Your Opinion on Swine Flu and Shots

[Juliette]

Originally Posted by kaan

I seems I wont need to have to take the shots when they come.
Sadly it is because I have the flu right now :/

Owww

How are you doing, right now?

Time to stay under cover with a nice (e-)book, orange juice, the occasional cat (if you like them!) and lot of sleeping time.

[kaan]

Originally Posted by Juliette

Owww

How are you doing, right now?

Time to stay under cover with a nice (e-)book, orange juice, the occasional cat (if you like them!) and lot of sleeping time.

I'm doing ok I guess.

I don't have any cats, but my dog does make a lovely warm bundle by my feet

I'm drinking apple juice and I can't concentrate enough to read anything more than 10~ lines at a time.

Conclusion: I'm doing it all wrong

[pdurrant]

It sounds quite good that way round - in lucky places only 2% died of the 30% who caught it. That's a chance of dying of 1 in 150.

Overall the situation was at best this:
World population in 1918 - about 1.6 billion.
Deaths from the Spanish Flu - at least 20 million
So chances of dying from the flu was: 1 in 80. And that's a minimum

I think that a disease that suddenly appears and kills 1 in 80 people is something to watch for, and to work to prevent or ameliorate.

Seasonal Flu does kill people each year. The numbers currently run at less than half a million a year, or 1 in 12,000. Mostly among the unwell elderly and the very young. The Spanish flu mostly killed people between ages 20 and 40.

The attention paid to new strains of flu is a sensible response to a real threat.

Originally Posted by ahi

Indeed.

There was a 66% chance that you wouldn't catch the flu to begin with, and if you did, there was an 80% - 90% or higher chance that you would recover to full health and experience no lasting health impact.

In fact, the wikipedia article suggests that there were places where the mortality rate was as small as 2%. If you were living in those areas, your chances of survival--even if you fell into the unlucky 33% that caught the flu--was 98%.

There are lottery games with better odds that smart people still refuse to play.

The above, of course, doesn't change the reality of the 1918 flu outbreak... but it might help give some people a slightly saner perspective than is normally touted.

- Ahi

[Juliette]

It's a sensible reaction to be worried by past death rates, of course, but at least in most Western countries the conditions of public health have strongly emproved since the 1910s; also, we're talking about generations who for the greatest part have got a better healthcare since infancy, haven't known famine (= body more resistant) and are generally more aware of health issues (in this, we're a relatively lucky bunch- apart from cruch and other "niceties"). If I were to study the problem, I'd probably look more to the data from the Asian flu of the late 1950s, when population's condition was a bit more similar to the one we have now, even with the war and with the notable difference of the best-loved targets of this flu. Well, I don't know if history repeats itself, but surely doesn't duplicate exactly

I am not saying that it's not dangerous; just, as Douglas Adams would put it, don't panic. Be careful, but not obsessed.

[krisk]

the problem is that healthy people ARE dying in hospital with the best health care around. that is what has people in a frenzy. not that the "usual suspects" are succumbing, but the ones that shouldn't die, are dying

[majaka]

Originally Posted by krisk

the problem is that healthy people ARE dying in hospital with the best health care around. that is what has people in a frenzy. not that the "usual suspects" are succumbing, but the ones that shouldn't die, are dying

But that´s the thing... WHO is dying??

[kaan]

Originally Posted by majaka

But that´s the thing... WHO is dying??

I'm happy to report that it wasn't me

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by krisk

the problem is that healthy people ARE dying in hospital with the best health care around. that is what has people in a frenzy. not that the "usual suspects" are succumbing, but the ones that shouldn't die, are dying

A very small proportion of "perfectly healthy" people die from ANY infection; they just have some odd reaction to it. That's they way it goes. No call to "panic" about it. It's unfortunate for them, but it doesn't mean that you are at risk.

[DixieGal]

Today, a whole suite of admin offices is closed because nobody showed up, all called in sick or with family issues. Tim and I are both achy, coughing, chest aching, runny noses, but no fever. Since he retired last month, he has gotten up to eat cereal with me in the morning, but not this morning.

Or it could just be the perpetual rain making us feel icky.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

Today, a whole suite of admin offices is closed because nobody showed up, all called in sick or with family issues. Tim and I are both achy, coughing, chest aching, runny noses, but no fever. Since he retired last month, he has gotten up to eat cereal with me in the morning, but not this morning.

Or it could just be the perpetual rain making us feel icky.

The guidance that's being given in this country is that if you don't have a high temperature, you've not got Swine Flu.

[BenG]

I getting my annual flu shot at work next week. It's the regular flu vaccine, not for swine flu.

[Sparrow]

UK Nursing Times article may be of interest: "Heart attack swine flu link discovered".

[jenieliser]

I'm not too worried about it. I have a cold right now, not achy though so I'm not freaking out. Although, I am one of those people who would rather not think about something so that I don't worry. Needless to say I am not thinking about the swine flu. In my area it hasn't been much of an outbreak. We had a couple reports, but even then there were maybe underlying causes. If I get worse, maybe achy or whatever, I may consider going to the doctor. But as it is I'm just stuffy headed and tired, oh and sneezing my head off.

[ryan6563]

I was reading an article on birdflu. I just want to share the that with you.

http://www.caring.com/news/new-weapo...attle-bird-flu

[nohmi2]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

I personally believe that its all hype. This "pandemic" is nothing but bullsh*t to get people to take the vaccine. Compare the numbers who have died to Swine Flu to the numbers who have died to regular flu. It's a drop in the bucket. Hundreds compared to Hundreds of Thousands.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/28...flu/index.html



So, 150 deaths compared to an annual deathrate of half a million, and this swine flu is supposed to be a pandemic?! The vaccine, the H1N1, is a still yet unproven vaccine, and has caused many deaths just in itself.

I whole-heartedly believe that the H1N1 virus is nothing more than a means of genocide, and whoever is behind the manufacturer and marketing of this vaccine did so with the sole intention of killing off many of the world's population.

If their bodies cannot take the vaccine, they are weak, and therefore should be eliminated in order to strengthen the strain of the human organism. If the strongest man multiplies, and the weaker man is killed off, it will be an age of supermen.

Granted, this seems a bit far-fetched, but tell me this...what other reason is there for wanting to destroy the weaker strains of humanity? That's all this drug will be doing.

Conspiracy Theory? Yes.
Plausible? Yes.
Likely? Who can say for sure.

Like yourself, I have also been reading about the H1N1 flu shot, and quite frankly I do not like what I am finding out about it. From it's inception (Baxter really messed up) to the hype (with scare tactics) it doesn't seem that we are being given all of the information to make an educated choice.

That is not to say that I think that all vaccines are dangerous. I remember the days poliomyelitis, chicken pox and all of the rest. Also whooping cough which is hearbreaking to watch in babies.

This one I am wary of.

Cheers