Pneumococcal Vaccination against Flu deaths

I got this idea from this article:
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=14771

Flu, even Swine Flu does not really kill directly. It is only the
onset of other diseases the most virulent is Pneumonia that kills most
of the time.

Many details are still missing and we need confirmation and direction
from experts at CDC and WHO as well as other health control centres
all over the world.

Since swine flu or other flu vaccinations are so difficult to develop
and very expensive because it has to be taken every year, it is better
to concentrate on preventing pneumonia. I am not sure if this really
helps but this microbiologist seems to think so.

Vaccinate elderly, HKU microbiologist urges
(05-31 15:12)
Elderly people should receive vaccines for pneumococcus and seasonal
flu if there is a widespread outbreak of human swine flu in the
community, University of Hong Kong microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung has
said.

Speaking on a radio program, Yuen quoted an HKU study last year
showing the two vaccines could effectively lower the death rate of
elderly people by 26 percent and their hospital stay by 13 percent in
the flu season.

The government should also consider introducing a new vaccine for
human swine flu if there is a high fatality rate caused by the
infection, Yuen added.

But he warned that the government must also explain to patients the
possible side effects and the health risks the new vaccine may entail.

STAFF REPORTER

Legal Arguments proving Israeli War Crimes. Fwd: Defending Israeli War Crimes

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: JMD Morgan <JohnM...@email.non>
Date: May 31, 4:43 am
Subject: Defending Israeli War Crimes
To: soc.culture.indonesia, soc.culture.malaysia, soc.culture.pakistan,
soc.culture.canada, soc.culture.australian

Defending Israeli War Crimes

Posted By Stephen Zunes On May29,2009@9:00pm

In response to a series of reports by human rights organizations and
international legal scholars documenting serious large-scale
violations
of international humanitarian law by Israeli armed forces in its
recent
war on the Gaza Strip,10U.S. state attorneys general sent a letter
[.pdf] to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defending the Israeli
action. It is virtually unprecedented for state attorneys general ?
whose mandates focus on enforcement of state law ? to weigh in on
questions regarding the laws of war, particularly in a conflict on the
far side of the world. More significantly, their statement runs
directly
counter to a broad consensus of international legal opinion that
recognizes that Israel, as well as Hamas, engaged in war crimes.

The wording of the letter closely parallels arguments by Bush
administration officials in support for Israel?s devastating offensive
during their final days in office. Having been signed nearly11weeks
after the end of the fighting and made public only late last month, it
may have been part of an effort to undermine tentative efforts by the
Obama administration to take a more balanced approach to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A statement by state attorneys general putting forth a legal rationale
for the large-scale killings of civilians is particularly distressing
as
concerns about civilian casualties from U.S. air and missile strikes
in
Afghanistan and Pakistan have grown.

The attorneys general signing on to the letter included Republicans
Rob
McKenna of Washington, Mike Cox of Michigan, John Suthers of Colorado,
Bill McCollum of Florida, Jon Bruning of Nebraska, and Mark Shurtleff
of
Utah. Signatories also included such prominent Democrats as Richard
Cordray of Ohio, Patrick Lynch of Rhode Island, Jack Conway of
Kentucky,
and Buddy Caldwell of Louisiana.

Facile Legal Reasoning

The legal rationale put forward in the March30letter is
extraordinarily facile. For example, they claim that the war waged on
the civilian infrastructure of the Gaza Strip was taken in furtherance
of Israel?s ?right to self-defense under Article51of the UN Charter.?
In reality, however, while Article51does allow countries the right to
resist an armed attack, it doesn?t grant any nation the right to
engage
in such a disproportionate response.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak admitted that the Israeli invasion
had been planned for months, back when a six-month cease-fire was
still
in effect. Even when Hamas resumed firing rockets into Israel in
December, following a deadly Israeli raid into Gaza the previous
month,
there were few casualties. Indeed, not a single Israeli had been
killed
by Hamas rocket attacks for more than half a year prior to Israel
launching its war on Dec.27. During the subsequent three weeks of
fighting, Palestinians killed10Israelis, three of whom were civilians,
while Israeli forces killed more than1,400Palestinians, the vast
majority of whom were civilians.

Incredibly, these attorneys general insist that these mass killings by
Israeli forces were ?justified and, in our view, met the international
legal standards.?

The attorneys general also ignored the fact that Article33of the UN
Charter explicitly prohibits nations going to war unless they ?first
of
all, seek a solution by negotiation, inquiry, mediation, conciliation,
arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or
arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.? However,
Israel ? with strong bipartisan U.S. support ? had refused to even
meet
with Hamas to negotiate a long-term cease-fire, which Hamas had
offered
prior to the breakdown of the six-month lull in return for a lift in
the
Israeli siege of the enclave.

The letter correctly accuses Hamas, which had lobbed rockets into
civilian-populated areas in southwestern Israel, of violating
Article48
of Protocol I to the Geneva Convention of1948, which states: ?Parties
to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian
population and combatants and between civilian objects and military
objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against
military objectives.?

