Researchers: Right Now, Swine Flu Virus Doesn't Look Like the 1918 Killer Flu
A couple of points about this reassuring L.A. Times article on the swine flu:
As the World Health Organization raised its infectious disease alert level Wednesday and health officials confirmed the first death linked to swine flu inside U.S. borders, scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza -- at least in its current form -- isn't shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics.
In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks that occur each winter without much fanfare.
"Let's not lose track of the fact that the normal seasonal influenza is a huge public health problem that kills tens of thousands of people in the U.S. alone and hundreds of thousands around the world," said Dr. Christopher Olsen, a molecular virologist who studies swine flu at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison.
Science and public health areas are now so specialized, experts are sometimes misleading because they just don't know what the people on the next floor are doing. (Just because you know about viruses doesn't mean you understand epidemiology, and most reporters don't know, either.) So let's address that "36,000 people a year die from the regular flu" mime that's making the rounds.
First of all, the bulk of those numbers are made up of victims aged 70 and older, people who are already high-risk because they have heart or lung diseases. That's because (despite scientists who've called for more precise methodology) our public health system counts any deaths from natural causes among the elderly during the winter as flu-related. The fact is, we just don't know. It's a guesstimate.
The difference with swine flu is, it's killing people in the 20 to 40 age group. That's unusual. That's why we're so concerned.
So don't feel reassured just yet. Don't panic, but please don't ignore the potential threat of this new flu strain. As I keep saying, there's a middle ground between panic and denial. That's where you should be.
Flu viruses are known to be notoriously unpredictable, and this strain could mutate at any point -- becoming either more benign or dangerously severe. But mounting preliminary evidence from genetics labs, epidemiology models and simple mathematics suggests that the worst-case scenarios are likely to be avoided in the current outbreak.
"This virus doesn't have anywhere near the capacity to kill like the 1918 virus," which claimed an estimated 50 million victims worldwide, said Richard Webby, a leading influenza virologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
What he says is factually correct - right this minute. (Actually, by the time you read this, that may no longer apply.) As the Reveres like to say at the public health blog Effect Measure, "You've seen one flu pandemic... you've seen one flu pandemic."
No one knows why or when a virus will suddenly become more virulent. Everyone hopes it doesn't, but the fact is, once it becomes widespread here, it will mutate and anything can happen. So pay attention. Go on with your life, but prepare yourself. (As my favorite saying goes, "Allah will provide, but first tie your camel.")
So many other things to worry about -- it's a relief.
and some links will pop up.
http://news.google.com/news?q=Tamiflu%20Natio...
sad to see Crooks and Liars offers no respite to the complete fear mongering that is going on with the Swine Flue. Susie, you are completely misguided to suggest that this virus is killing people in the age group between 20 and 40, without specifying that its only in MEXICO. the only people to die from Swine Flue in America are infants and the elderly. Physicians don't yet know why this disease is more fatal to Mexicans than it is Americans, but they postulate that it has to do with the poor health care system and pollution which harms immune systems. Therefore, your whole thesis that this flu is any worse than seasonal flu is completely bogus.
poor people with little access to american-quality medicine?
Some stuff you can't make up!
Fear!
If there's nothing else going on besides the fleecing of the treasury, then let's have another distraction. don;t think about geithner and summers and the banking industry with an umbilical cord into the treasury.
Look! Quick! Down south! Mexicans with the flu!
Some stuff you can't make up!
but if you see a way to make a buck off this flu, don't hesitate to pause and exploit your opportunity.
led and easily controlled. Who benefits from this hysteria?
Yes, another panacea, indeed. Cheney benefits because it pushes torture off the boob-tube, off the front pages, off the 'news' magazines table of contents. Quite co-incincidently (too many martinis) it also erases the WALLSTREETBANKSTERS, and all, all, all, their dirty laundry. No one even mentions Iraq's kiling fields all done for a foreign power, Afganistan? where's that? That PETROLEUM/Israel goal of a pipeline bringing oil to Israel, and the subsequent years of punishment that that mafia has waged lo these too many years, no habeus corpus, PATRIOT ACT, ........ do I pass?
when a mere epidemic is not enough to scare people into buying drugs and forgetting the financial crisis, two wars and New Orleans.
Some stuff you can't make up!
