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Nationwide Shortage In Supply of Swine Flu Vaccine
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that as the number of swine flu cases grows to levels unprecedented for this time of year, health officials predict a shortfall in the supply of swine flu vaccine. Forty-three children have died from swine flu since August 30 — about the same number that usually die in an entire flu season.' These are very sobering statistics,' says Dr. Anne Schuchat, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, 'and unfortunately they are likely to increase.' Projections of the supply of swine flu vaccine have widely varied. During the summer, health officials said 120 million doses would be ready in October but later dropped the estimate to 40 million doses. Now officials expect only 28 million to 30 million doses, adding that the exact number is impossible to predict and could change daily as vaccine manufacturers report that production was behind schedule. 'Vaccine production for influenza is pretty complex,' says Schuchat explaining the delay, 'and the complex process this year is taking a bit longer than we had hoped.' Schuchat warned parents with sick children to be alert for signs that medical attention is required including not eating well, difficulties breathing, and turning blue or gray. A particularly important sign is when children start to get better, then have a relapse, usually a sign that pneumonia is developing, and immediate treatment should be sought."
Based on what I've heard from people who actually had the swine flu, I'd rather have the disease than the vaccine.
"Forty-three children have died from swine flu since August 30 — about the same number that usually die in an entire flu season."
That statement is blatantly false. Over 35,000 people die in the US from the flu every year. Hundreds, if not thousands, of children die from the flu every year.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
And quite likeley fraudulent and actually harmful.
Do NOT inject contaminated virus proteins into MY bloodstream, thanks you very much!
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Who was it the other week saying there wasn't an American lean to this site?
It makes a difference. All forms of influenza are devastating to an ill child. We must assume that some ill children have been exposed to H1N1 by now. So, which is the case:
1) All 43 were ill
2) None of th 43 were ill
3) Some portion of the 43 were ill
Also bear in mind that this is only about twice (possibly trending towards three times) as deadly as using school-buses:
"Approximately 27 school aged children die in school bus accidents every year." http://www.onlinelawyersource.com/personal_injury/bus/statistics.html
The 1918 pandemic was certainly something that we do not wish to see repeated. However, it was deadlier than this situation on the order of millions of times more.
Please stop scaring people. Please?
1) Summer: This flu is the WORST flu we've seen in years. Better get a vaccine!
2) October: We're running out of flu vaccine!
3) November-January: Oops, soorry, it turns out the flu vaccine we were using? It didn't do much against the flu outbreak that happened
4) ?
5) Profit
-
The NY Times reports that as the number of swine flu cases grows to levels unprecedented for this time of year
As compared to............... say, the 1976 levels for this time of year? 1918?
Reply to That ||
PANIC and Irrational fear!!! Run for your lives!
-- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
If the government was responsible, there would probably be shortages and lines.
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
on average 92 children die every year. 42 children dying outside the normal 'flu season' is a big deal.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Where's the profit in that?
As an experiment, the New York Times once ran the headline "Everything Is Fine, Nothing To Worry About" on their front page. For some reason that day's sales were way lower than either the Daily News or the New York Post, whose front pages both predicted imminent doom.
Go figure.
"Please stop scaring people. Please?"
We don't have anything better to do.
(where we would still look like we're working)
I hate to be callous, but seriously, the only way for there to be "real" health-care reform in this country is for a 9-11 style incident to happen in the "health-care universe".
If many thousands of people were to die of swine flu, their deaths might cause the kind of outcry that this country needs to actually change the system. Right now everyone is listening to Faux News and heeding the "socialized healthcare == death panels" mantra.
But the system we're got right now is killing lots of children. Won't someone think of the children?
It's only after ENOUGH people die that we as a nation get off our collective butts and do something. However, this time I fear, we were fed too many divergent signals, and now we're running about in circles while people die needlessly.
So fine then, let them die. I actually hope many die. I hope it's a pandemic that wipes out a decent percentage of the populace, because it's going to take a lot of death before we have decent healthcare in the USA.
I'm tired of being told we're number one when we're really very close to being a third world nation. We need a wake up call, because we've been asleep at the wheel for over 20 years.
Unfortuantely, we'll more likely just scrape by this year, and the slow destruction of the nation will continue on it's merry way, with all the talking heads on TV arguing with one another instead of getting anything meaningful done. And they'll keep doing "just enough" to keep us in our chains.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=swine_flu Gotta love that Maddox.
Look at the distribution of deaths. Most flu deaths occur during the winter, when people generally have weaker immune systems and spend more time crowded together indoors making transmission easier. Lots of people have been claiming that the mortality rate for swine flu is lower than for other seasonal flus, but they have been comparing swine flu statistics in the middle of the summer to other flu statistics from the winter. If you look at the weekly reports of flu deaths over the last few years from the CDC, you will see no children dying in the summer, and up to around 12 dying a week in the middle of the winter, with around one a week over the milder parts of winter. Compare that with this year, and you see a spike of 3-8 per week in a period that has had zero for the previous three years.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Seriously you compare the number of deaths annually of one cause (OK there are 180 school days usually...) with the number of deaths in a 47 day period for another cause. And keep a straight face?
As an experiment, the New York Times once ran the headline "Everything Is Fine, Nothing To Worry About" on their front page. For some reason that day's sales were way lower than either the Daily News or the New York Post, whose front pages both predicted imminent doom.
[citation needed]
My 7 months pregnant wife works as a school teacher and has multiple students out with H1N1. I have never worried before about anything like I worry these days. Jobs, economy, foreign policy, health, the future, they all take on new meaning when you have a family. To quote Blink, "I guess this is growing up".
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
I sure can. Look at Australia's numbers about their own flu season. This H1N1 thing will absolutely not be year-round. Flu is seasonal. And the season started in June.
Notice how I extrapolated the number up to three times to account for an unknown end to the H1N1 season.
Can you overlook these considerations with a straight face, or are you still stuck on 'month year'?
Schuchat warned parents with sick children to be alert for signs that medical attention is required including [...] turning blue or gray
Would any parent not recognize on their own that there's a problem when their kid is blue or gray? Please tell me people don't need to be told this...
My webcomic
The measurement isn't wrong, it's the thing being measured. The elderly do much worse from complications of flu (few really die of flu, it's pneumonia developed from flu) and the recent Canada study has shown that 32-year old healthy first-nations women are the most at-risk in the population, on average.
This story appears to be misdirection.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Most flu deaths occur during the winter,
Known to be true.
when people generally have weaker immune systems and spend more time crowded together indoors making transmission easier.
Never been tested, completely surmised, and vulnerable to selection bias.