However, the attorneys general refused to acknowledge that Israel had
also violated that same provision on a far grander scale. While
virtually every human rights organization, intergovernmental
organization, and international legal authority that researched this
recent conflict recognizes both Hamas and Israel were guilty of war
crimes, these attorneys general still insist that Hamas alone was to
blame and that Israel?s actions were perfectly legal.

Ignoring the Facts

Human Rights Watch (HRW) ? which has been highly critical of Hamas
attacks on civilian areas of Israel as well as repression by the
Islamist group of Palestinian opponents within the Gaza Strip ?
reported
during the fighting that in using heavy shelling against heavily
populated civilian areas, ?Israel is committing indiscriminate attacks
in violation of the laws of war.? In a comprehensive report published
in
March, HRW noted that ?Israel?s repeated firing of white phosphorus
shells over densely populated areas of Gaza during its recent military
campaign was indiscriminate and is evidence of war crimes.?

Similarly, while Amnesty International also ?found evidence of war
crimes and other serious violations of international law by all
parties
to the conflict? and attacks by both sides against civilian areas in
which no fighters were present, the attorneys general insisted that
the
Palestinian side alone was guilty of such illegal actions.

An independent United Nations inquiry documented six major Israeli
attacks against UN buildings, including schools in which children were
killed, noting that actions by Israeli forces ?involved varying
degrees
of negligence or recklessness with regard to United Nations premises
and
to the safety of United Nations staff and other civilians within those
premises, with consequent deaths, injuries, and extensive physical
damage and loss of property.? The report concluded that ?no military
activity was carried out from within the United Nations premises in
any
of the incidents.?

Without presenting any evidence to the contrary, the attorneys general
categorically rejected such findings, insisting that Israel was
engaged
only in ?a limited and directed action against the source of Hamas?
military acts.?

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) focused on other
war
crimes, noting how the ?Israeli military failed to meet its obligation
under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the
wounded,? citing instances in which Israeli forces prevented Red Cross
or other medics safe access to assist seriously wounded civilians. The
Israeli chapter of Physicians for Human Rights reported with ?
certainty?
that Israel violated international humanitarian law by attacking
medics,
damaging medical buildings, engaging in indiscriminate attacks on
civilians, and delaying medical treatment for the injured. The ICRC
declared Israel?s ?delay in allowing rescue services access
unacceptable.? In addition, Israel rejected pleas by international
humanitarian agencies by closing border crossings days at a time,
denying access to food, medical supplies, fuel, and water sanitation
equipment. Despite this, the attorneys general instead praised Israel
for ?allowing the entrance of humanitarian aid into Gaza.?

A report by a delegation of prominent U.S. attorneys which visited
Gaza
Strip soon after the fighting reported that ?that Israeli forces
deliberately targeted civilians during the Gaza offensive.? The
Israeli
press has reported testimony of Israeli soldiers who killed
Palestinian
civilians under highly permissive rules of engagement that allowed
soldiers to kill any Palestinian in certain areas regardless of
whether
they were armed, and were ordered to intentionally destroy civilian
property. An investigation by the British newspaper the Guardian
revealed a series of Israeli missile attacks against clearly
distinguishable civilian targets.

United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied
Territories Richard Falk, noting Israel?s ?unlawful uses of force on a
large scale? against Gazan society as a whole, referred to the
operation
as a ?flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, as set
forth
in the Geneva Conventions.? Falk, an American Jew and emeritus
professor
at Princeton University who is arguably the country?s preeminent
international legal scholar, also noted the illegality of Hamas rocket
attacks into Israel, but stressed that Israeli air strikes?were aimed
at
civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the
world.?

Ignoring such evidence, the attorneys general insisted that Israel was
directing its artillery, bombings, and missile attacks only toward ?
the
source of Hamas? military attacks? and the Israeli government should
therefore not be held responsible for any military action that harmed
Palestinian civilians because they did so ?unintentionally.?

Defending Mass Killings of Civilians

These attorneys general try to absolve Israel of any responsibility of
the hundreds of civilian deaths by accusing Hamas of ?using these
civilians as human shields.? They provide no evidence for this charge,
however, save for a quote from the notoriously right-wing editorial
page
of the Wall Street Journal.

Independent human rights groups have accused Hamas of less-severe
violations of international humanitarian law, such as not taking all
necessary steps it should to prevent civilian casualties when it
positioned fighters and armaments too close to concentrations of
civilians. However, this isn?t the same thing as deliberately using
civilians as shields. Furthermore, the nature of urban warfare,
particularly in a territory as densely populated as the Gaza Strip,
makes the proximity of retreating fighters and their equipment to
civilians unavoidable in many cases.

Even if Hamas were using human shields in the legal definition of the
term, it still does not absolve Israel from its obligation to avoid
civilian casualties. Amnesty International has noted that the Geneva
Conventions make it clear that even if one side is shielding itself
behind civilians, such a violation ?shall not release the parties to
the
conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian
population and civilians.?