Headed by Dr. Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun, her performance during the SARS outbreak, which ultimately led to 299 deaths . . . . her infamous statements like, "I ate chicken last night" or "I eat chicken every day, don't panic, everyone". . . . her post will run through to June 2012.
Yes, the SARS outbreak lead to 299 deaths. What, should she have encouraged people to run screaming in the streets? Would that have been helpful?
The length of time that cold or flu germs can survive outside the body on an environmental surface, such as a doorknob, varies greatly. But the suspected range is from a few seconds to 48 hours — depending on the specific virus and the type of surface.
Flu viruses tend to live longer on surfaces than cold viruses do. Also, it's generally believed that cold and flu viruses live longer on nonporous surfaces — such as plastic, metal or wood — than they do on porous surfaces — such as fabrics, skin or paper.
Although cold and flu viruses primarily spread from person-to-person contact, you can also become infected from contact with contaminated surfaces. The best way to avoid becoming infected with a cold or flu is to wash your hands frequently with soap and water or with an alcohol-based sanitizer.
Sends incinerated air from corona discharge upwards. Worked great in dusty buildings to improve ease of breathing, except the constant questions of "What's that-- a microphone?"
Tue Apr 28, 2009 9:39am BST
ZURICH (Reuters) - A container of flu virus samples packed in dry ice exploded on a Swiss train, injuring one person but posing no other risks to humans, police said on Tuesday.
The box held vials of swine flu virus, although a different strain than the H1N1 variety that has caused about 150 deaths in Mexico and infected people in the United States, Canada, Spain and Britain.
A technician was transporting the container on Monday night to the Swiss national flu centre in Geneva, where scientists are developing a flu test for humans, police said.
One woman was hurt when the box exploded in reaction to the dry ice used to keep the samples cold.
After consulting virus specialists, the police decided to stop the St. Gallen to Geneva train before it entered the station in Lausanne.
The virus specialists confirmed that the samples being transported posed no risks to humans, police said.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKT...
Doesn't the "regular" flu virus kill 50,000 people in this country every year? Divide that by 365 days and that's about 136 a day. Since this swine flu started, 1 person has died in the US from it. Doesn't sound like a pandemic.
As mentioned in other flu threads before, referencing BMJ article that explain the inflated numbers. Seems like free marketing for Pharmaco flu shots, care of the CDC.
EDIT-Adendum Thirty-Six Thousand People Do Not Die Each Year from "Regular Flu" (Confirmed) http://www.naturalnews.com/026169.html
Also, Flu shots are virtually worthless, says 2006 British Medical Journal analysis. ""We've got an exaggerated expectation of what vaccines can actually do," Jefferson said. "I'm hoping American and European taxpayers will be alerted and start asking questions."
http://www.naturalnews.com/020912.html
The second article link you provide includes this line, which I think is fairly telling:
"'Flu shots only prevent colds in about 1 percent of people who get them, making them 99 percent useless,' Adams said."
A cold virus is not the same as an influenza virus, and that makes the statement in the article utterly absurd.
Flu shots target a particular strain of influenza, and are not a panacea for all influenza viruses. As for the effectiveness of vaccines and virology, I think that Jonas Salk would greatly disagree. Even naturopathic medicines must still adhere to scientific principles.
You did well to point out the bit at the bottom of the article, attention paid non-doctor, consumer health advocate book-author Adams. It does appear silly. But telling? Maybe of the site, and of Adams. But not of the BMJ.
I did not see a reference to naturopathic medicine in the article, so I'm uncertain what you meant to address with that mention.
Sadly, Jonas Salk (October 28, 1914 – June 23, 1995) has been dead nearly 15 years. Scientists might or might not stick to their guns to defend old work, but science marches on, right?
Instead of focusing on that Adams fellow, let's address what Dr. Tom Jefferson was quoted saying, a doctor with work accepted and published in the prestigious 21st century British Medical Journal, efforts pertinent to the issue.
Combined with the alarming, but unconventionally inflated and mushy flu-death numbers from the CDC, I'd say that Dr Jefferson's concern merits serious consideration, from a health and financial perspective. We can follow the money to see relationships, perhaps mutually beneficial to bureaucrats and Pharma? Criminal, fraudulent activity, even?
