Swine flu no worse than regular flu, Napolitano says

reply to post by FlyersFan

And your overblown fear mongering is helping how?

And what I was talking about was the latent power of individual human potential, to create a better world, infinitely better in fact, than the one being dished out to us by the PTB and swallowed hook, line and sinker by the unsuspecting masses held in the grip of fear.

reply to post by unityemissions

There's wisdom in where you're coming from, and I hear you, but there've been these kinds of massive shifts in human history before. Don't underestimate the power of an idea and an ideal who's time has come.

I've looked at it and have evaluated that the only possible rational response to it all is optimism and idealism, and to never stop pushing the envelope, and people, with compassion.

It would be interesting to look back from the year 2100.. to see how we did.

Originally posted by OmegaPoint
And your overblown fear mongering is helping how?

Telling the truth isn't fear mongering. It's telling the truth no matter how the government and authorities are trying to cover it up.

Telling the truth is a hell of a lot more helpful then this -

How about everybody just take a nice breath of fresh air, and RELAX! Then, turn OFF the TV, and make sure you give and recieve at least four hugs per day, and then maybe we can BEGIN to figure out how to make this world a better place for one and all.

You've GOT to be freak'n kidding me.
See how well your four hugs a day keeps the virus away.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials now recommend that schools stop closing when a case of swine flu is confirmed at a school, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday.

Scientists believe the H1N1 virus epidemic is no more dangerous than seasonal flu, and schools should act accordingly, Sebelius said.

"This virus does not seem to be as severe as we once thought it would be," she said at the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sick students should be kept home for seven days, she said, "but the schools should feel comfortable about opening."

www.cnn.com...

[edit on 6-5-2009 by OmegaPoint]

reply to post by OmegaPoint

And your overblown fear mongering is helping how?

FlyersFan is not a fear monger, but rather a respected member of ATS, who has shown over many posts, to be a realist.
Sometimes the truth hurts, but hiding from it, won't make it go away.
I would suggest explaining your opinions, without labeling people, or name calling. Let's try to respect each other, even if we disagree.

Peace

Ok, let me put it into perspective. Approx 28,000 Americans die each year from complications due to the regular flu, and this flu is considered no more dangerous, perhaps even less so.

All the media hype got to people, and if there's any psy-op type element being used for political power purposes, I just hate to see people get taken in by it, that's all.

reply to post by OmegaPoint

Actually, the CDC doesn't agree with you or Napolitano.

www.alertnet.org...

US public at risk from complacency over flu -CDC

ATLANTA, May 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. public could become more vulnerable to a flu pandemic if complacency about the need for heightened vigilance sets in, health experts said on Wednesday.

Those concerns would escalate if the H1N1 virus that has killed two people in the United States and made 642 others sick mutates into a more virulent form by the start of the traditional flu season in the fall.

...

The CDC has spent years preparing for a pandemic and ranks communicating with the public on an equal footing with studying potential viruses and finding vaccines.

Dozens of scientists and public health specialists work amid a low volume of chatter at its 24/7 Emergency Operation Center, which is equipped with computer monitors, table lamps and hand sanitizer.

Teams of scientists collate and analyze data while others provide input on subjects ranging from ethics to policy to how to deal with the media.

The room is dominated by a series of flat-screen televisions set on one wall, each showing a critical piece of information and one tuned to CNN.

Elsewhere at the CDC, researchers are monitoring the virus to see if it could mutate into a more deadly strain.

They are conscious of a historic parallel -- in 1918, a relatively mild flu pandemic emerged, only to return with a vengeance months later to kill millions.

I think it is way too early to make any definitive statement one way or the other. I think an abundance of caution is the safest path right now, don't you?

I sanitized my hands four times today and I pull on door handles where I don't think other people have touched them as much, so sure, why not?

And it may be too early, but the freak'n HYPE and FEAR and PANIC over this thing has been through the ROOF!

Just look at and read the threads here at ATS!

