Swine Flu

Yeah..SARS...bird flu...big drama there, for no real reason. The death toll never did reach a billion and let's face it people die every year from normal flu. People die walking up stairs, or tripping over!

No doubt in a couple of years there'll be the dreaded cat flu spreading to us poor unsuspecting (!) humans...

 

Yeah, millions, really quickly, faster than any flu has, attacking young healthy people. I did consider factors like better health care. The fact is, we can't make people use thse resources or get vaccinated. And might I remind you that potential means that it has the ability to be deadly if allowed to.

 

While the threat is undoubtedly real, it depresses me that the media have twisted statistics to turn this into another tiger that isn't.

 

Here's an article that puts things in perspective, especially this part regarding the Spanish flu:

"But there's another way to look at those statistics. You might observe, for example, that they mean that even during the worst ravages of the 1918 flu, 97.5 per cent of those infected survived and recovered. Or that 72 per cent of the population -- even in the absence of the sophisticated public health planning and infrastructure that Canada and the U.S. have since built -- was not infected during the pandemic.

So, even if we had a repeat of the 1918 flu, the chances were seven out of 10 that you wouldn't catch it and if you did, the odds were better than nine out of 10 that you'd survive."

http://www.vancouversun.com/Health/much+knowledge+exaggerate+danger+pandemic/1540616/story.html

 

did you know that more people died of the vaccine then those who had the flu, during the last outbreak. they had to stop issuing the vaccine because of it.

i'm never one to follow something that seems to be pushed into the faces of the populace, i always wonder what they trying to hide behind another door.

 

Just passed over thise thread and thought I would input on what I think.

I for one think this "swine flu" is an over reaction. Yes there are some cases where people have been infected and even died, but I don't believe it should be a huge political problem everyone is turrning it into. Did you guys hear what the vice president said? That was an over reaction big time.

 

The fact is that it has resulted in a significant number of deaths, so it has to be considered a dangerous infection. Apart from that, the classification as a pandemic is measured based on two factors:

1. How rapidly is it transmitted from human to human?
2. How widely is it currently distributed.

Once it has been established as dangerous, AND its distribution classifies it as pandemic or likely to become pandemics, programs have to be put in place to try to halt te propagation.

Whether or not it is lethal if properly diagnosed and treated is not unimportant, but it is less important than halting the propagation. Not everyone who gets infected WILL get adequate treatment, even in te most developed countries.

You can become cynical about the fuss that is made over it, but that fuss is exactly what will most likely make the threat fizzle.

"Yeah, but last time it turned out to be nothing."

Exactly. And that is why.

 

possibly so, but too fast are the public led to inject yet another 'vaccine' into the bloodstream of future generations. i'll pass, take my chances. people die from flues, it happens, i read that turberculois(butchered spelling) killed 20 people last year, its a more serious illness but i bet not many knew about that. 20 deaths, not a peep.

but i respect anyones opinion about what they believe the danger to be. i just don't like when things line up like a domino, years in the intelligence field made me suspicious of such things.

thanks for all the reads, interesting thread this was.

CoS

 

it's a difficult path to walk for the WHO, between causing unnecesary panic and getting necessary information out. Nothing came of bird flu and SARS, but maybe that's because the professionals did precisely what they were supposed to. If we weren't saying how overblown it was, we could very easily be saying why no one warned us.

Still, media reaction always ranges from being creative with the truth to outright lying.

 

Castles, no one is pushing a vaccine. There is no vaccine for this strain, nor is there likely to be before this crisi has passed.

However, vaccines have come along way even in the last couple decades. The newer influenza vaccines are very safe, to the point that for most people, the risk of NOT taking the vaccine is higher.

 

If authorities want pandemics to cure, then let them concentrate on real killers of millions EVERY year...things like starvation in third world countries, alcohol related traffic deaths in the US, smoking related deaths or unnecessary deaths due to absence of minimal standards of healthcare...things like antibiotics or simple, life-saving surgeries. CDC estimates that there are over 75,000 AAD (Alcohol Attributal Deaths) in the US alone EVERY year! These real threats to society deserve the world-wide hysteria that is being wasted on doomsday scenarios about Swine flu. Even cleanup of landmines left behind in countries like Vietnam and Afghanistan would prevent killing and maiming of countless victims.

As far as the fuss over Swine Flu, most people DO survive. And those who survive have developed antibodies against that flu strain that will minimize risks to future generations. It's actually good for society to build such collective immunity. That's exactly how we eradicated small pox. Everybody got immunizations which built our collective immune systems until there were no more avenues for the disease to spread. To me, Swine Flu and Global Warming are equally ridiculous wastes of money, angst and public alarm.

