US to blame for Swine Flu and Flu disasters

Despite complains by common people that are more truth worthy, US
firms and corrupt and greedy local governments had created a monster
that keeps on killing millions every year, and now will kill even
more, while wasting millions on Tamilflu and Vaccines.

Normal flu kills millions every year and they are incubated in large
farms such as in Mexico. Despite their assurances, witness accounts of
people nearby are much more reliable than any explanations given by
these biased firms.

The locals don't care what excuses these firms give, the fact is that
they keep on getting all sorts of flu every day of the year.

http://www.russiatoday.com/Top_News/2009-05-17/US_link_to_Mexican_swine_flu___.html?fullstory

US link to Mexican swine flu
permalinke-mail story to a friendprint version

17 May, 2009, 22:45

While swine flu was born in rural Mexico, sufferers there claim it was
conceived in local US-owned factory farms. The pandemic may prove to
be the cost of ignoring warnings around intensive farming.
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Scoop del.icio.us Digg Sphinn Furl Reddit

An overpowering stench has long surrounded the village of La Gloria in
the arid Perote Valley, home to more than one million hogs. Besides
the smell, locals complain of sore throats and year-round flu, which
they blame on the industrial farms.

Locals say the pig farms' biodigesters – used to convert dead swine
into energy – often overfill. The leftover carcasses are then devoured
by packs of wild dogs.

Headaches and burning eyes can be so bad that local people to flee
from the acrid environment.

Scientists have traced the first cases of the swine flu pandemic to
this dry, wind-swept valley. On Tuesday (12th June), the World Health
Organization reported there had been more than 5,250 cases around the
world. Mexico has borne the brunt of the outbreak, with more than
2,000 infected including 56 confirmed fatalities.

Read more
Locals blame illness on US farm

Mexico's medical facilities have been stretched by the infection
dubbed "Mexican swine flu". Locals claim that the persistent illnesses
in the area are linked to the hog-producing subsidiary of an American
company.

Smithfield Foods – the world's largest producer of pork – supports 16
farms in the area of the original outbreak. It uses a vertical
integration method of intensive farming. Thousands of pigs are packed
into barns, their waste flushed into open-air pits called lagoons.

"To the people of this community, what brought about this problem was
the pig farms," said Guillermo Franco Vazquez, the mayor of Perote.

Smithfield's subsidiary, Granjas Carroll – a joint venture with
Agroindustrias Unidas de Mexico – rejects this, pointing to comments
by Mexican health officials that temperature changes, poor nutrition
and a lack of drinking water are to blame.

At its peak, 28% of the population of La Gloria was infected with
swine flu. While the health crisis appears to be abating, tensions
continue to rise between the poor neighboring communities and the
multi-national food producer.

In 2007, Perote Valley residents in a grass-roots organization called
Pueblos Unidos blockaded a road to prevent a Granjas Carroll pig farm
being built near La Gloria. Unusually, criminal charges were
subsequently pressed against five members of the group.

The conglomerate denies claims by local officials —including the
governor of the state of Veracruz – that Smithfield was behind the
prosecutions.

Relations are so strained that Miguel Rolon Garcia, the state official
who signed the original agreement with Smithfield, will is refusing to
visit Perote, to "avoid the confrontation".

Link to face $1 billion legal test

Smithfield's responsibility for swine flu will be put to the test
after a billion dollar petition against the company was filed in the
US. Judy Trunnell died of the infection and her husband has sought
"wrongful death damages" against Smithfield. His lawyers will need to
establish a link between the "horrifically unsanitary conditions" at
the Mexican pig farms and the infection's spread.

There is no scientific consensus that a link will be established.
World Health Organization and other international teams are trying to
establish the source of the influenza.

However, there have long been warnings that intensive farming methods
can produce a hotbed for developing viruses.

Long-term fears of factory farming

In 2006, US National Institutes of Health (NIN) stated "because
concentrated animal feeding operations tend to concentrate large
numbers of animals close together, they facilitate rapid transmission
and mixing of viruses."

While the first confirmed case of swine flu was in Mexico, the
original strain may have emanated from north of the border.

GRAIN, an international, non-governmental agriculture organization,
reported: "We do not know where exactly this genetic recombination and
evolution took place, but the obvious place to start looking is in the
factory farms of Mexico and the US."

