Flu bigger threat than 9/11

[Lori Price CLG]

Flu bigger threat than 9/11

London - Britain's capital city is "more at risk" from bird flu than a terrorist atrocity on the scale of the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York, London mayor Ken Livingstone said on Sunday.

"We're more at risk of dying from bird flu that we are of being blown up by a terrorist," he told BBC television.

The outspoken mayor said he did not "believe there's a chance of another 9/11", adding that Al-Qaeda had been "devastated" by the global fight against terror.

<snip>

More Flu 'Oddities' - http://www.legitgov.org/flu_oddities.html

Lori Price

[GOPFighter]

1. He's right about the Avian Flu

Anyone who has read about the devastating pandemic of 1918, called the Spanish Flu, knows just how catastrophic this could be in our mobile society. This could be very scary!

[pie]

5. Until recently I thought all flus were alike

Boy was I wrong.

[pandemic_1918]

15. Second Nurse is Negative?

Vietnam saying second nurse in Thai Binh is negative, but they have had negatives turning positive in the past before

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=uk&ie=UTF-8&q=h5n1+thai+binh

[pandemic_1918]

26. WHO Signals Start of Pandemic

Tonight WHO acknowledged that clustering in Thai Binh may signal genetic change in H5N1.

Translation - the pandemic has started

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=nn&ie=UTF-8&q=bird+flu+cluster+thai+binh+pandemic

[pandemic_1918]

38. Genetics on Why Pandemic is Inevitable

Here are the genetic reasons why the pandemic is inevitable

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=bird+flu+genetic+thai+binh

[pie]

42. There is good news... and there is bad news

"The recent discovery of mild cases debunks the widely accepted idea that bird flu kills about 70% of its victims, which would make it one of the most lethal infectious diseases.

But that seemingly good news has a disturbing implication. 'In global health terms, people who don't die can be more of a problem,' Farrar said, 'because they provide havens for the virus and may help it circulate in their communities and beyond.'"

[pandemic_1918]

44. Mild in North, Lethal in South

There seems to be two different H5N1's in Vietnam. The one in the north is milder

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=bird+flu+Bac+Ninh

[pandemic_1918]

45. Cluster in Quang Binh Grows to Four

The bird flu cluster in Quang Binh quickly has grown to four and no one is giving details on the most recent who was just admitted and is from an adjacent district (timing would fit for another health care worker)

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=ca&ie=UTF-8&q=h5n1+cluster

[kk897]

46. Thanks for keeping us up to date, pan. n/t

[pandemic_1918]

47. Ebola-like Illness in Angola Sounds Like Bird Flu

Each update out of Angola on Ebola-like illness sounds more and more like bird flu

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=nn&ie=UTF-8&q=ebola+angola

[kk897]

48. I saw that, as well, although I certainly don't know as much about it. n/t

[Lori Price CLG]

49. Gee, I wonder what the 40+ dead (since 9/11) have been...

...working on?
Lest you think that's 'crazy,' check the lead summaries on this page: http://www.legitgov.org/flu_oddities.html

Lori Price

[pandemic_1918]

50. Google Results For Dead Scientists

The dead scientists are a function of google. Was nonsense when it started several years ago, and is more absurd todays. These deaths are linked by Google, nothing else.

[pandemic_1918]

51. Quang Binh Cluster is Bad News (Health Care Worker?)

The 4th victim is the big concern on Quang Binh. Timing and location fit a health care worker

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=bird+flu+Quang+binh+thai

[pandemic_1918]

39. 78% of H5N1 in Southern Vietnam Reported as False Negatives!

As amazing as this may seem, the latest data published in the NY Times indicates that 78% of the H5N1 cases in southern Vietnam are reported as false negatives

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=bird+flu+thai+binh+false

[pandemic_1918]

40. More Evidence for False Negatives in Vietnam

Today's LA Times has more evidence of false negatives in Vietnam (same 4 out of 5 cases missed)

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=nn&ie=UTF-8&q=more+bird+flu+negatives+thai+binh

[pie]

41. Recombinomics is referenced in the "LA Times" article

impressive

[pandemic_1918]

43. Another Human to Human Transmission in Northern Vietnam

These transmissions are starting to look alike. This one is from a teenage sister (13F), who died, to her baby brother(5M). This same scenario has been reported in two other families. There are now 12 bimodal familial clusters clearly showing human to human transmissions, and WHO has yet to warn family members that H5N1 people can easily transmit their infection to relatives in the same house

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=nn&ie=UTF-8&filter=0&q=bird+flu+transmission+quang

[mike_c]

7. and the Spanish flu had a mortality rate of about 5 percent....

Avian flu in its current form has a mortality rate of about 70 percent, although there is some emerging confusion about this because a few asymptomatic humans with Avian flu antibodies have recently been found in Viet Nam. Nonetheless, imagine something like the virulence of the Spanish flu with the mortality of Avian flu. That could produce a Black Death scale event, with even less time for social adjustment, since an Avian flu pandemic is likely to spread like wildfire.

