The Great Swine Flu Pandemic of 2009

According to sources, the normal “seasonal flu” (which mutates every year) kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people a year worldwide, other reports state tens of thousands of people die yearly from the flu. The Tehran Times reports, in their article “World Battles Swine Flu As Death Toll Rises”, that Mexican Health Officials claim the death toll in Mexico rose to 159 deaths and 2,500 illnesses. The World Health Officials claims that at least 105 cases have been confirmed worldwide.

What is the Swine Flu?

According to sources, the 2009 flu outbreak in humans is due to a new strain of influenza a virus subtype H1N1 that derives in part from human influenza, avian influenza, and two separate strains of swine influenza.

Where did this Swine Flu come from?

The origins of this new strain are unknown. The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) reports that this particular strain of Swine Flu has not been found in pigs, instead it seems to pass from human to human. The strain in most cases causes only mild symptoms and the infected person makes a full recovery without requiring medical attention and without the use of antiviral medicines.

The History of this strain

The earliest case involves a 5 year boy from La Gloria, Veracruz state, Mexico, who lived near a pig farm that raises almost 1 million pigs a year. Residents of La Gloria have long complained about the clouds of flies that are drawn to the so-called ‘manure lagoons’ created by such mega-farms. The 5 year old was thought to be suffering from ordinary influenza but laboratory testing revealed he had contracted swine flu. The boy went on to make a full recovery.

La Gloria, Perote, Veracruz is a small community, surrounded by large pig farms. Reports indicate that during February 2009 over 400 persons in the town had flu like symptoms and 2 infants died of ‘pneumonia’.

It is reported that the people of La Gloria frequently traveled to Mexico City ‘to work’, which could very well include taking their wares into Mexico City to sell.

Reactions to the Swine Flu

The United States and World Health Organization elevated this strain of Swine Flu to a Phase 5 pandemic virus.

Is this Swine Flu for real or Media Hype?

The best answer to this that I have seen comes from the National Geographic article “Swine Flu Facts, Swine Flu Myths”:

Q. Is this just another media health scare? How worried should we be?

A. The truth lies somewhere in between panic and eye-rolling.

Making the jump from animal-to-person to person-to-person transmission is a rare skill for a flu virus to “learn.” This ability makes H1N1 swine flu potentially dangerous—and makes the concern about it a bit different from the worries over bird flu, which has yet to make such a transition.

Human-to-human transmission is a big part of why public health officials are pouring resources into swine flu and why they want you to be aware that the virus is out there.

That said, experts like Johns Hopkins’s Pekosz and RTI’s Layton say there’s currently no reason to lock yourself up in the house.

For one thing, the cases outside Mexico have been no more serious than your average flu bug. Right now, nobody is sure why that is. And while the severity of the symptoms could increase, Pekosz said there’s not really an immediate, serious threat to individuals within the United States.

“However,” he said, “it certainly merits the public paying attention, and it warrants the public health efforts that have been going on in terms of monitoring and research.”

Is the Swine Flu a virus created by ‘the government”?

There are many unsubstantiated claims concerning the idea that the US Government has concocted the swine flu virus and is using it as a form of population control or to control the number of illegal immigrants coming into the US by Mexico. While researching the net, I’ve found very few valid sources that even approach this subject. One such source is the TimesOnline site, which posted an article called “Ten Facts About The Swine Flu”. The article states:

In 1976, an Army recruit at Ford Dix, New Jersey, complained that he was feeling tired and weak. He died the following day. After Swine flu was diagnosed panicked officials persuaded Gerald Ford that the entire population needed vaccination. About 40 million people were vaccinated before another fear took hold - that the vaccine was more dangerous than the disease - and the programme was aborted.

Fort Dix is an army base in New Jersey and is a major training and mobilization center for reserve component soldiers., but back in 1976 it was a part of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command. Quite often I hear Fort Dix being confused with Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. Fort Detrick is an Army Medical Installation. They are home to the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), the National Cancer Institute (NCI-Frederick) and 37 mission partners. Their primary missions include biomedical research and development, medical materiel management and global telecommunications. We are also home to a National Interagency Confederation for Biological Research and National Interagency Biodefense Campus.

