The problem is, they followed doctors around, and most who THOUGHT they got it right, were still cross-contaminating from handling charts, etc. You just do things unconsciously, and BANg, there you go!
Now if you were born before the 1957 pandemic, the shot is less effective than the natural immunity you got from your previous exposure. Don't take the shot, don't worry about it, you're safe.
Then again, we can expect some more fun around 2020 as a new flu strain comes out that exploits people who don't have a previous immunity from the Hong Kong flu of 68-69. We'll see the same OMG reaction, made worse because of the further increase in population, but that's life.
This is now the "new normal" for flu, since we travel more. Less travel would mean longer times between outbreaks (a good thing), but much more dead at each outbreak (a bad thing), since we wouldn't have as many people who have either partial or complete immunity to any new variant due to previous exposure to similar variants. There's always a balance.
Too lazy to click on the link? If you had, you'd have known that it was the WHO. Here' I'll make it easy for you
Only 7 swine flu deaths, not 152, says WHO
April 29, 2009
A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world.
Vivienne Allan, from WHO's patient safety program, said the body had confirmed that worldwide there had been just seven deaths - all in Mexico - and 79 confirmed cases of the disease.
"Unfortunately that [150-plus deaths] is incorrect information and it does happen, but that's not information that's come from the World Health Organisation," Ms Allan told ABC Radio today.
As for the NEJM article, read it again. It says out of the KNOWN cases. Many people contract the disease, don't seek treatment, and recover spontaneously. Most people refused to see a doctor because they didn't want to be identified as sick. The TRUE fatality rate was no where near 1.7%. It was under 0.5% - the NORMAL flu fatality rate. And it continues to be UNDER the normal fatality rate today.
Also, it's expected that the virus, which is already no worse than any other flu virus, will continue to weaken. Simple math - most alterations in the viral genome will be less effective, so while they'll provoke a response that will provide immunity to the original virus, they'll be even less likely to kill the host. Or do you believe the virus is "intelligently designed"?
We're in no more danger than a "normal" flu. take the same precautions as you would in any flu season - proper hygiene, stay away from infected people, plenty of ventilation and sleep. Flu shots aren't really needed unless you're in the highest-risk group - the morbidly obese who are just waiting for any opportunistic disease to pick them off, same as any other flu season.
Besides, I'm immune to H1N1. Looks like my daughter, who was in Mexico at the time, now also is.
I think that viruses, bacteria, and fungal spores are too small to be effectively removed by nose hairs and nose mucus.
You think wrong. Same as an oil-bath filter in an old car engine, damp hairs and mucus are great at filtering.
Respiratory diseases are often spread by coughing and sneezing and the pathogens enter the body via the respiratory system.
Or people touching a surface that's been sprayed with pathogens by some ignorant cougher, and then touch their eye, or pick their nose...
Is it only mouth breathers that become infected from airborne pathogens then?
They are more likely than people who breathe through their noses.
It's difficult to understand how a killed vaccine can mutate. Influenza vaccines are killed vaccines, BTW.
Viruses aren't alive, so the idea of a "killed" virus is a misnomer. A virus is some dna or rna surrounded by protein. It doesn't eat, it doesn't grow, it can't even reproduce. It's just a wrench that happens to fit into the cellular machinery and gunk it up, in the process disrupting it enough so that the same mechanism that duplicated the cell's dna now duplicates the virus instead.
It's because the virus isn't alive that it's hard to deal with.
It doesn't eat, so cutting off its' food supply isn't an option. It doesn't grow or divide, so something that interferes with the growth cycle isn't going to work either. And since it doesn't reproduce (it's the infected cell that mistakenly reproduces it) you can't even go after its' reproductive cycle all that effectively.
All you can do is find something that either denatures its' proteins, or provokes the host to attack and either physically damage the virus particle, or physically remove it from the host.
So, how does it mutate? Simple - it's fragile, so its quite easy for it to mutate. A little piece broken off here, another piece added there, the host cell, already fuxored, making mistakes when duplicating it...
Picture of Influenza A virus - that's not a cell you see. Just some genetic info in a protective coating that happens to have just the right surface proteins to penetrate the cell wall.
- 1 in 199.something (ok, call it 200) people who have been confirmed to have the swine flu have died from it.
... is NOT the same as saying 1 in 200 people died from swine flu.
this thing has been over-hyped from the beginning - when the WHO had to reduce the initial dead from 152 to 7. "Serious outbreak?" Bullshit.
Currently, the flu is estimated to cause 1 death in every 200 - same as regular flu - but that number is suspect because of the way it was derived. Unlike other estimates, it ignores people who contracted the flu and recovered w/o seeking treatment, so the actual number is lower than a "regular flu".
Also, 1918 didn't kill 20% of the population. The wiki article that people pull that stat from gives contradictory figures. In one paragraph, it's 10% to 20%. A few paragraphs down, it's 2% to 20%. Totally unreliable.
Now what was going on in 1918? Try a world war. Lots of disease and sickness and death during wartime. Also, people didn't die from the flu in 1918 - they died mostly from bacterial pneumonia - because antibiotics hadn't been discovered.
We won't see any more people die than during a regular flu season. In fact, since everyone who was exposed to the swine flu in 1957 has decent immunity to this flu (which is not swine flu - it's an influenza a variant), we'll probably see fewer deaths, except among the highest-risk - the 3% of the population who are morbidly obese, and are going to die of *something* anyways but would be unscathed if they just didn't eat for 4.
Also, I'm betting that this virus will follow the usual path, and rapidly become LESS virulent. Mathematically, as it mutates, the odds are that the vast majority of those mutations won't be as effective, so while it'll still provoke an immune response which will protect against the original form, it won't kill people off in anywhere near the same numbers. Talk of a pandemic is just hype at this point in time.
Also, if it mutated to something much more virulent, your vaccine wouldn't protect you, since it wouldn't be against the new strain.
Then again, I'm probably immune according to the gov't, so it's no skin off my nose.
Distributed for peer review last week, the study confounded infectious-disease experts in suggesting that people vaccinated against seasonal flu are twice as likely to catch swine flu.
The paper is under peer review, and lead researchers Danuta Skowronski of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and Gaston De Serres of Laval University must stay mum until it's published.
Met with intense early skepticism both in Canada and abroad, the paper has since convinced several provincial health agencies to announce hasty suspensions of seasonal flu vaccinations, long-held fixtures of public-health planning.
"It has confused things very badly," said Dr. Ethan Rubinstein, head of adult infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba. "And it has certainly cost us credibility from the public because of conflicting recommendations. Until last week, there had always been much encouragement to get the seasonal flu vaccine."
On Sunday Quebec joined Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia in suspending seasonal flu shots for anyone under 65 years of age. Quebec's Health Ministry announced it would postpone vaccinations until January, clearing the autumn months for health professionals to focus on vaccinating against H1N1, which is expected to the more severe influenza strain this season.
"By the time the H1N1 wave is over, there will be ample time to vaccinate for seasonal flu," Dr. Rubinstein said.
B.C. is expected to announce a similar suspension during a press conference Monday morning.
Other provinces, including Manitoba, are still pondering a response to the research.
New Brunswick is a lone hold-out, announcing last week it would forge ahead with seasonal flu shots for all residents in October, as originally planned.
This is a much larger, more comprehensive study (13 million people) than most, which is why it may have found a correlation that other studies missed.
An international panel is currently scrutinizing the research data. "The review process has been expedited, so we're hoping for a response within days," said Roy Wadia, spokesman for the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.