[Warpy]

8. Chances are that the avian flu has an actual death rate

more in line with the 2.5%-5% caused by the pandemic of 1918. However, even that one was enough to lower the life expectancy stats in the US a full ten years.

Anything higher than that is going to be horiffic. Anything over 20% is going to be catastrophic.

[mike_c]

10. ageed, it's still WAY too early to make predictions....

At the very least some decline in realized mortality is likely to accompany recombination with human influenza strains, and that might be what we're beginning to see with the asymptomatic (and few symptom) human cases. I have a really bad feeling about this one, though. The situation will be exacerbated if public health services are overwhelmed, and that is a strong likelihood if a pandemic kicks off. H5N1 is a VERY BAD bug.

[pandemic_1918]

33. Bad Feelings About H5n1

WHO has a bad feeling also, and have pretty much signal the start of the pandemic by stating that the clusters in Thai Binh could signal a genetic change in H5N1. More patients are surviving in the north, and it looks like the fatality rate is coming down, but its still double digits and it has probably spread quite a bit in the north and there's a news blackout in the south

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=nn&ie=UTF-8&q=bird+flu+clusters+thai+binh

[Media_Lies_Daily]

36. The latest info from WHO really doesn't sound good....

...and the fact that little or no information is getting through from the south is VERY disturbing, IMHO. That 100% death rate in the south is also of major concern.

[nodehopper]

20. just curious--what are you basing that statistical projection on??

[Media_Lies_Daily]

27. Interesting observation, especially since 75% of the first people.....

...infected have died. Now, I can back up my figures based on the tallies present on the WHO database. On what are you basing your figures?

[amazona]

12. I think Stephen King already imagined it for us

Those of us who lived through the 70s will remember that it was the swine flu that was supposed to have killed us all long ago.

Too much imagination and too much salesmanship for dubious flu treatments are taking place already, and way way way too little sober science in my view. When I hear a scare story, I ask myself -- who profits?

I believe in this case the answer is pretty clear -- big manufacturers of otherwise unwanted flu vaccines and treatments.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[nashville_brook]

22. i thought the reason flu vaccine was limited was b/c it's not profitable

i've never been a fanatic about getting flu shots... and i'm NOT making excuses for pharma -- but, something tells me this flu deserves more (not less) attention. just a hunch. i hope i'm wrong.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

31. Flu vaccine is limited because it will only defend against existing....

...flu strains. The Avian Flu is mutating rapidly, too rapidly for the vaccine to be developed and manufactured.

[nashville_brook]

35. yeah, i know -- i was pointing out that profit angle is a dead end

[Media_Lies_Daily]

28. I lived through the '70s and was innoculated with the swine flu while....

...in the service. I never read anything about the swine flu being the next pandemic. Additionally, swine flu's rate of mortality was no more than the mortality rate for any other normal flu...which is in the range of 1-2%.

Sorry, but I'll believe scientists and doctors in the field fighting the avian flu before I accept that idea that avian flu is just "a scare story". Avian Flu has killed 75% of those infected...a much, much higher rate of mortality than any previous flu, including the 1918 Pandemic.

[Art_from_Ark]

32. I was around in the '70s, too, and I distinctly remember Gerald Ford

making a big hullaballoo about a possible pandemic and encouraging as many people as possible to get a swine flu shot.

Maybe this will help refresh your memory:
http://www.mercola.com/2004/jan/17/government_flu.htm

[Media_Lies_Daily]

37. I guess being in the Navy at the time and isolated from the news...

...made me distinctly unaware of any talk about pandemics, especially anything resulting from swine flu. There was certainly no talk about it among military personnel. Nothing wrong with my memory...but you can't remember what you don't hear or see.

Additionally, Ford was fumbling around trying to find a way to be a "good" president since he had replaced the first president ever to resign from office. He also had an election coming up, and he felt he had to do something to differentiate himself from those Republicans associated with Nixon to have a chance against the Democratic contender. Most people I knew already thought Ford was a bit of a dunce, so anything he would have said back then would have gone in most people's ears and out again.

Whether CDC Director Sencer "convinced" Ford that the swine flu was the next big pandemic, or that Ford convinced Sencer to play up the potential of swine flu for political reasons is open to debate. At any rate, Sencer ended up being the fall guy when the swine flu vaccine ended up killing about 100 people.

[Lori Price CLG]

34. Also, this is the pandemic that might have been... 'expected.'

Killer flu recreated in the lab 7 October 2004, 05:02 GMT 06:02 (Why?) UK Scientists have shown that tiny changes to modern flu viruses could render them as deadly as the 1918 strain which killed millions. A US team added two genes from a sample of the 1918 virus to a modern strain (Why?) known to have no effect on mice. Animals exposed to this composite were dying within days of symptoms similar to those found in human victims of the 1918 pandemic.

