Flu Pandemic!? Yeah, it happens every year. So what?

[Kablooie]

I don't believe any of this flu pandemic crap! Sure we have flu viruses that spread all over the world regularly. Only once in 1918 has it been a major problem and that was before most modern medicine was developed.

This is just another administration scare tactic to funnel the news away from their political troubles and regain control of the populace.

You Du'ers should stop buying in to Bush's crap about how serious it is.

It's just the FLU for godsake!

[NorCalDem]

1. It could be a horrible pandemic though

but mostly it's just hot-air. I agree with you! Way too much is being made of this "Avian Flu Scare."

Calm down people, we'll start panicking when we're all getting sick and dying. Until then, let me know when this winters actual Flu epidemic hits (you know, the one we have EVERY year) and I'll go get the vaccine for that.

[Kablooie]

4. It's not the plague - it's not smallpox it's

THE FLU!!!!

Brrrr. Horrible.


Yeah sure.

[Canadian Socialist]

20. I wouldn't be so cavalier, if I were you.

I had the flu last year. First time ever. And I'm pushing 50. My lungs were so full of fluid, I could hardly breathe. I can well imagine how this would kill someone who had a bad heart, immune-deficiency, or some other type of circulatory problem. It frightened me a great deal. I could hardly go for a walk, I was so short of breath.

[phantom power]

2. It's not Bush I'd listen to, it's the World Health Organization.

They've been monitoring this threat since long before BushCo woke up to the problem.

Modern medicine doesn't really have a whole lot to offer. The only reason that every year doesn't look like 1918 is that normal yearly flus are either something our immune systems have seen before, or something very similar. The avian flu that WHO is monitoring is neither.

[Kablooie]

5. Yep, they monitor it every year.

But the warnings they are giving are exactly the same as EVERY other year. Sometimes it's lesser and sometimes stronger but it's always 'the flu'.

It's bushco that turns 'the flu' into 'WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE FROM THE FLU!!!!'

[Rick Myers]

3. But... It's BIRD FLU!!!! BIRD FLU, I tell you!!! OMG!!!!

BIRD FLU!!! Stop kissing chickens!!!! BIRD FLU!!!!! Gimme a break, not a single pretty white girl has gone missing for 2 days!!!! BIRD FLU!!!

[baldingrockwarlord]

6. I agree

Remember last winter and the flu shot shortage debacle? Even the year before that they were creating panic over flu shots. I have never had a flu shot and do not plan on getting one. Let's wait until there is actually a pandemic, as opposed to a pandemic of fear, which they are successfully achieving now.

[Dem Agog]

7. What the Fear Mongers (Here and in the Media) Aren't Telling You...

... Is that in order for this to make the jump from person to person and be a viable pandemic it will have to mutate to the point where it doesn't kill its host with regularity.

To mutate and jump and become transmittable and a viable form of a "pandemic" a virus must weaken to the point that it does not kill its host. Otherwise it won't get much of a chance to be transmitted.

The more this or any other virus spreads, the more it must adapt, and weaken to encourage its spread.

Yes, it could be a "pandemic" but this is pure fearmongering and people here are buying into it in my opinion. This is the SARS of 2005. This is the Sheeple here at DU and elsewhere being led around by the nose by BushCo and others...

Wake up sheeple!!! You're being played AGAIN!

[Kablooie]

9. If it's a pandemic, so what?

IT'S JUST THE FLU!

[Dem Agog]

11. To be certain...

But the flu can kill... but if it becomes a "pandemic" then, by definition, I believe it has to weaken to the point that it can't kill, and therefore can spread. Pure logic.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

29. Your "pure logic" is no match for scientific fact.

The avian flu that mutated to the 1918 influenza virus did not become impotent. It killed people. Millions of people, including many many Americans.

The other flus that jumped species did not become impotent. They killed people.

The HIV virus that jumped from monkeys to humans via the bush meat trade did not become impotent. Millions have died.

[Dem Agog]

30. HIV and Flu aren't comparable...

sorry, but you lost me there... HIV doesn't kill its host quick enough not to spread. You missed my point. One of the reasons ebola isn't more prevalent than it already is is that it kills people too quickly to transmit as a pandemic...

