Experts predict worldwide flu outbreak

[Roon]

NEW YORK - As bad as this year’s flu season is, it hasn’t brought the worldwide outbreak known as a pandemic. But experts warn that a pandemic is coming, it’s just a question of when.

“It’s going to happen,” said Dr. Greg Poland of the Mayo Clinic. “For the American public in particular, I think it will be horrific
http://msnbc.msn.com/ID/3684599/

[MrSoundAndVision]

1. I'm not afraid

And I will not get a flu shot, and watch and see, I won't get the flu.

This is so obviously a media campaign of fear. I mean, the flu kills so many people every year in this country it's like 68,000 people. But are they reporting that there have been an unusually high number of deaths? No. Not really. I mean, yes a pandemic would be scary...if it were happening, which it is not. So what's the point? To scare you.

I read somewhere this summer in several places I don't care to link to now, that the US was to have a record supply of flu vaccine this year. This is just another example of collaboration between the media and the government (and hence the pharmaceutical industry) to use fear as a profit machine. Fuck em! I'm not getting sick because it is all a lie!

[MrSoundAndVision]

2. Oh and...

Kucinich for President!!! Click here->>> http://www.kucinich.us, read, join.

[Dookus]

10. There WAS

a record supply of vaccines this year. The demand was greater.

Evidently it takes months to make the vaccines, and the composition and quantity is decided long before that. The decisions were made last Winter.

Now we have a flu that seems worse than usual, and has had a very early outbreak, increasing demand for the vaccine.

Last year millions of vaccines went to waste. They still made more than last year. There's just no good way to predict this stuff.

[Robb]

24. Yeah!

I made my own antibodies against the flu! Apart from three days of high sweaty fever and two weeks of not-enough-energy-to-do-anything, it worked great!

Screw those pharmaceutical evil evils! :eyes:

[Maple]

3. They say this every year

and toss 1918 around...even tho there were no modern medications or hospital help for any kind of flu then.

Scare-mongering.

[LeftCoast]

4. Actually, it's not scare mongering

And a flu-vaccine probably wouldn't work against the next flu pandemic. It's just one of those natural disasters that strike now and then. Just like a volcano or big earthquake, you can't prevent it, but you can prepare and hopefully mitigate loss of life. SARS was a good test run for the CDC and the WHO. Hopefully the learned some things that will help out.

[Maple]

5. Sure it is

There hasn't been one since 1918...they just scare people about it every year.

SARS was piffle. Falls on stairs take out more people than that.

[KC]

8. There was one

in the early 50's, the Asian Flu and another one in the 60's I believe, that one was the Hong Kong Flu. Both killed thousands in the US

KC

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

11. 1968 Hong Kong flu... killed 38,000 americans

last major pandemic.

[LeftCoast]

9. I don't really care whether you believe or not, but the fact is

we are more at risk now of an epidemic than at just about any other point in our species history. There are something like 6 BILLION people on the planet, all within a 24 hour plane-ride from each other. Many of these people live in squalid conditions and have at best limited access to health care. Not only that, but bacterial diseases are rapidly becoming immune to most (if not all antibiotics).

It's just simple biology to recognize the risk. Geologists warn people who live in California of a devastating earthquake which will strike with devastating force. Is this scare mongering? They can't tell you exactly when, or where, but they can tell you it will happen. All we can do is prepare.

If you want to run to the hills it's your business. Want to stick your head in the sand...same deal. This is information, that's all.

As for our governments, they better be prepared whether you "believe" or not...

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

7. No, they don't say it like this. They do say it is a matter of time

Not if, but when.
But people don't want to believe that.
All the modern hospitals in the world will not help when the workers are wiped out before the peak of the infection hits.
Then we will be back to 1918 again, with people taking care of their relatives at home, and dragging the dead out to the street.
Yes, it is possible that antibiotics may work for some of the secondary effects of the virus, like pneumonia and nephritis (kidney infections) but we are still sitting without any anti-viral drug for Influenza A that works.
Remember that one of the main causitive factors of 1918 was the sudden mobility of huge numbers of people. Compared with the mobility of that time, we are hyper-charged particles. In 1918 flu broke out with extreme severity in the same week in Boston, Freeport, Sierra Leone, Paris, Bombay, and London.
Now, with air travel, expect outbreaks everywhere, all at once.
Of course, it may not happen this year.
Then everyone can go back into their little shells and ignore the truth of the virus... it has nothing but time.

[Snow]

35. They do NOT say this every year........

some years we epidemiologists say things like "it looks like a mild flu season." Some years we don't recommend wide-spread vaccine, just those who would be in danger. Don't make flat statements like that without knowing what you're talking about.

[frylock]

6. how many kidnapped sharks must die from the flu..

before you take this seriously?!

[lebkuchen]

12. So far, Europe is feeling just fine. Christmas markets are packed

People are out and about drinking steaming gluwein and eating maroni (chestnuts).

Interesting that a flu epidemic began in the U.S. Isn't Bush watching out for the health of his citizens?

[annagull]

13. Please explain what "gluwein" is

I believe that, like everything, our media over-exposes everything in order to make money. Hard to believe them. Now explain what is "gluwein" please?

[lebkuchen]

17. hot spiced wine, red or white

I had white last night.

The German spelling would put an umlaut over the u (two dots), but I don't know how to do that, so I adulterate all German spellings containing umlauts.

[Kellanved]

19. easy

&uuml ; &ouml ; &auml
&Uuml ; &Ouml ; &Auml

will be replaced by the Board software with the respective
character.

