Studies: No In-Between With Swine Flu. It's Either Mild -- Or Critical.
Either you get a mild case - or it almost kills you, and they still don't know why:
Swine flu is mild for most people, but some become so gravely ill that they require sophisticated techniques, equipment, and aggressive treatment in intensive-care units to survive, according to three new studies.
"This is the most severely ill that we've ever seen people," said Anand Kumar, lead author of one of the studies and ICU attending physician for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority in Canada. "There's almost two diseases. Patients are either mildly ill or critically ill and require aggressive ICU care. There isn't that much of a middle ground."
Some of the patients Dr. Kumar and his colleagues saw were so sick they had to be saved with a technology similar to one used for patients undergoing heart bypass.
The studies of critically ill patients in Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand, published online Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggest that intensive-care units could be stretched as a second wave of H1N1 swine flu builds in Northern Hemisphere countries such as the U.S.
American public-health and hospital officials have expressed concern that the country's intensive-care facilities may not be up to accommodating the swell of patients they could potentially end up with in large-scale outbreaks.
An advisory panel to President Barack Obama warned in August of one scenario in which as many as 300,000 patients could require intensive care, occupying between half and all of ICU beds in affected regions at the peak of infection. Such a scenario "could place enormous stress on ICU units, which normally operate close to capacity," the panel warned in a widely publicized report, which also said as many as 90,000 people could die of the disease.
The patients analyzed in the three JAMA studies deteriorated very rapidly after entering the hospital, quickly progressing to respiratory failure, shock, and organ dysfunction and failure. They spent prolonged periods on mechanical ventilators, and some required frequent "rescue therapies," or treatment to save them from life-threatening conditions.
In Canada, Australia and New Zealand, doctors turned to an advanced technology similar to one used for cardiovascular surgery when prolonged mechanical ventilation and other therapies proved not to be enough for some H1N1 patients. "Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation," or ECMO, acts as a lung machine, circulating a patient's blood through a system that adds oxygen. The severely ill patients' lungs were so filled with fluid they couldn't get oxygen to their blood.
Of 68 patients treated with ECMO in Australia and New Zealand, 54 survived and 14 died, according to one of the JAMA studies conducted by researchers in those countries. The median age of the patients was 34 years and included pregnant women and obese patients.
In the study led by Dr. Kumar, 168 critically ill patients in Canada, with an average age of 32 years, generally had symptoms for about four days before being hospitalized, but they deteriorated rapidly after that, ending up in the ICU within a day or two. Most had an aggressive form of viral pneumonia, he said. About 98% suffered from other health conditions, but only 30% had serious underlying health problems such as congestive heart failure or immune suppression.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB2YvbBqJnY
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=714-Ioa4XQw
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Taking large amounts of vitamin D3 have been shown to be a strong deterrent to flus.
Explained here - he suggests a daily dose of 5000 IU (read the whole article) If you're taking a supplement or multi-vitamin already - adjust amount accordingly. Dosage for those under 120 lbs. is 4000 IU.
The larger doses of Vitamin D3 are readily available on the internet and are quite cheap.
He says he'll answer questions.
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Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Well, at least it will be a pleasant way to go, what with the drowning in your own fluids while watching nurses rush around trying to help all the people ahead of you.
"Beautiful" . . in the privacy of my own home thank you.
You've already got talented hospice care lined up.
Dropping immediately dead quickly would still be the best.
Always be prepared to take the leap into the infinite grasshopper!
What is the "infinite grasshopper"? My dad was a mortician/embalmer and I never heard that term from him.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
Perhaps he meant "woodchipper"?
Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
That does make more sense, in a morbid sort of way.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
Thanks.
Are you going to watch teevee during those last hours?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
will do fine.
Are you a Teletubbie? Is that you Tinky Winky?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
sexual preference yesterday. Which is why you asked the loaded teletubby question.