Last year, the Pew Research Center reported: "Factory farms are time-
bombs for global disease epidemics." The United Nations and European
Commission have both drawn attention to the risk of epidemics stemming
from factory farming.

If a link is established between the farms so loathed by the
inhabitants of Perote Valley and the global epidemic of swine flu,
pressure on the big business of factory farming will ratchet up.

Jonathan Stibbs for RT

how flu kills strong young people

This gives you an indication why flu kills apparently young and
healthy people.

Fortunately Tamilflu helps as long as the virus has not developed any
resistance to it and administered 48 hours after the onset of flu
symptoms.

http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Non-food/Disease/170520090836_cytokine_storms_chief_concern_in_current_flu_pandem.html

Sunday May 17, 2009 (foodconsumer.org) -- At this point, there are
over 4000 cases of the swine flu in the United States. In just two
weeks, the virus has spread into 47 states; we are certainly in the
midst of a pandemic.

What is unsettling about the swine flu we are now seeing is that
relatively young, able-bodied adults with healthy immune systems seem
to be particularly vulnerable. In this regard, this particular flu
mimics the Spanish flu of 1918, which covered the entire globe and
left at least 20 million people dead in its wake.

Researchers believe that this phenomenon is occurring because of a
fierce, biological reaction that occurs when the body is subjected to
a virulent illness that it has no immunity to: a cytokine storm.

The viciousness of the illness causes the human immune system to
"overreact," releasing too many antibodies to fight off the illness at
once. According to the website cytokinestorm.com, 150 inflammatory
"mediators" are simultaneously released; the violent "dance" of these
go-betweens causes a super infection of sorts. Normally, a person's
body will control the cytokine loop; in the case of the Spanish flu,
such a reigning in did not take place.

In 1918, young, healthy adults typically died a mere 24 hours after
coming down with the first symptoms of the illness; many of them
drowned in their own body fluids. Some hemorrhaged to death as the
cytokine storm destroyed the lining of the intestines.

The pandemic of 1918 caused panic among the masses, as well it should
have. Even young children were aware of the seriousness of the
illness, as is obvious by the following nursery rhyme: "I had a little
bird, its name was Enza; I opened up my window and 'in-flew-Enza'".

During the throes of the epidemic, doctors tried everything, including
some unorthodox regimens, to reign in the deadly strain (and at that
time, it was unknown that influenza was a viral borne illness), even
resorting to "bleeding" out those afflicted with it. Some tried using
hydrogen peroxide IVs, which not only did nothing to diminish the
illness, it actually caused fatalities. According to the New York
Times, one doctor injected a concoction of blister fluid, morphine,
caffeine, and strychnine into patients, while some injected the
typhoid vaccine (which stimulates immune reactions) into their dying
wards.

While much has been learned since 1918, cytokine storms remain
somewhat of an enigma to medical professionals. Unfortunately,
however, they remain the chief concern of the current pandemic.

(By Rachel Stockton, and edited by Heather Kelley)

Impossible for Malaysia to contain Swine Flu

With the limited success in quarantining all passengers or people in
contact with swine flu confirmed cases, coupled with the delay in
testing and confirming these swine flu cases, it is too late to
contain this swine flu.

Please note that many swine flu cannot be detected with these tests
and many now appear like normal flu except that they are not resistant
to Tamilflu unlike the normal flu in US. Malaysian normal flu may
vary.

Many journalists and even senior university lecturer are spreading
false information that this swine flu is just like normal flu. It is
more than 4 times more dangerous than normal flu and kills even
apparently healthy individuals in half of the cases.

I fear that this ignorance will spread to our doctors who will dismiss
this as a normal flu as what had happened to the first confirmed case.
It was only after the 2nd confirmed Swine flu case was the quarantine
for the rest of the passengers and crew were initiated. It is too late
for that.

China is the only nation that is serious in quarantine procedures but
even that may not be enough.

The deaths may be only 68, but this is only after 1 month. The deaths
of 36,000 in USA for normal flu is for the whole year.

