[RealJoe]

I will admit that I am a conspiracy type and perhaps draw connections where none exists. I am curious however about the accidental mailing of thousands of vials of this H2N2 influenza virus to research labs around the world. Now the WHO and other medical authorities are in a scramble to have those sample vials destroyed before there is an accidental release of this potentially lethal influenza.

I guess we can assume that all the modern laboratories and those connected to the informational services will dispose of these dangerous vials safely. But how about those that because of their Third World locations or other factors, don't get the message and instructions in time.
Hmmmm.....

Perhaps the elites have solutions for the problems of Peak Oil and overpopulation after all.....

[RonMN]

the H2 is NOTHING comparred to the H5N1 spreading in the asian countries...and that's been going on for quite a while now. I wouldn't concern myself much with the H2 strain (unless somebody has been messing with it to make something much deadlier).

Try a google on "bird flu" or "H5N1"

[EnemyCombatant]

If I didn't know any better, I'd swear they were trying to kill us.


Check out this eBook. It is about H5N1 but still it's a great way to inform yourself.

http://www.booklocker.com/books/1856.html

Most importantly, it has herbal remedies for fighting viruses. Which may be useful if there is an outbreak or not.


And it is my belief that PO will never become a problem. I doubt if they would release a super virus because these viruses take on a life of their own and mutate. It could mutate into something their vaccines can't cure. IT would be too risky.

IMO, a recession/depression will dramatically reduce the consumption of oil postponing PO. What's after that would be pure conjecture.

[dauterman]

If I didn't know any better, I'd swear they were trying to kill us.

Hi,

I work in a hospital laboratory (not the one that screwed up) and can explain to some extent how this accident happened.

Every Hospital Lab is required to do proficiency testing. This is where a central reference lab (in this case it was the CAP - College of American Pathologists) sends you a sample of an unknown organism. You are supposed to run tests on it and return the results to the CAP. The CAP then grades you on how you did. You have to get 80% right to pass. If you fail 2 consecutive tests you have to close down the part of your Lab that failed and kiss your job goodbye.

So some dinglebrain at CAP or their subcontractor Meridian Diagnostics got the bright idea to send out a sample of an old influenza strain from the 1950s. They must have forgotten to inactivate it which is what they are supposed to do before sending it out. Anyone born after 1968 will not be immune to this particular strain.

The testing is supposed to be done under containment that will keep anyone from being infected by the virus. In other words, the person doing the testing would have to screw up the safety precautions and would have to by younger than 37 years old to get infected. IMHO this is too many "ifs". Most likely the only consequence from the screw up will be some dinglebrain at CAP and/or Meridian will be canned from their job.

Just thank God they didn't send out samples of Rabies.

I doubt if they would release a super virus because these viruses take on a life of their own and mutate. It could mutate into something their vaccines can't cure. IT would be too risky.

Back in early 2003 for a month or two it looked like SARS was going to take out half the world's population. I am still amazed to this day that SARS got contained the way it did. My thoughts on SARS:

1. The mortality rate is much higher than flu. Maybe only one person in a thousand with flu will die. Older people (>65 yrs.) with SARS had 55% mortality, that's more than half dying. This was true even in Montreal where the medical care is as good as the US. Younger people were doing better with the caveat:

2. About 10% of young people infected with SARS would end up on a ventilator to keep them alive. Many of them took weeks to come off the ventilator. With 4000 people infected with SARS that meant 400 SARS patients on ventilators. That completely filled all the hospital beds in Singapore, Taiwan, etc that could handle ventilator patients. If another few thousand people got infected with SARS there'd be no more ventilators available - the mortality rate would go sky high. If millions got infected the medical care would be completely overwhelmed and could collapse.

3. SARS was going through a number of very poor countires in Asia that I figured would have inadquate Public Health measures to contain it.

4. SARS is still out there, hiding out in China in a kind of animal called a Civette Cat. This did not make big news but in 2003 or 2004 a worker at a restaurant in China that serves Citevve Cats got SARS. This is the last known naturally occuring case (one Lab worker got exposed later) but still it points out that SARS could come back.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[windex77]

Could the accidental pandemic flu release or the Angola Marburg outbreak be a de-population trial run? Or am I being just overly cynical and/or prone to conspiracy theories?