Why the soldier at Fort Dix in 1976 became sick and died had nothing to do with the things going on at Fort Detrick… most likely. At the very least a scenario as we find in Stephen King’s “The Stand” isn’t apparent without a total stretch of the imagination.

What is “The Stand”?

In case someone has no concept of “The Stand” by Stephen King, it is perhaps one of the best works of fiction I’ve ever read. The story is a story of Good versus Evil and involves the survivors of the superflu epidemic where only a small portion of the United States population survived. The Superflu was a bioweapon being developed by the US Army at a base in California and due to human error it escaped into ‘the wild’ and spread like wild fire. The first half of the book dealt with the government’s attempts to cover up the virus, as well as showing us a glimpse at how the majority of America died from the flu. It also set up the protagonists and antagonists for the ‘showdown’ in the second half of the book. Many of the items I have read on the Internet about this Swine Flu sounds like something taken right out of Mr. King’s work of fiction, instead of being based on hardcore evidence of their claims.

Summary

Let’s take into consideration the fact that most of us ‘common citizens’ are not in the position of being able to make ‘expert medical decisions’ about this pandemic. There is no shame in acknowledging this fact because most of us are not trained in medical science. We may be smart enough to understand what the experts tell us, to one degree or another, but that doesn’t mean we have the expertise and knowledge to be able to call the shots. Therefore we must assume that there is something to this outbreak of “Swine Flu’ that worries the experts.

In addition let’s consider the fact that most of us are not a part of the political circles that makes decisions upon such things as this outbreak of “Swine Flu”. Even if we are familiar with, or trained in, things pertaining to the political arena… that does not mean we are privy to all of the facts that are presented to the people responsible for making the decisions that are made. Once again, we must assume that there are things about this situation that worries the experts to the point of doing the things they are doing.

Taking these considerations in mind, we can still make judgments based upon the information we are given and utilize our own areas of expertise to aid us in our decision making processes concerning this situation. The bottom line of this reasoning is that we still can make halfway decent judgments about the situation, even if our judgments are wrong in the end.

Looking at the big picture, this situation warrants us all to be smart, take precautions and remain alert for new input. This doesn’t mean that we should panic, or get paranoid over the situation… it only means that we should remain aware of the situation and make changes in our lives if and when necessary.

It seems that the major reason for the government to declare this as an emergency is for the purpose of them being able to get things into motion in case things worsen. Our lawmakers might work on using a better word than “emergency” in cases like this, but at this moment in time ‘emergency’ is the word they use for such things. WHO, and other Health Organizations, are reacting for much the same reason… they want to head things off at the pass, so to speak, and be ready in the event things go sour quick.

The media is accused of hyping the situation for one reason or another. It’s a good possibility that the media is over reacting to the situation for whatever reasons they have, but on the other hand – if they downplay this and don’t give us the information they have on this situation, if things go bad then they will be accused of not reporting the news properly and endangering the lives of people. The only thing I would advise to those in the media is not dwell on this subject as if this outbreak is worse than it is, yet insure you get the information out in a timely manner. That’s not much help, I know, but it’s all I got at this point in time.

The number one thing that we all should strive to do is refrain from being suckered into conspiracy theories. Such reactions do not help the situation and may even impede the government from being able to respond properly. It’s very easy to fall prey to a conspiracy theory, especially if that theory is appealing to our personal beliefs. It’s even easier to fall prey to the pseudo-logic that conspiracy theorists commonly use, just as it’s easy for us to want to blame the government for things.

Whether the U.S. Government, or any government or group, concocted this virus and were responsible for it getting out in the wild (whether on purpose or by accident) isn’t really the important issue right now. The important issue lies in handling the situation properly and trying to stop the outbreak before it gets worse – if we can. We need to treat the situation seriously, yet avoid panicking and doing things that may make things worse.