Flu could infect half world's people in year (is this BS or not ???)

[cthrumatrix]

Flu could infect half world's people in year
WHO in talks to stockpile antiviral drugs in case of global outbreak

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday August 4, 2005

Guardian

An outbreak of flu in rural south-east Asia could spread around the globe in three months and infect half the world's population within a year, unless strict measures to contain it are introduced, scientists said yesterday.
The warning comes from researchers who used computer models to investigate what would happen if the avian flu virus, which is currently rife among poultry in areas of China, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, mutated into a form that spread easily among humans.

Scientists believe it is only a matter of time before the virus, known as H5N1, mutates to become more infectious to humans, possibly by swapping genes with the human flu virus.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5254709-112338,00.html

All of us have seen these "flu outbreak" articles.

Do we have something to worry about (created on purpose?????)

Or is this BS ?

[Quakerfriend]

1. No this is definitely not BS.

Scientists have been talking about this for the past 2 + years. In fact, H5N1 has mutated quite rapidly to this point. It is only a matter of time before an 'outbreak' with human-to-human transmission becomes reality.

Our gov't is NOT preparing for this quickly enough.

[cthrumatrix]

2. ok - that brings up the question "Why are we NOT prepared"?

I have read about many microbiolgists mysteriously dying and all the other "speculation".

Why would the US NOT prepare it's people?

[fudge stripe cookays]

3. Drug companies.

They make money when people are sick. When we are well, they are SOL.

[wli]

6. Bushler wants to use it to extort money from lower classes

And probably doesn't mind if all those who can't afford it die outright.

[ClintonTyree]

33. Three Universities are now doing human trials on a vaccine.....

one of them is the University of Rochester, one is in Los Angeles and I forgot where the other was. They've already done initial human trials among healthy, young adults and are now doing trials on children and the elderly. They're experimenting with smaller doses to see if it has the same affect.
It seems odd that the government is relying on the academia to handle this, but I don't suppose there's enough profit involved for the pharmaceutical companies to take interest. :eyes: I suppose this would be a great way for the bush administration to "decrease the surplus population", something they wouldn't mind at all, especially in "Blue States".
The problem is being addressed, but we're far from a viable vaccine on a nationwide scale.
I'm just glad I live near Rochester, NY. I plan to volunteer for the "elderly" vaccine tests, and in lieu of payment all I want is a guarantee that my family will be able to get the vaccine when available.
This is scary stuff.

[libhill]

40. A deliberate reduction of world population-

And, it's true that a shit load of microbiologists have died under very mysterious circumstances, or have simply been "disappeared". And I don't believe in coincidence.

[CrispyQ]

46. Do you have any links on that?

This is the first I've heard about microbiologists dying.

TIA

[libhill]

47. Yes - check this out, or Google it - :)

portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/02/310108.shtml

[CrispyQ]

48. Thank you!

Interesting, albeit shocking reading. This is the first I'd heard of this.

Thanks again.

[libhill]

49. No problem -

Spooky world we live in, and it ain't the booger man I'm talking about - :)

[oscar111]

4. For-profit model cannot stockpile: nationalize factories.

....Stockpiling means risking big bucks in pills or flushots which might never sell.

Nationalized factories can stockpile. Factories which must show a profit to continue, can not stockpile.

If WHO has the money, it could stockpile, but i wonder if it does. We would have more control of factory output and factory stockpiles, if the nationalized factory model were used, not WHO stockpiles.

WHO might ration out its stockpile to protect a fourth of all national populations. If we have nationalized factories, these could use all their stockpiles on us. Protecting, say, 100% of the US.

PS yes, the high infection rate is possible from what i read.

SOCIAL COST is the term to learn here. For-profit factories ignore the social cost {cost to society}... of human deaths. They only tally up dollar profits. Nationalized factories tally up also, the SOCIAL COST saved {human lives saved}.

[cthrumatrix]

8. IF it were about $$$$... Bill Gates or others could come forward OR

Bush would be coming forward to "save the world"...

It's not about $$$$ why there is not a solution....

[oscar111]

11. Gates wants to lose money? he's a GOP

stockpiles high risk as far as money is concerned.

You see him as a humanitarian?

[cthrumatrix]

13. He is an "opportunist"...with $27B he can create a "legacy" for himself

My point is $$$ can be raised by govt....

Hell ...they are spending $$$$Billions on new roads...why roads if we are going to wipe out half the planet?


It's either THEY WANT IT TO HAPPEN or IT's ALL ABOUT FEAR.

[oscar111]

16. legacy.. you assume he is like yourself

and kindhearted.