His inner TV is tuned to House.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
Umm, it wasn't intended to be about sexual preference, that was just the only telebubbie's name that I remember. Is that the one some people thought was gay?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
I believe he caught swine flu and died.
And yes, he leveled the accusation against the tinkster.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
'Nothing personal. Just business.'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJhVM930YXY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtDWPN4s8Vo
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Sorry, it's a pre-existing condition. We're not covering your treatment costs.
I also violates our profit protection clause, printed in 1-point type in invisible ink on a document in our basement, protected by a pit of asps.
You find the basement behind the door to the disused lavatory marked with the sign "Beware of the Leopard".
.
Q U E S T I O N:
Will we ever see a side by side comparison of H1N1 and "seasonal" flue deaths?
Or is "seasonal" still more deadly?
FEAR THE UNKNOWN!
FEAR THE UNKNOWN!
FEAR, FEAR, FEAR...
FEAR THE UNKNOWN!
.
Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
It took less than a second to come up with a bunch of articles on this. Here's one:
http://www.marshfieldclinic.org/patients/?pag...
It took less than a second to find no comparative death statistics at your link. Which is what old embittered was looking forward to finding, what with his death wish and all.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
Embittered is Charles Bronson?
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
to distinguish him from Charles Connors.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
LOLOL
Too funny...
... I prefer Charlie Chaplin. But oh well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps6ck1ejoAw
Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIjSnaa22oo
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I knew if I put up the "SMILE" you'd reply the "DICTATOR" and vice a versa. Thanks. :)
Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
Is Dictator where this line originally originated?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smrJ7459pj0
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
.
Not with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfwpGCXVBF4
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
ricky,
It's ok.
Kate's just trying to point out the differences between the two.
Kate,
I was asking for figures of illness.
One compared to the other.
Guess which one kills more annually?
Guess what the CDC will NOT produce?
... A comparative between the two:
~ Numbers currently infected... H!N! vs. SEASONAL
~ Numbers of deaths during months/quarter/period of study... H!N! vs. SEASONAL
Sorry, I'm just NOT buying into the HYSTERIA.
Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
Charlie, after all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT3euvmZv38
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
The last time Ms. Madrak posted on this topic, I followed a link to the New England Journal of Medicine study underlying the Bloomeberg article she was posting about. It concerned swine flu in Australia. I recall it saying that the rates of death between seasonal and H1N1 were about the same, but that the patients getting and dying from H1N1 were much younger, and that other diseases were at least major contributors to the death of elderly patients with seasonal flu. The study gave no stats I recall, but its implication is that both kill the same number, but given who and how H1N1 kills, it is deadlier.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
wouldn't expect to die. Sounds like ol' H1N1 whomps up a cytokine storm in some of its victims. Google it--it's gruesome!
suffer from flue deaths. They also die when stuck in chimneys.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
That's because that said "Diagonally" rather than "Diagon Alley".
Would you believe that I never *got* that Diagon Alley and Knock-turn Alley were jokes when I read the books...I didn't 'get' it until I listened to the books on tape? I'm special.
Are you about to tell me some sad news about Santa Claus?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
are allowed to deliver. To their homo and homi-nid offspringy.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
I am a hominid offspringy thing, ya know. I don't give up on the good stuff even if it is imaginary. So if Santa is stuck in a chimney or has swine flu, it's best to tell me now.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
I thought in his case it was Reindeer Flu.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
No, the reindeer get Santa Flu. Which is the past tense of Santa Fly.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
It was Santa what killed off the natives in this hemisphere. Columbus got a bad rap.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
It's about time we blamed Santa for some of the ills of this country. Now comes along Obama to finish what Santa started.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
but sooner or later you have to acknowledge that Obama has been in office long enough to quit blaming the problems he inherited from Santa and, in your words, "finish" something.
