BS: Obit & Debate for Swine Bird Human flu victims

Subject: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 09:51 AM

10 to 12 years ago my posts were often about germ warfare and bio terrorism. Never got a PM in those days regarding such a nasty subject but there was lots of criticism. The Mexcio city (the most populated city on Earth) outbreak has all the earmarks of an engineered compound virus. However there is no proof at this time.

If you thought immigration was a problem this will add a btand new desperate dynamic. the billion dollar 14 foot fence is like having mosquito nets try to keep out smoke.

The fatality rate now stands at slightly less than one in ten which is very high. For the Conquistadors, germs killed far more indiginous people than guns. What guns germs and steel have done to the new world is nothing short of the greatest genocide the world has seen. The worst case scenario for an engineered virus is one billion people.

As more is learned about this outbreak new questions will arise as to its origin.

WHO and CDC are in full crisis mode yet released a message "If you have travel plans to go to Mexico do not      alter your travel plans.


It made me think the single word 'go' might have been accidently left out.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 10:27 AM

Genetically it's an H1N1 virus, different from the H1N5 of "Bird Flu."

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 10:47 AM

Paranoia, anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 10:54 AM

Concern, yes. Paranoia, no.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 11:17 AM

Jumping to conclusions, though. It hasn't yet been established that this is actually a new strain (as opposed to newly identified), or that existing antivirals are ineffective against it.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: SINSULL
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 11:40 AM

Donuel, since the early 50s scientists have been warning that farming conditions in poor countries especially China were laying the world open to strains of flu that could be fatal. They especially warned against allowing pigs and poultry to mix. Pigs eat shit. Even bird shit. Do a search on this. I remember reading an article on this in the early 70s.
Reason for concern? Absolutely. Genetically engineered in a lab? No. Genetically engineered in a pig sty? Very likely.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: bobad
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 11:57 AM

The unusual influenza A H1N1 swine virus was first reported earlier this week, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it had found cases with the virus.

Mexico sent samples of its influenza virus to be tested at the CDC and the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. Both labs found positives of swine flu.

Testing indicates the virus shows sensitivity to Tamiflu and Relenza, the two anti-viral drugs that Canada has stockpiled.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090425.ILLNESS25ART2116/TPStory/National

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: bobad
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 12:06 PM

Dr. Frank Plummer, scientific director of the lab, said scientists discovered the illness is caused by an H1N1 human swine virus -- a brand-new virus against which no existing vaccine will likely protect. The Mexican virus is similar to the viruses responsible for recent cases that have cropped up in California and Texas, suggesting the disease can spread from person to person.

Canada has stockpiled millions of doses of antiviral drugs Relenza and Tamiflu to guard against pandemic flu, but Plummer doubts these drugs will offer much defence against the new strain of human swine flu. Plummer said the virus is a mix of North American swine flu and a swine flu that originated in Thailand, and scientists have no idea where it came from, when it surfaced, or how.

"The viruses are so different we think it's unlikely (existing vaccines) would provide much protection. So if we need a vaccine, which we probably do, we'll have to make one," Plummer said, noting it would take at least six months to make a new vaccine.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/city-lab-confirms-swine-flu-virus-43687807.html

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 12:14 PM

Pigs and poultry have been the most common animals raised for millenia.
Both can forage on their own. The Polynesians brought poultry to Hawai'i; pigs came later, introduced by Captain Cook. Both are now feral as well as domestic, the pigs a problem especially on the Big Island, and the chickens live free in several areas. My point here is that both can get along without being provided with large volumes of feed and thus are preferred livestock by poorer peoples.

As SINSULL says, in populous countries like China and others in Asia and some in Latin America where both poultry and pigs are often confined close to humans and essentially living with them, the waste of the three intermix;, there is ample opportunity for evolution viruses.

No need to invoke the existence of sinister labs.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 12:23 PM

CDC link.
WHO EPR.
Health Canada.
Doesn't seem to even be on the radar at the UK's Department of Health.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 12:37 PM

Thanks Rapaire the links at the bottom of the CDC page are great, e.g.
"We know so far that the viruses contain genetic pieces from four different virus sources. This is unusual. The first is our North American swine influenza viruses. North American avian influenza viruses, human influenza viruses and swine influenza viruses found in Asia and Europe.

"That particular genetic combination of swine influenza virus segments has not been recognized before in the U.S. or elsewhere. Of course, we are doing more testing now and looking more aggressively for unusual influenza strains. So we haven't seen this strain before but we haven't been looking as intensively as we are these days.

"The viruses are resistant to amantadine and rimantadine anti-viral drugs but they are sensitive or susceptible to oseltamivir and zanamivir, the newer anti-viral drugs for flu. And at this time we don't know exactly how people got the virus."