These flu may not cause death directly. Flu normally does not kill. It
is the secondary infection that will kill in most cases.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30792158/

Malaysian air crew quarantined over swine flu
AirAsia crew members, 101 passengers on flight to be put under
quarantine
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What's this?
Italy confirms 9th case of swine flu
Canadians quarantined in China over flu fears
Malaysia confirms second case of swine flu
Norway confirms first swine flu cases
3rd Netherlands swine flu case confirmed
updated 10:28 a.m. ET May 17, 2009

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Budget airline AirAsia said Sunday it has
quarantined five crew members from a domestic flight that carried
Malaysia's second confirmed swine flu victim.

The crew of flight AK5358, which flew from Kuala Lumpur to the
northern city of Penang on Wednesday, was taken off duty Saturday,
AirAsia spokesman Hamdan Mohamad said.

He said this was done on the orders of the Health Ministry as a
precautionary measure.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here

The flight was taken by Malaysia's second confirmed swine flu case, a
21-year-old female student who had arrived in Kuala Lumpur on a
Malaysian Airlines flight earlier Wednesday from Newark in the United
States. She was hospitalized after reaching Penang.

Malaysia's first confirmed victim is a 21-year-old friend of the
woman, who also was on the Malaysian Airlines flight. He has been
hospitalized in Kuala Lumpur.

The Star quoted Health Ministry Deputy Director-General Ramlee Rahmat
as saying that both were in stable condition.

He said all 101 passengers on the AirAsia flight would be put under
home quarantine.

Of the 119 passengers on the Malaysian Airlines flight, 95 have been
located and put under home quarantine along with 15 crew members,
Ramlee was quoted as saying. The 95 — 80 Malaysians and 15 foreigners
— all are healthy, he said. The ministry is still trying to locate one
remaining Malaysian and 23 foreigners, he said.

The World Health Organization has confirmed at least 8,480 human cases
of swine flu in nearly 40 countries, mostly in the U.S. and Mexico,
including 72 deaths.

Why the world hasn't collapsed: Fareed Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria is a favourite editor of mine. When all the other
editors of Newsweek, a magazine that I used to subscribe, had made
mistakes, especially about Islam, Fareed Zakaria was the only one
sounding the words of wisdom.

His analysis of the current economic and health disasters is an
excellent article. Don't be fooled by the "wolf cry" at the first
paragraph. Read on and find out how we should be vigilant while
finding out why the world is still safe now.

In summary. It is not that there are no threats but the world has
progressed far in responding to them but it is the fear of these
historic disasters that made the world respond the way it is.

A lot of people dismiss the current Swine Flu as a normal flu very
remote from the Spanish Flu but it is not true. The reason why there
are few casualties are due to the advancement of our health care
systems.

Similarly for the depressionary effects of the collapse of banks
currently. The impact is not as great because there are now social
security benefits given out by governments in addition to the massive
support given to banks.

Fareed Zakaria
The Sky Isn't Falling

Our world is more stable than we think
Published May 16, 2009
From the magazine issue dated May 25, 2009

* Recommended (6)
* U.S. Immigration Is Holding Steady Despite Crisis
* Immigrants Are Starting to Head Back Home
* Darkest Before The Dawn
* Is Argentina A Time Bomb?
* How's He Doing?
* Why Future Flu Pandemics May Be Much More Lethal

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It certainly looks like another example of crying wolf. After bracing
ourselves for a global pandemic, we've suffered something more like
the usual seasonal influenza. Three weeks ago the World Health
Organization declared a health emergency, warning countries to
"prepare for a pandemic" and said that the only question was the
extent of worldwide damage. Senior officials prophesied that millions
could be infected by the disease. But as of last week, the WHO had
confirmed only 4,800 cases of swine flu, with 61 people having died of
it. Obviously, these low numbers are a pleasant surprise, but it does
make one wonder, what did we get wrong?

Why did the predictions of a pandemic turn out to be so exaggerated?
Some people blame an overheated media, but it would have been
difficult to ignore major international health organizations and
governments when they were warning of catastrophe. I think there is a
broader mistake in the way we look at the world. Once we see a
problem, we can describe it in great detail, extrapolating all its
possible consequences. But we can rarely anticipate the human response
to that crisis.