When I look at the numbers I see no children dying outside of the flu season. Summer not withstanding. Because of the outbreak, H1N1 got off to a weird season start. But Australasia's winter didn't kill any more or less than our summer. This seems to cast the 'cold = flu' thing in serious doubt, at least with H1N1.
Of course, if you were reading Slashdot yesterday, you saw already how the science isn't being done to find a link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--nWrqIspnQ
You just simply can't compare raw event numbers when estimating relative risk. Your statement about "twice as deadly" is very likely not true, and certainly not justified from the data you reference. You fail to take into account any sort of denominator when just using the raw events. What if only 27 kids rode school busses each year? What if 2 million did? What if only 43 kids were exposed to H1N1, and they all died? What if everyone was exposed to H1N1, and 43 died? You need to take into account the population, not just events. After all, every(?) child who died last year used toothpaste.
So far, this is what I've heard about H1N1:
I'm beginning to think there's something really wrong with this vaccine. And that the CDC is prioritizing stopping the spread of the virus above the health of the afflicted people.
Have gnu, will travel.
Given how much anti-vaccine rubbish has been in the news lately, I'd say the shortage is a good thing: it means people are getting vaccinated.
The 35K/year number is excess deaths due to influenza, and is derived by fancy statistics from the time series of deaths in medical categories (i.e. gunshot wounds don't get figured in.) You can read more on how difficult this process is at Effect Measure.
The "number of children" statistic, on the other hand, is confirmed 2009 H1N1 novel influenza diagnoses on the death certificate. No inference required, they are kids with confirmed infections which led directly to their deaths.
Both statements are true, in context. Please be a little less generous with the F-word.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Based on what I've heard from people who actually had the swine flu, I'd rather have the disease than the vaccine.
The whole point of national healthcare is having choices like that forced on you by some washington bureaucrat. After all, without the power to force the cheaper option on you (vaccination versus treatment for a disease as infectious as this), controlling costs is simply a non-starter.
Not to mention people are confusing swine flu symptoms with meningitis, allergies, and even the common cold.
I wonder how many of these deaths ARE actually swine flu.
I don't think people are arguing that you should get vaccinated for the flu because it will protect you from the grim reaper. But good job debunking that one. Now we no longer have the false hope that the H1N1 vaccine was really a panacea for all disease and death.
5 links to the same story about one person who came down with a rare disorder 10 days after getting a flu shot. Say it with me: "coincidence is not causality".
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/64730177.html
http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Non-food/Miscellaneous/virginia_player_wins_200_million_lottery_jackpot_101020090859.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/1285214.html
You don't want to get a flu shot, good for you. Neither do I!
But there's no empirical evidence that it's at all dangerous, and plenty that says it does just what the health officials and doctors suggest: protects against the flu. Every argument I've seen against the H1N1 flu shot (including yours) falls into the FUD category.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Good. I don't want that vaccine, and won't take it - I would recommend that everyone research the vaccine and it's ingredients, because there is something that just in't kosher here.
The shortage of resources is reason we have a duty to keep deriding the vaccination program. We need to ensure that those people who think they know better than all the medically trained scientists do not get vaccinated. That way there will be enough of the Swine Flu vaccine for the worthwhile members of society.
It would be unethical to prevent stupid people from being vaccinated, but there is nothing wrong with sowing the seeds of discontent so that they voluntarily abstain. And when the more deadly strain of H1N1 wipes out a third of the population....
Well, nobody will care that much. It is the "B" Ark theory of trimming the fat of society. "Ah yes, the goat"
PS. Thanks to all the other posters for the fine work they are doing towards our goal. It must be hard to keep a straight face while writing some of those messages!
Don't be pedantic. I made a casual analysis, just as the original 43 was. I did it to draw a parallel between the two data points.
Just because both values are unknown (exposures to flu and buses) does not mean they are impossible to compare.
To even bring this up as some kind of a rebuttal leads me to believe that you are suggesting that more children encounter buses than swine flu. That's not supported by the data, due to the way urban environments deal with busing. In fact, I think the final analysis will swing in favor of the H1N1 getting far greater exposure, which in turn would make it less deadly in comparison.
If this isn't accurate, I apologize, but people get so nit-picky around here, even when it doesn't serve to make their point...
I'm tired of hearing about H1N1.
People die from the flu ALL THE TIME.
I wish everyone panicking about H1N1 would die right now, so I wouldn't hear them panicking anymore.
Isn't this the first year? So by definition, any activity is unprecedented.
I've been following the public health debate over this, and having known people with the swine flu, I have to say it is mostly hype. Mostly.
The true efficacy of the vaccine is not known, because they will not do placebo-controlled trials. They cite "ethics" for this, however they can do placebo-controlled HIV vaccination tests. In the grand scheme of things, I think the ethics justify placebo-controlled Flu trials far more than HIV placebo-controlled trials. Now the HIV trials were done in Thailand, but still, a life is a life, and ethics shouldn't be regional.
So the only thing I can conclude is that the drug companies are hiding behind the "ethics" because they know vaccines are ineffective. Until we know exactly how [in]effective they are, they hide behind the line "any measure of protection is better than no protection".
We must demand that our flu vaccines are placebo controlled.
Also, I think the actual vaccine is safe. However I am beginning to research the theory that multiple viral infections have a layering effect. That would explain why some regions have greatly different HIV infection rates - that if a particular virus was local to a population then that virus can make the host more susceptible to infection. (Small midwest towns will have vastly different HIV infection rates, as does the epidemic in Africa) Also, viruses are known to cause cancer - HPV has overtaken tobacco as the leading cause of throat cancer (from oral sex). So these immunizations have the potential to alter your susceptibility for other viruses and cancers unless you get the kind that uses completely dead organisms. Remember all viruses insert themselves into your DNA. Much like a code injection attack, there may be repercussions in that inserted code that may make you susceptible to other attacks. However the science on this is still in a nascent stage.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Well I do find it interesting that all over the news there are many health care workers who don't care to get the shot.
You may find it interesting that there are pharmacists, doctors, and nurses who feel it is their right to decide whether a patient even has the option of a morning-after pill or abortion. Now how do you feel about whether someone who chose to work in the medical field is permitted to inject their own dogma into your medical treatment?
Medical "professionals" and workers are expected to follow medical science, not superstition or personal beliefs and morals- and look out for the interests of their patient, not themselves or their own dogma. They knew that going in the door. Among other things, the first thing you are expected to do as an employee of a hospital is get all your vaccinations up to date.
Please help metamoderate.
You said : "Also bear in mind that this is only about twice (possibly trending towards three times) as deadly as using school-buses:"
And gave 27 as the number from school-buses.