Death rate for all lab-confirmed cases is zero so far.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 01:50 PM

The CDC reports are informative. Thanks for the link.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Alice
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 02:28 PM

Texas family quarantined... swine flu

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 03:54 PM

I guess my question is, why engineer something so treatable?

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Alice
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 05:03 PM

flu can be deadly, mrrzy

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: pdq
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 05:15 PM

Here is the CDC site description of the...

                                                    1918 Influenza: the Mother of All Pandemics

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 05:37 PM

This flu is a compound flu of 4 strains.
1 Bird flu
2 Swine Flu
3 Rare Asia swine flu
4 human to human varient

It is not entirely uncommon for mutant strains to express multiple traces of other strains.
If you were to engineer a flu intentionally it would have this kind of multiple signiture. To call this a terrorist attack would be irrespondsible and Cheneyesquely evil.

Conclusion: It is too soon to say if this is a lab created variety.

death rates have been all over the place from 20 to over 100 but right now the number being reported is 67 in Mexico.
20 days of public event cancellations have been announced in Mexico City.

The CDC has pronounced the outbreak in this country to be a level 3 out of 6. All cases seem less severe than the those in Mexico.
IT is reponsive to Tamiflu and Resnovere

San Diego 8 reported cases
Kansas 2 reported cases
NYC dozens of reported cases
Texas 4 reported cases

The coming school closures will be done as an abundence of caution measure until we know more.

Dr. Hartl of Geneva Switzerland and an official of the World Health Organization has called this outbreak to be only potentially a worldwide pandemic.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 05:54 PM

Anti viral medicines did not exist in 1918. Even today they are not a certain remedy.

Tamiflu has been known to be hazardous to CHILDREN by causing hallucinations and behaviors that will inflict self harm.


If one wished to prosper from these events
you could buy tamilfu company stock, buy OTC remedy stock, short sell pork bellies and buy futures on pork products to go down (even though eating pork will not give you the flu)

If you are writing a Tom Clancy action adventure novel you could write about how after the outbreak in Mexico, vaccinated sleeper cells in America will start on Monday handing out face masks in the Subways and street corners that have a nasty nultiple strain of flu.


Be well, do good work and keep in touch.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Riginslinger
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 09:56 PM

It does seem peculiar that the medical community has been warning against bird flu, but it seems to be swine flu that has developed. And while it would make a great plot for a novel, Donuel, it seems more like a John LaCarre sort of thing than Tom Clancy.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Apr 09 - 09:56 PM

Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory reports that the virus is new; "about 80% of the virus is highly related to a North American body of swine flu that has been around for a number of years, but about 20% comes from an Eurasian variety of swine flu first seen in Thailand, so its recombined to create something totally new. How it did that, where it did it, when it did it, I don't think we know yet."
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/04/24/health-flu-mexico090424.html

Work at the U. S. CDC further elucidates that the N. Am. material is a combination of swine flu, avian influenza virus and human influenza virus.

Speaking today, a spokesman from the CDC said it is too early to tell if it originated in the U. S. or Mexico.

[? It could have spread in the Mexico City area because of the close concentration of people. The Thailand element also adds to the question of its origin.] Travelers are probably spreading the virus.

The WHO has stated that it is now a human virus. WHO also confirms that the virus has not affected the very old or the very young, this is unusual and causes concern.

Putting the outbreak in perspective, 4000 people die of flu virus each year in Canada alone; Canada's population is not much more than that of the Federal District of Mexico (Mexico City and immediate environs).

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: GUEST,someone else
Date: 26 Apr 09 - 04:48 AM

When you look at what has come into the UK over the past few years it is surprising there isn't more viruses or death.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: nutty
Date: 26 Apr 09 - 05:19 AM

Strange viruses have always been around but this century's global movement means that they are quickly spread to areas where the population has no immunity to them.

This has happened from the early days of exploration and was shown in the flu pandemic after the First World War (when troops returning from Europe spread the virus in the USA, resulting in more deaths that had happened during the fighting)

Scientist may be able to develop a vaccine for this one but it will keep on happening as they can only act retrospectively,

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Rasener
Date: 26 Apr 09 - 02:31 PM

Has this got any link to the MRSA Pig Virus being experienced by Pig farmers especially in Holland?

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 07:34 AM

Today on BEEB Radio 4

2 cases believed in UK now - a couple with flu like symptoms just returend from Mexico.

Only enough Tamiflu to treat half the UK population.

US declared state of emergency - but this is so "officially" the processes can be put in place to deal with a pandemic should it occur.

Does it matter that I missed my Flu vaccine this year due to being too ill to have it?

shrugs

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 07:52 AM

BBC now saying first case in Europe is in Spain.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 08:28 AM

This year's flu vaccine wasn't for AH1N1, so don't worry about it. You may have some immunity left from earlier AH1N1 outbreaks, such as the one in 1968 (and there have been later ones).