Dr. Rubinstein, who has read the study, said it appears sound.
"There are a large number of authors, all of them excellent and credible researchers," he said. "And the sample size is very large - 12 or 13 million people taken from the central reporting systems in three provinces. The research is solid."
The vaccine suspensions do not apply for people over 65. Seniors are considered more susceptible to severe seasonal flu symptoms. At the same time, they carry antibodies from a 1957 pandemic that seem to neutralize the current version of H1N1.
Even if the statistical link is proven, the medical link between seasonal flu shots and H1N1 remains mysterious. One hypothesis suggests seasonal flu vaccine preoccupies the cells that would otherwise produce antibodies against H1N1.
But, according to Dr. Rubinstein, the research shows that people who received the seasonal shot during the 2007-08 flu season remained vulnerable to swine flu well into 2009 - an interval that should provide most immune systems ample restoration time.
"We don't understand the mechanism," Dr. Rubinstein said. "At the present time it is quite perplexing."
Or it could be that the negative effect of the vaccine extends for longer than originally thought. As one othr example, there is similar evidence wrt the MMR vaccine.
The "whole web" is not just S3 - it's your computer, and every other one on the internet. The original plan was to have all computers serve as both clients and servers in a true peer-to-peer network. Unfortunately, most users weren't up to it at the time, connections were intermittent, disk storage was expensive, etc.
I remember that case. I hope you stay healthy. That whole mess is just not right.
On- topic - Turns out that this flu (which isn't swine flu, btw) has a death rate lower than regular flu. They came up with a death rate equal to that of regular flu by dividing those diagnosed by those who died, conveniently ignoring that other people contract it and recover without seeking treatment, so that the REAL death rate is lower.
I posted links to the Lancet article elsewhere in the thread, which brings up not just Guillain-Barre, but also MS, as well as the problems with hepatitis and cancer vaccines. There's also tons of stuff out there on animals (too-frequent rabies vaccines and arthritis)
Childhood Vaccinations and Juvenile-Onset (Type-1) Diabetes
by Harris Coulter, Ph.D.
[snip]
1. The Pertussis Vaccine
The vaccine for pertussis, or whooping cough, is part of the DPT shot (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) given to all children. The pertussis vaccine includes "pertussis toxin," a toxin secreted by the microbe which causes whooping cough (the Bordetella pertussis). This toxin, which has been described as one of the most virulent poisons known to science, has several names and has a variety of effects on the body. Pertussis Toxin Affects Pancreas - One of the names for pertussis toxin has traditionally been "islet-activating protein," signifying that this substance acts specifically and directly on the "islets of Langerhans," which are the insulin-secreting parts of the pancreas. (9) At least since the 1970s, pertussis vaccine has been known in animal experiments to stimulate over-production of insulin by the pancreas followed by exhaustion and destruction of the "islets" with consequent under-production of insulin; in the first case the outcome is hypoglycemia, and in the latter it is diabetes. (10) Physicians as early as 1949 called attention to low blood glucose in children who had severe reactions to the pertussis vaccine. (11) In 1970, Margaret Pittman wrote: "the infant whose blood sugar level is influenced by food intake may be especially vulnerable to vaccine-induced hypglycemia...the vaccine induces hypoglycemia in mice and rabbits." Gordon Stewart wrote in 1977: "more than any other vaccine in common use, pertussis vaccine is known pharmacologically to provoke...hypoglycemia due to increase production of insulin." Two Dutch researchers, Hannik and Cohen, observed in 1978: "infants who show serious reactions following pertussis vaccination suffer from a failure to maintain glucose homeostasis." And two German researchers, Hennessen and Quast, found in 1979 that 59 out of 149 children who manifested adverse reactions to the pertussis vaccine developed symptoms of hypoglycemia. (12) The next logical step - deciding that the whooping cough vaccine could be responsible for the presently observed increase in the incidence of hypoglycemia and diabetes - has been inhibited by the federal government's pro-vaccination policy, but enough researchers have spoken out in favor of a diabetes connection to suggest that this is a very real possibility deserving of further investigation.
II. The Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccine
The MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, especially its mumps and rubella components, has been especially implicated in the causation of Type-I diabetes.
A. Rubella and the Rubella Vaccine
Of the three vaccines making up the MMR shot, the rubella component is the major suspect because rubella (German measles) itself, like mumps, is known to be a cause of diabetes and the action of the vaccine resembles that of the disease. If the disease can cause diabetes, so can the vaccine. Let us first look at the disease.
Rubella Virus Causes Diabetes - In 1978 Margaret Menser wrote: "Since 1968 there has been increasing interest in the possibility that viral infection may play a part in the etiology of diabetes mellitus in man...[but] only one virus consistently produces diabetes in man - the congenitally acquired rubella virus." (13) "Congenital rubella syndrome" is the name given to the group of impairments and disabilities often seen in babies whose mothers become infected with rubella during pregnancy. These impairments include: heart disease, mental retardation, deafness, and blindness.
Remember how everyone was panicking about the 151 deaths from swine flu when it first started? Everyone trumpeted that number. You don't hear them being equally loud about admitting that the number was totally bogus, that the actual death toll was 7! Gee, I wonder why? Oh, maybe because it would make them look stupid and ruin their credibility the next time they tried to pull some more numbers out their rectums?
A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world.
Vivienne Allan, from WHO's patient safety program, said the body had confirmed that worldwide there had been just seven deaths - all in Mexico - and 79 confirmed cases of the disease.
"Unfortunately that [150-plus deaths] is incorrect information and it does happen, but that's not information that's come from the World Health Organisation," Ms Allan told ABC Radio today.
All the numbers since then have been equally unreliable. For example, its been admitted that in many subsequent "H1N1" cases, no test was done to verify if the patient actually had swine flu, because of the cost and time involved. This isn't just in the developing world, either - the US has stopped counting.
Also, there's no indication that H1N1 is any more fatal than any other flu - indeed, the worst estimate puts it the same as any other flu, and that may be over-hyped because many people may get a mild case of H1N1 and recover on their own, further lowering the death rate. It's extremely unlikely (to the point of flat-out impossible) that every person who got it went to a hospital and was tested. Tose most at risk - the fat slobs, the morbidly obese who are already most at risk, and will probably die of something else if H1N1 doesn't finish them off, but the true cause of their demise isn't H1N1 - it's that extra 13 meals a day.
People simply don't want to know the truth, because it doesn't give them that frison of fear - this "epidemic" isn't any worse than a regular flu outbreak, and it's certainly not either swine or avian flu, based on its' genetic code, so really, let's all take a chill pill, follow the money to see who's benefiting from the hype, and kick them in the nuts.
April 29, 2009
A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world.
Vivienne Allan, from WHO's patient safety program, said the body had confirmed that worldwide there had been just seven deaths - all in Mexico - and 79 confirmed cases of the disease.
"Unfortunately that [150-plus deaths] is incorrect information and it does happen, but that's not information that's come from the World Health Organisation," Ms Allan told ABC Radio today.
Also, it appears that the oft-repeated "36,000 people die from the flu every year" number is also bogus, being a bad extrapolation from a set of people who are already seriously ill, and not numbers taken from actual sampling the population at large. The actual toll may be well under 1,000. So much for any epidemological studies that support big numbers with bad guestimates instead of hard counts.
Anyway, on to your other remarks...
