Posted on 04/30/2009 1:26:08 PM PDT by lewisglad
The people who do TV news -- the big-time, ostensibly serious, 24/7 stuff -- know what the audience likes.
One of the things they've found out about us is there's nothing we find more entertaining than a crisis. We love that hint of danger -- vicarious, of course, but not so far removed that we can't put ourselves in the shoes of the real people who are going through something kind of scary.
Governments love crises, too. Crises offer the chance to sound concerned look busy and tell us what good care they're taking of us. And made-up crises are the best of all, because it's almost impossible to screw them up.
I'm saying the piggy pox is the crisis du jour, and has been since Sunday.
That's the day the grunting and squealing started in the cable news channels' pen. Just as the virus jumped from pigs to people, the hysteria jumped from the media to a couple of governments, and since then it has been spreading like wildfire.
The World Health Organization estimates that every year, at least 99.99 percent of the world's population doesn't die of anything related to the flu. The last pandemic scare, the avian flu, killed a worldwide total of 421 people over seven years.
The media know we like a good stampede while we're waiting around for global warming that will never get here or a North Korean missile that might.
But by acting, right from the outset, as if every story is the Big One, the visual media are training Americans to get all worked up over nothing, while desensitizing us to real danger.
It isn't in the media's interest -- or politicians' -- to drop the self-serving dramatics.
It's up to you to build up your resistance
(Excerpt) Read more at cleveland.com ...
see my number 40 which was partially in response to your comments as well...
Actually, I don’t think viruses are ever truly “cured,” in the sense of completely wiped out, even by the human immune system.
Many viral illnesses can recur, often with somewhat different symptoms, and even years later, when the dormant virus that has “hidden” inside human cells re-activates.
The polio virus will do this. Reawakened chickenpox (varicella) virus causes shingles in adults.
Vaccines can prevent infection, and we can treat the illness, but I don’t think a viral invasion of the body is ever truly “cured.” In order to truly eliminate the virus, you have to kill all human cells in which it resides, and that’s not easy.
I’m not a medical professional, just recalling what I’ve experienced and read.
Man oh man, did a lot of you not read the same article I did?????
This is the most common sense MSM piece I have read about this supposed “pandemic”.
Yes. That’s exactly what happened in 1918.
In that epidemic, a healthy immune system apparently worked against the victim, because cytokine storm sent the immune system into overdrive and turned it against the infected body. In most victims, as I understand, it destroyed the lungs, sometimes very rapidly.
I’ve heard old-timers talk about how the young and healthy were often the first victims. That scares me, for my own young and healthy sons.
I want to know just why we have to be so scared of Swine Flu.
Sort of like I want to know what’s so bad about global warming.
H1N1 flu = hiney flu?
“However, please remember that the “Spanish” flu of 1918 probably killed more people than the plague (Black Death), estimates as high as 100 million.”
Yes, and there were a hell of a lot more people then, and alot better travel options than in 1400. % is more important, and the black plagueS (there were many over the centuries) killed about 1/3 of the European populace overall.
“The 1918 flu was H1N1 and was avian in origin.”
I heard some time ago (before this craze) that they believe it was actually a swine-based flu.
Researchers think that the 1918 virus was avian in origin, but research is not conclusive. I’ve read that the current strain has avian, porcine, and human markers. Strange stuff.
Here’s a CDC paper published in Jan., 2006, prior to the current panic and political situation:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol12no01/05-0979.htm
A very interesting read.
Whatever the origin, I think we all want it to just go away.
See post 40, who also mentions the pig component. Sure I saw it on a documentary on 1 of those Discovery Channels or such.
Anyway, I still question WHY we’re so worried about this.
Is this stuff the same as the Undocumented Worker Flu, Mickey Mouse Variant?
Where I work, people usually come to work sick because their kids gave it to them. And the other ones that get sick are the ones that like to talk/BS a lot.
My work areas are between a long and very far distance away from the popular BS spots. I don't need to see many people very often for days. I have gone down there looking for people and asked "Alright, where is everybody" more than once!
Maybe spraying all the phones down there with Lysol would make the intercom go quiet too??!
No. This flu is IN ADDITION to Tuberculosis, Dengue Fever and Cholera.
That would be one heck of a epitaph for a grave stone wouldn't it.”
Hello,
Or: “....I told you I was sick....”
MOgirl
It's guaranteed to keep observant Muslims away from you.
You’d be pretty stupid to dismiss this one. Just go to the CDC site and track the CONFIRMED cases on a daily basis.
Very much a trailing indicator.
None of us, unless we’re freaks, have any resistance to this combination of flu. We don’t normally react to swine flu. But as this thing hits somebody with the normal seasonal flu, those two viruses will recombine into something which is spread even more easily.
Unlike some of the previous bird flu scares, this one is already showing it can be transmitted easily between humans, and to people who haven’t had any contact with pigs or people from Mexico. It’s loose.
It’s sounds really smart to downplay this. Probably just the opposite.
The Spanish Flu was a swine/human/bird recombinant virus.
If I had to guess, this will shift more to the southern hemisphere as their winter approaches, and will come back here this fall more contagious than ever as it takes advantage of the favorable recombination. A summer flu season is rare. But so is this combination of genes on a virus.
This thing probably won’t kill you. The Spanish Flu didn’t kill 97.5% of the people who caught it.
It’s just when you calculate what 2.5% of the population is that you apppreciate the threat.
Apparently quite a few. Last I heard they won't let the Border Patrol and Immigration people wear masks. Too intimidating they say...despite the fact that the Mexican authorities are handing the masks out on the street.
Just like this one, it had aspects of both swine and avian flu.
“This thing probably won’t kill you. The Spanish Flu didn’t kill 97.5% of the people who caught it.”
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Speaking as one who just barely survived the 1968 version of the flu I can assure anyone interested that possible death is not the only reason to fear the flu. I endured at least 48 hours of some of the most exquisite torture imaginable and took quite some time to regain normal strength. Surviving that kind of flu will make a believer of anyone. If I knew I had to endure that again I might start casting lingering glances at my shotgun.
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