It's no wonder the mainstream newsmedia LOVE reporting on this kind of thing and over do it - it's what sells, and it's that aspect of our society that I find disturbing.

People are so quick to jump and freak right out over worse case scenarios, and then they actually SPREAD that fear to their neighbor, to try to get everyone ELSE just as freaked out as they are. Like I said, it's human nature and understandable, but a little perspective might be in order here, and yes, some peace of mind and calmness.

It's been out of control you must admit that right?

Just look at and read the threads around here - it's NUTS!

Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
reply to post by OmegaPoint

 

Actually, the CDC doesn't agree with you or Napolitano.

www.alertnet.org...

US public at risk from complacency over flu -CDC

ATLANTA, May 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. public could become more vulnerable to a flu pandemic if complacency about the need for heightened vigilance sets in, health experts said on Wednesday.

Those concerns would escalate if the H1N1 virus that has killed two people in the United States and made 642 others sick mutates into a more virulent form by the start of the traditional flu season in the fall.

...

The CDC has spent years preparing for a pandemic and ranks communicating with the public on an equal footing with studying potential viruses and finding vaccines.

Dozens of scientists and public health specialists work amid a low volume of chatter at its 24/7 Emergency Operation Center, which is equipped with computer monitors, table lamps and hand sanitizer.

Teams of scientists collate and analyze data while others provide input on subjects ranging from ethics to policy to how to deal with the media.

The room is dominated by a series of flat-screen televisions set on one wall, each showing a critical piece of information and one tuned to CNN.

Elsewhere at the CDC, researchers are monitoring the virus to see if it could mutate into a more deadly strain.

They are conscious of a historic parallel -- in 1918, a relatively mild flu pandemic emerged, only to return with a vengeance months later to kill millions.

I think it is way too early to make any definitive statement one way or the other. I think an abundance of caution is the safest path right now, don't you?

What the CDC "recommends" is that you treat the swine flu the same as you would treat any other flu, which is funny because last time I checked we never had this much news coverage over the infectious spread and deaths of the regular flu...ever.

So if we want to talk about being a realist, let be real. The swine flu was never as bad as the media and everyone hyped it to be. It's killed two (2)people out of 300 MILLION (300,000,000) in the US. It was new, and for many, new = scary. And we all know what scary = ... excellent news coverage.
The more the news covered this "new and scary" flu the more afraid people got...until people suddenly realized "wtf? its been three weeks and I dont know a damn person who got this scary flu that CNN said is invading America and will kill me while I sleep...somethings up."

The CDC is correct in saying that this may mutate into something else down the road, but freaking no #, thats what the flu does. I feel like I'm listening to Bush when he was selling the public on the idea of "weapons of mass destruction," except its the CDC and the flu is the terrorist

reply to post by xEphon


Your logic doesn't make sense to me. It's as if you think the swine flu has died down?!
Testing is selective, based on new cases geographically. They're seriously only testing a small percentage of suspected cases, then moving on. Even while doing this, they can't keep up with the amount of samples to be processed. This is far from over.

The numbers are growing at an alarming rate. There is no sign this is slowing down, as far as I can see. Is there something I'm missing here? Perhaps I'm not getting some information from MSM that others are. As I stated, I don't watch the tele.

Some people do know others who are infected. Most still don't yet. The likely number of currently infected is still in the thousands, while there's billions of people out there. It's understandable.

Let's guestimate there's 67,000 real world cases that are currently symptomatic. That would be one in a hundred thousand globally.

Don't try to use this logic to belittle the # of cases either. This is growing logarithmically, so that could be one in a hundred within 6 months!

reply to post by OmegaPoint


35,000 Americans die from the SEASONAL flu each year.
This is NOT the seasonal flu.
There is absolutely NO IMMUNITY in the population from this.
The behavior of this flu is .. so far .. mirroring the 1918 flu.

