Mad Cow, Bird/Swine Flu, Foot and Mouth, E.coli, Salmonella, Ebola, Marburg...

[Ruby Rose]

Blimey, the media are really outdoing themselves over there to create panic, aren't they?! What does your government health department say about it? Ours says "This means there are small clusters of outbreaks with limited person-to-person transmission. Spread is highly localised, suggesting that the virus is not well adapted to humans." - in other words, keep your wig on!

[Stu]

Gullibility can be contracted through reading newspapers and watching the news. If you avoid these two things, you are immune to swine flu.

[rianaelf]

To me this is all just another sign and symptom of people eating meat and especially meat from animals that have been mistreated.

I'm not a religious person, in fact I am an extremely non-religious person but things like this make you wonder tho the god in question wouldn't be a human ofcourse but an enormous pig!!

[Buddha Belly]

Gullibility can be contracted through reading newspapers and watching the news. If you avoid these two things, you are immune to swine flu.

I like

[CrunchyMomma]

What does your government health department say about it?

It doesn't say anything yet, as there have been no suspected cases here in Georgia; however, there were a few suspected cases in South Carolina, one state north of us after some high school seniors came down with flu-like symptoms upon returning from Spring break in Mexico. The scary part is that we have one of the busiest international airport hubs in the world here in Atlanta. Lots of people travel in and out of this area and I have no clue if they're taking proper precautions at Hartsfield-Jackson to screen potentially ill people.

I don't know. I don't get this skeeved out by normal flu season (although it runs rampant here for months. You can't go anywhere without people hacking and coughing or knowing someone who has been stricken with the illness), so I don't know why I'm letting the negative, fear-mongering headlines get to me. I think it's probably because of headlines here that read, "Swine Flu: Worst Case Scenario" and "Swine Flu in the U.S. a Dangerous Situation". In the latter article they meant "dangerous for our already messed up economy".

[auryn23]

I tried to look up the origin of the swine flu online to see how it was related to interactions with pigs. I could only find a couple of articles about the origins, and each of them stated that it had nothing to do with pigs. It was called the "swine" flu because it is similar to a virus pigs get.

Has anyone heard anything about the origins? I don't know if what I have read was the pork industry propaganda or actual fact. It's so hard to tell what is real and what makes people think it's ok to still eat pork....

[treaclemine]

The Soil Association have made an interesting statement ...

"Given the scientific evidence and acceptance of the role of intensive livestock units in exacerbating human-life threatening diseases, Government should urgently commission research to determine ideal conditions and systems for minimising risks to human-health from livestock production."

Anyone fancy pointing out to them that would be stock-free farming and plant-based, vegan food?

http://www.soilassociation.org/web/s...tus/index.html

[Wooden Shoe]

Hi auryn23, you and possibly others may like to read this from Indymedia.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/...l?c=on#c221985

Naturally I don't know the veracity of this article, but it is some what interesting, no? Read the comments as well, I think Smithfield Foods and all companies of their ilk deserve anything that people may decide to throw at them, they are scum.

[mariana]

I tried to look up the origin of the swine flu online to see how it was related to interactions with pigs. I could only find a couple of articles about the origins, and each of them stated that it had nothing to do with pigs. It was called the "swine" flu because it is similar to a virus pigs get.

Has anyone heard anything about the origins? I don't know if what I have read was the pork industry propaganda or actual fact. It's so hard to tell what is real and what makes people think it's ok to still eat pork....

My impression is that it's a zoonotic disease, so it was probably passed from pigs to humans but then mutated to pass from humans to other humans. The WHO says people can't get it from properly prepared pork (the cooking process would kill it)--though obviously there are other reasons not to eat pork!

[jimmeh]

Not sure about this one. I was speaking to a (usually very calm and collected) consultant physician about this today, who was pretty sure it would spread. He was also in agreement that we should change our animal farming practices to prevent such outbreaks. Since swine flu has already been confirmed about 10 miles from here, I wouldn't be too surprised if it did spread. However, recent newspaper shenanigans (the Russell Brand "affair" etc etc...) make me very cynical about the media and their love of hype.

