Swine flu death in Houston. That's

• Swine flu death in Houston. That's - sm
  • IMPORTANT. READ THIS!!!! - Been to the state meetings.
    • Of course antibiotics can't cure you... - Kendra
      • I meant antibiotics given for second phase - the pneumonia from the flu.
    • I would like to know - Question
      • From my notes at the meeting. - Category 5 is 2 million people dead
        • the statement - Question
        • Oregon estimating 1.27 million Oregonians sick. - 12,000 hospitalized; 2,500 killed by 1 person.
  • Did anyone catch this? "is pregnant, has given birth" LOL sm - LMT
  • News says was young child brought TO Houston - from Mexico for treatment, but died.nm
    • I am sorry if this seems ugly....sm - curious girl
      • Oh it seems the child did not have it when ...sm - curious girl
    • The bottom line is an infected person in - sm
      • Right, but dont panic. Thousands die from flu every - year. -new flu, but may not be more deadly.nm
  • Interesting - Skeptic
    • no vaccine - ?
      • Article - Vaccine in September - Skeptic
        • 36,000 flu deaths a year, and this is one - sm
          • Does anyone remember? - Old part-timer
            • Yes, I remember it well.. - GhostMom
            • I remember it.... - Skeptical
            • In the early 70s, maybe 1972?, my entire - sm
              • I received the vaccination for swine flu in the 70s - Anon
              • Afraid of the vaccine - Old part-timer
                • my mom had Hong Kong flu in 1969 sm - MT30+
      • Nah, I'll try to find the link and post it.... - Skeptic
  • how to - prepare
    • If it comes to that, - sm
      • If it comes to that, how would - MSMT
        • self-sufficiency - prepare

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Many health experts say WHO's pandemic declaration could have come weeks earlier but the agency became bogged down by politics. In May, several countries urged WHO not to declare a pandemic, fearing it would cause social and economic turmoil.

ATLANTA – As reports of a unique form of swine flu erupt around the world, the inevitable question arises: Is this the big one?

Is this the next big global flu epidemic that public health experts have long anticipated and worried about? Is this the novel virus that will kill millions around the world, as pandemics did in 1918, 1957 and 1968?

The short answer is it's too soon to tell.

"What makes this so difficult is we may be somewhere between an important but yet still uneventful public health occurrence here — with something that could literally die out over the next couple of weeks and never show up again — or this could be the opening act of a full-fledged influenza pandemic," said Michael Osterholm, a prominent expert on global flu outbreaks with the University of Minnesota.

"We have no clue right now where we are between those two extremes. That's the problem," he said.

Health officials want to take every step to prevent an outbreak from spiraling into mass casualties. Predicting influenza is a dicey endeavor, with the U.S. government famously guessing wrong in 1976 about a swine flu pandemic that never materialized.

"The first lesson is anyone who tries to predict influenza often goes down in flames," said Dr. Richard Wenzel, the immediate past president of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

But health officials are being asked to make such predictions, as panic began to set in over the weekend.

The epicenter was Mexico, where the virus is blamed for 86 deaths and an estimated 1,400 cases in the country since April 13. Schools were closed, church services canceled and Mexican President Felipe Calderon assumed new powers to isolate people infected with the swine flu virus.

International concern magnified as health officials across the world on Sunday said they were investigating suspected cases in people who traveled to Mexico and come back with flu-like illnesses. Among the nations reporting confirmed cases or investigations were Canada, France, Israel and New Zealand.

Meanwhile, in the United States, there were no deaths and all patients had either recovered or were recovering. But the confirmed cases around the nation rose from eight on Saturday morning to 20 by Sunday afternoon, including eight high school kids in New York City — a national media center. The New York Post's front page headline on Sunday was "Pig Flu Panic."

The concern level rose even more when federal officials on Sunday declared a public health emergency — a procedural step, they said, to mobilize antiviral medicine and other resources and be ready if the U.S. situation gets worse.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials say that so far swine flu cases in this country have been mild. But they also say more cases are likely to be reported, at least partly because doctors and health officials across the country are looking intensively for suspicious cases.

