a powerful "Systemic Risk Board" (ESRB) out of the hands of the European Central Bank.

The ESRB will monitor potential threats to financial stability and, where necessary, issue risk warnings and recommendations for action and supervise their implementation. Britain had fought hard to ensure chairmanship of the new body was rotated among all EU countries but appears to have conceded control to eurozone countries.

"The members of the general council of the European Central Bank will elect the chair of the ESRB," the draft communique states.

The Independent

The Desert Horned Viper lurks in sand, only eyes, nostrils and horns above the surface.

Swarms of snakes are attacking people and cattle in southern Iraq as the Euphrates and Tigris rivers dry up and the reptiles lose their natural habitat among the reed beds.

"People are terrified and are leaving their homes," says Jabar Mustafa, a medical administrator, who works in a hospital in the southern province of Dhi Qar. "We knew these snakes before, but now they are coming in huge numbers. They are attacking buffalo and cattle as well as people." Doctors in the area say six people have been killed and 13 poisoned.

In Chabaysh, a town on the Euphrates close to the southern marshland of Hawr al-Hammar, farmers have set up an overnight operations room to prevent the snakes attacking their cattle.

"We have been surprised in recent days by the unprecedented number of snakes that have fled their habitat because of the dryness and heat," Wissam al-Assadi, one of the town’s vets said. "We saw some on roads, near houses and cowsheds. Farmers have come to us for vaccines, but we don’t have any."

The plague of snakes is the latest result of an unprecedented fall in the level of the water in the Euphrates and the Tigris, the two great rivers which for thousands of years have made life possible in the sun-baked plains of Mesopotamia, the very name of which means "between the rivers" in Greek. The rivers that made Iraq’s dry soil so fertile are drying up because the supply of water, which once flowed south into Iraq from Turkey, Syria and Iran, is now held back by dams and used for irrigation. On the Euphrates alone, Turkey has five large dams upriver from Iraq, and Syria has two.

The diversion of water from the rivers has already destroyed a large swathe of Iraqi agriculture and the result of Iraq being starved of water may be one of the world’s greatest natural disasters, akin to the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest. Already the advance of the desert has led to frequent dust storms in Baghdad which close the airport. Yet this dramatic climatic change has attracted little attention outside Iraq, overshadowed by the violence following the US-led invasion in 2003 and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

The collapse in the water levels of the rivers has been swift, the amount of water in the Euphrates falling by three-quarters in less than a decade. In 2000, the flow speed of the water in the river was 950 cubic metres per second, but by this year it had dropped to 230 cubic metres per second.

In the past, Iraq has stored water in lakes behind its own dams, but these reservoirs are now much depleted and can no longer make up the shortfall. The total water reserves behind all Iraqi dams at the beginning of May was only 11 billion cubic metres, compared to over 40 billion three years ago. One of the biggest dams in the country, on the Euphrates at Haditha in western Iraq, close to the Syrian border, held eight billion cubic metres two years ago but now has only two billion.

Iraq has appealed to Turkey to open the sluice gates on its dams. "We need at least 500 cubic metres of water per second from Turkey, or double what we are getting," says Abdul Latif Rashid, the Iraqi Minister of Water Resources. "They promised an extra 130 cubic metres, but this was only for a couple of days and we need it for months." His ministry is doing everything it can, he says, but the most important decisions about the supply of water to Iraq are taken outside the country – in Turkey, Syria and Iran. "In addition there has been a drought for the last four years with less than half the normal rainfall falling," says Mr Rashid.

Large parts of Iraq that were once productive farmland have already turned into arid desert. The Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture says that between 40 and 50 per cent of what was agricultural land in the 1970s is now being hit by desertification.

Drought, war, UN sanctions, lack of investment and the cutting down of trees for firewood have all exacerbated the crisis, but at its heart is the lack of water for irrigation in the Tigris and Euphrates. Farmers across Iraq are being driven from the land. Earlier this month, farmers and fishermen demonstrated in Najaf, a city close to the Euphrates, holding up placards demanding that the Iraqi government insist that foreign countries release more water.

"The farmers have stopped planting and now head to the city for work to earn their daily living until the water comes back," said Ali al-Ghazali, a farmer from the area.

"We pay for our seeds at the time of the harvest, and if we fail to harvest, or the harvest has been ruined, the person who sold us the seeds still wants his money." Najaf province has banned its farmers from growing rice because the crop needs too much water.

The drop in the quantity of water in the rivers has also reduced its quality. The plains of ancient Mesopotamia once produced abundant crops for the ancient Sumerians. From Nineveh in the north to Ur of the Chaldees in the south, the flat landscape of Iraq is dotted with the mounds marking the remains of their cities. There is little rainfall away from the mountains of Kurdistan and the land immediately below them, so agriculture has always depended on irrigation.

But centuries of irrigating the land without draining it properly has led to a build-up of salt in the soil, making much of it infertile. Lack of water in the rivers has speeded up the salinisation, so land in central and southern Iraq, highly productive 30 years ago, has become barren. Even such rainfall as does fall in northern Iraq has been scant in recent years. In February, the Greater Zaab river, one of the main tributaries of the Tigris, which should have been a torrent, was a placid stream occupying less than a quarter of its river bed. The hills overlooking it, which should be green, were a dusty brown.

Experts summoned by the Water Resources Ministry to a three-day conference on the water crisis held in Sulaimaniyah in April described the situation as "a tragedy".

Mohammed Ali Sarham, a water specialist from Diwaniyah in southern Iraq, said: "Things are slipping from our hands: swathes of land are being turned into desert. Farmers are leaving the countryside and heading to the city or nearby areas. We are importing almost all our food, though in the 1950s we were one of the few regional cereal-exporting countries."

The experts recommended that, in addition to Turkey releasing more water, there should be heavy investment to make better use of the waterways such as the Tigris and Euphrates. But this year Mr Rashid says that his budget for this year has been cut in half to $500m (£300m) because of the fall in the price of oil.

The outcome of the agricultural disaster in Iraq is evident in the fruit and vegetable shops in Baghdad. Jassim Mohammed Bahadeel, a grocer in the Karada district, says that once much of what he sold came from farms around the Iraqi capital. "But today, the apples I sell come from America, France and Chile; tomatoes and potatoes from Syria and Jordan; oranges from Egypt and Turkey. Only the dates come from Iraq because they do not need a lot of water."

Rightly feared: Iraq’s deadly reptiles

*Saw-Scaled Viper (Echis carinatus) About 2ft long, this viper is blamed for more deaths than any other species in the world. Its bite causes extensive internal haemorrhaging in its victims. Recognisable by an arrow-shaped marking on the head.

*Desert Horned Viper (Cerastes cerastes) The Desert Horned Viper is typically found in sandy terrain and is a common sight in Iraq’s southern deserts, identified by the bony horns over its eyes. It lurks in sand, only eyes, nostrils and horns above the surface.

*Desert Cobra (Walterinnesia aegyptia) Like most cobras, it is easily adaptable to various habitats. But locations occupied by humans are a particular favourite where shelter and rodents are on offer. Whilst this glossy snake does not actively seek confrontation, it can move with lethal speed when provoked.