To argue otherwise, as do these attorneys general, is a dangerous
legal
position for the chief law enforcement official of a state to take,
such
as ordering their state police to kill innocent people in a hostage
situation. By this logic, if a botched bank robbery led the would-be
robbers to hold bank employees and customers at gunpoint, these
attorneys general could then order state patrolmen to kill the gunmen
and hostages alike, defending their action on the grounds that the bad
guys were using ?human shields.?

Denying Political Reality

It?s not just this flawed legal reasoning that underscores how this
initiative by these attorneys general was based not upon a legitimate
interpretation of law but for narrow ideological purposes. They reveal
their political prejudices in their insistence in the letter to
Clinton
in claiming that ?Israel withdrew from Gaza in2005? but that the
Palestinians failed to establish ?a flourishing independent state.? In
reality, despite the removal of illegal Israeli settlements and the
withdrawal of occupation forces from that crowded urban enclave,
Israel
has maintained sole control over Gaza Strip?s airspace and territorial
waters, thereby prohibiting movement of people and goods by land and
sea, as well as largely controlling the Gaza Strip?s border with
Egypt.
With Israel effectively preventing any exports or imports, except for
occasional humanitarian aid, the economy has collapsed and, even prior
to the war, the territory was experiencing a serious humanitarian
crisis. Since Israel?s ?withdrawal,? the Israeli government has also
controlled the Gaza Strip?s electricity, water, and telecommunications
and has periodically engaged in air strikes and armed incursions into
the enclave, murdering and kidnapping suspected militants. No people
could reasonably be expected to establish ?a flourishing independent
state? under such circumstances. Furthermore, in maintaining their
siege
on the enclave, Israel legally remains the occupying power.

The attorneys general go on to accuse Hamas of taking advantage of
Israel?s ?withdrawal? to ?cause a civil war with the Palestinian
Authority, leading to a coup d?etat in2007.? However, while Hamas is
indeed guilty of innumerable political intrigues and inexcusable
violence towards its Palestinian opponents, this is a gross
misrepresentation of recent history.

Rather than making war against the Palestinian Authority, Hamas was
part
of the Palestinian Authority. Indeed, they controlled the legislative
branch of government as well as the post of prime minister and most
other ministries as a result of winning the plurality of the vote in
parliamentary elections in January2006. The following year, Saudi
officials negotiated a power-sharing agreement between Hamas and
Fatah,
which still controlled the presidency. U.S. officials, however,
unsuccessfully encouraged President Mahmoud Abbas to renounce the
agreement, dismiss the entire government, and abolish parliament.

The Bush administration then began secretly arming Fatah groups to
enable them to fight Hamas and pushing Fatah to stage a coup. This is
what led Hamas to launch a countercoup by overrunning Fatah offices
and
taking full control of the Gaza Strip in June2007. Alvaro de Soto,
former UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process,
stated
[.pdf] in his confidential final report leaked to the press a few
weeks
before the Hamas takeover that ?the Americans clearly encouraged a
confrontation between Fatah and Hamas? and ?worked to isolate and
damage
Hamas and build up Fatah with recognition and weaponry.? De Soto also
recalled how in the midst of Egyptian efforts to arrange a cease-fire
following a flare-up in factional fighting earlier that year, a U.S.
official told him that ?I like this violence. ? [I]t means that other
Palestinians are resisting Hamas.?

Though all this has been well-documented and is widely known in both
Israel and Palestine, this bipartisan group of attorneys general has
instead sought to defend the Bush administration?s provocative and
illegal intervention by putting the entire blame on Hamas.

This letter to the secretary of state was put together by a right-wing
group calling itself the American-Israel Friendship League (AIFL),
which
boasts that the organization has sent42state attorneys general to
Israel in the past21years. It refers to the letter as ?a strong
rejoinder to those who have castigated Israel over its role in Gaza
and
used it in an attempt to delegitimize the Jewish state.?

Dangerous Precedent

The Bush administration strongly supported Israel?s war on the Gaza
Strip as an extension of its ?war on terror.? It was in the name of
this
?war on terror? that President George W. Bush shamelessly politicized
the U.S. Justice Department to justify spying on nonviolent dissidents
at home and the torture of suspects abroad. Now we have a bipartisan
group of state attorneys general who have shown themselves similarly
willing to politicize their offices by putting forward twisted and
perverse interpretations of the law in the name of fighting terrorism.
Unless these rogue attorneys general are challenged by elected
officials
and ordinary citizens in their respective states for their signing on
to
such a reckless statement, it could mark a dangerous precedent
regarding
respect for human rights and the rule of law.

URL to article:http://original.antiwar.com/zunes/2009/05/29/defending-
israeli-war-cr...