Take swine flu. The virus had crucial characteristics that led
researchers to worry that it could spread far and fast. They described—
and the media reported—what would happen if it went unchecked. But it
did not go unchecked. In fact, swine flu was met by an extremely
vigorous response at its epicenter, Mexico. The Mexican government
reacted quickly and massively, quarantining the infected population,
testing others, providing medication to those who needed it. The noted
expert on this subject, Laurie Garrett, says, "We should all stand up
and scream, 'Gracias, Mexico!' because the Mexican people and the
Mexican government have sacrificed on a level that I'm not sure as
Americans we would be prepared to do in the exact same circumstances.
They shut down their schools. They shut down businesses, restaurants,
churches, sporting events. They basically paralyzed their own economy.
They've suffered billions of dollars in financial losses still being
tallied up, and thereby really brought transmission to a halt."

Every time one of these viruses is detected, writers and officials
bring up the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918 in which millions of
people died. Indeed, during the last pandemic scare, in 2005,
President George W. Bush claimed that he had been reading a history of
the Spanish flu to help him understand how to respond. But the world
we live in today looks nothing like 1918. Public health-care systems
are far better and more widespread than anything that existed during
the First World War. Even Mexico, a developing country, has a first-
rate public-health system—far better than anything Britain or France
had in the early20th century.

One can see this same pattern of mistakes in discussions of the global
economic crisis. Over the last six months, the doomsday industry has
moved into high gear. Economists and business pundits are competing
with each other to describe the next Great Depression. Except that the
world we live in bears little resemblance to the1930 s. There is much
greater and more widespread wealth in Western societies, with middle
classes that can withstand job losses in ways that they could not in
the1930s. Bear in mind, unemployment in the non-farm sector in America
rose to 37 percent in the 1930s. Unemployment in the United States
today is 8.9 percent. And government benefits—nonexistent in the '30s—
play a vast role in cushioning the blow from an economic slowdown.

The biggest difference between the 1930s and today, however, lies in
the human response. Governments across the world have reacted with
amazing speed and scale, lowering interest rates, recapitalizing banks
and budgeting for large government expenditures. In total, all the
various fiscal--stimulus packages amount to something in the range of
$2 trillion. Central banks—mainly the Federal Reserve—have pumped in
much larger amounts of cash into the economy. While we debate the
intricacies of each and every move—is the TALF well -structured?—the
basic reality is that governments have thrown everything but the
kitchen sink at this problem and, taking into account the inevitable
time lag, their actions are already taking effect. That does not mean
a painless recovery or a return to robust growth. But it does mean
that we should retire the analogies to the Great Depression, when -
policymakers—especially cen-tral banks—did everything wrong.

We're living in a dangerous world. But we are also living in a world
in which deep, structural forces create stability. We have learned
from history and built some reasonably effective mechanisms to handle
crises. Does that mean we shouldn't panic? Yes, except that it is the
sense of urgency that makes people act—even overreact—and ensures that
a crisis doesn't mutate into a disaster. Here's the paradox: if
policymakers hadn't been scared of another Great Depression, there
might well have been one.

Zakaria's latest book, The Post-American World, about The Rise Of
India, China And Òthe rest,Ó has been released this month as a
paperback by W.W. Norton & Co.

© 2009

Good Historical Study of Pandemic Flu

A very good article. The only thing missing is the lack of study on
the impact of Tamilflu.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/16/AR2009051601850.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Age of Flu Victims Has Big Implications
Scientists Say Relative Youth of Ill People Is Evidence of Pandemic
Potential

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Who's Blogging
» Links to this article
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 17, 2009

The swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus that burst into public
consciousness a month ago is starting to behave like a mixture of its
infamous, pandemic-causing predecessors.

It seems to have a predilection for young adults, as did its notorious
ancestor, the 1918 Spanish influenza. Many of the young victims who
have become deathly ill turned out to have other medical problems -- a
phenomenon first clearly seen with the1957 Asian flu. H 1N1 is
spreading easily in North America but sputtering in Europe, just as
Hong Kong flu did in 1968. And as in the mini-pandemic of Russian flu
in 1977, some people appear to have a degree of immunity.

Exactly how swine flu fits into the pantheon of flu pandemics will not
be known for a while. It will take months -- and many more victims --
for its full personality and behavior to emerge. But one thing is
clear: This is a lot more than just seasonal flu out of season.

After a brief moment when news of the outbreak in Mexico made swine
flu look like a horseman of the apocalypse, public health officials
have spent much effort reassuring people that most of the time, the
virus causes a mild illness that can be ridden out at home. Yet,
officials at the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and elsewhere do not want the public to get
blase.
ad_icon

Pandemic flu strains -- and this new H1N1 strain is all but certain to
cause the 21st century's first pandemic -- are unpredictable. Any
contagious disease that most of the world's 6.8 billion people can
catch is inherently dangerous.

