Showing posts with label disease. Show all posts
Showing posts with label disease. Show all posts
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
The hushing-up system
"The ‘hushing-up’ system is in sanitary matters about as dangerous as anything can well be” - The Lancet, 1870.
The above quote came out of a scandal in Whitehaven in 1870 when the sanitary conditions in the town were so bad that typhoid took hold and a government inspector had to be sent to the town to sort us out. The chairman of the Workhouse had blamed the press as their articles "had a tendency to spread the disease rather than check it". The Lancet quite rightly pointed out the dangers of the 'hushing-up' system of disease control. Accurate facts and information can only aid in the better control of epidemics. Yet 140 years on it seems we have learned nothing.
I suggested yesterday that Newham University Hospital Trust should win the Swine Flu Secrecy Award for 2009 but I'm thinking now it should go to NHS West Midlands. Here's two quotes from The Birmingham Mail when reporters asked for basic details on swine flu deaths in that area:
"NHS West Midlands said another adult with the H1N1 virus has died, but would not disclose the age, sex or location of the death" - Birmingham Mail August 28, 2009
An NHS West Midlands health authority spokeswoman refused to give any further details about the victim, or where they were from. She added: 'We cannot confirm whether swine flu was a contributing factor in the latest case as we are awaiting test results. We cannot also yet say whether this person was healthy or had underlying health conditions'." Birmingham Mail, July 17 2009
The chairman of Whitehaven Workhouse would be proud of them.
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
How to avoid the plague
This morning a member of staff has reported her husband has swine flu. This is the closest 'friend of a friend' report to date so it's time to look at how to avoid the plague...
I've already noticed a 'siege mentality' beginning to occur in relation to swine flu: Tales of Sainsbury's not issuing Tamiflu because they don't want sick people in their store; and France deporting British school pupils who might have swine flu. It's all been tried before of course. A quick look at the records of the Great Plague and Black Death show numerous attempts by villages to cut themselves off from the outside world, banning anyone who might bring the infection with them. They all failed of course. The only other recourse was to flee north and hope that you outrun it. Time to get on my bike!
And rather timely, The Guardian has a cut-out and keep guide to swine flu in today's paper.
I've already noticed a 'siege mentality' beginning to occur in relation to swine flu: Tales of Sainsbury's not issuing Tamiflu because they don't want sick people in their store; and France deporting British school pupils who might have swine flu. It's all been tried before of course. A quick look at the records of the Great Plague and Black Death show numerous attempts by villages to cut themselves off from the outside world, banning anyone who might bring the infection with them. They all failed of course. The only other recourse was to flee north and hope that you outrun it. Time to get on my bike!
And rather timely, The Guardian has a cut-out and keep guide to swine flu in today's paper.
Monday, 27 July 2009
If this is true, it's frightening
Sadly I don't know who Dr David Hill is but he sounds genuine. This was his post to The Barrow Evening Mail recently. It sent a chill down my spine and thought it worth passing on...
"Swine flu if it mutates in the Autumn will be devastating. But the problem is that no one listens, including the media. Swine flu if it mutates to something equivalent to the Spanish flu of 1918/1919 (Spanish flu was a swine flu variant) has the same potential to kill humans on an unprecidented scale as it did 90 years ago. The problem is that both swine and avian are constantly mutating into something different. So by the time you have isolated and made a vaccine for the last one, it has changed again and circumvented the old guard and becomes useless. The problem is that this happens all the time and where drugs become irrelevant. The reason, it takes three months to develop an antidote and 6 months to mass produce and distribute it (a logistic nightmare in itself alone) and where on average therefore the vast majority have to wait 9 months for the cure. The problem is that even in slow coach travel times 1918, the Spanish flu which took between 20 and 100 million lives worldwide (there is no authoritive number but where it is estimated between the two), did its deadliest between week 14 and week 26, some 12 weeks at least before the masses would ever receive the drug cure presently. The 1918 killer flu had a very similar circumstance as today, a mild version before the deadly version arrived in the fall of 1918 with a vengeance. The only way that this deadly killer can be stopped therefore, if anyone is listening out there, is through a complete overhaul of modern farming and husbandry methods and to give considerable financial help to those who breed the livestock that we all eat. Basically as a single example, just stop them sleeping with the animals on cold nights in the tropics as this is how the flu virus passes from pig to chicken to man – eventually; and where the pig is the receptive incubator. Simply give them a heater and fuel, a much cheaper option that global suicide in both human and econmic terms as it will be. For the ‘Tropics’ are where some of the most eminent virologists and micribiologists in the field say is the place where the killer virus will emerge.The philosophy of not letting it happen in the first place. The drugs strategy is futile and it is only a matter of time before the killer strain that will kill literally 100s millions appears. The problem is that the vast profits of drug companies and the government's ignorance to the real facts will be the nails in all our coffins. The statistics and potential speak for themselves,
World Population 2 billion – 1920
Range of deaths
20mil/2billion = 1 in 100
100mil/2billion = 5 in 100
World Population now at 6.8 billion now equates to,
1 in 100 - 70 million min. today
5 in 100 - 340 million max. today
But, these figures could well be higher, as rapid world transit now makes for faster and wider transmission than in 1918.