Related Articles:

Initial Marburg Contamination in or through Children's Vaccine? - http://discuss.agonist.org/yabbse/index ... adid=21211

Did Vaccinations Give Fatal Marburg To Angolan Kids?
http://www.rense.com/general63/mahr.htm

Marburg Seeding Linked to Childhood Vaccine Program?
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/04100 ... eding.html

Marburg Fatality Rate in Angola At 100%?
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/03310 ... ngola.html

The mysterious deaths of top microbiologists -
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/deadbiologists

********

How about the accidental release of the Pandemic Flu virus?

Realted Articles:

Pandemic-causing 'Asian flu' accidentally released -
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7261

2005 Bird Flu Parallels With the 1918 Flu Pandemic -
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/03080 ... _1918.html

The CDC is producing pandemic influenza to see how to fight it -
http://www.newstarget.com/003641.html

Flu Update--Has everything changed? -
http://influenzapandemic.blogspot.com/2 ... thing.html

1918 killer flu virus to be tested in UW lab -
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/191418_flu18.html

[gg3]

Consider this scenario:

One or two Al Qaeda "sleepers" planted in the lab that sends out the samples. Samples get sent to Middle Eastern destinations. The "sleeper" emails his Al Qaeda pals at the Middle Eastern labs and tells them to look for a package shortly.

Then, in the Middle East, the local Al Qaedas get the package, take it home to their cave, and brew up a batch big enough to weaponize. And then use it somewhere.

IMHO, Homeland Security ought to be all over CAP and Meridian Diagnostics.

[Pablo2079]

The company I work for is offering "free" flu shots today to employees.

Trying to decide whether or not to do it this year.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

I said no, but that's becasue I'm allergic to eggs, so getting the flu shot makes me sick.

[gego]

A number of years ago, I was told of an old country doctor who had managed to cure cases of Rabies (which are universally fatal) by giving the patients very hot baths several times per day which causing the temperature to rise to 105+ for periods of 30 minutes or so. This inhibited the replication of the virus.

I have experimented on myself with this whenever I start to get a cold or flu and it seems to work. It is however quite uncomfortable, and you need someone with you because you can feel faint while at elevated temperatures, particularly when you get out of the tub. A sauna might work just as well, but I do not have one.

Given the option of questionable flu shots, having the flu/cold or heating myself up, I choose the third option. I consider this powerful knowledge, especially for the possibility of a future pandemic like bird flu, where there is no conventional cure.

http://www.cehs.siu.edu/fix/medmicro/genvir.htm

A number of host defenses contribute to the prevention and/or elimination of viral infections. Nonspecific defenses include (prior to infection) anatomical barriers, viral inhibitors in fluids and tissues. Phagocytosis is somewhat variable. After infection, factors such as fever (viral replication is strongly influenced by temperature) and inflammatory processes including edema, leukocyte accumulation, local hyperthermia, reduced oxygen tension and altered cell metabolism can all act to reduce viral replication. Another important anti-viral factor is interferon.

[Pablo2079]

Interesting about the hot bath.... will have to remember that.

I went ahead and got the shot.

[alpha480v]

I get one free at work every year. Since I work in a medical center, I want that added security that the flu shot provides me.

[Doly]

My parents keep telling me to get flu shots, and I never do. I just don't think your average flu is serious enough to justify a flu shot, and besides, flu shots make you sick sometimes. And if you worry about bird flu, your average flu shot isn't going to protect you.

[max_power29]

A number of years ago, I was told of an old country doctor who had managed to cure cases of Rabies (which are universally fatal) by giving the patients very hot baths several times per day which causing the temperature to rise to 105+ for periods of 30 minutes or so. This inhibited the replication of the virus.

I have experimented on myself with this whenever I start to get a cold or flu and it seems to work. It is however quite uncomfortable, and you need someone with you because you can feel faint while at elevated temperatures, particularly when you get out of the tub. A sauna might work just as well, but I do not have one.

Given the option of questionable flu shots, having the flu/cold or heating myself up, I choose the third option. I consider this powerful knowledge, especially for the possibility of a future pandemic like bird flu, where there is no conventional cure.

http://www.cehs.siu.edu/fix/medmicro/genvir.htm

A number of host defenses contribute to the prevention and/or elimination of viral infections. Nonspecific defenses include (prior to infection) anatomical barriers, viral inhibitors in fluids and tissues. Phagocytosis is somewhat variable. After infection, factors such as fever (viral replication is strongly influenced by temperature) and inflammatory processes including edema, leukocyte accumulation, local hyperthermia, reduced oxygen tension and altered cell metabolism can all act to reduce viral replication. Another important anti-viral factor is interferon.