Can make a legacy, but does he want to? He is a GOP supporter.

might preferr a legacy on Mt Rushmore.. carve a new face for 27 Billion.

[cthrumatrix]

18. my only point is "prevention of this potential crisis" is not about $$$$$

Roche says they have a vaccine...is it safe?

Nobody in the media is talking about this... why?

[Silverhair]

36. It was in my Sunday paper - front page.

Vaccine needs to be tested. That will take months. And there is the problem that H5N1 may mutate away from the vaccine.

[Silverhair]

37. Here is another media story:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,165225,00.html

I got it by googling H5N1 and used google news.

So it IS being talked about. You just missed it.

[Quakerfriend]

9. Exactly!

[unhappycamper]

5. I don't think a pandemic is LIHOP or MIHOP.

Throughout the course of human history, pandemics have been with us. Cholera, diphtheria, smallpox, & the black plague are a few examples. During medieval times, a pandemic would routinely wipe out 30~70% of a population.

The 'Spanish' flu pandemic of 1918 wiped out 20~100 million people - 50 million is the generally accepted number. BTW, it was called the 'Spanish' flu because the Spanish press reported it first; it actually started outside Ft. Riley, KS & was exported to the rest of the world by our troops going 'over there' to fight the War to End All Wars.

The sort answer is no, it's not BS.

[oscar111]

7. RECOMMEND, Greatest Page... and pls see my reply five re's above this one

for solutions.

[unhappycamper]

10. I agree with your premise of the for-profit reasons we don't have

stockpiles of drugs to fight these kinds of illnesses. IMHO, Tamiflu is a stopgap drug until the real vaccine is created.

The heart of the problem is we won't know EXACTLY what vaccine we need to fight the next pandemic until H5N1 mutates into its killer form. Once that happens, scientists can begin researching its molecular structure & develop a vaccine, but that will take a few months.

[oscar111]

12. ORPHAN DRUGS EXAMPLE

if Gates is willing to fund hi risk pill making, why do/did orphan drugs exist?

{ Orphan drugs are cures known to science, to cure a very few patients with rare diseases. Costs more to make their cures, than selling 500 pills will make in profit. Thus, go to your doom. The pills which are not made, are in a sense "orphans". }.

That is all Somewhat similar to this no-stockpile situation. Profit model cannot provide what is needed to save lives. Take all profit out of healthcare. Non-profit basis is mandatory. 25 nations outlive us here in USA.
Was 20 before bush. Now five more nations live longer than we do. Thanks, bush.

[oscar111]

14. Camper:True, but after ID-ing new strains, this profit problem rears up

again.

In the production and stockpiling of the approproate new vaccine/pill.

[unhappycamper]

23. I completely agree with you - it's all about profits.

But when the shit hits the fan, drug companies and bu$hCo are going to have a hard time explaining why folks can't have an affordable vaccine.

Unfortunately, a lot of deaths will occur before the sheeple wake up.

[cthrumatrix]

15. "supposedly" Roche has a vaccine -- can we trust this "new vaccine"?

[cthrumatrix]

17. the Roche spokesperson is very vague....why?

A spokeswoman for Roche, which manufactures the antiviral drug Tamiflu, confirmed that the company is in talks with the World Health Organisation about building a stockpile of the drug, but refused to give further details. The WHO already has 120,000 courses of Tamiflu, but with Britain and France each waiting for orders of 15m courses from Roche, the company will have to decide which takes priority.

snip

Creation of the stockpile is just the first hurdle. The WHO, in conjunction with the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, will have to tread carefully with governments to ensure the policies are adopted and that outbreaks are spotted quickly enough.

from above link

[Bluebear]

19. Tamiflu is not new or a vaccine

It is an antiviral drug, supposedly the only one effective at preventing flu if take nearly enough or at least to make the effects less severe. SMART countries have been stockpiling it this year.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. There is a vaccine currently under test

Preliminary results obtained from 115 (some sources say 113) of the vaccine recipients showed a strong enough immune response to ward off the virus. Results are awaited on the remaining subjects, but Fauci said he expects them to parallel those already in. The doses that were most effective contained 90 micrograms of H5N1 antigen in each of two shots, compared with the 15 micrograms of antigen given via a single injection in typical annual flu vaccinations.

The vaccine, made by Sanofi Pasteur, will next be tested in adults over age 65, likely beginning in about a month, according to the Associated Press (AP), and trials in children will follow shortly thereafter. Safety issues will be examined in these groups as well as optimal dosing levels. Normally, older people, children, and people with chronic diseases are most at risk for complications of influenza. The H5N1 strain may not fit this pattern; mortality rates in the 1918 flu pandemic were highest in otherwise healthy young adults.