So even you admit that for at least, say, 30% of the population (I'll let you keep 8% for the chronically ill), the vaccine is not really needed, since they already are immune to swine flu from past exposure? Well, that's a start.
So how about removing the other low-risk groups - those over 5 years, under 6 months, the non-pregnant women? That's the vast majority of the population who simply aren't all that much at risk.
I'll give you the obese, because they ARE at risk, but that can't be more than... oops, we're talking America... 67% of the population over 20 are either overweight or obese. Fuck, why are you people even worried about swine flu when you've got a pandemic of excess flab? Okay, let's see - morbidly obese - 3%. I'll give you the fatties. Pick a reasonable number for the number of pregnant women, and the number of kids between 6 months and 5 years old... both combined, along with the Lardos certainly won't bring you to even 20% of the population. ALL the under-5 is only 7%, and if we take 10% of the people between 20 and 45 and say they're pregnant, that still only yields 3.5%, and we have to remove half of them, because they're men... which gives us 1.75% of the population who are pregnant (still high, but who cares).
So, between the morbidly obese (3%), the pregnant women (1.75%), and ALL the kids under 5 (7%), you're only at 11.75% of the population. How is giving the other 88.25% of the population a vaccine they don't need going to help the situation? And if the virus mutates, the vaccine is useless anyway. Now, since it's more likely that the vaccine will mutate to a weaker form, as happened in the past, people will crow about "how the vaccine worked", when it did nothing of the sort.
There is NO justification for hyping vaccines to people who aren't at risk. That's 88.25% of the population who are being buffaloed into doing something that only profits the drug companies, as opposed to simpler (but less glamourous) solutions that will also help prevent them from catching other variants of the flu, and colds.
And what about the latest study (look elsewhere in the thread) that shows that if you had a flu shot in the past, you double your chances of catching H1N1? Double! A study with 13 million subjects is not anecdotal - it's far more subjects than the other studies to date, which may explain why we're only making the connection now.
As for the pandemic, it IS bullshit. 7 deaths in more than half a year. Even a death a day would not be a "serious pandemic", and we're nowhere near that.
It's been mostly hype and misinformation from the beginning.
One of my daughters was in Mexico during the initial outbreak. She came back, and a week later, she thought she had it. I told her not to be stupid. "But 151 people died from it!" "No, the number's wrong. They now admit it was 6 people. And no, you don't have it."
It's the same with the numbers all over - any case that can't be classified as something else is just added to the H1N1 numbers ("we don't actually do a test to see if it's H1N1 - that would be too time-consuming and expensive."). Then the whole "x number of new cases of H1N1" - BFD. Tell me how many DIED, not how many people got it. Oh, the number of dead isn't any worse than any other year? Then fuck off! Of course, that doesn't make headlines, get you a budget, or give you 15 minutes of fame.
The reason they have to force medical personnel to get the shot is because otherwise, they won't - because they don't trust it!
And then you see the people going "We need to get everyone immunized - what if this virus mutates into something worse?"
Well, sunshine, if it DOES mutate into something worse, your shot won't protect you - it wasn't made for the mutation. Better hope you were born before 1957 and that your previous exposure to swine flu is good enough (it appears to be - older people are relatively unaffected, even though it's NOT the exact same strain).
But seriously, if the medical personnel are so unconvinced that you have to threaten to fire them, there's a reason for such strong resistance. I've never had a shot in the past, and interestingly enough, when the topic came up at the clinic, what I got back was an under-the-breath "I don't blame you. I don't either" - and that was years ago, before all this hype.
When I was a kid, anyone in the neighborhood got sick, our mothers would get us to all play together so we'd all get it and get over it at the same time. Measles, mumps (which I never did manage to catch), chickenpox... get it, then get over it. Nowadays, it's "but my little precious is SUFFERING! Can't you see they're SICK! I want some PILLS!" What it really is, is a generation that hasn't got the patience to stay with a sick kid for a day and listen to them being miserable. As a substitute, they'll feed them 4 heaping helpings at every meal, then say "you're not fat, you're big-boned". Yeah, right, kid. Just like their Michelin-Man dad and 2-Ton-Tess mom.
And if you've had one, keep away from me - you're more, not less, likely to have a compromised immune system in the long run if you get annual flu shots.
This is woo woo non-science , i.e. you are full of shit, please try better next time you want to pose as a healthy skeptic.
Look through the thread. Read the link I posted (along with quotes) from The Lancet. You know, that peer-reviewed, internationally respected medical journal. The article that talks about specific cases of vaccine-caused auto-immune diseases...
And other references to how most people born prior to 1957 already have better immunity than the vaccine confers - which explains why older people in good health don't need to fear H1N1.
Vaccines don't always work as intended, they can have side effects, including causing the very diseases they were supposed to cure (we ignored this from our experience with animals to our regret - for example, the leptospirosis vaccine your vet recommends is the #1 cause of leptospirosis in dogs).
Some vaccines are great - like the smallpox vaccine. A disease with a stable viral structure. An easy target. Flu is not the same, and vaccines, absent other considerations such as basic hygiene and health (like washing your hands, not coughing on other people, eating properly) is not going to be the cure-all you seem to think it will be.
Look through the thread, and you'll see I've documented all my claims with reliable sources.
For auto-immune diseases and vaccines - The Lancet - a premiere peer-reviewed medical journal
For polio vaccine mutating and causing polio in Africa - the World Health Organization - the same people pushing the "OMG vaccinate everyone or we'll all die!"
For most people not needing the vaccine - see the MANY posts that outline who is at risk - the fat slobs, kids between 6 months and 5 years, pregnant women, and those in bad health. For the fat slobs, I even posted one of the original reports (Reuters, quoting the CDC, several doctors, etc), which has since been pulled off the net because it's "politically incorrect" to say that fat slobs are their own worst enemies, should suck it up, or be prepared to pay the price.
Why do you seem to think that this version of the flu is special? That it won't succumb to the same basic hygiene precautions that more virulent versions of the flu do? It's weaker than many flus. Immunity to flu is supposed to fade with time because of the mutation of the little bugger, and yet those who were born prior to 1957, exposed to a different variant of swine flu, are STILL pretty resistant - to the point that they are better off than someone who was exposed to H1N1 last year. Guess H1N1 doesn't provoke that good an immune response...
If you're not in a high-risk group, you don't NEED the vaccine. It's optional. and it may not work. The virus can mutate, you know. As a matter of fact, it's expected to mutate to a weaker version, and you'll hear everyone going "good thing I got my flu shot!" when the shot had nothing to do with it (but the drug companies will never tell you otherwise).
So stop accusing me of being a moron when I document what you call "non-sense" with some of the very medical authorities who are doing the current scare-mongering.
Don't be lazy - look through the thread - I've provided the citations:
links to the Lancet on vaccine-induced auto-immune diseases
Links to a study showing that people who have received previous flu vaccines are twice as likely to contracth H1N1
Links to show who the at-risk groups are - the fat slobs, those between 6 months and 5 years, pregnant women and the chronically ill, and how everyone else doesn't need to do more than practice normal hygeine
Links to show that those born before 1957 have a naturally-acquired immunity to H1N1 that is superior to actual exposure to the H1N1 virus, due to their being exposed to a related strain back in the '50s - which explains why older people aren't at risk
Links to the WHO admitting that polio in Nigeria is currently being caused by a mutated polio vaccine - but here, since I still have a link to my journal open in another tab, I'll save you the effort of scrolling
The vaccine is pretty much useless for those in the 50+ group - they won't get H1N1 unless they're fat obese slobs, or otherwise chronically ill. So why should they bother?