Covering the other important news. Especially for the Faux news. Torture? What torture? We've got to get the people thinking and worrying about anything else. Cover it? Yes. Scare the s#it out of people? Maybe not.
Can i shoot Mexicans or people with pug noses or not? Come on, the Air Force One scare was nice but it was just a quickie, I need a good hardcore long term fear I can ride til at least mid-term elections when I can go back to being afraid of homos.
Very good points on the CDC's "30,000" number. If you examine the CDC's annual National Vital Statistics (the last one I know of is from 2001) they report around 2,000 deaths from "influenza" each year. The CDC trumps up the numbers to ratchet up the fear. Fear is the primary tool used to sell vaccines. But things have not worked out well the past few years. The vaccines (for influenza) are formulated by statistical guess. The guesses have been off the mark leaving a population with a further-altered immune system and a nice dose of heavy metals stored in soft tissue.
I'd suggest that the reason younger people are being hit with this new virus harder than the elderly is because it's something this age group has never seen before and therefore natural immunity is probably nil. In the older groups who are not dropping as easily (this appears to be the case based on stories so far) perhaps they've been exposed to similar germs 30 or more years prior and have sufficient immunity to fight it off before complications set in.
From this post:
That would appear to be bullsh*t from this esteemed individual. By CDC standards, no one dies from flu in the US. Of course some do, but that huge number is extrapolated, inferred. A double standard that makes swine flu seem less dangerous than it is.
Influenza is a virus- and one that mutates very quickly- while anthrax is a bacillus- a bacteria.
The problem with using a virus as a weapon is that, because it mutates so quickly, it might never work the way it's intended. It might get introduced to a host with immunity and then mutate to where it causes no harm to the intended victims. If you just lay it out there in the open, it will be dead in a few days. Influenza, like most viruses, is very sensitive.
An anthrax spore can sit out there on a surface forever, waiting for a host to breathe it in. Once in the hosts lungs it multiplies, and spores get pumped out by sneezes and coughs, either being breathed in by someone quickly or sitting on a window sill, or in the soil, waiting to be breathed in again.
You've got your tinfoil hat over your eyes. Push it back, find Google and start reading everything you can about influenza and bacilli.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
CDC reports confirmed cases only - a death will not be reported as an influenza death unless the lab tests have been done to actually prove it.
There are other sources that report based on far looser standards. Many illnesses are reported as flu based solely on the symptoms, so deaths resulting from those illnesses are reported as flu deaths.
The true number is somewhere in between.
is that the CDC reports confirmed cases of swine flu death, but in the case of ordinary human flu, the CDC magically abandons their stringent standards to provide, instead, extrapolated guesswork to produce authoritive-sounding numbers for ordinary flu deaths.
Working in elder healthcare, vaccinated for one flu, then got hit by the flu virus that was affecting the 18-50 year-olds.
But that's the concern about this bug. It's hitting and killing people who are in the prime of life, rather than infants and the elderly. Not to come across as callous, but this wouldn't be getting any attention if the victims were over 70- because that's pretty normal.
Another thing- this may end up being a bug that's more dangerous amongst Mexicans than Europeans and Americans&Canadians of European roots, but theat might not be because of genetics. Economic factors are probably more important- poor people tend to have higher death rates during influenza outbreaks because they tend to miss the news of the outbreak, and because they tend to tax their bodies more- out of necessity- by going to work while they should be at home resting.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
are simply more active and social. WWI saw this group confined together in barracks.
As Obama so condescendingly put it, "wash your hands and cover your mouth when you cough", right after admonishing people about "maxing out their credit cards", forgetting to mention the 3.3 million jobless, etc. etc. etc. etc..
I think many of you are missing the point.
Obama gets first supreme court pick.
Watch the flu will drop off the radar in a few days as the two sides jockey into position for the next battle.
Ooooo, lemme guess, whoever he picks the right will claim isn't anti-aborty/pro-gunney enough?
Oregano oil still not sold out, is great for anti-fungal & anti-viral uses. I put a drop in my face mask, for example, lasts long. Few drops in water spray bottle good, or in your hand wash dispenser plus tea tree oil. Chlorox drops in water bottle also good, cheap spray disinfectant for massive quantity in sick person's room, etc.
If you REALLY don't want to get Pig Flu, stay out of (/)bama's 747, especially over Mexico City or NYC.