And, troublingly, more severe cases are also likely, said Dr. Richard Besser, the CDC's acting director, in a Sunday news conference.

"As we continue to look for cases, we are going to see a broader spectrum of disease," he predicted. "We're going to see more severe disease in this country."

Besser also repeated what health officials have said since the beginning — they don't understand why the illnesses in Mexico have been more numerous and severe than in the United States. In fact, it's not even certain that new infections are occurring. The numbers could be rising simply because everyone's on the lookout.

He also said comparison to past pandemics are difficult.

"Every outbreak is unique," Besser said.

The new virus is called a swine flu, though it contains genetic segments from humans and birds viruses as well as from pigs from North America, Europe and Asia. Health officials had seen combinations of bird, pig and human virus before — but never such an intercontinental mix, including more than one pig virus.

More disturbing, this virus seems to spread among people more easily than past swine flus that have sometimes jumped from pigs to people.

There's a historical cause for people to worry.

Flu pandemics have been occurring with some regularity since at least the 1500s, but the frame of reference for health officials is the catastrophe of 1918-19. That one killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people worldwide.

Disease testing and tracking were far less sophisticated then, but the virus appeared in humans and pigs at about the same time and it was known as both Spanish flu and swine flu. Experts since then have said the deadly germ actually originated in birds.

But pigs may have made it worse. That pandemic began with a wave of mild illness that hit in the spring of 1918, followed by a far deadlier wave in the fall which was most lethal to young, healthy adults. Scientists have speculated that something happened to the virus after the first wave — one theory held that it infected pigs or other animals and mutated there — before revisiting humans in a deadlier form.

Pigs are considered particularly susceptible to both bird and human viruses and a likely place where the kind of genetic reassortment can take place that might lead to a new form of deadly, easily spread flu, scientists believe.

Such concern triggered public health alarm in 1976, when soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., became sick with an unusual form of swine flu.

Federal officials vaccinated 40 million Americans. The pandemic never materialized, but thousands who got the shots filed injury claims, saying they suffered a paralyzing condition and other side effects from the vaccinations.

To this day, health officials don't know why the 1976 virus petered out.

Flu shots have been offered in the United States since the 1940s, but new types of flu viruses have remained a threat. Global outbreaks occurred again in 1957 and 1968, though the main victims were the elderly and chronically ill.

In the last several years, experts have been focused on a form of bird flu that was first reported in Asia. It's a highly deadly strain that has killed more than 250 people worldwide since 2003. Health officials around the world have taken steps to prepare for the possibility of that becoming a global outbreak, but to date that virus has not gained the ability to spread easily from person to person.

At age 75, Shirley Jones is going to go topless in an upcoming episode of "The Cleaner" on A&E.  The CDC is predicting that millions of unsuspecting viewers will be struck blind or suffer from the more "explosive" symptoms of severe gastrointestinal flu.

We call upon A&E to provide appropriate warnings, as there is no vaccine available for this one.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04282009/gossip/pagesix/75_and_still_hot_166562.htm

NEW YORK – The sons of a critically ill New York City school official diagnosed with swine flu say their father has been on a breathing tube and is barely able to talk to his family.

Adam Wiener (WEE'-ner) is disputing media reports that his father, Mitchell, had been suffering from pre-existing medical conditions before he contracted the virus. He says the only condition his father had before was gout.

He says his father is now suffering from kidney failure and a lung infection after being hospitalized with swine flu since early Wednesday.

The 23-year-old Adam Wiener has been keeping a vigil at the hospital with his mother and younger twin brothers.

Eighteen-year-old son Jordan says his dad was awake briefly and asked him about an earlier baseball injury.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

NEW YORK (AP) — Maintenance workers are scrubbing down three public schools in New York City that were closed because of a swine flu outbreak.