"Our message to everybody is, of course, do not over-worry about these
things, [but] it is important to know it is serious," the WHO's Keiji
Fukuda said last week.

Perhaps the most worrisome features so far are the number and severity
of cases in teenagers and young adults. This was noticed early, and
the pattern has not changed much now that there are 5,000 laboratory-
confirmed infections and probably more than 100,000 overall. The
average age of the confirmed and probable cases is 15 years. Two-
thirds are younger than 18.

There are two theories for what is happening.

One is that students visiting Mexico on spring break were the chief
"vectors" bringing the virus to the United States, where they then
infected schoolmates and friends. The other is that young people are
especially vulnerable for some reason.

"As we get farther and farther in, are we going to be able to choose
between these two hypotheses? Sure we are," Joseph Bresee, the CDC's
chief flu epidemiologist, said late last week. But, he added, it may
take two or three months.

Determining the true age distribution is crucial, as it will help set
the policy for who should be first in line for vaccines and how to
ration antiviral drugs if they are in short supply. "It really does
have big implications," Bresee said.

A closely related question is whether the illness tends to be more
serious in younger age groups as well as more common.

In the United States, the familiar seasonal influenza causes about
8,100 deaths a year directly and contributes to about 36,000 more in
people with lung or heart problems. Ninety percent of those deaths
occur in people 65 and older. The risk of a healthy person older than
65 dying directly from flu is about 100 times that of a healthy person
5 to 49 years old.

Compared with seasonal outbreaks, all flu pandemics cause a higher
percentage of severe cases and deaths in younger groups. Although the
overall mortality rate from the current swine flu is low, this trend
is already apparent.

Last Thursday, when Fukuda announced that the global death total was
65, he noted that "half of them are healthy people who have no
predisposing conditions. This is a pattern different from what we see
with normal influenza."

There have been too few deaths in the United States to draw any
conclusions. But of the 173 people who have been sick enough to be
hospitalized, more than half are in the 5-to-24 age group.

In the 1918 pandemic, which killed at least 50 million people, nearly
half the deaths were of people 20 to 40 years old. More than 95
percent were of people younger than 65. In comparison, 36 percent of
the deaths in the 1957 pandemic were of people younger than 65, and 48
percent in the 1968 pandemic.

The 1918 pattern has led many experts to speculate that older people
may have had immunity from a "Spanish-like" virus that circulated in
their youth, sometime before about 1885. Something similar may be
happening this time.

The H1 and N1 in the name of the new strain refer to proteins on the
virus's surface. The human immune system "sees" them and tailor-makes
antibodies to attack the bug. Flu vaccines work by priming the immune
system with harmless versions of the same H and N proteins.

A variety of H1N1 strains circulated from 1918 to 1957, then
disappeared for two decades. In 1977, however, an H1N1 strain surfaced
that was nearly identical to the previous one, so much so that
scientists suspect it was an accidental release from a lab freezer. It
caused a pandemic -- Russian flu -- that was largely limited to people
younger than 25, whose immune systems had never experienced H1N1.

Strains of H1N1 have continuously circulated since then. While the new
one is very different -- the H and N proteins are from pig, not human,
viruses -- decades of exposure to H1N1s may be providing older people
with some protection. Some young people may have had essentially no
exposure.

"My first speculation is that this younger population has somehow
missed contact with H1N1 or with vaccine," said Edwin D. Kilbourne, an
emeritus professor at New York Medical College and, at 88, flu
virology's elder statesman in the United States.

Differences in background immunity may also exist across geographical
areas. This is the reason for the big difference in North America's
and Europe's experience with the 1968 Hong Kong flu, a pandemic that
spanned two winters.

In the United States, nearly three-quarters of all deaths that were
ultimately attributed to that flu came in the first winter
(1968-1969). In England and France, more than three-quarters were in
the second winter (1969-1970).

In that virus, one old surface protein, the H, was switched out for a
new one in a process called reassortment. The strain went from H2N2 to
H3N2. Epidemiologists now believe that Europeans had had more recent
and intense exposure to H2N2 viruses than North Americans.
Consequently, Europeans had developed antibodies and were partially
protected when the "half-new" H3N2 strain arrived.

