The monstrous, 80-meter tall pigicken, which has been pinpointed as the probable source of avian-swine flu according to Associated Press reports. World Health Organization officials warn that it is "...radioactive, breathes fire, and likes nothing better than to step on hysterically fleeing Japanese businessmen."
Seriously, wtf?! The way CNN and all the other news channels have been covering this, one would think that the swine flu had just crashed a jet into a skyscraper and killed 3000+ people. Is it really that slow of a week in news? My advice -- do not let the news media fnord you.
link stolen from brother-in-law (
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zombienought):http://shouldibeworriedaboutswineflu.com/
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/28/re
Regular flu has killed thousands since January
By Doug Gross
(CNN) -- There had been no confirmed deaths in the United States related
to swine flu as of Tuesday afternoon. But another virus had killed
thousands of people since January and is expected to keep killing
hundreds of people every week for the rest of the year.
That one? The regular flu.
An outbreak of swine flu that is suspected in more than 150 deaths in
Mexico and has sickened dozens of people in the United States and
elsewhere has grabbed the attention of a nervous public and of medical
officials worried the strain will continue to mutate and spread.
Experts are nervous that, as a new strain, the swine flu will be harder
to stop because there aren't any vaccines to fight it.
But even if there are swine-flu deaths outside Mexico -- and medical
experts say there very well may be -- the virus would have a long way to
go to match the roughly 36,000 deaths that seasonal influenza causes in
the United States each year.
"That happens on an annual basis," Dr. Brian Currie said Tuesday. Currie
is vice president and medical director at Montefiore Medical Center in
Bronx, New York.
Since January, more than 13,000 people have died of complications from
seasonal flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention's weekly report on the causes of death in the nation.
No fewer than 800 flu-related deaths were reported in any week between
January 1 and April 18, the most recent week for which figures were
available.
The report looks at deaths in the 122 largest cities in the United
States.
Worldwide, the annual death toll from the flu is estimated to be between
250,000 and 500,000.
About 9 out of 10 of those deaths are among people older than 65, Currie
said. Most times, they already have health problems that the flu makes
worse, he said.
"Regular influenza can be taxing," he said. "It causes their underlying
disease to decompensate and then they don't have the reserves to get
through it.
"While it may not be the direct cause listed on the death certificate,
it certainly contributed."
One of the reasons medical experts are nervous about the swine flu
outbreak is that many of the people who have died in Mexico have been
young and otherwise healthy. The strains found in the United States have
so far been weaker.
But even the regular flu is sometimes fatal for younger victims.
"It's not unheard of. It happens, either directly from influenza or they
get a bacterial superinfection" like staph, said Currie.
While researchers haven't developed a vaccine to fight the new swine
flu, it can be treated with antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza, the
same drugs used on the regular flu.
Many times, seasonal flu itself is tough to prevent because it has
mutated to a form different than it was when the vaccine was made.
Seeking to put the swine flu outbreak in perspective Tuesday, Los
Angeles County public health officer Dr. Jonathan Fielding echoed other
public officials calling it "cause for concern, but not for alarm."
"Given the size of L.A. County, given the traffic between here and
Mexico, it would be very surprising if we didn't have any cases,"
Fielding said.
He said the county, where the CDC had confirmed 10 cases of swine flu by
Tuesday, sees more than 1,000 flu-related deaths every year.
"So it would also not be surprising if there were deaths with swine flu
-- even if it had the pattern of seasonal flu," he said. "Thus far, the
pattern we see in the United States is very similar to that of seasonal
flu -- relatively mild to moderate cases."
Swine Flu is a concern, because it has the potential for killing young people. Our healthy immune sytems are actually a disadvantage with this type of flu, because our bodies will just keep attacking until we are actually destroying too much of our own healthy tissues (see "cytokine storm"). They still aren't sure if this is currently happening, but it is a possibility. It took a while, for the flu in Mexico to turn deadly. Hopefully, we have the warm weather on our side, as the flu viruses tend to not due well in periods of warmer weather.
I've been working on transportation worker documents for the past 2 days, because there is a huge concern about bus drivers, flight crews, etc becoming exposed and infected.
The 1918 Flu was bad, if you aren't familiar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_fl
Wikipedia doesn't do this true justice. I've read stories, and seen video footage that is heartbreaking throughtout my years in school.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with all your points about the possibility that it could get bad, and yes, I have read a bit about the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak -- that was certainly a nightmare.
I just think that the news media is completely jumping the gun and causing high levels of stress/panic in the general populace way too prematurely. If this thing does become the next 1918 Spanish flu outbreak and starts wiping out tens of thousands of people per week, then yeah, that is past the time to panic -- but the way it has been covered the past few days on local and cable news networks one would think that it was already killing thousands and that we completely lack viable treatment options, (like oseltamivir.)
Never mind that flooding every hospital from coast to coast with hypochondriacs who all now think that they have the swine flu is really irresponsible, (especially if it prevents the legitimate cases from getting treated as early as they might otherwise.)
But I guess the main thing is as an epidemiologist, obviously, it is your job to worry about viral outbreaks like this. Average-Joe American, however, can be reminded to wash his hands regularly and to avoid traveling to Mexico right now, but beyond that there is little that he can do-- and the authority figure TV telling him every five minutes that he is going to DIE HORRIBLY just like everyone did in 1918 is beyond nonsensical, it is sadistic and pointless -- unless your goal is to keep people on edge and not thinking rationally?
And like I said... this could fizzle out in a few weeks, but we won't know until it actually happens.
your brother is just so laid back. that's it, i'm running off to your parent's house. ;p
Actually I just realized that I do have a question for you about the specifics of this thing that does bother me. The 1918 flu strain they think mutated or recombined, and made the jump directly from birds to humans, or from birds to swine to humans -- then cytokine storm and mass death. Okay, all that I get, but that was 90 years ago. So, why is WHO so worried about this outbreak? And why has the news media been so worried about "bird flu" only just in the past several years?
It could have undergone a similar mutation anytime in the past 90 years and done the same damn thing, but it has not yet (so far as we know) and certainly not on he scale of the 1918 pandemic -- so either something changed, or suddenly we are worrying about something that we cannot predict that has not even happened in almost a century? Or, and the paranoid part of me is particularly curious about this, since they dug up a frozen 1918 flu victim from the permafrost and sequenced it in 2005(?) -- did that 'resurrected' flu or a modified form of it get released accidentally (or intentionally)?
What is your take on all this from that perspective? Why is bird/swine flu suddenly getting hyped now, when it was practically unheard of ten years ago outside of the professional community?