Drugs and medicine were wildly different in 1918... I didn't say the flu wouldn't kill anyone. I said the fear mongering over a virus that will have to weaken substantially in order to get spread to enough people is ridiculous.

But if you prefer to fear monger, and compare the flu to HIV, well have at it. That's your perogative. As for me, I'm not going to buy into fear mongering like the rest of the sheeple out there.

[SidDithers]

34. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing...

as you and the OP are so aptly demonstrating in this thread.

Sid

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SidDithers]

36. What, because I question your science, I'm letting the "terrarists" win?..

That sounds suspiciously like "you're with us or against us".

You said "But the flu can kill... but if it becomes a "pandemic" then, by definition, I believe it has to weaken to the point that it can't kill, and therefore can spread. Pure logic." (emphasis added)

Yet you provide nothing to back up your "belief".

Virii mutate. H5N1 is an RNA virus, which means it mutates easily. Because it hasn't been seen in the humans, there is little natural immunity in the human population. If, and it's a very big if, it mutates to become easily transmitted to and between humans, then we'll have a big problem. And in these days of rapid international travel, and tightly clustered populations, if the means of transmission is simple, a virus can be highly pathogenic, and still spread quickly, .

I'm not running around screaming, but I'm not hiding my head in the sand either.

Oh, and regarding the Bushies fearmongering? I'm Canadian. I've got no dog in that fight. There is a big, wide world outside your borders. You should try taking a look at it sometime.

Sid

[kestrel91316]

39. Some of us use fact-based thinking, and some of us use faith-based

thinking. OP is allergic to facts.

H5N1 is a novel pair of antigens, but this has no meaning for people who have no interest in the existence of antigens, or any knowledge of how the immune system functions.

Sigh.

[malaise]

8. That's my take too

but I'm not sure that they aren't people who could make it happen.

[flying_wahini]

10. ahem,,,,,, it is not "just the flu" anymore than the 1918

flu pandemic just killed a few people. at least 20% of All
people worldwide got it, as many as 50 MILLION people died from it,
and not just the sick and elderly....
"young and healthy" people died from it within 24 hours....
not enough time for someone to go to see a MD for it.....
and get any meds in your system.
The World Health Organization has warned us for several years of an outbreak and sooner or later, they will be right.
It scares me and it should you, too.

[Kablooie]

12. But if BUSH says we should be scared ...

I know that the threat is the same as every other year.

I refuse to be led by that flat headed sphincter drooler.

[jbonkowski]

15. It's not the same

This is a far deadlier version of the flu than the usual kind. In its current form it kills 55% of the people who get it (a small number so far). It is considered inevitable by experts at WHO that it will mutate into an easily transmittable form.

Look, if this summer someone had starting complaining that a hurricane would destroy New Orleans, it could have been dismissed in the same way. You could have said "They've been saying that for 30 years." And you would have been right. And it still would have been a problem that needed attention.

Also, it's not like the White House is bringing this up out of nowhere. Many European countries are way ahead of the US in planning for this, which is the part that scares me. We are probably the last first world country to make plans.

[SaveElmer]

21. It is not considered ineviatable....

That THIS strain will mutate. In fact the odds are against it. It has been in the wild for 8 years and may not be able to make this mutation. In any case, it is currently genetically engineered to infect birds, which is why it is so virulent to humans. In order to effectively spread and become a pandemic it will have to weaken in order to spread. If it kills its host it has less chance to spread. This is part of the reason the truly awful viruses (Ebola etc) have not spread, because they have not mutated to a less deadly form.

As to the deaths in 1918, there are numerous factors that do not hold true now. First handwashing was not condsidered as important. No vaccines were available, and it is very likely many if not most patients were killed by bacterial infections secondary to the virus. Of course, there were no anti-biotics then. And then you have to look at the conditions. WWI was still going on. We were shipping literally thousands of ill soldiers overseas, and thousands of ill soldiers were coming back. Eurpope was decimated. Many were sick and malnourished when the virus hit.

