Oh noes...everybody panic!

JasperPants

Well Jasper, in spite of your most enlightening comment, i think we would be wise to pay attention to this issue.
Seems like Tony Clements has a handle on it, but there are things we can do individually.
Panic is not the way, but a little proactivity wouldnt hurt.

Even scarier is that our healthcare system is stretched way beyond it's limits and we have a shortage of doctors and nurses day to day in Canada. On the bright side, it may be very cost effective for the existing system.

The New Medical Tyranny

What people should know, the lack of sustained human-to-human transmission suggests that this AH5N1 avian virus does not currently have the capacity to cause a human pandemic. The extensive media coverage of avian influenza (bird flu) propaganda over recent months has caused confusion and increasing concern that bird flu will imminently cause a human pandemic.

One day after officials revealed wild birds carrying the H5 strain of avian flu virus have been found in Canada, the nation's chief public health officer is urging Canadians not to panic. "The first thing to know is that it's a huge leap for a bird virus to become a human virus that spreads efficiently in people," said Dr. David Butler-Jones

British Medical Journal features an editorial on the bird flu in which they state the following: The lack of sustained human-to-human transmission suggests that this AH5N1 avian virus does not currently have the capacity to cause a human pandemic.

The extensive media coverage of avian influenza (bird flu) over recent months has caused confusion and increasing concern that bird flu will imminently cause a human pandemic. "Finally, the pieces of the puzzle start to add up," writes Dr. Joseph Mercola, author of the "Total Health Program." "The Governments are trying to instill panic in this country by telling us a minimum of 200,000 people will die from the avian flu pandemic but it could be as bad as 2 million deaths in this country alone."

In a surprise announcement, scientists in the US say they have recreated the influenza virus that killed at least 50 million people in 1918, and they have infected mice with it. They say the need to understand how flu viruses cause lethal pandemics outweighs any safety risks. But the risks may not be negligible. Meanwhile, Terrence Tumpey at the US Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and colleagues used the sequences to rebuild the virus itself, and infect mice with it. They report this week that unlike other flu viruses, 1918 does not need a protein-splitting enzyme from its surroundings to replicate, instead using some hitherto-unknown mechanism. And as in 1918, it rapidly destroys lungs (Science, vol 310, p 77).

If such a virulent virus escaped it could cause serious illness and death. But CDC director Julie Gerberding says that in the event of an accidental release, drugs, vaccines and people’s existing immunity would limit the risk.

"It makes it sound when you listen to the news like it's imminent and everybody better get their mask fitted," Boyd says. "There's an awful lot of hype about it. So far, there isn't a pandemic. Therein lies the problem for pandemic planners and society as a whole, though many people may not have grasped it yet. The only time governments, hospitals, municipalities and companies can plan for a pandemic - whether by laying in drugs, signing vaccine contracts, stockpiling syringes and medical masks or preparing business contingency plans - is before such an event starts.

Osterholm, who heads the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Prevention at the University of Minnesota, says the inability to predict the timing or the strain of the next pandemic shouldn't deter governments, communities and companies from urgently improving their state of readiness.

By painstakingly piecing together viral fragments from hospital specimens and a victim buried in Alaskan permafrost, Jeff Taubenberger and colleagues at the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rockville, Maryland, have now sequenced all eight coding regions of the 1918 flu virus’s genome. They published the last three - coding for the polymerase complex that allows the virus to replicate - on Wednesday (Nature DOI: 10.1038/nature04230).

Saturation news is scaring the average citizen, who can do little as a individual to mitigate the blow a pandemic would level, he insists. "If you get government to work on avian influenza by crying wolf about a pandemic and then the pandemic never arrives, the next time people aren't paying attention. Or they're more cynical about it," "This is why I think it's basically a harmful situation to be squawking as much as people are."

After all you can't make any real money for the government without a boogeyman, and the new "Bird Flu" hoax is the latest scam used to generate profits for pharmaceutical company insiders. "This hoax is then used to justify the immediate purchase of 80 million doses of Tamiflu, a worthless drug that in no way shape or form treats the avian flu, but only decreases the amount of days one is sick and can actually contribute to the virus having more lethal mutations. In other words, the "Bird Flu" scam will generate outrageous profits for globalist-insiders like Shultz, Rumsfeld, Davignon, and de Vink.

And where did Tamiflu come from?

According to the Gilead website, "In September 1996, Gilead and F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. entered into a collaborative agreement to develop and market therapies that treat and prevent viral influenza. Under the agreement, Roche received exclusive worldwide rights to Gilead's proprietary influenza neuraminidase inhibitors, including orally administered Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate), formerly known as GS 4104. As part of this collaboration, Gilead and Roche jointly conducted clinical development of oseltamivir phosphate, with Roche funding all research and development costs.Roche has worldwide commercial rights to Tamiflu, and Gilead receives payments from Roche for the successful completion of program milestones and royalties on product sales." (http://www.gilead.com/wt/sec/partners)

It should be remembered that Rumsfeld loves pharmaceutical scams. It was after all Rumsfeld, as chairman of G.D. Searle, who pressured the FDA to get Aspartame approved. The FDA blocked its approval for ten years before Rumsfeld twisted arms and broke who knows how many legs at the FDA. Now Aspartame, an artificial sweetener as ubiquitous as it is toxic, continues to poison America and the world.