Unofficial list of fatal Swine flu chronic conditions

From another newsgroup:
http://groups.google.com.my/group/talk.bizarre/browse_thread/thread/cdd3979b4e4f143e/ee83b940c069ecdd?hl=en&q=swine+flu+death#ee83b940c069ecdd

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/nyregion/27flu.html

A complete copy of the whole article:
Two More New Yorkers With Swine Flu Die
Evan Abramson for The New York Times

The most important information from this article is a list of pre-cond
"While the ailments that may have made the four New Yorkers who died
more vulnerable to the flu have not been identified, federal and city
health officials have released a list of conditions that increase the
risk from flu. They include being older than 65 or younger than 2;
respiratory ailments like asthma or emphysema; a weakened immune
system because of pregnancy, diabetes or immune-suppressing drugs like
steroids; tuberculosis; heart disease; kidney disease; and morbid
obesity."

A waiting area at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn was converted
to a flu clinic, which was filled with patients who were awaiting
evaluation on Tuesday.

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Article Tools Sponsored By
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: May 26, 2009

Two more New Yorkers have died with confirmed cases of swine flu, the
city's health commissioner said on Tuesday, bringing the city's total
number of deaths related to the virus to four. Emergency room visits
and hospitalizations also continued to rise.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Times Topics: Swine Flu (AH1N1 Virus)
Readers' Opinions
Comment Post a Comment on City Room

The commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said the two latest
casualties, a 41-year-old woman in Queens and a 34-year-old man in
Brooklyn, were linked to the H1N1 virus by lab tests completed on
Monday and Tuesday. Both patients had underlying health conditions
that put them more at risk, he said. He added that he could not say
officially whether the flu had caused their deaths until autopsies
were finished. Both died on Friday.

Officials have cited underlying conditions as a factor in all four
deaths in the city, but they have not revealed those conditions,
citing medical confidentiality.

Five more public schools were closed on Tuesday because of suspected
swine flu cases, while more than a dozen that had been closed were
reopened.

"It's good that they're back because they were missing a lot of school
days, but in a way it's frightening," said Elizabeth Rosa, 33, a home
attendant, after seeing off her daughter, Jasilyn, 11, and son,
Kristian, 8, at the entrance of Public School 19 in Corona, Queens.
"When I kissed them goodbye I thought, 'Is it going to be O.K.? Is the
school safe?' "

Dr. Frieden, speaking at a news conference at the health department,
noted that both patients who died were relatively young. Health
officials have said that there is some evidence that people born
before 1957 may have been exposed to a similar virus and may have some
immunity to the novel strain of flu that is circulating.

Hospitals that normally get about 200 visits to the emergency room
each day are getting 2,000 per day, he said, and more than 25,000
people have gone to emergency rooms over the past month. The numbers
are highest in Queens, but are increasing in Brooklyn and, to a lesser
extent, in the Bronx and Manhattan.

Over the last five days, he said, 20 to 25 people a day have been
hospitalized with the flu. Before the weekend, the city had recorded
only 57 hospitalizations for flu during the entire preceding 30 days.

Dr. Frieden said the numbers of emergency room visits have been rising
over the past week, perhaps driven by the publicity surrounding the
deaths, but also by the pervasiveness of the virus through the general
population.

To put the current situation in perspective, Dr. Frieden said that in
a regular flu season, 400,000 to 1 million New Yorkers get the flu,
and about a third of them never even realize it.

Of those who have gone to the emergency room, fewer than 1 in 50
needed to be admitted to the hospital, Dr. Frieden said. "The vast
majority of people going to the hospital emergency department probably
shouldn't be going," Dr. Frieden said. Similarly, he said, a spot
check of schools with high absenteeism showed that two-thirds of the
children who were kept home were not sick.

The pressure on emergency rooms could be seen on Tuesday at Maimonides
Medical Center in Brooklyn, where many sick parents came in with sick
children. The hospital created a flu clinic in an area that usually
accommodates patients who have been admitted and are waiting for a
bed. It was filled on Tuesday with people in masks being evaluated for
flu.

Last year in May, the Maimonides emergency room saw an average of 263
patients a day. On Monday, emergency room doctors saw 480 patients.

"The consensus among these physicians," said Dr. Steven J. Davidson,
the chairman of the hospital's emergency medicine department, "is that
the influenza is mild but the patients are unusually scared."

While the ailments that may have made the four New Yorkers who died
more vulnerable to the flu have not been identified, federal and city
health officials have released a list of conditions that increase the
risk from flu. They include being older than 65 or younger than 2;
respiratory ailments like asthma or emphysema; a weakened immune
system because of pregnancy, diabetes or immune-suppressing drugs like
steroids; tuberculosis; heart disease; kidney disease; and morbid
obesity.

With reports of new flu cases tapering off around the country — except
in New York, New Jersey and New England — federal health officials
said on Tuesday that they would concentrate on tracking the swine
flu's progress in the Southern Hemisphere and preparing for a surge of
cases in the fall.

Outside of the Northeast, reports of people with flu symptoms who
visited doctors and hospitals dropped to normal levels for late May,
said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of immunization and respiratory
disease for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although Dr. Schuchat would not say that the flu had peaked for the
season, she said the country was "at a transition point" and officials
would look ahead to the next season, which usually begins in November.