Most of the rest of the population is at low risk of catching the disease, and even lower risk of dying. So why bother with a vaccine that gives limited protection - especially in light of the very strong possibiity that the disease will mutate to a much less virulent strain (and one that the vaccine won't provide much protection against, since it IS yet another mutation) in November? Especially since the same precautions that help against other flus and viruses (basic hygiene, not hanging around the sick, etc) will work. Or do you believe that this comparatively weak flu virus is actually somehow special in its' ability to infect people through some supernatural force?
And yes, had washing will help, because it'll also help you keep rhinovirus and other buggies at bay.
If you look elsewhere in the thread, you'll see quotes from The Lancet wrt auto-immune diseases and vaccines, and to WHO admitting that the polio vaccine in Nigeria mutated and is now causing polio instead of curing it.
is is part of the reason, I think, why the health officials are so worried about H1N1: we have no resistance to it
People born prior to 1957 are, to a large extent, immune. They were exposed to similar live viruses that provoked stronger immune responses than the current H1N1 virus itself causes. That's why we already know, and we're seeing in the stats, that older people who are otherwise healthy aren't so much at risk - they "got theirs" already and don't need a flu shot.
So your "money quote" isn't worth 2 cents. How good can the rest of the article be, if it ignores the known facts wrt age and infection rates? Not good enough to bother reading any further, since they willfully ignore the truth when it doesn't fit their agenda.
Also, since they're doing this WAY too fast, I'd be more worried about vaccine-induced mutations, like the polio now going around in Nigeria that the WHO admits is from a vaccine that mutated.
I've never had a flu vaccine, and never will. I've had the flu once, and that was because I was stupid enough to keep working around people who had it, and did way too many hours and not enough sleep. I won't make that mistake again, but even including that one time, my success rate in avoiding infection is over 98%, without any vaccine, so I'm not in the least worried.
And my kids are doing the same. In fact, I don't know anyone (even people in the health-care field) who are going to get vaccinated. We'll stick to proper hygiene, eating and sleeping properly, and telling people who ARE infected to GTFO.
Since it's rapidly mutating, you CAN'T be guaranteed to "get immunity" to it from a targeted vaccine, duh! and the natural progression is to mutate from more to less lethal, not the other way around.
'global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but it is estimated that 10% to 20%'
What a bullshit way to purposefully mis-quote:
You left out the most important part:
but it is estimated that 10% to 20% of those who were infected died.
And even that isn't backed up further in the article, when it gives a much lower "lower bound" even among the infected:
the unusually severe disease killed between 2 and 20% of those infected
The fact that the numbers are so uncertain shows that they're totally unreliable.
Also, flu didn't directly kill most of those who died
The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection
We have these neat things called antibiotics, so most of the deaths would have been avoided today. We also have better living standards than the people in war-torn Europe.
Also, if H1N1 follows the path of the 1918 pandemic, it should mutate to a much less virulent strain in November. Of course, the drug cos will claim responsibility, but it's just the nature of the beast.
Most people aren't at any more risk from H1N1 than from any other flu. The at-risk are fat slobs, those between 6 months and 5 years, pregnant women, and those with chronic debilitating diseases. Pretty much everyone else is low-risk.
So yes, if you're a fat swine, fear the aptly-named swine flu.
And no, the current vaccine is not guaranteed to confer complete immunity. It imparts a partial immunity, over a short term, because it's not that great a vaccine. Even if you had H1N1 last year, you're not necessarily safe. However, if you were around prior to 1957, you've probably got a better natural immunity because you've already been exposed to a similar but more virulent, real live flu virus. (and lets face it H1N1 isn't all that virulent. The numbers have been exaggerated from the beginning. Starting with the 151 "deaths" in Mexico turned out to be 6. Most people who get H1N1 won't die, same as any other flu. Even governments have admitted that they don't test cases as being H1N1 before reporting them as H1N1, they just report anything suspicious as H1N1. Fucking retarded, but it means bigger budgets).
So get off your indignant moral high horse - you're fear-mongering, and the drug companies are using you. Or you're a fat slob... (and yes, the connection between mortality and obesity is easy enough to find). the original is now gone (probably removed by some fat slob), but here's google's cached copy
Reuters Health
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Obesity emerges as risk factor in severe flu
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who are obese but otherwise healthy may be at special risk of severe complications and death from the new H1N1 swine flu virus, U.S. researchers reported on Friday.
They described the cases of 10 patients at a Michigan hospital who were so ill they had to be put on ventilators. Three died. Nine of the 10 were obese, seven were severely obese, including two of the three who died.
The study, published in advance in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's weekly report on death and disease, also suggests doctors can safely double the usual dose of oseltamivir, Roche AG's antiviral drug sold under the Tamiflu brand name.
"What this suggests is that there can be severe complications associated with this virus infection, especially in severely obese patients," said CDC virus expert Dr. Tim Uyeki.
"And five of these patients had... evidence of blood clots in the lungs
Actually no, I'm the one who did the research and then told my vet off. Any my sister, who's also a dog fan.
But as for vaccines and auto-immune diseases, since you're too f'ing lazy to do your own research, is The Lancet a good enough peer-reviewd medical journal for you?
Here are examples in humans: the first deals specifically with swine flu vaccines
For example, a form
of Guillain-Barré syndrome (polyradiculoneuritis) was
associated with the 1976-77 vaccination campaign against
swine influenza, using the A/New Jersey/8/76 swine-flu
vaccine.
The estimated attributable risk of vaccine-
related Guillain-Barré syndrome in the adult population
was just less than one case per 100 000 vaccinations, and
the period of increased risk in swine-flu vaccinated versus
non-vaccinated individuals was concentrated primarily
within the 5 weeks after vaccination (relative risk 760)
and measles vaccines:
Another example of confirmed
autoimmune adverse effects after vaccination is idiopathic
thrombocytopenia, which might arise after administration
of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination
and
Which autoimmune diseases, if any, have been proven to be
due to vaccines?
A form of rabies vaccine produced from infected rabbit CNS
tissue induced an acute disseminated encephalomyelitis in
01% of vaccinees.
In 1976, cases of Guillain-Barré neuritis
arose after vaccination with swine influenza virus, albeit still a
rare event. Autoimmune thrombocytopenia has been
described after measles vaccination, but with a much lower
frequency than that seen after wild measles virus infection
(one in 30 000 vs one in 5000)
Hepatitis B vaccine and MS
Hepatitis B and multiple sclerosis
The possibility of an association between the hepatitis B
vaccination and development of multiple sclerosis was
first raised in France, after a report of 35 cases of primary
demyelinating events occurring at a hospital in Paris
between 1991 and 1997, within 8 weeks of recombinant
hepatitis B vaccine injection.
57,58
The neurological
manifestations were similar to those observed in multiple
sclerosis. There were inflammatory changes in the
cerebrospinal fluid and lesions were noted in the cerebral
white matter on T2-weighted MR images. Clinically
definite multiple sclerosis was diagnosed in half of the
patients, after a mean follow-up of 3 years. These
and anti-cancer vaccines
Additionally, cancer
vaccines based on dendritic cells pulsed with tumour
antigens carry a substantial risk of autoimmunity.
Well, seeing as I'm in the group who already has life-long immunity to all known H1N1 variants because of earlier exposure to similar live strains way back when, I really don't give a shit what you think. No shot for ME:-)
And seeing as I've only had the flu ONCE (and that was because I knew I was surrounded by carriers, and didn't get enough sleep, etc), and I survived, no big deal, get plenty of rest, drink, eat, relax, read, I'm not really all that worried about either H1N1 or any other flu, for that matter.
