"Fear and Flu". Good article about bird flu

[Bluzmann57]

This article appeared a couple of days ago in our local "alternative" paper. It is written by A.J. Wacaser and in it, he says basically that avian flu is all bullshit. It seems that Rumsfeld owns stock in the company which manufactures Tamiflu (imagine that) and has gotten very rich in a short time off of selling fear. Read this article at www.rcreader.com. It's worth your time. Right on the front page. click on the story.
As an addendum to this post, I know a Vietnamese guy whojust came back from his homeland and is perfectly healthy. I also know a guy who journeys over to Thailand every year and he's healthy too. Now I'm not saying that this avian flu is nothing, but it certainly seems to be overblown.

[pretzel4gore]

1. strange, the very smoothly coordinated pigmedia promotion of bird flu

very strange how the media, including locally, all seem to know exactly how to drum the beat on the bird flu promo run...why? there was a story today about 'freezer trucks' being readied for the endless corpses, i presume, from the presumed epidemic(!?)
too bad more light not shone on the men who are making this speculative news story a top item....while bush inc gets away with murder

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Ok here are two things about Bird Flu

1.- The first warnings from the WHO to National Health Care organizations came out in 1995.. the first deaths occured in '98. Those who know a little about epidiology and virology know this is not a phantom created by the bushies. It is one exploited by the Bushes

2.- The US is not ready and will not be raedy if this hits this year. We have less than 1% of doses for the population, Tamiflu is made by Roche and though Gilead came up wtth the process first, Gilead has not been able to get it back from Roche, which is the company producing it

Now there is more, Malasya announced today they are going to make tamiflu (methinks they are breaking patent) and even the chinese who cannot be trusted, are about to break pattents.

Now educate yourself... HSN-1 is real, and it is mutating... learn to distinghish bewteen the fear mongering and the real deal ok.

[MissMarple]

4. OK

That is a quite lucid analysis. Thanks. :)

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Yuo welcome

I was one of them medics on the front lines in '95 gonig, ok, this is nice, so what exactly do you people want me to do with this? Yes it was that cryptic... look we think there is something going on in SE Asia, so watch out fer weird flu symptoms.

Ok...

So this is why I have been following this story ever since.

;-)

[neverforget]

6. No it's not!!!! Rummy owns stock in Tamiflu therefore H5N1 is FAKE!

Just forget about all those other governments and WHO doctors! They are all conspirators for Rummy to make money and Bush to rule with fear! It's all conspiracy! Nature has nothing to do with it! :sarcasm:

Nad, you are so correct. Biology doesn't give a shit about politics. H5N1 may or may not become a pandemic but it is better to be safe than sorry.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. I was about to go

wtf, until I saw the :sarcasm: thanks for the laugh

[arikara]

3. Good article, thanks

They love hyping the fear. Instead of sensibly using resources to prepare for this type of event, they'd rather incite terra.

[Radio_Lady]

7. You might be interested in this article from Scientific American.

and the discussion we held about it the other night.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000DCB5A-9CC7-134E-9CC783414B7F0000&pageNumber=1&catID=2

[FlemingsGhost]

9. SARS was gonna kill us all, too.

Is it the entire species that obsessively fears for their health, or is it just Americans, I wonder. Personally, I think our culture is addicted to fear and victimhood.

Go ahead folks ... wring your hands. Worry yourselves sick. Maybe you'll actually die of stress, worry and fright before the pandemic can get you.

Mark Twain said it best:

"I'm an old man, and I seen a whole lot of troubles ... many of which never happened."

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. The reason why SARS was stopped

was people who SHOULD take it seriously did.

Look I follow these stories not through CNN (the fear factor) but the World Heatlh Organization

I am also very aware that they will worst case anything in their white papers... but go ahead and think that SARS was not as bad as they made it sound, just beccaus all the isolation procedures and tracking of patient zero worked.

[FlemingsGhost]

11. If the herd needs thinning, nature will surely find a way.

All of our planning and attempts at controlling the uncontrollable, be damned.

One thing that I can control, however, is how I live my life ... now.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. That you can, and I live my life now as well

I an not running around like a ninny going the sky is falling... but I am also not going to refuse to believe the science is solid on this, for it is.

part of my routine is checking the quake kit, which incidentally will work in this case too... do I think we will have a killer quake in my life time? I hope not, but I have done what I can as a responsible person

I am also not going to say bu humbug it wasn't as bad because the science worked... sorry... this is the kind of thinking though that leads to people not evacuating potential disaster zones, because it never happens... then you have your 100 year flood, as they say.

I just don't engage in magical thinking... or denial or am a member of the flat earth society.

[FlemingsGhost]

15. Our best chance for prevention is quite possibly long past

Of course a catatrophic pandemic is coming. If this isn't the one, the one after that just might succeed. We, as a species, are "incubating" these menaces via industry, population growth, lifestyle choices and ironically, the very science we develop to "defeat" health-related threats.

I am not in denial of the "problem." I simply don't see it as a problem, at all. I see it as the very nature of all things. Who's to say nature isn't fighting a "disease" ... us!

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Nobody is taling of prevention for this falls under the rubric of

emergin disease...

But of lowering the extent and effect of it... hence why Tami Flu and OTHER anti virals can be very valuable...

As well as standard isolation techniques. Best case, this will never mutate, worst cse even teh WHO underestmianted it and we will see a Black Death level of deaths.

[Odin2005]

13. What a load of crap.

Anyone with a good knoledge of evolutionary biology knows that it not a matter of if, but a matter of when this virus evolves the abillity to go person to person. The makers of Tamiflu make be getting rich off the fear, but that doesn't mean the danger from bird flu is all a lie. By what I've heard is that this virus has all it takes to cause a repeat of 1918, it is only a matter of time before chance gets all the right mutations in a single virus.

[SaveElmer]

14. That is absolutely not true...

There are many reputable virologists, immunologist and others in the medical profession who do not believe this virus will mutate. In fact, even those sounding the warning admit the chance is fairly slight. It is becuase of the possibility of a pandemic that they are being over cautious.

The conditions that led to the pandemic of 1918 do not exist now. There is good evidence that that pandemic grew from the squalid trenches of WWI, where ill men were stacked like cordwood for months...and those that did not die were shipped home to spread it here. Even the crowded cities of Asia are not anywhere near to the conditions that existed then.

And of course in 1918 they did not have the rapid transfer of information allowing for quick isolation of the virus, and did not have the antibiotics necessary to keep the ill from developing secondary infections...which is likely what killed a good chunk of those that succumbed.

Most flu viruses in the non-human animal population do not become easy to pass person to person. Caution is warranted, but alarmism and unfounded statements are not.