The high doses needed for protection against H5N1 pose obvious challenges in regard to production capacity. In a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article today, Fauci said the 2 million US doses already ordered might cover only 450,000 people. Supplying even the amount of vaccine ordered for yearly US influenza vaccination programs is problematic, as evidenced by last flu season's shortage when the Chiron company was unable to produce the almost–50 million doses it was to supply to the United States. In a flu pandemic, vaccine for the worldwide population would be needed.
...
The vaccine was made under a 2004 contract with NIH to develop and make 8,000 to 10,000 doses of a new vaccine based on the H5N1 avian flu strain circulating in Southeast Asia at that time. Vaccine testing has not been done on the strain as it now exists, pointed out Osterholm.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/news/aug082005vaccine.html

It is a problem - they are trying to hit a moving target (by definition, when the virus mutates to be easily transmissible between humans, it will be different from now). Getting enough vaccine for an appreciable portion of the world is next to impossible (and distribution wouldn't be easy either). It would help, of course, if people actually quarantine themselves when they start to get the symptoms, rather than trying to 'struggle through it'. I've never worked out how colleagues who turn up to work and promptly infect all of you are really helping their company.

[wli]

20. the pandemic may not be, but stockpile inadequacy is

The stockpile inadequacy is definitely something I'd call LIHOP.

[oscar111]

21. ONE FACTORY for world!?! Nationlized factories all over, are needed

roche has ONE factory in Switz for Tamiflu.

If 160 nations ignored patent and built nationalized factories, we might have a chance against pandemic.

give Joe Roche a few dollars later on if you feel the need.

[Bluebear]

22. Sorry, the Runaway Bride is capturing America's imagination right now

nt

[unhappycamper]

24. Good point. My first post was addressing the coming pandemic only. n/t

[Talismom]

30. I agree with you unhappycamper. I am in the MIHOP camp concerning

9/11, but I think that this is just gonna be another pandemic, the likes of which humans have seen many times before. The fact that we can now see it coming, so far in advance, and still seem to be so unable to prevent it is a horror!

[eShirl]

26. not BS; if anything its an understatement

http://www.recombinomics.com/whats_new.html

[SoCalDem]

27. Mother Nature eventually "cleans house".. ALWAYS..

Natural population control is part of the evolutionary process, whether the freeps like it or not.

[CrispyQ]

41. 6.7 billion miracles is enough.

I've always wondered why humans are so against controlling our own population. When mother nature decides to put things in balance it is so much more harsh!

[Paradise]

28. * Mandate

Leave no poor slob behind!

[Sgent]

29. In Roche's Defense

On this one -- NO ONE ORDERED IT. The drug has been around for a while (5+ yrs), and no one has been usuing it. To the point where they were almost giving it away.

The drug is made for people already sick. If you take it when you are within 24-48 hrs of infection, or if your family takes it, it significantly reduces the duration of the flu.

As to an actual vaccine, after they finalize it, it will take 4-8 months to grow it. In the US, there is only 1 approved flu vaccine manufactorer -- and they are in England.

Vaccines in particular should be stockpiled -- and all of them. In the past 5 years, we have had shortages of flu, tetanus, diptheria, and a few others. The Government, which pays for the vast majority of vaccines, should either up payment or stockpile.

[porphyrian]

31. Flu could infect half the world's population every year.

This is sort of like the "biggest year of hurricanes" thing they keep predicting. We're overdue for a global pandemic, and with the population at its highest and climbing along with the ease of global travel, we should be seeing a killer flu any day now. Many people believe that our advancements in medicine and immunization are the reason we've dodged the bullet thus far, but chances are that this is only one factor in the equation, albeit an important one. If and when it does happen, the medical and pharmaceutical industries will not be ready for it. However, you and I are more likely to die in a car accident unless you are on immuno-suppressant drugs, are very young, or are very old, in which case this is a very significant issue.

[mom cat]

38. This could wipe out whole populations of the nutritionally challenged!

[tavalon]

32. Nope, sorry, not BS

What's more, if the pandemic happens, millions of people will die. I will likely die as my lungs are scarred from having asthma all of my life. I have it completely controlled these days and have for twenty years but I had the flu two years ago that was followed up by pneumonia and I almost died.

I've been looking to stockpile the antivirals but I don't have enough money to stockpile enough for it to be worth it.

