The US govt - mostly The Obamator and Napalitano, have said they requested an extra $1.5B to stock

vaccines and distribute anti-virals.

What vaccines? Vaccines have to be built and designed for each influenza type - as we know from the past couple of years, Pharma’s efforts at building an effective flu vaccine have been considerably less than successful.

Vaccine Effectiveness
The ability of flu vaccine to protect a person depends on the age and health status of the person getting the vaccine, and the similarity or “match” between the virus strains in the vaccine and those in circulation. Testing has shown that both the flu shot and the nasal-spray vaccine are effective at preventing the flu. http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/keyfacts.htm

Is there a vaccine for swine flu?
Vaccines are available to be given to pigs to prevent swine influenza. There is no vaccine to protect humans from swine flu. The seasonal influenza vaccine will likely help provide partial protection against swine H3N2, but not swine H1N1 viruses. CDC statement here: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/key_facts.htm at the bottom of the page.

What anti-virals? The media specifically mentions Tamiflu, but if you go read the prescribing data as well as the pharmocological data about the drug, it has not really be proven useful as a prophylactic against influenza, AND, the way it works is to prevent protein replication in growing cells - similar to the anti-viral cocktails given to HIV patients. How would you like the ‘cure’ being worse than the disease for each of your kids?

The CDC stats for a normal flu season indicate that typically, 36,000 people die every year. http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm With this infection, there have been less than 150 deaths, and there is no proof that it will amount to much more than another non-seasonal flu. Of the reported deaths, the only one in the US that we know about was a 23 month old child, and there is word coming out now that s/he was a Mexican national, brought from their home in Matamoros, MX to Brownsville, TX for treatment. (Who’s paying for this hospital bill? What’s this say about Mexico’s socialist health care system?). Do we know anything about the physical health of that child? Typically, the first people to die from ANY disease are those who already have compromised immune systems - such as AIDS patients (hint-see any relation to anti-virals?).

Besides being of questionable value, there is also mounting evidence that some strains of influenza are becoming resistant to the effects of Tamiflu and Relenza, and once they develop a resistance to one, it is a cross resistance. (Bug becomes resistant to both drugs.) Nice, it gets handed out for every viral scare we have and, like with antibiotics, the bugs are becoming resistant to it too…

Cross resistance between [Relenza] resistant influenza mutants and [Tamiflu] resistant influenza mutants has been observed in cell culture. http://www.rocheusa.com/products/tamiflu/pi.pdf

Also, as Peter Boyle and many of his listeners noted this morning on KHOW, a Denver radio station, if the Federal government were truly concerned about this ‘pandemic’, like Cuba, Spain, and many European countries, they would close our southern border. Why haven’t they done it yet? Because it would prove how fast they could effectively shut down illegal immigration, and that is not on Obama’s list of things to do in his first 200 days. (Sorry for the political statement but this swine flu panic is not about the disease.) The link above is to a podcast of this morning’s show.

Don’t let yourself fall for the media hype.

And no, neither Tamiflu (Oseltamivir) or the other anti-viral Relenza (Zanamivir) are available over the counter, both need a prescription in the US. http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/antiviral_swine.htm

If after reading all of this information and you still feel you really need to stockpile Tamiflu for your family, get ready to mortgage your house for it. A couple of google searches show these prices:

• DrugDelivery.ca is charging from $150 to $2400 depending on quantity and expiration dates
• OnlinePharmacyTracker.com is charging $149 for 10 pills, and you may need 60 or more, depending on what dosing is used. That is $894/person
• Online Pharmacy is charging $10.50/pill

So, by looking at the prices, you can get raped as bad as you want. Remember, these are mail order pharmacies and you don’t always know where they are coming from, if it’s real, etc. If you can convince your doctor tp prescribe it for you, you might be able to get your insurance to pay for it. Of course, then you have to find a pharmacy who actually has it on hand. Several of the online pharmacies I checked with were out of stock.

In case you think you need a painter’s mask to protect yourself, think again . All that will do is protect you from blowing mucous all over others when you sneeze. That’s what your hand is for. http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/masks.htm

A statement about the swine flu in the US from the CDC says they found a similar strain back in 1988 and another back in 1976, but there certainly wasn’t the same panic we are seeing now.

What do we know about human-to-human spread of swine flu?
In September 1988, a previously healthy 32-year-old pregnant woman was hospitalized for pneumonia and died 8 days later. A swine H1N1 flu virus was detected. Four days before getting sick, the patient visited a county fair swine exhibition where there was widespread influenza-like illness among the swine.

In follow-up studies, 76% of swine exhibitors tested had antibody evidence of swine flu infection but no serious illnesses were detected among this group. Additional studies suggest that one to three health care personnel who had contact with the patient developed mild influenza-like illnesses with antibody evidence of swine flu infection. More on this can be found here: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/key_facts.htm

What other examples of swine flu outbreaks are there?
Probably the most well known is an outbreak of swine flu among soldiers in Fort Dix, New Jersey in 1976. The virus caused disease with x-ray evidence of pneumonia in at least 4 soldiers and 1 death; all of these patients had previously been healthy. The virus was transmitted to close contacts in a basic training environment, with limited transmission outside the basic training group. The virus is thought to have circulated for a month and disappeared. The source of the virus, the exact time of its introduction into Fort Dix, and factors limiting its spread and duration are unknown. The Fort Dix outbreak may have been caused by introduction of an animal virus into a stressed human population in close contact in crowded facilities during the winter. The swine influenza A virus collected from a Fort Dix soldier was named A/New Jersey/76 (Hsw1N1). More on this can be found here: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/key_facts.htm

There are other reasons for the media to be whipping up a panic in this country and world wide. Think about the economy… Think about illegal immigration… Think about the national debt… If it smells like a smoke screen, it probably is, and it smells like pig p00p.

—>Gardie

Tags: H1N1 Swine Flu