Do you have an uneasy sense that someone’s trying to pull the wool over your eyes? Does the hullabaloo over a looming swine flu pandemic seem a bit overblown? The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the pandemic alert level (a 6-point scale) to 4 and is considering moving it to 5 today, with only 7 confirmed deaths worldwide! Keep in mind that seasonal flu kills 40,000 every year in the US alone, so why the sudden grave concern?
I don’t claim to understand all the factors at play here, but one thing I do know: I am FAR more concerned that my government will use manufactured fear somehow to my detriment — likely another lost civil liberty or two and large profits or other benefits to a chosen few — than I am about contracting the demon swine flu.
A few facts to bolster your immune-to-bullshit system:
–Thus far, only 97 cases of so-called swine flu have been definitively identified worldwide, mostly in Mexico (26 confirmed, 7 deaths) and the U.S. (64 confirmed, no deaths). About 1600 suspected cases, including 159 deaths, are reported in Mexico. Sad as this is, it does not add up to a pandemic swine flu outbreak. We love to make this shit up for some reason. Remember the one million Americans who were supposed to die of swine flu in 1976? WHO has forgotten about them, I suppose, because they refused to become cooperative statistics.
–The virus at issue has nothing to do with swine. In fact, it hasn’t been seen in a single animal. And you can’t possibly get it from eating pork which I see as an unfortunate truth, because a good reason to stop eating pork would be a welcome silver lining to this “worldwide health crisis.”
–No existing vaccines can prevent this new flu strain. So no matter what you hear – even if it comes from your doctor – don’t get a regular flu shot. They rarely work against seasonal flu and certainly can’t offer protection from a never-before-seen strain.
–Speaking of this strain, it doesn’t seem to have come on naturally. According to the World Health Organization, this particular strain has never before been seen in pigs or people. And according to Reuters, the strain is a ‘genetic mix’ of swine, avian and human flu. Was it created in a lab? We don’t know yet, and I doubt we’ll find out anytime soon.
–The drug companies are getting excited, and that’s never a good thing. According to the Associated Press at least one financial analyst estimates up to $388 million worth of Tamiflu sales in the near future – and that’s without a pandemic outbreak. Imagine the payday when everyone begins to flip out!
–Let’s not forget that Tamiflu comes with its own problems, including side effects like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, dizziness, fatigue, cough — the very symptoms it purports to relieve! But, oh well, at least the drug company benefits financially from Tamiflu sales. No one benefits if we don’t take it, which makes the whole pandemic thing seem like a wasted opportunity.
–Vaccines for this flu strain won’t have to jump through all those annoying hurdles like clinical trials for safety and effectiveness (which, if you know anything about the FDA, are usually a waste of time anyway). That won’t, however, stop the government from mandating the vaccine for all of us – a very likely scenario. And if the vaccines are actually harmful — killing people, for example, which they certainly will be — the vaccine makers will be immune from lawsuits. D’ya suppose they could bottle up some of that fail-safe immunity for the rest of us?
“Swine flu” is endemic to a sick system created by pigs. Your best defense against swine flu – your only real defense in any manufactured health crisis situation – is a bullshit-proof immune system.
I heard on the news this morning that they were watching the border more closely for people coming over who might seem to be ill.
My little “bullshit antennae” went up with that one!
Really? This is your reaction? Good job on doing your homework regarding the number of infections and deaths, but that is clearly only a fraction of the story. So far, swine flu hasn’t been particularly deadly; however, it has been capable of doing what seasonal and avian flu can’t, which is spread itself across the globe. Should swine flu continue to spread, then the probability of it mixing with a more deadly avian version (which is 2-4 times more deadly than seasonal flu) could be very bad. In other words, the virus could combine to become both more virulent AND more deadly. Since these recombinations are a hallmark of the strain that swine and avian flu are composed of (Type A), it is a real possibility. Public awareness helps to curb the spread by making people more conscious about their social and travel habits when they are exhibiting symptoms. Maybe you should rethink your dismissive reaction? If you want to be critical of some system here, then you should take a close look at global farming practices and ask how they might be contributing to ‘viral chatter’ between species.