A friend of mine has reported heating himself up with a very warm sleeping bag and it works quickly. I havent tried it though

[WildRose]

My employer encourages all employees to get a flu shot (actually provides them for no charge), but I've never had one and have managed to have only occasional mild colds. My feeling is that adequate rest, lots of fruits and vegetables and good outlets for daily stress build-up go a long way in preventing illness. Also, if you can avoid crowded places during the flu season (especially doctors' waiting rooms!) it helps.

[PrairieMule]

Never have, never will. Like UE, I too am alergic to eggs.

[smallpoxgirl]

Couple of thoughts about flu shots. First, I think it's really dumb to vacinate yourself against diseases for comfort reasons. In order to function properly, IMHO, the immune system needs to rev itself up and beat off a disease from time to time. I strongly suspect that the abuse of comfort vacines may have a lot to do with all the rampant autoimmune and allergic illnesses we see these days. By comfort vacinations, I mean things like chickenpox where the impact of the vacine is not in death and disability but in parents not having to stay home from work.

For young healthy people, I would consider the flu vacine to be a comfort vacine and would recommend against getting it. For the elderly and people with chronic medical problems, its a more complex story. These are people that, if they get the flu, would be at risk of getting really sick, ending up in the hospital, even dying. In theory, the flu vacine is a killed vacine. You aren't supposed to be able to get the flu from the vacine. However....I have had the flu exactly twice in my adult life. One of those was last year. One of the people where I was staying brought it home, and the whole house caught it. The other time was when I was a first year medical student. That time I had no exposures and in fact was pretty much sequestered away in my apartment studying with very little interaction with other people. I had, however, gotten a flu shot 5 days before I got sick. Now the scientists will say that I just must have gotten exposed some other way and not known about it. I'm skeptical. I do recommend the flu shot to elderly and chronically ill people, but I really do fret about whether one of them is going to get sick from the vacine and die.

[AgentR]

I do recommend the flu shot to elderly and chronically ill people, but I really do fret about whether one of them is going to get sick from the vacine and die.

I think the risk of getting sick and dieing from the vaccine is likely less than the risk of getting the flu in the wild and dieing. A couple years ago, I got the vaccine, then three months later was exposed to a bunch of people from various international locations, and managed to get the flu anyway (honest, positive influenza test at the doc's office). It was also the first time in a long time that I've beaten a flu in under a week, and so it didn't have enough time to really launch the bronchitis...

Doc said, even if the selected strains aren't a match for what you get, often they are similar enough to give you a head start. For me, that was the difference between a week down and three months down.

Worth the risk... from one persons perspective....

[smallpoxgirl]

I think the risk of getting sick and dieing from the vaccine is likely less than the risk of getting the flu in the wild and dieing.

Well...I agree. Like I said, I do follow the guidelines and recommend it to at risk patients. Based on my personal experience though, I really do worry about how much the improvement is. It's not really very comforting to give a patient a medicine when the risk of them dying from it starts to come close to the risk of them dying without it.

[PrairieMule]

I think a little proactive prevention goes as far as Flu shot. For several years I have zapped all countertops, doorknobs, and handles with clorox cleaning products followed up by active hand washing. Not to the point of being a germaphobe, but just common sense.

Dr. SPG this is the second time I have seen you advise that the body can overcome and handle most non-life threatening viruses and germs by staying healthy. The first being your views on Crypto Guardia a year ago in American stream water. Are you of that opinion that in most cases a healthy body is more adaptable w/o chemistry? Do we sometimes loose our immunity and constitution's effectivenes with modern medicine?

Thanks!

BTW-You can bill this as a consultation to United Healthcare my group# is 760551. I have enough coverage and low enough deductable to barf up a lung

[BlisteredWhippet]

I too, am allergic to eggs. I also agree with smallpox girl.

The only real reason flu-shots are government and industry sponsored is because economists have measured its impact on GNP.

Besides which, in this country, working while sick is considered some kind of duty with a certain amount of honor. Something to brag about. Find a type A and you will be able to harvest quite a few Tylenol Cold liqui-gels from his desk, bedroom, glove compartment, shirt pocket, etc.

I'm talking about the tee-totaling yet eternally unhealthy people that nonetheless consider a hot cup of Lemon flavored Acetominophen and Dextromethorphan a "good trip".

I think that for a lot of people, hypochondriacs not withstanding, the OTC drug market is like a candy store. The establishment drug of choice.