Add to that WHO admits mutated polio vaccine causes polio, and I'd recommend most people stick with tried-and-true vaccines for smallpox, measles, and rubella, but for the flu virus, which is too fragile, mutating too fast, if you're not in the highest-risk group (eg: fat slobs, kids 6 months to 5 years, pregnant women) skip the shot, and use ordinary preventative precautions that work, since you're not in a high-risk group anyway.
People born before 1957 are already immune to H1N1. They acquired it from exposure to similar live virus back in the 50's. So, no need for a vaccine for THEM - which is strange, because the current H1N1 vaccine doesn't impart long-term immunity. Guess there's nothing like the "real thing."
People at risk are the obese, those with severe chronic health problems, pregnant women, and kids between 6 months and 5 years. Pretty much everyone else is "low-risk" if they just take a few common-sense precautions - the same ones you'd take in the presence of any infectious disease.
Yes, you will be fine. Why do you think I specified adequate ventilation? Infected people are virus shedders - you don't want to be breathing in concentrated contaminated air.
And washing your hands is just bsic hygiene, not OCD.
You also probably don't have to worry if you were around before 1957 - since you then have immunity to H1N1, since you were exposed to a similar live flu virus that gave broader immunity than todays' crappy vaccines do.
So you can take your flu vaccine and stick it up your... well, I guess they jab it in the arm nowadays:-) I'd warn people to be especially wary of coming into contact with anyone who is using the nasal dose - it's live (well, about as much as you can classify ANY virus as actually being a living thing - they're not, not really. They don't consume food, they can't reproduce on their own, they don't grow over time, they're just a double helix in a thin protein coat that happens to be shaped just right to disrupt cells), and it CAN mutate (it's what the flu does - mutate, mutate, mutate).
Seriously, I've had the flu ONCE. It taught me the importance of getting enough sleep during flu season.
Nope - the nose hairs and mucus are there to filter out the air-borne pathogens and dirt from the environment. You can't "infect yourself" - you're either already infected or you're not.
Also, on the topic of vaccinations, the WHO admits that vaccines HAVE mutated and caused diseases . Tthe latest polio outbreak in Africa was CAUSED by the polio vaccine:
Polio surge in Nigeria after vaccine virus mutates
LONDON (AP) -- Polio, a dreaded paralyzing disease stamped out in the industrialized world, is spreading in Nigeria despite efforts to stamp it out. And health officials say in some cases, it's caused by the vaccine used to fight it.
In July, the World Health Organization issued a warning that this vaccine-spread virus might extend beyond Africa. So far, 124 Nigerian children have been paralyzed this year -- about twice those afflicted in 2008.
Experts have long believed epidemics unleashed by a vaccine's mutated virus wouldn't last since the vaccine only contains a weakened virus strain -- but that assumption is coming under pressure. Some experts now say that once viruses from vaccines start circulating they can become just as dangerous as wild viruses.
"The only difference is that this virus was originally in a vaccine vial," said Olen Kew, a virologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kew said genetic analysis proves mutated viruses from the vaccine have caused at least seven separate outbreaks in Nigeria.
So, I won't be bothering to infect myself with the flu.
A 70% chance of preventing influenza is worse than my current odds - which are well above 98% historically (only had the flu once on over half a century, and never had a flu shot in my life).
I'll stick with what works. as apposed to an almost 1 in 3 chance of getting it if I *do* get a flu shot.
Polio surge in Nigeria after vaccine virus mutates
LONDON (AP) -- Polio, a dreaded paralyzing disease stamped out in the industrialized world, is spreading in Nigeria despite efforts to stamp it out. And health officials say in some cases, it's caused by the vaccine used to fight it.
In July, the World Health Organization issued a warning that this vaccine-spread virus might extend beyond Africa. So far, 124 Nigerian children have been paralyzed this year -- about twice those afflicted in 2008.
Experts have long believed epidemics unleashed by a vaccine's mutated virus wouldn't last since the vaccine only contains a weakened virus strain -- but that assumption is coming under pressure. Some experts now say that once viruses from vaccines start circulating they can become just as dangerous as wild viruses.
"The only difference is that this virus was originally in a vaccine vial," said Olen Kew, a virologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kew said genetic analysis proves mutated viruses from the vaccine have caused at least seven separate outbreaks in Nigeria.
So, I won't be bothering to infect myself with the flu.
First, there's this study - flu vaccines may make you twice as likely to contract swine flu. A sample size of 13 million people is nothing to sneeze at. It's raised enough red flags that provinces are changing their recommendations.
Some vaccines make sense. Sure, smallpox and polio. They're proven. But not swine flu, and especially if you're not in an at-risk group (and most people who aren't fat slobs aren't). It doesn't make sense to have people who are at low risk get a shot.
Those at risk are the obese, and those under 65 with other chronic health care problems that severely impair their lives, kids 6 months to 5 years, and pregnant women. Pretty much everyone else is low-risk.
To show just how ineffective the swine flu vaccine can be expected to be, if you have already had H1N1, that's no guarantee you won't get it again. Exposure doesn't confer immunity. Different viruses mean different results. We were able to deal with smallpox effectively through vaccines - flu is a different beast. Rapidly mutating and fragile, unlike smallpox, which is basically unchanged over the decades.
Anyway, if you're not obese, don't have a severe health problem that compromises your day-to-day living, aren't pregnant or between 6 months and 5 years of age, why buy into the panic?
Do your research - repeated injections of foreign proteins (which is what flu shots are) are implicated in several auto-immune diseases, both in animals and humans.
Some vaccines make sense. A vaccine for a rapidly-mutating, fragile/unstable virus like the flu just doesn't make sense when we have other methods that would improve health, not just against flu, but against the common cold and other problems.
Foremost - teach kids (and adults) to stop picking their noses and either eating it or wiping it somewhere, and to wash their hands.
You people stopped at the red light, digging for nose gold, then looking ahead while your finger migrates to your mouth seemingly of its' own accord - I hope your airbag goes off and shoves your finger through your nasal septum and out your eyeball - from the inside. You're adults - start acting like adults.
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The problem is, they followed doctors around, and most who THOUGHT they got it right, were still cross-contaminating from handling charts, etc. You just do things unconsciously, and BANg, there you go!
Now if you were born before the 1957 pandemic, the shot is less effective than the natural immunity you got from your previous exposure. Don't take the shot, don't worry about it, you're safe.
Then again, we can expect some more fun around 2020 as a new flu strain comes out that exploits people who don't have a previous immunity from the Hong Kong flu of 68-69. We'll see the same OMG reaction, made worse because of the further increase in population, but that's life.
This is now the "new normal" for flu, since we travel more. Less travel would mean longer times between outbreaks (a good thing), but much more dead at each outbreak (a bad thing), since we wouldn't have as many people who have either partial or complete immunity to any new variant due to previous exposure to similar variants. There's always a balance.
As for the NEJM article, read it again. It says out of the KNOWN cases. Many people contract the disease, don't seek treatment, and recover spontaneously. Most people refused to see a doctor because they didn't want to be identified as sick. The TRUE fatality rate was no where near 1.7%. It was under 0.5% - the NORMAL flu fatality rate. And it continues to be UNDER the normal fatality rate today.
