Report: Older, Youngest Victims of Severe Flu At Highest Risk
By Susie Madrak Thursday Nov 05, 2009 11:00amThey're released data from the earliest cases of swine flu deaths, showing that people over 50 who were admitted to the hospital were likelier to die. This has a different curve from seasonal flu deaths, where adult deaths are typically people over 80:
An analysis of more than 1,000 California patients hospitalized with H1N1 flu during the first four months of the pandemic found that infants were most likely to be admitted, and patients 50 and older were most likely to die once admitted.
In the first four months of the pandemic, H1N1, like the seasonal flu, was especially severe in older people, who are more likely to have underlying health conditions, says lead author Janice Louie, a public-health medical officer at the California Department of Public Health.
However, Louie says, unlike seasonal flu, older people are far less likely than children and young adults to contract the H1N1 flu in the first place. For that reason, the study won't lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to add healthy older people to the list of priority groups for H1N1 vaccine, director Thomas Frieden told reporters Tuesday.
Of 1,088 patients hospitalized with H1N1 flu in California, 11%, or 118 patients, died, and 30%, or 340 patients, were admitted to intensive-care units, Louie and her co-authors report in today's Journal of the American Medical Association. In patients 50 and older, the death rate was up to 20%, compared with about 2% in hospitalized patients under age 18.
The study focuses on patients who were hospitalized between April 23 and Aug. 11. Whether H1N1, or swine flu, will eventually mutate and cause more severe illness is not yet known, Louie says: "Influenza is pretty unpredictable."
Nearly a third of all the hospitalized patients in her study were reported to have no underlying conditions, such as lung disease, associated with an increased risk of flu complications.
But a disproportionate number of them were obese, an observation that also has been made in other countries, the authors write. Obesity doesn't appear to be a risk factor for seasonal flu.
Of the 361 patients whose body mass index – or BMI, a number based on height and weight – was known, half were obese, and half of those patients were morbidly obese, defined as having a BMI over 39, or roughly 100 pounds overweight.
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I'm sure our wrinkly representatives...like Spector, Lieberman, et al have already received their socialist flu shots through their evil government run healthcare plan.
I am a doctor, and most probably have had 'the bad one'. There are herbs that will help, but the key word is help, as in, these herbs will not 'cure' anything. They are Goldenseal is antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, (pricey, tho) and must be taken in larger doses than usually recommended, much larger doses. Pharmacutical Corps hate herbs because they can't 'improve' on nature, nor jack up the prices. Another, is slippery elm, (affordable) which gets rid of mucus, and believe me, I had so much phlegm I thought I would drown in my own fluids!!! I usually get it in bulk, which is a fine powder, I use a heaping tbsp., in not quite a cup of water, stir quickly with a fork, and drink quickly as it gets a little jelly in the water. Better than any anti-congestion drug I've ever found.
With all that money and influence, they don't stop at negative feelings. They work actively to block access to products and information everywhere.
Since flu is seasonal, any thoughts on sunshine vitamin D possibly offering protection?
In all honestly, I've started eating "vegetarian" one or two days a week, eating a lot more veggies and cut down on processed foods over the past year and have found my immune system is much better. I'm far from a healthy eater, but even my modest changes have helped a lot.
Herbal remedies that work have either been rolled into the pharmacopoeia or are the subject of active research. Ones that do not have been discarded by medical science... and picked up by snake-oil salesmen.
we can eat cherries for pain safely. But until then, they are an unapproved drug. WTF?
On what evidence do you base your claim that eating cherries relieves pain?
Do you have a blog or resource for those of us who don't like ingesting a drug for every minor ailment but also have found the majority of stuff sold at homeopathic shops is a placebo at best and an expensive waste?
Personally, I've resorted to tequila as my cure of choice. BUt I'm sure there are better options like the one you mentioned above.
Thanks.
Try Mercola.com
Mercola.com is a scam site promoting the worst sort of snake-oil and medical woo.
Medical doctors, myself included, usually refer to themselves as "physicians".
Your vocabulary is not that of a medical doctor. Are you a Ph.D.? We don't say things like "anti-congestion drug" or "drown in my own fluids". Those are the phrases of a lay-person.
Oh, horseshit. There are many drugs in the pharmacopoeia that were originally derived from herbal remedies, but purified and standardized. Aspirin and morphine are two of the more well-known ones.
The pharmaceutical varieties are typically safer because it is far, far easier to correctly control the dose. Any compound capable of causing biochemical changes significant enough to cure, prevent, or alleviate a disease is also capable of causing injury. With preparations made from naturally grown herbs, there's no good way to figure out how much you are getting, and that is a dangerous state of affairs. With the pharmaceutical varieties, you know exactly how much you are taking and can determine whether it's a safe dose or not.
Scary cherries. Scary. Read any headlines about curcumin lately? Eek. Must throw away the curry powder before I hurt myself. Oh, all those poor injured people:p. Where are the bodies? We sure know where to find iatrogenic death, up in the top tier causes of death. Let them eat Viox.
Do you have a response, or just noise and more woo?
but what sort of doctor are you? Tell me what "herbs" replace antibiotics?
start with Boneset.
... but my understanding is that every year "the flu" is actually a different virus. Wouldn't these different viruses be expected to have different patterns in age range and severity?
In other words, what's so different and dangerous about this year's flu? It has a scary name. But is it killing more people? Infecting more people?
Or are these predictable variances in a seasonal flu being used to scare the heck out of us?
About the word "swine"?
Pigs is our friends....except for Repigs.
... that scared us long ago. Well, long enough so that we're not sure if we were scared for good reason or not.
The Pork Industry pushed to get the name changed. They didn't want us to stop eating pork!
