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The Forum > Article Comments > Resurrecting the zombie killer flu virus > Comments

Resurrecting the zombie killer flu virus : Comments

By Roger Kalla, published 14/10/2005

Roger Kalla traces the history of the resurrection of the 1918 Spanish flu virus using molecular biology.

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Bird flu danger played down as British anxiety grows
By James Button Herald Correspondent in Copenhagen
October 18, 2005

A bird flu pandemic could kill 50,000 people in Britain but is unlikely to strike in the coming winter, says the chief medical officer for England and Wales, Sir Liam Donaldson.

Speaking after laboratory tests confirmed that biological samples taken from poultry in Romania last week contained the H5N1 virus, a strain of avian influenza, Sir Liam compared the figure of 50,000 with the 12,000 Britons who die each year from flu.

The death toll could be as high as 750,000, but the lower figure was more realistic, he told the BBC. "It very much depends whether this mutated strain is a mild one or a more serious one."

Seeking to lower growing alarm about bird flu, he said there was no evidence the virus had mutated anywhere in the world into a form that would allow it to pass between humans, although he acknowledged it was a question of "when, not if".

While the influenza epidemics of 1918, 1958 and 1968-69 suggested that the bird flu virus would eventually combine with a human virus, becoming easily transmissible, "there is a lot we can do to prepare".

In 1968 "we didn't have some of the measures that we now have, like antiviral drugs," he said. And the pandemic in 1918-19 of Spanish flu - a strain of bird flu that killed 40 million people - was "before proper hospital facilities, before intensive care, before antibiotics".
Posted by Wally, Tuesday, 18 October 2005 10:36:08 AM
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CQS HealthAlert Update
October 18, 2005
Avian Flu - preparation, government vaccine-mongering

The Bush Administration, through White House press conferences and announcements from various agencies, has been promoting vaccinations with experimental vaccines that are in preparation and testing phases. These are not even likely to be effective, as the virus has not yet even mutated to being a human-to-human disease.

The recent history of influenza vaccines has not been promising; their "protection" rate has been less than 50% at best and 0% at worst, and some of them have injured thousands of people (Guillain-Barre Syndrome). Please do not take vaccines, and if you feel strongly enough about it, please send a message to Congress and your local health authorities to stop testing and production of these useless and dangerous vaccines.

To add to the craziness, President Bush has recently spoken (at a press conference, no less) about having the U.S. military take over police powers nationally if there is an Avian Flu epidemic. For obvious reasons he has not used the words "martial law" but that is exactly what he is talking about, and he has officially asked Congress to repeal Posse Comatitus, the law that is supposed to prevent federal military operations on U.S. soil in peacetime. Please send a message to your Representatives and Senators that you do not want the U.S. Army to be in charge of a health emergency.

Thanks
Jonathan
Posted by Wally, Wednesday, 19 October 2005 10:07:03 AM
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Worried about bird flu? Wash your hands...

Comment: 65 people died in 3 years, supposedly from bird flu. How many die each day from normal flu, pneumonia, malaria, and Medical / drug related Errors? Thousands - BUT IT DOES NOT SELL VACCINES!

What a media beat up - keep away from those unproven vaccines!

See: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=globalNews&storyID=2005-10-19T134258Z_01_MUN667197_RTRUKOC_0_US-BIRDFLU.xml&archived=False

And, http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=globalNews&storyID=2005-10-19T171408Z_01_ROB962016_RTRUKOC_0_US-BIRDFLU-PROTECTION.xml&archived=False
Posted by Wally, Thursday, 20 October 2005 7:59:40 AM
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Health Supreme - http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/

That the flu scare is a pharmaceutical cash-cow cannot really be disputed. Why can't I be surprised to read that Donald Rumsfeld, Bush II's Defense Secretary, already well known by the more health conscious among us for his role in approving deadly aspartame for human consumption, is implicated directly in this one as well? Dr Mercola has been the target of unpleasant legal attention by the aspartame makers for his criticism of the sweetener's availability to the public despite heaps of evidence of harm, a story recently detailed in an article of The Ecologist. He has the details on Rumsfeld and the Bird Flu Scare. See Rumsfeld To Profit From Avian Flu Hoax (10/20/2005 11:01:35 PM)

After posting a few pieces on the Bird Flu (here, here, here and here) Andrew Saul of doctoryourself.com has enticed me to post yet another piece about the pandemic-in-waiting, which most government health gurus are assuring is quite inevitable. Whether it really is inevitable - well, some people disagree. Andrew Saul among them. If you appreciate subtle humor, and I believe you do, you shouldn't miss what he has to say. And if you are a bird lover, all the more reason to read his article... (10/20/2005 9:52:55 PM)
Posted by Wally, Friday, 21 October 2005 6:39:45 PM
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Bird flu risk 'almost non-existent'
By Lisa Macnamara
The Australian 22oct05

AUSTRALIANS have "virtually zero" chance of contracting the deadly bird flu virus, despite the panic being whipped up across the world, a leading international health expert declared yesterday.

As governments raced to stockpile drugs to treat the virus, World Health Organisation head of flu research in Australia Ian Barr told The Weekend Australian "we're not in a pandemic" and said the risk of infection was almost non-existent.

"People immediately make the association that just because there's bird flu in migratory birds, or in a couple of poultry flocks, that translates to a very imminent human danger - and that's not the case," Dr Barr, the acting deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza, said yesterday.

"The virus isn't here so the chances of becoming infected here are virtually zero," he said.

"The only way that it can get here is if it's brought in illegally or ... comes with migratory birds.

"We haven't seen H5 in Australia ever - whether that's just good luck or whether the migratory birds that have been infected don't make it to Australia, that remains to be seen."
Posted by Wally, Saturday, 22 October 2005 2:41:33 PM
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hi all,

Bird flu surely has been spreading across the globe and its the job of the various governments to create awareness amongst all the people and stockpile the drugs namely tamiflu and relenza to protect everybody from the H5N1 strain . A lot of information is also available on the net on bird flu and tamiflu. I perchanced upon two interesting ones.. http://www.drugdelivery.ca/s3353-s-TAMIFLU.aspx and http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/tamiflu/default.htm which happen to give some much needed information on the disease and its drugs.
Im sure everybody will find this helpful
Posted by estelle, Sunday, 23 October 2005 10:18:33 PM
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