Swine Flu

Wake me when Captain Tripps hits.

Yeah, I'll be sure to avoid any tunnels and head straight for the Midwest.

I'm trying to figure out how flu is political.

Everyone knows flues are created by the government for political and economical reasons.

I've missed having a good disease panic. Avian flu was a few years back but my favorite of all was SARS. Just a great, great panic.

Don't forget the Haunta virus back in '93. Oh and Valley Fever after the '94 earthquake. That was a local one.

From BBC:
There's yer angle right there! It seems that our inevitable border megafence will need to defend our Way of Life from microbial immigration as well.

Yup, I have no doubt John and Ken will fuck themselves silly over this. Oh and Tom "Swollen eyes" Tancredo will jump in.

I'm just waiting for the ABC televison movie about it, it could a great companion piece to Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America.

We went through the whole swine flu thing back in the 70s and it amounted to a whole lot of nothing.

I was just about to say. Wasn't the vaccine for the disease worse than the disease itself?

Definitely a lot of media hype. SARS, Bird Flu, now this. Obviously this is supposed to be like an elevated strain of the common flu millions get every year, but only difference is it attacks healthy immune systems just as much as children or the elderly.

Yes, but are the swine okay? Someone check on the piggies! I gotta know!

There's medicine that effecitvly treats the virus, unless it mutates into hogzilla flu, I'm not too worried.

msnbc.com video somewhere around 2:15 they give the names of the treatment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8018991.stm

A global pandemic would be righteous. The population could do with a bit of thinning out.

Speaking of faulty reasoning, what does this even mean? "Due" implies a probability of something occurring, not fate.

Maybe there hasn't been a global epidemic in some time because the quality of medical care has improved dramatically? This reminds me of when everyone was worried about SARS, overlooking the fact that most of the people who died from it were elderly or poor and without access to decent medical care.

This is true.

Also what needs to be done (political) is for us to convince the manufacturers of the medicine to be prepared to pump out treatment like its rain water and if need be release it to other manufacturers for mass production. The real threat here is for us to run out of the medicine or for a country or organization to horde or stockpile in an attempt to extort.

We have about 50 million in government reserves (which, apparently they released 25% of today according to an unclickable drudge headline) which is more then enough for most flu problems (they usually only affect the young or the elderly) however this one is hitting the 25-45 range which is the sweet spot and it appears to be spreading fast (I just read its cropping up in Canada and Spain). This just means we may run out of the drug and then its a matter of how quickly it can be produced and distributed to affected areas.

Also why they're worried about it being killed off and resurfacing 13-14 weeks later.

You want a leg up on people? Go buy 20 gallons of drinkable water, a few boxes of powdered milk and a month supply of canned goods \ ramen noodles... all of that will last you several months if nothing comes of it and you'll still be able to use it later on. Because if there is a panic, those things will sell very quickly.

What? Have you forgotten the First Commandment?

I was in South East Asia when SARS broke out. Those were fun times. It was funny in a way everyone with any money was running around with a mask on like that would stop them from getting it. People got it back wards. If you got it wear a mask. If you don't have it were eye protection. You are most likely to get air born diseases through the eyes then the mouth or the nose.

It's the nearest fit we got for it at CHUD, since we don't have a general purpose current events section.

I would think it should go in Misc. Culture rather Political Discourse.

I always thought it would be cool if we had a science forum. Anything to keep people talking about film!

http://www.theage.com.au/world/mount...0427-akiu.html

There's a certain absurdity to the idea of a pandemic being eventual but the scare factor is very real. My sister-in-law was a researcher at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda when the SARS scare broke out. I assumed it was all media hype with no substance. That changed pretty quickly after talking to her. Apparently we were very close to a tipping point with SARS, one that likely would have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and a potential collapse of economies. Keep in mind that people who say not to worry it only effects the young and the old are failing to understand that a pandemic could potentially wipe out a large chunk of a generation and that's potentially a very large disaster economically and genetically to humans.

The biggest issue is that we live in a global world. Short of shutting down airports and seriously limiting travel between countries it's very difficult to stop the spread. But the downside of that is the stopping of trade and creating a bigger potential economic disaster in a very difficult economic time.

The good side of that is getting information out in regards to the potential spread is much, much easier. Thankfully, most people actually listen to the news is regards to a potential pandemic and stop traveling of their own volition. They also get themselves checked if they've been to said country or have developed symptoms.

Countries also respond a lot quicker to potential pandemic illnesses. Only a few short decades ago China, the Soviet Union, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and other closed countries would deny that their was an illness threatening their country and go about business as usual potentially leading to a much quicker tipping point. It's one of the few good sides to the globalization of the world.

Yesterday, I took a NJ Transit bus from a mall park/ride to Manhattan for a nice Sunday at the museums. My 12:02 197 bus ran a little late. Of the 25 or so people at the stop, about 15 of them began to mutter and pace by 12:06. Then a 197 on the return-bound loop came through, dropped it's load and moved on toward the Skylands. It's 12:10. Panic sets in. Never mind that the bus clearly indicated it was coming back and headed for northern Jersey and not NY, folks got vocally concerned.

By 12:15 frantic calls were being made to the transit. You could hear the Tripods coming over the hills....we were clearly running out of time.

A woman in Jackie O glasses shows up and when informed that the bus was not only late but had abandoned people to their fate, she curses and exclaimes that no one should be treated like this and that she was going to actually drive into Manhattan. Can you imagine the courage of that fine example of our fairer sex?