Since those N95 masks protect others from your sneezes, not the other way around, your idea of essential oil sounds good!
two sides? They look the same/are the same. Has Obama shown any interest in the constitution?
I think this virus not much this spring but will hit hard next fall/winter.
Here's the latest knee-jerk reaction from the Massachusetts State Senate:
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/vi...
"Enter private property for investigations", eh?
That's very interesting.....and just a tad un-Constitutional I think...but, call me crazy!!!
Whatever. Tomorrow we're going to hang the American flag out front and visit the local police station to make a generous contribution to the police auxillary league (or what ever the fuck they call it), so we can cop (no pun) stickers for our vehicles. (An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure??)
We went to the local Rite-Aid this afternoon to pick up a few things (just in case...). All face masks gone. All flu-type drugs sold out. The shelves were stripped bare. The check-out gal told us people had gone nuts with the news of a potential pandemic. She said, "Yeah, one lady came in and bought ten bottles of hand sanitizer solutions."
So we left with enough new decks of cards (3) to play endless games of Canasta and a few six packs of 7-Up (heads up folks...you get the flu...you should have the #1 cure: 7-Up....).
We're seeing our local G.P. for a prescription for Tamiflu/Relenza on Monday....just in case. It's the kind of drug that you'd rather have sitting there when you wake up at 3 a.m. with a fever of 103 degrees, major body aches and pains, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. You take it immediately and chances are the symptoms will be gone within 24 hours. Without it, well...
And if you DON'T have the medications do you honestly think you'll be up to schleping to a doctor's office (if you are lucky enough to get an appointment on the spot)? Not to mention feeling up to going to pick up the medication at the pharmacy??
Better everyone should score the meds BEFORE they get the flu.
So, take it from your Crooks and Liars Registered Nurse and Faithful Girl Scout:
Be Prepared: A good friend available to help you...critical. Lots of vegetable/chicken broth to drink. Lots of 7-Up (NO SUBSTITUTES!!). Tylenol/Aspirin oral or suppositories for fever/aches and pains. Emetrol or coke syrup for nausea, (or Zofran troches from your M.D. at $50 a pop...but they work like a charm). Immodium for diarrhea. Some comforting DVD's to amuse yourself when you're beginning to come around.
And always keep that extra $10 cash hidden in your wallet for the next time you see the Girl Scouts out in front of your local supermarket to pick up a box of Thin Mints and to give them a hearty "Thank You!!"
Tsk, tsk.....
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
If you wake up at 3 am with major body aches and pains, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, YOU DON'T HAVE THE FLU. The flu is a respiratory illness.
And no, everyone should NOT be "scoring the meds" and stocking up. You end up with perfectly healthy people sitting on supplies of medicine, while sick people can't get it. Which actually increases the spread of disease, instead of slowing it.
The first sign of flu symptoms (which are NOT nausea and vomiting), go to the doctor, get your prescription, and take the stuff.
Ugh.
If you can get Relenza not Tamiflu if it's for this flu. Tamiflu was resisted by 99% of the N1's last year. Chances are it will be more effective since this is a human N1 variant. Then again, if you get some other flu (not an N1 ...). I am beginning to wonder if the quick hydration is mainly behind results here, not the anti-virals.
Store-bought chicken soup/broth is pretty useless (except as a source of liquid), but home made variants from free range chickens are likely still good. Adding white meat from a factory farmed chicken to a vegetable broth provides little (other than well ... vanilla meat protein), which is what is in cans today. Old-style simmered broth made from skin-on, bone-in, dark meat will slowly leech marrow and fat nutrients at a low enough temp to not destroy them all. So, make some of your own chicken-broth from free range chicken thighs. You don't even need some flu for an excuse to make a good old fashioned chicken stock.
at a Holiday Inn Express last night.....but I think any of us is more likely to die from an infection acquired in a hospital - like many thousands do each year, than we are to succumb to this H1N1 flu.
Pay attention, apply common sense, avoid sick people and large crowded places for a while, wash your hands a lot, and eat healthfully. I remember 1976 - we were all herded off to get flu shots for the first bout of pandemic 'swine flu' - which never materialized. And, the hastily concocted vaccine hurt and killed more people than the flu.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
It was just to hype "rope & dope" your next reaction, see? The CHICOMS are good at that, "The Art of War," their military Bible.