Also, it's expected that the virus, which is already no worse than any other flu virus, will continue to weaken. Simple math - most alterations in the viral genome will be less effective, so while they'll provoke a response that will provide immunity to the original virus, they'll be even less likely to kill the host. Or do you believe the virus is "intelligently designed"?
We're in no more danger than a "normal" flu. take the same precautions as you would in any flu season - proper hygiene, stay away from infected people, plenty of ventilation and sleep. Flu shots aren't really needed unless you're in the highest-risk group - the morbidly obese who are just waiting for any opportunistic disease to pick them off, same as any other flu season.
Besides, I'm immune to H1N1. Looks like my daughter, who was in Mexico at the time, now also is.
You think wrong. Same as an oil-bath filter in an old car engine, damp hairs and mucus are great at filtering.
Or people touching a surface that's been sprayed with pathogens by some ignorant cougher, and then touch their eye, or pick their nose ...
They are more likely than people who breathe through their noses.
Viruses aren't alive, so the idea of a "killed" virus is a misnomer. A virus is some dna or rna surrounded by protein. It doesn't eat, it doesn't grow, it can't even reproduce. It's just a wrench that happens to fit into the cellular machinery and gunk it up, in the process disrupting it enough so that the same mechanism that duplicated the cell's dna now duplicates the virus instead.
It's because the virus isn't alive that it's hard to deal with.
It doesn't eat, so cutting off its' food supply isn't an option. It doesn't grow or divide, so something that interferes with the growth cycle isn't going to work either. And since it doesn't reproduce (it's the infected cell that mistakenly reproduces it) you can't even go after its' reproductive cycle all that effectively.
All you can do is find something that either denatures its' proteins, or provokes the host to attack and either physically damage the virus particle, or physically remove it from the host.
So, how does it mutate? Simple - it's fragile, so its quite easy for it to mutate. A little piece broken off here, another piece added there, the host cell, already fuxored, making mistakes when duplicating it ...
Picture of Influenza A virus - that's not a cell you see. Just some genetic info in a protective coating that happens to have just the right surface proteins to penetrate the cell wall.
this thing has been over-hyped from the beginning - when the WHO had to reduce the initial dead from 152 to 7. "Serious outbreak?" Bullshit.
Currently, the flu is estimated to cause 1 death in every 200 - same as regular flu - but that number is suspect because of the way it was derived. Unlike other estimates, it ignores people who contracted the flu and recovered w/o seeking treatment, so the actual number is lower than a "regular flu".
Also, 1918 didn't kill 20% of the population. The wiki article that people pull that stat from gives contradictory figures. In one paragraph, it's 10% to 20%. A few paragraphs down, it's 2% to 20%. Totally unreliable.
Now what was going on in 1918? Try a world war. Lots of disease and sickness and death during wartime. Also, people didn't die from the flu in 1918 - they died mostly from bacterial pneumonia - because antibiotics hadn't been discovered.
We won't see any more people die than during a regular flu season. In fact, since everyone who was exposed to the swine flu in 1957 has decent immunity to this flu (which is not swine flu - it's an influenza a variant), we'll probably see fewer deaths, except among the highest-risk - the 3% of the population who are morbidly obese, and are going to die of *something* anyways but would be unscathed if they just didn't eat for 4.
Also, I'm betting that this virus will follow the usual path, and rapidly become LESS virulent. Mathematically, as it mutates, the odds are that the vast majority of those mutations won't be as effective, so while it'll still provoke an immune response which will protect against the original form, it won't kill people off in anywhere near the same numbers. Talk of a pandemic is just hype at this point in time.
Also, if it mutated to something much more virulent, your vaccine wouldn't protect you, since it wouldn't be against the new strain.
Then again, I'm probably immune according to the gov't, so it's no skin off my nose.
This is a much larger, more comprehensive study (13 million people) than most, which is why it may have found a correlation that other studies missed.
Or it could be that the negative effect of the vaccine extends for longer than originally thought. As one othr example, there is similar evidence wrt the MMR vaccine.
The "whole web" is not just S3 - it's your computer, and every other one on the internet. The original plan was to have all computers serve as both clients and servers in a true peer-to-peer network. Unfortunately, most users weren't up to it at the time, connections were intermittent, disk storage was expensive, etc.
I remember that case. I hope you stay healthy. That whole mess is just not right.
On- topic - Turns out that this flu (which isn't swine flu, btw) has a death rate lower than regular flu. They came up with a death rate equal to that of regular flu by dividing those diagnosed by those who died, conveniently ignoring that other people contract it and recover without seeking treatment, so that the REAL death rate is lower.
It's been over-hyped since day one.
but even a quick search turns up stuff like this vis. type 1 diabetes (an auto-immune disorder) and several vaccines:
Remember how everyone was panicking about the 151 deaths from swine flu when it first started? Everyone trumpeted that number. You don't hear them being equally loud about admitting that the number was totally bogus, that the actual death toll was 7! Gee, I wonder why? Oh, maybe because it would make them look stupid and ruin their credibility the next time they tried to pull some more numbers out their rectums?
All the numbers since then have been equally unreliable. For example, its been admitted that in many subsequent "H1N1" cases, no test was done to verify if the patient actually had swine flu, because of the cost and time involved. This isn't just in the developing world, either - the US has stopped counting.
Also, there's no indication that H1N1 is any more fatal than any other flu - indeed, the worst estimate puts it the same as any other flu, and that may be over-hyped because many people may get a mild case of H1N1 and recover on their own, further lowering the death rate. It's extremely unlikely (to the point of flat-out impossible) that every person who got it went to a hospital and was tested. Tose most at risk - the fat slobs, the morbidly obese who are already most at risk, and will probably die of something else if H1N1 doesn't finish them off, but the true cause of their demise isn't H1N1 - it's that extra 13 meals a day.
Of course, it's been all hype right from the beginning, as others have pointed out, to deaf ears: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Stirring up "swine flu" hysteria http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/laura-h-kahn/stirring-swine-flu-hysteria
People simply don't want to know the truth, because it doesn't give them that frison of fear - this "epidemic" isn't any worse than a regular flu outbreak, and it's certainly not either swine or avian flu, based on its' genetic code, so really, let's all take a chill pill, follow the money to see who's benefiting from the hype, and kick them in the nuts.
Also, it appears that the oft-repeated "36,000 people die from the flu every year" number is also bogus, being a bad extrapolation from a set of people who are already seriously ill, and not numbers taken from actual sampling the population at large. The actual toll may be well under 1,000. So much for any epidemological studies that support big numbers with bad guestimates instead of hard counts.
Anyway, on to your other remarks ...
So even you admit that for at least, say, 30% of the population (I'll let you keep 8% for the chronically ill), the vaccine is not really needed, since they already are immune to swine flu from past exposure? Well, that's a start.
So how about removing the other low-risk groups - those over 5 years, under 6 months, the non-pregnant women? That's the vast majority of the population who simply aren't all that much at risk.
I'll give you the obese, because they ARE at risk, but that can't be more than ... oops, we're talking America ... 67% of the population over 20 are either overweight or obese. Fuck, why are you people even worried about swine flu when you've got a pandemic of excess flab? Okay, let's see - morbidly obese - 3%. I'll give you the fatties. Pick a reasonable number for the number of pregnant women, and the number of kids between 6 months and 5 years old ... both combined, along with the Lardos certainly won't bring you to even 20% of the population. ALL the under-5 is only 7%, and if we take 10% of the people between 20 and 45 and say they're pregnant, that still only yields 3.5%, and we have to remove half of them, because they're men ... which gives us 1.75% of the population who are pregnant (still high, but who cares).