Thanksfully my boyfriend is obsessed with zombies and "what would you do if there was a zombie outbreak" has featured many times in our pub conversations. I'll get the map and choose my island....

[gutts]

I hate having to use the tube every day when things like this happen. Supposed to be working in montreal next week, hopefully they won't do anything as drastic as suspend flights back into the UK. :/

[auryn23]

Thanksfully my boyfriend is obsessed with zombies and "what would you do if there was a zombie outbreak" has featured many times in our pub conversations. I'll get the map and choose my island....

That. Is. Awesome. My friends and I talk about that as well. I have the feeling my survival would look like a scene from "Shawn of the Dead".

Thank you for finding articles, everyone!

[Buddha Belly]

That. Is. Awesome. My friends and I talk about that as well. I have the feeling my survival would look like a scene from "Shawn of the Dead".

Thank you for finding articles, everyone!

I have an escape and survival plan already in place. I know what needs to be strengthened and where to get tinned food whilst escaping slow moving zombies.

Back to post.

Not too phased by possible pandemic outbreaks, if it happens it happens and there is not much that anyone can do about it really.

[Quantum Mechanic]

My impression is that it's a zoonotic disease, so it was probably passed from pigs to humans but then mutated to pass from humans to other humans. The WHO says people can't get it from properly prepared pork (the cooking process would kill it)--though obviously there are other reasons not to eat pork!

Yes, this is what I know of it too (much like parasites in fish - the cooking process would kill the parasites too, so fish prepared at a certain temperature won't get you parasites, but there are other reasons not to eat fish). The media is acting full of hype, though considering that it is California with 10 cases there is a high likelihood of spread. Still, there are ways to inform (and even be interesting) without spreading hype. They hardly talk about the symptoms and how you can and cannot get it, and things, more playing up how much of a big deal it is.

Flu does kill a lot of people each year, but mostly people who are elderly or immunocompromised, so people who are neither of these generally have much less chance of dying from the flu. I don't know what is the chance of dying from swine flu, whether they are immunocompromised or whatever age they are, just that there were about 20 confirmed deaths in Mexico City (but I don't know how many total got sick of swine flu).

[Tigerlily]

I feel sorry and bad for the poor pigs in this whole thing. Not the humans.

[CrunchyMomma]

My hope is that there will not be any unnecessary slaughter of pigs because of the panic. Thus far (unless, of course, the government knows something they're not telling us), they have yet to find a hog anywhere in Mexico that is ill with swine flu, so the CDC and WHO are calling for a re-name of this virus.

One good thing that has come of this is that factory farmers are already reporting tremendous loss due to widespread, global fear of consuming pork. Russia and China have issued import bans on any pork products from North America. Yes, it will probably put a slight dent in the economy and I'm certain most people will resume eating pork once this all blows over, but any little impact is good.

But it could also be a double-edged sword. In a perfect world these farmers would say, "we're losing money. Let's adopt out these hogs we can't afford food and veterinary care for". Unfortunately, my fear is sub-par care and culling the numbers due to economic strain will fall upon these poor creatures.

In terms of the virus, itself, there was good news out of Mexico today - they haven't seen the staggering number of deaths and confirmed swine flu cases as they did over the weekend. Whether it means it's tapering off there (just as seasonal flu does in all parts of the world) or it's a calm before the storm, I'm just relieved the news was not as bleak today was it was over the past few days.

There have been a few more confirmed cases from the same preparatory school in New York, where the largest number of confirmed cases have come from here in the States, and still no word on the South Carolina students who just returned from vacation in Mexico and returned with flu-like symptoms. Other than that it seems to have been a rather quiet day.

[lorikan]

[QUOTE=CrunchyMomma;570176]My hope is that there will not be any unnecessary slaughter of pigs because of the panic. Thus far (unless, of course, the government knows something they're not telling us), they have yet to find a hog anywhere in Mexico that is ill with swine flu, so the CDC and WHO are calling for a re-name of this virus.