Flu season usually peaks in November and plateaus through April. That's 151 days (11/1 through 4/1), At 43 people 47 days that's 138 children, which is five times your school bus number.
And that's assuming the second half of October sees no deaths, and that it has peaked early this year.
Note: I'm not saying it is in the end of world. I haven't been vaccinated and I'm not planning to (though I've never had a flu shot so that's not unexpected). But it is shaping up to be more that 2-3 times the number of children dieing that school buses give us.
I become dirt poor for 3 months, lose my computer and internet access, and apparently time has stood still for me? Swine flu hahaha, you people are actually scared aren't you? This is excellent, I didn't miss a beat, except now my stupid friends don't wear their novelty t-shirts anymore. Did everyone change sides on me while I was reading books only when the sun was up?
Someone tell me about this. I haven't washed my hands after going to the bathroom (yes even public restrooms) or doing anything in years. Haven't touched antibacterial soap in my life, and am in decent physical condition. Also, I just got a job in retail. Should I have already peed my pants cowering in the corner? Or am I set for life with the kind of immune system exercise I get.
I can't wait until all the overprotective moms in the world have a big giant overprotective funeral for their sheltered children, and we can enter a new era of parenting based on rational thought.
A few hundreds kids and maybe a few hundred young adults will die from the swine flu this year.
Compare that with the many more that die in car wrecks each year.
Yes, this is serious, and yes, we should get a flu shot when one becomes available, but no, we shouldn't moan and groan and say "woe is me" when there are far worse things to moan and groan about.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Here, you can have mine. I don't want it. I'm not going to get it and neither are my wife or kids.
We eat well, exercise, and get enough sleep and none of us has compromised immune systems. We've gotten the flu once or twice before and it wasn't a big deal. From all reports Swine Flu is no more virulent than any other flu variant.
I'm also not afraid of liquids on airplanes. And my kids are allowed to walk in town without a leash. Even if white vans have been spotted in the area.
I have a pocketknife, and so does my son. He may cut himself some day, but I'll live with that. He can't bring it to school, however, because he might get suspended for having a deadly weapon. He can't bring a "spork" to school either for the same reason.
Anyway, I don't think there will be as much of a shortage of Swine Flu vaccine as they predict because of all the shut-ins that are too afraid to leave their homes to actually go out and GET a Swine Flu shot.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
In my state there have been ~2900 confirmed cases of A-H1N1 influenza, so far only ~40 confirmed deaths (And said "only" as one would think it might be worst). All adults in the 20-55 of age range. Most of them with other health issues: morbid obesity , diabetes and heavy smoking seems to be the most common. Also at schools, they are saying that if two or more children are infected, classes will be suspended for that classroom only for a week. Not whole schools as they did in April
That may be the dumbest thing I've ever seen on Slashdot ever. Seriously. Wow. Let's break it down line by line.
You quote someone who has absolutely no clue. "I'd like the flu please! If I get an immunity to swine flu I want to suffer through the illness rather than get a shot. I want to work for it and maybe die! Or at the very least spread it around some so others can share in my joy."
Then, you use Maddox as a reference.
Finally, you wrap up by saying that you need to have a "basic concept of immunology" to comprehend your brilliance! And you top it off with a flourish by preemptively yelling at the mods.
Jesus. Wow.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
First, government is responsible: the CDC is in charge of this operation.
Second, A deliberate decision was made to ship the stuff as fast as it was made rather than stockpiling it and coordinating distribution in order to get it out as fast as possible. It was expected that this would result in "shortages and lines". Better that than everybody waiting another month.
Third, given the leadtime they had (controlled by the virus, not the humans) they have done a remarkable job getting a significant amount of vaccine out this early at all.
I say this despite being a definite non-fan of government. I'm sure a truly free society (there are none) could do as well or better, but we have to work with what we have.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Schuchat warned parents with sick children to be alert for signs that medical attention is required including ... turning blue or gray.
No shit. You mean that's not normal?
Guess I'd better get the little ones to the hospital.
And maybe stop nicknaming them "Grant" and "Lee."
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
As an experiment, the New York Times once ran the headline "Everything Is Fine, Nothing To Worry About" on their front page.
The press has a saying, "If it bleeds, it leads." That's just part of the business.
The better story is how accurate the NYT is about science reporting. Back in the 1990s one of my professors gave us a copy of a scientific article called "The New York Times Cures Cancer", which was an analysis of every time the NYT put an article on the front page trumpeting a new cancer cure, and how often that resulted in a successful treatment (virtually none).
This isn't unique to the NYT, most mass media do a terrible job with science reporting.
Likewise, if today's strain happened in 1918 it would be worse than it is now.
The reason is obvious: There are people with symptoms that are treatable with 21st-century medicine and the modern medical infrastructure that were not treatable with the medicine or medical infrastructure 90 years ago. Heck, 90 years ago large parts of America didn't have electricity much less telephones and a relatively short ride to an emergency room or pediatric hospital.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Okay, I'd give you five times. Ten even, if need be. Point doesn't change much.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Everything Is Fine, Nothing To Worry About
Everything is fine?! OH GOD!
Whenever those words come out a womans mouth, automatically everything was wrong and it was all your fault.
Why does New York Times hate me? What did I do to it?
But then NYT comes right around with the classic, "Yeah, what DID you do? NOTHING, THAT'S WHAT!"
I'll be crying in the corner if you need me.
Nationwide Shortange In Supply of Brains! ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Also bear in mind that this is only about twice (possibly trending towards three times) as deadly as using school-buses:
"Approximately 27 school aged children die in school bus accidents every year."
Twice as deadly? What are you talking about?
If the flu killed 27 kids a day would you still only say that's it's only twice as deadly as an annual statistic?
We are just entering the flu seasonSchool for a few months. The number of children to be killed by this virus will definitely increase whereas the 27 you quoted will remain the same.
I fail to see the problem. There are extremely horrifying stories of what the innoculation will do to you - and those stories come from nurses themselves. If there isn't enough to go around, lives will be saved.
Nothing creates a shortage faster than the word "shortage".
Johnny Carson was joking about a toilet paper shortage on NBC's Tonight Show, and Johnny's simple joke about shortage indeed created a very real toilet paper shortage that lasted three weeks. fact
If a comedian can have that much impact, one can only imagine what would happen if a more reliable source like New York Times went around announcing there was a shortage.
The 1918 pandemic was certainly something that we do not wish to see repeated. However, it was deadlier than this situation on the order of millions of times more.
I've done some reading up on the 1918 pandemic, and the interesting thing about it is that the first pandemic that year was mild (like the swine flu). But then it mutated and became the strain that killed millions of people.
The easiest source to get the info is Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic:
"The second wave of the 1918 pandemic was much deadlier than the first."