BTW we blamed Mexico for the disease and wasn't there a story on C&L about it having started in one of our factory farms in TX? Some poor Mexican child living downwind being patient zero?
Old, overwieght and sedentary are the primary "victims"? No wonder the Right wing news is trying to panic us into stayng home! That's their demographic to a 't'! Now if a virus targetted ematiated, vegan, "intellectual elitists" then we'd have to worry! :)
Old, overwieght and sedentary
Hmmm...cause he's a swine...is Limbaugh immune?
our hands! We can not, we dare not refuse this burden.
It's beyond our reason. The flu is created by god in his divine mystery.
We are his humble servants and should simply accept whatever fate he decrees to us....and the four legged swine.
Influenza strains mutate and recombine year to year, but the actual behavior of most of the resulting strains fall into a relatively narrow pattern, which is generally known as seasonal flu.
The pandemic swine flu does a couple of things that are cause for alarm. First, it has circulated widely outside of flu season, which is both highly unusual in general and typical for the most dangerous strains. Second, it has sickened and killed large numbers of people who are not normally at elevated risk from seasonal influenza. Most seasonal flu deaths happen in January and February, so the 4000-5000 deaths worldwide so far (beginning of Nov) is elevated.
And there's also influenza's history. Influenza is responsible for the deadliest pandemic in history, the 1918/1919 Spanish Flu. Public health officials are on the lookout for the emergence of a monster like that again, and it's a near certainty that it will again.
The bird flu that caused such concern a few years ago is still out there, still circulating among waterfowl in SE Asia, and still killing 60% of the humans unfortunate enough to catch it. Fortunately, there's been no sustained human to human transmission... yet.
And why are swine scary? They are both useful and delicious.
but predominantly a different strain. In fact flu sweeps through populations as a swarm of related strains and is constantly mutating through gene reassortment so there is always the possibility of a more lethal strain emerging at any time. The worst case scenario is a strain that provokes a lethal immune response in the infected. Such was the Spanish flu which killed those with the strongest immune systems. This is not what were seeing now but it could easily become so.
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Q U E S T I O N:
WHERE ARE THE COMPARABLE FIGURES REGARDING SEASONAL FLU?
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people who were most at risk for dying as their healthy immune systems were responding too harshly to the flu virus.
On Morning Joe today, he said something about Wall Street getting into the vaccine business. Did anyone catch the whole story on that?
major banks and Wall Street firms were given a private allocation of the swine flu vaccine before kids-high risk children.
Wall Street...may they all get Guillain-Barre syndrome.
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IF the CDC was honest and gave us the comparable figures as to which is killing more, then we'll be educated as to which vaccine is more necessary and which vaccine is more important.
IF the CDC was honest...
... IF!
But NOT telling all sides of a life threatening issue allows this arm of the Government to PROPAGANDIZE on Americans insidious need to be perpetually FEARFUL of something.
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............. we had an FCC, strict regulation of the WALLSTREETBANKSTERS, if we had a EPA, if we had habues corpus, ........................since we don't it is called FASISM.
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Q U E S T I O N:
WHY DOES GOLDMAN SACHS GET PREFERENTIAL ALLOTMENTS OF VACCINE WHEN HOSPITALS GO WITH NONE?
WHAT IS AN OLIGARCHY?
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Sons of bitches.I am going to go look.
Citicorp has the vaccine, too. Do all of Geithner's buddies get first crack, too?
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IT'S AN OLIGARCHY!
... The little people matter NOT!
http://www.reuters.com/article/regulatoryNews...
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NYC officials are saying that the vaccine was distributed to only the top 25 employers in the city. The Federal Reserve Bank is not one of them.
leading our fight for freedom stuck in bed for 3 or 4 days.
They get the best and most of everything else first.
baby
Church of Sweden
football games, church services, workplaces, concerts, public transports, or at home are especially dangerous. When sneezing, sneeze into your sleeve, then remove shirt, microwave for 2 minutes, then wrap in plastic and dispose of outside in a metal trash container. Available at your local hardware store and participating dealers.
in the event your local Authorities . . .
the very young and the very old are generally at the highest risk of succumbing to any infectious disease - because of underdeveloped immune systems (young) or underlying diseases (old).
It's the same every year with the annual flu. The H1N1 seems to be causing a bigger problem for healthy younger people - like teens thru 40. Older folks seem not as susceptible to being infected with the H1N1, but the mortality is high in those who get it.
I seem to recall that about 30k to 35k people die in the US every year from complications of the 'regular' flu.
Love Putnam Pig - he's right, swine get a bum rap. The may be muddy, but they're very tasty!!
something entirely different.
swine get a bum rap. The may be muddy, but they're very tasty!!
Maybe it should have been named the Congressional Flu.
if we are going to name virii after obese toxic beings, we might as well go for broke.
How many times can this utterly obvious 'rule of thumb' be considered news?
THis is a political blog. Part of the problem is that people are freaking out and going to the hospital when they are not sick. These posts are not helpful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We can get our medical info elsewhere!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
is to stay the fuck outta the hospital!
--you know: blood, or albumen, or other cells from pigs--
Does that mean neither (orthodox) Jews nor Muslims can be inoculated with the stuff? What about Christian Scientists, who abjure medicines entirely? In the name of public health could the by compelled to receive it, if it were forbidden them on religious grounds? A "conscience" loophole for
If not, then how can I or anyone who opposes war be compelled to pay taxes to support them?
Just askin'...
The viral particles for the production of flu vaccines are grown using fertilized chicken eggs. Chicken eggs do not present a religious problem for either Orthodox Jews or devout Muslims.
The rest of your post is too incoherent for response.
Now CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) is asking why 13 Wall Street firms have gotten H1N1 vaccine doses before the highest priority people, such as infants, pregnant women, and young people up to 24 years in age.
http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/43232
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