- just keep the people in a state of panic and you can do whatever you like.
During the 1918-1920 Swine Flu Pandemic my granddad loaded corpses onto flatbed railroad cars in Southern Illinois.
The 1918 world population was 1.8 billion. 20-100 million people died from that flu.
The 2009 world population is 6.8 billion. If this flu killed the same proportion, 75-375 million would die worldwide.
The 1918 US population was 103 million. 500,000 to 675,000 died.
The 2009 US population is 305 million. If this flu killed the same proportion, 1.5 to 2 million would die here.
That's why there is so much concern. It's justified.
Concern, not panic.
Wikipedia: 1918 Flu Pandemic
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
this is crap for headlines to distract.
Some stuff you can't make up!
from a doc at Opednews Relenza has a better chance of being effective than Tamiflu.
I have no plans based on past immune devastation from a flu shot never again. I had back-to-back colds, tooth emergencies etc. from September to May and got a bad flu anyway in the month of April.
Never again.
(currently) five posts up (Relenza/Tamiflu), where I mention that as well as the reason.
I'm going back to my video games now I think.
idea your property? I haven't had all day to read other people's posts let alone yours.
Have a time w/yr joystick, Your Arrogance.
I also posted the link to article on it in threads yesterday, and I was too lazy to look it up and relink. I used to work in this field but am retired now, so it isn't my work, but thanks for asking!
My second line was quite sarcastic.
It's not my problem you suffer from tl;dr. Obviously your own info is important but seeing if anyone already posted it is too much effort ... aw heck .. I was too lazy to look up my own link from yesterday myself and even admitted it ...
I think this does bring up a nice example of the "noise machine". Blogs will not save us from the "mainstream media" noise machine if they become the same, and at some point the consumer of the media really does need to exert themselves.
"What he says is factually correct - right this minute. (Actually, by the time you read this, that may no longer apply.) As the Reveres like to say at the public health blog Effect Measure, "You've seen one flu pandemic... you've seen one flu pandemic."
No one knows why or when a virus will suddenly become more virulent. Everyone hopes it doesn't, but the fact is, once it becomes widespread here, it will mutate and anything can happen. So pay attention. Go on with your life, but prepare yourself. (As my favorite saying goes, "Allah will provide, but first tie your camel.")"
Really, just really. I just cannot believe how issues like this just brings out the crazies. I'm not one to down play this, of course, but when you are basically criticizing a WHO report and make up statistics about how this flue is killing 20-40 yo. IN MEXICO. Call me back when it kills any americans in that age group with no other health complications or extenuating circumstances. I'll give you a hint, it won't.
200 people died from sars. Maybe that may will die from this. This is ridiculous. Wash your hands, avoid crowds if you are really scared, and get lots of rest if you feel ill. Just common sense.
More people will likely die in car accidents hastily rushing to the drug store to buy meds and supplies than will die of the flu.
And lets just admit it. The only reason anyone cares about this is because its america. When SARS was here, it was just a disease "over there". And SARS was bad too, we had no freaking clue what it was. This is the damn flu, for christ sakes. We completely understand the disease and are making music based on the DNA strands. This is no reason to even be worried unless MAYBE you live in an area with known outbreaks (I'm in NY, and I'm no more worried than i normally am).
The first wave was not as fatal as the second.
I just read that there will be enough of the swine flu vaccine for EVERYBODY in the U.S. by this fall.
Does anyone remember Jonestown? Remember the people who didn’t want to drink the poisoned koolaid? They were forced, kicking and screaming, to drink.
People who died from the swine flu bug in 1976 : 1
People who died from a reaction to the vaccine : at least 25
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090501/ap_on_re_...
It's not likely that anyone is going to be given the 1976 vaccine to the 1976 strain of the flu, so the comparison isn't terribly valid.
Well, OK, to be technical, the comparison isn't at all valid.
After the still unexplained Baxter event, their getting caught sending out level-3 bio-hazard live avian flu in vaccine materials, the CDC double-standard for reporting ordinary flu deaths, and other bizarre behaviors, I would have grave concerns about being injected with these products.
