Then swine flu farce...

A friend I used to go to college with ended up with swine flu, to quote him directly, "I've had hangovers that were worse."

 

How many people die from car accidents every year? Not that I'm trying to make a point with this; I really don't know, and thought it might make an interesting comparison. Still, a pandemic is likely to instill more fear, and could have devastating effects on the economy, especially tourism.

 

The term "pandemic" relates to the spread of a disease, not its severity.

Tom

 

Drug makers would like nothing better than forced flu vaccine. They are heavy TV advertisers. Hence the media over-coverage on their behalf. At least it's not Octomom news.

 

I felt that I should give my 2 cents on this. And to basically add to what Dr. Fusco and Tom have mentioned. I've been following the news of the H1N1 (aka "swine flu") as well as the earlier reports of an avian flu with great interest. Mostly, because when I was a grad student, I first learned about the 1918 Spanish flu.

Two points, one is, yes, it is a media event because of the way the media responds to any medical news that has the POTENTIAL to be very serious (notice that I didn't say that it is currently serious). Second point is do not discount that this is a true medical/scientific event. About every generation, because of the genetic recombination of influenza viruses, a new strain originating in other animal species (birds and pigs are typical due to cellular markers on their surface) is able to mutate to the point of jumping the species barrier, thus becoming infectious in humans. This means that the human population now has to deal with a new strain of flu of which no one has any previous immunity (the yearly human strains often show some carry over in partial immunity). If this new strain is especially virulent and dangerous, this would be bad.

The world hasn't seen such a species jump in about 30 years. So, when the earlier incidents of an avian flu was reported and now this "swine" flu has appeared, we really have been overdue to see such a species jump. So, medical organizations all over the world just pretty much held their breath and hoped that the H1N1 is not any more lethal than the "normal" flu strains. So far, that is true and we are fortunate because it buys some time for a vaccine to be designed for this new strain.

Just for some perspective, the 1918 pandemic has now been genetically confirmed to be of avian origin. Current evidence shows that it was below the surface a bit the year before, not being more lethal than other yearly flus. Over the following year, it mutated and then became much more lethal leading the the 10s of millions of death worldwide (aided and abetted no doubt by WWI aftermath). I'm not saying this is what will happen with the H1N1 virus but it is a possibility (as evidenced by the 1918 flu).

So, I think the medical concern is there and medical organizations (and governments) are just thinking about the worst case scenario (we all should be aware of this and prepare accordingly). Of course, in the news-hungry environment of today, this also leads to the media being even more "aggressive" in their reporting.

Mr. Peabody

 

Well, when it comes to disease, nature does seem willing to keep our immune systems "challenged"

Was the potency of the 1918 strain due to it's construction, or if otherwise strong, healthy adults had immune systems that OVER reacted to it?

I have no doubt we're long overdue for something like a repeat of the 1918 flu, or the Plague. I don't fear disease, it's a natural part of living, and our immune systems either do the job, or they don't

What I *do* fear is the reaction of society. Say worse comes to worse and this H1N1 thing causes a 10% fatality rate. The folks who don't die, who don't even get more than the sniffles, will run monkeys***

 

Amusing coincidence: Last time we had a "swine flu" it was during the Ford administration. The government tried to get everyone vaccinated. Virtually nobody submitted to the vaccination. I seem to remember someone died from an allergic reaction to the vaccine (severe allergy to chicken eggs) but I'm not certain about that. I think about 3 people ever actually got the disease. I called it the Ford flu. I despised Ford for pardoning Nixon. So I ridiculed him about the flu, even though he probably had nothing to do with the vaccination fiasco.

But I always wondered if the whole thing was a set-up to find out whether the American people would submit to a mass vaccination program. If they had, the way would have been open to the development of biological warfare: vaccinate the population against an agent to be released on our "enemies" so that it would not backfire on us, but claiming that the vaccination program was against some new flu strain.

That said, I've been getting the regular flu vaccine for the last 5 or 6 years, and plan on continuing to get it. I'm not allergic to chicken eggs, and the flu can be nasty.

 

In the 1976 Swine flu fiasco, one person died from the flu, though about 500 cases were reported; several died from the vaccine that was rushed through development. The vaccine also statistically significantly increased the risk of contracting Guillain-Barre syndrome, a potentially fatal, sometimes debilitating form of paralysis. Those who came down with the syndrome after innoculation were able to sue the government for damages. It was a very expensive bout of the flu for the US government and left the general public very wary of government-operated health programs.

 

Was the potency of the 1918 strain due to it's construction, or if otherwise strong, healthy adults had immune systems that OVER reacted to it?

I've glanced at a couple of reviews on the 1918 flu. There is one hypothesis that the real deadly culprit would be a secondary agent (virus? bacteria?) that made the pandemic so horrible. Haven't been proven but this idea that is out there. And yes, the fatality rate was highest in the young and healthy (little kids and the elderly were not affected as much). The flu (and or co-conspirator?) likely caused an immune system overreaction (a cytokine storm). Again, cannot be definitively proven but hypothesized based on historical reports of the pandemic. Molecular geneticists and virologists are investigating whether this virus's inherent construction in itself could be so lethal (I believe there is a complete genetic sequence that was reconstructed from tissue preserved from 1918 flu victims).

I don't read everything. I just note some of these things when they are reported. It is funny but I only learned about the 1918 pandemic when I was in grad school (1980's). You would think that such a trauma would be more widely known (you know, families telling subsequent generations about it). I never heard of this pandemic until grad school and only because I met a virologist who studied avian flus. It was almost as if it was such a scarring event that no one mentioned it for much of the 20th century.

Mr. Peabody

 

The county where we live is a long peninsula sticking up into Lake Michigan, with only a few roads connecting to the mainland. During the 1918 flu, local farmers enforced an informal quarantine by blocking all of the roads into the county. There is something about angry farmers and deer rifles that makes one change travel plans.

Tom

 

Good point

 

Why don't they turn their attention to the Rhino Virus. A swine is nothing. Swines are small. Rhinos are where the real danger is.

 

Hippo kill more people in Africa than... (Oh never mind, another myth Hippos - is their Bad Reputation Deserved?)

 

I may have been one of the ones directly impacted by the swine flu. Based on the published symptoms, I think I got the bug. But the only way to be sure would be to run some tests that apparently, no one wanted to run. Something about antibodies to the virus. The real risk for any flu is collateral impact which in my case was pneumonia.

 

Apparently you've never visited a hog farm. Pigs can be really big.

I believe the animal that kills more people than any other in Africa (and maybe world-wide?) is the mosquito.

 

No swab was taken because I did not go to the doctor until I was experiencing the deep bronchial coughing. (I had recovered from the flu by the time I went in for the coughing.) I had gone to the doctor for the two previous iterations on the flu and all that was done was to prescribe codeine and robitussin for the cough; the severity of the symptoms for the third flu was not as great when the flu hit, and I figured I would just take the codeine and robitussin if I started coughing. After 3 days of coughing (Friday through Sunday), it was time for another visit to the doctor. The coughing was deep enough that an X-Ray was ordered to confirm and I ended up winning the pneumonia lottery....

The way it was explained to me, there was no directive from CDC or California Dept. of Health to test after the flu was over, only for potential new infections.