Not sure I entered your quote properly or not crunchy momma, sorry if I messed up. I found this horrific article on the internet today and was so saddened by it. Why would they kill a bunch of innocent pigs for no reason???? I am extremely mad that they forced people to kill their pigs.

http://www.news4jax.com/nationalnews...44/detail.html

[auryn23]

I just heard on the news that President Obama is asking that people use the official name of the flu. Of course I can't remember what it is right now, but the entire news segment they didn't use "swine" in front of it.

Hopefully this will be the start of the end of the pig persecution.

[CrunchyMomma]

I was horrified when I read about that on the news this morning, Lorikan. Thus far there has been no evidence to suggest this flu strain (H-something or other...it's the flu) even originated in pigs. For Egypt to mandate a slaughter on all hogs when no cases of this flu have been documented in their country, nor can you get it from consuming pork, is asinine and horrific. Of course, it was mentioned in a news conference here in the States this morning that if you work around pigs and come down with this strain of the flu to stay away from them, because pigs are incredibly susceptible to catching infectious diseases from humans and vice versa.

More cases were confirmed here in the States today, mostly still circulating around the same school in NYC. A toddler also died from complications due to secondary infections in Texas today. The news said he resided in Mexico City and came down with the virus on April 8th, but the family brought him up to Texas for a visit and his condition worsened.

Of course, that's fairly common even with seasonal flu, unfortunately. I remember I got seasonal flu six years ago. Had a sustained temp of 103F for over a week before I summoned the energy to take myself to urgent care. They put me on antibiotics because it had turned into bronchitis. That was the same year the flu killed tens of thousands of people here in the States, including several children and elderly here in Georgia. That was a bad strain that went around that season.

The WHO raised the pandemic threat level to 5 today, which means we're one level away from the highest level, widespread global pandemic. I figure it's due to the fact that some new cases have appeared in countries not previously believed to be affected - Germany and Austria being two among them. I believe they've also confirmed cases in Korea and China now.

Of course, to hear the CDC and WHO talk this is some special, uber scary flu when, in reality, it's just the flu like any other. It's simply one that there isn't a vaccine for yet. Even still, when they issue flu vaccinations here in the States every year it's a crapshoot whether or not it will match the strain that goes around. This past flu season several states were hit with a mutated flu strain that did not match this year's vaccination. I know Virginia was one state and they were hit pretty hard.

No one wants to get the flu and it can be a potentially deadly virus if one is in poor health, fails to receive medical care or falls in the high risk category (such as babies, the elderly and those with a compromised immune system), but so far nothing has proven that this particular strain is any worse than seasonal flu in terms of symtpoms. In fact, several people they have interviewed said they also caught seasonal flu this year and this wasn't as bad. *shrugs*

[auryn23]

I am suddenly regretting the fact that I have read "The Stand" many, many times.....

[leedsveg]

I feel sorry and bad for the poor pigs in this whole thing. Not the humans.

As a vegan, I feel compassion both for the human animals and the non-human animals.

leedsveg

[CrunchyMomma]

As a vegan, I feel compassion both for the human animals and the non-human animals.

Same here. Any time a life is cut short it is a tragedy.

[Stu]

This thread is making me angry. It's like reading the Daily Mail.

THERE IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.

Now please stop allowing the media to brainwash you.

[beanstew]

Well said bro.

[Sarabi]

Hundreds of thousands of humans die every year of flu. What's new?

300,000 pigs have been ordered dead by the Egyptian government over this. That's not really new either... they were just going to slaughter them anyway.

[gutts]

For Egypt to mandate a slaughter on all hogs when no cases of this flu have been documented in their country, nor can you get it from consuming pork, is asinine and horrific.

Apparently Egyptian farmers are rioting over this. See here.

There's also another article in the same paper today regarding the implications of industrial animal farming for human health, here. FWIW, I think that cramming artificially bred animals together in squalid conditions and pumping them full of antibiotics sounds like a recipe for the accelerated growth of resistant strains of viruses.

gutts

[auryn23]

Here is some 1970's propaganda which, I'm sorry, is hilarious. Gotta love commercial over-acting...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASibLqwVbsk

[missbettie]

there are 2 reported cases of Swine Flu at the town right next to mine... lovely....