I therefore say lets start now as I have been saying for the past three years and defeat this mass killer like no other by field work and not the futile drugs strategy that will do very little indeed to save lives. For presently we are all fooling ourselves.
If we put only £50 billion into this field work globally ( a small price for the human nightmare and financial melt-down that a global equivalent to Spanish flu would bring),we could eradicate the situation but where this £50 billion will no doubt end up alternatively in the pockets of the large pharmaceutical companies with little effect whatsoever. Get real everyone before it is basically too late and I am not joking – force governments to change their strategies from something that is impotent presently to something that will eradicate the problem at source. Common sense really but where currently no one seems to have any.
Worryingly also is the fact that as examples of other problems on the horizon is that the United States makes only 20 percent of its flu vaccines it uses and my country Britain makes zero percent of its flu vaccines, as all its flu vaccines are produced abroad. When a killer pandemic happens it will be hard for the producing countries to release any before their own people are serviced. Little known but true (Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota – 16.07.09).
I have been stopped from putting these comments and facts out by the media before. Let’s hope that minds are fully opened now and that the real solution can be heard and not just the bottom-line for drug companies!
Dr David Hill"
"Swine flu if it mutates in the Autumn will be devastating. But the problem is that no one listens, including the media. Swine flu if it mutates to something equivalent to the Spanish flu of 1918/1919 (Spanish flu was a swine flu variant) has the same potential to kill humans on an unprecidented scale as it did 90 years ago. The problem is that both swine and avian are constantly mutating into something different. So by the time you have isolated and made a vaccine for the last one, it has changed again and circumvented the old guard and becomes useless. The problem is that this happens all the time and where drugs become irrelevant. The reason, it takes three months to develop an antidote and 6 months to mass produce and distribute it (a logistic nightmare in itself alone) and where on average therefore the vast majority have to wait 9 months for the cure. The problem is that even in slow coach travel times 1918, the Spanish flu which took between 20 and 100 million lives worldwide (there is no authoritive number but where it is estimated between the two), did its deadliest between week 14 and week 26, some 12 weeks at least before the masses would ever receive the drug cure presently. The 1918 killer flu had a very similar circumstance as today, a mild version before the deadly version arrived in the fall of 1918 with a vengeance. The only way that this deadly killer can be stopped therefore, if anyone is listening out there, is through a complete overhaul of modern farming and husbandry methods and to give considerable financial help to those who breed the livestock that we all eat. Basically as a single example, just stop them sleeping with the animals on cold nights in the tropics as this is how the flu virus passes from pig to chicken to man – eventually; and where the pig is the receptive incubator. Simply give them a heater and fuel, a much cheaper option that global suicide in both human and econmic terms as it will be. For the ‘Tropics’ are where some of the most eminent virologists and micribiologists in the field say is the place where the killer virus will emerge.The philosophy of not letting it happen in the first place. The drugs strategy is futile and it is only a matter of time before the killer strain that will kill literally 100s millions appears. The problem is that the vast profits of drug companies and the government's ignorance to the real facts will be the nails in all our coffins. The statistics and potential speak for themselves,
World Population 2 billion – 1920
Range of deaths
20mil/2billion = 1 in 100
100mil/2billion = 5 in 100
World Population now at 6.8 billion now equates to,
1 in 100 - 70 million min. today
5 in 100 - 340 million max. today
But, these figures could well be higher, as rapid world transit now makes for faster and wider transmission than in 1918.
