What do you think of the Swine Flu pandemic?

[Celtaur]

The Swine flu is getting a lot of international attention. How does the coverage make you feel? What do you think about it? How are people in your region reacting?

Here is a recent article

[Briony Haldane]

Whenever something like this is featured in the media, I want to get up on a soapbox and ask people to stop and take a breath. The relentless media coverage makes people react in fear, even though it's not reasonable to do so. The more fear we put out there and the stronger our belief in pandemic, the more likely it is to materialize. Let's not give life to this with our thoughts. While we should certainly take sensible precautions, like handwashing and avoiding people who are ill and produce/products made in Mexico, we shouldn't blow this out of proportion. The other thing we can do is to keep ourselves hydrated to keep our personal vibration high. This is helpful at any time and an effective way of avoiding illness.

Please don't use anti-bacterial products to protect yourself against possible swine flu. They are no more effective than regular soap or detergent . However, t hey DO contain triclosan, which kills the algae in the ocean, a far more dire outcome even than pandemic.

[EyeCanBlackStars]

It is distressing because it's obvious to me that someone made this. I know there are times when things naturally happen. But this was a chimeric virus a combination of 3 different animal flu viruses, which is not so common. And it's easy to make these in labs, well it's not easy, but it's easy if you have the resources. I'm sure whoever has invested in pharma or certain related industries(non-mexico tourism too) is going to make a fortune.

I'm just waiting for the day when the anti-fertility virus is released forcing people to pay for costly treatment to have babies, being a very effective birth control. I just have very little faith in these power industries. It's the people's fault, too, because their mentality causes these things to manifest, but it's a shame things have come to this.

[Briony Haldane]

I do share your concern that someone would deliberately engineer the virus or arrange for it to be transmitted only to create and maintain a profit. All I can say, is I wouldn't want their karma. Perhaps we should be praying for them as well as their victims.

[Mohandas]

It is distressing because it's obvious to me that someone made this. I know there are times when things naturally happen. But this was a chimeric virus a combination of 3 different animal flu viruses, which is not so common. And it's easy to make these in labs, well it's not easy, but it's easy if you have the resources. I'm sure whoever has invested in pharma or certain related industries(non-mexico tourism too) is going to make a fortune.

I'm just waiting for the day when the anti-fertility virus is released forcing people to pay for costly treatment to have babies, being a very effective birth control. I just have very little faith in these power industries. It's the people's fault, too, because their mentality causes these things to manifest, but it's a shame things have come to this.

I was once on a flight from Geneva to London and was seated beside a rather distinguished looking older gentleman in a suit. We didn't speak at first but finally when the in-flight meal came we both requested a glass of red wine. As we were each about to take a sip from our respective glasses, it simultaniuosly occurred to us to turn to one another and say cheers.

This broke the ice and a very interesting converstion followed. He worked for a big pharmaceutical research company in Switzerland and our conversation turned to various diseases and their possible cures.

I asked him about AIDS and if it was possible that it was a man made virus, part of some conspiracy of population control or something evil like that. He said that he could not say for sure but, lowering his voice to a whisper he begun to speak about another virus which he and his collegues had done research into. The ebola virus.

What he said was truly shocking and he believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt that ebola was in fact an engineered virus, being tested in Africa as a bio-weapon.

The first time there was an outbreak of ebola, they took a sample of the virus and kept it in a sealed laboratory envirnment so that it could not mutate. Now, one of the things they noted about the ebola virus is that it mutates at a near impossible rate, faster than any other virus, faster in fact than any living thing known to man.

So, they kept this original sample in an environment in which it ceased to mutate. The outbreak itself was not necessarily contained but just seemed to dissappear, much to the bewilderment of the scientists who were studying it.

Years later there was a another, more famous outbreak in Zaire and they once again took a sample of the virus. This man told me with a very grim expression that there was no possible way that this could have been a natural virus. In comparing the two samples of this fast mutating virus, the second sample matched the original so closely, with a relatively small number of mutations. He concluded that it could only have been kept in a similar laboratory environment to cease mutation and subsequently reintroduced into the population.

That's pretty scary.

With Love
Mohandas

[Briony Haldane]

Yes, it is really scary..however, apart from acknowledging that, what are our options? What can we do about it? What reign should we allow our fear?

[Celtaur]

It is very disturbing because it seems on a conspiratorial level, that large corporations that are involved with wars are also connected to the medical drug industry. I remember a few years ago the talks in politics about Donald Rumsfeld being deeply involved in the company that develops Tamiflu and many felt distrusting of this because of the governments connection to the media and their ability to create fear on massive scales... In this case, fear of disease running rampant on the news creates the likely outcome of consumers buying "protection" on a large scale, which promoted on the news as the answer frequently being... Tamiflu.