:hi:

[cliss]

14. I tend to agree with the "scoffers"

for several reasons. I have seen, too many times, that this administration will take a "liability" and turn it into an "asset". Like 9/11. Homeland Security. Usama Bin Laden. Weapons of mass destruction. Ductape Solutions. Yellow alert, Orange alert and Red Alert.

Does anyone besides me feel just a wee bit jaded? Used? I know people at my office were really scared when the alerts started coming in. They were mighty paranoid, looking around them suspiciously. After three or four more of those, they just stopped being scared.

The problem with these people is, that they have played their cards too many times. Even if something were to come down the pike that was real, many many people including myself will just listen with glazed eyes, and go back to the CD player.

It's their own fault. So if this latest flu outbreak is going to cause millions of deaths, the fault will be their own because nobody trust them, or their inoculations.

[Pastiche423]

16. Jaded?

I think I am beyond jaded, if that's possible.

The scare of an outbreak, not enough vaccine to go around, yada, yada, yada has been said for years. Those pharma companies have to keep the money rolling in, right?

But this administration has put me on a higher plane of jadism. My 1st reaction to the towers being hit was, oh fuck, what have they done now?

Every greedy, stupid, fearmongering bullshit that they have tried to sell since has only made my cynicisn worse.

If there was a vaccine w/my name on it, I would give it away.

[no_arbusto]

15. Flu, SARS, HIV, drugs

You'll all get it. Flu, SARS, HIV, heroin, bla, bla, bla. Vote for Democrats. Stop supporting paranoid, fascist ideas. It's too obvious now.

[letthewindblow]

18. Fear-mongering

Drink lemonade! Take enough vitamin c from NATURAL sources. Forget the vaccine. We just don't know enough about the side-effects and what we know tends to be ignored and manipulated.

[xchrom]

20. i get the flu vaccine every year

as do my folks -- and none of us has gotten the flu.
i wouldn't do without it -- but you go ahead.

[letthewindblow]

21. Well, I get the flu almost every year

and it's great! I stay at home, take a rest from work, read some books, listen to music. It's natural. That's what immune systems need to stay strong. Actually, what I get almost every year is probably not even flu and I don't care what it is. I just let it be.

[Robb]

25. No, you don't.

Influenza raises your temperature above 100-104, higher in some, for two to five days. You sweat in bed, so much that your clothes are soaked through. Then when you get up to urinate once a day, the wet clothes send you into uncontrollable shivers. And every shiver hurts, the aching is so bad the hair on your arms hurts.

Then, for two weeks, you don't have enough energy to do anything -- shave, shower, eat, it all feels like it's too much.

I became symptomatic on November 29. Yesterday was the first day I felt like I could deal with simple stuff like running the vacuum.

You haven't had the flu.

[FlaGranny]

26. No, he didn't - I agree.

Flu is just what you described. It is nothing to be cavalier about. My mom, who could not take the flu vaccine because of allergy to it, wound up in the hospital twice with severe pneumonia after contracting influenza.

Edit: typo

[spinbaby]

27. There are degrees of flu

Just like anything else there mild cases and severe cases. I'm just getting over it and it hasn't been all that bad (knock on wood) this time around. Okay, there were those two days when I had a fever and couldn't get out of bed, but recovery after that has been much better than expected--just a little tired and a lingering cough. The last time I had the flu I got pneumonia and coughed my lungs up for about three months so I'm counting myself lucky this time.

[Robb]

28. Sort of

It's often the bacterial infections post-influenza that get you for longer, true.

[letthewindblow]

30. I'm sure I've had influenza

more than once in my lifetime (I'm 35). Maybe I haven't had this particular strain, but frankly, I don't care about strains. I take everything that mainstream science and medicine claim with a grain of salt. I believe that being healthy includes being sick sometimes and that we shouldn't insist on being "healthy" all the time. It's just not good for your health.
As to the flu and its severeness - yes, it can get tough, especially if you are tired, under stress, scared... I just don't see having the flu as a big deal, so most of the time it's not.

[Robb]

31. I just hope you choose

...to use your amazing powers for good, and not evil. :eyes:

[letthewindblow]

32. Everybody has those "amazing powers"

Science calls them Placebo effect, which is by the way often ignored and underestimated.

[shanti]

34. well

i've NEVER taken any flu vaccine, and i NEVER get the flu. i got it plenty of times as a kid/teen in the sixties (even the hong kong flu), but there were no vaccines then. same goes for MY kids.

whatever works for you....

[dixielib]

22. the flu is really here

I just got home from a 12 hour stretch in the ER. In the last 24 hours 1/3 of our patients had the flu. I agree with taking in alot of natural Vit. C. I also recommend chicken soup with added salt and garlic. If you have the flu you won't enjoy staying home to watch TV or read good books. You are "sick as a dog". I know when they walk in the door if they have the flu, they look SICK! I took the vaccine...will every year. I haven't even had the common cold in 15+ years...think my mainly vegetable/fruit diet for that. Just my take on it.

[Uben]

23. flu

Yeah, I take it every year also. I don't get the flu when I've had the shot. There was not a record of flu vaccine this year. I read where there were 13 million less shots available this year. They had to destroy 13 million doses last year because they were not used, and opted to make 13 million less this year. Who knows? I don't know if those figures are adjusted for the flu mist also being used.

[TeeYiYi]

29. EVIDENCE that the CDC knew Fujian strain would dominate . . .

. . . but failed to add it to the vaccine:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=268454

TYY

[Snow]

36. Looks to me like it was the FDA at fault, not the CDC

or do you have a reason to pick on the CDC?

[shanti]

33. not planning on getting the shot

my son had it 3 weeks ago, and i didn't get it. i see no reason to take this shot, and plenty of reasons not to.