KADUNA, Nigeria, March 11, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A UNICEF campaign to vaccinate Nigeria's youth against polio may have been a front for sterilizing the nation
"When asked by the Trust why Dr. Kaita felt the drug manufacturers would have contaminated the Oral Polio Vaccine, he gave three reasons: "These manufacturers or promoters of these harmful things have a secret agenda which only further research can reveal. Secondly they have always taken us in the third world for granted, thinking we don't have the capacity, knowledge and equipment to conduct tests that would reveal such contaminants. And very unfortunately they also have people to defend their atrocities within our midst, and worst still some of these are supposed to be our own professionals who we rely on to protect our interests..."
Another more elaborate interview with Dr Kaita here- http://www.whale.to/b/kaita.html
WTF is happening in your imagination?
Easy there silas....
Nobody's forcin nobody to take a vaccine.
meme... not mime...
Could pharmaceutical companies be spreading panic to profit?
You notice most news broadcast commercials are for prescription drugs.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
If one of our axioms is that viruses can mutate at any time, why exactly do we not worry that the annual flu, you know the one that usually gets past a 20% attack rate and kills 36,000 a year, will suddenly mutate into a form that starts killing the only people whose deaths should apparently be a cause for concern, the 20-40 year-old crowd? Why not worry that Ebola, or HIV, or Marburg, or any other high case-fatality disease you could name, will mutate to a highly contagious form? Why not worry that high attack rate diseases, like the common cold, will mutate to high case-fatality forms? Why, exactly, is this swine flu an appropriate vessel for whatever middle ground between panic and apathy you care to define, but all of the innumerable other potential pathogens in the universe, are not? Why should your middle ground not be exactly where we live every minute of every day, in a world full of imponderable risks? Why should swine flu, and only swine flu, trigger this middle ground?
Please don't make any part of your answer the idea that somehow the admittedly inexact way we report deaths in this country has managed to go so far wrong that the 36,000 deaths it reports annually is somehow actually fewer than the 200 deaths reported from swine flu in Mexico, or that the 36,000 somehow should not cause concern to real people because they're all old drain-circlers. Not only does this idea leave out the infants who are also a prominent component of the 36,000, some of us might think that even old drain-circlers deserve some shot at eking out another year of even what has to be, from the perspective of a 20-40 year old person, an admittedly pretty bleak existence. Peope might start to accuse you of being a rather desperate panic-monger if your answer includes that idea.
You do worry. But ...
One of the reasons you worry less about things like Ebola though is the dramatic, fast moving, high kill viruses do tend to infect, develop and kill people so fast they limit their own spread. Bad for those that get it, but good for limiting the spread to prevent epidemics.
The reason for not worrying about common viruses is that so much of the population has been exposed to so many of its variants while it was weak that practically everyone has partial immunity. Or, put it this way, the virus has been vaccinating us against it for decades. So common colds, and variations of flu's of past years all fall here.
Viruses that kill slowly like HIV give us too much time to bolster our defenses and slow the viruses spread internally, so we keep the viruses from killing.
The other reason not to panic until you see a virus actually existing, is that viruses mutate so often and so much that until you see one that "looks concerning", you don't have enough information. Most viruses are "boring". Boring viruses are everywhere, and people start panicing about those we'd all become OCD hand washing paranoids who never gathered in public.
Viruses constant mutations are like a gambler playing the slot machine. They probably won't win; and with modern medicine, house odds are against them. That doesn't mean it is not possible, so that is why you do watch. The likely profile of a "winning" virus is a new variant that spreads at an average rate and kills within a week or two as the secondary complications set in. That allows people that become infected to live long enough to spread it, yet the population won't have partial immunity and the virus will have a concerning death rate. People that get it in areas without good medical care won't be able to get defense bolstering treatment in time, or as hospitals become overwhelmed, some people don't get care fast enough.
*This* virus bears watching, but obviously people aren't dropping like flies. It's like watching a Type 3 hurricane over Cuba if you live in NOLA. Just watch for now though.
And they are out there, in untold numbers we can only guess at because we only know the very few that have a history of killing people, these pathogens which are all perfectly valid candidates to be the "new Black Death". Why does this one bear watching, in any preference whatsoever to all of these others, most of which we don't even know of to even look for?
