Showing posts with label pigs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pigs. Show all posts
Friday, 4 December 2009
Swine flu riddle
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Mass of Separation
.
I am grateful to Channel Four blogger, Dr Peter Stott, for bringing this to my attention. It is the Mass of Separation from the 13th Century and was a series of instructions to sufferers from leprosy. Strangely, the instructions are equally valid today for avoiding the spread of swine flu! Just shows how little our understanding of viruses has grown in 700 years!
I am grateful to Channel Four blogger, Dr Peter Stott, for bringing this to my attention. It is the Mass of Separation from the 13th Century and was a series of instructions to sufferers from leprosy. Strangely, the instructions are equally valid today for avoiding the spread of swine flu! Just shows how little our understanding of viruses has grown in 700 years!MASS OF SEPARATION
"I forbid you to ever enter a church, a monastery, a fair, a mill, a market or an assembly of people.
"I forbid you to leave your house unless dressed in your recognisable garb and also shod.
"I forbid you to wash your hands or to launder anything or to drink at any stream or fountain, unless using your own barrel or dipper.
"I forbid you to touch anything you buy or barter for, until it becomes your own.
"I forbid you to enter any tavern; and if you wish for wine, whether you buy it or it is given to you, have it funnelled into your keg.
"I forbid you to share house with any woman but your wife. I command you, if accosted by anyone while travelling on a road, to set yourself down-wind of them before you answer.
"I forbid you to enter any narrow passage, lest a passerby bump into you.
"I forbid you, wherever you go, to touch the rim or the rope of a well without donning your gloves.
"I forbid you to touch any child or give them anything. I forbid you to drink or eat from any vessel but your own."
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Men in Black
.
Those who watched the webchat with Dr Nigel Calvert yesterday (and those who didn't can replay it online) will no doubt know more about swine flu than most other experts! He was superb - giving quick, concise answers to a myriad of questions. There was some very interesting stuff, not least a first figure on swine flu in Cumbria for some weeks. He estimated - and emphasised it could only be an estimate - that there are currently 600 swine flu cases in Cumbria. I also found interesting the comment from 'Brian' who said his mate had swine flu and the boss sent somebody round to take a swab. 'What's the point of that' asked Brian. What's the point indeed. Are employers going to then prescribe tamiflu or offer a course of treatment - or turn round and say "I don't care what your doctor says, you haven't got swine flu so get yourself back to work". Bizarre. It also had a flavour of Men in Black nipping round to swine flu cases echoing tales and legends in plague times past of strangers wandering the land. Dr Calvert, NHS Cumbria’s associate director of Public Health, said: "We have been asking a sample of people to take a swab so we can see what proportion of people getting tamiflu actually have the flu. I have heard of some employers who are doing swab tests. Many people with suspected swine flu will actually have some other infections like bad colds." I can understand doctors taking swabs - but company bosses?!
Those who watched the webchat with Dr Nigel Calvert yesterday (and those who didn't can replay it online) will no doubt know more about swine flu than most other experts! He was superb - giving quick, concise answers to a myriad of questions. There was some very interesting stuff, not least a first figure on swine flu in Cumbria for some weeks. He estimated - and emphasised it could only be an estimate - that there are currently 600 swine flu cases in Cumbria. I also found interesting the comment from 'Brian' who said his mate had swine flu and the boss sent somebody round to take a swab. 'What's the point of that' asked Brian. What's the point indeed. Are employers going to then prescribe tamiflu or offer a course of treatment - or turn round and say "I don't care what your doctor says, you haven't got swine flu so get yourself back to work". Bizarre. It also had a flavour of Men in Black nipping round to swine flu cases echoing tales and legends in plague times past of strangers wandering the land. Dr Calvert, NHS Cumbria’s associate director of Public Health, said: "We have been asking a sample of people to take a swab so we can see what proportion of people getting tamiflu actually have the flu. I have heard of some employers who are doing swab tests. Many people with suspected swine flu will actually have some other infections like bad colds." I can understand doctors taking swabs - but company bosses?!
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Thin on the ground
One member of staff has gone down with 'swine flu' - as much as anyone knows if they really have swine flu or not. Dr Google tells you that you have some of the symptoms and prescribes you Tamiflu but no one ever gets really tested for the virus. However, one member of staff off ill during this holiday period and post-redundancy era is already having a big effect on how the paper operates and even gets out. The public keep phoning in with news but there's simply not enough people to process them all properly. My in-tray is getting bigger but the public are going to just have to understand that we're in strange and difficult times.