Two seconds after her St Crispians speech an older woman and her man-son leaped from the shelter and offered her hard cash to get them across the Hudson. This woman had gotten a jump on things by 11:55, wandering about the parking area pronouncing "This isn't right! This isn't right! Something's wrong!". With Cassandra proven correct, they pile into Jackie O's honda and make their escape.

From the side of the increasingly tense and worried crowd comes the voice of the guy in running shorts, dark wool socks, camo top, backpack with straps over decorated with dopey flair to point of suggesting Mork's suspenders. "It's running late!" he explains as he waves his phone around for everyone to see. "I just got off the phone with New Jersey Transit and they said he's running late." He neglected to mention if the operator offered to come get him themselves or if they thought he might need a crisis hotline. Now, I was in earshot of this stoic soul the whole time and what he certainly did not relay to the crowd was the desperate whining he did to an almost certainly disinsterested(and increasingly entertained) operator. "Oh my god...Oh my god...I've got to get to Manhattan by 1:00...I'm in a show, ya know...Oh my god...No, he just left us!....We're all alone here!"

12:20 the bus rolls in. A sense of relief, of hope renewed washes over the crowd. Then, right on fucking cue, they mob the door to the bus. Those Tripods are still coming and they can't take the chance of being left behind again!

Long story, I know, but hey, you're getting the story second hand, I actually had to live this fucking experience! My point is that this country is nowhere near ready for any kind of large scale crisis. For years we've had to hear about how spectacular the reaction was to the September 11th attacks. Problem is that that was an extremely localized(horrific, but still very contained) incident. Help was not only still viable and functioning, it was only a few neighborhoods away. Katrina, while a much larger disaster was still, geographically speaking, localized. It's impact outside the immediate disaster area was minimal, refugee issues excepted(yet we all know how well that went over in the long term).

We don't get hit by city wrecking typhoons annually, rocked by frequent earthquakes, buried by landslides or even deal with the smaller pinpricks of routine bombings on our main streets.

Our national skin is pretty thin. I don't see how any real major catastrophe or crisis here could end up being anything but an unthinkable nightmare. Gun nuts, religious wackos, blackberry zombies, mute teens who only know h2 comnC8 n txt and people who would fold instantly without Tivo to cover their asses. Have a nice doomsday!



But hey, that's just me.

If one wanted to politicize this, they could point to the flu pandemic funding that was pulled from the stimulus bill. Also, the GOP is blocking a vote on Gov Sebelius for Secretary of HHS. Go obstruction! You know, if one wanted to politicize it.

A potential pandemic like this (not that I think people in the US should be in any kind of panic over the swine flu itself) is political for two reasons I can think of off the top of my head.

Reason one: ground zero was a factory farm owned by the largest agribusiness in the world. Of course, the locals in the town in Mexico where this factory farm sits had been complaining about this facility's dumping and waste treatment practices, which fell on deaf ears since what difference does it make if some peasants wave red flags when a multinational conglomerate has unlimited political and financial weight to throw around.

Reason two: Surprise surprise! Republicans in congress killed the flu pandemic preparedness section of the stimulus bill!!! Because like volcano monitoring and high speed rail, it's a silly waste of money compared to tax cuts for the country's richest!

The zombie horror fan in me, reads these pandemic stories eagerly. Only to be disappointed that none of the dead have risen.

soylent, that about sums up the 197. I take the 324/194 out of the same gate (233) on the way back and Jesus Christ, it's like these people have never heard of either traffic or a fucking time table. No, I don't know if this bus goes to fucking Willowbrook, move up five feet and look at the god damn schedule.

But yeah, I hope I'm in Jersey when the zombies attack; getting out of the city would be a hopeless endeavour unless I wanted to swim the Hudson.

Fuck. I brought pork tenderloin for lunch today.

Are you kidding me? The best defense against this is to show those pigs whose boss. Although I wonder if this outbreak is related to this nation's overpowing obession with bacon.

My god, Jim Gaffigan is the herald of doom! Doom I say!

I'm avoiding Port Authority until this blows over.

Dude, I had some pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon yesterday. FUCK YOU PIGS!

I might go with bacon wrapped chicken ... just to keep Bird Flu making a comeback.

The only way the flu can kill a "healthy adult" is if they have malnutrition, or are totally ignorant in how to deal with flu symptom. Unfortunately that is probably about 99% of the adult population of the US. Things you should have are pedialyte unsweetened, distiled water, Vick Vaporub, and start taking lot of Vitamins now. The Vick is if you start to get congested, make a vapor tent( Put the hot water in a bowl, place a big towel over your head and make a tent and your face goes into the bowl....breathe deep). The pedialyte unsweetened, and distiled water are in case of diarrhea or vomiting problems, keep yourself hydrated. Also watch your fever, and don't let it got over 105.

And where's the bacon in all of this, smartass?

Or you explode.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/...bat/index.html

Maybe they axed it because we already spent money on it? You know that stockpile of Tamiflu and Relenza, that was from Bush (and Kennedy I think). Also, it allowed companies to come up with vaccines with less repercussions.. companies like this...

Not to mention a key fact probably escapes you, this outbreak happened before the "Stimulus" would have taken effect. (it's in quotes because it was more of an omnibus then a stimulus bill, ironically filled with pork!)

Given that the active ingredient in Vicks VapoRub is bacon and that it's actually manufactured in Mexico I think eenin just gave out the prescription ... for disaster.

Plus, it hasn't been the same since they changed the name from Vick's Magic Croup Salve in 1912.

Okay.

psst. H1N1 = swine flu

It's OK. lotta numbers and things out there, easy to get confused or be baffled by it all.

Who the fuck uses Vick's nowadays unless they're being kinky? I'm a NyQuil man, myself.