So while some comparisons to the current situation are valid, many are not....this information also needs to be included in the discussion

[flying_wahini]

33. in fact, more American soldiers died from the Spanish flu than of

their war injuries in WWI,
and like I said earlier, part of the problem was that it killed
SO quickly; many healthy, young victims died within hours.
HIV has "only" killed 25 million people since it's discovery.
Records show that there may have been as many as 100 million people
that died. and the problem with the theory of vaccines saving you is,they often don't. Viruses can mutate very quickly, and the flu you are vaccinated for in Nov. may not be the flu you get in Spring.
Yes, we have Tamiflu (sp) but that won't keep you from getting it.
I am not a sheeple because I fear the flu pandemic. This has
little or nothing to do with Bush.

[SaveElmer]

37. Precisely the point actually...

The Spanish Flu incubated in the fetid trenches of WWI, which is why it affected young men so disproportionately. We are not in that situation now.

What you say about vaccines is true, it may not keep you from getting the flu, but it will usually mitigate the symptoms if it has any of the characteristics of the strain that is circulating

Also, it is very likely that most of those who died in 1918, did so from secondary bacterial infections. Of course there were no antibiotics in 1918.

The make up of the virus itself may or may not be similar to 1918, but the situation that allowed it to spread so rapidly does not...even in the crowded cities of Asia.

[kestrel91316]

41. Some people like to conveniently ignore the fact that it was the

infectious disease specialists who alerted Bush to H5N1, and NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

[kestrel91316]

40. You know what they say: "Ignorance is bliss".

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

28. Three of my grandmother's siblings died of the flu in 1918.

They were in their late teens and early 20's. That flu is now believed to have mutated from an animal strain, and once it jumped to humans it spread quickly through military barracks, then back to towns and cities. It was very, very bad, and killed a lot of young, healthy people -- not just the very old, or babies, or people who were already infirm.

[NorCalDem]

13. Here's an idea

Instead of worrying about the Flu (which comes around every winter) let's worry about how our elderly citizens are going to afford their heat!

Choosing between prescription drugs and warmth is not a decision I like to envision my grandparents making. Them dying from the Flu I can live with. They're old and the Flu sounds like a natural cause to me. Death from freezing doesn't, at least not in 2005!

(Note: All of my grandparents are already dead, I'm just making a point!)

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. It's 90 nations who are serious about it. It's not Bush, he's late.

Bush's reaction is the scare tactic. The bird flu threat is real, though for the moment it is distant in time and space.

You are the one who posted the foolish statement in another thread that since you have previously recovered from the flu, you conclude that all new flus are not lethal to anybody. If you don't reach that exact conclusion, the only other conclusion you reach is that you haven't studied the facts and are therefore clueless: " What's the big deal?"

[Kablooie]

17. Well, ya got a point there.

Bush's primary prevention measure is to use military force to control the population. Now if it were a serious outbreak, we are certainly in trouble.

I also know that in every flu outbreak there are some deaths. Can't be helped.

But if the 1918 happened now, after being observed by the WHO for several years, and with our more detailed knowlege of genetics and transmissions, I seriously doubt that it would be the same destructive force as it was then.

But I still won't let BUSH scare me!

For anyone that wants real info, read:
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/avian_faqs/en/index.html

Possible danger yes, a bushy end of the world, no.

[kestrel91316]

42. Remember also, the problem is not so much Bush's finally

responding to the H5N1 threat as it is his plans for dealing with the threat: CALL OUT THE ARMY AND FORCIBLY QUARANTINE AMERICANS.

Why can't he take all the money he has obviously allocated for a military response and put it into adequate MEDICAL preparations/public health contingency plans.

Right.That would make too much sense, and besides, he WANTS to clear out the "surplus population" a la Scrooge.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

16. 38,000 dead last year from flu. and that was an average number

it is a serious risk. It is a serious problem. The drug industry spends little time with it because it ain't sexy, it ain't profitable, and it ain't super-duper-ultra profitable - which is the basic floor for any drug company search, since the last 5-12 yrs.


oh. how many died from foreign terra- attacks in the US last year?
hmmm.

[Kablooie]

18. Yes, but is that a justification for ...

military control of American Citizens? Will that make everyone's life better?

Serious problem, yes.

NEW serious problem, no.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

27. to the contrary, it is a defense against what bush is trying to do.

and that is PRECISELY what is so scary.

