Public Urged to Prepare for Flu Pandemic, but Studies Show Bird Flu Hard to Diagnose

The public is being urged to prepare for a flu pandemic in the UK, but bird flu is almost impossible to diagnose, reports the New England Journal of Medicine. Several nations including Australia and Canada are reporting deadly flu outbreaks in care homes and hospitals, claiming H5N1 is not the culprit. WebMD reminds readers that H5N1 seems to spread more easily during "cooler months." Bird flu causes a difficult-to-diagnose "spectrum of illnesses" - symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, muscle aches and diarrhea. Reported family clusters included mild, severe, and fatal cases. US authorities insist there is no bird flu at all in America, while the CDC is seeking community input about a flu pandemic. Most states are in high gear with Pandemic Planning efforts.




Doctors generally do NOT test for bird flu, but if they did, the tests would be negative even if the patient was infected.

Not having accurate, reliable diagnostic tests is a huge... erm, oversight. One does wonder.

We do know H5N1 bird flu is spreading and mutating. Most likely, a pandemic strain already has emerged.

But when diagnostic testing is inadequate, reporting is deficient, and there is no commitment to public communication - we have no way of knowing for sure.

The book The Threat of Pandemic Influenza published by the National Academies Press, speaks to governments' tendency to hide crises like pandemics:

"There is no more powerful demonstration of the need for clear and truthful communications in a public health emergency than the social chaos visited on the United States during the 1918 influenza pandemic," the writers warn on page 12, in the section titled Public Communication: A Cautionary Tale.

In the end, all we really know is that individuals are "personally responsible" for their own "pandemic preparedness" - and government is positioned to blame "the terrorists" for anything that happens.

Related Links:

Bird flu hard to detect until too late - studies

New England Journal of Medicine

H5N1 Influenza - Continuing Evolution and Spread

Infections rise in deadly flu outbreak

the H5N1 virus appears to spread more easily "among chickens, and consequently to humans, during the cooler months."

Bird Flu Symptoms

CDC seeks community input about flu pandemic

Nebraska Preparing for a pandemic

THE THREAT OF PANDEMIC INFLUENZA

Also see:

Why Keep Quiet? Severe Flu Pandemic May Cost U.S. $623 Billion

Controlling Epidemics on a Person-to-Person Basis

[edit on 23-11-2006 by UM_Gazz]

No wonder by the time the people is diagnosed with been infected is too late. Now just like the mad cow disease, US was the last to acknowledge that cows in the US may have been infected always claiming that the cows found with the infection were not in the meat supply. That makes you wonder if cases of bird flu found are just been treated and diagnosed like regular bad cases of flu going bad.

So if this winter a big out brake of seasonal flu comes around it will be too late by the time they can figure out or even tell the public that is something more than just your regular flu going around.

Here in the south the flu has been spreading fast, they are advising people to stay at home if they feel that they are sick and children seems to be the ones getting the flu faster.

In the news last week the media was advising people that if they think that they have the flu to seek medical help fast.

Now . . . I know that is natural if you have the flu to go to the doctor, but . . . if you are healthy you can ride the flu at home.

Now they are advising to seek medical help, that I found that something to be with some kind of undertone.

I wonder if some preparedness is been enacted without making the public aware as not to cause a panic attack on the population.

If these people are waiting for symptoms to appear before coming to the conclusion that is something perhaps different on the flu symptom this season, it will be too late for most of the people to survive the bird flu if it becomes wide spread.

So actually we are nothing than sitting ducks waiting to see if the seasonal flu doesn’t end up on a full scale infestation of bird flu.

Well that is some nice though to have this holiday season.

Originally posted by marg6043

Here in the south the flu has been spreading fast, they are advising people to stay at home if they feel that they are sick and children seems to be the ones getting the flu faster.

In the news last week the media was advising people that if they think that they have the flu to seek medical help fast.

...Now they are advising to seek medical help, that I found that something to be with some kind of undertone.

wow. That surprises even me! ...and I've gotten pretty cynical about this.

I wonder if some preparedness is been enacted without making the public aware as not to cause a panic attack on the population.

Now you've got me wondering too.

But now that you mention it, we've had lots of public service announcements about hadwashing and staying home when sick. Plus those "emergency preparedness" ads.

If these people are waiting for symptoms to appear before coming to the conclusion that is something perhaps different on the flu symptom this season, it will be too late for most of the people to survive the bird flu if it becomes wide spread.

Yep.

The only treatment is antivirals, and they only work if they're given just after symptoms first appear.

So actually we are nothing than sitting ducks waiting to see if the seasonal flu doesn’t end up on a full scale infestation of bird flu.

Well that is some nice though to have this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Before I forget, from the studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine:

Bird Flu Symptoms

"In our series, fever was a major symptom, and most of our patients had pneumonia on admission," ... Most had cough and sore throat, but only half reported muscle aches and only one had a runny nose. About a third had diarrhea.

Certain blood enzyme levels were elevated in most of the patients and that may be an important clue, they said.

The clusters "included mild, severe, and fatal cases among family members," they wrote. Despite the use of multiple antibiotics, breathing assistance and other care, half the patients died.