The city's Education Department spokeswoman Margie Feinberg says desks, tables, floors, doors and door handles are being disinfected.

The city announced Thursday that it was closing the schools in Queens after hundreds of children went home sick with flu symptoms.

An assistant principal at one of the schools is in critical condition on a ventilator.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the three schools — with more than 4,000 students altogether — will be closed for at least a week.

I've been wanting to share this story with you guys for a while now, but just haven't. Anyways, as a mom with young boys, this breaks my heart.  A local 15 year old boy was diagnosed on June 1 with a brain stem glioma. He is the son of a local pastor and their family is just precious.  They are believing that their son will be healed, but he's got such a long road.  He's undergoing experimental treatment in Houston (they just arrived tonight) and will be there for 3 weeks.  Insurance won't cover this since it's experimental.  He was such a lively young boy before all of this.  Anyways, if you are in Houston I'd love to chat with you  - maybe if you belong to a large church or something like that - you could help me in some way.  Thanks!

as well as the ones that answered this!

Truly a horrible turn of events for you.  Two deaths of loved ones so close together.  Lean on the one who tells us to bring our cares to Him.   It is believed  by many that it would be limiting God to teach that this life is the only time that God can call a person to Himself.  Second resurrection may be the answer.   Also preaching to souls in prison, think about why they would need to be preached to, if these were evil spirits, not human spirits, what good would it do to preach to them?God is a God of love and your family members are in His hands. 

Re suicide, no sane person can take their own life. no matter how "rational" they make it sound.  Those who do kill themselves are not responsible for the sin of murder because they are so sick.  

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- By keeping your car for 15 years, or 225,000 miles of driving, you could save nearly $31,000, according to Consumer Reports magazine. That's compared to the cost of buying an identical model every five years, which is roughly the rate at which most car owners trade in their vehicles.

In its annual national auto survey, the magazine found 6,769 readers who had logged more than 200,000 miles on their cars. Their cars included a 1990 Lexus LS400 with 332,000 miles and a 1994 Ford Ranger pick-up that had gone 488,000 miles.
 
Consumer Reports calls the Honda Civic a "Good bet" to make it to 200,000 miles.

Calculating the costs involved in buying a new Honda Civic EX every five years for 15 years - including depreciation, taxes, fees and insurance - the magazine estimated it would cost $20,500 more than it would have cost to simply maintain one car for the same period.

Consumer Reports' "Good bets" for making 200,000 miles: Honda Civic, Honda CR-V, Honda Element, Lexus ES, Lexus LS, Toyota 4Runner, Toyota Highlander, Toyota Land Cruiser, Toyota Prius, Toyota RAV4

Consumer Reports' "Bad bets" for making 200,000 miles: BMW 7-series, Infiniti QX56, Jaguar X-type, V8-powered Mercedes-Benz M-class, Mercedes-Benz SL, Nissan Armada, Nissan Titan, Volkswagen Touareg, V6-powered Volvo XC90.

We actually do have the death penalty in PA...it is just not used that often. 

It does turn out to be true in a lot of families. So...we have Ed McMahnon (sp), Farrah, and now Michael. If no one died within the next couple days (I think that is also 3),  it should be okay.

Dang! I haven't felt this bad since Elvis died.

Would you watch someone being executed by lethal injection?  What if he murdered your brother?   Your child?  or anyone else close to you?

I know there is no right or wrong answer to this.  I will have to make this decision myself and it's been in my head lately.  I may not know my decision until the day of.

They should have to pay for pain and suffering because most of us treat our animals like our children.  This is not fair.

I'm sorry to all who have lost their pet to this horrible thing that has happened.  They should have to pay and pay deeply!!! 

What do you think is worse?

I would think being locked in a jail cell for life, with the key thrown away is MUCH worse, than ending their life.

Can you imagine sitting in a cold jail cell, no windows, no tv, no books, no paper and pen, just a room, w/ a toilet, a cot, and bare minimum food to keep you alive.

I think that is worse.