Healthcare Reform Also Requires Food System Reform

Health care reform demands U.S. food policy and agricultural reform
By Ezili Danto
September 16, 2009

"Lance Armstrong serves on the President's Cancer Panel, which released a report this year concluding that processed forms of corn and soybeans - heavily subsidized commodity crops- are known contributors to obesity and chronic diseases, including cancer. The upcoming reauthorization of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act (the Farm Bill) provides an opportunity that must not be missed to strongly increase support for fruit and vegetable farmers."

There is a connection between farm subsidies, health, and food security -- in both the United States and in countries like Haiti. The US government's food policies and profit priorities harm the planet, as well as the people who eat processed foods, which are full of contaminants such as pesticides, additives, and bacteria from processing. This non-green diet makes us sick and the chronic diseases it causes drive up health care spending.

"That's why our success in bringing health care costs under control ultimately depends on whether Washington can summon the political will to take on and reform a second, even more powerful industry: the food industry." (Big Food vs. Big Insurance.)

Too many people have had family members die of cancer or know someone very close who died of cancer. It's an unspeakable experience. It certainly makes your faith in scientific advancement falter.

Here's a case in point. For many Haitians living abroad it's extremely ironic to see that the generation of our grandparents and great grandparents actually lived longer than our own parents and relatives who immigrated, work and live in the US all their lives. It happened and is happening in this writer's family.

Both my grandmothers who lived their entire lives in a rural town in Southern Haiti and many of their generation survived or are surviving into and past their 80s. My grandmothers lived longer in Haiti than my mother who immigrated to America. So many folks in America are dying young from cancer, diabetes, and/or heart disease. Part of it is the American diet.

In great grandma's Haitian countryside meat was a luxury indulged in just occasionally and dairy was not a daily staple. The old Haitian diet was organic and there was no US government "trying to help the defense industry move over to a civilian use of their nitrate explosives which became fertilizer, and their nerve gas, which became herbicides and pesticides."

That's why taking on the medical cost of health care is one thing, but there is something seriously wrong with the Western food diet, not to mention the US domestic and international harm done by farm subsidies that force US farmers to grow commodity crops such as rice, soy, corn, sugar and tobacco, and use toxic fertilizer that harms the environment, seeps into the river system and kills the fish.

In the article The Carbon Trade , Janet Gilles makes the point, inter alia, that:

"the government pays to pollute the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The United Nations Environmental Group says nitrate pollution is the greatest threat to our fisheries worldwide.

In exchange for cheap corn fed beef, fish, chicken, and pork, which have little nutritional value as the animals are no longer getting the rich assortment of greens from their natural diet, we are killing the wild fish.

Right now, farmers are paid for the number of acres under cultivation for “commodity crops”, which are crops that go to a manufacturer, such as Archer Daniels Midlands, before they go to the table.

Real foods, fruits and vegetables and nuts, are not subsidized. In fact, if a farmer getting his $200,000 a year for growing soy or corn decides to grow a few acres of food for the table (specialty foods in the legislation), say he decides to grow some tomatoes, he loses his entire $200K.

No more crop rotation. Only industrial agriculture gets the subsidy." (The Carbon Trade by Janet Gilles, Sept 11, 2009.)

US farm subsidies don't just hurt US citizens, our children, US food security and the environment, but of course, also other nations these toxic foods are shipped to, like Haiti.

US subsidized rice is inferior to the organically-grown Haitian rice and is actually killing Haitians in Haiti. Here's an example:

In Haiti, the little food that is given to prisoners at the National Penitentiary is U.S.-processed rice. The subsidized US rice that is flooded into the Haitian market destroyed much of traditional Haitian farm life which was the soul and lifeblood of our grandmamas' Haiti. Free trade with its sweatshop factory jobs and subsidized rice pushed farmers off their land and into Haiti's capital in search for factory jobs in the 70s and 80s, eventually creating slums, like Site Soley, in Port-au-Prince when the factories closed shop and left Haiti in the late 1980s.

Sweatshop jobs at free trade wages created the slum of Site Soley that 9,000 UN soldiers are now in Haiti to "stabilize." (See: UN troops to remain in crisis-ridden Haiti.) Today's indefinitely warehoused UN prisoners at Haiti's national penitentiary mostly come from Site Soley, practically all of them have never been convicted of any crime. But, in addition to the inhumane conditions in the overcrowded prison, the abuse and the infectious diseases that incubate in crowded prisons, many are dying of Beriberi because of the lack of nutrition in the US rice they are fed.