[kestrel91316]

43. IIRC, the 38,000 are primarily elderly, frail, chronically ill, or

very young. One reason the H5N1 strain is so frightening is its likelihood of killing large numbers of young, perfectly healthy people via "cytokine storm".

[demigoddess]

19. do you all remember the history , we have been hearing this yearly

for ages. In the 70's it was Swine flu that was going to kill us and then they developed the shot against it and the test shot killed so many they had to stop, and we never had the swine flu epidemic that they predicted. Also a couple of years ago they declared that we would have a big problem with small pox and that hasn't happened. The anthrax that did make it into a problem they weren't that worried about. They also have been saying that we should worry about an outbreak of plague but when it does happen, it only seems to kill a few, not 1/3 of the country.

[Kablooie]

22. Godess has gotit.

Sure it's bad. Many people die. Many people feel really super crappy for awhile.

But it's the SAME AS ALWAYS!

There is NO JUSTIFICATION FOR MILITARY QUARANTINE OF CITIES, except to let the bushees regain control of the populace.

[kestrel91316]

44. H5N1 is NOT the same as other flus. Do your homework.

It has two VERY NOVEL antigens which humans have ABSOLUTELY NO IMMUNITY TO.

Stop repeating false talking points. Go read up, and come back when you can talk intelligently about this.

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. Smallpox, anthrax and plague were all biological warfare scares

and are thus totally irrelevant to a discussion of a flu pandemic.

Yes, since 1997, when H5N1 avian flu was discovered in Hong Kong, they have said that if/when it becomes human-to-human transmissible, it will cause a pandemic. The fact that it hasn't yet (apart from one possible case in Thailand last year) does not mean that it never will. Think of Russian Roulette. You're not safe just because there was no bullet the first few times.

Pandemics happen when a new variant of the virus, that no-one has immunity to, hits the human population. It then spreads rapidly, because so many people can catch it. The behaviour of other flu viruses in recent years, for which many people have built up immunity, is not a good model of what happens in a pandemic.

[turbo_satan]

23. I disagree. This could be a BIG problem..

Go read Mike Davis's "The Monster at our Door." Davis is one of this country's great progressives and he's usually not an alarmist. Davis's message is that we're looking at a real potential public-health crisis that's far more serious than others that have come before.

This particular strain of flu, H5N2, is quite different than other strains of influenza. It's a serious killer and it's only a few reassortants or mutations away from being able to hop from human to human. The real horror is that the Bush administration is in no way prepared to deal with an outbreak in the US. It would take massive stockpiles of Tamiflu to prevent a pandemic over here, but there's little incentive for big Pharma to do the job. According to Davis, the top ten Pharma corporations in the Fortune 500 have profits that exceed those of the other 490 F500 companies combined. Also, for many of those companies, the profits from a single Statin drug or male potency drug exceed the profits of all 90,000-something extant vaccines combined. Tamiflu is expensive to make and doesn't sell for much, so big Pharma isn't terribly interested in making it (although you'd think that the survival of the execs and their families might be *some* incentive).

Anyway, this is a classic example of a structural inconsistency. The Bushies like to rely on the free market to do its thing, and yet the production of vaccines isn't really subject to the vagaries of market pressure: there's no market for the stuff until it's needed, and by then, it's too late to tool up for production.

What's needed is a government that's willing to either handle vaccine production on its own or a government that's willing to force big pharma to do something for the public good. I think we know what the odds are of either of *those* things happening! Or, the government could undertake an initiative to buy up entire lots of production at a price that's attractive enough to the pharma companies to move their efforts from helping give old white guys boners to preventing a public-health catastrophe.

I wouldn't hold my breath...

[kestrel91316]

45. (that would be H5N1)

[turbo_satan]

48. N1, N2... what's the difference?

;-)

[kestrel91316]

55. Let this be a warning to you ............................

:evilgrin:

NO sloppy posting!

Signed, The Spelling Monitor
;-)

[eShirl]

24. EVEN A BROKEN CLOCK IS RIGHT TWICE A DAY

or in this case a broken cuckoo clock

[donco6]

25. Obvious flame bait. n/t

[moobu2]

26. Wrong

"Seasonal outbreaks are caused by subtypes of influenza viruses that are already in existence among people, whereas pandemic outbreaks are caused by new subtypes or by subtypes that have never circulated among people or that have not circulated among people for a long time."
cdc

We dont have any imunity to this new virus.