I'm not saying the same thing is going to happen again, but you can't quite say that it's not the same thing (yet).
The UK has secured enough vaccine to protect 132 million people, nearly twice the population; blanket vaccination began earlier this month for the most vulnerable. From what I can tell the total quantity is being supplied by only 2 pharmaceutical companies, Baxter and GlaxoSmithKline. Given the US has dozens more of these establishments, all usually eager to milk the consumer (read:country) for all it's worth, why is there a 'shortage'?
School bus accidents?
Please bear in mind TFA. I'm glad you read the first part, "Forty-three children have died from swine flu...", but you really should read a little more of the sentence to put that in perspective, "...since Aug. 30...". TFA was published Oct 16th. That is less than 50 days.
Here is the whole sentence, just for fun.
"Forty-three children have died from swine flu since Aug. 30 -- about the same number that usually die in an entire flu season."
The better story is how accurate the NYT is about ..... reporting.
There fixed that for ya.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
People like you really need a tall glass of "shut the hell up." Seriously, I am getting really tired of this "OMG Fox News! OMG Republicans!!!" crap. It seems to me that some people, like, say, YOU have gotten so used to doing nothing but whining about the Evil Right Wing(tm) during Bush's terms that now it is all you can do. Rather than try to hold the people actually responsible to account, you pass it all off on to a news station.
Ok well here's the problem: The Republicans control NOTHING at the federal level any more. We have a Democrat as president, of course. We also have a sizable Democratic majority in both houses of congress. Not just a single seat, but many. In fact in the Senate, there is a supermajority, meaning that the Republicans can't filibuster legislation, the Democrats can override it.
So we have a situation now where the Republicans have fuck-all in terms of say. Yet, congress does not seem interested in passing a universal healthcare bill.
You cannot go running around, blaming this on the right wing, on fox news and so on. Sorry, but they aren't in power. The people in power are the ones that claim to support this shit. So what the hell is going on?
Seriously, it gets very annoying. This continual crying, like Fox News rules the world or something, as though they tell people what to think. No, in fact, they are just another news outlet. There are plenty of people who watch it and take what is on it as the truth. There are plenty more people who don't watch it and don't care what they say. There are plenty of people who think every single thing they say are lies.
I am going to have to refer you to a Daily Show video: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-30-2009/democratic-super-majority
So really, I can understand being upset with the lack of progress on public healthcare if you believe that is something we need. However you need to quite with the bullshit of trying to lay it on the Republicans and especially on Fox News. The people in power aren't Fox News watchers. It is THEIR responsibility to pass legislation.
Not to mention that in the cities in 1918 (where the pandemic was the worst), sanitation was primitive compared to today. And people in 1918 were much more ignorant of disease and how it spreads. Basic things that we take for granted today (like clean public restrooms with hot water and a soap dispenser, people bathing every day, etc.) were very rare back then.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
oh please, the 1918 pandemic? that was nothing, what about the dark ages, two thirds of Europe's population walked the path of the dinosaurs because of the plague. People back then didn't have the knowledge or the means to protect themselves, today we do, but people keep on dying, regardless .. why is that?
While I am not in the highest risk group (young children, healthcare workers etc..), I am getting it because I know far too many mother's out there who have children who read some blurb or headline and think "No way on earth my kid is getting the vaccine!"
I have no intentions of getting sick FROM THEM.
These are the same parents that don't want their kids getting chicken pox due to "discomfort".
I have a friend that didn't get their kid circumsized (which is usually done in the first when the boy is only a few days old) because they wanted to leave this decision up to the child. Note that the boy has already had quite a few urinary infections due to this.
I wonder what they will be saying about our hygene in 91 years.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/graphs/
Google Flu Trends. The season is just starting. Have a look at how it matches to the last several years at their peaks.
It's an influenza vaccine. The only difference between it and any seasonal one is the virus it's made with; all the rest are the same process (grown in eggs, filtered, yada yada yada.) If we waited for full-up trials every season, by the time the vaccine was available we'd be in the next season and the strains in circulation would be different anyway.
HOWEVER! We have done clinical tests with the vaccine, the only way that we can in such short time frame: we injected it into volunteers and measured the antibody response, then compared that to the response from previous seasons where we have after-the-fact data to go by. We've been building that data collection for decades now, and it's pretty flipping good.
As with anything in real time, if you wait for perfect data you might as well not bother.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Isn't it funny how there is this big shortage when they where projecting that they would have 120 million doses but ended up only having 28 million?
That is only about 24% of what they had expected!
Remind me again how supply and demand work?
Refresh my memory about how Big Pharm has our best interests in mind and not their bottom line?
O Nevermind... Go back to bed, hope you feel better tomorrow...
I dunno. Of the two children who have died in my state, one had some prior health problems. The other was a young teenaged girl who had hardly had a sick day in her life and who had apparently been in excellent health before becoming ill. She died very quickly--over only a day or two--despite being hospitalized as soon as her symptoms became severe. I think that's probably what's so alarming to people in this area. I have no minor children, but if I did, I would be anxious to get them immunized. Oddly enough, I feel little or no anxiety on my own behalf.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
I've been checking Google Flu Trends every couple weeks, and at least some metric is now much higher than it has been in years past.
I'm not getting a flu shot because I think I'm going to die from it...
I'm getting a flu shot because I don't want to be sick as a dog from this thing and miss a week of work.
The $30 I spend (via insurance) on a flu shot every year pays for itself in that I'm not freaking the fuck out about catching up on work, not having to spend time I'm not at work laying in bed feeling miserable, and not having to shell out $15 a box (and show my ID thanks to meth makers) for pills that'll make me feel slightly less miserable.
I used to not get flu shots, and I got sick as a dog at least once a winter with whatever was going around. I now get flu shots and for the last 3 winters I haven't been sick with anything more than the sniffles, and I work in an office that seems to have plagues running through it at least once a quarter.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
What are they doing 87 million doses with only 33 million people?
...and cite your sources. I suspect most are first-time alleric reactions or thermisol scare tactics.
when such event takes place, that event has a good chance of making the 1917 flu pandemic look like a tiny issue. That disease literally blocked the world economy for over 2 months, making millions of victims.
Fixed that for you. Remember that old line: "Anything that can happen, given enough time, will".
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Doesn't it seem to be like they're trying to sell this to us like a video game console?
Kind of like "Oh it's hard to get? That means I gotta get it!"
Also black people should note CNN they always show black people getting the shot.
Leaving aside your feat of statistical legerdemain, my understanding is that about 50% of H1N1 heaths so far have been otherwise healthy children and young adults. As in, up to 35 years old.