"Beri-beri appeared to be devastating the overcrowded prison population... Packed together in squalid conditions and provided meager, irregular meals, Haitian prisoners were fed a diet of rice that ...had lost its natural B1 vitamin/thiamin content, leading to the ultimately harmful (Beri-beri) effects. All the Haitian rice production, which Haitians traditionally grew and consumed as a staple, was a healthy, whole-grain, vitamin B-packed, and native crop. But, due to U.S. policies since the early 1980's preferring U.S. rice producers over Haitians' own sustainable agriculture, tariffs were forced to drop, and U.S. rice flooded the Haitian market.” (HAITI: Mysterious Prison Ailment Traced to U.S. Rice.)

Sustainable US health care reform also demands agricultural and farm policy (subsidy) reform and food system reforms. But so far, food system reform has not figured in the national conversation about health care reform. It doesn't make sense for the US to promote and subsidize universal health care while subsidizing the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup that causes diabetes and heart diseases or nitrate-glazed foods and nutrition-free rice that causes beri-beri. US agricultural and food system policies should encourage food whose nutritional value promotes health rather than disease.

US policies should support wholesome domestic agriculture in the US, in Haiti, and elsewhere. Green food that is produced in an environmentally sound manner – that adds nutrients to the soil, that mitigates climate change, that uses less nonrenewable resources, that gives us better air to breathe and water to drink -- helps the planet.

In this interconnected world that we live in, US subsidies to US farmers for growing organic foods, fruits and vegetables would reduce health care spending, benefit the environment, and improve people's health, while also benefiting the long term food security interests of both the US and storm-ravaged Haiti.

Ezili Dantò/HLLN

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

— Albert Einstein

HAITI: Mysterious Prison Ailment Traced to U.S. Rice

STOP THE FARM BILL

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“Our communities are flooded with cheap, unhealthy foods that ultimately are helping drive healthcare costs through the roof,” said Dr. David Wallinga, director of the Food and Health Program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

Seeking Balance in U.S. Farm and Food Policy

Over 300 Doctors, Health Professionals Call For Healthy Farm Bill

Author's Bio: Human Rights Lawyer, Ezili Danto/Marguerite Laurent is dedicated to correcting the media lies and colonial narratives about Haiti. A writer, performance poet and lawyer, Ezili Danto is founder of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, runs the Ezili Danto website, listserve, eyewitness project, FreeHaitiMovement and the on-line journal, Haitian Perspectives.

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Forwarded by Ezili's Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
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Please donate to support this Ezili's HLLN work CLICK HERE.

H1N1: Preparations for the Militarization of Public Health (updated 02.01.2010)

The H1N1 virus is not as deadly as the common cold. The panic and fear being generated by the government, the media and unscrupulous doctors at the CDC stands to enrich the powerful pharmaceuticals who will make gianormous profits from any mandated vaccination. Preparations for forced inoculations in the event of a pandemic and the militarization of public health are being made.

There are many more deaths from the common cold then there have been from this virus. According to the CDC, "The 15 leading causes of death in the US for 2006 include influenza and pneumonia.." And taking this vaccine could have unintended consequences. "Overuse of vaccines could result in human calamity."

Disease researchers have begun modeling how a future H1N1-09 swine-flu outbreak would spread throughout the world and have come up with some troubling scenarios. Infectious disease experts are beginning to describe modern efforts to quell seasonal and epidemic influenza with vaccines and anti-viral drugs using wording like "potentially dangerous," "worrisome," and "may do more harm than good."

The origins of H1N1
H1N1 did not originate in Mexico has reported in the mainstream media. A Wisconsin teenager was the first known person to get the "swine flu."

Funny isn't it what you can learn from watching the Colbert Report. Some news never get truthful coverage on the MSM. "Laurie Garrett who wrote a cover story for Newsweek magazine entitled "Swine Flu: How the H1N1 Virus Got Its Start," warns that the bird virus in Indonesia is 850 times as bad as the swine flu..."

According to Rense.com. This "pandemic" got its start from a *common* flu shot innoculation.