Since the flu was identified in New York in late April, the city has
closed 42 schools in 31 buildings, Dr. Frieden said. Schools have
generally been closed for five days.

Since then, 25 have reopened, including about 20 on Tuesday. Most of
the newly reopened schools had more than 85 percent attendance on
Tuesday, although more than a quarter of the students at Public School
35 in Hollis, Queens, were absent. The handful of schools that
reopened on Friday also appeared to have resumed normal routines, with
more than 90 percent in attendance, according to the Department of
Education's Web site.

A spokeswoman for the department, Marge Feinberg, said that the
overall attendance rate in the city was 82 percent on Tuesday,
compared with 87 percent on May 4, before the flu had struck many
students. The attendance rate in Queens was 82.6 percent on Tuesday,
compared with 88.5 percent at the beginning of May.

Five additional schools are to be closed on Wednesday until Monday:
Q811, a special education program at P.S. 822 in St. Albans, Queens;
P.S. 231, a special education school inside P.S. 180 in Bensonhurst,
Brooklyn (the rest of the building is open); P.S. 369 in Boerum Hill,
Brooklyn (only the special education part of the building); P.S. 68 in
Wakefield, the Bronx; and the Audubon School (P.S. 128) in Washington
Heights.

Reporting was contributed by Ann Farmer, Donald G. McNeil Jr.,
Jennifer Medina and Mathew R. Warren.

Australia is a good test ground for Swine Flu

The reason is that many had escaped surveillance at Australian
Airports thinking that it is just like normal flu, contrary to what
the 13th UK victim had mentioned. Before taking Tamilflu it was bad
but after taking Tamilflu the symptoms almost disappear instantly.

A lot of Australians are confused by the severity of Swine Flu of
before taking Tamilflu and after Tamilflu.

Experts appear to be convinced that what made Spanish Flu of 1918 very
fatal in the winter was a genetic mutation but there is no proof of
this. Evidence clearly points out the effect of weather of the Case
Fatality Rate of Spanish Flu.

A better theory is that Spanish Flu does not thrive well in warm
weather because of lots of sunlight reducing the amount of exposure to
flu virus for each person.

Another theory is that in the cold, our body has less resistance to
flu virus. This is more feasible because the current Swine Flu is only
fatal against those that have immune systems that are compromised
regardless of age, except those older than 50.

The low fatality rate of Spanish Flu in 1918 in summer could be due to
this reason as well. Those who died in summer of 1918 should be
checked in order to verify this theory.

In winter, with poor heating and living at below normal summer
temperature of 15 degree Celsium, our bodies are less resistant to flu
virus. Examples are the Eskomoes where fatality rate reach 80% in
winter. Not sure about Summer though.

Swine flu containment critical

Tony Eastley reported this story on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 08:12:00
Listen to MP3 of this story ( minutes)

Alternate WMA version | MP3 download

Professor Anne Kelso, the director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for
Influenza in Melbourne, advises the Commonwealth's chief medical
officer. She tells AM that while the swine flu has not killed any
Australians, containment of the spread is still very important. She
says it is possible the virus will mutate and after this Australian
winter, there will still be a danger from the Northern Hemisphere
winter.

TONY EASTLEY: Professor Anne Kelso is the director of the WHO
Collaborating Centre for Influenza in Melbourne. She advises the
Commonwealth's chief medical officer.

Professor, good morning.

Every day more cases of the virus are turning up on planes and on
ships. Is it too late to try and contain this virus now?

ANNE KELSO: Well, Tony I think it, the cat is out of the bag in some
ways of course. Clearly the virus is here and it's spreading to some
extent in our community but there's still value, I think, to be had in
attempting to slow down that spread and there are a couple of reasons
for that.

The first is that it gives the community more time to prepare and
secondly, it gives us more time to develop a vaccine.

It is going to take some months for vaccine to be available but the
more that we can slow down the spread of the virus in the community,
the more people who can benefit from that work.

TONY EASTLEY: Now the virus hasn't killed anyone here yet and people
who have it appear to have only mild symptoms. Why should we be more
alarmed about this H1N1 virus compared to the normal influenza that
does kill people each year?

ANNE KELSO: Well of course, there have been very few cases in
Australia so far and in other countries where there has been more
extensive spread, particularly in the US, it's clear that there have
been a number of deaths.

But you are right that the number of deaths is still low compared with
the numbers we might see in a normal flu season.

One important difference is that the people who have died with
illnesses associated with this virus have been relatively young. We
are used to seeing it mostly being elderly people who are killed by
influenza during the winter season but it is much younger people who
are being killed by this virus.

They are people who have other underlying health conditions that must
be exacerbating their ability to fight the virus so I think as we see
more cases here, of course, there is a risk that people in that
category in our own community will also have much more serious
illness.

TONY EASTLEY: Professor Kelso, is there also a possibility that this
flu will somehow mutate in Australia?

ANNE KELSO: We certainly are concerned about that because as the
conditions become more suitable for the spread of flu in winter here,
then if there is wide-spread circulation of this virus then inevitably
it will mutate.

