Swine Flu National Emergency? Or Hype

[Phoenix]

It is a very bad virus; not because it is particularly terrible with the symptoms, but because it is a very persistent bug.
It is persistent because it won't really go away. It takes a very long time. And during that time, if people get a respiratory infection from it, they can get bronchitis and then pneumonia...which can be fatal. It isn't a bacterial infection, so it can't be treated with antibiotics.

It is called the "swine" flu because people can get the flu from swine, but it is actually a bird flu that has become changed into a form that people can get through swine. This is not a new thing. Since the '50s when intercontinental transportation became more and more common, these bird flues that people can get have become introduced to the west, and so only the very young have not been exposed to previous strains and may not have some level of resistance already. Also, breast feeding is something mothers less frequently do now, and that also reduces potential resistance. There hasn't been a serious one since the '70s...so those born since then have no resistance and stand the greatest risk of being completely taken by surprise and dying from it. It just depends on their immune systems and how well they take care of themselves in general.

Pigs can get certain bird flues. People cannot get the flu from birds. But, people can get the flu from pigs. Farms in Asia frequently raise ducks and pigs on the same property, and since people raise them, that is how this situation is created. It isn't a new thing, but because the bird flu strains are not common to humans, when one effectively gets transformed though pigs into a form that humans can get, it tends to hit humans pretty hard. Hope that helps someone.

 

[Phoenyx]

This H1N1 this is out of hand I think. Up here in Canada, the doctors are diagnosing people after nothing more than a 60 second talk. Then we have this big clinic set up for the shots. Thousands of people waiting in line for hours, just to have them run out before even getting half of the people their shots. And then say 'Our next two clinics will be cancelled'.

I choose just to not think about it.

 

[DRIVEN]

H!N!

That's priceless. The double exclamation makes it twice as dramatic (even if it was a misprint). I'm surprised the media hasn't given it a more scary name yet. Is it hype? You'd better believe it. If there isn't something for the general public to be afraid of, they might start to think they don't need the government to protect them. I don't know anyone, personally, who has been hospitalized from it yet. I'm sure it will happen eventually but just about every year someone I know gets hospitalized for pneumonia or the flu. Just about anything can be deadly to someone. My wife, the elementary school teacher, rarely gets sick. Yet somehow she always manages to bring the illness home to me. There are people who die if their food touches a peanut. What ever happened to Monkey Pox? Wasn't that supposed to kill us all a few years ago?

 

[custom442]

My personal opinion is we'd be ignorant to think this strain is just the 'same' as a normal seasonal flu. It goes for sayin I don't think we'd even be talkin about it on here if it weren't for the media.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

H!N!

That's priceless. The double exclamation makes it twice as dramatic (even if it was a misprint). I'm surprised the media hasn't given it a more scary name yet. Is it hype? You'd better believe it. If there isn't something for the general public to be afraid of, they might start to think they don't need the government to protect them. I don't know anyone, personally, who has been hospitalized from it yet. I'm sure it will happen eventually but just about every year someone I know gets hospitalized for pneumonia or the flu. Just about anything can be deadly to someone. My wife, the elementary school teacher, rarely gets sick. Yet somehow she always manages to bring the illness home to me. There are people who die if their food touches a peanut. What ever happened to Monkey Pox? Wasn't that supposed to kill us all a few years ago?

The sad thing is that the government and the media have cried wolf so many times that the public does not believe them anymore. The lies we have been told over the years have made all thinking people very skeptical of official answers and warnings. Pseudo-science, and lies told to cover a politicians or corporations *ss or to drum up ratings have thus left us in a dangerous position. Do you believe the official line? Are things not as bad as what we are being told or are they worse and they are trying not to stir up panic? After all, look at how things have been covered up before, like the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the US was initially, or Chernobyl in the USSR. You can also look at the last Swine Flu outbreak in 1976 (?) as an example of government hysteria over something that did not pan out. The truth may be out there, but sifting through all the static to find it is rapidly becoming more and more difficult in an age of information overload.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

H!N!

That's priceless. The double exclamation makes it twice as dramatic (even if it was a misprint). I'm surprised the media hasn't given it a more scary name yet. Is it hype? You'd better believe it. If there isn't something for the general public to be afraid of, they might start to think they don't need the government to protect them. I don't know anyone, personally, who has been hospitalized from it yet. I'm sure it will happen eventually but just about every year someone I know gets hospitalized for pneumonia or the flu. Just about anything can be deadly to someone. My wife, the elementary school teacher, rarely gets sick. Yet somehow she always manages to bring the illness home to me. There are people who die if their food touches a peanut. What ever happened to Monkey Pox? Wasn't that supposed to kill us all a few years ago?

The sad thing is that the government and the media have cried wolf so many times that the public does not believe them anymore. The lies we have been told over the years have made all thinking people very skeptical of official answers and warnings. Pseudo-science, and lies told to cover a politicians or corporations *ss or to drum up ratings have thus left us in a dangerous position. Do you believe the official line? Are things not as bad as what we are being told or are they worse and they are trying not to stir up panic? After all, look at how things have been covered up before, like the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the US was initially, or Chernobyl in the USSR. You can also look at the last Swine Flu outbreak in 1976 (?) as an example of government hysteria over something that did not pan out. Look also at how poorly the "Duck and Cover" film of the 1950's is regarded today, yet it remains probably one of the best informational videos to show the average person what to do in case of a nuclear explosion, and why. It's designed for children, but from everything I have ever read in more modern literature, they did get it right. The truth may be out there, but sifting through all the static to find it is rapidly becoming more and more difficult in an age of information overload.

