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To: Bear_Slayer
Anyone have any thoughts regarding Spanish Influenza of 1918, that it was created by the military for warfare?

I'm not sure they had that technology in 1918. I read an article about it once I think it was in National Geographic. Many soldiers had this flu and brought it back with them. There is something about war that seems to facilitate sickness and the likelihood of pandemics, epidemics. People are not so healthy...people are sick, hungry...people are on the move and spread the disease during wars.

43 posted on 02/21/2005 4:08:40 PM PST by virgil
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To: virgil
I'm not sure they had that technology in 1918

Soldiers have been using chem/bio weapons for ages. They would hurl dead/diseased animals and humans over the castle walls. The pasteurization process was discovered in 1864, so by 1918, there must have been some greater understanding of organisms and how to harness them.
47 posted on 02/21/2005 4:18:57 PM PST by Bear_Slayer
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To: virgil
People are not so healthy...people are sick, hungry...people are on the move and spread the disease during wars.

That is what made the Spanish flu different. It attacked mainly the healthy late teen early twenties. Wrecked havoc amongst the worlds military.

66 posted on 02/21/2005 5:01:52 PM PST by D Rider
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To: virgil
The pandemic spread rapidly and affected young healthy people disproportionately. It was not restricted to emerging nations and here in rural Kansas the church registries are quite shocking on the deaths. My wife was helping move records and looked at them. 17, 18 year olds that suddenly died. An older woman remarked about how her parents talked about all the healthy young people that died. They would suddenly get sick and then practically fall apart and die within 48 hours.
The disease was devastating in its quick pathology and quick transmission. It burned through he population quite quick even with the lack of transportation compared to today. For those of us that follow this it is not a laughing matter. The hunt for the 1918 variation led scientists to dig up samples from some sailors that died and were buried in the Greenland permafrost. Those samples are now being studied in a Washington University lab. Influenza mutates rapidly and while hosted in birds, usually goes through a intermediary species that has genetics similar to ours but easier to jump to from birds. Then when it transitions to ours, it is more adapted to our species. As I remember the fear was that pigs were the intermediary species that was the suspect in the 1918 pandemic.
While the death toll was estimated at 50 million, modern estimates indicate a certain western bias in reporting. It is now thought that 50 million died in India and Asia alone. That is quite a statement for a year. Then the disease was gone.
For all of you who think that this is silly alarmist thought, google how many people are killed each year in the US alone by the normal variations of modern influenza that are not well adapted to our species. Now you know the fear that comes from the reports of avian flu in Asia.
So, how lucky are you at not getting the flu? How about your family? The same stuff that makes you sick with a slight change could kill about everyone you know. Every year the strain mutates differently. That is why vaccines change for each year. Who is to say this years won't be the killer one. Imagine your children coming down with the flu and just sickening them to death in 48 hours while you are helplessly standing by. I think there is a whole host of people worried about just that. Many of the reports indicate they come form the CDC centers offices in third world countries. I think we are out there looking to prevent just such a scenario.
As for biological warfare, no, this is natures killer all on its own. Like the plague outbreak in the Congo going on right now it comes down to lethality, transmission, and pathology.
Aids kills with a high lethality but has a low transmission danger(body fluids) Ebola has a high lethality with a medium transmission danger(fluids and airborne). But influenza has a low lethality but a high transmission danger(airborne). It does not have great stability. Should it become a high lethality and high transmission, look out.
Imagine the disruption to the world of a pandemic. We are so interconnected now that our food, financial, energy sources, and economy would be ground to a halt.
Modern disease outbreaks into humans so far have been dealt with. Some by technology and some by luck. It is a fascinating subject. It just doesn't lend itself to be cavalierly dismissed.
148 posted on 02/21/2005 7:33:09 PM PST by IrishCatholic (No local communist or socialist party chapter? Join the Democrats, it's the same thing.)
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