What we won't know of course, until it happens is whether those
mutations will make the virus worse or better so that we simply have
to wait and see.

TONY EASTLEY: Will it more likely mutate in the next northern winter
because that was the worst fear?

ANNE KELSO: I think that the longer it spreads, the greater the chance
of mutation and so the first concern is our Southern Hemisphere
winter. If we get through that without too many difficulties, then
yes, the next concern will be the Northern Hemisphere winter.

TONY EASTLEY: At present, people with the disease are being treated
with antivirals and I think you said you have around nine-million
doses in stock in Australia. Are the antivirals reducing the period
that people are suffering from and could transmit this H1N1 virus?

ANNE KELSO: Well, certainly if the antivirals are used early enough
then they do limit the disease. It is harder to say that it reduces
the transmission of the virus, there is much less evidence for that,
but there is certainly strong evidence that it reduces the disease and
therefore helps people to recover more quickly and of course, part of
the reason to use antivirals is to limit the illness in the people who
have the virus.

TONY EASTLEY: So if I got this flu this morning while I am talking to
you, let's say, would I survive with antivirals?

ANNE KELSO: Well, I hope so Tony. I believe you're young and healthy
and therefore have a very good chance of fighting the virus but there
may be many people in the community who have other diseases, heart
disease, diabetes, other sorts of conditions that make it more
difficult for them to fight the virus.

TONY EASTLEY: And if someone gets the virus here and now, does it
somehow give them immunity down the track somewhere?

ANNE KELSO: Well, certainly being infected with an influenza virus
does give you immunity to that influenza virus. If this virus mutates
rapidly and deviates, diverges a lot from the virus that is currently
circulating then that immunity would be less protective.

TONY EASTLEY: Right and if it was to mutate, does any immunity I have
now, would that be lost against a more virulent and deadly strain?

ANNE KELSO: It is a question of time really. I think that if it
mutated soon but was still pretty similar to the current virus, then
the immunity that you had from a current infection would be
protective.

Unfortunately from what we know so far, immunity due to infection with
previous seasonal influenza viruses probably isn't very protective.

TONY EASTLEY: Professor Anne Kelso, the director of the WHO
Collaborating Centre for Influenza in Melbourne, who also advises the
Commonwealth's chief medical officer.

US considers itself lucky to have Swine Flu

The journalist believe that it is just a joke but deep down it is the
feeling of the entire nation of USA.

For the victims of Swine Flu fatality, it is indeed very tragic.
We expect to see more fatality in USA with this kind of attitude and
facts prove it very clearly. The fatality rate of Swine flu in USA is
much higher than Mexico NOW.

Swine flu victim's wife rips Mayor Bloomberg over 'lucky' gaffe

BY Erin Einhorn, Sam Goldsmith and Nicole Bode
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Monday, May 25th 2009, 9:57 PM
Smith for News

Mayor Bloomberg is taking heat for comments he made about the swine
flu.
Take our Poll
Mayor's swine flu comments

Were you offended by Mayor Bloomberg's comments about the swine flu?

Yes. He was completely insensitive to those who have lost loved ones
to the swine flu.

No. He was just telling the truth.
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P.S. 12
* Wiener's son throws no-hitter for swine flu victim

Lucky? The widow of the city's first swine flu victim blasted Mayor
Bloomberg for saying New Yorkers should "consider yourself lucky" to
get the virus.

"I'm not feeling very lucky. I'm sorry I can't agree with that," said
Bonnie Wiener, whose husband, Assistant Principal Mitchell Wiener,
died last week.

"My children are not feeling very lucky either," the widow added.
"It's a very puzzling comment to make."

Bloomberg made the awkward remark a day after the city suffered its
second swine flu death.

"In some senses, if you have H1N1 [virus], you should consider
yourself lucky because it so far seems to be a milder flu than the
garden variety," Bloomberg said Monday.

The mayor quickly explained that he wasn't downplaying the deaths.

"It's very sad that those that we've lost are gone, but the good news
is that so far it does seem to be a relatively mild flu."

Mitchell Wiener died from swine flu last week, followed by a Queens
woman in her 50s with an underlying health issue, the city's Health
Department revealed Sunday.

Bloomberg refused Monday to identify the city's second victim "out of
respect for the family." He said she did not work in the schools.

His decision to stay silent on her identity also rankled Wiener's
widow.

"When my husband died it was on the media before they called to tell
me," said Bonnie Wiener, a teacher at Intermediate School 238, where
her husband also worked.

She added she hoped the latest victim's family has "a strong support
system like I do."

"You're going to be angry," she said. "It's 2009 - who dies from the
flu anymore?"

The number of confirmed cases of swine flu in the city jumped by 50 -
up to 330 cases from 280 the day before, Health Department spokeswoman
Jessica Scaperotti said.

A Chicago-area resident died of swine flu, the first death in Illinois
and the 12th nationally, from the illness.

Authorities in Mexico, where the swine flu outbreak started, announced
three more deaths, raising its total to 83. Canada reported its second
death.