I therefore say lets start now as I have been saying for the past three years and defeat this mass killer like no other by field work and not the futile drugs strategy that will do very little indeed to save lives. For presently we are all fooling ourselves.
If we put only £50 billion into this field work globally ( a small price for the human nightmare and financial melt-down that a global equivalent to Spanish flu would bring),we could eradicate the situation but where this £50 billion will no doubt end up alternatively in the pockets of the large pharmaceutical companies with little effect whatsoever. Get real everyone before it is basically too late and I am not joking – force governments to change their strategies from something that is impotent presently to something that will eradicate the problem at source. Common sense really but where currently no one seems to have any.
Worryingly also is the fact that as examples of other problems on the horizon is that the United States makes only 20 percent of its flu vaccines it uses and my country Britain makes zero percent of its flu vaccines, as all its flu vaccines are produced abroad. When a killer pandemic happens it will be hard for the producing countries to release any before their own people are serviced. Little known but true (Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota – 16.07.09).
I have been stopped from putting these comments and facts out by the media before. Let’s hope that minds are fully opened now and that the real solution can be heard and not just the bottom-line for drug companies!
Dr David Hill"
Saturday, 25 July 2009
Swine flu jokes
.
Comedy, said Charlie Chaplin, is tragedy plus distance. And while there's still some distance from the real tragedy that might be swine flu, there is plenty of humour. A variety of swine flu jokes are going round the offices, pubs and playgrounds. Here are just a few...
I called the Swine Flu hotline today but I couldn't get through... all I got was crackling!
Sweating, excessive body odour and laziness. No wonder it went unnoticed for so long in Mexico.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I have Swine Flu
And now so do you
Comedy, said Charlie Chaplin, is tragedy plus distance. And while there's still some distance from the real tragedy that might be swine flu, there is plenty of humour. A variety of swine flu jokes are going round the offices, pubs and playgrounds. Here are just a few...I called the Swine Flu hotline today but I couldn't get through... all I got was crackling!
Sweating, excessive body odour and laziness. No wonder it went unnoticed for so long in Mexico.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I have Swine Flu
And now so do you
Friday, 24 July 2009
It's going to get worse
Friday, July 24: It's going to get worse.
Looking at this week's swine flu figures released by the Department of Health, you are left with more questions than answers. The bullet points are:
I'm also getting worried about the journalist shorthand "underlying health problems" as in "Mr X died but he had underlying health problems" as though that makes it all right. Just what are underlying health problems? Pneumonia or slight asthma. If asthma counts as underlying health problems a lot more of us are in touble - including me!
Anyway, we'll all be okay now there's yet another new website. It is at www.direct.gov.uk/pandemicflu. Am I the only person baffled as to why they set up such a major website as a sub-section of direct.gov.uk rather than give it it's own easily memorable web address. Another sign of the government putting this together at the last minute with insufficient preparation?
Looking at this week's swine flu figures released by the Department of Health, you are left with more questions than answers. The bullet points are:
- 100,000 new cases in just one week
- 840 in hospital
- 63 in a critical condition
- England death toll to date: 26.
I'm also getting worried about the journalist shorthand "underlying health problems" as in "Mr X died but he had underlying health problems" as though that makes it all right. Just what are underlying health problems? Pneumonia or slight asthma. If asthma counts as underlying health problems a lot more of us are in touble - including me!
Anyway, we'll all be okay now there's yet another new website. It is at www.direct.gov.uk/pandemicflu. Am I the only person baffled as to why they set up such a major website as a sub-section of direct.gov.uk rather than give it it's own easily memorable web address. Another sign of the government putting this together at the last minute with insufficient preparation?
Sunday, 19 July 2009
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