It may not be the Spanish Flu, but it's certainly something to be concerned about, though perhaps not scared. I might also point out that the Spanish flue wasn't a pandemic either - in 1917. It eased off at first and then came back with a vengeance in 1918.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
If it mutates, it could be quite scary. The kids and I suffered thru the h1n1 last week. About 50% of their school was out with it. As flu's go it was one of the mildest I've encountered - I've had colds that were worse. The worst of it was cleaning up when the kids threw up. Fever bounces around, coming and going but it didn't top 102 - if it does its time to head for the hospital. Otherwise they slept a lot and were pretty lethargic
On a side note, the one week the kids are home from school, guess what breaks...
The tv :(
My youngest son turned gray last year. He was running a fever, so as per doctor's orders, we put him in a bath of room temperature water. He started to seize so we pulled him out. Then he stopped breathing and turned gray. We had gone through a previous febrile seizure with my older son so we pretty much knew what to expect. The older son turned blue, stopped breathing then started up on his own. Unfortunately, our youngest didn't start breathing again. Luckily, my mother-in-law was there and did rescue breaths on him until he began breathing again. To this day, we're convinced that she saved his life. We never quite found out why his fever went up, but we did find out that a mucus plug kept him from restarting breathing. He spent a few days in the hospital to make sure he was alright. Given that story, you can probably understand why our son possibly getting the flu scares us so much.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Agreed.
Stop the fear-mongering.
It's called "acceptable losses".
It's just the flu.
And we really need to keep the "just" in there.
Over the last few weeks we've seen that '08 and '09 seasonal vaccine doubles the chance one will get H1N1,
that those LEAST likely to die are MOST likely to get the vaccine, at the expense of those MOST likely to die.
I swear, it's almost as if some people WANT this thing to become a planet-killer.
They either want billions dead; or if that doesn't happen, they'll just say "you only survived because of us... er... we mean the vaccine".
Granted, I'm glad the public is finally becoming aware how unsanitary doorknobs, elevator buttons, and handshakes are.
I've been complaining about that for decades where I work, and NOW they finally care.
Side note: I'm gravely allergic to the flu vaccine. The years I've received it, I've been horribly ill for almost a month afterwards, usually losing around 20% of my bodyweight; and then I end up getting the flu a few months later anyway... and instead of only being out for 2 or 3 days kinda achey, was knocked the fuck out for 2 to 3 weeks.
However, I can't get a doctor to confirm that because they believe in the necessity of the flu vaccine too much, so all that is just in my mind,,, quit puking in the garbage can, you're imagining it.
Impossible, since more than half of the US population is not healthy. Look closely, their are defining someone as healthy even though they are actually obese (i.e., not healthy). Of course everything become clear when you understand that obese people have a higher risk of infection and complications if they do get the flu.
Also, in 1918, conditions were NOT nearly as sanitary as they are now. If you don't think that plays a role, then why is everyone saying the best way to prevent infection is to avoid people sneezing on you and washing your hands?
Swine Flu WILL kill your children - its a disaster!
Nevermind the auto accidents, cancer, and homicide
THE TOP THREE CAUSES OF DEATH BY AGE GROUP
0-1 years:
* Developmental and genetic conditions that were present at birth
* Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
* All conditions associated with prematurity and low birth weight
1-4 years:
* Accidents
* Developmental and genetic conditions that were present at birth
* Cancer
5-14 years:
* Accidents
* Cancer
* Homicide
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
all of you are skipping this vaccine. With the reduced quantity available this fall, this will lessen the pressure on the vaccine production and make it possible for the rest of us to get it.
In fact, once my family is vaccinated, I'd rather you all get together for a swine flu party and everyone get infected. I'd suggest long working out in cold climate areas to really get the immune system response going. And whatever you do, don't take any over the counter meds - they'll just mask the problem and won't get you better any faster. With luck, all the phlegm will pool in your lungs and your immune system will have a chance to get a real workout.
There are over 6 billion people on this earth, and we really don't need about 5.5 billion of those. H1N1 can't correct that all by itself, but a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and with the right attitude this could be it!
You'll have to excuse me...I'm going to check with my pharmacist and see if he's gotten his shipment in.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Well, there are millions of cases of H1N1[1]
So it's not like there's a terribly high fatality rate. I mean, it's troubling if it happens, but in context it's not worth the terrified screaming and debate going on.
It's been a long time.
requires throwing ethics and morality out the window and blindly carrying out instructions, even if what you are being asked to do seems horribly wrong.
That's a nice straw-man; we're talking about medical professionalism in the context of patient care, not building bioweapons, rootkits, or anything else you cited. And yes, except in cases where the patient is unable to make decisions in an informed capacity and they do not have a pre-existing decision/order, their wishes are more important than whether something 'seems horribly wrong' to you. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Self-Determination_Act. And yes, if an 18 year old woman shows up at your pharmacy asking for a morning-after pill, it's not your right to lecture her about YOUR morals and religious beliefs. She's got her own.
How fucking funny that someone who just argued for the right for a healthcare worker to make decisions that affect the health of others, can't recognize the right for a patient to make decisions that only affect themselves.
Please help metamoderate.
Our health provider is "limiting" the vaccine to certain risk groups. These include pregnant ladies, children under a certain age, people with asthma or other chronic airway issues, and so forth. In other words, the specific groups they want to get vaccinated for flu every year.
A few comments about this virus and why vaccination is important:
H1N1 is a combination not seen for at least thirty+ years. Therefore, much of the population has never been exposed to the "surface codes" H1 or N1, which means they don't have partial immunity. This worries medical professionals, since that increases the virulence and the spread if this flu mutates into a deadlier form. (Generally, the flu shifts a few points. This is a major antigen shift.)
Vaccines do not have a 100% success rate. Some people's immune systems don't respond, so while they've been vaccinated, they don't have immunity and are still at risk. However, if the percentage of immunes is high enough, the particular disease never has a chance to get to those who are vulnerable. This is why anti-vaccination efforts are anti-social: your un-vaccinated kid can give my infant or elderly grandmother whooping cough or measles. (There have been a number of immune-compromised people in my family, and my parents watched family members and friends die from diseases that are now vaccine-preventable.)
Vaccines in general cover a larger number of diseases BUT have fewer "triggers" in them. For example, the original vaccine, smallpox, basically had to give you the whole disease to get your immune system going. Now we can separate out a few key proteins or antigens that are specific to the disease, rather than the hundreds that comprise it.
The upshot is, if you are in a risk category, get vaccinated. If you're not, practice good hygiene and wash your hands a lot, eat well, and get plenty of rest. And de-stress! Stressed people get sick easier.