You seem to have missed the point of Ms Madrak's principle that these things can mutate at a moment's notice, into behavior not previously observed. So yes, Ebola has not been observed to spread very well among humans, however high the case-fatality rate when it does, but one of these mutations could easily modulate down into the "red zone" your candidate explanation for its failure to transmit readily, its rapidity of action and this selfsame high case-fatality rate. Why does that possibility not bear at least as much watching as the mutational hoops swine flu would have to jump through to get into the same groove of high attack rate and high case-fatality rate as the Black Death?
Because, it kills too fast and too obviously. That fast killing in and of itself, limits its candidacy to be the "New Black Death". People need to live long enough with low to no symptoms to allow the virus to spread into epidemic proportions. Usually the infected person needs to not be aware they are infected for maximum viral transmission. Someone bleeding profusely is a pretty striking symptom, and they aren't going far and infecting many in that condition. If Ebola to mutated to a less deadly, slower onset and more contagious version would bear watching. It would help if its symptoms were less obvious too (understatement). That's a lot of mutating. While possible, it is less probable. If we start to see slow-killing Ebola mutations where the bleeding is limited to non-visible tissues at first ... then worry more.
I assure you I haven't missed the point about viruses mutating. I point out elsewhere their propensity to exchange their genetic material with anything as often as possible makes them the ultimate sluts of the known universe. But viruses that kill their hosts quickly also limit the choices in breeding partners quite a bit too.
The reason *this* virus is being watched hard right now is because flu's already have many of the traits needed to spread widely. We have also seen a lot of flu viruses grabbing animal virus parts (making them fit the not easily resisted in humans category) recently. So all one of these hybrid viruses needs to do now is get a little bit more deadly. That's not a lot of mutating, making it statistically more likely, so they get watched harder.
So, yes, Ebola being the "new Black Death" is certainly possible. But it needs to lose one critical round of slots (kill speed) and win several other pulls of the slot arm just right to hit the jackpot. The flu's have won some good pulls recently, they only need one or two more winning pulls to break the bank. It's no wonder then that the "house" has more camera's trained on the flu than on Ebola. That is of course subject to change in the future.
I'm also not trying to spread panic either. While "this bears watching" is certainly prudent. Evacuating the whole casino the first time anyone wins two consecutive rounds on the slots machines would be equally silly. And, in the end we are all gamblers, virus and humans alike.
I think the tone of the original post was spot on.
Ebola doesn't spread well in humans because it seems to need contact with an infected person's blood to transmit to the next victim, and that's never going to be high-volume except where folks re-use needles, which is probably why the known outbreaks centered chiefly on people who patronized clinics that had to rely on sterilizing hypodermic needles, rather than discarding them after one use. We really have no idea how many mutations Ebola might be from aerosolized particle transmission, and no reason to think that that number of pulls of the slot machine is any less than the number of pulls this high-mortality swine flu strain would need to get to a high enough attack rate to even start to rival the death toll of the annual flu pandemic we have every year. Nor do we have any idea how many pulls it would take to get a given year's predominant strain of human flu, which typically gets to an attack rate above 20%, to suddenly acquire a high case-fatality rate. That possibility seems to me inherently much less unlikely than the idea that any of the animal flus will suddenly go high attack rate on us.
Rapidity of kill, or short incubation, is not a barrier to achieving a high attack rate. The disease simply has to spread to enough new victims before the old vicitm is sidelined by symptoms. That spread can be rapid too. The Black Death flew on the wings of pneumonic transmission during at least its first few seasons, and in that prime of its youth a single index case could come into a previously healthy village in the morning and leave 2/3 dying by sundown. The 1918 flu also spread by aerosolized particles, and moved with a frightening rapidity, but that rapidity appled to both onset of severe symptoms and transmission to new victims, and so did not stop it from achieving a high attack rate.
And then there's nosocomial infection. I guess if we lived in some Hobbesian world, and had the habit of isolating everyone who became sick at first appearance of symptoms, it would be somewhat harder for rapidly progressive diseases, or ones that were only contagious after first appearance of symptoms, and maybe this story you're telling about Ebola would have more plausiblity behind it. But we don't live in such a world, and the places where we actually care for the sick, as is our custom, rather than, I don't know, toss them out of helicopters, or whatever alternative way we would address illness if we weren't human beings, are at high risk for spreading even infecious diseases that progress rapidly to sidelining symptoms. This tendency to care for each other even extends after death, and many of the cases of Ebola that spread outside of sterilized needles, seem to have resulted from exposure to blood by relatives preparing the bodies of victims for burial.