I think Jason is making a great point. Even though there will always be extremists using any excuse they can to feed upon the paranoia of the public, we can’t ignore the facts. Watching, reading and listening to average, everyday newscasts, I have not felt that they have been crying “the sky is falling”. I also, read that the reason the alert was raised to the level it is was to cut the internal red tape to let antiviral medicines to be released from government stockpiles and shipped around the country just in case. Seems like a good move to me. One child has died in Texas already. And don’t forget that it was not that long ago when over a million people around the world died in 1968 from the Hong Kong flu.
It may not turn into a pandemic, but who wants to really take that chance if there were actions that could be taken to curb it’s spread? The potential, as Jason outlined, is certainly there. I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s not a biological terrorism tactic and we know that viruses are evolving and mutating every day that may have the potential to become a pandemic. The girl scout in me says, “be prepared”.
As far as I have read, people who have died have done so from pneumonia, not from influenza. The talking heads today have said that antibiotics are needed to prevent bacterial complications from infection.
In reading about swine PRRS, it is both a viral and mycoplasma “spectrum type” respiratory disease. Mycoplasma Hyopneumoniae affects the cillia inside the lungs of pigs. Tetracycline drugs may treat the mycoplasma aspect of the illness.
While you can’t get H1N1 virus from eating pork, the large pork producers may be culpable in the spread of this virus (illness) through large scale production on their farms, including the US owned farm outside Mexico City, near La-Gloria. Early reports from Mexico blame flies from the lagoons on its spread to the outlying city and state that those living in La-Gloria spread it to the capital Mexico City where many go to work.
I cannot support this kind of business either inside or outside the US and I certainly don’t want one of their horrendous lagoons in my state or near my backyard. Because of this, I will no longer be eating pork or pork products if I have a choice, and I do.
God had really good reasons why he told the Israelites not to eat pork. I believe it was not so much that the meat was not good for eating, in spite of the risk from undercooked meat, but that the handling of this animal requires an unacceptable risk to health for which there is no need.
Additionally, olive leaf is the broadest spectrum medicinal know to man and is effective as an anti-viral, anti-microbial and anti-fungal. I use this for protection from all of it. God Bless.
The comments I have read here have an aura of green, and an odor of veganism. I would think that those among you that want to “Save the Earth” would be happy as Clams. A good pandemic could bring the human population into equilibrium with the “innocent critters” and save the rain forests. What could be better?
“Old White Guy”
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Spam alert on the fellow with all the consonants in his web addresses he wants us to follow. Not a a chance bub. Being as the original post was about a different kind of Virus perhaps that’s appropriate. I’d advise any others not to actually click on those links even from curiosity.
I pity you, Old White BOY. You’ve not got the decency or maturity to care even about the generation currently suffering from your anti-Earth attitude, even your own children, should you have chosen to breed. Generations to come? Who knows? People who make money from destroying the future and present lives of others, the ones your Hate-filled mini rant seems to hold up as “superior” to those of us who actually give a thought about anything beyond personal greed, are too morally, socially and quite probably Mentally retarded to see anybody else’s point of view anyway and you really make yourselves inferior to just about anybody on the planet. Too bad you lived long enough to grow so old, White BOY, but never grew up.
Your system of greed and self imposed imprisonment in a life which prevents you from sharing in the joy of love for your neighbors and even, yes, your own family, the ones you’re dooming to a life of abject poverty on a poisoned earth and your grandchildren, and ours, will inherit an even worse fate, that systemic attitude of hatred is collapsing. Your aptly named Old BOY network is responsible for that collapse and perhaps you should really consider repentance some time BEFORE you die.
I mean, you wouldn’t want to take your final few minutes, perhaps hours, regretting that all your grandchildren will be cursing your name and their shared bloodline with yours.