[rainman99]

34. Since we now know that the flu shot has mercury in it

which has caused 1 in 6 children to have neurological disorders
and countless cases of autism, I suggest they remove the mercury
instead of making it 'optional'.

[Silverhair]

35. Take off the tinfoil hats.

LIHOP & MIHOP style thinking only clouds your brains. It gets you to looking for a W connection and stops you from looking at what is really happening.

Diseases happen. Look at history. Flu one of the most contagious diseases known to man. Usually it isn't fatal, but sometimes it can be. Read up on the 1917 great flu epidemic. It killed about 675,000 Americans in a few months when our population base was about 100 million. So far, this version of the flu has shown an overall fatality rate of 50%. However the data is coming out of third world countries and so may be missing many people who get sick and recover at home.

Trying to produce a vaccine for this one has been difficult. There is also the problem of rapid mutation of the flu away from the vaccine. Flu is one of the fastest mutating virus that we know of. And every vaccine that we develop places an evolutionary pressure on the flu to become faster at mutating. One company reports that they THINK they have a vaccine, but it has to be tested. That will take months. Once H5N1 makes the mutation needed for rapid human-to-human transmission than it will be global in less than a week.

Tamiflu is of use only if taken right after exposure to the flu. Once you show symptoms, it is too late.

There really isn't a lot that any gov't can do to prepare. When nature decides to, it can still kick man's butt real hard.

Screaming that it is all the fault of evil corporations is garbage thinking. It is wanting somebody to blame when something bad happens, but sometimes - shit just happens.

[Swamp Rat]

50. Thank you. n/t

[Patiod]

39. who will suffer?

You can't assume the usual suspects -- infants, the elderly, the immunologically challenged, those with compromised lungs. The 1918 pandemic was deadliest in the extremely healthy - one theory postulates that virus hit healthiest immune systems hardest, sending them into overdrive and causing them to run completely amok. Another suggests that the elderly may have been "immunized" by an outbreak of encephalitis in the late 1800's (although that doesn't explain why infants didn't succumb at at as high a rate)

I used to work for a company which tracks the spread of regular flu, and we had a lot of discussions about "the big one" with the CDC and other virus experts. The problem is, as someone has already explained, in a normal year, it's not that easy to pin down a virus, find right combination of antibodies, and grow/manufacture the right vaccine. Even though the pharma companies try to do that each year and are generally pretty successful, when an unexpected mutation occurs, the vaccine is useless/less useful, and you're back where you started. This isn't something the pharma companies should be expected to "solve" -- they do the best they can, but like us, and like the CDC, they know we will still be pretty much screwed when a big wacky mutation comes along.

An examination of history shows two "solutions"

One: Most of this crap breeds in China, where people are living in crowded conditions right on top of animal vectors like chickens, pigs, horses. Fix Chinese overcrowding, and you've eliminated the likely source of the next Pandemic (yeah, okay, next idea)

Two, limit the spread by keeping people apart once the virus hits. Philadelphia was suffered much higher death rates than other cities in 1918 because the corrupt government allowed political rallies even though they had been told public gatherings would contribute to contagion. Cities which prohibited public gatherings fared far better.

So, we can't fix China, but if something big hits, stay out of the mall, stay out of church, don't go to the Jimmy Buffett concert. Actually, the Mormons and the survivalists probably have the right idea to have enough food, water and supplies on hand to survive for a period of time without going out in public.

[bonito]

42. My 2 cents worth

ionic silver hasn't been tested (that I know of) on H5N1 but it definitely is a safe bet and inexpensive to prepare.

[Horse with no Name]

43. Well speaking from Texas

My family got the flu almost two weeks ago.
I'm still fighting it. I read today that Cindy Sheehan has a sore throat and fever today. That's how it started.
I talked to a friend in Oregon last night.
Her family is sick with the same stuff.
Last year, the flu was early in Texas. The year before we had school closings due to the flu.
I believe this is completely true. Every year it gets worse.

[pitohui]

45. horse it may not be the flu

they're testing blood in louisiana and it's west nile virus, it's early this yr and a bigger outbreak than 2003 and 2004, it's definitely west nile

unless yr blood is tested you don't know, the head of mosquito control in st. bernard parish was hospitalized for flu, turned out he had west nile, the hospital was suspicious because there was no active flu in st. bernard in july

good thing abt west nile is once you've had it, you can't get it again

[GreenPartyVoter]

44. These days I just don't know. On the one hand we have historical

evidence of pandemics. They can and do happen. On the other hand we have hysterical evidence of fear-mongering in this nation.

For the most part I choose not to worry over this situation.