P.S. Obama is hoping Santa leaves him a new 3-D chess set. If Santa is really too ill, perhaps Tyler can get it for him.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
Evet could order it from QVC if only he had a teevee and watched it.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
on the one he claims he quit watching or doesn't have.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
got electrocuted in some strange encounter with a lighted animal.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
win Darwin awards.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Seasonal deaths in the U.S. yearly from plain ordinary flu are 36,000
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm
H1N1 flu deaths this year to date (remember this includes the spring outbreak) are 1300
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/13109534/H1N1-Inf...
Thus the H1N1 "epidemic" has thus far, with the year 3/4's over accounted for only 5% of expected flu deaths in a normal year.
This is hardly a crisis situation is it?
One wonders if the FUD about this flu isn't being brought about by the Pharm industry in order to sell more vaccine to the government.
Don't think that's realistic? Remember the "avian flu scare"? Remember that Tamaflu was brough out to be the cure for this upcoming epidemic? Remember that?
Now do you also recall how it was brought out that the then secretary of Defense, Donald Runsfeld, was a major stockholder and former President of the company that manufactured Tamaflu? (google it up - it happened)
Remember how the avaian scare went away once Rumsfeld's connection was brought out?
Yeah.
36,000 normal flu deaths each year in the U.S. Only 1300 swine flu deaths this year so far. Does anyone else wonder about the "scariness" of this "epidemic" ?
Are in people 80 years old or older.
This mortality rate in young people is NOT typical.
A former award-winning journalist and lifelong class warrior, keeping a jaundiced eye on the Washington elite.
"Are in people 80 years old or older."
I'm afraid that you will have to substantiate that statistic with a medical journal or other reliable source before I will believe it because I have heard that 87.4 percent of statistics are made up.
Probably has something to due with H1N1 being a flu strain that doesn't come around often, so the immune system response from healthy people is off the chart (and into the grave). That's just an uneducated guess, though.
I'm pretty sure that I had this swine flu (take that pig farmers) but I can't be sure since I gots me no insurance to visit the medical guy. I've always wondered how people could die of the flu but there was about a day and a half there where it was "OK, I now see how you could die of this." Truly miserable time.
Not that I'm keen on the "vaccine", but yeah, this IS a nasty one. Pfizer scientists done good creating this one.
pretty sure I had it in May, my Doc basically told me not to bother coming in unless I was dying ... they didnt bother to test in my province since I think they were trying to keep the numbers down at the time, avoid hysteria.
I had 3 or 4 days where I felt much worse than anything I've ever had, (Dominican rum hangover included) took nearly a month to get over it completly.
I'm Boycotting NewsCorp! Heres what not to buy: http://www.cjr.org/resources/index.php?c=news...
"Taken together, the studies show the proportion of severely ill patients who died from H1N1 varied from 17% in Canada to 41% in Mexico. Most victims were young adults or children who had health conditions that put them at greater risk."
Japan banned tamiflu for children.
Tamiflu caused psychosis (aka pediatric form of schizophrenia) in a subset of pediatric patients there. That would be scary. Until they can figure out a way to find out how to predict which children become psychotic after taking Tamiflu, they have banned it.
it sounds better than sudden death.I think the Japanese know what they're doing with this drug.
Unwanted Effects of Tamiflu
FDA briefing documents prepared for the committee documented were four sudden deaths in Japan, four cardiopulmonary arrests and one case each of disturbance of consciousness culminating in a fatal fall, pneumonia, asphyxiation and acute pancreatitis with cardiopulmonary arrest.
Link
Aw bullshit!
Show my where Corporations are promoting the art of living then maybe I'll change my mind.
They seem to be throwing out a lot of numbers and hope they scare you. The ending paragraph states that a quarter of the 272 patients admitted to hospital for H1N1 required ICU treatment. The number of patients was 68. That means 204 patients didn't need such treatment.
I want to know the likelihood of your average healthy person getting this and ending up in the ICU. The other bit of information that will be of interest is how many people who die from this didn't have insurance.
As nobody is recommending getting tested for H1N1 anymore so much as "just stay home", it's impossible to get a baseline on the total number of people infected so they just use some standard flu numbers and guess.
fucking vacine already? jesus.