I believe the bird flu is staged. If it is not, then i am almost sure it's once again an artifially introduced product for fear-mongering and or population control.

Same goes for Aids, Hepatitis and other Sexual diseases.

We all know about it, but this type of tests is still not covered by health insurance. Tests are not to be made on a regular basis.

The means to get rid of these illnesses are here. But there is no interest as the pharma-industry would lose alot of profit. Same goes for cancer.

I remember the cases of "bird flu" in germany where some government employees would walk around in white protection suits.. but the "infected" birds where always found at the same chicken-farm. So once in a while they would walk around at exactly the same chicken-farm and show it in the news.

If you find a dead bird on your balcony in switzerland at least.. and you call the responsable department they will tell you on the phone that it is probably not bird-flu, you should forget it and only call if you find 2 dead birds in the same area or something like that.

What a nice phone-diagnosis.

And what's the official counter-measure against bird-flu? Get a regular flu-vaccine which is actually completely useless against bird-flu. (If it existed)

I mean wodsefak? Roflkopter?

I would be very careful in believing in any of these public pharma-sponsored news-reports.

It's always nice to know that no one cares if we die in rows. If the danger of bird-flu is real, why are the counter-measures so ridiculous?

This is a bad joke.

This year the doses of flu vaccine are the highest ever and available. CDC is urging for people to get their flu shots.

While this seems harmless and you’re typical follow upon the prevention of flu symptoms has also been incorporated in some hospitals the awareness fo possible dealings with bird flu alone with the preparedness of the seasonal flu season.

"Here in Massachusetts, in particular, our state health department has started early in the season talking about pandemic preparedness and being prepared for any flu season," he said. "I think that's raised people's awareness about the utility of the flu shot."

While the H5N1 virus, or bird flu, has not yet infected Americans, health officials have monitored its possibility as a pandemic strain of the flu which could be easily transferred from person to person.

So as harmless as it looks hospitals indeed are working and getting prepared for an eventuality.

Can this be just a financial move by the pharma to get their flu vaccine in the market and ready for the consumer?

Or just something else? We don’t know and probably if is something more behind it, probably is too late to do anything anyway.

While CDC said that the flu season is an early start phase and not wide spread, I will have to disagree with that report, because already here in the south is been widespread flu in some counties or so the local media said.

www.cnn.com...

Osram and marg - thanks for your contributions.

FYI - H5N1 bird flu definitely does exist - and it already has decimated the poultry industries in several Asian countries, damaged their economies, destroyed small businesses, and reduced significant populations of people to starvation. We know bird flu also has infected and killed people.

Scientists say it's not if, but when a pandemic will appear - and we have several other diseases besides bird flu poised to go pandemic.

True, bird flu and/or other diseases may have been developed as bioweapons.

But the big problem is - now they're loose in the world - and our industrialized agricultural systems virtually guarantee their mutation and spread.

The other big problem is - people have no immunity - but there are no cures, and few treatments. That's why there's a focus on vaccine development - it's a last ditch effort. Happens to be one I don't really support, but it's the only real medical option available.

The fact that Big Pharma et al are riding the profit wave does not mean the threat is not real, or that the situation is entirely synthetic. Crises are huge profit making opportunities - so riding the wave is just good business.

The biggest threat to human health comes from the agricultural industries - feedlots and factory farms.

Respected scientists say killer viruses like bird flu are not born - they are made - in factory farms. And livestock operations are creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria too.

Avian Influenza: Flu Factories

In our efforts to streamline farming practices to produce more meat for more people, we have inadvertently created conditions by which a harmless parasite of wild ducks can be converted into a lethal killer of humans.

- Johns Hopkins University neurovirologist R.H. Yolken and Stanley Medical Research Institute director E.F. Torrey.

How does naturally occurring, innocuous waterfowl flu mutate into virulent, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)?

According to the World Health Organization's 2005 assessment of the pandemic threat, HPAI viruses aren't born, they're made. "Highly pathogenic viruses have no natural reservoir. Instead, they emerge by mutation when a virus, carried in its mild form by a wild bird, is introduced to poultry. Once in poultry, the previously stable virus begins to evolve rapidly, and can mutate, over an unpredictable period of time, into a highly lethal version of the same initially mild strain." Scientists have demonstrated this transformation in a laboratory setting.

***

Scientists find threat in livestock feedlots

Growing so large that they are now called "factory farms," livestock feedlots are poorly regulated, pose health and ecological dangers and are responsible for a deteriorating quality of life in America's and Europe's farm regions, according to a series of studies published this week by scientists.

Animal feedlots are contaminating water supplies with pathogens and chemicals, and polluting the air with foul-smelling compounds that can cause respiratory problems, but the health of their neighbors goes largely unmonitored, the reports concluded.

The international teams of environmental scientists also warned that the livestock operations are contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant germs, and the proximity of poultry and hogs could hasten the spread of avian flu to humans.

For a quick overview of the economic and political dynamics in play, and governing how authorities respond to the looming pandemics, see:

The Denial Industry

Creating Disease: Pollution, Mutation, Adaptation and Evolution

Financing Pseudoscience: Intelligent Design and the Evolution "Debate."

Backgrounds of Global Warming Skeptics


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