Heres an interesting one - way back from 2005!

Talking Public Health With Obama – huffingtonpost.com
Jeremy Manier Posted December 19, 2008

I interviewed Obama in October 2005 about the threat of pandemic flu and the broader problem of public health preparedness. I had written for years about various strains of avian flu, and Obama was more knowledgeable on this subject than any elected official I’d met, with a good sense of how to put that knowledge into practice.

He touched on threats ranging from pandemic flu to terrorist attacks and a massive earthquake – “The Big One” – hitting California. Aptly for someone who talks about reducing partisan rancor, the two politicians Obama singled out for praise were both Republicans.

Obama showed an appreciation of how public health problems tie the world together, through economic fallout and the international spread of infections.

Fears of pandemic flu have eased in the last couple of years, but the threat is real – estimates are that an outbreak could kill more than 60 million people worldwide. So it’s a bonus that the next president already has educated himself on ways of keeping such a disaster from ever happening.

Q: How serious do you think the threat is?

A: I think it’s very serious. I think I would distinguish between the particular threat of the H5N1 [avian flu strain], and the threat of pandemic generally. I think that there are reasonably high probabilities of this particular avian flu mutating, and the potential results would be so catastrophic that we have to do everything we can to prepare for it now. The probabilities of some sort of pandemic striking in the next decade are extraordinarily high. And we have to prepare for those circumstances, so that if we make an investment now in creating the infrastructure for vaccine production, strengthening the distribution system and the relationship between federal, state and local governments, those investments won’t be wasted even if we’re lucky and this particular strain of avian flu doesn’t mutate, because we’ll then be in a position to deal with whatever pandemic comes down the road.

Q: What are the best things we can do to prepare, both as a country and individually? Is there anything individuals can do?

A: Well, I mean I’m sure that an Internet market in Tamiflu has erupted over the last month, although I would caution people against trying to purchase Tamiflu over the Internet. You have to assume there’s going to be a lot of counterfeit drugs sweeping through the market as people try to make a quick buck.

But frankly this is one of those areas where government has to carry the load. We have to purchase large stockpiles of Tamiflu. Because we did not get on this quickly enough we’re at the back of the line compared to France, Germany, Japan and other countries. Right now we have a million doses, we’ll probably have 2 million fairly soon, but we need 80, to 90 or 100 million. And then the government’s got to set up an infrastructure to produce vaccine.

Q: The president mentioned the idea of regional quarantines last week. The sense I get is that that’s not a realistic thing once it’s slipped through Southeast Asia.

A: No. I mean, you might be able to slow it.

So, you hate to be Chicken Little on this thing – no pun intended. But this is actually one of those situations where getting people a little scared, and certainly getting our government a little scared is probably a useful thing. And as I said, whatever investments we make are not going to be wasted, because the likelihood of pandemic is so high, even if it isn’t this particular pandemic.

Jeremy Manier: Talking Public Health With Obama

"more knowledgeable on this subject than any elected official I’d met" - I wonder why???!!

Bless you - Becomes nun to know God and enlightenment.

She sure is enlightened

Thank you very much for the information

I saw this on wikipedia and became very suspicious

From January 1997 until being sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense in January 2001, Rumsfeld served as Chairman of Gilead Sciences, Inc. Gilead Sciences is the developer of Tamiflu (Oseltamivir), which is used in the treatment of bird flu.[27] As a result, Rumsfeld's holdings in the company grew significantly when avian flu became a subject of popular anxiety during his later term as Secretary of Defense.

Rumsfeld served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Instrument Corporation from 1990 to 1993. A leader in broadband transmission, distribution, and access control technologies for cable, satellite and terrestrial broadcasting applications, the company pioneered the development of the first all-digital high-definition television (HDTV) technology. After taking the company public and returning it to profitability, Rumsfeld returned to private business in late 1993.

I didnt know Rumsfeld's company invented HDTV. Makes you wonder why we switched to an all digital television. Maybe to sell more HDTVs?

If the govt was willing to pass a law for Rummy's TV company why not pass a similar law requiring Tamiflu? What else has Gilead Sciences come up with to combat new flu?

I just got over the swine flu...wasn't as bad as the tv claimed. I hadn't had a vaccination or taken special medicine...just relaxed at home got a-lot of sleep and binged on dayquill. I actually had a chance to rest it was awessome

/watch?v=uR46QjXjLH0&feature=p layer_embedded#
Alex Colier says the vaccine is design to damage human DNA permanently

Originally posted by kevinsquibben
I just got over the swine flu...wasn't as bad as the tv claimed. I hadn't had a vaccination or taken special medicine...just relaxed at home got a-lot of sleep and binged on dayquill. I actually had a chance to rest it was awessome

How do you know it was H1N1? - Are you in the UK, cos I really wouldn't trust that lame telephone diagnosis thing they have here... Did you get any other tests?

what I continue to find amazing, is this is only being talked about in the media and a few newspapers. Our schools are all still open, people arn't dropping dead in the streets, and nobody is wearing masks. ANYWHERE. Hmmm maybe ... just maybe. this isn't a big deal.something fishy goin on .... anybody???? can't wait to see how they administer the big guns. you know send out the real lab concoction of birdpig soup to the masses. cause this one just aint cuttin it..

Does it means that in America, it's the first time you ear about this?

I'm listening to the videos and haven't finish to see them, but for the moment I don't learn anything I didn't know. Were is information in America?

In France we have started to make some justice process as did Jane Burgermeister in Austria and USA.

It began with the February/March incidents, there was also the call of Joseph Moshe in August who told about what was to come in Ukraine (pandemy of pneumonia with the flu. He informed that baxter was to create a contaminated vaccine in Ukraine), then we saw the effects of the Tamiflu (24h after its absorption those who are allergic dies, no importance of how long they have been hill, 1 day, 7 days... When they are allergic, they die in 24h. We could also observe the anaphilactic chocks with acetaminophen which the media said it was only flu), then we knew that there will be squalen in the French and most of European vaccines and that the viruses will be only half inactivated in the American vaccines (meaning that people who is vaccinated in contagious with flu).

You should hurry, the more you believe in the flu, the more you will have the flu (thanks to the medicines and the statistics : normal flu/ H1N1 flu, there is no more normal flu in the statistics...). In France we are talking about the government to miss his flu. Most people, nurse and doctors are septic with that flu (more than 75%). Somme people of the government are also examinating the transactions (money) with the laboratories and it doesn't smell good (really not).

I don't know why, but it seems that in America, you don't have information like in other country and it seems that critic is absent. You should be much more careful because we have already stop the February catastrophe with the vaccines and we don't know what is about in America (North and South), just like if nobody was moving to be careful with what is done (what they really put in the products). For example, we have made much more examinations of the vaccines and we only have it since a few days. But our politics have impose that there will be mercury and squalen and we can't do anything for that (so most of people will refuse the vaccine, as long as it is possible and are in a democratic country, because it is the problem with that flu, in every country of the OMS, Organisation Mondiale de la Santé in French).

But what I don't understand is that you seem to discover all this now when the debate and the opposition is important in Europe. I wouldn't say that everybody knows about the polemics (my mother didn't trust me till the diary told about the problems and what the doctors and scientists were thinking about that), but till the beginning we are very septic and refuse even the way they count the victims, forgetting the victims of the seasonal flu who are strangely absent.

So I must tell you that you should hurry with the information and the debates (with scientists and politics!) because it is very late now.