Both the WHO and the CDC announced in April, that the influenza virus responsible for the "pandemic" is a "novel triple reassortant virus" that combines H1N1 (swine) virus with H5N1 (avian) virus and Human flu virus, (H3N2). Press releases sent to the major media outlets of the United States, Canada, and the U.K. further declared that such a "triple virus" had never been seen before, that it was "Novel" (i.e. completely new.) http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/background.htm

This information is patently and absolutely FALSE. According to the CDC's own magazine, "Emerging Infectious Diseases", outbreaks of a "novel reassortant triple virus" have been occurring since 2005. These outbreaks were just as significant as the California and Mexican cases, but for some reason, it was not reported in the mainstream media.

In the September, 2008 edition of the CDC's own EID Journal, the story of the 2005 diagnosis and patient history of the same Swine/Bird/Human virus now identified as the "2009 Novel Swine Flu" is well documented.


Three short weeks after receiving a standard flu shot, a 17 year old boy in Wisconsin comes down with influenza symptoms. Cultures taken from the boy, however, show that he is not suffering from a normal flu virus, but rather has a "novel triple virus" consisting of Avian, Swine and Human viruses.

According to CNN preparations for FORCED INOCULATIONS are being made.

A nationwide vaccination program is already planned for the Fall.

The pharmaceutical industry is slated to deliver 160 million vaccine doses by the Fall, enough doses to vaccinate more than half of America's population.

The Pentagon is already planning on the number of troops to be deployed,. with a view to supporting a mass vaccination program.

It is worth noting that this involvement of the military is not being decided by the President, but by the Secretary of Defense, which suggests that the Pentagon is, in a key issue of of national interest, overriding the President and Commander in Chief. The US Congress has not been consulted on the issue.

This decision to mobilise the Armed Forces in the vaccination campaign is taken in anticipation of a national emergency. Although no national emergency has been called, the presumption is that a national public health emergency will occur, using the WHO Level 6 Pandemic as a pretext and a justification.

Other countries, including Canada, the UK and France may follow suit, calling upon their Armed Forces to play a role in support of the H1N1 vaccination program.

Related posts:

Is There a Eugenics Experiment Aimed a Depopulating Haiti?

Is the WHO vaccination of millions in Haiti a Trojan Horse?

More backgound and sources:

H1N1 Pandemic: Pentagon Planning Deployment of Troops in Support of Nationwide Vaccination

- by Michel Chossudovsky - 2009-07-31

The Militarization of public health in the case of emergency is now official

The Worldwide H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic.

The WHO plans to vaccinate more than half the World's population

by Global Research

Swine Flu: How the H1N1 Virus Got Its Start | Newsweek Health
The cause was a type of H1N1 that was a close match to the Wisconsin strain, ... farms were being subjected to influenza infections from farm poultry, www.newsweek.com/id/195692

Ott - Evidence Of Actual Origins Of The H1N1 Pandemic
It is common practice that modern CAFO swine farms have strict sanitation ... In 2005, a Wisconsin boy is diagnosed with the same triple virus now declared www.rense.com/general86/whk.htm

Overuse of Vaccines, Anti-Flu Drugs May Result in Human Calamity
by Bill Sardi

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The following post (with updates) is at OpenSalon and contains additional info:
____________________________________________________________________

OCTOBER 26, 2009 5:03PM

H1N1: CDC, MSM, Obama are SO SCARED for US

Over at WIRED, they seem to have disabled the comments on the article "An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All." The writer Amy Wallace hinges her pro-vaccines argument on the "herd immunity" concept. From the title, one gathers that some members of the "herd" (parents) have decided in a "panic" to decline vaccination for themselves or other "herd" members (children), therefore they bear the responsibility for risking the health of the entire animal kingdom [sic].

The concept of "herd immunity" sounds to me like a pharmaceutical industry term that is very similar to "dead peasant" insurance (Does your Boss Want You Dead?)--both terms are equally offensive and hint at a hidden agenda.

According to the CDC, "herd immunity" is "A concept of protecting a community against certain diseases by having a high percentage of the community's population immunized... even if a few members of the community are unable to be immunized, the entire community will be indirectly protected because the disease has little opportunity for an outbreak. However, with a low percentage of population immunity, the disease would have great opportunity for an outbreak."

While parents may take exception to being the animals in this metaphor, it is an effective propoganda tool that relies on guilting people into not being the "freeloaders" who allow other members of the "herd" to bear the "risk" of vaccination. If the concept is to be believed--one should get vaccinated for the common good.

