EXCLUSIVE: Spin and Counterspin: New Bird Flu Mutation has 91% Fatality Rate in Humans

I came across this and I thought I would add it here. Pretty scary.

cryptogon.com...

www.google.com...

Officials are trying to get to the bottom of how vaccine manufacturer Baxter International Inc. made “experimental virus material” based on a human flu strain but contaminated with the H5N1 avian flu virus and then distributed it to an Austrian company.

That company, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then disseminated the supposed H3N2 virus product to subcontractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany. Authorities in the four European countries are looking into the incident, and their efforts are being closely watched by the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Control.

cryptogon.com...



[edit on 26/2/2009 by kosmicjack]

reply to post by kosmicjack


Good grief.

It's really amazing we didn't off the human race eons ago.

We really are the luckiest species alive.

Yipes. Good catch kosmicjack.

But really, vaccinations -especially livestock vaccinations- pose exactly the same danger: creating living petrie dishes for viral/microbial reassortment and recombination, and godknows what new strains and species.

We're such clever little buggers, aren't we?

.

Originally posted by MemoryShock
What do you think of the following recent news release?

Scientists close in on universal flu vaccine

More on this. (Remember Henry Niman?)...

Universal Vaccine Media Myths

The above headline and comment from media reports on the antibody treatment describe in today's Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, "Structural and functional bases for broad-spectrum neutralization of avian and human influenza A viruses" paper unrealistically raise expectations and misrepresent the data presented in the paper. These media myths are repeated and create many misconceptions, which can be significant downside in the management of seasonal and pandemic influenza. They create an illusion of a near term universal vaccine that can lead to a single injection that will give long term protection against a wide range of influenza's, including various seasonal flu serotypes and pandemic influenza.

...the paper does not describe a universal vaccine. It describes a panel of monoclonal antibodies that can provide protection from an influenza challenge in mice treated before or after infection. The data on treatment prior to infection is for one day, while the longest time period reported post infection was 3 days.

...The antibodies described in the paper are not vaccines. A vaccine would be the "Achilles heel" that would be injected into hosts to achieve long term immunity against a variety of challenges.

...However, the media myths suggest that a single injection can provide long term (lifetime?) protection, which is not supported by the data in the paper, or data for other therapeutic or prophylactic monoclonal antibodies. Similarly, the reduced activity against existing isolates suggests that resistance will develop.

.

Hi - thank you for this very important thread. Any special reason why the links to the various survival websites mentioned are all unavailable/closed etc. in the original post

SURVIVAL

CBC: AVIAN FLU

www.emergencypreparednessweek.ca...

www.ready.gov...

www.pep.bc.ca...

www.fluwikie.com...

www.ccep.ca...




seems a bit odd?? Don't you think?

berth

Originally posted by badBERTHA
Hi - thank you for this very important thread. Any special reason why the links to the various survival websites mentioned are all unavailable/closed etc. in the original post

SURVIVAL

CBC: AVIAN FLU

www.emergencypreparednessweek.ca...

www.ready.gov...

www.pep.bc.ca...

www.fluwikie.com...

www.ccep.ca...

seems a bit odd?? Don't you think?

berth

Hi, and thanks Berth.

Re closed links: the article originally was posted in 2005 so some lost links are inevitable. I checked, found only 2 of 6 links closed.

2 gone: www.getprepared.gc.ca...
www.ccep.ca...

The other 4 are working:

www.cbc.ca...
Updated May 12, 2008

www.ready.gov...
Updated 2008

www.pep.bc.ca...
Redirects to Emergency Preparedness Homepage
New Link
www.pep.bc.ca...

www.fluwikie.com...
About FluWickie is still working

.

I don't know if its in here, I didn't read the whole thing but I was wondering if the OP could link me to an artice with the 91% mortality rate. thanks.

Originally posted by concerned190

I didn't read the whole thing but I was wondering if the OP could link me to an artice with the 91% mortality rate. thanks.

THIS is the article that points out the 91% mortality rate for the time period in question, based on WHO figures for total and fatal cases.

This article's title "Spin and Counterspin" spotlights the inherent "damned if you do, damned if you don't" implications of mainstream "Risk Communication" practices. ...In Ethics studies, "risk communication" is about 'preventing panic' by choosing what information and how much of it to release to the public.

This article's thesis challenges "risk communications" practices by pointing out:

a) The spin - which reports a limited number of cases; and
b) The counterspin - which simply does the math, showing the high mortality rate as a precentage, and given the limited number of cases reported.

One of the main 'counterspin' premises is that there is a helluva lot more bird flu going around than is being reported. FYI - still is.

If you read the article and the followup posts, it will all come clear. Promise.

sofi

reply to post by soficrow

It's spin and counterspin. Just like the title says.

Our governments have a choice:

a) Admit that far more people are infected with H5N1 bird flu than is acknowledged officially; OR

b) Get stuck with a 91% fatality rate.

But they can't have it both ways.

And the games continue. But to be fair, very few people test positive for H5N1 bird flu, and 20-80% of those infected tend to die. It's a scary virus that just keeps mutatin' and mutatin' along.

Bird Flu: More Common, Less Deadly than We Thought?

A new study suggests H5N1 is more easily spread and far less deadly than scientists believed. What does that mean for work on potentially lethal man-made versions of the virus?

Like I said back when.