So, between the morbidly obese (3%), the pregnant women (1.75%), and ALL the kids under 5 (7%), you're only at 11.75% of the population. How is giving the other 88.25% of the population a vaccine they don't need going to help the situation? And if the virus mutates, the vaccine is useless anyway. Now, since it's more likely that the vaccine will mutate to a weaker form, as happened in the past, people will crow about "how the vaccine worked", when it did nothing of the sort.
There is NO justification for hyping vaccines to people who aren't at risk. That's 88.25% of the population who are being buffaloed into doing something that only profits the drug companies, as opposed to simpler (but less glamourous) solutions that will also help prevent them from catching other variants of the flu, and colds.
And what about the latest study (look elsewhere in the thread) that shows that if you had a flu shot in the past, you double your chances of catching H1N1? Double! A study with 13 million subjects is not anecdotal - it's far more subjects than the other studies to date, which may explain why we're only making the connection now.
As for the pandemic, it IS bullshit. 7 deaths in more than half a year. Even a death a day would not be a "serious pandemic", and we're nowhere near that.
It's been mostly hype and misinformation from the beginning.
One of my daughters was in Mexico during the initial outbreak. She came back, and a week later, she thought she had it. I told her not to be stupid. "But 151 people died from it!" "No, the number's wrong. They now admit it was 6 people. And no, you don't have it."
It's the same with the numbers all over - any case that can't be classified as something else is just added to the H1N1 numbers ("we don't actually do a test to see if it's H1N1 - that would be too time-consuming and expensive."). Then the whole "x number of new cases of H1N1" - BFD. Tell me how many DIED, not how many people got it. Oh, the number of dead isn't any worse than any other year? Then fuck off! Of course, that doesn't make headlines, get you a budget, or give you 15 minutes of fame.
The reason they have to force medical personnel to get the shot is because otherwise, they won't - because they don't trust it!
And then you see the people going "We need to get everyone immunized - what if this virus mutates into something worse?"
Well, sunshine, if it DOES mutate into something worse, your shot won't protect you - it wasn't made for the mutation. Better hope you were born before 1957 and that your previous exposure to swine flu is good enough (it appears to be - older people are relatively unaffected, even though it's NOT the exact same strain).
But seriously, if the medical personnel are so unconvinced that you have to threaten to fire them, there's a reason for such strong resistance. I've never had a shot in the past, and interestingly enough, when the topic came up at the clinic, what I got back was an under-the-breath "I don't blame you. I don't either" - and that was years ago, before all this hype.
When I was a kid, anyone in the neighborhood got sick, our mothers would get us to all play together so we'd all get it and get over it at the same time. Measles, mumps (which I never did manage to catch), chickenpox ... get it, then get over it. Nowadays, it's "but my little precious is SUFFERING! Can't you see they're SICK! I want some PILLS!" What it really is, is a generation that hasn't got the patience to stay with a sick kid for a day and listen to them being miserable. As a substitute, they'll feed them 4 heaping helpings at every meal, then say "you're not fat, you're big-boned". Yeah, right, kid. Just like their Michelin-Man dad and 2-Ton-Tess mom.
Look through the thread. Read the link I posted (along with quotes) from The Lancet. You know, that peer-reviewed, internationally respected medical journal. The article that talks about specific cases of vaccine-caused auto-immune diseases ...
Then you can apologize.
Then you can read some of the other links I posted in this thread, including to the study that apparently shows that if you had previous flu vaccines, you're twice as likely to catch H1N1. And the WHO admitting that polio in Nigeria is now being caused by a mutated polio vaccine.
And other references to how most people born prior to 1957 already have better immunity than the vaccine confers - which explains why older people in good health don't need to fear H1N1.
Vaccines don't always work as intended, they can have side effects, including causing the very diseases they were supposed to cure (we ignored this from our experience with animals to our regret - for example, the leptospirosis vaccine your vet recommends is the #1 cause of leptospirosis in dogs).
Some vaccines are great - like the smallpox vaccine. A disease with a stable viral structure. An easy target. Flu is not the same, and vaccines, absent other considerations such as basic hygiene and health (like washing your hands, not coughing on other people, eating properly) is not going to be the cure-all you seem to think it will be.
For auto-immune diseases and vaccines - The Lancet - a premiere peer-reviewed medical journal
For polio vaccine mutating and causing polio in Africa - the World Health Organization - the same people pushing the "OMG vaccinate everyone or we'll all die!"
For most people not needing the vaccine - see the MANY posts that outline who is at risk - the fat slobs, kids between 6 months and 5 years, pregnant women, and those in bad health. For the fat slobs, I even posted one of the original reports (Reuters, quoting the CDC, several doctors, etc), which has since been pulled off the net because it's "politically incorrect" to say that fat slobs are their own worst enemies, should suck it up, or be prepared to pay the price.
Why do you seem to think that this version of the flu is special? That it won't succumb to the same basic hygiene precautions that more virulent versions of the flu do? It's weaker than many flus. Immunity to flu is supposed to fade with time because of the mutation of the little bugger, and yet those who were born prior to 1957, exposed to a different variant of swine flu, are STILL pretty resistant - to the point that they are better off than someone who was exposed to H1N1 last year. Guess H1N1 doesn't provoke that good an immune response ...
If you're not in a high-risk group, you don't NEED the vaccine. It's optional. and it may not work. The virus can mutate, you know. As a matter of fact, it's expected to mutate to a weaker version, and you'll hear everyone going "good thing I got my flu shot!" when the shot had nothing to do with it (but the drug companies will never tell you otherwise).
So stop accusing me of being a moron when I document what you call "non-sense" with some of the very medical authorities who are doing the current scare-mongering.
The vaccine is pretty much useless for those in the 50+ group - they won't get H1N1 unless they're fat obese slobs, or otherwise chronically ill. So why should they bother?
Most of the rest of the population is at low risk of catching the disease, and even lower risk of dying. So why bother with a vaccine that gives limited protection - especially in light of the very strong possibiity that the disease will mutate to a much less virulent strain (and one that the vaccine won't provide much protection against, since it IS yet another mutation) in November? Especially since the same precautions that help against other flus and viruses (basic hygiene, not hanging around the sick, etc) will work. Or do you believe that this comparatively weak flu virus is actually somehow special in its' ability to infect people through some supernatural force?
And yes, had washing will help, because it'll also help you keep rhinovirus and other buggies at bay.
If you look elsewhere in the thread, you'll see quotes from The Lancet wrt auto-immune diseases and vaccines, and to WHO admitting that the polio vaccine in Nigeria mutated and is now causing polio instead of curing it.
But yes, Carlin was one of the great ones :-)
People born prior to 1957 are, to a large extent, immune. They were exposed to similar live viruses that provoked stronger immune responses than the current H1N1 virus itself causes. That's why we already know, and we're seeing in the stats, that older people who are otherwise healthy aren't so much at risk - they "got theirs" already and don't need a flu shot.
So your "money quote" isn't worth 2 cents. How good can the rest of the article be, if it ignores the known facts wrt age and infection rates? Not good enough to bother reading any further, since they willfully ignore the truth when it doesn't fit their agenda.
Also, since they're doing this WAY too fast, I'd be more worried about vaccine-induced mutations, like the polio now going around in Nigeria that the WHO admits is from a vaccine that mutated.