One could argue that this "herd immunity" concept is "Pseudo-science [which] preys on well-intentioned people who, motivated by love for their kids, become vulnerable to one of the world’s oldest professions. Enter the snake-oil salesman." This is Ms. Wallaces charge against those who believe that vaccines damage children's health.

Ms. Wallace cautions that "For starters, the human brain has a natural tendency to pattern-match — to ignore the old dictum “correlation does not imply causation” and stubbornly persist in associating proximate phenomena." So according to Wallace, to be reasoned and logical, one should demand peer-reviewed studies and scientific data to substantiate any concept that perports to have scientific value. Does the concept of "herd immunity" have a scientific basis? One is left to wonder.

Wallace singles out two Senators for criticism for buying the "snake-oil" of "pseudo-science": Chris Dodd of CT and John Kerry of MA are "currying favor" with their constituents by linking autism to vaccines, says Wallace. Wallace is also critical of Robert Kennedy, who she says "authored a deeply flawed 2005 Rolling Stone piece called “Deadly Immunity.” In it, he accused the government of protecting drug companies from litigation by concealing evidence that mercury in vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids."

Two activist moms, whose kids have medical conditions that both attribute to vaccines are Jenny McCarthy and Barbara Loe Fisher. Jenny McCarty, Wallace points out, is an actress and former Playboy centerfold who is apt to go off into "stream-of-consciousness rants" and is "the anti-vaccine movement’s most popular pitchman and prettiest face." Wallace grudgingly acknowledges Barbara Loe Fisher as "the movement’s brain" and "a skilled debate" against "well informed scientists," but then goes on to call her a liar. Paul Offit (he may seem "brash") says that Fisher "makes him particularly nuts, as in “You just want to scream.” The reason? “She lies,” he says flatly." Wallace explains that that Fisher maintains that draconian laws are forcing people to get vaccinated. "That isn’t true — the swine flu vaccine, like other flu vaccines, will be administered on a voluntary basis. But no matter: Fisher’s argument turns vaccines from a public health issue into one of personal choice, an unwritten bit of the Bill of Rights" writes Wallace.

Up until recently, vaccines may not have been mandated, but they were required by most school systems in order for children to attend school. Parents should be made aware that they can refuse to comply. For the record, in most cases a parent (and sometimes a student) can sign a form stating that they are against vaccination on conscience or on religious grounds.

There is a steady progression towards instituting mandates. In 2007, Texas became the first state to "require that young girls be vaccinated against some sexually transmitted viruses." This year state legislatures are debating whether to mandate the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine for girls. Also this year, Massachusets' legislature has voted to fine, jail or forceably quarantine anyone who refuses vaccination in the event of a "public health emergency." There is a concern that this reaction by the Massachusetts legislature to the "pandemic" scare of H1N1 may be replicated by other state legislatures.

As an aside, schools are now equipped with a cornocopia of pharmaceuticals for the attending students for prescribed medical conditions. While many children with serious medical conditions do need their meds--it is worthwhile to note that more and more children, particularly black kids, are being diagnosed with "disruptive behavior" or ADHD and prescribed what are described as "behavioral drugs" or "psychiatric drugs." Do pharmaceutical companies benefit from this increase in diagnosed cases of "behavioral" problems? Do these drug companies have lucrative contracts with the public school systems? Are these things related? Makes you think.

As of last week the CDC is attributing 1000 deaths to H1N1, but can this figure be trusted given that the CDC lies? An article written in 2005, which has been substantiated by the British Medical Journal titled "Annual Flu Deaths: The Big Lie" takes issue with the CDCs numbers, flatly stating that the CDC's own findings in its National Vital Statistics Reports, are contradict the 63,000 flu deaths reported by the CDC. The real number of flu deaths is under 1000.

Reportedly, on Friday, President Barack Obama declared a “national emergency with respect to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.” Skeptics may well wonder at the hasty nature of the President's actions. Why do 1000 deaths from the H1N1 a cause for panic?

Is this H1N1 outbreak really a "pandemic?" By way of contrast, over 200,000 Americans die every year due to errors by doctors and hospitals. The CDC should be equally panicked about this issue of doctor and hospital errors which causes so many fatalities.

Just today CNN reported about an unfortunate woman who is now a quadraplegic due to a "miscommunication" at the hospital. She informed the hospital of her kidney stone, but they released her without taking care of it. The error lead to complications that caused the amputation of both of her arms and legs. Here is a link to the article: "Kids care for mom without arms, legs" By Ashley Fantz, CNN



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Update 11.17.2009 -- two interesting articles that were brought to my attention...
FDA Approved H1N1 Vaccines Contain Ingredients Known to Cause Cancer and Death
"Most health experts will agree that vaccine reactions can occur. It is estimated that roughly 1 in every million people will react to their vaccine. Even then, health officials maintain that it is usually a simple case of inflammation at the injection site and/or a slight fever. On a rare occasion, anaphylactic shock may occur due to the patient reacting to a substance that they are allergic to. However, the FDA recently approved four H1N1 vaccines that not only contain very questionable ingredients, but some of those ingredients have even been proven to cause cancer and death."
More.

Widespread rumors of Ukraine bioterrorism

Source: Ukraineplague.blogspot.com
UPDATE 11/10/09 3:00pm est – Widespread rumors of Ukraine bioterrorism

This is not H1N1 2009 pandemic swine flu, also called California flu in Ukraine. People everywhere continue to refer to it as H1N1, but according to both WHO and the Ukraine government they are different diseases. The Ukraine government still reports only a handful of deaths from H1N1 California (”swine”) flu, with just one lab-confirmed death. Meanwhile both the government and WHO have been tracking the exponential increased of illnesses from severe acute respiratory illness, which have symptoms very different from H1N1 flu.

It is expected that within the next day or so WHO will release the gene sequence from tissue samples. Meanwhile speculation is rampant about what the ‘mystery disease’ actually is. Opinions range from a mutated, recombined, or man-made H1N1 to weaponized pneumonic plague or bird flu. At this stage there is no publicly available information on the cause. However, many observers say that it cannot possibly be H1N1 unless it is a different and much more virulent strain of it.

Background
On October 29 people in Kiev and cities in western Ukraine reported that light planes and helicopters had been spraying something to protect people against swine flu. Business owners were told in advance to keep doors and windows shut and to stay inside. There were many reports to local newspapers and radio stations, but local officials would not let them be published.

Within hours people were feeling ill, some reporting red rashes on their arms. Within two days a dozen people had died of severe acute respiratory illness (reported by WHO October 30 on their website), some with their lungs full of blood, fevers up to 39C-40C, and lung temperatures as high as 55C. This severe hemorrhagic pneumonia has similar symptoms to the 1918 Spanish flu, pneumonic plague, pulmonary anthrax, SARS and avian flu (H5N1).
More

UPDATE 02.01.2010

Why Pig Flu Didn't Fly: the full story
By Niko Kyriakou (about the author)

On Tuesday, the Council of Europe launched an investigation into whether the World Health Organization "faked" the swine flu pandemic to boost profits for vaccine manufacturers. The inquiry, held in Strasbourg, France, vindicates a worldwide movement of insiders, experts, and elected officials who accuse the United Nations organization of misleading the world into buying millions of unnecessary vaccines.
 
"With SARS, with avian flu, always the predictions are wrong...Why don't we learn from history?" Keil said. "It [swine flu] produced a lot of turmoil in the pubic and was completely exaggerated in contrast with all the really important matters we have to deal with in public health."

READ MORE

IMF vs The Bank of the South - IMF to Clean Up Its Act?

At the Group of 20 summit in London last month, President Obama pledged to boost IMF funding to "help countries weather the global economic crisis." On Thursday, May 21st, the Senate approved the IMF funding as a part of the $91 billion funding bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This seems appropriate somehow, since international banking institutions like the IMF have laid waste to the economies of poor countries of the global south.
The IMF, World Bank and International Development Bank (IDB) have similar stated missions: "working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world." However, a 2000 internal World Bank report concluded that poor countries are better off without structural adjustment and that some of their policies do not work. Almost a decade later no significant reforms to these antiquated policies have been made, not at the World Bank, not at the IMF nor at the IDB.
Some of the general issues that are of great concern to countries who have been burned by these institutions are outlined below. Additionally, the human rights abuses perpetrated against Haiti by the IDB are also explained. Unfortunately, when these human rights abuses were happening in Haiti, calls for accountability fell on Congress' deaf ears.
Is the global economic crisis enough to spur legislators in Washington to look into past abuses in order to avoid future missteps by these antiquated institutions? Not likely. Washington's modus operandi is to *move on* from crisis to crisis with no accountability for past abuses. When a crisis results from bad policies, the mantra from Washington is predictable; *we must look forward, and not backward*.
While it's clear that international banking institutions, sorely need to have "pre-conditions" for any new funding, what is not clear is whether the Congress has the will to impose or enforce any existing or new standards. Particularly, if it would require reform of the existing policies of these institutions.
The world banking system has virtually collapsed from greed and corruption, yet aside from show hearings, no real reform or accountability for Wall Street and banks has taken place in Congress. Also, to date the particularly predatory, criminal practices of the IMF, World Bank and IDB have not come under any substantive scrutiny from the mainstream media.
For instance, the IDB is accused of human rights violations in Haiti. An expose in 2008 by the RFK Center's Human Rights Director Monika Kalra Varma and the Director of Zamni Lasante, Loune Viaud sites internal emails at the IDB:

"In 2001, US officials threatened to use their influence to stop previously-approved IDB funding unless Haiti's majority political party submitted to political demands to accept a particular apportionment of seats in a Haitian electoral oversight body. Soon after, at the behest of the US, instead of disbursing the loans as planned, the IDB and its members took the unprecedented step of implicitly adding conditions to require political action by Haiti before the funds would be released. These actions violated the IDB's own charter, which strictly prohibits the bank and its members from interfering in the internal political affairs of member states."
... The results have been devastating. The town of Port-de-Paix, selected 10 years ago by the IDB as the first project site due to its particularly deplorable water situation, has yet to see the implementation of any water projects. A study conducted by Zanmi Lasante, Partners In Health, the Robert F Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, and New York University's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice found no functioning public water sources in the city.
Researchers found three-quarters of water sources in the city contained high levels of coliform bacteria, a key indicator of contamination with faecal matter. A frightening 15% of households reported symptoms likely related to typhoid.

If the US and other member states join the IDB and take on the responsibility to improve conditions in the Americas, they cannot then use their membership to undermine the basic rights of the people they claim to serve simply to advance their own political agenda.
The IDB and the US government must take responsibility for their actions and implement the necessary transparency mechanisms to ensure that such abuses do not recur. Congressional inquiries and annual reviews of the Treasury by the Government Accountability Office could provide the oversight necessary to prevent future political misuse of the IDB and its funds. The people of Haiti, as well as US taxpayers, deserve a system that makes public the status of IDB loans and projects in Haiti in order to ensure that the US and IDB member states uphold their commitments to development and human rights."

The IMF is often criticized for undermining the basic rights of the people they claim to serve.The onerous pre-conditions they impose on poor countries for *development* loans, more often than not perpetuate poverty, underdevelopment and exploitation.

"Some IMF conditions that countries have been forced to comply with can only be described as harsh and undemocratic. Often the devaluation of a nation’s currency has been a precondition for IMF assistance. In order to qualify for IMF loans, some nations have also been forced to lower tariffs, restrict governmental subsidies and spending, balance budgets, as well as sell-off state institutions to foreign interests. In some cases, the IMF has even prohibited wage increases as some countries have tried to do so, in order to compensate for a sharp rise in food prices and other commodities. Environmental and labor rights have also taken a hit as a result of IMF policies. Under the guise of helping economic distraught countries, the IMF is really bailing out foreign investors and multinational corporations. They have further fueled chaos and instability in some of the poorest regions in the world."

-- The IMF: Raping The World, One Poor Nation at a Time

Admittedly, these international banking institutions will most likely never be held accountable for their greed and inhumanity. We have only to look at the bailout of the Wall Street speculators for confirmation of this fact.
A most significant and positive development on the global stage has been the founding of The Bank of the South by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and his allies in May 2007. The bank is intended as an alternative to the IMF and The World Bank and intends to remedy what some perceive as "a double standard which allows richer countries to use fiscal expansion in the face of recession while poorer nations are forced into stricter economic restraints."
In fact, there has been a significant decrease in "Latin America's dependence on the IMF between 2005 and 2008, with outstanding loans falling from 80% of the IMF's $81bn loan portfolio, to 1% of the IMF's $17bn of outstanding loans.

"In April [2007], Venezuela announced that it was paying off all its outstanding debt with the World Bank—totaling $3.3 billion and dating from before President Hugo Chavez took office in (1999)—five years ahead of schedule. Venezuelan Minister of Finance Rodrigo Cabezas said that because of this, “Venezuela is free ... and thank God, neither today’s Venezuelans nor children yet to be born will owe one single cent to those organizations.” Later that month, in the wake of the Wolfowitz scandal, President Chavez declared that Venezuela was withdrawing its membership in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. "

The Bank of the South has been heralded as a step in the formation of a unified Latin America. As Nadia Martinez of TomPaine.com puts it: Adios, World Bank! Also, the formation of this alternative bank could be effective in pushing the IMF to reform its ways. Free market competition for development funding from The Bank of The South, is more likely than any proposed Congressional oversight to motivate reform at the IMF, World Bank and IDB. Hopefully, this will mean that poor and developing countries can say, adios/goodbye to the antiquated politicies of the World Bank, IMF and IDB.
Interestingly, an article on the IMF website from February 2009 claims that it is focused on "...Bank Clean Up." Of course, they mean the clean up of banks "damaged" by the global economic crisis, but they should examine the IMF banking system itself for reform and "clean up."

Is There a Eugenics Experiment Aimed a Depopulating Haiti?

History shows that the AIDs bred in indigenous Africans, did not stay in Africa. So if this eugenics experiment is aimed at depolulating Haiti, is it also aimed at depopulating the rest of the world?

The headline says "Haiti vaccines target 1 million children, women." I believe them. Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Haiti are in the process of vaccinating 1 million Haitians with an oral polio vaccine. They plan to inoculate half of the Haitian population. That's 5.6 million people. A mass inoculation of that size should be suspect. Below are a couple of examples of similar programs carried out by international health officials and their "unintended consequences."

A similar oral polio vaccine was culpable in an outbreak of polio in Nigeria. The AP reported that "A polio outbreak in Nigeria was caused by the vaccine designed to stop it, international health officials say, leaving at least 69 children paralyzed."

There is also a link between the polio vaccine and AIDS. The AIDS scourge has decimated millions in Africa and around the world. The epicenter of the disease was the Belgian Congo. There is documentary evidence that: "American and Belgian missionaries in the Belgian colonies of the Congo widely distributed polio vaccine to a million children in a bid to wipe out the crippling disease; however, evidence now suggests that Dr. Koprowski's oral vaccine may have been tainted, and that the first instances of the disease may be linked to these inoculations."

Haitians are beholden to the foreign donors and NGOs that ply their trade in Haiti. These organizations are depended upon to provide food, medicine, school, clothing and other services. So, the inoculations began last friday and the "Children in neatly pressed uniforms lined up at schools and marketplaces in the Cite Soleil slum to receive injections, drops and tablets."

The stated purpose of the vaccinations which are a "...joint effort by Haitian health authorities, the United Nations Children's Fund, the Pan-American Health Organization and others is ...eliminating deadly diseases."

This experiment unfolds with encouraging words from Bill Clinton. Clinton arrived with a delegation which "...called for more foreign aid and urged Haiti's weak central government to take charge of its own development."

Bill Clinton did the obligatory photo op in the poor community of Citey Soleil where the vaccinations are being carried out.

Bill Clinton's handlers carefully structured his visit so as not to appear political. When "An estimated 6,000 marchers showed up at Port-au-Prince's international airport, wearing President Barack Obama T-shirts and waving signs welcoming Clinton and asking him to return Aristide once again... they arrived long after Clinton and his delegation had left." However, the foreign delegation was unable to avoid the "Thousands ..[that] appeared outside the National Palace in the evening where Clinton, Ban and others in the delegation were attending a working dinner with Preval."

''Bill Clinton, we want Aristide,'' the crowd shouted. ``Ban Ki-moon give us Aristide.''

Clinton simply waved to the crowd before entering the palace while Ban turned to the outside gathering."

Is the Polio vaccine safe?
Polio vaccinations occurring decades ago continue to effect the current US population. A 2001 SF Chronicle story reported that "A growing number of medical researchers fear that a monkey virus [SV40] that contaminated polio vaccine given to tens of millions of Americans in the 1950s and '60s may be causing rare human cancers."

The "Vaccine producers, health officials and most scientists believe that it is safe. Manufacturers say they take elaborate steps to test their vaccine for SV40, and the government says it recently tested vaccine samples back to 1972 and found no trace of SV40. Yet a "growing number of medical researchers fear that a monkey virus that contaminated polio vaccine given to tens of millions of Americans in the 1950s and '60s may be causing rare human cancers."

These rare cancers are Mesothelioma, Brain cancers, Bone cancers, and other cancers, including pituitary and thyroid tumors and lymphomas.

More info here.