The flu numbers you are reading are false.
People are not being tested unless the case is 'severe'.
Example - 20 people were tested at the University of Delaware.
All 20 were positive for swine flu.
But 400 actually showed up sick at the clinic.
(source - New Journal, Wilmington DE)

The WHO says we are at a level 5.
However, by their own standards we should have been a level 6 weeks ago.

There is obviously a news cap on all this information.
You have a pollyanna view of the Swine Flu based on lack of information.

I wonder how the news and governments will hide the truth from the people in the fall if the bodies start piling up? that's when the MANDATORY 'flu' vaccination will happen. God only knows what they will really put in those MANDATORY shots. And yes .. Obama used the word MANDATORY.

Originally posted by Albertarocks
And yet, the WHO is about to declare phony panic level 6? When does the insanity stop?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Yes, to me its just a huge contradiction, the public is pretty confused as it is and now we have two powerful healthorgans with a different view on the subject. From now on I will rely only on my own countrys institute for infectous disease control. I believe they are among the best in the world.

/Cheers and bye swine flu threads and MSM and CDC.

[edit on 2009/5/7 by reugen]

Quotes from "The Coming Plague"
By Laurie Garrett (written in 1994)

Chapter Six ... Swine Flu

A hallmark of the great 1918-10 influenza pandemic was the virus's ability to kill young adults and children. ....

The influenza virus was otherwise well protected by a tough protein-and-fat armor made of two layer sof viral enveloping: one layer was almost entirely composed of the human heart's nemesis, cholesterol. ....

The virus (1918 Flu) appears to have swept the world in three waves, over less than two years time, gaining virelence with each new assault.....

The appearance of the Fort Dix virus, dubbed A/Newjersey/H1N1 caused consideralbe anxiety inside the U.S. Public Health Service. "By every available scientific measure, the Shope strain was indistinushable from the 1918 strain, and also indisinguishable from the Fort Dix strain." ...

... influenza viruses unusually rich in neuraminidase proteins were more easily spread from person to person. ...

Several scientists argued that swine strains, in particular, appeared in 90-100 year cycles ...

... there had been a long spring-to-summer silence (of the flu) following the first flu outbreaks of 1918 - a silence that was followed in September by the greatest pandemic of the early twentieth century. "To decide not to do something, to decide to go on pause because the virus went on pause, " Osborn argued in long conference alls to fellow scientists, "would be utterly irresponsible." ....

Swine influenzas, Cox would later explain, were particularly worrisome because peigs were highly permissive hosts, capable of harboring influenzas froma wide range of animals, birds, and humans. Inside the swine, variuos influenza strains shared genes, and recombined, resulting in major antigen shifts. ...

Stated as certainties, rather than hypothetical conjectures, were the following points listed under the memo's heading "FACTS" : The virus found at Fort Dix is 'antigenically related to the influenza virus which has been implicated as the cause of the 1918-19 pandemic which killed 450,000 American people; every American undre the age of fifty 'is probably susceptible to this new strain"; severe flu epidemics occur at approximately ten year intervals." ....

... (1918) influenza deaths were usually produced not by the virus but secondarily by bacterial infections that took advantage of the weakened immune defenses of influenza-infected lunchs. Bacterial penumonia ...

... a minimum of 85 percent of high-risk populations would have to be vaccinated to ensure society's protection against an analogous epidemic ....

1976 Swine Flu vaccination problems -

The CDC continued to downplay the association between the vaccine and the syndrome (Guillain-Barre), though agency insiders had already concluded that the Guillain-Barre rate among those vaccinated against Swine Flu was at least four times that in the unvaccinated population. ...

The researchers concluded that America's normal, inexplicable Gullain-Barre rate was about one case in every million people per year, for an expected 1976 total of some 215 cases. But among Swine Flu vaccine recipients, the attack rate was about ten times greater, at one case every 100,000 Americans. ....

Those are just some of the interesting quotes about Swine Flu in the 750 page book. Honestly .. a lot of what we are hearing about with this latest Swine Flu outbreak sounds like the 1918 outbreak.