I've never had a flu vaccine, and never will. I've had the flu once, and that was because I was stupid enough to keep working around people who had it, and did way too many hours and not enough sleep. I won't make that mistake again, but even including that one time, my success rate in avoiding infection is over 98%, without any vaccine, so I'm not in the least worried.
And my kids are doing the same. In fact, I don't know anyone (even people in the health-care field) who are going to get vaccinated. We'll stick to proper hygiene, eating and sleeping properly, and telling people who ARE infected to GTFO.
Since it's rapidly mutating, you CAN'T be guaranteed to "get immunity" to it from a targeted vaccine, duh! and the natural progression is to mutate from more to less lethal, not the other way around.
What a bullshit way to purposefully mis-quote: You left out the most important part:
And even that isn't backed up further in the article, when it gives a much lower "lower bound" even among the infected:
The fact that the numbers are so uncertain shows that they're totally unreliable.
Also, flu didn't directly kill most of those who died
We have these neat things called antibiotics, so most of the deaths would have been avoided today. We also have better living standards than the people in war-torn Europe.
Also, if H1N1 follows the path of the 1918 pandemic, it should mutate to a much less virulent strain in November. Of course, the drug cos will claim responsibility, but it's just the nature of the beast.
Most people aren't at any more risk from H1N1 than from any other flu. The at-risk are fat slobs, those between 6 months and 5 years, pregnant women, and those with chronic debilitating diseases. Pretty much everyone else is low-risk.
So yes, if you're a fat swine, fear the aptly-named swine flu.
And no, the current vaccine is not guaranteed to confer complete immunity. It imparts a partial immunity, over a short term, because it's not that great a vaccine. Even if you had H1N1 last year, you're not necessarily safe. However, if you were around prior to 1957, you've probably got a better natural immunity because you've already been exposed to a similar but more virulent, real live flu virus. (and lets face it H1N1 isn't all that virulent. The numbers have been exaggerated from the beginning. Starting with the 151 "deaths" in Mexico turned out to be 6. Most people who get H1N1 won't die, same as any other flu. Even governments have admitted that they don't test cases as being H1N1 before reporting them as H1N1, they just report anything suspicious as H1N1. Fucking retarded, but it means bigger budgets).
So get off your indignant moral high horse - you're fear-mongering, and the drug companies are using you. Or you're a fat slob ... (and yes, the connection between mortality and obesity is easy enough to find). the original is now gone (probably removed by some fat slob), but here's google's cached copy
But as for vaccines and auto-immune diseases, since you're too f'ing lazy to do your own research, is The Lancet a good enough peer-reviewd medical journal for you?
Here are examples in humans: the first deals specifically with swine flu vaccines
and measles vaccines:
and
Hepatitis B vaccine and MS
and anti-cancer vaccines
Well, seeing as I'm in the group who already has life-long immunity to all known H1N1 variants because of earlier exposure to similar live strains way back when, I really don't give a shit what you think. No shot for ME :-)
And seeing as I've only had the flu ONCE (and that was because I knew I was surrounded by carriers, and didn't get enough sleep, etc), and I survived, no big deal, get plenty of rest, drink, eat, relax, read, I'm not really all that worried about either H1N1 or any other flu, for that matter.
Add to that WHO admits mutated polio vaccine causes polio, and I'd recommend most people stick with tried-and-true vaccines for smallpox, measles, and rubella, but for the flu virus, which is too fragile, mutating too fast, if you're not in the highest-risk group (eg: fat slobs, kids 6 months to 5 years, pregnant women) skip the shot, and use ordinary preventative precautions that work, since you're not in a high-risk group anyway.
People born before 1957 are already immune to H1N1. They acquired it from exposure to similar live virus back in the 50's. So, no need for a vaccine for THEM - which is strange, because the current H1N1 vaccine doesn't impart long-term immunity. Guess there's nothing like the "real thing."
People at risk are the obese, those with severe chronic health problems, pregnant women, and kids between 6 months and 5 years. Pretty much everyone else is "low-risk" if they just take a few common-sense precautions - the same ones you'd take in the presence of any infectious disease.
Yes, you will be fine. Why do you think I specified adequate ventilation? Infected people are virus shedders - you don't want to be breathing in concentrated contaminated air.
And washing your hands is just bsic hygiene, not OCD.
You also probably don't have to worry if you were around before 1957 - since you then have immunity to H1N1, since you were exposed to a similar live flu virus that gave broader immunity than todays' crappy vaccines do.
Speaking of vaccines - The WHO admits that mutated polio vaccine is the source of the polio epidemic in Nigeria.
So you can take your flu vaccine and stick it up your ... well, I guess they jab it in the arm nowadays :-) I'd warn people to be especially wary of coming into contact with anyone who is using the nasal dose - it's live (well, about as much as you can classify ANY virus as actually being a living thing - they're not, not really. They don't consume food, they can't reproduce on their own, they don't grow over time, they're just a double helix in a thin protein coat that happens to be shaped just right to disrupt cells), and it CAN mutate (it's what the flu does - mutate, mutate, mutate).
Seriously, I've had the flu ONCE. It taught me the importance of getting enough sleep during flu season.
Also, on the topic of vaccinations, the WHO admits that vaccines HAVE mutated and caused diseases . Tthe latest polio outbreak in Africa was CAUSED by the polio vaccine:
So, I won't be bothering to infect myself with the flu.
A 70% chance of preventing influenza is worse than my current odds - which are well above 98% historically (only had the flu once on over half a century, and never had a flu shot in my life).
I'll stick with what works. as apposed to an almost 1 in 3 chance of getting it if I *do* get a flu shot.
But speaking of vaccines - the latest polio outbreak in Africa was CAUSED by the polio vaccine:
So, I won't be bothering to infect myself with the flu.
First, there's this study - flu vaccines may make you twice as likely to contract swine flu. A sample size of 13 million people is nothing to sneeze at. It's raised enough red flags that provinces are changing their recommendations.
Some vaccines make sense. Sure, smallpox and polio. They're proven. But not swine flu, and especially if you're not in an at-risk group (and most people who aren't fat slobs aren't). It doesn't make sense to have people who are at low risk get a shot.
Those at risk are the obese, and those under 65 with other chronic health care problems that severely impair their lives, kids 6 months to 5 years, and pregnant women. Pretty much everyone else is low-risk.
To show just how ineffective the swine flu vaccine can be expected to be, if you have already had H1N1, that's no guarantee you won't get it again. Exposure doesn't confer immunity. Different viruses mean different results. We were able to deal with smallpox effectively through vaccines - flu is a different beast. Rapidly mutating and fragile, unlike smallpox, which is basically unchanged over the decades.
Anyway, if you're not obese, don't have a severe health problem that compromises your day-to-day living, aren't pregnant or between 6 months and 5 years of age, why buy into the panic?
Do your research - repeated injections of foreign proteins (which is what flu shots are) are implicated in several auto-immune diseases, both in animals and humans.
Some vaccines make sense. A vaccine for a rapidly-mutating, fragile/unstable virus like the flu just doesn't make sense when we have other methods that would improve health, not just against flu, but against the common cold and other problems.
Foremost - teach kids (and adults) to stop picking their noses and either eating it or wiping it somewhere, and to wash their hands.
You people stopped at the red light, digging for nose gold, then looking ahead while your finger migrates to your mouth seemingly of its' own accord - I hope your airbag goes off and shoves your finger through your nasal septum and out your eyeball - from the inside. You're adults - start acting like adults.