1918 killer flu secrets revealed 5 February 2004, 19:00 GMT --Scientists have worked out how the virus which caused the world's worst flu epidemic infected man. They believe the virus, which claimed the lives of up to 50m people around the world, jumped from birds to humans. The breakthrough, published in Science, should help doctors identify which future bird viruses pose a threat to man at an earlier stage.

Flu victim exhumed after 85 years 30 January 2004, 20:08 GMT --Scientists are preparing to exhume the body of a woman who died of flu 85 years ago to find out how the virus killed millions across Europe. (Why?) Phyllis Burn died aged 20 in 1918, a victim of the 20th Century's worst flu epidemic, which killed more than 50 million people. She was buried in a lead coffin, thought to be virtually airtight, in Twickenham, south-west London. Scientists wearing protective clothing will remove lung samples from the body.

http://www.legitgov.org/flu_oddities.html

Lori Price

[pandemic_1918]

18. Pandemic Concerns

The pandemic concerns are getting more press after nurses were positive or developed symptoms in Thai Binh

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=pandemic+concerns+transmission+bird+flu

[leesa]

17. Why do people fall for this scare tactic every year? Yes, there can be

pandemics and yes, our government would probably be willing to kick one off to reduce population, but they do this scare number EVERY year! Relax!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

29. "Scare number"??? So, a disease with a 75% mortality rate is just a....

..."scare number"??

Additionally, our "government" has nothing to do with the World Health Organization. The World Health Organization is the group that's collecting the information in the field and reporting the numbers on the Avian Flu.

[pie]

2. I like that mayor. He is informed and speaks his mind.

Looks like the US will not take this seriously until it is way too late.

[Spinzonner]

3. It's always something

If it's not one things it's another.

[amandabeech]

14. Nevermind! n/t

[mike_c]

4. yep, while Bush and Blair et al play at fighting a phoney...

...war on terror, there is an epidemiological bomb primed, ticking, and in full view of the world. Maybe if we stick our heads into the sand deep enough we can cover our asses. Two, three years from now we are all likely to be looking back-- those of us still alive-- and saying "How could we have just let that happen without being better prepared?" I wonder if Condi will testify that no one could have reasonably expected that the flu could kill so many? Maybe we'll get lucky and it won't happen this time, but don't count on it.

[NewHampshireDem]

6. Well, right about the flu but probably wrong about Al Qaeda

I wish they were but doubt they are "devastated." I also wish people would pay attention to the real risks rather than the remote risks we face, such as the flu, cigarette- and alcohol-related fatalities, the lack of medical care for minorities and the poor. These are the real dangers in our world, not the "terra-ists."

[dave123williams]

9. 6,000 people die a DAY in Africa from communicable disease...

Makes us look pretty self-important in constantly justifying bad decision-making in the name of remembering 9/11.

And if there's any Freepers lurking here, I watched those buildings fall with my own eyes on 9/11...where were you? Flipping back and forth between CNN and ESPN, I bet.

[amazona]

11. i normally like the guy but this is whack

A hell of a lot more Londoners have died by terror over the years than by "bird flu," sheesh.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[nodehopper]

19. bird flu--yes so far

but more londoners and people worldwide die every year of regular flu than terrorism. If bird flu goes pandemic more people will die of it than of terrorism. those are elementary statistics.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

30. I don't think you understand what's being reported about the Avian Flu....

...and why governments all across the world are beginning to take action to protect their countries.

If the Avian Flu mutates, which it is doing rapidly, into a form that is spread easily from human to human, you may live to regret your words. Then again, you might not.

[onehandle]

13. Bush bigger threat than 9/11

Incompetence does that.

We are the stupidest country on the face of the earth.

[Lori Price CLG]

16. Bush is a bigger threat to the planet than the Bird Flu *and* al CIA-duh!

Sorry, I could not resist.
:)-Lori Price

[Amfortas]

21. Kick.

[depakid]

23. Gee, do ya think?

I guess I shouldn't be so hard on Livingston.

At least he's being emphatic about the situation and his country has taken rational steps to protect its citizens.

[Lori Price CLG]

24. Right, and Bush only cares about how much the pharmaceutical...

...terrorists can make during the next pandemic.

With legal liabilities (now) curtailed, the pharma-terrorists can manufacture just about *anything,* and it's all fair game to promote via ads on Faux News and phony Bush promotional videos -- all subsidized by the U.S. taxpayers.

Lori Price

[depakid]

25. That's about the long & short of it-

Here's something you might like, Lori. A friend of mine sent me this video link- it takes a little bit to download, but it's well worth it!

Funny & disturbing at the same time- like good satire should be.

http://cu.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=Rx_song_download