Swine Flu Anyone?

[Lin Robinson]

All schools in Mexico just shut down until May 6 at the soonest.  My nieghbor's kids just got sent home from college, etc.


One thing to keep in perspective here:   how many of these deaths were the super-poor, the aged and infirm and immune-compromised?

What I'd REALLY like to know is, how many died in hospitals?   My guess is damn few.   Flu is not menigitis or something.   You generally get over it with some doctor's care.   But if you're in shaky health, malnourished and living in some sewer somewhere.

So it's really possible in third world shitholes (and much of Mexico City certainly qualifies)  to have lots of people dying but the chance of a well-fed, healthy tourist getting sick, much less dying, is remote.

Maybe.

[Richard]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090430/ap_on_he_me/eu_swine_flu_drastic_measures "Hey, I got an idea," a journalist,"how about we get everyone crazy with this swine flu thing. We'll drive 'em crazy with stories about people dying and pig farmers and washing their hands, and right before we have a mass panic, lets pull back and start criticizing them for going crazy!"

[Lin Robinson]

Remember what I was saying about Koop's pronouncment about public health being falling dominos of BS?

Contrast and compare to this international expert saying that shutting down transportation won't slow down spread of an infectious disease.  Presumbably he's worried about the virus being spread on the internet.

Best precaution is not to allow pigs to fly or have unprotected sex with them.

[Richard]

It is certainly counterintuitive to say that closing the boards won't help! I haven't see or read one expert explaining why it wouldn't help, but they are just saying it won't. It seems like more people coming into the country with the flu would make more people IN the country have the flu. They are the experts I guess, and I really guess and hope they know something we don't about it spreading. As a general rule I would say having unprotected sex with pigs is always a no no. The think they are saying to prevent the spread is just about as effective: wash your hands! When I see a doctor on CNN wearing a chemical protection suit (in a Texas hospital) to treat infected patients, I'm guessing he thinks washing his hands isn't the only or even way to protect himself.

Why don't they just start the newscast with something like, "Well we have this virus, and we are pretty sure a lot of people are going to get it, and die from it, and we really don't think there is a lot we can do about it, so good luck." They get on tv and scare the crap out of you for what! If the best I can do is wash my hands, why tell me? Couldn't they just run a promo for good health and hand washing and leave out all the other stuff about people dying? I think we'd all sleep a little better. They keep saying that they can give you these antivirals if you get it, but you have to get those drugs within the first 24 hours of showing symptoms. It takes 4 days to get a conformation from the CDC that you even have the virus! I guess if we wait until it's wide spread, then we'll give out the antivirals to everyone, make the virus immune, and create a super bug!

[jpd]

Richard-  combining that double-negative with the typo in the middle made for one heck of a sentence!   I thought at first you were going to say the boards were being shut down to to prevent the spread of the flu!

"It is certainly counterintuitive to say that closing the boards won't help!"

[Richard]

HA! Sorry about that I wrote 5 things for that sentence then erased! The word should be borders, as you noted the typo. I'm really sorry, my daughter was all over and crying when I was trying to get that message out. Closing the board to stop the spread of flu would have been funny.

[Richard]

Not to change the subject from stupid mistake, but does this article suggest that the WHO are acting as the flu's PR group? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/un_who_swine_flu Also I'm not changing the name of this f&#king thread!

[Father Luke]

Check this out:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters

- -
Okay,
Father Luke

[Richard]

I was reading the article, but I was also eating a ham sandwich, so I'll come back to 

I saw Meet the Press this morning, and Besser (acting director of the CDC) was asked why so many more people died in Mexico from the flu than in the US. He basically said that the flu is much more wide spread there than they first thought. I think what he was hinting at was that this flu maybe more typical than what they first thought. It might be that so many people got it that the numbers of people who died are a normal statistical fact. Depending on how many people have it, it could be as deadly or even less deadly than the regular flu. If Mexico has had a wide spread outbreak, than how many people worldwide have  had this? Could people in Germany already have had this flu and recovered from it without anyone knowing? We may see that. I think they need to come up with another and better way of monitoring where these viruses are entering the population.

[banana_the_poet]

In every breath as always
potential for disaster.

Life in its strongest form
constantly mutating
altering its rDNA
by self replicating.
And we go on oblivious
to the battle always raging,
fought by our immune system
and its constant macrophaging.

But even a biovirus
cannot hide from fame
The WHO
just picks on one
to give a snappy name.
Pronounces it 'pandemic'
stirs up panic and fear.
To create a celebrity virus,
that we can't 'get out of here'.

So we are petri-fied
with face masks that don't work
mistrusting our immune response
to the viruses that lurk.
And mass hysteria thrives
on the mis-truths being stated
fed and kept alive
and self replicated.


In other words Swine flu is NOT from pigs.  It contains some ( a very tiny) amount of pig Dna in it.  This probably got incorporated into the flu virus when it infected someone with a transplanted organ of pig origin (this is quite common especially in heart valve repairs).  The flu is simply a normal to mild flu, with some pig Dna combined.  It is highly likely that the pigs in Mexico caught it from humans and not the other way around.

This flu is actually less contagious than the usual flu viruses that are always busy wafting around.

It is however extremely useful to the UK and US governments to have people panicking about this non threat instead of getting very angry at the financial chaos looming in both countries.

It also gives lots of scope for banning group activities and buying up of expensive anti-virals which will be very welcome by large pharmaceuticals who are known for their generosity towards those who forward their marketing aims.

Trust me - I'm a poet. 

[Richard]

Bravo Banana! Bravo!

[JoneaAbrsham]

Publish author. He outlined something that I think is simple to ignore. In a town of more than 20 thousand individuals physicians still were able to id odd styles of sickness and then track it to a new malware. In that regard, the physicians should be praised. The wellness performs and physicians are jeopardizing their life to deal with the tired. I'm sure we'll see a few experiences about this wellness employee functioned this way, and this one did this, but a LOT of individuals are getting care. I think it is simple sometimes to just say, well the whole nation is like that. I know with the US, over the last 6 or 7 decades a worldview has been arriving from out nation that many many of our individuals do not consent with

[alicerite]

Truthful truth-  my coworker whom rests 5 1/2' from myself returns to work Tuesday soon after shelling out the past week in Mexico.  Tuesday could be "go to work covered in synthetic day" for my situation....