Actually I am a lab rat in an elaborate plot to take over the world.
And has several other strains in the ranks waiting.
Of course you slash fagots will mod me into oblivion even if I provide enough research and sources to fill a libaray. There's no getting through to you idiots.
Now that we're starting our 3rd year of Global Cooling, winter is arriving at its more normal time. this is within norm for a flu season.
..and I'm not getting one this time, either.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Why impossible? You are equating "US Population" with "H1N1 Fatalities". They are not necessarily the same. And in this case, there may be a correlation between odds of fatality and overall health. One of the odd things we know about the 1918 epidemic is that healthy people were MORE likely to die than unhealthy ones whop were infected. One theory is that the deaths were caused by cytokine storm, where your immune system freaks out. And the healthier the immune system, the worse the damage. The CDC has said that H1N1 doesn't appear to be causing that; however, H1N1 is killing FAR more healthy people than regular seasonal flu does.
As for comparisons with 1918, they really are apples and oranges. Yes, there are better practices and facilities now. On the other hand, high speed transportation didn't exist in 1918 - the idea that the virus could be in Hong Kong one day and NYC the next was wholly unfathomable at the time. And infections do travel that way - witness SARS in the Pacific NW, which hopped a flight from Asia.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
One good source:
http://garynull.com/SwineFluWhitePaper.pdf
The problem is that no human can develop an immune response to either H1 or N1 (as that would be deadly).
Um, what?
If a virus were to infect a cell, and the mexican flu would infect the same cell, there is some chance that the mantle of flu would be copied around the much more dangerous virus, which would beat any immunity or vaccine we currently have, would react differently to most treatments and be capable of spreading through open air (through coughing).
If such an event were to take place, that event has a good chance of making the 1917 flu pandemic look like a tiny issue. That disease literally blocked the world economy for over 2 months, making millions of victims.
The problem is not the flu in the H1N1 form. The problem is that pneumonia might "be infected" and transform into an H1N1 virus. The problem is, in essence, the evolution that it might cause in other viruses. Cases of gene transfer between viruses are well-studied, and the current consensus is that it's commonplace.
No, actually the PROBLEM is that such drivel got marked "Informative" on slashdot...
Seriously?
I have to say that after college, medical school, graduate school, and over 12 years of virology and immunology research, I've read a lot of stuff (including popular science that was meant to be educational) that was ridiculous. But the above post ranks in my top 5 examples of manic garbage. It's a collection of bits and pieces of something you've overheard, put together somewhat like a neanderthal would try to piece together the space shuttle. It may contain a couple of the correct parts, but the result does not only fail to take off, but is not identifiable as the correct object, no matter from what angle you look at it.
The FDA's unconscionable foot dragging could result in tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths in the US.
As an experiment, the New York Times once ran the headline "Everything Is Fine, Nothing To Worry About" on their front page. For some reason that day's sales were way lower than either the Daily News or the New York Post, whose front pages both predicted imminent doom.
citation please?
I went looking for that headline and couldn't find any reference to it in any of several billion web pages, except this one. I also searched several variations of it, and -- after an arduous 3 minutes of my life -- have come to the conclusion that you fabricated this one completely.
link or it didnt happen (aka i cant find it via google)
The CDC's 2009 H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) site is handsomely designed and rich in resources for all ages and interests.
The geek will find public health spreadsheet simulations for Windows and Excel here: H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu): Preparedness Tools for Professionals
Interesting stuff, no specialist knowledge or skills required.
Social networking and mobile resources, widgets, buttons and badages: Social Media - Novel H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu
The only flu left in the entire world is H1N1. All other flu strains were eradicated back in 2008 and we now only have H1N1 for people to propagate to each other. The world is coming to an end. AAAHHH. Terrorism is going to kill us all...
In the 1600's you feared the church. Today you fear terrorism and the flu.
If 5% of the population died from H1N1 it would only help give the economy a boost. Think about it.
False.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
[citation needed]
You know why I think this is bullshit? Because I can't think of a day in history when "everything" was "fine", and the NYTimes is not in the business of making shit up to conduct social experiments, the Iraq war notwithstanding.
This is called "post-market surveillance" and your assertion that it hasn't happened is more appropriately stated as "I am not aware of this having been done." I would suggest a PubMed search, which might be enlightening.
Or do you think that the CDC just pulls those statistics from a bodily orifice?
There is a science called "epidemiology." Effect Measure and Rogue Epidemiologist are two excellent blogs with very easy to understand discussions on the subject. I advise those interested to remedy their ignorance rather than parade it.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I would seriously investigate literature about taking high dose supplements such as hourly vitamin C (2 grams/hr, up to bowel tolerance perhaps 12+ g/hr), high doses of vitamin D (e.g. 10,000 - 20,000 iu for several days).
See: Cochrane review on C and pneumonia http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab005532.html
See also various papers by Fred R Klenner and Robert Cathcart, championed by later physicians like Tom Levy and orthomolecular MDs.
Modern research in the med schools shows the need for much higher levels of vitamin D, at vitaminDcouncil.org
http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/16/swine-flu-world-health-organization-pandemic-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html
It's my understanding that for each and every vaccination, one egg must be used. Hence, 30 million vaccinations mean 30 million eggs.
Perhaps you should take your hand off that bacon and egg McMuffin. :)
I've had "Swine Flu" and it wasn't that bad but maybe I"m not in the targeted race demographics. I'd rather have the disease a dozen
times than all the injections big pharma is so desperate to squirt into my meat.
Fuck them btw, nobody will put anything into me I find the very idea that I would submit to such a debilitating injection is actually highly insulting.
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What do you mean "the" patient?
She's a frigging nurse (daft twat that she is)!
She doesn't see ONE patient, she sees THOUSANDS.
And if ONE of those thousands should not have the risk of swine flue being caught, for the right of THE patient she MUST get immunised.
Or she's killing the poor bastard.
Ok, without even going to the link I get the impression that I was right in calling it FUD. The source is "Natural News", which is not definitive, but highly suggestive.
The first paragraph is a strawman argument.
All of the links in the article are to their own news articles, instead of the outside sources that are implied.
The statement made in bold text toward the 2/3rds mark is patently false.
There may be a kernel of truth in there somewhere, but they've surrounded it with so much FUD, outright lies, and self-referencing that I feel completely justified in dismissing the entire thing as anti-vaccine propaganda.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Darn it, you caught me. I guess I just have the same journalistic standards as the New York Times.
What are you talking about? the flu vaccine has beena rounf since the 40's. remember the last bad flu? 1918, quite a few people died, and the population wasn't nearly as dense.
