Swine Flu Info Blog

4 comments:

Above Ground Pool Cleaners said...

This isn't the first time the public has been warned about swine flu. On February 5, 1976, an Army recruit told his drill instructor at Fort Dix that he felt tired and weak but not sick enough to see military medics or skip a big training hike. Within 24 hours, 19-year-old Pvt. David was dead, killed by an influenza not seen since the plague of 1918, which took 500,000 American lives and 20 million worldwide.
Two weeks after the recruit's death, health officials disclosed to America that something called "swine flu" had killed Lewis and hospitalized four of his fellow soldiers at the Army base in Burlington County.
President Gerald Ford orders a nationwide vaccination program to prevent a swine-flu epidemic. Ford was acting on the advice of medical experts, who believed they were dealing with a virus potentially as deadly as the one that caused the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic. Ford administration attempted to use the infection of soldiers at Fort Dix as a pretext for a mass vaccination of the entire country.
In the end, 40 million Americans were inoculated, and there was no epidemic. Later, a technically advanced examination of the virus revealed that it was nowhere near as deadly as the 1918 influenza virus. However, the swine flu pandemic itself never materialized and more people died from the swine flu vaccine and not from the swine flu.
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Within a few months after the massive campaign, claims totaling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the vaccine. The vaccine was also blamed for 25 deaths. Several hundred people developed crippling Guillain-Barré Syndrome after they were injected with the swine flu vaccine. Even healthy 20-year-olds ended up as paraplegics.

June 11, 2009 at 6:53 AM

SweetPea said...

And can you imagine the public outrage if the "Swine Flu" killed only 40,000 and the media didn't cover it?
Panic and terror are never effective ways of dealing with anything in life.
But this virus has the potential to wreak havoc. It's a novel virus. This is a pandemic. Its unpredictable and always at least 1 step ahead of all the experts.
That "Potential" is greater than what many think, and honestly is being more downplayed in the media and by governments than being over hyped.
As with any pandemic (a new virus) this thing will be around for 1-2 years. During a pandemic, the virus comes in waves. This is the first wave. In some peoples minds it could be bad, and in others not such a big deal. The second wave will be worse, because the virus mutates "becomes smarter, deadlier".
The reason this novel virus SHOULD NOT be compared to the regular flu is because it IS NOT the regular flu at all.
This flu has the genetic components of both the avian flu and the swine flu. As humans, we do not have any immunity to the swine or avian flu. The only use the human flu component of this virus has is to easily transmit the virus from human to human.
During the regular flu season, the elderly and young, and people with underlying medical conditions are harder hit, with the occasional death from people who just don't tolerate the flu well.
This flu has the potential to target anyone, on top of those elderly, children and the unhealthy. It is also more widespread.
With this flu being novel and the lack of a vaccine, the majority of the population has not been vaccinated for this virus, like they do/have with the regular flu.
Vaccines not only help those vaccinated, but help people who aren't vaccinated by suppressing the spread of it.
With no vaccine coming for months, and the fact that it will mutate once again before the second wave, making a new vaccine necessary- the negative potential is quite large.
This thing could pass, go dormant, or explode into something crazy. Im not an alarmist. But, do not underestimate it. Definitely don't panic. Be prepared and treat it as serious as it is. Use proper hygiene and stay on alert.
And if it dies down here soon, don't think for one second its gone. Because the second wave will come.
Regardless of what people say to avoid panic, and avoid comparison- look into the 1918 spanish flu epidemic.
This flu is mimicking it almost identically.It was also a mixture of avian and swine flu. It caused an alert, but went unnoticed for the most part in many places in the first wave. People thought it was gone when it died down. The second wave hit and the result was catastrophic.
These days we have better medical care, preparedness, and technology. But, we also have easier transportation. Which means the virus travels easier faster. Which it has already done. It is everywhere now.
What happens next nobody knows. That's where the problem lies with the media. Nobody really knows what the hell is going on or what will happen. People are looking for answers and there honestly aren't any.
For now though, the anti virals we have left and we are using are treating it effectively. But people need to realize that the potential for large number of deaths does exist.
And if "small statistical" numbers of deaths are the result to huge casualties, anyone who loses just 1 loved one, that loss is 1 too many. So regardless of what the death rates will close out as, this thing still sucks.

June 11, 2009 at 7:57 AM

SmoothOp said...

I don't think that would cause a panic personally. I think that would be a big relief to the world. Many of the people who are downplaying this aren't familiar with the true gravity of the situation. These Flu pandemics are extremely serious. Look back into history and you'll see Flu pandemics killing thousands and thousands of people and that was before commercial air travel (Spanish flu in 1918 killed twice as many people as World War I).
Today my wife took her Mother to Kaiser Perm here in Colorado and all the staff (medical staff and not) are wearing masks. The facility is the size of a city hospital with a giant internal pharmacy, a bunch of specialists with their own offices/nurses. They don't do that for normal flu...
I think all these people who are saying go about life as usual and ignore the "hype" need to educate themselves on a little history and also check out the WHO and CDC websites. Is this the end of the world? No of course not. Should we take precautions to prevent a deadly illness from spreading? Absolutely! Better safe than sorry IMO especially for those with young kids.

June 11, 2009 at 1:39 PM

Sarah M said...

Well said.
I have friends telling me not to travel to Turkey in July, in case I catch swine flu.
When Victoria Beckham gets a new boob job, the media will write about that for weeks instead, don't worry.

June 11, 2009 at 2:14 PM