Swine Flu

[peewee_RotA]

I'm getting so sick of this crap:

Flu pandemic alert raised to highest level
"As of Wednesday evening, the virus, also known as swine flu, had spread to 72 countries, the health agency said. There were 25,288 confirmed cases and 139 deaths. The United States had 13,217 cases and 27 deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday of last week."
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/


So I did some number crunching:

"Every year in the United States, on average 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu; more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu complications, and; about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes."
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/index.htm

So...

In the United States Alone, 36,000 people die a year of the flu.

Throughout the entire world only 130 people have died of the swine flu.

I calculated it out. If 200,000 people are hospitalized of the regular flu and 36,000 people die. Then 18% of severe cases of the flu are deadly.

If 13,217 people in the US were hospitalized from the swine flu and 27 of them died then that's 0.2% percent of the severe cases of the swine flu that are deadly.

The regular flu is literally 90 times more deadly than the swine flu. Must be a slow news day. 

[peewee_RotA]

Thought I'd mention some interesting facts about cause of death that I found:

Findings of a 2000 report on causes of death in the U.S. by the CDC
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr50/nvsr50_15.pdf

Causes in the U.S. that have killed less than Swine Flu:
Shigellosis and amebiasis (A03,A06) ............................... 12

Whooping cough (A37) .....................................................12

Scarlet fever and erysipelas (A38,A46) ............................2

Arthropod-borne viral encephalitis (A83-A84,A85.2) ........2

Measles (B05) ..................................................................1

Malaria (B50-B54) ............................................................3


Causes in the U.S. that have killed more than Swine Flu:
Tuberculosis (A16-A19) .................................................... 776

Respiratory tuberculosis (A16) .......................................615

Salmonella infections (A01-A02) ...................................... 28

Syphilis (A50-A53) ............................................................41

Other tuberculosis (A17-A19) .........................................161

Meningococcal infection (A39) .........................................211

Viral hepatitis (B15-B19) ..................................................5,357

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease
(B20-B24) ...................................................................14,478


Nutritional deficiencies (E40-E64) ....................................4,242

Malnutrition (E40-E46) ...................................................3,926

Other nutritional deficiencies (E50-E64) .........................316

Meningitis (G00,G03) .......................................................758

Parkinson’s disease (G20-G21) .......................................15,682

Influenza and pneumonia (J10-J18) .................................65,313

Acute bronchitis and bronchiolitis (J20-J21) ...................290

Bronchitis, chronic and unspecified (J40-J42) ................1,167

Asthma (J45-J46) ...........................................................4,487

Diseases of appendix (K35-K38) ......................................435

Hernia (K40-K46) .............................................................1,522

Alcoholic liver disease (K70) .......................................... 12,109

Pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium (O00-O99) .....404

Accidents (unintentional injuries) (V01-X59,Y85-Y86) .....97,900

Transport accidents (V01-V99,Y85) ...............................46,749

Motor vehicle accidents.............................................................. 43,354

Accidental exposure to smoke, fire and flames (X00-X09) ................................................................... 3,377

Intentional self-harm (suicide) by other and unspecified means and their sequelae (X60-X71,X75-X84,Y87.0) ......................................................................... 12,764


Legal intervention (Y35,Y89.0) ......................................... 359


Complications of medical and surgical care
(Y40-Y84,Y88) ............................................................ 3,059



If 139 global deaths from the swine flu is a pandemic, then we better start opening up those sanatoriums again. We've got a regular TB epidemic!

One word to our retarded news agencies...

[reaper]

It is a threat because it spreads through air person to person, and it's new and unknown, and has shown deadly effects in poorer areas.  Do you seriously think the CDC doesn't know about pandemics?

[Whirlingdervish]

It's not an airborne disease. it's passed through contact with people's excretions, like spit and snot.
You'd have to have someone actually cough particles of slimey stuff on you to catch it.



The CDC can call it a pandemic all they want, but it does not make the disease dangerous or deadly or worth any more of our attention than what we've already given it.

Pandemic, in the way they are using it, does not mean that. It means transmitable and recorded to be in many countries at once when it was previously not known to infect humans.

The reality of the situation is that while the CDC kinda knows what they're doing, and how to enunciate it, the media does not care and takes it upon themselves to misconstrue the information that has been released in an attempt to sell more of their "journalism" by making sensational claims and attention grabbing headlines, even if they are complete lies and if they create confusion that is detrimental to how people protect their health from real threats.

You don't hear about the AIDS "pandemic" every week on the nightly news, and in every newspaper, but that is because the CDC hasn't made any claims about it recently that could be blown out of proportion by the media to sell more news through scare tactics similar to what the Bush administration used to keep people knowing and thinking only what benefitted that administration.


AIDS kills more people a year, it can be transmitted in a variety of ways, it is lethal to pretty much everyone who gets it, and it won't be seeing anywhere near as many headlines or be mentioned by the CDC as often this year.