[CrunchyMomma]

there are 2 reported cases of Swine Flu at the town right next to mine... lovely....

We had our first case in Georgia confirmed today. A woman was visiting friends or relatives in LaGrange on her way back to Kentucky from Cancun. Of course, the media is now saying just because more confirmed cases keep coming out doesn't necessarily mean there is a spike in transmission. Some of these confirmations are from samples taken from people who were ill up to a week or two ago. Still haven't heard anything about whether or not those who have been confirmed have passed it on to anyone else. The CDC has been pretty quick to zoom in on the cases here in the States and give Tamiflu and Relenza to everyone the sick have been in close contact with. Hopefully that will slow down the spread.

But what I really hate is that they keep saying, "well, it's pointless to try and keep people from going to Mexico at this point." If travel bans prohibited even one person from bringing it back to their respective country it would be effective.

[LuVegan15]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...u-1676090.html :'[[[

I'm not sure if anyone's posted this because I haven't read the whole thread..but, yeah. SO SAD. And completely unnecessary D:<

[Stu]

I suspect that the Egyptian government are doing that to make a point to Egyptian Christians, and to make the country 'more' Muslim, if that makes sense.

[veganwitch]

It's crossed my mind that all this media hype about swine flu is a distraction of some sort...but then I'm a conspiracy theorist, so who knows.

[Quantum Mechanic]

It shouldn't be a big deal - just practice good sanitation, stay home / go to the doctor if you get sick, etc. And if one is high risk, maybe other precautions, like not going to very crowded places with a lot of people. As far as I am aware those face masks don't do good at prevention if it is a healthy person wearing it. But if you are sick and coughing stuff up it might help stem the spread of illness to wear one. I'm not really sure, I read something about it a few years ago when people were freaked out about SARS and I was in junior high.

xkcd [ http://xkcd.com ] cover the 'flu scare:

Hey, 2011SeniorsRule...better not be eying me!

[CrunchyMomma]

Oh yeah, I remember SARS. My son was just an infant when that was going to be the "next major global pandemic". I was terrified at the time. Just before that we were all going to get Anthrax from terrorists. SARS was kind of scary, though, because it had something like a 10% mortality rate. There was a total of 27 cases confirmed here in the States, but they were so swift to quarantine that it fortunately didn't spread.

The flu morality rate is usually around .6%, but 70% when secondary infections such as pneumonia develop among the eldery, babies and those with a compromised immune system. Thus far the confirmed mortality rate for this particular strain is surprisingly lower than seasonal flu. The biggest reason it was affecting the young people in Mexico the way it did was because hospitals were turning sick people away thinking they just had a cold or sinus problems. They also didn't know what, exactly, they had on their hands. They just knew there was a sudden rash of pneumonia, but had no idea it was actually an issue of flu-related compications.

When it hit here in the States, most states were still seeing cases of the seasonal flu and they already had Tamiflu and Relenza to give to sick patients (which fortunately also works with this strain).

[jsb79]

Over here in Korea people are not really aware of it and I don't see people wearing masks...

I hope that thing will make people think more about what they eat and how it makes meat industry and pig mistreatment happen .. which is obviously causing such illnesses (pigs that are treated badly will get sick more easily .. it's common sense)

To all of you reading this forum, I wouldn't worry about catching that thing since HEALTHY people are more resistant than dead meat eating people...

[CrunchyMomma]

It's good to know there hasn't been any news of this hitting Korea, jsb. It's been all over the news here. Although it was nice going to Yahoo News, CNN and MSNBC and not having the whole "death scare" all over the place. I think (I could be wrong, this is just a guess) is that it's winding down and these new confirmed cases are simply samples that were backlogged. In fact, the news said most of the newly confirmed cases are situations where the people have already recovered. It just took that long to test the samples.

I did read some good news today - the American pork industry is whining about how much of a loss this "swine flu" has handed them. They're really hurting as pork consumption around the world slowed drastically when they first thought this virus came from swine.

