After a brief respite from my usual sarcasm, I have decided that today's post will, once again, delicately point out more absurdity.
First, I should point out that I know very little about flu, or pandemics, or even pigs. Yes folks ... my post today is about swine flu.
First a little historical context. In the flu pandemic of 1918 it is estimated that over 40 million people lost their lives. This was in fact bird flu and not swine flu. Which is worse? I have no idea. I'm resonably sure it depends on the strain. And I'm also fairly certain nobody else knows either, with respect to the WHO.
Fast forward to 1976, Fort Dix army base in New Jersey. One 19 year old soldier died, hundreds more infected. Predicatably, perhaps justifiably, President Gerald Ford panicked, spending hundreds of millions of 1970's dollars on a nationwide vaccination program.
This vaccine resulted in the deaths of more than 30 people from the paralysing nerve disease Guillain-Barre syndrome ... and who knows how many others incapacitated.
Facing protests, the program was scrapped within the year.
What have we learnt? Not too much, by all accounts. The UK has already ordered over 30 million face masks, even though a face mask offers only marginal "protection" over a window estimated at less than 3 hours. And everyone's gearing up for a pandemic. We're now a "5" on a scale of "6". At the time this level was upgraded, 7 people were dead and person to person infection had only just been established as a possibility.
I wonder if we'll all be forced to take a vaccine and play more Russian Roulette with our lives and well-being?
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4 comments:
Good points. My husband I refuse to get flu shots, and I truly hope we are not forced into some vaccine program for this Swine Flu out of fear. The best thing to do is stay as healthy as we can so our bodies can fight off the virus.
Hi Chris
Thanks for your comment. The sad thing is that so many people today are vulnerable because they are so unhealthy. (And this is preventable by lifestyle modification, not drugs).
So more people are likely to die than should.
Providing potentially more justification for vaccines etc.
When are we going to start to see the link between unsustainable practices (farming, economic, GE research, patents, etc) and the state this world finds itself in ... at a time when technology should be yielding unprecedented value?
If progress is measured only by "lives saved" without taking into account less tangible, less crude measures impacting quality of life ... then we will end up with 10 billion rats in a very hostile cage.
A broken world, compounded by ignorance, agenda and greed.
Hi Don. totally agree with you, of course! Dr Mercola's report is certainly food for thought. We decry the use of vaccines anyway, they are poisoning our systems. And this mass hysteria is out of all proportion to the apparent death rate. What about the numbers who die annually from the "regular" 'flu? Surely that would be a pandemic, which this really does not appear to be.
Hey Jan
Amazing that you also read Dr Mercola's report.
Sure makes you think.
Don
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