The reason for this is not that Swine flu is more dangerous or affects more people. It's that the CDC cannot even pretend to do shit about AIDS, when in the case of Swine Flu, they can release a bunch of meaningless warnings and make it look like they are actually doing their jobs. When your job is to control diseases, it makes a lot more sense to display yourself "controlling" a disease outbreak even if it's not that dangerous, than it does to show how ineffective you are at controlling a real pandemic of something deadly like AIDS.

 

[reaper]

It's not an imaginary threat when it's new and unknown and killing people in poor areas and spreading person to person.  Wether it's hyped by the media or not is another story.

[peewee_RotA]

It's not an imaginary threat when it's new and unknown and killing people in poor areas and spreading person to person.  Wether it's hyped by the media or not is another story.

Malaria in the United States
1,337 cases of malaria, including 8 deaths, were reported for 2002 in the United States, even though malaria has been eradicated in this country since the early 1950's
Of the 1,337 malaria cases reported for 2002 in the United States, all but five were imported, i.e., acquired in malaria-endemic countries.


Malaria Worldwide
Forty-one percent of the world's population live in areas where malaria is transmitted (e.g., parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America, Hispaniola, and Oceania).
Each year 350–500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, and over one million people die, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
In areas of Africa with high malaria transmission, an estimated 990,000 people died of malaria in 1995 – over 2700 deaths per day, or 2 deaths per minute.
http://www.cdc.gov/Malaria/facts.htm

People in poor countries aren't dying because it's an especially deadly disease. They are dying because their country sucks and they can't get decent medical care.
 

...similar to what the Bush administration...

   

[reaper]

ummmm, I'm glad you don't work for the CDC!

[peewee_RotA]

ummmm, I'm glad you don't work for the CDC!

Once again, I'm not making any comment on the CDC. I'm making a comment on the needless panic. Swine flu is not particularly deadly, especially compared to other strains of influenza which are not only far more deadly, but much more contagious and wide spread.

This is like worrying about watering your rose garden while your house is burning down.

[reaper]

right because unknown disease that spreads is no worry.

[UUD-40]

I looked up the definition of Pandemic in the dictionary, and the swine flu meets all criteria. I'm not sure what everyone is crying about. 

ps, the seasonal flu is an epidemic.

[haunted]

the media creates needless panicking about everything....... oh well. I don't really give a shit about swine flu. I have permanent white pockets on the back of my throat that I have no clue why they are there. When I worry about it, something like a cross between an STD and excessive weed smoking the last time i was sick come to mind.. The best remedy is to just drink a bunch of beer and pretend it's not there, just like swine flu, and the news. 

[lidz]

the media creates needless panicking about everything....... oh well. I don't really give a shit about swine flu. I have permanent white pockets on the back of my throat that I have no clue why they are there. When I worry about it, something like a cross between an STD and excessive weed smoking the last time i was sick come to mind.. The best remedy is to just drink a bunch of beer and pretend it's not there, just like swine flu, and the news. 

That’s gross man.  Get that shit checked out.  Or drink some gasoline or bleach and kill it.

The word pandemic is simply a word to describe an 'infectious disease' - which the swine flu falls into this category (emergence of a new disease/effects humans/spreads over large areas)...it is how people react to the word which is the problem.  Or people who overanalyze the use of the word, then post illogical things about other causes of death which are not considered pandemics nor infectious diseases.

Agreed that the media does push the alarm button, thus causing more stir than may be warranted.  But, are we really shocked about how the media handles things?  Come on.

[peewee_RotA]

Agreed that the media does push the alarm button, thus causing more stir than may be warranted.  But, are we really shocked about how the media handles things?  Come on.

How the media handles things? You mean like not putting things in perspective. Maybe by comparing the death rate of known strains of influenza with this new strain... like I did. Someone hasn't been keeping up with their mandatory XKCD readings!
http://xkcd.com/558/

[ReCycled]

It's the World Health Association that makes these calls on "pandemics". They should read up on the Spanish Flu which killed millions in the early 1900's. THAT was a pandemic. Famous non-events attributed to these people is the SARS "epidemic", the Swine Flu of the 70's and bird flu.  So to them I say " World Health Association  (also know as the WHO), your hysteria tinged announcements are being ignored by the general public. We won't get fooled again....

No no...
 

[SpawnGirl]

Sorry my bad english 

the total infected in the world are 36.000
deaths 163

with a world population of 6 671 679 034 ...

6 671 679 034 million people in the world. The dose of the vaccine would cost 10 to 15 dollars.

Calculate the gain that could get the laboratories, selling the vaccine only to one third of humanity ...

Is it so outlandish conspiracy theories?

Or is the disease the best deal in the world?
Should we think that these labs have overlooked such an amount of money and work for the welfare of mankind?

The corporations are now obliged to justify going to sell the vaccine only in countries where they can afford it, so "sell" the idea that "impede the progress of this catastrophic disease in countries with scarce resources that could others at risk, "thus clearing the image of the laboratories and reassuring the credulity of the world society.

pandemic?
6 671 679 034 million people in the world.
163 dead