By the second winter, however, the N2 part of the virus had also
changed somewhat through mutations and was no longer very recognizable
to the immune system. The antibodies that had protected a lot of
Europeans the previous winter no longer worked against this "drifted"
strain of H3N2. Cases of flu -- and deaths -- went way up.

Whether a similar difference in continent-wide susceptibility explains
why swine flu is spreading in the United States but standing still in
Europe will take a while to figure out.

UK's preventive use of Tamilflu effective

Unlike USA that registered more deaths.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8052488.stm

Seven swine flu cases confirmed
Vaccine
Production is to begin on a swine flu vaccine as soon as possible

Seven new cases of swine flu have been confirmed in Britain as the
Foreign Office lifted its travel restrictions into Mexico.

Four children in London and three people in Greenock, Scotland have
the virus, with UK cases now at 85.

The UK government has signed a deal to secure up to 90 million doses
of a new H1N1 flu vaccine by December.

Confirmed cases worldwide rose by more than 1,000 in 24 hours to
7,520, with a new death reported in Texas.

In all, 66 people have died of the virus.

The Texas death takes the death toll in the United States to five.

Health officials said the 33-year-old man from Corpus Christi, who
suffering from other medical conditions, had died earlier in May, but
the cause of death was only confirmed on Friday.

Local advice

A decline in the number of reported new cases in Mexico means the UK
Foreign and Commonwealth Office has changed its advice on travel to
Mexico.

Officials have removed previous advice to avoid all but essential
travel, but ask British nationals to continue to follow local advice
on precautions to avoid exposure to the virus.

See a map of confirmed UK cases

In the UK, the four new cases in England were children in London who
were linked to previously confirmed cases.

The new confirmed cases in Scotland were a mother and her five-year-
old son, plus a 16-year-old girl.

All three had been among five "probable" cases that led to a nursery
and primary school being closed in Greenock, as a precaution, on
Tuesday. Test results are still being awaited for another mother and
her three-year-old child.

Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said the three patients were
all experiencing mild symptoms, and were not giving cause for clinical
concern.

Unlicensed websites

Meanwhile the UK government deal on vaccines will speed up access to
the vaccine - which will be available regardless of whether a pandemic
is officially declared - said Health Secretary Alan Johnson.

He said Baxter and GlaxoSmithKline would begin production of the
vaccine - which would provide immunity from the virus - as soon as
possible.

Agreements had already been in place to ensure two doses of vaccine
for each person in the UK - but that contract would only have kicked
in once a pandemic was under way.

If people do want to buy medicines over the internet, we urge them to
consult their GP first
Department of Health

The updated deal means the 90m doses will be available as soon as they
are ready, regardless of whether the World Health Organization has
declared a global pandemic, known as Phase 6.

Meanwhile warnings have been issued about unlicensed websites selling
the antiviral drug Tamiflu to worried members of the public.

In the UK, the government has secured 50m doses of Tamiflu and the
alternative antiviral drug Relenza. Unlike vaccines, which are
preventative, antivirals are used to treat the virus once it is
already present.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said the 50m doses were
enough antivirals to cover 80% of the population and those who needed
them would get them.

"If people do want to buy medicines over the internet, we urge them to
consult their GP first and ensure that the website is operated from a
registered pharmacy premises."

Mr Johnson said the localised cases of swine flu in the UK had so far
been mild.

"Our strategy of containing the spread with antivirals appears to have
been effective in reducing symptoms and preventing further spread of
infection," he said.

Swine Flu will kill more than SARS

Since it is confirmed that swine flu can kill not only the very young
and old, but spreading like normal flu, it can only mean that the
death rate will be much higher than normal flu.

Normal flu kills 1 million world wide but these are the very young and
old so the world don't really care much about it.

Because this swine flu does not create fever half of the time and even
tests prove negative many times, the only effective way is to employ
complete quarantine, i.e. everybody who travel from one border to the
other.

Since this is not done, there is no hope of containing it. The good
news is that only pork eaters seem to be most affected, reinforcing my
muslim friend's sense of safety.

It is better to be on a cautious side. Not only should we avoid pork,
but also pork eaters or entire race or culture of people who eat pork.
It may sound like racism but it is a matter of life and death.

