Whats crazy is that I didn't know anything about the swine flu until I saw it on CNN......
I would say it is dangerous, better to over react now than after it is too late. We are about due for some type of pandemic. I blame global warming...
I heard a decent joke today at work:
100 years ago, people said pigs would fly before we have a black president..........today, swine flu. LOL.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
I think some people in this nation - namely our irresponsible media - are in an unnatural panic about this issue. There's some good info in this article as we think about our life, work and health options.......the highlights therein are mine. And, by the way, Dr. Mercola is a nationally known osteopathic physician who has been on the Today Show, CNN, ABC World News Tonight, and just about every other network news program you can think of.
As a good friend of mine often says, 'Don't let fear hold you back!'
Why a True Bird- or Swine Flu Pandemic is HIGHLY Unlikely!
From Dr. Mercola
Why a True Bird- or Swine Flu Pandemic is HIGHLY Unlikely
While in my opinion it is highly likely factory farming is responsible for producing this viral strain, I believe there is still no cause for concern.
You may not know this, but all H1N1 flu's are descendants of the 1918 pandemic strain. The reason why the flu shot may or may not work, however, from year to year, is due to mutations. Therefore, there"s no vaccine available for this current hybrid flu strain, and naturally, this is feeding the fear that millions of people will die before a vaccine can be made.
However, let me remind you of one very important fact here.
Just a couple of months ago, scientists concluded that the 1918 flu pandemic that killed between 50-100 million people worldwide in a matter of 18 months -- which all these worst case scenarios are built upon -- was NOT due to the flu itself!4
Instead, they discovered the real culprit was strep infections.
People with influenza often get what is known as a "superinfection" with a bacterial agent. In 1918 it appears to have been Streptococcus pneumoniae.
Since strep is much easier to treat than the flu using modern medicine, a new pandemic would likely be much less dire than it was in the early 20th century, the researchers concluded.
Others, such as evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald,5 claim that a pandemic of this sort simply cannot happen, because in order for it to occur, the world has to change. Not the virus itself, but the world.
In a previous interview for Esquire magazine, in which he discusses the possibility of a bird flu pandemic, he states:
"They think that if a virus mutates, it"s an evolutionary event. Well, the virus is mutating because that is what viruses and other pathogens do. But evolution is not just random mutation. It is random mutation coupled with natural selection; it is a battle for competitive advantage among different strains generated by random mutation.
For bird flu to evolve into a human pandemic, the strain that finds a home in humanity has to be a strain that is both highly virulent and highly transmissible. Deadliness has to translate somehow into popularity; H5N1 has to find a way to kill or immobilize its human hosts, and still find other hosts to infect. Usually that doesn"t happen."
Ewald goes on to explain that evolution in general is all about trade-offs, and in the evolution of infections the trade-off is between virulence and transmissibility.
What this means is that in order for a "bird flu" or "swine flu" to turn into a human pandemic, it has to find an environment that favors both deadly virulence and ease of transmission.
People living in squalor on the Western Front at the end of World War I generated such an environment, from which the epidemic of 1918 could arise.
Likewise, crowded chicken farms, slaughterhouses, and jam-packed markets of eastern Asia provide another such environment, and that environment gave rise to the bird flu -- a pathogen that both kills and spreads, in birds, but not in humans.
Says Ewald:
"We know that H5N1 is well adapted to birds. We also know that it has a hard time becoming a virus that can move from person to person. It has a hard time without our doing anything. But we can make it harder. We can make sure it has no human population in which to evolve transmissibility. There is no need to rely on the mass extermination of chickens. There is no need to stockpile vaccines for everyone.
By vaccinating just the people most at risk -- the people who work with chickens and the caregivers -- we can prevent it from becoming transmissible among humans. Then it doesn"t matter what it does in chickens."
Please remember that, despite the fantastic headlines and projections of MILLIONS of deaths, the H5N1 bird flu virus killed a mere 257 people worldwide since late 2003. As unfortunate as those deaths are, 257 deaths worldwide from any disease, over the course of five years, simply does not constitute an emergency worthy of much attention, let alone fear!
Honestly, your risk of being killed by a lightning strike in the last five years was about 2,300 percent higher than your risk of contracting and dying from the bird flu.6 I"m not kidding! In just one year (2004), more than 1,170 people died from lighting strikes, worldwide.7
So please, as the numbers of confirmed swine flu cases are released, keep a level head and don"t let fear run away with your brains.
New rule don't Etc., etc... the best part:gring:Vincent: Want some bacon?
Jules: No man, I don't eat pork.
Vincent: Are you Jewish?
Jules: Nah, I ain't Jewish, I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
Vincent: Why not?
Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
Vincent: Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood.
Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy [mf]. Pigs sleep and root in [poo-poo]. That's a filthy animal. I ain't eat nothin' that ain't got enough sense enough to disregard its own feces.
Vincent: How about a dog? Dogs eats its own feces.
Jules: I don't eat dog either.
Etc., etc....
Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?
Jules: I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
Vincent: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true?
Jules: Well we'd have to be talkin' about one charming motherfrackin' pig. I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?:gring:
Not that I'm an Obama fan (voted for "McSame" actually) but 100 days is hardly enough time for any President's policies to have significant effect, good or bad. He's done a lot in his first 100 days, but those actions haven't had time to develop consequences yet. Just wait though - you don't inject hundreds of billions of dollars into irresponsible corporations and not have some sort of effect.
The 10% that have changed their minds probably did so because they've run out of patience for "change we can believe in" to actually arrive. I'd bet some of them are the the same folks who created this mess by being too impatient to save money before buying.
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Oh geez has finger pointing ever accomplished anything besides starting fights? All administrations could have done things better, all of them could have done things worse, they all have advantages and all have disadvantages. The more important thing is that we stay true to the idea that gave this country its true beauty, freedom. We still have that, even though some are trying to take some religious freedoms away from us, at the heart of this country we need to remember our foundations and where we have come from, and learn from our past yes, but finger pointing is a waste of time.
ALL UIL regional high school track meets have been canceled this weekend, because of the Swine Flu. This is making things crazy for us in the track world and no one knows how the year will turn out for quite a few athletes who do not currently know who will compete or how they will decided who is allowed to compete at the state track meet. This affects a lot of aspects in track and field especially recruiting athletes to the collegiate level and could negatively affect a lot of young athletes careers.
jo
Crotchrocket,
You seem to start some threads lately that get crazy in a hurry. Not saying anything against you, I just think its funny.![]()