"Oh, and here's the other problem with your flu vaccine; almost NOBODY dies of the flu, they die of complications, the most common being pneumonia, for which we have treatment."
I don't call 30+ thousand almost NOBODY.
Not getting the flu prevent pneumonia from the flu, which saves live. It's also cheaper then treating pneumonia, and there are long time effects from catching pneumonia.
Yes, at this point the total deaths are at 4000 or so, but it's not flu season yet, and that total is from april. so 4000 deaths during the lightest 6 months of the season.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Nigeria is also having troubles getting enough vaccine to go around. But that's because their government shut down everything.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Hmm, then after dinner this evening, I am set. Thank you Jimmy Dean!
Ocean is land, covered with water.
Actually, I was making no comments either way about the validity of parent's science, simply observing that when eventual mutation into N1H1 or some other virulent offshoot is simply a matter of time. Of course, you probably missed that in your hurry to 'correct' me.
Here is a line that you need to remember in the future before posting in topics about which you know little if anything
Hey, do you have to turn sideways to get through doorways with that ego? I thought you might be trolling at first, but then I actually noticed that you seem to care about your petty tirade. Good thing, because that makes one person on the Internet that cares...
I find it highly humorous that you quoted Abe, about speaking up and showing your idiocy. You seem to want to go off on some sort of self-righteous rant about how your posting was right and that other guy's was wrong. I care not. I laugh at your silly pedantic behavior. LOL
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
A global pandemic may be the best thing to happen to the earth and humanity at this point in time. Maybe if nature spanks us we'll learn some much needed lessons.
I wouldn't worry much though. Remember a few years ago we were all going to die from avian flu? A few years earlier it was West Nile, and before that Mad Cow. How about we take all the flu resources and redirect them to the real killers: stress, hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
By the numbers, we are more likely to die from those things than from the flu. Disclaimer: I don't want to see anyone on the planet get sick or die, and I think we should take whatever steps we choose for ourselves to prevent death and live healthily, but we all do parish eventually and very few know when and how so it's best to just get over it and get on with life while you are here.
Charmingly anecdotal, just like your message - my wife works in an office also "plagued" by flu outages - she hasn't picked up so much as a sniffle, her health is hardly what you'd call robust normally, and no flu shots ever. Saw a show on the TV the other night, pointing out that a 0.1% serious secondary affects ratio means that vaccinating 20 million will create 20 THOUSAND seriously fucking sick people. This new vaccination for this new flu ? - even my "conservative" family doctor refuses to give it to her patients - it's just not proven, says she. Other vaccines, no problem. This one - go find someone else to jab you, She refuses to recommend or take responsibility for something essentially untested.
Getting sick, oddly enough, is a perfectly "healthy" thing to happen - it gives your body some time out to recover from your stupid incessant desire to run it at full side all year, regardless of season or sunlight or warmth. Every other mammal on the planet partly shuts down in winter, if not indeed hibernating outright - why is it that we stupid humans INSIST on maintaining our corporate-mandated 8-hours-per-day schedules and eating food out of season?
I don't like getting sick either, but some of my jobs, I would have preferred being really sick to going back in to that shit hole.
And this one is no different, it's just another fear scam like the war on terrorism and the impending arrival of satan. People die all over the world every year from all types of flu, what makes this one so special?
See Bird Flu
SARS etc for previous scared that made Pharma BILLIONS.
Don't be a sucker and remember...the government is probably dumber than you are.
Most of those cases are not even H1N1 related
Here in quebec they report an increase in calls for flu symptoms but NONE has been reported or even tested to be H1N1 but they treat it like it's the pandemic situation, everyone is so scared that they are making bad calls on regular flu or even just a small cold.
People need to crank it down, there will be no pandemic, the only tru pandemic right now is the SCARE it puts into people
If the fatalties we're talking about are all also focusing on the US population (which they are), it is the same.
One of the odd things we know about the 1918 epidemic is that healthy people were MORE likely to die than unhealthy ones whop were infected. One theory is that the deaths were caused by cytokine storm, where your immune system freaks out.
And in this case, people with obesity have a weaker immune system and are the ones dying. If you exlude from your definition of healthy those that are obese, this strain isn't killing high amounts of healthy people at all.
The CDC has said that H1N1 doesn't appear to be causing that; however, H1N1 is killing FAR more healthy people than regular seasonal flu does.
Again, this is because they are NOT using obesity in their definition of healthy. If you do infact rule out obese people as healthy (because obesity compromises your immune system) things don't look frighting at all.
Where do you keep coming up with obesity? You are making the wholly unfounded assumption that half of the dead kids were obese. Where is your justification for that?
It sounds like you have a personal issue with obese people. That's well and good, but that doesn't translate into "data".
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I get annoyed when the uninformed spread misinformation, and those pretending to slightly more information accept the misinformation at face value
Hey dumbfuck, I was correct and you are a blowhard. The quote I made was an observation of probability. A virus will mutate over time. That's a fucking fact. Statistically, over long time frames, viruses will emerge that are more lethal than the 1917 pandemic. That's also a fucking fact. That's the extent of what I said, so no, I wasn't spreading misinformation. Learn some math, dipshit, and learn to read.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
However, that is based on the assumption that all life on Earth isn't wiped out first.
Or that a super virus doesn't destroy all other viruses. Or we don't evolve into pure energy. Or the universe implodes. You have any other irrelevant tangential crap to bring up?
What you are guilty of is making assumptions that are not safe to make (the infinite existence of life on earth)
Never assumed that. I don't need to. Sigma(small value) over infinity is infinity. We aren't looking for an infinite number of viral variations, just one. Learn to read. I said 'over long time frames', not 'until the end of fucking infinity'.
the frequency of viral mutations happens on short enough of a timescale, that I would think that we can skip over discussions of assumptions of infinite existence of life on earth. You can quibble about details all you want. I made a basic statement that was correct. You jumped on me because you can't read. You are wrong. I am right. Deal with it.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
'Over long enough time frames' is so vague as to imply infinity. That is the only way that your statement can actually be as certain as you believe it to be.
if i had meant infinity, I would have said infinity. Lean to read. I feel pretty confident in saying that we will experience viral outbreak that will rival the Spanish influenza epidemic within the next 1000 years, which last time I checked, is considerably shorter than ETERNITY. It would be fairly trivial to construct an accurate data model that would put the probability of said event beyond the third deviation.
I jumped on you because you demonstrated a lack of critical thinking skill to dissect the parent post. Instead you did the minimum amount of thinking necessary to enable you to use the "change one word in someones post and then say 'Fixed that for you' meme." While that may have given you a warm tingly feeling it did nothing to contribute to the conversation and if anything lent credibility to a complex combination of FUD and out right lies that was the parent post.