 

its new yet, Cog's

ifyou look into the history of the last flu in the 70's i believe. they even had commericals using scare tactics to get the vaccine. sort of what they do now with the yearly flu shot which for what i've seen doesn't work.

I think we are just on opposite poles when it comes to this discussion. i've just seen too many things steering the public through the media and in agreement with NaCl about money and attention better spent elsewhere.

Still i respect your point of view, Cogs and others who believe, mine is just a view also, but one i firmly believe in.

CoS

 

...so it's completely different to small pox. That was erradicated through a sustained and co-ordinated effort of immunisation. Having a resistance to a strain of flu after contracting it is nothing like controlled vaccinationl

 

The origin of H1N1 flu (swine flu)

 

NaCl. the importance of the scourges you point out do not mean a viral outbreak is trivial. There is no crisis quota.

And again - pandemic refers a propagation model. It does not directly correlate to the overall risk. It only indicates the likelihood of a particular infectious agent spreading to a major portion of the global population, irrespective of how much danger that infectious agent poses to each infected individual.

 

On the contrary, the human immune system identifies each virus and develops a "memory" for it at the same time as in defeats the pathogen. Immunizations work the same way . . . they actually inject a dead version of a virus or viruses which your body then "learns" to defeat. The next time you are exposed to the real thing, your immunological memory nips it in the bud, often without you even knowing, because it doesn't lose time identifying the disease and "designing" the appropriate "B" and "T" cells to kill the infecting organism or mutated cell. The same lymphocytes kill cancerous cells too.

Immunity that results from exposure to the live or dead virus lasts many years, although, there comes a time when some people must be re-vaccinated as reinforcement for the immune system. The problem with "flu" shots is that the inert virus-cocktail of viral variants used in the inoculation is comprised of "last year's" flu and does not protect against any new, or some mutated, versions. Although, they do a good job protecting vulnerable people against those older versions that sometimes make a repeat visit to society. But, in many cases, each year's flu season seems to introduce a new variety of flu, so the immunization may not provide much protection unless the new version is a close variant to the flu shot versions.

 

My biology teacher started comparing it to the Bubonic Plague today.

 

Cog, human resources are not infinite. I resent the waste of attention, money and distraction caused when neo-political organizations like the WHO cause limited resources to be squandered on issues like this current hysteria. As I said before, this whole public panic reminds me of the politically-driven angst over global warming. Much ado about nothing.

Please excuse me for now, I must go eat some more bacon . . . gotta keep my immunity up! LOL

 

to me, this is just one more proof that we get what we deserve...

yeah, i know it's a bit ragged in meter here 'n there, but it's the message that matters here, not poetic perfection...

 

Meh. I eat meat. I'll take the consequences.

 

The Swine Flu is being politically milked for all it's worth.
I'm sorry about the people who have passed, but I'm a teenager. Obviously invincible and convinced that it'll never happen to me.

Nevertheless, I am keeping up with the news, and some of you are sorely mistaken.
YOU DO NOT GET THE SWINE FLU FROM EATING PORK.
The Swine Flu began in pigs, yes, but it was not transferred to humans because we eat them. It is because the virus mutates and is freaking airbourne!

A carnivore is no more likely to contract the swine flu than a vegetarian.
So eat all the meat you want!
...If you can live with eating filthy, pesticide-ridden, unhealthy, terrorized animals. If you can live with having someone's blood on your hands. Read up! I'm by no means 'attacking' anyone; it just astounds me that we will kill and eat and kill and eat mindlessly, and the large majority of people have no idea what they're eating. For instance, milk does contain some of the pus from utters handled roughly by machinery and traces of rocket fuel in it. The FDA has said a certain limit is 'legal,' but do you know that most companies have at least double the limit of this fuel in their products?
(Mercurial is a vegetarian. She is currently trying to overcome her dairy addiction, still, however.)

I'll continue to take my vitamins, wash my hands, and cough into my sleeve instead of my hands just like I have done ritually for my life. But the Swine Flu is of no personal concern to me. *shrug*

 

You're focusing only on the biological mechanism. There is a world of difference between people randomly catching flu and surviving it to a population being systematically vaccinated to eliminate the risk.

 

We should have known:

 

Mercurial, I don't think anyone here believes that eating pork has anything to do with catching swine flu (at least I hope not). I'm pretty sure NaCl and others were only making funny with the talk of eating bacon for immunity, etc.

 

When the vegetables become sentient and seek their revenge on you, you'll be sorry you weren't one of us carnivorous types

Remember, vegetables have feelings too! Think of that next time you take a bite of your oh-so-gag-worthy veggie burger and realize you are eating the terrorized, pesticide-ridden, rocket-fuel-addled results of years of...veggicide. Oh yes, I said. Genocide, but for plants. Hang your head in shame.