[herbwormwood]

It shouldn't be a big deal - just practice good sanitation, stay home / go to the doctor if you get sick, etc.

Please do not not go to the doctor if you think you have flu!!!
Doctors waiting rooms are wonderful places for spreading infections and there may be children, elderly people and immunosuppressed people there as these groups do consult the doctor more.

Government advice for anyone with flu like symptoms is to stay at home, and telephone the health care provider if necessary.
This flu is no more dangerous than normal flu and should be treated in exactly the same way. Stay at home, phone someone to tell them you are ill if you live alone, take lots of fluids, take paracetamol if you have a fever, take rehydration salts of you have diarrhoehha, and telephone the NHS Direct or your health care provider.
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Pandemic-flu/Pages/QA.aspx

[CrunchyMomma]

How are the stats looking in the UK, herbwormwood? The news has been slow here today. Not that it's necessarily a great sign or that there haven't been anymore cases, just that we haven't seen a staggering increase of them, but I heard that there were something like three-hundred suspected cases in the UK.

[Ruby Rose]

Alarmist propaganda. It's seven in England, three in Scotland - all recently returned from Mexico, all treated with Tamiflu and antivirals, and the first two of whom are already home from hospital and absolutely fine.

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publichealth...eflu/index.htm

[BlackCats]

Alarmist propaganda.

That is exactly the phrase I used last night when I was discussing the subject with my brother! (At least we are not hearing about the credit crunch so much now haha.)

[Ruby Rose]

But if you've read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine... you'll be wondering whether it's a capitalist plot!

[gutts]

But if you've read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine... you'll be wondering whether it's a capitalist plot!

Distaster capitalism doing what it does best.

[Stu]

Alarmist propaganda.

It's useless, RR. I've tried pointing this out a few times in this thread, to no avail.


Anyway, did you know that over 90,000 people die from snake bites every year? OH MY GOD! Someone tell the papers! I heard that there were snakes in London Zoo. If you have been near London Zoo in the past few decades, do not go to your doctor.

What are the stats like in your countries, guys? Are there snakes in America? We have reports in the UK of over 4 people being bitten by snakes this year already. Care to pointlessly panic for no reason with me?

[Ruby Rose]

OH MY GOD!!!! I just HOPE now that they'll ban all flights to America, burn all the Oreos... and that John Barrowman, he's got a bit of an accent... should he be culled???

[Cherry]

I feel sorry and bad for the poor pigs in this whole thing. Not the humans.

It annoys me that they called it 'swine flu' and not 'pig flu'. The word 'flu' makes me think of tissues, duvets, hot water bottles, hot vimtos and sleeping. Sounds pretty good compared to being killed just because you're not feeling well.

[auryn23]

My aunt and her husband were scheduled to take a cruise next week and it was canceled due to the flu. There are schools here in Indiana that are being closed for a week because of several cases breaking out here.

[beanstew]

It annoys me that they called it 'swine flu' and not 'pig flu'. The word 'flu' makes me think of tissues, duvets, hot water bottles, hot vimtos and sleeping. Sounds pretty good compared to being killed just because you're not feeling well.

The WHO don't like the name 'swine flu' either Cherry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/he...name.html?_r=1

[jimmeh]

Roche are going to make a fortune from this. It's well worth their while to keep fear circulating

http://forum.conspiracycentral.net/i...howtopic=27585

[auryn23]

VERY IMPORTANT!!!

Please go to this site now.....

http://doihaveswineflu.org/

[Cherry]

The WHO don't like the name 'swine flu' either Cherry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/he...name.html?_r=1

I hadn't realised that it (this strain) hasn't been found in pigs. Is that really true? How ridiculous. (Sorry, I'm rather ignorant of the whole thing as I've been immersed in other things and haven't watched the news or anything).

I suppose A(H1N1) is a hard to remember. Bad enough that the new flu is pig, bird and human related, but as it hasn't been found in pigs it seems ridiculous to link it to pigs in that way...surely it should just be called 'flu - y'know, that new strain'.