It seems that those who fix large scale problems such as war and disease are also involved with those who decide to destroy things, thus creating a self fulfilling prophecy of profit in the industries through the balance of destruction and rebuilding. This creates a level of logical distrust on part of the everyday citizen, who often easily see the puzzle pieces as part of a whole. With massive corruption in the corporate world, it is no surprise.

[Celtaur]

Seasonal flu vaccine should contain H1N1 strain: WHO

The World Health Organization is recommending that the H1N1 swine flu strain be added to next year's seasonal flu vaccine in the northern hemisphere. That will likely mean that most Canadians need only one flu shot next fall.



The WHO held a meeting this week to decide which influenza strains should be recommended to northern hemisphere drug makers for their vaccines.
The vaccines typically contains protection against three virus strains: two influenza A strains and one influenza B. Experts decide on those strains after monitoring flu activity around the world, looking for the most common strains that are making people sick.



Last year, the swine flu virus, or H1N1, emerged too late to be added to the regular flu vaccine and a new vaccine was needed.



More...

[Celtaur]

OK, so I've been wondering about this. A couple of days ago I remembered there was this huge thing in the media called the Swine Flu also known as H1N1 (yes I'm being sarcastic).

Then suddenly it disappeared. Nothing else was said about it in the news. It was on the tv and radio news every hour of every day for so long, then suddenly it just all stopped. I thought that was just so curious.

Remember how so many people were rushing to get their shots?

A new article about a new strain is popping up in the new today. So do you think it will go "viral"?

A couple of days ago I was actually going to post the very question above in this thread, then I came across this article, and so I guess it seems like the perfect time to mention it

New superbugs spreading from South Asia: study


Plastic surgery patients have carried a new class of superbugs resistant to almost all antibiotics from South Asia to Britain and they could spread worldwide, researchers reported Wednesday.

Many hospital infections that were already difficult to treat have become even more impervious to drugs thanks to a recently discovered gene that can jump across different species of bacteria.


This so-called NDM-1 gene was first identified last year by Cardiff University's Timothy Walsh in two types of bacteria -- Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli-- in a Swedish patient admitted to hospital in India.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100811...lindiapakistan


The yahoo comments are funny too.

[EyeCanBlackStars]

I was once on a flight from Geneva to London and was seated beside a rather distinguished looking older gentleman in a suit. We didn't speak at first but finally when the in-flight meal came we both requested a glass of red wine. As we were each about to take a sip from our respective glasses, it simultaneous occurred to us to turn to one another and say cheers.

This broke the ice and a very interesting conversation followed. He worked for a big pharmaceutical research company in Switzerland and our conversation turned to various diseases and their possible cures.

I asked him about AIDS and if it was possible that it was a man made virus, part of some conspiracy of population control or something evil like that. He said that he could not say for sure but, lowering his voice to a whisper he begun to speak about another virus which he and his colleagues had done research into. The ebola virus.

What he said was truly shocking and he believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt that ebola was in fact an engineered virus, being tested in Africa as a bio-weapon.

The first time there was an outbreak of ebola, they took a sample of the virus and kept it in a sealed laboratory environment so that it could not mutate. Now, one of the things they noted about the ebola virus is that it mutates at a near impossible rate, faster than any other virus, faster in fact than any living thing known to man.

So, they kept this original sample in an environment in which it ceased to mutate. The outbreak itself was not necessarily contained but just seemed to disappear, much to the bewilderment of the scientists who were studying it.

Years later there was a another, more famous outbreak in Zaire and they once again took a sample of the virus. This man told me with a very grim expression that there was no possible way that this could have been a natural virus. In comparing the two samples of this fast mutating virus, the second sample matched the original so closely, with a relatively small number of mutations. He concluded that it could only have been kept in a similar laboratory environment to cease mutation and subsequently reintroduced into the population.

That's pretty scary.

With Love
Mohandas

Wow, thanks for sharing that experience. I have a feeling people in the international pharmaceutical industry would know more about human made viruses. But I know a bunch of people at Amgen, this one woman I used to know pretty well, was in the branch where they work on a experimental stuff before they starting cutting a bunch of jobs because a change in CEO or something, said that she had a good lead into research for a cure for AIDs, none of this crap where they just bind some sites in the virus so it gradually mutates and creating an industry where people have to continually pay for research into new medicines. But of course they had their funding for that research cut, because the investors didn't want something unless it made a killing, they merely did the research so if there was word on another company doing something they could compete or slow them down with patents.


Why do you think the US, the largest supporter of military contractors also is biggest supporter of pharmaceutical industry? The reason is because both of those are important to "defense". Why do people not bother consciously thinking about this? Because they are subconsciously aware, but it's in their best individual interest to go with the flow and think about longterm survival of the medium that has good affinity with them.