the dodgy swine flu

[Hendry]

Anyone come across this report, found it on the internet ...must be real... Just interjecting a little humour

BBC - Swine Flu Zombies

[beloitpiper]

I heard that at least one country is slaughtering pigs - which seems to indicate that they have got the situation wrong - the virus has some genetic material from pig flu, but once the illness had passed to humans it was spread around the world by holidaymakers, although some of them do act like swine when on holiday......

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/sw...pig-herds.html

[ForresterModern]

A friend of mine just forwarded the latest preventative swine flu recomendations from the US CDC:

Don't kiss any pigs.

[Mipi]

It's not only media which is making panic. The pharmacists must "make" their profits, too.

[thanmuwa]

A friend of mine just forwarded the latest preventative swine flu recomendations from the US CDC:

Don't kiss any pigs.

So 10 pints and a trip down to the local nightclub tonight would be a bad idea?

[Mipi]

Let me backup my previous post:

According to WHO in Europe each year aprox. 25.000 people die of "ordinary" flue. The "new" swine flue has killed (till now) 250 people all over the Wolrd and great panic is everywhere. Total count of infected (and sick) is not greater then 2500.

People are buying medical protections (masks, drugs...), in some pharmacies they run out of supplies. Media is talking about it and making panic and hysteria even worse.


Hm... let see some other facts:

There is 2.5 billion dozes of flue drugs (Tamiflue is one of them) all over the World. What would happen if this is not consumed (sold)??? Let say, selling each doze for $2 profit, this becomes..... how much.... let me find my calculator.... ah never mind, you can calculate, too (my doesn't have enough digits to put zeros in ).

Similar thing was with bird flue. Just for prevention couple of 10M birds were killed (just in case).

And those are not only cases. I think we're all infected by "insanity" virus. And some of us with "greed" virus, too.


My intention was not to offend anybody, just to enlighten the "problem" from different perspective. And yes, a bit of panic is good from time to time.

Stay healthy and get over "insanity" and "greed" illness!


Mipi

[ForresterModern]

So 10 pints and a trip down to the local nightclub tonight would be a bad idea?

Yup.

In college, when we guys visited the local college pick up bars, we would upon entering immediately start grading the women into 10 o'clockers, 12 o'clocker's, and 2 o'clockers, based on the hour by which you had better have them sewed up as being yours for the night. 10 o'clockers were obviously the best looking but hardest to lock up, but if you were still looking around the bar at 2 o'clock you knew you were no longer looking at the pick of the litter. But at the same time the beer goggles effect (the more you drink the better the same woman looks through your "beer goggles") takes effect so some of those 2 o'clockers start looking pretty good. One of my good friends, not a bad looking guy who easily could have battled it out for the 10 o'clockers, routinely would pick a 2 o'clocker early in the evening and invest his whole night with her----his way of guaranteeing a successfull "hunt" at the end of the night, which didn't matter to him becasue he was usually pretty loaded after buying drinks for his 2 o'clocker and himself the whole night. It also made the lady's evening to recieve so much attention for the whole night that she was the envy of her friends. Most of the time the rest of us left the bar alone or with the group of male friends we came in with. Now that we are all older, married and with children who are themselves going to college, we can look back on it and laugh heartily about our youthful misbehavings.

Not that this has anything to do with swine flu, though, but you prompted the memory of those times with your comment. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Galician]

This morning on the radio, I heard some interesting findings from experts working in Mexico to help the government deal with the outbreak. One interesting fact is that they are finding that the outbreak actually started last fall. It became severe mostly in people who put off medical care for a week or more. This seems to account for the large death toll there.

This would jibe with what I heard a virologist say last night about the 1918 outbreak. Apparently that virus also broke out a year earlier and went around the world. The huge fatalities didn't occur till it came back the following flu season, having mutated into a much more deadly form.

Food for thought?

[Pleater]

The thing is that the flu virus is mutating all the time, and every year a new vaccine has to be developed - sometimes a multiple vaccine is needed if there are several infection making their way around the globe.

Wherever pigs and poultry are kept together in close proximity to people there is the ideal situation for the flu virus in those species to swap genetic material with other strains, which is what the present swine flu has done.

By analysing the virus it can be determined which strains of flu have contributed to the latest variation, which animals in which parts of the world provided particular bits, and approximately when it happened and even in which town or village.

The death toll in Mexico is probably due to the poverty of the affected population - where people have to do without medication and try to go on working when they are ill any new form of an infectious disease will have far more impact.

One reason malaria is so difficult to eradicate is that many of the people affected by it cannot afford to isolate themselves even when the necessary medication is provided free - as soon as they can stand up they go out to work and are bitten by mosquitoes which then infect others.

Anne the Pleater

[thescot]

My grandmother was orphaned and lost two sisters to the pandemic in 1918, and, in addition, I am also immuno-compromised due to the immune suppresant drugs I take everyday to keep my body happy with my transplanted heart.

BUYT . . . I refuse to spend much time worrying about it. So far, it's not as virulent as they first thought (unless it mutates some more), and secondly, life is too short to spend too much time worrying about something you can't do anything about. I will try to be prudent by avoiding anyone suspect, but that's about it.

If it does get me, You can bet I was having fun living when it did. If you go first, we're splitting up your gear. Please leave all your Scottish kit where we can easliy find it.