In light of "Bird Flu," Do you remember this?

[Ufomammut]

Remember those 5000 samples of killer flu strain that were "accidentally" shipped out? Food for thought...

http://www.workers.org/2005/us/flu-virus-0428/

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. I had that flu in 1958.

It was called "The Asian Flu." I was 7 and almost died. I had febrile convusions and hallucinations that I still remember, 50 years later.

I certainly hope we aren't in for a repeat of that. This was well after antibiotics, but they didn't do a thing.

[Tab]

2. Most of them originate in Asia

In part because of the intermixing of fowl breeding and crop growth there. Then they work their way across the globe.

They are very cyclic, and we're about due for another one. Sometimes there's a weaker release that inoculates some but then comes back in a stronger version and wipes out portions of the population. This is what happened in 1918, and probably, to a lesser extent, to you in 1958.

Health authorities are well aware of the cycle, which is why Avian Bird Flu (which, again, originates in Asia) is of such concern. We don't know which strain or which year, but the population is primed to receive it, and when it hops host species and really takes off, it'll be a doozy.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

3. I am a genealogist

and was looking online for an obit in Philly in 1918. I mistakenly printed out the entire month's worth and it was about 100 sheets of paper and out of 15 names on each sheet, most were between 15 and 35. It went on and on. I was surprised that there didn't seem to be a lot of very young children or elderly. I wonder why that was, as the common wisdom is the very old and very young die first.

That "Asian flu" has been the illness I have compared everything else to in my entire life. I do NOT want to have it again.

[Tab]

4. Yes, and that was a very interesting aspect of the flu

Normally, yes, the young and the old get nailed, due to weaker immune systems, and that aspect mystified people for a while - it semeed to hit the supposedly healthy but skipped the supposedly vulnerable. The reason it worked that way was that a number of years earlier (I forget exactly how much) there was a pre-flu, so to speak, a weaker, non-deadly, version that the older generation went through, and that basically inoculated them against the 1918 one. Off the top of my head I forget specifically the mechanism why the very young escaped infection, but it was something similar - some kind of pre-exposure.

An excellent book on this is Flu : The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic, by Gina Kolata ISBN 0-7432-0398-4

[Viva_La_Revolution]

7. they were breastfed...

they recieved the antibodies from their mothers. That's my guess.

[Tab]

8. Yeah, it was something along those lines

I forget the specifics.

[FearofFutility]

14. Very large numbers of infants and elderly died

But the largest spike in deaths was in the young adult population. The reason for this is the massive immune response the virus caused. The young adults had the healthiest immune systems which, in the end, was a detriment. The secondary effects of the massive immune response killed them.

[pitohui]

5. antibiotics don't do anything for any viral disease

today we have anti-virals which didn't exist before the late 1980s

flu today is just not such a much as flu in 1958 or flu in 1918

[misternormal]

6. Antibiotics...

Only work on biological infections not viruses...

[soothsayer]

9. yes, but viruses often give you secondary infections that antibiotics

DO help

[TallahasseeGrannie]

10. Yes, isn't the pneumonia

that often follows the flu bacterial?

[FearofFutility]

11. It is

But people who have died from the current avian flu have died from primary viral pneumonia. Very nasty and very quick.

[Bridget Burke]

13. I had it too.

I missed a rare family outing--a trip to the circus.

Mostly, I remember feeling really weird. Of course, the paregoric helped.

[Ufomammut]

12. Yes, but the essence of this incident is...

Not to discuss the effects of biotics versus viral/bacterial. I'm much more so focused on how and why this supposed *whoops* accident occurred so uniformly - especially given the long list of scientists whose expertise pertaining to this topic have "mysteriously" died, and the numerous examples of "flu oddities" that are rife with secrecy and cover up at a time in our country when we all should have ample reasons to be suspicious of a tyrannical government hell-bent against constitutionality, international law, ethics, morality, etc.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

15. I have nothing to offer

to those suppositions because while it certainly appears possible, I have no inside knowledge of any nefarious doings.

My plan is to stock up a bit on food and my medications and then forget about it. Oh, maybe I'll get some masks or something. I stock up for hurricanes, might as well add a bit of dry staples.

My biggest concern would be not being able to get my medications which would be a big problem and probably take me down permanently. So I will have to give that some thought.

But thinking about this stuff does not in any way take my attention from the goings on in DC.