Opinion: H5N1 Flu Is Just as Dangerous as Feared, Now Requires Action

In the mBio® commentary, Michael Osterholm* and Nicholas Kelley, of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, present their case that H5N1 is a very dangerous virus, based on their analysis of published studies of the seroepidemiology of H5N1 in humans. H5N1 flu infections have exceedingly high mortality, they say, and current vaccines and antiviral drugs will not pull us out of a global H5N1 pandemic.

"We believe that the assertion that the case-fatality rate of H5N1 influenza in humans may be overestimated is based on a flawed data analysis,"Osterholm said.

….Seroepidemiologic studies that have examined the exposure of various groups of people to H5N1 viruses only from 2004 onward indicate that only a small segment of the population has ever been exposed to H5N1, and that among those that have been exposed, many become seriously ill or die.

"The available seroepidemiologic data for human H5N1 infection support the current WHO reported case-fatality rates of 30% to 80%," Osterholm says. In the event of an H5N1 pandemic, they point out, if the virus is even one tenth or one twentieth as virulent as has been documented in these smaller outbreaks, the resulting fatality rate would be worse than in the 1918 pandemic, in which 2% of infected individuals died.

Vaccines will not head off an H5N1 pandemic either, the authors say, since the time required to develop and manufacture an influenza vaccine specific to new outbreak strain has resulted in "too little, too late" vaccine responses for the 1957, 1968, and 2009 influenza pandemics, and not much in the process has changed since 2009.

Bird flu more common, less deadly than believed

Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, which studies threats of bioterrorism, says there are flaws in the methods used.

…..Taking an average of the studies Palese used, Osterholm said, is therefore misleading. "If you put your head in the freezer and your feet in the oven, of course the average temperature will be just right," he said.

NOTE: *Michael Osterholm is a member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.

By this logic, the new Canadian outbreak has a 100% fatality rate - one case, one death. More cases would indicate a lower mortality rate of course, if no one else died, but then we'd have to look at morbidity...

reply to post by soficrow


I would think it would be hard to judge just how deadly these things are until there are widespread outbreaks to track. For now, it's enough to know that they aren't exactly the regular, old garden variety flu and would likely kill far, far more people than normal.

reply to post by ketsuko

... it would be hard to judge just how deadly these things are until there are widespread outbreaks to track

It's also extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine mortality and morbidity when authorities insist on the "don't test, don't find" policy, and lie too.

Odium

Originally posted by soficrow
Odium - bird flu is spreading like wildfire around the world right now.

And where are the deaths? As your title states "91% Fatality Rate in Humans", it is a bit misleading to post information on where birds have been found with it. The cases in the Western world are tiny. Especailly, since the virus has been around for 9 years now as one of your sources shows us.

A 23 year old guy died the other day where I live from H1N1. He died in the hospital after a just a few days.

clay2 baraka

Odium

Originally posted by soficrow
Odium - bird flu is spreading like wildfire around the world right now.

And where are the deaths? As your title states "91% Fatality Rate in Humans", it is a bit misleading to post information on where birds have been found with it. The cases in the Western world are tiny. Especailly, since the virus has been around for 9 years now as one of your sources shows us.

A 23 year old guy died the other day where I live from H1N1. He died in the hospital after a just a few days.

did he get it from the vaccine??

These things come from labs it feels like...

reply to post by hidingthistime

These things come from labs it feels like...

They certainly could, and yes, there is a HUGE war brewing between corporations for control of the global market. At the same time though, we have totally contaminated this giant petrie dish we call our Earth and nature needs NO help at all to create crazy new diseases. It's called evolution. And it's happening as we speak. Just totally blows me away that some people think you need a lab for stuff that routinely happens in a gutter. Go figure.

reply to post by soficrow


I thought the mortality rate on average including all cases was more like 60 percent (which is still scaaary high).

Also you should ALWAYS presume there are way more infections than recorded. So there may be hundreds that have it and aren't dying.

GogoVicMorrow
reply to post by soficrow

 

I thought the mortality rate on average including all cases was more like 60 percent (which is still scaaary high).

Also you should ALWAYS presume there are way more infections than recorded. So there may be hundreds that have it and aren't dying.

True - but note that this article was addressing the 'damage control' efforts of 2006 (still relevant info). See my post above re: spin, counterspin and risk communication - and the relevance of these terms to this topic.

hidingthistime

clay2 baraka

Odium

Originally posted by soficrow
Odium - bird flu is spreading like wildfire around the world right now.

And where are the deaths? As your title states "91% Fatality Rate in Humans", it is a bit misleading to post information on where birds have been found with it. The cases in the Western world are tiny. Especailly, since the virus has been around for 9 years now as one of your sources shows us.

A 23 year old guy died the other day where I live from H1N1. He died in the hospital after a just a few days.

did he get it from the vaccine??

These things come from labs it feels like...

According to the newspaper report, he had not been vaccinated for the flu. It made me think twice about my decision to not take the vaccine.

ketsuko
reply to post by soficrow

 

I would think it would be hard to judge just how deadly these things are until there are widespread outbreaks to track. For now, it's enough to know that they aren't exactly the regular, old garden variety flu and would likely kill far, far more people than normal.

Yes, but after eight years, I wouldn't consider it much of a threat.

second

reply to post by clay2 baraka


Global epidemic charts are showing at least 4 distinct strains in play right now between Asia and the West.... Which strain was the shot even targeting this year? Sounds like a real crap shoot either way.

History says this is one of the ways Nature seems to correct imbalances. A pandemic rolls through every so often to knock down the numbers. If one of these seasons is that one, I just hope we're all around to share experiences on the other end of it.