| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 5/16/2009 5:19:14 PM | | from what Ive read about swine flu I'll take it over a common cold, with all the crap thats going on in the world how could the news day be going slow enough to let this subject dominate? It's almost as lame as the hype on avian flu.... Yeah avian flu might be a problem if your a chicken. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 5/17/2009 7:02:34 PM | | I agree with SS.... im not educated enuff on "Swine flu" but wot i understood it was nothin more then a common flu but of course jsut like anything else Cable NEws Blows it outta proportion | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 5/20/2009 9:15:21 PM | The flue kills millions of people every year. Swine flew has killed how many, a thousand or two at the most? Aid's, cancer, God knows how many other diseases kill more people then swine flew ever has. We've become used to these threats and to an extent desensitized to them. People always need something new and exciting to get them talking, thinking, and acting. It's kind of like the latest clothing trend which isn't really new, just branded and marketed differently and slapped with a new coat of paint for the consumers to gobble up.
Propaganda just like most of the stuff the corporate owned media spoon feeds people. It's all designed to induce fear into the psyche of the population. Fear of rejection, being uncool, behind the times. Industries use this principle in marketing. Drug companies are essentially another form of marketing in the name of vaccines and medications. They only care about shareholders and profits, so they will do, market, endorce, and conspire whatever possible to meet their quarterly figures.
This seems to be working very well as there are tens of millions of Americans hooked on drugs which will never cure anything, only keep them dependant on their next expensive doctor's visit and thus prescription inevitabely leading to a perpetual medicated cycle.
Cure is a very threatening word for the medical industry. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/9/2009 10:30:27 AM | wow ... a pandemic ... because 200 people out of 6.5 billion died.
better wash your pans.
Oh .... and the truth about the Spanish Flu ... it should have been called the American Flu because the first cases where actually in the States. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/9/2009 11:19:28 AM | How old is that list? I read that 7 million people died of starvation and malnutrition in 2006. Another 36 million in 2007. I have not seen the '08 munbers yet, but suspect about 50 million, or 1 child every second, and a fraction of an adult to boot.
The worst part is that kids are dying of nutritional disorders in highly developed industrial nations like India and the Phillipines. Eat your spinach. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/10/2009 8:55:18 PM | | In my opinion, the only reason it's this bad is because everyone and there mother keeps using that purel crap. It kills all of the germs, good and bad which weakens the immune system. Parents now a days don't let there kids get down and dirty so there immune systems are weak from the get go. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/11/2009 4:18:46 PM |
Just a little fyi the top 3 killers on earth are
1. Tainted Drinking water
2. Malaria
3. famine They've all been around for a long time. They're not terrifying people in the West. So no-one in the West is worried enough about them to read or watch news about them.
Swine flu, is the new terrorist of Western countries. It threatens people in the West, who don't know enough about it, to not be worried. So they'll read everything they can about it, until they do know enough to know it's not that serious, and then they'll stop reading about it, and bang goes the media's audiences.
It's a long-standing truism of media, that making your readers terrified, makes for captive audiences.
FYI, we in Britain have almost 800 people now, and it's growing almost geometrically. So I expect that many will get it.
But still very few people are even seriously sick from it, let alone dead. Judging by the numbers, I think regular flu is more lethal. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/11/2009 4:56:31 PM | Seems the Swine flu is a bit worse from the regular flu. In addition, it is hitting the younger generation more than a regular flu would
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Swine-Flu-Fatality-Rate-a-Little-Bit-Higher-Than-That-of-Seasonal-Flu-46261-1/
I was reading a news article this morning that indicated the rate of mortality is about 1 in 189; I think the Spanish flu in 1918 was 1 in 100. Still, we might not have seen the end of the Swine flu. It could get worse this fall | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/11/2009 6:20:25 PM | Well...like I said....they announced it AS a pandemic today. Spreading like wildfire across the planet.
Hear they are getting a real beating up in northern Canada.
Yeah...we lose a few people now...but when the final tally comes in, we could be in for a shock. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/16/2009 12:04:34 AM | yeah, unless your out f**king pigs and birds, your probably not gonna get avian or swine flu, i haven't had the flu in forever, don't use that purell crap, and have an insanely high immunity (I'm lucky to get sick once a year) So yeah, the flu and colds can might me.
but seeing as I'm a member of the colbert nation, I MUST watch out for BEARS!!! GAHHH! | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/16/2009 4:45:09 AM | Just a little fyi the top 3 killers on earth are
1. Tainted Drinking water
2. Malaria
3. famine
Sorry, but i have to correct you here. Acording to WHO, the leading cause of death worldwide by the number of deaths in 2004... (out of a total of 191,951,100 deaths worldwide)
Cardiovascular: 53,268,500
Cancer: 21,377,000
HIV and AIDs: 18,988,200
Cholera and other Diarrhoeal Diseases rate quite high as a group, but low indaviualy. they come in at seventh place with 7,058,5oo deaths.