I did manage to get to Keswick Theatre last night for Midsummer Night's Dream (excellent show by the way). It was nice to see so many young kids in the audience - well, not the teenage girls rustling plastic sweet bags all through the first half. But one poor lad (probably about seven years old) was coughing like a good un. A few weeks ago he would have been in quarantine with parents gravely muttering 'swine flu' to family and friends. But, hey, this is the summer holidays so he was out at the theatre. And I overheard his dad in the pouring rain after the show telling the taxi driver to take them back to the campsite. That's the Bulldog spirit we've been missing!
I did manage to get to Keswick Theatre last night for Midsummer Night's Dream (excellent show by the way). It was nice to see so many young kids in the audience - well, not the teenage girls rustling plastic sweet bags all through the first half. But one poor lad (probably about seven years old) was coughing like a good un. A few weeks ago he would have been in quarantine with parents gravely muttering 'swine flu' to family and friends. But, hey, this is the summer holidays so he was out at the theatre. And I overheard his dad in the pouring rain after the show telling the taxi driver to take them back to the campsite. That's the Bulldog spirit we've been missing!
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
Man Bites Dog
.
I worry the regional press are not taking swine flu seriously. They don't have to subscribe to the doom and gloom predictions but judging by the hits swine flu stories are receiving on this website, it's a topic of considerable interest to their readers. And yet the regional press is largely skating over the pandemic. Part of the problem may be having to work a bit hard for the stories. Finding someone with swine flu takes contacts and today's journalists are used to being emailed a press release. Another problem is finding a genuine case. I hear of many 'swine flu' cases but when you interrogate the informant further it's suspected swine flu or Dr Google has diagnosed them. Unless the patient goes in hospital and gets swabbed they could be one of the nine-in-ten who are the worried well with ordinary flu. Generic press releases from the Department of Health are of limited interest because they lack individual human interest stories. As Kirk Douglas points out in that wonderful 'lost' black and white movie, Ace in the Hole, "thousands of Chinese dying from famine is not news but if there's one man trapped in a cave you want to know all about him".
I worry the regional press are not taking swine flu seriously. They don't have to subscribe to the doom and gloom predictions but judging by the hits swine flu stories are receiving on this website, it's a topic of considerable interest to their readers. And yet the regional press is largely skating over the pandemic. Part of the problem may be having to work a bit hard for the stories. Finding someone with swine flu takes contacts and today's journalists are used to being emailed a press release. Another problem is finding a genuine case. I hear of many 'swine flu' cases but when you interrogate the informant further it's suspected swine flu or Dr Google has diagnosed them. Unless the patient goes in hospital and gets swabbed they could be one of the nine-in-ten who are the worried well with ordinary flu. Generic press releases from the Department of Health are of limited interest because they lack individual human interest stories. As Kirk Douglas points out in that wonderful 'lost' black and white movie, Ace in the Hole, "thousands of Chinese dying from famine is not news but if there's one man trapped in a cave you want to know all about him".
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"
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
So that's how swine flu started
.
This innocent picture from pre-swine flu days is proving popular on the internet at the moment! I thought I'd share it with you.
It seems more and more people I meet have 'friends of friends' who have "got swine flu". They almost certainly mean they have got "suspected swine flu" since no one is tested for swine flu unless they make it into hospital. And the problem now is that no one has a cold or ordinary flu, everyone has swine flu.
Having said on a previous blog that the Welsh seem impervious to swine flu, new figures released show a quadruple increase in swine flu cases in Wales. I've cancelled my move to Wales as a way of avoiding swine flu.
This innocent picture from pre-swine flu days is proving popular on the internet at the moment! I thought I'd share it with you.It seems more and more people I meet have 'friends of friends' who have "got swine flu". They almost certainly mean they have got "suspected swine flu" since no one is tested for swine flu unless they make it into hospital. And the problem now is that no one has a cold or ordinary flu, everyone has swine flu.
Having said on a previous blog that the Welsh seem impervious to swine flu, new figures released show a quadruple increase in swine flu cases in Wales. I've cancelled my move to Wales as a way of avoiding swine flu.
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