swine flu news
Hey guys,
Just thought I'd get more information out on the swine flu and what we've learned about it.
A summary of some of the news lineups today about the swine flu and it's effect.
Genetic information on the virus, some interview quotes from researchers.
CDC information on symptoms and risk groups (what they have so far anyway.) Things that should reassure you: There is no report of any kind of cytokine-storm like behavior in the current outbreak of swine flu
I think the tone in these articles is pretty good -- nothing like, well:
Of course, we have Dr. Henry Niman freaking out. Niman is a well known alarmist, seeming to pop up talking about SARS, Avian flu, and runs a company that thrives on virus related buzz. He also is remembered for being a big pusher for biotech stocks in the 90s. He might be correct but he sure has a lot of incentive for any given outbreak to go larger than smaller.
More alarmism here. Unsubstantiated comments from what may or may not be healthcare officials in Mexico do not a controlled study make. They're in an extremely stressful situation, too, but the blatant fearmongering in the tone of this article is just disgusting. The comments, however, are pure gold:
Eyes Open
"Time to connect some dots. Over the past two years, I’ve been noticing that jets are leaving long, persistent trails that slowly diffuse until they have the appearance of cloud cover. Jet contrailsare nothing more than ice particles that freeze at higher altitudes after leaving a jet engine. I became curious after seeing these trails that do not disperse, and which form at altitudes that seem too low for ice particles to form, much less persist for hours. Go to youtube or google video and search for “chemtrails”. Planes are crisscrossing our skies, leaving thick trails that spread out into a complete “white out”."...[continued]"
... JFK was killed by a physics defying bullet. Most of us are intellectually misdirected by the greatest of all firewall words: conspiracy. Anything out of the ordinary or contradictory to propaganda is branded as “conspiracy theory”. Somehow, suspicion directed at our government has been equated with lunacy, and the absurd cover stories and lies are taken as reality. Think for yourself, otherwise the media will do it for you.
This is a planned pandemic, a deliberate depopulation using as its instrument a man-made virus."
Laying the crazy on pretty thick in the first set of comments, we hit a chemtrail guy halfway through! I love these dudes -- chemtrails is this fantastic totally insane conspiracy theory that hundreds of thousands of people that work on airplanes somehow participate in a governmentally funded and sponsored mind-control or weather modification program to spray chemicals into the air (inexplicably) using contrails. The evidence for this is that contrails are in the sky for a while and seem to creep some people out. As Thomas says in the article above, "Anyone who doesn’t buy into the conspiracy theory is treated as an active member of that conspiracy. Conversely, anyone who signs on to “chemtrails” is embraced as a fellow traveler, no matter what their other beliefs."
I don't know what powers people to these heights of insane deduction (Jets leave trails of water vapor behind them as they move, in a well documented phenomenon. Must be a government conspiracy to control your mind!) or how they think that contrails must be the easiest method to spray these chemicals (Assuming they want to spray chemicals all over the place, and have the resources to spray enough to cover the US, why not just spray them at night? Or spray them so they don't leave trails for conspiracy theorists to gawk it and freak out on the internet about?) It reminds me of the Rainbow Aerosols lady.
Anyway, back to swine flu hysteria! House Rep (R-MN) Michelle Bachmann wonders why democrat presidents cause swine flu. For those of you not willing to suffer through the video, the quote:
"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."
This comment is strange on a couple levels. Because as the famous vaccination picture shows, Gerald Ford was in office when we had the last big outbreak of swine flu. But why even correct that, since how can you relate whoever is in a political office to biological mutations and recombinations of flu?
This kind of relation stinks of comments regarding supernatural causation. You know the type, the people who want to prescribe everything to the influence of their deities. I can't imagine how else you would think democratic leaders could cause a plague other than divine retribution -- and that kind of mystical-causality belief scares me in an elected leader.
The CDC has a twitter line thing with more info on basic sanitation and dispelling facts. It's helpful I suppose. Just don't succumb to panic. Even if you get flu, you can get better, and the stress of assuming the world is collapsing is not going to help the process.