Malaria now comes in quite low down the list, at ninth place with 5,381,300 deaths.
Nutritional Deficianecy (or famine to you amd I) comes in at twelth place with 2,132,500 deaths.
Flue comes in so far down the list I can't be bothered calculating it, with just 275,700 deaths.
http://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/bodgbddeathdalyestimates.xls | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/16/2009 12:12:50 PM | Swine flu the BIGGEST threat...EVER??? Wow!
I'll tell you whose REALLY gonna be annoyed by this "threat"...North Korea.
After all, they've worked really REALLY hard to be the centre of attention, only to have their efforts eclipsed by a couple of sneezing pigs.
I mean, what more can they do? I bet they're gutted.  | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/17/2009 5:22:46 AM | IT WAS A EPIDEMIC.. or a PANDEMIC
Its like almost as bad as eating uncooked chicken. I'm still more worried about getting in a car wreck because that is a more likely cause of death. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/19/2009 3:26:41 PM | I don't know what to call it. All I know is that in the UK, it is increasing geometrically. It started out small, but once it got to 800, it went to 900, in only a day. Only a few days ago, it was 1000, and now, it's 2000. It seems to be growing and growing geometrically. At this rate, it's doubling every few days.
What's it like in the USA and Canada? Is it doing this there as well? | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/21/2009 6:08:00 AM | Scorpio
I think we're seeing similar trends in Canada. In the northern, sparsely populated areas, it went from 1 case to about 145 in 3 weeks. At this point, though, I've heard that the doctors in Canada are no longer ordering tests for confirmation of the H1N1 flu; I guess because it won't add anything to their current knowledge of its spread.
The other thing I'm gathering from what I'm reading is that this flu is causing concern because it hits the young (the under 16 group). Right now the death rate isn't high (about 1 in 200 I think) but they are cautious because of the chance of that changing during the second wave in the fall.
Someone I talked to about this felt that part of the hype surrounding this flu stems from the fact that we now have a worldwide system in place to identify and manage pandemics. If that's true, then we should be feeling more secure that we have specialists keeping an eye on this, rather than focussing on the fact that it is (or was) everywhere in the news. With any luck we won't need their expertise come fall. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/22/2009 5:39:15 PM | We will get hit by a major pandemic at some point so I feel a lot of the precautions we take actually just postpone the inevitable perhaps creating an even stronger virus. I could be wrong here because I don't know a lot about immunity but doesn't getting less serious strains of viruses protect you against more serious ones?
If this is the case, then trying to contain the swine flu might be the wrong thing to do. It could be our own actions now that are paving the way to an extremely deadly pandemic.
I don't think swine flu is it though. Maybe some hybrid of it and the bird flu but if that's going to happen...it's going to happen and the WHO can't stop it.
I do find it interesting how loud the alarm bells rang over this when it would appear there were other factors relative here. The mortality rate of the Swine Flu doesn't seem to be that high yet a massive crackdown occurred instilling fear in the population. If there is something to be scared about, let me know. If not, don't make everyone panic.
My 8 year old niece told me a couple weeks ago that if you get the swine flu you will die in 24 hours while someone else I know had their daughter ask very concerned if she was going to grow a pig nose. The reaction of the kids is based upon the reaction of the adults and the adults are spreading just as many urban myths and fears as they are. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/25/2009 3:37:32 AM |
could be wrong here because I don't know a lot about immunity but doesn't getting less serious strains of viruses protect you against more serious ones?
Not really, its a lot more complicated than that. It can help, but its not a gaurantee.
Firstly, it would only help to protect you against similar diseases, so getting flu would only help protect you against other flu strains, not any of the hundreds of other viral infections out there.
Secondly, it only provides resistance or imunity so long as the new strain is not resistant to the antibodies you have produced. That is the problem with new strains, they are generaly imune to the antibodies we already have.
I don't think swine flu is it though. Maybe some hybrid of it and the bird flu but if that's going to happen...it's going to happen and the WHO can't stop it.
Epidemics and pandemics do not happen because of new strains of diseases, but because of human actions. There have been many examples of pandemics that were caused by already existing strains of diseases, such as the black plague.
As it is human activity that causes diseases to spread in the maner that they do, WHO can make a huge difrence to wether or not a disease becomes an epidemic or pandemic. They can examin the causal factors and advise on how to reduce them, they can look at the root of the disease and find out if there is a cure or vacine, and many other things.
Given enough resources, WHO can stop many of the majour diseases out there just now. They managed to wipe out smallpox and they belive that with current resources, they can eridicate measles, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis and pork tapeworm.
The mortality rate of the Swine Flu doesn't seem to be that high yet a massive crackdown occurred instilling fear in the population. If there is something to be scared about, let me know. If not, don't make everyone panic.
