Can I ask, WHY was the 1916 pandemic worse for healthy adults? Was it the poor conditions in the trenches, or what was it?
I figured they were all jokes - but funny in as much as I could picture them being real. (And they’re all pretty bizarre).
They believe that flu provoked cytokine storms, which makes your immune system work against you. From wiki “a healthy immune system may have been a liability rather than an asset.”
Update to last post: The 20 new confirmed U.S. cases appear to be from NY
I will update once I find more details on this…
OK - time to throw down some facts. (Before I say anything else, my disclaimer is that I am an epidemiologist, though not a specialist in influenzas) (Oh, and I did work at CDC while the panic flames of Avian Flu were being fanned - by CDC, IMHO)
First, the very most important thing that we do not know about this swine flu epidemic is the population at risk. When we look at how likely a disease (any disease) is to spread to others, we need to know 2 numbers: how many people have the disease, and how many could have gotten the disease because they were exposed. When you divide the first number by the second number, you arrive at the risk of getting the disease. And the risk is what everyone really wants to know. But we don’t know it.
Another very important thing we do not know is case fatality. That’s really what’s upsetting everyone, obviously. But the problem is that we really don’t know how many cases there are. Which leads to case definition. In Mexico they’ve defined cases (it seems) as having been admitted to the hospital with severe flu-like illness, and deaths as being due to H1N1. That’s not a great case definition, and in the US we haven’t had any hospitalizations yet (I think).
So, we need to be able to define a population at risk of developing the illness before we can know how transmissible it is in the general public. And, we can’t rely too much on the Mexican numbers about fatality because they start with a much sicker population than we would in the US or Canada.
I think it’s also important to point out that the fact that this is a swine flu doesn’t make it extra icky and weird. We get animal influenzas all the time. The influenza that we get every winter is usually an variant of a bird influenza. The reason that we get it in the winter has a lot to do with avian migratory patterns.
Someone wanted to know what a pandemic looked like? AIDS what a pandemic looks like, it’s a world pandemic.
Now, if can be forgiven, I just want to toot my own horn for just a moment. People freaked out over ‘bird flu’ and the flames really got fanned by a lot of people. some of them should be ashamed. I started reading incidental articles about H5N1 (bird flu) in 1998. Working at the CDC, people would ask me about bird flu - on airplanes, at parties, waiting in line at the bank, anywhere. They asked because they were afraid, and I told them that so far the only thing that we knew for sure was that a bunch of birds had died from it. I told them that bird flu might be the next big influenza scare, but that it was just as likely that the next scare would be something completely different. And furthermore that it might be this year or it might be in 25 years. We didn’t luck out on the 25 years, but it wasn’t bird flu. so <toot>.
Of course it was a good thing that people got together and talked about how to handle an influenza crises, but it sure as heck wasn’t necessary to scare the public!
Now, wash your hands. With soap. And then use a paper towel to open the bathroom door or else you’ve just un-washed your hands!
[I probably won’t be able to be back to check the thread very often - migraines and computers don’t go well together. But I wanted to throw in my share of facts.]
THIS is why I pay my dues once a year. Thank you so much.
BTW, my husband is a family medicine doc and he says the hysteria has already started. Someone came into his office this morning DEMANDING anti-virals. Because they had been on plane—last week—from St. Louis—to Chapel Hill, NC.:dubious:
Let’s not panic, shall we? The reported cases in the US have been mild.
My wife is a Spanish language medical interpreter for a Chicago-area hospital and says that her staff is “freaking out” about the situation. Mainly because they deal with a lot of brand new immigrants who won’t admit that they just came over the border. She says the hospital is coming up with a plan (or maybe implementing an existing plan… I’d like to think that they keep something on file) and thankfully there’s no reported/confirmed Chicago cases yet.
In a lot of cases, the public scares themselves. And the CDC has varying motivations - they’d like people to wash their hands more often and cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough. They want taxpayers to support funding, because someday there will be another 1919 like outbreak. Educating people when they are open to being educated fans the flames of hysteria, but its also a lot more effective than trying to get through to them when they just had a bad case of the sniffles and an upset tummy, got over it in two days and called it “the flu” and are convinced that this is no big deal.
Hysterical according to the EU health officials. They say it is only contagious between people. And countries should not use the scare as an excuse to raise trade walls.
Mexican deaths now at 149.
The flu can quickly intelligent design into a more virulent variety.
A disease organism is better-served by being less virulent. Otherwise, its host human dies before spreading the disease.
herownself, thanks for the expert opinion. 
No, as already mentioned, it is not transmitted in food products.
I did note, however, that many, if not all, of the countries banning pork products have a high Muslim population (Indonesia, Lebannon, etc.) which means, first of all, there’s probably not a lot of pork being sold there anyway, and second, with pigs being seen as ritually unclean + it being called the swine flu this is probably being done to appease the superstitious masses.
I believe it was Susan Collins who championed removing pandemic funding from the budget. I bet her people are watching this very closely.
Israeli official: Swine flu name offensive
- “Swine flu” is offensive. But naming it the “Mexican flu” is a-ok. What an idiot. I say we call it the “Litzman flu”.
to put it into perspective, one Pennsic War about 7 or 8 years ago, we had some dipwad go hermitile at our keeping about 3 dozen eggs on the table in the kitchen tent instead of in the cooler … the number of eggs we normally went through making breakfast for the people in our campsite. She was pitching a screaming hissy fit over salmonella. I pointed out that there had been something like 35000 cases of death in the US from salmonella the previous year and also pointed out that that was an absolute miniscule segment of the population and that eggs would be good as they were still in the shell and if we kept reaching into the cooler for a pair of eggs when anybody wanted an omelet we would be risking a lot more food issues from the stuff in the cooler not being kept continually cool. Then we pointed out that in general eggs would be safe at room temp while still in the shell for several DAYS. It wasnt like we were feeding anybody raw eggs anyway, You really cant make a rare omelette :smack:
The 1918 one took young healthy strong people down quickly. It may have been a stupid flue ,but thats what it did. They get more resistant and more efficient.
Wow. Can’t believe I was the first to post that. Go me!
Exactly what I was going to say. What an ass. I can’t even see what he THINKS is offensive. Is the word “swine” in and of itself an insult to Jews regardless of context? What a douchebag.