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Originally posted by 27jd
We should just try and avoid making out with birds til this thing blows over, no matter how much alcohol is consumed.
Originally posted by CogitoErgoSum1
Am I to understand that the use of H5N1 to scare people into believing there would be a pandemic has been 12 years in the making?
The fact that Rumsfeld sat on Gilead's board for 12 years and was chairmen from 1997-2001, recused himself from Gilead after joining the Bush Administration
was all a plot for him to make some cash by scaring the American people or those from other countries into thinking that we would need to stockpile Tamiflu for prevention purposes?
It makes me wonder who was profiting from the sell of “duct tape” when we were told that “duct tape” to seal our windows would help during a biological attack or any company/individuals that profit from situations such as these for that matter.
Originally posted by soficrow
only opportunities - for profit.
Originally posted by CogitoErgoSum1
Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead's board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005 and the wife of former California Gov. Pete Wilson is also a shareholder. All these guys are dirty ....... From Martha Stewart on up and down the block.
[edit on 5-12-2005 by CogitoErgoSum1]
Originally posted by soficrow
The closing paragraph of the article you linked highlights the real crisis here - the bird flu pandemic is being (mis)handled as a potential "market" - not a looming public health crisis.
Originally posted by hands
Oh and what about the research being done on drug therapy for cytokine storms that seems to have stalled...
Originally posted by soficrow
Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV
The news on Tamiflu has been out for a while, it isn't designed to combat Avian influenza strain H5N1, the governments are telling us that they hope scientists can use it as a starting point for the vaccine that will kill H5N1.
Odd, that info snippet. Tamiflu isn't even a vaccine - how could it be the 'starting point' for an H5N1 vaccine. Especially when there aleady are existent H5N1 vaccines?
In any case, H5N1 will not be the super flu, but a new strain mutated from it, most probably a combination of birdflu and swine flu. H5N1 bird flu can, so far, only be transmitted human-to-human by contact with blood. Swine flue is a little different and therefore nastier. It just isn't as deadly.
H5N1 does not require species specific genetic components. Other flus normally reassort with swine flu, but H5N1 does not need to go through that process.
Don't know where you get your info about blood - any references? My research shows that even feathers are considered a vector - and that the dominant route of transmission is respiratory.
Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV
H5N1 is passed from bird to human through dired and powdered faeces being inhaled, which is why the primary victims have been poultry farmers.
Relatives of avian flu patients have asymptomatic cases
Mar 9, 2005 (CIDRAP News) – Two relatives of avian influenza patients in northern Vietnam have tested positive for the virus without being sick, according to reports from Vietnam today.
............
researchers have recently described several instances of person-to-person transmission.
Now there is evidence that in rare cases it can spread from person to person.
Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV
feathers?
Feather pillows may carry Asian bird flu
Poultry feathers imported from China to make products such as pillows could carry the avian flu virus, says a British microbiologist who is urging the British Government to consider banning them.
H5N1 certainly does need to go through a recombination process before it can be passed human to human.
If H5N1 could be passed human to human we'd already be dead.
Perhaps vaccine is the wrong medical term. I'm not a doctor and tend to use the wrong terms for the wrong ilnesses and medications, ie virus/bacteria and vaccine/whatever.
Either way, the governments are telling us they hope Tamiflu can be the starting point of a bird-flu specific drug.
If there was already an H5N1 vaccine out there why isn't it being distributed?
Originally posted by hands
Flu Wiki - Cytokine Storms
That has the info about cytokines and the drug that has yet to be developed.
The 1918 virus was avian and is closely genetically related to H5N1 It didn't reassort merely adapted itself to humans.
Bird Flu: Why Worry Now?
Bird Flu and Beyond: Chronic Disease to Kill 400 Million
Bird Flu and Beyond: Assisted Suicide Instead of Prevention
Quarantine: A Standard Depopulation Strategy
Originally posted by Shadowflux
It seems to me that the elusive h5n1 is nothing more than a red herring.
If h5n1 has been around since 1965 or earlier isn't it rather likely that there are a few people in it's area of origin that already have an immunity to this particular strain of flu?
Originally posted by soficrow
I suspect the fear-mongering obscures the real situation - that H5N1 already is epidemic, and causing a worldwide epidemic of chronic disease.
.
Originally posted by LazarusTheLong
Originally posted by soficrow
I suspect the fear-mongering obscures the real situation - that H5N1 already is epidemic, and causing a worldwide epidemic of chronic disease.
.
Wouldn't that be "possibly fatal" disease, rather than a chronic one that will debilitate over time... since the ones that dont die, will get well eventually?
As i understand it, this is a killer, or you get over it... mostly based upon your level of resistance... artificial organ support thru the worst part of the infection, seems to be the only manmade help available right now...
Mar 23, 2005 (CIDRAP News) – Three universities have begun recruiting volunteers for the first US clinical trial of a vaccine against H5N1 avian influenza, a key piece of the government's efforts to stave off a potential flu pandemic.
Researchers plan to recruit 450 adults to test the safety and immunogenicity of a vaccine made from an H5N1 virus isolated in Asia in 2004, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced today.
"The initiation of this vaccine trial marks a key advance in our efforts to prepare to respond to an avian flu pandemic," said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, MD, in a news release.
www.cidrap.umn.edu...
Originally posted by 27jd
Has anybody addressed the vaccine, not Tamiflu, but the actual vaccine that is or was going through human trials?
Trials of the vaccine on human volunteers began several months ago at three university-based centers in the United States—the University of Rochester, the University of Maryland at Baltimore, and the University of California, Los Angeles. The vaccine so far has been given to 452 healthy adults to ascertain the immune response and to evaluate its safety profile.
Early trials results, reported by the New York Times and the Washington Post Saturday, showed good results after an initial dose and a booster dose given 4 weeks later. NIAID Director Anthony Fauci is quoted in the Times story as saying, "It's good news. We have a vaccine."
Preliminary results obtained from 115 (some sources say 113) of the vaccine recipients showed a strong enough immune response to ward off the virus. Results are awaited on the remaining subjects, but Fauci said he expects them to parallel those already in. The doses that were most effective contained 90 micrograms of H5N1 antigen in each of two shots, compared with the 15 micrograms of antigen given via a single injection in typical annual flu vaccinations.
www.cidrap.umn.edu...