Just thought I'd get more information out on the swine flu and what we've learned about it.
A summary of some of the news lineups today about the swine flu and it's effect.
Genetic information on the virus, some interview quotes from researchers.
CDC information on symptoms and risk groups (what they have so far anyway.) Things that should reassure you: There is no report of any kind of cytokine-storm like behavior in the current outbreak of swine flu
I think the tone in these articles is pretty good -- nothing like, well:
Of course, we have Dr. Henry Niman freaking out. Niman is a well known alarmist, seeming to pop up talking about SARS, Avian flu, and runs a company that thrives on virus related buzz. He also is remembered for being a big pusher for biotech stocks in the 90s. He might be correct but he sure has a lot of incentive for any given outbreak to go larger than smaller.
More alarmism here. Unsubstantiated comments from what may or may not be healthcare officials in Mexico do not a controlled study make. They're in an extremely stressful situation, too, but the blatant fearmongering in the tone of this article is just disgusting. The comments, however, are pure gold:
Eyes Open
"Time to connect some dots. Over the past two years, I’ve been noticing that jets are leaving long, persistent trails that slowly diffuse until they have the appearance of cloud cover. Jet contrailsare nothing more than ice particles that freeze at higher altitudes after leaving a jet engine. I became curious after seeing these trails that do not disperse, and which form at altitudes that seem too low for ice particles to form, much less persist for hours. Go to youtube or google video and search for “chemtrails”. Planes are crisscrossing our skies, leaving thick trails that spread out into a complete “white out”."...[continued]"
... JFK was killed by a physics defying bullet. Most of us are intellectually misdirected by the greatest of all firewall words: conspiracy. Anything out of the ordinary or contradictory to propaganda is branded as “conspiracy theory”. Somehow, suspicion directed at our government has been equated with lunacy, and the absurd cover stories and lies are taken as reality. Think for yourself, otherwise the media will do it for you.
This is a planned pandemic, a deliberate depopulation using as its instrument a man-made virus."
Laying the crazy on pretty thick in the first set of comments, we hit a chemtrail guy halfway through! I love these dudes -- chemtrails is this fantastic totally insane conspiracy theory that hundreds of thousands of people that work on airplanes somehow participate in a governmentally funded and sponsored mind-control or weather modification program to spray chemicals into the air (inexplicably) using contrails. The evidence for this is that contrails are in the sky for a while and seem to creep some people out. As Thomas says in the article above, "Anyone who doesn’t buy into the conspiracy theory is treated as an active member of that conspiracy. Conversely, anyone who signs on to “chemtrails” is embraced as a fellow traveler, no matter what their other beliefs."
I don't know what powers people to these heights of insane deduction (Jets leave trails of water vapor behind them as they move, in a well documented phenomenon. Must be a government conspiracy to control your mind!) or how they think that contrails must be the easiest method to spray these chemicals (Assuming they want to spray chemicals all over the place, and have the resources to spray enough to cover the US, why not just spray them at night? Or spray them so they don't leave trails for conspiracy theorists to gawk it and freak out on the internet about?) It reminds me of the Rainbow Aerosols lady.
Anyway, back to swine flu hysteria! House Rep (R-MN) Michelle Bachmann wonders why democrat presidents cause swine flu. For those of you not willing to suffer through the video, the quote:
"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."
This comment is strange on a couple levels. Because as the famous vaccination picture shows, Gerald Ford was in office when we had the last big outbreak of swine flu. But why even correct that, since how can you relate whoever is in a political office to biological mutations and recombinations of flu?
This kind of relation stinks of comments regarding supernatural causation. You know the type, the people who want to prescribe everything to the influence of their deities. I can't imagine how else you would think democratic leaders could cause a plague other than divine retribution -- and that kind of mystical-causality belief scares me in an elected leader.
The CDC has a twitter line thing with more info on basic sanitation and dispelling facts. It's helpful I suppose. Just don't succumb to panic. Even if you get flu, you can get better, and the stress of assuming the world is collapsing is not going to help the process.