Mad Scientists creating death pandemic

Scientists at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg plan to follow the lead of American researchers and resurrect the virus that caused the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, a development that has led to calls for international oversight and control of the dreaded bug.

The Canadian researchers plan to bring the virus to life using pieces of DNA containing the genetic recipe for the virus, said Dr. Frank Plummer, scientific director of the lab. The virus will be recreated inside living cells, then harvested and used to infect animals in an attempt to identify what made the virus so virulent.

Depending on how quickly the scientists work, Plummer says they could have live 1918 flu virus within six months.

The micro-organism killed as many as 50 million people when it swept around the world in 1918-19. There are fears an accidental release of the recreated virus could be catastrophic. Jens Kuhn, a virologist and bio-weapons expert at Harvard Medical School, says the Canadian project -- which has been approved to proceed without international approval and oversight.

In other words it is starting to become a health risk and it is now more dangerous than either the common cold or west nile.

Pretty soon it will be as dangerous as driving a car.

Seriously 218 cases in the center of a population of millions?? I understand that the mortality rate is high. And we should definately work with the medical community to minimize risk to people.

But please, dispense with the hysteria surrounding stuff like bird flu, BSE, foot and mouth, and west nile, etc. Take a step back and a deep breath and do some risk assessment. I mean today you are in more danger from the stairs in your house than you are from one of these.

I agree hysteria is not what is needed and a few precautions will help but the fact remains that we are overdue for a global pandemic. Global populations have never been higher and poverty and unsanitary conditions in much of the world have helped to give furtile ground for this to develop. I guess everyone could play ostrich and stick their heads in the proverbial sand but the fact remains that if the conditions are right and a strain becomes virulent enough to spread quickly through human to human means, then a pandemic is likely.
Some time ago, researchers did a test (and no doubt have done many more since). They spread a harmless bacteria around in a single location and within thity six hours it was alive and well in every major airport in the world.
I believe more people were killed in the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 than were killed in World War 1. 40 million people died by some estimates. In India alone 16 million people were killed.
Even with our better medical practices today, we need to be vigilant. Think of how SARS affected Canada and how long it took to figure it out, we may not have the luxury of enough time to produce vaccines or to put proper procedures and protocals in place.
Panic...No. Prepare...Absolutely!
Daniel

OMIGOD We're all going to die.

I am getting really really fed up with
this hysteria.

...oh no!! The long planned/predicted Pandemic scare is upon us...quickly, suspend the constitution, impose martial law, warm up the mass "holding sites" for dissenters, isolate populations in urban centers and start RFID tagging and innoculating these cattle...er.. um.. I mean civilians...FEMA's ready, how about you? ;-)

"Think of how SARS affected Canada"

yeah, that was funny. A handful of cases in toronto, and even a couple deaths. People were wearing masks all over the country. (btw, a surgical mask is only effective for about 4 hours then it no longer filters stuff out properly. And if you were to take it off to eat or drink the inside is immediately contaminated)

Don't get me wrong, I am sorrrowful for the lives that were (directly) affected and even more for those that were lost.

But remember, it was almost immediately contained by our medical system. And look at the uproar that a bug that killed almost as many as a serial killer caused.

It could have been much worse, but don't think someone in Vancouver or Saskatoon wearing a mask is reducing the spread of an already isolated occurance in Toronto.

What does "being prepared" mean? There are things that individuals can do to be better prepared for not only a pandemic, but any major disruption of services resulting from pandemic, storm, earthquake, terrorist attack, etc. These are things that will allow them to look after themselves without outside help for a while. If there is a pandemic, they can stay home and minimize the risk of infection and transmission. And in any disruption of services, by taking care of themselves, they can reduce the burden for those providing disaster relief.

Being prepared includes things like keeping a supply of drinking water, storing food (and using stored food routinely, so that the supply is rotated and kept current), and having a way to keep warm in at least part of one's living space without relying on utility gas or electricity.

IMPORTANT: CTV Newsnet just reported that white wine has some of the same ingredients or effects or something like that as the Tamilflu vaccine(hey, it was a ten second clip and I was reading the Post). Take your medicine!

infidel: LMAO
The best part of that medecine is that even if it doesnt work, - who cares?lol

I found this opinion column a while back. A lesson in taking a deep breath.
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If everything is killing us, why do we live so long?
By Jeff Randall (Filed: 31/03/2006)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/03/31/ccjeff31.xml