Eating cooked pork products doesn't spread it.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 10:00 AM

Drudge Report Headlines "Act of GOD" swine flu...



Drudge assuming that this strain of a combination of 4 flu markers is an act of God is just as speculative and inflammatory as asumming that it is man made,
at this time.

Years ago their were rumors of attempts to bio engineer race specific diseases. Then over 25 micro biologists were said to have all died of suspicious circumstances in the course of one year.
Reshaping the world population by deliberate financial means and culling the herd biologically is not just the stuff of John LaCarre, it has been discussed in certain circles for decades.

This is one case in which I personally do not want to believe the engineered scenario which by definition would make me deliberately closed minded.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: number 6
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 10:14 AM

Maybe God has finally realized what a mistake it was to create man ... so he fnally devised a good way to cull the herd somewhat. His attempt back in the days of the plague didn't quite work so well ... kinda like the stuff found in the old testament.

or maybe ... just maybe ... ah forget it.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 10:40 AM

It may help you to know that Donald Rumsfeld holds all the rights for distribution of Tamiflu in North America.
Rumsfeld CEO and stockholder in Tamiflu


I suggest you google 'Donald Rumsfeld distribution rights to tamiflu'


Again I repeat that a triple recombinate strain is unusual but still in keeping with a natural mutation.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: number 6
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 10:45 AM

Oh cheerup a bit Donuel.

Things aren't that bleak .... hell, I'm buying up stocks in Roche Holdings, gonna make a killing of a profit out of this ... but I am a bit peeved that I now can't substitute cheaper pork in my steak tartar and will now have to use higher priced beef.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 11:33 AM

It sure seems dark to profit from global anxiety biLL ;>/
but whatcha gonna do
Yep one sure could make some interesting commodity bets today.
Consider sporting event attendence.
I'm cheerie enough but the thought of Rumsfeld making another 500 million irks me.

factors to consider...

Russia will not accept any US pork now
EU says do not travel to America
America says do not travel to EU
And everyone says not to go to Mexico.
Some Mexican offials are now trying to censure doctors from commenting to media.
China's market is down and the DOW is slightly up
Even New Zealand is claiming a swine flu patient.


*************************************

Incubation of this swine flu is 3 days.
While this flu is a H5N1 there is no comparison to the 1917 avian pandemic.
A pandemic will normally have a 3 month peak and a 6 month peak (bi modal)


*****************************************



T shirt suggestion:
"I went to Mexico City and all I got was this lousy T shirt."

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: number 6
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 11:52 AM

India and Malaysia have issued travel adviseries to Canada.

Hmmmm ... my wife has a work associate from India who should arrive today ... but who knows now.

That t_shirt statement ... how about "I went to Mexico City and all I got was this lousy surgical mask" ... now, who makes these, Johnson $ Johnson??

Rumsfield is an miserable old ass ... he's probably spending his golden years getting rusty and crusty and more miserable even with the $money$ he'll make out of this.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 12:01 PM

Maybe he needed money for his legal defense fund.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 12:03 PM

North of the border all cases of swine flu continue to be mild. (non lethal)

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: number 6
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 12:12 PM

I also wonder if the unfortunate 100 fatalities in Mexico city are from the poverty infested neighbourhoods .... hell, these people are so malnourished from a slum diet of who knows what that even a common cold can kill them.

But ... Obama says there is nothing to really worry about .. no need for alarm.

Ah yes ... buying a few solid blocks of Johnson $ Johnson stocks and now I'll just sit back and make some money ... one has to make a profit from these hard times ya know.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 12:26 PM

Pure speculation would more likly lead me to think that the US immunization program might have created better partial immunity populations than Mexico. Also a hot climate Plus fever may be more hazardous.

(racially targeted disease engineering is something that got some attention 6 years ago but is unproven)

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: number 6
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 12:34 PM

Or ... as in the movie The Constant Gardner ... a disposable population for pharmaceutical research and development.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 12:51 PM

Everyone knows that there are un needed populations for the elite economic leaders. Everyone knows that the economic policy is specificly designed to eliminate the poor.

If you want to know more, the HBO show "The Wire" demonstrates how goverment/oligarchies merely juke the statistics on one hand while with the other they give the black neighborhoods the illegal drug sale economy which increases black on black murder.

The war on drugs is also shown truthfully in the movie American Violet

I also noticed how New Orleans meant nothing to George Bush. As he looked out of his jet window he said "Boy, I bet its twice as bad on the ground!"

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 01:09 PM

Donuel, please note that your link is four years old and even at that time, Donald Rumsfeld was the former CEO of the corporation and that it was Gilead Sciences that was the sole patent owner of Tamiflu, not Rumsfeld himself. ( I never know whether you like pot stirring or if you actually believe everyt;hing you write.)