The continuing outbreak was worrisome for parents at 20 city schools
slated to reopen Tuesday.

"We don't know if the outbreak is gone," said Khemraj Ramnauth, whose
daughter Yanera attends IS 238. "It's very nerve-racking."

Others said they were ready to head back.

"Flu is a thing that comes and goes. It's not like a plague," said dad
Rahman Ali, 57.

nbode@nydailynews.com

With Benjamin Peim

Read more: "Swine flu victim's wife rips Mayor Bloomberg over 'lucky'
gaffe" - http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/05/25/2009-05-25_widow_raps_bloombergs_swine_flu_gaffe.html#ixzz0GaoMENJp&A

better foolish than dead

Examples are plenty of people who are not scared and resulted in the
loss of their lives. The Tsunami and SARS epidemic.

If they had been extra careful, lives would have been saved.

It may come to a case where too careful will also cause deaths as the
case of the false tsunami at Kota Kinabalu that killed two elderly
women.

SARS is treated as a false alarm in quoted article, but it led to
large losses of lives because people were too careless initially. Once
people panic and initiate the correct response to this disease, its
fatality rate had gone down completely to much less than normal flu
that keep on killing millions every year.

SARS is much more deadly than normal flu, but how could it be possible
that SARS kill less than normal flu? The simple answer is because
people treat normal flu lightly because of its low fatality rate,
whereas the much higher fatality rate of SARS made people more
careful.

Swine flu is not as fatal as SARS or Bird Flu but it is up to 4 times
more deadly than normal flu, killing people in the ages 5-50 that
normally will not die due to normal flu, despite their illnessess,
such as pregnancy(?).

If you treat Swine Flu as you treat normal flu, it will cause more
unnecessary deaths and sufferings. Worse, it is more infectios than
normal flu and even Spanish Flu of 1918. Untreated and monitored, its
fatality rate is worse than Spanish Flu so just imagine the havoc that
it can create in developing nations. This current Swine Flu is bad
because it appears to be infections even in warm weather compared to
normal flu and even Spanish Flu.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-swine-flu24-2009may24,0,5538525.story

Twitter trackers follow public reaction to swine flu
A survey on the micro-blogging site offers a rare look into people's
thinking during a potentially dangerous outbreak. The quick drop-off
in interest troubles researchers.
By Rebecca Cole
May 24, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- As two Stanford University researchers
described their experience watching public reactions in the initial
days of the swine flu outbreak, it sounded like one of those nature
films in which tiny fish dart back and forth in perfect unison.

The researchers were tracking thousands of Twitter posts pouring into
an Internet site. With every twist and turn of the flu reports, the
researchers noticed, the mass of tweets swung this way and that as if
they were one, even though most of the individual Twitterers had no
contact with one another outside of the website.

It was a rare window into the public psyche amid an explosion of
information about a potentially dangerous disease outbreak.

The researchers -- James Holland Jones, an associate professor of
anthropology, and Marcel Salathe, a biologist -- had devised an online
survey to gauge people's anxiety about the H1N1 virus as it unfolded.

Posted early in the outbreak, the survey generated about 8,000
responses in a matter of days, but as doomsday predictions did not
come to pass, responses dropped off -- a development that worried
Jones.

"Swine flu is still out there and will be back next flu season," he
said. "We've dodged the pandemic for now, but I think it's a very open
question whether we have really dodged it."

The shifting reactions to H1N1 suggested that as the country has
become more wired, people may move from indifference to anxiety and
back in the blink of an eye.

After flu cases in Mexico soared at the end of April, U.S. government
officials took to the airwaves, declaring a public health emergency as
the World Health Organization raised the global threat level to5 --
the second-most severe.

With little known about the virus, people's reactions were immediate:
Travel to Mexico fell dramatically, pork-belly futures collapsed, and
protective masks flew off the shelves. Mexico City virtually shut down
-- closing gyms, restaurants, movie theaters and other nonessential
businesses -- costing the already teetering economy $2.2 billion in 10
days, according to the nation's finance secretary.

But as the number of deaths in Mexico attributed to the disease
plateaued at about 60 -- and as widespread U.S. fatalities failed to
materialize -- the media coverage backed off, causing public interest
to flag and some experts to fear that the early warnings may make it
harder to get the public's attention in the future.

"We've cried wolf one too many times here," said Michael Osterholm,
director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at
the University of Minnesota.

"I actually think this situation has set us back. It really is two
strikes, and now we're almost out," he said, referring to initial
panic and then loss of interest in recent outbreaks such as SARS and
avian flu.

More than 4 in 10 people followed news about the H1N1 outbreak very
closely, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Even in a week
filled with news of President Obama's first 100 days in office and
Chrysler filing for bankruptcy, attention to news of the swine flu was
so great, Pew found, that it became one of the top stories of the year
to date.

Osterholm said the media had to be a crucial part of how health and
government officials communicate during such an event. "We need to
take a step back and see what we can learn from it -- how we should do
it in the future," he said.