Now, it is certainly true that pathogens that are better adapted to us, do not tend to kill us, because that indeed kills the goose that lays the golden eggs, which is maladaptive for them. And yes, you don't usually see high attack rates except in an organism that is well-adapted to us. This general principle, that a high degree of very specific adaptation to human hosts is both necessary to high attack rates, and precludes high case-fatality rates, is why complacency about the next Black Death is the default position for most of us. But it's only a general principle, and every now and then a new Black Death, even a sawed-off Black Death like the 1918 flu, comes along to remind us that it's only a general rule. The reason that I am not more, or less, for that matter, worried that swine flu, or avian flu, or Ebola, or any other particular agent, bears any special scrutiny, is that we have no idea how these occasional exceptions to the general rule managed the paradox of being both high attack rate and high fatality at the same time. We don't know what to look for in the next Black Death because we don't know how the Black Death did what it did. We are nowhere near the understanding of these organisms that you seem to imagine we possess that would allow us to say that this one is only x number of mutations away from Black Death status, while that one is 2x, or 10x, or 1,000,000x.
Contact with any bodily fluids, not just blood. Was that bathroom handle wet with water, or was their a little snot in there too? Aerosol transmission has been seen in monkeys, but only one suspected in humans, a nurse. I'm not sure where you get your information, or where or why you make bizarre assertions on whether anyone would care for people who did contract viruses. I stand by my information.
I am far from complacent about the possibility of another pandemic. I worked on some anti-viral drug research for a while when I was younger. But, I'd rather let what we do know help us use our resources wisely than running about screaming over every virus. I think that even though this virus is looking less "scary" by the minute, that it is a good wake-up call that we aren't done with pathogens yet. Even bacteria are making some interesting drug resistant varieties, and neither our anti-viral nor anti-bacterial research is well funded. Honestly, nothing like surviving an unremarkable hybrid flu only to have the MRSA you got while getting IV fluids in the hospital kill you a few weeks later.
We know more than you seem to think. Reverse engineering what the genes do in small sets of people where we know they are descended from Black Death survivors has given us quite a few clues on HIV. We know not only enough about how Black Death infected, but why some villages survived, and what it was about their immune response that lead to their survival.
Instead of screaming chicken little, lobby for basic research funding and make medical research as rewarding as or say writing mathematical models for Wall Street. The issue isn't current knowledge, or even the ability to learn more, but funding for it and attracting bright minds into it. And a lot of the basic research in this country (I can't speak to others) is becoming tainted by funding by "interested parties".
To call this virus Swine Flu is gastly unfair to pigs. I suggest it be renamed, Barbara Bush Flu.
Curtsie!
H1N1, when printed in small font looks like the
slang term for "ass": "Heinie", that my new-york Italian girlfriend used to use, as in, "Get your heinie over here" and so I think we
should pronounce it that way.
That's pronounced "high-knee" with accent on first sylabble.
I hope I'm the first to start this meme, and that it takes off and has a rich and productive life.
The "Hybrid Hienie" ...
if they do their jobs right, and few people die, then it was all nothing but "fear mongering" and the conspiracy loons will have a field day.
If they screw up, and tons of people die, the same self righteous crowd are the first in line to tell us "I told you so" while yelling to the high heaves in anger.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br80HSGGPek
The swine influenza is now in phase 5. That mean the virus has spread to multiple countries and is beyond the possibility of containment.
It is known the virus is contagious.
It is know that mankind has not been exposed to this virus before: we have no natural immunity.
It is known that the virus can be fatal in young people.
In this video I make some suggestions to what can be done for this.
Congressman Ron Paul recently said in a popular video that both the government shouldnt get involved in pandemic control as this was essentially a 'healthcare' issue. He also states that the previous swine flu went nowhere.
I strongly disagree as both
Both of these arguments have serious flaws.
Firstly with a pandemic, your chances of you getting the virus depends directly on the healthcare of those around you. Put simply it is a communal matter.
Secondly just because the last swine flu went noowhere, that doesnt mean they all will. The last big influenza outbreak killed 50 million.
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