I said what I said to point out the simple fact that dangerous viral mutation isn't a 'if', its a 'when'. Nitpick all you want, but I am correct. You can mentally attach my post all you want to the parent's, but it only underscores your confusion and pedantry.
P.S. any value divided by infinity is Zero. What you are thinking of is dividing anything by Zero gives you infinity.
You fail to comprehend even the simplest of statements. While this is true, is is tangential to anything I said. I'd like to respond in a similar manner, and say, 'The sky is occasionally blue'.
I was speaking of the summation of an infinite series, which is entry level calc. Did they let you out of whatever community college you attended without even that? Learn some math, you soft science loser.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I feel pretty confident in saying that we will experience viral outbreak that will rival the Spanish influenza epidemic within the next 1000 years, which last time I checked, is considerably shorter than ETERNITY
You are assuming a steady state over those 1000 years in human technology and efforts. Vaccines are a hair over 300 years old, our use of antibiotics are less than a century old, and our use of antivirals is less than 50. Based on our current rate of advancement in understanding genetics, virus host interaction, and immune function it is entirely possible that we will have solved the problem of conferring immunity to all viruses within the next 1000 years. Your over generalizations are your own undoing.
Sigma(small value) over infinity is infinity.
This is a description of division, or more specifically a fraction. Therefore my comment was completely relevant to what you wrote. Now, that may not have been what you were attempting to describe, but as I tell my wife on occasion "I am not a mind reader". If you meant something else, then you should have written something else. It's more than a little hypocritical for you to repeatedly tell me that I need to learn to read, when you fail to actually write what you mean.
Also, this whole debate began because you failed to read the parents post critically. As a result, you incorrectly asserted that an impossible situation was a certainty. As I pointed out in my first response to you, the author was not describing mutation, although it would appear to be the case on first examination. What the parent was describing was the spontaneous acquisition of certain abilities by an innocuous virus in the absence of any sort of genetic recombination or mutation simply because a cell had been infected by both viruses. Here is the salient point again
4. He seems to be indicating that the packaging of the genes from Virus A into the viral coat of Virus B will some how make a new hybrid Virus A/B that is more virulent than either of it's progentors. However, once this new Virus A/B injects the genes from Virus A into a cell it will produce the viral coat for Virus A, not Virus B . That is because the scenario he describes includes no mention of genetic recombination of the two different viral genomes.
If he had actually said what you thought that he said, you would have been right enough that I wouldn't have bothered responding. However, since he essentially said "If unicorns stab people in the heart ..." and you changed it to "When unicorns stab people in the heart ..." your statement was false. It was false primarily because of what He said, not necessarily because of what you said.
As your indication that I'm a soft science loser, I fail to see where you got that impression. I'm a practitioner of the life sciences. If I weren't, I would not have gotten into a debate of immunology and virology with you, as I tend to avoid arguments outside my knowledge base. Since you've decided to start questioning qualifications, what exactly is your relevant training?
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
You are making the wholly unfounded assumption that half of the dead kids were obese. Where is your justification for that?
Over half the US population is obese.
It sounds like you have a personal issue with obese people. That's well and good, but that doesn't translate into "data"
Ya, but i'm not putting together the data, I'm just telling you about it. Really, is google now beyond the means of the average /.er?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-07-10-swine-flu_N.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/19/AR2009051902609.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601202&sid=aM.7Dg3Z_msI
http://www.naturalnews.com/006781.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/dec/11/medicalresearch.health
http://health.families.com/blog/a-link-between-obesity-and-your-immune-system
Based on our current rate of advancement in understanding genetics, virus host interaction, and immune function it is entirely possible that we will have solved the problem of conferring immunity to all viruses within the next 1000 years.
...if you read it quite literally as it was written. I apologize for assuming that we could discuss things at a level of complexity beyond that of a fourth grader. I mistakenly though that since I was speaking of changes over time, and sigma sums, that perhaps a reader might be clued in to the fact that the mathematics was in fact, the calculus, and not actually rudimentary division.
Now who is making assumptions? What about accounting for you 'Life ending cosmic events' and other such irrelevancies? This is why I keep telling you how stupid and thick you are. You keep going into irrelevant tangents. What I state was a simple and accurate observation about the evolution of a virus. You bring up pointless crap about infinity, life ending on earth, and the advance of medical science. Why not throw in some comments about how it might be wrong if someone finds a magic lamp and wishes viruses out of existence? Now I will call you illiterate (yet again), since I already commented on all the painfully obvious points you raised in defense of your unwarranted attack on my simple and accurate observation.
This is a description of division, or more specifically a fraction. Therefore my comment was completely relevant to what you wrote
What the parent was describing was the spontaneous acquisition of certain abilities by an innocuous virus in the absence of any sort of genetic recombination or mutation simply because a cell had been infected by both viruses. Here is the salient point again
Yeah, I skipped over reading whatever it is you are blathering on about, because I don't really care. You seem to think that my comment somehow was an attempt to support the parent's thesis. I thought we already covered this point.
While you have spouted off about all sorts of 'but, what if' protests, you have not addressed my main observation, that viruses will mutate over time, and that given time they will oscillate between being more or less detrimental to their hosts. Now, we could have had an interesting conversation about the 'predator prey relationships' between a virus and hosts over evolutionary relevant time spans or any number of other interesting related topics, but no. You had to come in flaming me like some sort of dickhead troll. Perhaps you should take a hint about the quality of your thought that several of your pointless and incendiary replies to this thread were in fact, marked as 'trolls'. If you are going to try to correct misconceptions and engage in rational discussion, try not open the debate by shoving your own dick in your mouth.
As your indication that I'm a soft science loser, I fail to see where you got that impression. I'm a practitioner of the life sciences.
I got it from you.
Applied Life science < biology < chemistry < physics < math and logic.
Like I said, 'Soft Science'. Take a wild fucking guess where I am on the scale. I am not actually questioning your qualifications, as they are quite irrelevant since a good idea or a true statement can be uttered by anyone. I am engaging in ad-hominim attacks in the fashion that you opened with. Normally that is a debating faux pas, but it seems to get the attention of criminally stupid people who like to flame and argue. So, 'When in Rome...'
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
"Over half the US population is obese."
Half of the population is male as well - by your logic, half of all cases of breast cancer should be male.
"Ya, but i'm not putting together the data, I'm just telling you about it. Really, is google now beyond the means of the average /.er?"
And what's deliciously ironic about your "data" are the articles saying "All the evidence so far is anecdotal."
If you disagree with others about the relative severity of H1N1, fine. Just don't pretend you are somehow intellectually superior because someone disagrees with you.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson