Influenza pandemic

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Why the world isn't ready for the coming influenza pandemic, World Health Organization warns Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

REPPED: A global influenza pandemic isn't something that most people think about on a day-to-day basis. But it could soon become front-page news, if the fears of the World Health Organization are realized. The group is concerned about the ripening conditions for a global outbreak of a particular bird flu strain currently present in Asia. What makes this situation all the more serious is the humbling fact that the world simply doesn't have the manufacturing or distribution capacity to provide flu vaccinations to many people.

That's why estimates of the number of people who could die in the next influenza pandemic are reaching astronomical proportions. The US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that between 2 million and 7.4 million deaths would occur globally from the outbreak. But other scientists are offering much higher estimates: one noted Russian scientists estimates that as many as one billion people around the world could be killed by a viral outbreak that's expected to arrive soon. He simultaneously estimates hundreds of thousands would be killed in the United States alone.

As already mentioned, the 1918 influenza pandemic killed up to 50 million people. Other pandemics occurred in 1957 and 1968, well after the development of antibiotics, which turned out to be all but useless against infectious viral strains. Today, we are past due for the next viral outbreak, and many experts in the area of disease control and infectious diseases are predicting that the H5N1 bird flu strain is a likely candidate to make the cross-species jump and become the next infectious agent for humans.

Bird flu timeline: A history of influenza from 412 BC – AD 2006 Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

First recorded influenza pandemic begins in Europe and spreads to Asia and Africa. 1700s – Influenza pandemics in 1729-1730, 1732-1733, 1781-1782. 1781 – Major epidemic causing high mortality among the elderly spreads across Russia from Asia. 1830 – Major epidemic causing high mortality among the elderly spreads across Russia from Asia. 1831, 1833-1834 – Influenza pandemics hit. 1847-1848 – Influenza sweeps through the Mediterranean to southern France and then continues across in Western Europe. 1878 – A disease causing high mortality in poultry becomes known as the "fowl plague.

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On October 5, 2005 the New York Times reported that the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic was linked to the avian flu. Two teams of federal and university scientists announced that they had resurrected the 1918 influenza virus and found that it was actually a bird flu that jumped directly to humans. Democrats on Capitol Hill lodged their partisan complaints that the delay put Americans in jeopardy.

Flu : The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic Gina Kolata See book keywords and concepts

It was a swine flu virus, one that was closely related to, if not identical to, the virus that, through the sleuthing in the 1930s by people like Richard Shope, was thought to have caused the 1918 influenza pandemic. The evidence was a standard immunological test: Antibodies that cling to and inactivate swine flu viruses also clung to and inactivated this new virus. The test was to grow the virus in a fertilized hen's egg and then remove the cloudy fluid that was brimming with virus. Mix the virus with red blood cells. If they clump, you have a flu virus.

Hultin explained Hale's idea of looking for frozen bodies of flu victims buried in permafrost and asked Geist how to go about finding the record of deaths from the influenza pandemic of 1918. Hultin suspected that the missionaries had records, but he needed help finding them. Geist wrote back immediately, offering assistance and telling Hultin that he would get names and addresses. Hultin could say that Geist referred him when he wrote his letters. It took all winter. Hultin corresponded from home, in the evening. Gradually, replies drifted in. Some missionaries said there were no records.

In the aftermath of the 1918 influenza pandemic, scientists realized that despite the unexpected triumphs of their research, despite their discovery of the footprints of the 1918 virus in swine flu and their continuing investigations, they still lacked the direct knowledge they needed to really understand that terrible virus and to protect people from it if it came again. One thing was required, and it seemed almost impossible to obtain. Scientists had to get hold of the actual 1918 influenza virus itself. When Johan V.

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Even in relatively recent history, infection was a leading generation killer. The influenza pandemic of 1918, for example, killed forty million people worldwide. And today epidemiologists are worried that with the rapid spread of SARS and bird flu, another pandemic might be in the making. In response, we have to develop a way to combat those foreign invaders.

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Thompson, then Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, unveiled the department's Pandemic Influenza Response and Preparedness Plan, which outlines a coordinated national strategy to prepare for and respond to an influenza pandemic. "This plan will serve as our road map on how we, as a nation and as a member of the global health community, respond to the next pandemic influenza outbreak, whenever that may be," he said at the time. Recently, the US has been stockpiling flu vaccines, yet these are not likely to be of much help.

Flu : The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic Gina Kolata See book keywords and concepts

Was it more than a coincidence that the first known swine flu epidemic emerged in the midst of the worst human influenza pandemic in recorded history? Could it be that humans gave pigs influenza in 1918 and that it remained in the animals, perking along at a low level ever since? The virus that caused the human 1918 flu pandemic was gone, of course, vanishing with the pandemic. No one had saved it— they had no idea how to save a virus and, in fact, medical scientists of that time did not even know that it was a virus that had caused the 1918 flu.

The best way to combat an influenza pandemic is with vaccines—if manufacturers have enough advance notice of a new flu strain to make enough vaccine to go around. Manufacturers could, if they understood what made the 1918 flu so deadly, stockpile vaccines sufficient to protect the population if that flu or one like it ever came again. That, however, would require knowing what the 1918 flu looked like. Yet the last victims of the flu died in 1918, taking the virus with them. Under ordinary circumstances, that would be the end of the story.

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His most potent ammunition, however, was drawn from germ theory's recent and bitter defeat in the face of the influenza pandemic. He raised the spectre of influenza, and the putative 'influenza bacillus', which had been blamed but was often not found in clinical cases, yet found prolifically in the sinuses of the healthy. Thus influenza bacillus may exist and not produce disease; on the other hand, it may be absent and we may still suffer from 'influenza'. This leads to the question, 'what is the significance of a term like influenza'?

Flu : The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic Gina Kolata See book keywords and concepts

After an influenza pandemic of 1789, a young American doctor named Robert Johnson puzzled over how the infection could spread so far and wide, and so quickly. That epidemic came the year George Washington was inaugurated as President, two decades before the first steamboat crossed the Atlantic, and three decades before the first steam train took its first run. Illness spread so fast that it did not seem possible for it to have been transmitted by person-to-person contact.

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In other words, it appeared as germ theory was achieving the status of established orthodoxy in the West, but also just after one of its most severe and public tests—the influenza pandemic of 1918?9. In Europe, some parts of the medical community remained ambivalent: they plumped for germs, but hedged their bets. The British, for example, continued to build pavilion hospitals and Nightingale wards (both of which were designed to fight disease as it was conceptualized by sanitarian and miasmatic, not germ theory, models—via eliminating filth and putrefaction, not microbes) until the 1930s.

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Avian flu is feared because it could provoke a repeat of the influenza pandemic of 1918. The 1918 flu, or H1N1 virus, was—like the avian flu—an influenza A virus. Like that earlier flu, avian flu unleashes an unusual hurricanelike storm of immune-system signaling proteins called cytokines, which signal the immune system to combat microbial invaders. Cytokines signaling to the immune system to fight disease is a good thing, but when cytokine levels are elevated for too long and their signaling becomes uncontrolled, they can hijack the body's immune system to turn against the body itself.

How to survive a flu pandemic by strengthening your immune system now Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

Even during the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed so many people around the world, as many as seven percent of all people infected by the flu showed no symptoms whatsoever. Most infected people will survive it. Flu isn't a killer like Ebola, which wipes out 90 percent of those infected. When you see statistics from the WHO that say 33 percent, or as much as 50 percent, of the world's population will be infected, it doesn't mean that 50 percent will die. It just means that they will be infected. Most of them will overcome the disease with their own immune systems, and they will survive.

Bird flu timeline: A history of influenza from 412 BC – AD 2006 Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

Caused by an H1N1 flu virus, it is the worst influenza pandemic (and subsequently, epidemic) to date. There are more than half a million U.S. deaths; worldwide death estimates range from 20 million to 100 million. According to WebMD, "The pandemic comes before the era of antibiotics -- which are now essential in treating the secondary bacterial infections that often kill flu-weakened patients -- so it's difficult to say whether this flu would have the same dreadful impact in the modern world.

Is it smart to prepare for bird flu? Here’s what the experts say Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

The Next Influenza Pandemic: Lessons from Hong Kong, 1997 by René Snacken, Alan P. Kendal, Lars R. Haaheim, and John M. Wood, published by the Centers for Disease Control "Vaccines, antiviral agents and antibiotics to treat secondary infections will be in short supply." -World Health Organization "A focus on one antiviral is misplaced. There's no certainty that they'll be effective.

How to survive a flu pandemic by strengthening your immune system now Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

If the influenza pandemic becomes sufficiently widespread, you can subsequently expect international air travel, and perhaps even domestic travel, to be outright banned. WHO's strategy also includes closing schools, since schools are obviously another place where disease can spread quite easily. This brings up another question: What about hospitals? Hospitals are perfect for the spread of infectious diseases. They have re-circulated air, they are enclosed spaces and they typically house people who have compromised immune systems and are more susceptible to the disease.

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If and when an influenza pandemic emerges, for instance, many AIDS sufferers will succumb, but people infected with the AIDS precursor, HIV, will still survive influenza and AIDS will march on. India, for example, was among the hardest-hit nations in the 1918 flu pandemic. Today it has among the highest rates of AIDS infection. The age-old human enemies, tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, streptococcus, and other members of the familiar gang, will be on hand with new immunity to the old techno-tricks of the twentieth century.

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One might draw a parallel with the bubonic plague of the Middle Ages or the influenza pandemic of 1918 in which human mortality at the hands of the microbes was similarly devastating. Nonetheless, eventually a new equilibrium point was reached and the human race continues. The parallel with resistance mechanisms employed by bacteria to ensure the continuation of their genera is unmistakable. Clearly the contest between plants and animals on one hand and microbes on the other is a war that will never cease.

Is it smart to prepare for bird flu? Here’s what the experts say Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt "If an influenza pandemic started tomorrow, we would not be able to head it off with vaccines because the production facilities available to produce them are grossly inadequate." -Dr. Robert G. Webster, a member of the Infectious Diseases department of St. Jude "The disease in humans has no vaccine and no specific treatment once illness becomes severe." -The World Health Organization "In terms of treatment, we need to put money into basic research. At this point, we are just relying on neuraminidase inhibitors.

Individual citizens should be prepared for an influenza pandemic, and be educated about individual responsibility to limit the spread of infection if they or their family members become ill." -White House document, National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza (NSPI) "We now face the threat of bird flu and so we have to stay on our highest alert. We have to do our preparations early, identify the disease early and keep it under control.

The Next Influenza Pandemic: Lessons from Hong Kong, 1997 by René Snacken, Alan P. Kendal, Lars R. Haaheim, and John M. Wood, published by the Centers for Disease Control "If there is a severe outbreak of bird flu, the GPO will be able to produce enough oseltamivir to treat 100,000 patients, which would mean producing one million tablets within 15 days." -Government Pharmaceutical Organization Managing Director, Mongkon Jirasatikarn, referring to Thailand's plan to produce a generic version of Tamiflu "The harm (caused by the sale of fake vaccines) is incalculable.

Vaccines are not the answer for bird flu Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) deserve tremendous credit for tracking contagious diseases and trying to warn nations to prepare for the coming influenza pandemic. But nations aren't listening. WHO warnings are being ignored. CDC advice isn't being given the attention it deserves. The politicians, essentially, aren't heeding the advice of these organizations. Sure, they're talking preparedness, but they aren't following through with action.

Natural medicine may hold solution for bird flu pandemic Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

Then go on with your life without worry or concern about this year's flu or the coming influenza pandemic. Go on with your life and stop worrying. Don't live in a state of constant fear about something you can protect yourself against. I want you to be able to spend time with your family, knowing that they're not going to be hit by this flu. I want you to go on with your life and do something creative and important that helps uplift humanity. I want you to survive the bird flu outbreak and go on to contribute to society in a meaningful way.

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Short of that, at any time we could encounter another influenza pandemic or Ebola-type strains that could emerge from a human-decimated rainforest, dirty river, airborne mosquito or laboratory accident. Yet somehow we tolerate existing practices while waiting for the Big One to sweep across the world, as has always happened in history. Except the conditions for robust microbes to take over the planet are more favorable than ever.

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As mentioned earlier, there is a high probability that another influenza pandemic will occur within the next ten years. Being prepared, by understanding the way influenza spreads and having a medicine chest of natural flu remedies, is wise. Exercise good judgment when considering use of the flu vaccine, and use antiviral drugs only as the medication of last resort. Prepare for seasonal illnesses and a possible flu pandemic by using natural remedies, especially Chinese medicine, to shorten its duration and intensity.

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ABOUT THE CREATOR OF NATURALPEDIA: Mike Adams, the creator of this NaturalNews Naturalpedia, is the editor of NaturalNews.com, the internet's top natural health news site, creator of the Honest Food Guide (www.HonestFoodGuide.org), a free downloadable consumer food guide based on natural health principles, author of Grocery Warning, The 7 Laws of Nutrition, Natural Health Solutions, and many other books available at www.TruthPublishing.com, creator of the earth-friendly EcoLEDs company (www.EcoLEDs.com) that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting products, founder of Arial Software (www.ArialSoftware.com), a permission e-mail technology company, creator of the CounterThink Cartoon series (www.NaturalNews.com/index-cartoons.html) and author of over 1,500 articles, interviews, special reports and reference guides available at www.NaturalNews.com. Adams' personal philosophy and health statistics are available at www.HealthRanger.org.