 

[Phoenix]

You can also look at the last Swine Flu outbreak in 1976 (?) as an example of government hysteria over something that did not pan out. The truth may be out there, but sifting through all the static to find it is rapidly becoming more and more difficult in an age of information overload.

I think you have a valid point about people not trusting information they are given and being skeptical about the motives of what they hear. I would just like to point out that I have a very good memory...much better than your average human. The very worst flu I ever got in my whole life was the one you just mentioned when I was a small boy of about 7 years old. I was miserable for days and days with a bad fever and throwing up. I survived, and I survived at home without any need for hospitalization or prescriptions, etc.

All the rest of my life I have rarely gotten the flu. I have been smoking since I was 16, and I do get respiratory infections with some bugs partly because of that, but also because I am just susceptible to them. For 3 years straight many years ago, I annually got the same naturally modified bug every Oct. I know it was the same bug because they have a flavor...as in your phlem when you are sick has a taste. Those 3 years, it tasted just like rotting meat smells. It was unforgettable. I haven't gotten that one again since then in over 10 years now. It just got recycled and naturally modified annually for 3 years in a row.

If you aren't immuno-compromised, getting sick is good for you; it updates your immune system much like your virus protection software updates...which is how that terminology with computers came to be. H1N1 is not anything super bad. The problem is that those born after 1980 or so (and were not breast fed by their mothers who should have been exposed to the strains in the '70s), stand a very good risk of having their immune systems caught completely off guard...and their bodies freak out and go into shock trying to fight it because they are disadvantaged. In addition to that, EVERYONE uses antibiotics these days...including livestock farmers. Our species is making it possible for superbugs to come into being that are abnormally persistent, and our population is SO MUCH larger now worldwide than it was 30+ years ago that they much more easily spread around the globe quickly than they used to.

It used to be possible for people to get exposed to viruses over time without getting sick...much like vaccines are intended to do. Now, bad bugs can just make a huge percentage of the entire population sick within months. People refuse to take time off from their jobs or keep their kids home from school because of their jobs...and it all culminates into the great potential for epidemic. It isn't crying wolf; it is a serious attempt at trying to be globally responsible to the human population. It shouldn't take a bug with even a 20% fatality rate to convince people it isn't hype. The mortality rate of this one isn't very high. That is just fortunate.

 

[Phoenix]

Here is a relevant short story that took place a couple months ago:

I'm in the military, and I went to SE Asia for a month. Asians are known to popularize the whole SARS mask thing from the media...and about 10% of them actually routinely do that in public at any given time. During one of the legs of my flight, I was sitting in the very back of the plane with some Malaysian or S. Pacific Islander family that were all wearing those masks. The father was sitting right next to me. Towards the end of the flight, I was half asleep, and he sneezed with that mask on. The timing just happened to be such that I was breathing through my nose as I was half-asleep there, and the shape of the mask forced the air from his sneeze to go directly into my face and up my right nostril...as I was just in the process of inhaling.

I get mandatory annual vaccinations for the flu now via the military, and I've had the nasal kind before. Every time I catch a bug, it generally starts out in my sinus, and the first indication is that it sort of tickles deep in the back of my nose just like those nasal injectors do. Well, that guy sitting next to me basically did that. I don't know what he had, but it was probably just a cold. However, because he's from some other part of the world than I am, it was something new. I got a runny nose for 3 days...maybe even a cough for a few days too. Bugs spread; it is a part of overpopulating our planet and traveling around all the time.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

I do fear what will happen when a really serious problem comes along, as the warnings will never be heeded. That is the price we pay for living in the information age. As for population, it is growing, but not in the first world nations. Instead, it grows rapidly in third world nations whose populations spill over into first world nations due to mass emigrations. The problem that exists is a disproportionate distribution of technology and stable governments. These two things bring about economic opportunity which causes many people to rethink what they want out of life. Family sizes reduce as the desire for a better quality of life, and the possibility of achieving it takes over the desire to have a big family. So, the solution is widespread distribution of mass capitalism and stable, reasonable governments. This will never be true of all the people of any nation, but it seems to become a sociological norm in nations that are technologically advanced. There are still large families in the US, but they are the exception, not the rule. The birth rate has dipped below the death rate when comparing families who have been here for at least 2 generations. The widespread availability of birth control and women having opportunities outside the home are largely responsible for the shift in our culture. However, large families are more normal among immigrant families who have a cultural background stemming from poor nations. (and please, if you think I mean anything racial by this.... don't. It's an observation based on reality, not some sort of stupid racial prejudice.)

 

[Phoenix]

(and please, if you think I mean anything racial by this.... don't. It's an observation based on reality, not some sort of stupid racial prejudice.)

It is sort of a shame that people feel it necessary to jump on that PC bandwagon. Everything you have said is absolutely true, and the only reason someone might think you were saying something else is because they've never left their hometown or state...and just don't know what life is like outside their own small world.

Disease is a good thing and a bad thing. It generally isn't in a microbe's best interest to kill the host or kill the host quickly like you see with Ebola. Their ability to populate the world is dependent upon making the host organism sick, but not too sick, and for a long time so we can pass them on to others...and so forth. We try very hard through medical technology to avoid natural selection, but even if some bug comes about in the future that has even as high as a 70% mortality rate, those that survive among us will be the most fit. Viruses aren't microbes; they are as dangerous to microbes as they are to us. Everything that can, fights to survive. It isn't anything new. But, the bottom line regarding all of this is that it isn't the viruses and microbes which are the real threat. The real threat is ourselves. We need a certain level of contaminating one another to keep us strong to survive, but without the ability to control that level, we put that survival at risk.

Times change and you have to roll with the punches. Hopefully, instead of assuming ulterior motives, people will just learn to modify their activities when global announcements like this are made and contain the spread like the CDC and WHO intend.