Study - Bird Flu may not be as deadly as feared...

More survey's need to be done but this is very interesting, and something many experts have been saying for months


<snip>
CHICAGO - As bird flu cases rise at a disturbing pace in Turkey, new research offers a bit of hope — it’s likely that many people who get it don’t become seriously ill and quickly recover.

Although not definitive, the new study suggests the virus is more widespread than thought. But it also probably doesn’t kill half its victims, a fear based solely on flu cases that have been officially confirmed.

“The results suggest that the symptoms most often are relatively mild and that close contact is needed for transmission to humans,” wrote Dr. Anna Thorson of Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm and colleagues who conducted the study. It was published in Monday’s edition of Archives of Internal Medicine.

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<snip>
The study authors noted that without any blood-test evidence to prove that the Vietnamese residents had bird flu, the results are only suggestive and far from conclusive.

Still, other flu experts called the study compelling.

“I would call this the smoking gun,” said Dr. Gregory Poland, a Mayo Clinic flu specialist. “All of us have been concerned and have guessed that the data we have so far has been the tip of the iceberg.”

The human cases counted so far likely have been the most severely ill patients treated at major hospitals, Poland said.

“In the really rural areas, we know that this had to be occurring” too, and the study suggests that the prevalence “is pretty high,” he said. “The data lines up biologically the way we would have expected it to.”

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The news would be double-edged if the researchers’ suspicions are correct, Poland said. While more widespread prevalence of bird flu in people would be worrisome, “the good news would be that virtually all of these were mild illnesses and everybody survived,” he said.

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A more thorough sera-survey needs to be done, but this is consistent with the way most viruses progress.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10775591/from/RL.5/

The Sky Is Falling!

for a long time now.

If you only counted those in the hospital!

There are thousands of people every year that get hospitalized and die of the flu. There are hundreds of times that number who get sick and don't get hospitalized. If you only look at the cases where people get hospitalized, the outlook of someone with the common flu looks pretty grim.

These people dying of bird flu are in countries that probably don't have very good medical tracking of illnesses like the flu, and most people who get the flu don't go to the hospital, therefore nobody ever knows what type of flu they had.

Still a sera-survey with blood evidence seems warranted...but this study is pretty compelling to my laymans eyes.

and I am so pissed at the WHO right now. They gave a good dog and pony show at the conference I was at in December. I even bought into it - the WHO is Johnnie on the spot, yes siree! Only, it occurred to me today when I read the article (and others with the similar information) above that they've had the ability to do blood testing of large swaths of people in Vietnam and the other countries that have already had confirmed H5N1 cases but have they done it? No. They did a retrospective interview project. Jesus Christ on a Trailer Hitch, they are so behind on the information we need, the world needs. But they sure do talk a good talk.

Like you, I thought that was the kind of thing the WHO existed to do - not just wait until people turn up in hospitals to see how many people they thought were being infected.

We only hear what the media is telling us...WHO may very well be doing this testing, but it is not sensationilistic enough for them to report.

"The study authors noted that without any blood-test evidence to prove that the Vietnamese residents had bird flu, the results are only suggestive and far from conclusive."

I suppose it could be that the testing is still in progress, and the authors wouldn't draw any conclusions from it at all until it's complete.

Shocked, I tells ya!

:sarcasm:

I'm shocked!

It is the gov's job to plan for the worst case...though this pack in there now hasn't seemed concerend about that up to now.

The media of course always plays up the most alarming predictions without balance on the other side. I have read and heard experts making this point about the bird flu for many months, but their comments rarely made it into the main stream media.

You don't get it at all. This is actually bad news although that media that is supposedly whipping up the fear is trying to spin this as good news.

"The Rumsfeld history starts in 1976, when a military recruit in New Jersey died from a flu that experts speculated might be the "swine flu" virus of 1918 pandemic fame. As Sargent tells it, Rumsfeld, who was then and is again the nation's secretary of defense, made the imminent "swine flu" a political issue to add some spark to the campaign of President Ford, an interim leader without a cause. At Rumsfeld's urging, the administration would ensure that "every man, woman and child" was vaccinated. Huge amounts of vaccine were produced and distributed quickly."-- Lisa Parsons http://www.whale.to/a/swine_fluq.html

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will likely profit handsomely from the announcement the government is purchasing $2 billion of Tamiflu, the drug developed by Gilead Sciences when Rumsfeld was president of the company. He is reported to hold major portions of stock in Gilead. http://www.mercola.com/blog/2005/oct/18/avian_flu_epidemic_scare_is_a_hoax


Part of Rummy's resume:
# Gilead Sciences pharmaceutical company: Chairman (1997-2001)
# General Instrument Corporation: Chairman and CEO (1990-93)
# G.D. Searle pharmaceutical company: CEO/Chairman/President (1977-1985) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumsfeld

1. The virus weakens each time it mutates. If the bird flu virus is passed from human to human (and so far that has NOT happened ) the virus will be weaker because of the mutation.

2. The pandemic they always mention (1918) happened BEFORE we had antibiotics. Most of the deaths during that time were caused by SECONDARY infections, which today would not be life-threatening BECAUSE OF antibiotics.

3. Most of the bird flu cases we hear of today are in countries that do not have the excellent (and abundant) hospitals we have in the US. They would be treated more quickly and effectively here than in China or Turkey.

you are so misinformed. I don't think this is worth my time.

Yeah, sure, whatever you say.

At least your first point is correct. I will give you that. The rest, is, total crap.
:eyes:

http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=13793&cid=4&cname=Business+Today

Pandemic planning: Govt to secure antibiotic supply

No stockpiling

The government announced today that it is taking steps to guarantee a supply of antibiotics as part of its flu pandemic planning strategy.

The antibiotics will not be stockpiled but their supply will be guaranteed, according to Health Minister Pete Hodgson, who said antibiotics are not suited to stockpiling.

The government's drug buying agency Pharmac will contact pharmaceutical suppliers today to request proposals for the antibiotic supply effort, he said.

"We know that in the 1918 influenza pandemic, most deaths were caused by secondary bacterial infections," Pete Hodgson said. "Securing a supply of antibiotics will be an important part of our readiness for a potential pandemic.

"Taking this step early will put us ahead of the curve as demand for antibiotics are expected to spike dramatically if a pandemic is declared.

The conditions under which the 1918 flu spread many believe - the fetid trenches of WWI - plus the lack of any attempt at quarantine, do not exist now.

Why? I mean, on the surface, it looks like really good news doesn't it?

Unfortunately, as we play the waiting game, each and every time anyone contracts H5N1, especially if they have this years' garden variety flu, as millions do right now, there is a chance that the two flues will exchange RNA packets - they like to do that and is in fact a signature of flu viruses. There are only eight packets they can exchange and if the right one gets put together, well, it won't matter much if the mortality rate is 50% or 5%.

If the virus is this widespread (and the mortality % is not known...could be less than 5%), this means the virus has had even more opportunity than we though to pass human to human, and still has not made the jump. It is possible, as suggested by this study, that this virus is no more lethal than other flu viruses. That is why a more extensive survey needs to be done.

And I am sorry, in a pandemic situation, there is a significant difference between 50% and 5%. Especially to the 45% who won't die.

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