Of 62,806 confirmed cases, there have been 309 deaths. That is a death rate of just under 0.5% which is increadibly high, but not unexpected for a completely new strain and no where near as bad as the 2.5% fatality rate of the 1918 spanish flu outbreak.
The main reason that this flu has been so deadly compared to regular flu, is that it has hit countries with poor health care systems primarily. The highest death rate is in mexico, with 116 deaths for 8,279 confirmed cases. The US has a high number of deaths, but the flu spread rapidly and infected many people, so the death rate is actually far smaller, with 132 deaths out of 24,405 confirmed cases. That means that Mexico has a death rate of, 1.4% compared to the USA's death rate of just 0.5%. Of 3,037 confirmed cases in the UK, there has been only 1 death.
I'm sory to have to point this out, but if you are in the US, then you are much greater risk than anywhere else in the western world. The US healthcare system, shows figures remarkably similar to the third world for many diseases, particularly infections. If you want to increase your chance of survival, simply skip across the border to Canada where the death rate is 0.3%. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/28/2009 9:41:47 AM | | hi im from scotland and we have just have a pregnant woman die from it her baby died the next day dont see that happen with ordinary flu the problem is that most ppeople think its just ordinary flu and arent taking enugh caution i pity the people who have compromised immune systems they are the ones who will suffer and die from it yes i agree the media are making money from selling papers from it but anyone can google it up and find out the facts | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/30/2009 8:55:14 AM |
hi im from scotland and we have just have a pregnant woman die from it her baby died the next day
Sorry but I need to correct you here. Its importnt to get the facts straight in this case.
The baby did not die. It is alive and still in intensive care. Two days ago the second victim of swine flu, an elderly man, died. And just yesterday, the third vicitim of swine flue, a disabled child, died.
3 deaths out of over 6000 cases is a mortaility rate of less than 0.5% Thats prety damn low.
dont see that happen with ordinary flu
What rot are you talking now? Ordinary flu kills mothers and thier unborn children all the time. Being pregnant dose not make you imune to anything at all.
the problem is that most ppeople think its just ordinary flu and arent taking enugh caution
And what more precations do people need to take than they already are? So long as you don't go licking other peoples snot, your pretty safe, there is not much you can do to avoid accidental exposure other than isolate yourself from the world.
i pity the people who have compromised immune systems they are the ones who will suffer and die from it
I pitty the people who fear something that they will probably never get and if they do get, will not die from unless they are already critically ill.
i agree the media are making money from selling papers from it but anyone can google it up and find out the facts
If anyone can google the facts, then why didn't you?
The only three people in britain to die so far, from the H1N1 rhinovirus, are a woman who had a forced labour induced because she was critically ill and going through with the pregnancy would have killed her. A 73 year old man who was critiacally ill. And a six year old child that was severly disabled due to underlying medical conditions.
Of all three of these cases, not one can actually be confirmed as being killed by the virus itself, it is belived thier pre-existing medical conditions are the actual cause of death. The swine flu was only a contributing factor to thier deaths.
In other words, unless you are already dying, stop worying about swine flu because it will do you no harm. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/30/2009 9:05:39 AM | | Swine flu is remarkable only because it is a new strain and we are able to record its inevidable spread around the world. It should be a tool to study and create models of disease propagation not a reason to create a panic. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/30/2009 11:15:29 AM | I have a virology PhD( not bullshit).The influenza virus is a 7 segmented RNA virus.This makes its rate of mutation a lot greater than their equivalent DNA counterparts.A process called Antigentic Shift where 2 different strains of the virus infect the same cell to produce hybrid viruses is responsible for the pandemics we have seen in the past.ie.Spanish flu(1918).
This WILL happen again but medical science will deal with most cases without any serious consequences since believe it or not we have moved on since 1918.
To summarise :The latest concerns over swine flu are indicative of many present day problems with society:
1) Media fuelled hysteria.Like the other guy says,it sells papers.
2) Innacurate facts on the internet.
3) Ignorant people disseminating false infomation with no knowledge of the facts.
So don't worry there is NO threat remember the SARS farce. | |
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| Swine flu the biggest threat EVER
Posted: 6/30/2009 11:33:56 AM | Influenza is a 7 segmented RNA virus.This makes it's rate of mutation 1 billion times greater than its DNA counterparts.Pandemics are caused when 2 viruses infect the same cell to produce hybrid viruses which do not present to the immune system.This was the reason for the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.This WILL happen again but will not result in serious consequences since medical science has moved on since then.The problem with these hysterical analyses can be summarised as follows:
1) Media hype.Stupid stories sexed up sell newspapers.
2) Innaccurate infomation on the web.
3) Ignorant people making comments about something they know little about.Check out half wit from Canada earlier on in the forum.
Andrewzzzz.PhD (Virology)no bullshit. | |
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