Initial public reaction to H1N1 was way out of proportion to the
magnitude of the disease, said Richard Thaler, professor of behavioral
science and economics at the University of Chicago.

"Psychologists say we have two brain systems, the old and the new,"
Thaler said. "The old one is fast and emotional. When we react by
jumping in response to a snake, that's old. The new one is analytic.
But often we don't get past the first emotional system."

The country is a bit on edge, Thaler said, and people on edge are less
likely to react in a rational way. "It's hard to imagine a time when
so much was going [on] on so many different fronts," he said.

He added that the Internet "is bad enough," but that the "velocity of
rumor and gossip" had increased exponentially with Twitter.

Dan Ariely, author of "Predictably Irrational," invokes the concept of
learned helplessness to describe how people behave when conditioned by
a series of seemingly random, harmful events.

"When we have all these unexplained shocks, we just do what we're
told," said Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at MIT.

When people don't know how much risk to take in stressful situations,
Ariely said, they look around to see what others are doing. But "if
other people are doing foolish things," he said, many times "we do it
too."

Swine flu easily immune to Tamilflu

Read the whole article in order to find out. It is not my idea but
ideas from professional scientists dedicated to this field but even
they can be wrong. Keep our mind, eyes, ears and noses open all the
time.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1186913/Tamiflu-work-swine-flu-Governments-scientists-warn.html

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Find a Job Dating Wine E-Editions Feedback
Sunday, May 24 2009 This Morning 10°C This Afternoon 21°C 5-Day
Forecast
Tamiflu might not work against swine flu, Government's own scientists
warn

By David Rose
Last updated at 10:45 PM on 23rd May 2009

* Comments (0)
* Add to My Stories

Swine flu could soon become resistant to Tamiflu, the drug being
stockpiled to fight it, say Government scientists.

A strain of seasonal flu closely related to the swine virus has
already mutated so that Tamiflu is virtually useless against it.

But the Government is spending more than £100million to bring
Britain's stockpile of Tamiflu up to 50million doses – enough for 80
per cent of the population.

swine flu

Stockpile: But swine flu could soon mutate to become resistant to
Tamiflu

Dr Steve Gamblin, the joint head of molecular structure at the
National Institute for Medical Research, told The Mail on Sunday that
the mutation renders Tamiflu about 250 times less effective than it
should be.

'Our research suggests that if Tamiflu is used extensively, mutant
swine flu viruses that are resistant to the drug may well arise,' said
Dr Gamblin.

'Instead of relying on Tamiflu alone, it would be better to use a
cocktail of Tamiflu and Relenza,' – another anti-viral drug to which,
so far, flu viruses have not developed resistance.

However, the Government has stockpiled only about ten million doses of
Relenza and it is more difficult to take. While Tamiflu can be
swallowed as a pill at home, Relenza is a powder that must be
administered with an inhaler, normally under medical supervision.

The NIMR in Mill Hill, North London, is one of four World Health
Organisation centres spearheading research into developing a swine flu
vaccine. But a Health Department spokesman admitted that this is
unlikely to be available in large quantities until the end of
December. If swine flu starts to spread rapidly during the autumn,
Tamiflu and Relenza will be the only lines of defence.

Because swine flu is a new strain no one has inbuilt immunity, which
increases the risk of a pandemic. Two more cases were confirmed in
Britain yesterday, bringing the total to 122.

Dr John McCauley, one of three flu research directors at the NIMR,
said the timing of the start of the annual flu season will be
critical. He said that in 1918, when a pandemic killed more than
50million worldwide, the virus responsible first appeared in the
northern hemisphere in spring, just as swine flu has, then
'disappeared' for the summer.

In recent years, seasonal flu has not started to spread widely until
December or January. But in 1918, the virus re-emerged in September.

'If swine flu comes back in December, it probably won't be too bad,'
said Dr McCauley. 'Much earlier, and we could be in trouble.'

So far, research suggests that swine flu is not exceptionally
virulent. According to the WHO, it is likely to kill about 0.4 per
cent of those who get it.

However, if it did quickly infect millions of people, the death toll
would be substantial, while the strain on the health service and the
wider economy would be immense.

Both swine flu and the Tamiflu-resistant seasonal flu are descendants
of the 1918 pandemic virus, and are classified as H1N1 viruses because
of the distinctive proteins that form their coating.

Tamiflu works by attacking the N1 protein. If taken early, it ensures
that symptoms are mild and reduces the chance of a victim giving the
illness to someone else. But according to Dr Gamblin, it takes only a
'point mutation' – a change to a single amino acid in a virus's DNA –
to render Tamiflu ineffective.

By the winter of 2007-08, he and his colleagues had identified this
problem, while their hopes that the mutation would also make the virus
weaker were later dashed. Worse, the mutation appeared to be an
inherent characteristic of the N1 virus protein, making it likely that
other strains – such as swine flu – would in time undergo it.

The laws of natural selection mean that if swine flu does mutate, the
new strain would quickly become dominant , Dr Gamblin added.

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