I do declare some fear here... because what wasn't mentioned is the severity among the aboriginal communities. They were included in the Manitoba study. Surely the numbers would be less severe in America where there are less aboriginal communities.
Aboriginals 'cause for concern'
"The increased fraction of the aboriginal community presenting with severe 2009 influenza A (H1N1) infection is notable but not unique," the study's authors said, pointing to the three to nine per cent mortality in aboriginal communities from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, compared with less than 0.75 per cent in nonaboriginal communities then.
"Although mortality was not substantially greater among aboriginal Canadians in this report, the number of patients with severe disease and knowledge of prior illness patterns in this community is a cause for concern," the researchers said.
The tendency of females to develop severe infection was "striking," and has not been observed in other studies of the H1N1 pandemic, they said.
The reason is unclear, but the role of pregnancy has been noted in previous influenza pandemics. In the latest study, 7.7 per cent of the patients were pregnant.
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/10/12/h1n...
vitamin D defn populations are more susceptible. The CDC knows this but has been mum. Most of the early death cases vitamin D defn was confirmed
Yeah, a lot of people get this and shrug it off. Others...
http://www.kolfinna.sca-caid.org/
AFAIK, the lady (28 years old and physically active) had no underlying health conditions, but I may be wrong. One day, it's sniffles, a few days later, it's ECMO, and a couple of weeks later, memorial arrangements.
Once case, I know. Still better to be safe than sorry, IMNSHO.
for some new insight on an atypical influenza variant. Useful information to have if you're trying to build a rational threat assessment.
I had not heard of this odd distribution of severity anywhere, before your post.
It underlines my need to find myself a first-rate allergist, pronto. I need to know how sensitive I'm likely to be to the egg serum.
Are you trying to give Helen Branswell some competition? Looks like you're going about it the right way. :)
We will now return to the usually scheduled yammerheads ...
It underlines your need to get some additional sources before you make any conclusions.
Interesting because the CDC just last week said they would stop tracking the incidence of swine flu....gee I wonder why?
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Giving young children flu shots appeared to have no impact on flu-related doctor visits or hospitalizations during two recent flu seasons, according to a study published in the October issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.
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The flu vaccine is no more effective for children than a placebo, according to a large-scale, systematic review of 51 studies, published by Oxford in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
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NO studies have conclusively proven that flu shots prevent flu-related deaths among the elderly.
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A study published in the Lancet just found that influenza vaccination was NOT associated with a reduced risk of pneumonia in older people. Why is this important? Because 35,000 of the 36,000 “flu” deaths the government claims happen each year are actually caused by diseases like pneumonia, and NOT the flu.
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Research published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine also confirms that there has been no decrease in deaths from influenza and pneumonia, despite the fact that vaccination coverage among the elderly has increased from 15 percent in 1980 to 65 percent now.
As they start injecting people with swine and regular flu that contain mutagenic agents such as aluminum and mercury, they will create a breeding ground for more lethal forms.
Because I'm just flat out not going to believe antivax statements are other than propaganda without a citation.
Particularly now.
Sorry, but I'm plain sick to death of people who just make shit up, or who uncritically repeat things that other people made up.
I agree with you that links are needed. And links to reputable sources - NOT Wikipedia links.
Just as an FYI - not all people who have serious concerns abut the necessity of the H1N1 vaccine are anitvaxxers.
I am very PRO vaccine in general but have some very serious concerns about some of the FUD I've seen regarding the H1N1 flu.
I think the fact that big business was able to get the government to stop referring to the flu as "swine flu" out of concern that pork prices would drop establishes an unwelcome link between big business and the CDC that is most unwelcome.
There are other far more serious concerns that I have as well.
Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18838647?o....
Oxford - Cochran Review of 51 studies
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16437500
NO studies have conclusively proven that flu shots prevent flu-related deaths among the elderly. In The Lancet Infectious Diseases October 2007, Volume 7, Issue 10, Pages 658-666
Flu Shots not associated with a reduced risk of pneumonia
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?orig...