From the link: "Rumsfeld — as a stock holder and former CEO of Gilead Sciences Inc., the sole patent owner of Tamiflu, the antiviral drug now being stockpiled by the Defense Department and other agencies — stands to make millions of dollars if legislation is passed that allocates additional federal money to stockpile the anti-viral medications."

"I also noticed how New Orleans meant nothing to George Bush. As he looked out of his jet window he said "Boy, I bet its twice as bad on the ground!"

As you know, I'm not a dubya Bush fan but that is not precisely what Bush said, as you also know. I think that in all likelihood that was one of those occasions when Bush, given his speech-mangling proclivities, misspoke. He is not the most articulate of men at the best of times and in the emotion of the times coherent speech may have failed him utterly.

Like my mother once reported: "And the cannons went BING!

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: number 6
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 01:22 PM

Now who in the hell is responsible for the 6.0 magnitude earthquake that just hit mexico.

whew !

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 01:23 PM

It's also a Type A, H1N1, not an H5N1.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 02:13 PM

Mt. Spaw must have erupted.



See...porkbellies are down 18%




Go ahead and google Rumsfeld and his current distrubution rights for Tamiflu. Bottom line is that his shares alone will be earning him another fortune.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: number 6
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 02:34 PM

'Mt. Spaw" .. good one Donuel.

I'm glad I got my money out of porkbellies ... whew !


biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 02:37 PM

As a prime holder of stock in a company making body bags, I have been disappointed by the mildness of cases outside of Mexico City and environs.

There was hope for a reduction in excess world population. Maybe the next mutation will do a better job.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 04:36 PM

H1N1 weaponized flu strain

H1N1 it is Rapaire.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 05:02 PM

I think I might just now be recovering from the swine flue myself. If so, my case was relatively mild. We have enough people around here who travel back and forth to Mexico to make it a likely place for an outbreak.

It's going to be really hard for them to control the spread of it with so many people not having access to health care. If someone (like me) gets sick, but not sick enough require hospitalization, we could have it and nobody would ever know.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 05:09 PM

...This flu, never before seen by scientists,...

Oh, bull. The 1918 "Spanish" Influenza was type A, H1N1. This has been proven by the CDC, Stanford, and other labs.

In stark contrast to contemporary human influenza H1N1 viruses, the 1918 pandemic virus had the ability to replicate in the absence of trypsin, caused death in mice and embryonated chicken eggs, and displayed a high-growth phenotype in human bronchial epithelial cells. Moreover, the coordinated expression of the 1918 virus genes most certainly confers the unique high-virulence phenotype observed with this pandemic virus.

          --Association for the Advancement of Science, 10/2006,
            Abstract on the article on replicating the 1918 virus.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: number 6
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 05:58 PM

"Must be because I had the flu for Christmas
And I'm not feeling up to par
It increases my paranoia
Like looking in my mirror and seeing a police car

But I'm not giving in an inch to fear
çause I've promised myself this year
I feel like I owe it, to someone"

excerpt from "I almost Cut my Hair" by David Crosby

Well anyway my wife's business associate arrived from India, he didn't take his country's advice to stay away from Canada.

I guess we'll know it's serious when they start shuttin' down airports.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 06:07 PM

Rapaire I too wish to guard against misinformation but this combinant strain of swine flu is not the 1917 variety period.

THis flu has 4 distinct markers. Contrary to a rumor it is not respondsive to Tamiflu and (Reseveer the other one) IT IS RESPONDSIVE despite the fact that one segment of the viral RNA was known to be resistant.

*If you are saying this is the Spanish flu, it is not. But I may have misunderstood your comment.*

What is not true is that the EU has declared that travel to the US is not reccomended, it was just loose talk by one official.


Also while it is swinish to put a partisan spin on a pandemic I do float certain possibilities and speculative scenarios which will probably be discussed in the future by all sorts of groups. It does not mean that this is an intentional act but that the question remains unanswered.

The political cost to Obama will be a wash. Since Daschel's limo tax scandal the HHS position is in the temporary hands of two people, one of which is a very respondsible woman and the other is a Bush appointee. The CDC also needs a permanent chief.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit for Swine Bird Human flu victims
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Apr 09 - 06:41 PM

Carol it is entirely possible that the flu has been going around for a couple weeks and the media only started coverage this Saturday.
We're all glad you're feeling better. Well maybe not Doug R but thats a different story.

Not having a head of the CDC and HHS really only makes it hard for beaurocrats to know whose ass to kiss or kick and who to cover their ass' from.
It is a confusing world for goverment clerks who are trained to take little self initiative unless told to do so. Right now they are trying to follow rules they are not sure if they are from a source that is looking for answers or questions, excuses or explanations etc from etc.


Looking back I bet this outbreak will be larger than the last one but not as big as feared. 1968 was the last swine flu pandemic and I don't remember it. Correction, I do remember the diarrhea.