H1N1 influenza possible pandemic alert!

[Dame]

I am thinking we need to be organizing our homeschooling supplies.  If last winters endless rounds of flu and paravirus weren't already too much time lost to contagious desease, adding H1N1 to the mix will be impossible.  School will accomplish little other than guaranteeing the rapid spread.

[Atash Hagmahani]

Hmmmm....

Military planning for possible H1N1 outbreak
Posted: 08:21 PM ET

From Barbara Starr
CNN Pentagon Correspondent

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. military wants to establish regional teams of military personel to assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus — the swine flu — this fall, according to Defense Department officials.

The proposal is awaiting final approval from Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The officials would not be identified because the proposal from the U.S. Northern Command’s Gen. Victor Renuart has not been approved by the secretary.

[MountainMeg]

What, exactly, are they supposed to help with?  Care for sick individuals?  Guarding against looting?  Rounding up those who didn't have their vaccination?

[Atash Hagmahani]

I have a bad feeling about this.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a_xObcaSxF2o

A safety concern was raised in 2004 when researchers at the University of Florida in Gainesville reported that mice injected with oils used in the adjuvants developed conditions of the type that occur when the body’s immune system produces an excessive protective reaction. Similar reactions haven’t been seen in humans.

[MountainMeg]

I was just talking to hubby about this.  GlaxoKleinSmith and Novartis are using squalene as an adjuvant in the swine flu vaccines.  Squalene has never been approved for use in vaccines in the US.  Some Dept of Defense anthrax vaccines used squalene and it is now believed that the adjuvant *may* be responsible for Gulf War Syndrome in many vets.  Seems that the overreaction to the molecule causes the immune system to attack the brain and nervous system.

I'm nervous about this.  My hubby had all the DoD shots when he went to Iraq in, I think, 2004.  He went as a healthy 42 year old man, came back with Crohn's disease.  *IF* it's related to the shots, then my kids may have a propensity to react to the adjuvant.

http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Opinion/Comments/180720090846_squalene_the_swine_flu_vaccine_s_dirty_little_secre.html

Will There Be Immune Adjuvants in Swine Flu Vaccines?

 The U.S. government has contracts with several drug companies to develop and produce swine flu vaccines. At least two of those companies, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, are using an adjuvant in their H1N1 vaccines.

The adjuvant? Squalene.

According to Meryl Nass, M.D., an authority on the anthrax vaccine, 

“A novel feature of the two H1N1 vaccines being developed by companies Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline is the addition of squalene-containing adjuvants to boost immunogenicity and dramatically reduce the amount of viral antigen needed. This translates to much faster production of desired vaccine quantities.â

Your immune system will attempt to destroy the molecule wherever it finds it, including in places where it occurs naturally, and where it is vital to the health of your nervous system.[viii]

Gulf War veterans with Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) received anthrax vaccines which contained squalene.[ix] MF59 (the Novartis squalene adjuvant) was an unapproved ingredient in experimental anthrax vaccines and has since been linked to the devastating autoimmune diseases suffered by countless Gulf War vets.

The Department of Defense made every attempt to deny that squalene was indeed an added contaminant in the anthrax vaccine administered to Persian Gulf war military personnel – deployed and non-deployed – as well as participants in the more recent Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP).

However, the FDA discovered the presence of squalene in certain lots of AVIP product. A test was developed to detect anti-squalene antibodies in GWS patients, and a clear link was established between the contaminated product and all the GWS sufferers who had been injected with the vaccine containing squalene.

A study conducted at Tulane Medical School and published in the February 2000 issue of Experimental Molecular Pathology included these stunning statistics:

“ … the substantial majority (95%) of overtly ill deployed GWS patients had antibodies to squalene. All (100%) GWS patients immunized for service in Desert Shield/Desert Storm who did not deploy, but had the same signs and symptoms as those who did deploy, had antibodies to squalene. 