These pork eaters are those who have created this disaster in the
first place. Even the normal flu is created and maintained by these
pork eaters but we tolerate it because it only affects the very young
and old.

Now is not the time to let racism cloud our judgements, or rather in
this case, fear of being labelled as racist. We must make dynamic
decisions based on FACTS, not emotions, or even so called logic that
is based on the lack of data (no evidence deemed as absolute proof of
non existence).

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/161501/What-next-if-WHO-declares-flu-pandemic

What next if WHO declares flu pandemic?
05/16/2009 | 12:29 AM
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LONDON – The World Health Organization has been warning for weeks that
swine flu is on the verge of flaring into the first flu pandemic in
four decades.

Countries are on the lookout for cases, governments are buying anti-
virals, and China has quarantined entire hotels full of people
connected to cases.

But if WHO raises its alert to phase 6, the highest level, what
exactly will that mean?

Because the word 'pandemic' often conjures up images of the 1918
Spanish flu, which killed up to 50 million people worldwide, some
people worry a phase 6 would automatically herald a catastrophic death
toll.

For the moment, experts say, there could be greater danger in mass
panic than in swine flu virulence.

WHO's pandemic phases only judge how fast a virus spreads – so moving
from phase 5 to 6 doesn't mean the virus is more dangerous, only that
it will be spreading widely in another region beyond North America.

So far, swine flu appears as mild as regular flu, meaning even if it
does go global, there probably won't be millions of deaths. But health
officials also warn that could change if the virus mutates into a more
deadly form.

Since 1918, there have been two other pandemics. In 1957, the Asian
flu killed about 2 million people worldwide. And in 1968, the Hong
Kong flu killed about 1 million.

Some countries worried about global panic attacks over phase 6 are
pressuring WHO behind the scenes to hold off on declaring a pandemic.
Other countries may also be dragging their feet on testing, fearful
that they will be the trigger for hitting the phase6 threshold.

One reason is that a pandemic announcement would likely have severe
economic consequences: it could trigger expensive trade and travel
restrictions like border closures and quarantines, as countries not
yet affected by the virus struggle to keep it out.

Under public pressure, extraordinary measures such as large-scale pig
culls slaughters like the one undertaken by Egypt could be taken,
whether or not they are scientifically justified.

At a recent meeting in Bangkok, 10 Asian nations asked WHO to revise
its pandemic phases to consider a flu virus' severity before
announcing a global outbreak.

"Countries that have been reluctant to do anything ... will be up
against the wall," said John Oxford, a professor of virology at St.
Bart's and Royal London Hospital. "Their citizens will be asking, why
haven't we got Tamiflu? Why haven't we got vaccines?"

Despite calls for transparent reporting, there are suspicions some
European countries might not be moving fast enough to identify cases,
slowing WHO's decision to declare a pandemic. As of Friday, WHO
confirmed that worldwide, 34 countries reported more than 7,500 cases.

For WHO, one of the most difficult decisions upon reaching phase 6
would be whether to start making swine flu vaccine.

With incomplete information about how deadly the virus is, WHO must
gamble on whether the world needs regular flu vaccine or swine flu
vaccine more, since large quantities of both cannot be made at the
same time because of limits on global vaccine production capacity.

Regular flu kills up to 500,000 people a year. So far, officials
aren't sure if swine flu's ultimate toll would top that or if the
virus will fizzle out. Deciding which vaccine is needed more means
guessing which virus will do more damage. And if the swine flu mutates
into a more deadly version, it's uncertain whether any vaccine now
will still work later.

That is a dilemma WHO grappled with this week in a meeting it convened
with vaccine manufacturers and other experts in Geneva.

For developed countries that dusted off their pandemic plans when the
swine flu crisis began – and have already stepped up their response
systems – a pandemic announcement could be anticlimactic.

"There will be some initial concern, but I don't think a lot will
change in phase 6," said Michael Osterholm, a flu expert at the
University of Minnesota who has advised the U.S. on pandemic
preparations.

With more cases detected in more countries every day, many experts
think the declaration of a pandemic is inevitable.

"At this point, you have to expect that what happened in the US and
Mexico will happen around the world," Osterholm said. "The virus is
continuing to spread. I can't see how we won't get to a pandemic at
this rate." - AP