This is not the run of the mill flu people get every year. For those infected with this new bird flu, there's a 60+% death rate. The healthier you are when infected, the more likely it will kill you for some unknown reason.



The entire world is bracing itself for this very real possibility, well, everybody except * that is.

[uncertainty1999]

32. 2 of my aunts died from the Spanish Flu in 1918..

they were 6 and 9 months old!!!!

This bird flu has me really worried

[triguy46]

50. Believe it or not, health care is actually better today than in 1918. nt

[Mojorabbit]

51. There

are not enough hospital beds or ventilators for something like this. There is a severe shortage of antivirals. If it breaks out there will be little the medical community can do to treat the number of patients expected.

[triguy46]

52. I'm not ready to throw the bodies into the streets.

My entire 35 year work career has been hospital care and administration. I'm willing to allow this situation to evolve before jumping to the conclusion that millions upon millions will die and all we can do is wring our hands. The post I was responding to was the 1918 spanish flu death rate, not the much talked about and feared avian. In 1918 people died from all kinds of complications that are now routine. Measles was still a seasonal epidemic, small pox was still occurring, syphillis and gonorrhea were untreatable, TB was still untreatable. We have made progress.

If the end of the world predictions are true, then who cares? We'll all be dead and society as we know it will collapse. I'm just not ready to go there.

[kestrel91316]

38. Take a couple of university level virology and immunology courses

and come back here and say that. What ignorant drivvel.

Otherwise, go back to your video games.

[SidDithers]

49. Thanks for injecting some reality into this thread...

the level of ignorance here is astounding at times.

Sid

[kestrel91316]

56. Willful ignorance is a Freeper trait. I expect better of DUers.......

[LunaC]

46. Their silly Terror Alerts don’t work

and nobody believes them any more so they’re trying a new tactic with the Avian Bird Flu scare. So far it’s only been transmitted from bird to person and until it can be transmitted from human to human it doesn't pose a threat to most of us here in the U.S. who don't regularly handle live poultry. Until it makes the jump to human-to-human transmission, it’s just more Hype. If/when it happens, I'll worry then.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

47. I'm Not Looking To Flame You...

I'm not opining on this subject because I'm not a physician, scientist, epidemiologist or biologist...

What is your background to make such assertions?

[Mutley]

53. I think there is a slight chance it could be as bad as they're saying.

But I doubt it.

Though, I'd bet Mother Nature will throw something at us before too long. She has a way of healing herself without the help of her inhabitants. We're the guests here on this planet, and as they say, "fish and houseguests smell after three days..."

[txaslftist]

54. Are you series???

This is potentially the worst pandemic ever to come in all of human history! You may hide your head in the sand, but it will still find you. Anywhere a bird can go, this deadly, instantly fatal plague can follow.

Billions will die. Only the federal government can save you. When the marauding, plague-mad rapist looters come to your door, you will be awful glad there's a federal army stationed in your town, let me tell you. Thank God for martial law, too. Otherwise the plague-mad looting rapist murdering thugs will break in your door and rape your children before your eyes!

The HORROR. THE HORROR !

[SidDithers]

59. Or maybe your children will drown in their own fluids...

Or maybe they won't. Nobody really knows.

The possiblility, and that's all it is right now, of an Avian Flu pandemic is a global concern. Believing that the whole thing is just some nefarious Bushie plot to enslave American citizens is just silly.

Sid

[txaslftist]

60. You are right. This is Hugh!

I don't know how we survived other pandemics without marshal law.

[Timmy5835]

57. From today L.A. Times, page A10

Flu Death Estimates Are Only A Guess, Experts Say. Predictions of the toll in a pandemic are varied and changing. Some officals stress that it's to early to say.

[iconoclastNYC]

58. Why don't you read a little bit

Uhm....flu MUTATES. We're over due for a super-flu bug. Unlike 1918 we have jets to transmit the disease all over the world super fast....every government in the world is concerned about bird flu, not just BUSH. If anything Bush has been ignoring the warnings.

Just because Bush can use it to stoke fear doesn't mean it's not a real threat.