In contrast, none (0%) of the deployed Persian Gulf veterans not showing signs and symptoms of GWS have antibodies to squalene. Neither patients with idiopathic autoimmune disease nor healthy controls had detectable serum antibodies to squalene. The majority of symptomatic GWS patients had serum antibodies to squalene.â

(emphasis added)

[Atash Hagmahani]

Funny you should mention that. My stepfather and mother were in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. As a result, they got vaccines against chemical and bio weapons that apparently did not exist (Iraq had apparently been in a deadman's nosedive even before the war, due to economic hardships which aggravated its relationship to Kuwait in the first place; there were weapons programs, but they were abortive failures due to lack of resources).

My stepfather has been shaking ever since. He can no longer hold his hands steady. Looks like nerve damage.

What I am really wondering about is this swin flu thing. Look: we've got all these hysterias that look almost IDENTICAL to their 1970s counterparts! We had a swine flu hysteria then too, and apparently the vaccines killed more people than the disease.

http://www.capitalcentury.com/1976.html

[opsec]

I just gotta ask. Atash, what was your mother doing in Saudi Arabia in the first gulf war?

[lora]

Where are all these diseases coming from? And why? You would think that pigs would have had swine many years back and giving us warnings then. Same with the blue flu.

[Atash Hagmahani]

I just gotta ask. Atash, what was your mother doing in Saudi Arabia in the first gulf war?

Ducking SCUDs.

[Beeherder]

way more detal than you ever thought existed about vaccination laws:

http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/VaccinationLaws.html

[wander]

I'm reading a book about the 1918 flu right now. It seems that it came in 2 waves, the spring and fall. The spring wave wasn't hardly fatal, but the fall wave was about 6-10% lethal. Those who were infected in the first wave were practically immune to the second one.

[Beeherder]

Does it say anything in that book about the place of origin for that 1918 flu?

Seems like i heard somehting about it originating in Leavenworth Kansas in the army camps which were training soldiers to go to Europe to die in the trenches.

Could this have been another case of sending infected blankets to the intended victims of chemical warfare, like the army used to give small pox blankets to the indigenous peoples where ever they went?

[wander]

Well, no it doesn't. Everything is speculation according to this book, but there are several theories that it had been around for about 2 years but it wasn't very virulent. Something happened in 1918 that caused it to mutate and strike everywhere at once. They say it hit several dozen cities around the globe within about 1 week. The first outbreak of the first wave in the US occured along the east coast.

If we follow the timeline of the 1918 pandemic, we are somewhere between wave 1 and wave 2.

In 1918 the initial reports of the outbreak occured May to June 1918, gaining significant attention only because it significantly slowed the war training efforts. I have no idea how many deaths there were in either wave. The first wave was very light though, almost nobody died.

The second wave started in September 1918, and hit all over the world almost simultaneously. It had a fatality rate of 6-10%, with as many as 100 million potential dead. They specifically state that there was no rioting, no real public reaction. The mainly noticible effect was people had 2 reactions - stay at home for a year, or go out and party like the world was ending.

The initial outbreak of Novel H1N1 was sometime in early May or possibly late April 2009. So if the trend is the same (they are both swine based influenza with a novel lack of resistance or immunity just like 1918) then we can expect a national shutdown sometime in September when the dying starts.

[wander]

Could this have been another case of sending infected blankets to the intended victims of chemical warfare, like the army used to give small pox blankets to the indigenous peoples where ever they went?

To specifically address this question, I would comment that during the research of the pandemic, many doctors, nurses, and volunteers died deliberately infecting themselves with the virus. Many politicians were infected too. They openly tested on naval prisoners (with their supposed consent of course). It is possible that it was deliberate but highly unlikely. They didn't even really know what viruses were back then, and the flu virus is notably fragile outside the body.

[The Future]

WHO predicts ‘explosion’ of swine flu cases

...Also Friday, a whole new chapter in the swine flu oubreak was possibly opened when Chile's health ministry said it confirmed that swine flu has jumped from people to turkeys at two farms outside the city of Valparaiso....

..."WHO has stressed that most cases of swine flu are mild and require no treatment..."