No decrease in deaths...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?orig...
The pharmaceutical industry is not leaving anything to chance to protect their profits. They even have studies showing them just how much risk parents will accept and still inoculate their children, and how much they’re willing to pay while still accepting that risk!
Sometimes an infectious agent will provoke an immune reaction so strong that the anti-bodies attack bits of the body itself. Kidney and lung basement membrane is either especially likely to be a target, or simply displayes clearer and more dire symptoms with a relatively mild auto-immune attack, it's not clear. While I don't know of any work confirming that that is what is happening with these more severe H1N1 cases, it would explain why younger people, with more intact immune systems, are, as in the 1918 event, the ones with the severe cases, whereas the elderly, the usual fatalities in annual flu, are being relatively spared, relatively.
Another explanation for the gulf between mild and severe cases is the hypothesis that the severe cases result from a superinfection. No, that's not "super-" as in Superman, an unusually powerful infection, it's "super-" as in "extra", "in addition to", like a supernumerary is an extra, add-on, cast member. A superinfection is an infection that comes after another infection, because the first infection somehow prepared the way, weakened the body's defenses so as to allow the superinfection to thrive. This is the way that annual flu causes most of the deaths attributed to it. It isn't the flu itself that kills the typically elderly victims of annual flu, but a second, often bacterial, superinfection that follows the flu by a week or two. The mechanism is thought to be damage caused by the flu to bronchi, the small airways of the lung, that leaves them unable to clear other pathogens for a few weeks. The fact that H1N1 is, relatively, sparing the elderly, who have weaker immune systems and often weaker, already damaged, bronchi, tends to argue against this theory. Arguing for it is the clinical judgment of many physicians who treated patients in the 1918 event. Several bacteria, in several different cities, were implicated, though the microbiology evidence wasn't definitive, and varied form center to center.
Some people have tried to use the first theory as a reason to not get the H1N1 immunization. The idea is that the vaccine for this strain of flu, which, unlike annual flu, is under suspicion of doing its greatest damage via an autoimmune reaction, might inadvertently trigger that same autoimmune reaction in the course of inducing the sought-after immunity from H1N1. Well, that's a long chain of inference, and we don't even know if this theoretical risk is at all real. But until the data from Australia arrived last week telling us that H1N1 is probably going to have a very high attack rate, similar to annual flu, I thought that this theory gave some valid reason for at least low risk people to at least consider not getting vaccinated. Swine flu pretty much fizzled last time out, in 1976, in that the feared outbreak didn't end up having a very high attack rate. So many more people were vaccinated than had the swine flu that year, that the rare cases of Guillan-Barre (an auto-immune reaction) that seemed related to vaccination still arguably outweighed the damage done by the flu itself. But if we have attack rates from this swine flu similar to annual flu, that reasoning will not apply. The flu itself, if you are not vaccinated ahead of exposure, will provoke a much stronger auto-immune reaction than the vaccination. Even if this theoretical danger of the vaccine is real, which we don't know, if we get attack rates similar to Australia, you are very likely to get the infection, which, if you have the same wrong HLA types that might put you at risk from the vaccine, will put you at much greater risk from the infection.
Get vaccinated. Other than the concern about auto-immune cross-reaction, which is a greater risk from the infection itself than from the vaccination, there is no reason to think that H1N1 is not as safe as annual flu vaccine, which has been used by hundreds of millions of people for decades, and therefore has a more proven track record than just about any medical intervention around.
Active, aggressive, potentially self-damaging immune response is not the only immune system we rely on to stave off infection.
Babies get immunity to many threats from immune factors in colostrum, the pre-milk secretion.
Passive immune defense also includes the biological terrain factors of acid/alkaline balance, oxidation-reduction potential, electrical conductivity. These can be optimized with diet and supplementation.
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