The Bird Flu & You

[vikingyouth]

www.vikingyouth.com

What's funnier than a dead bird lying in a puddle of it's own exploded head? 100 million people doing the same thing! Well, ok, maybe not funnier, but certainly funny enough for us to do an hour long show on this stuff. I mean, come on, if Uncle Milty had his hands on this kinda material...

So, yeah, sure enough, this week we discuss the H5N1 or what is better known as the Avian Bird Flu. Our hope is to school you all on this possible source of the next pandemic so that if it does come you, our lovely and talented listeners, can survive. That's right, Charlie Manson had his Helter Skelter, we're working on our H5N1 rehab program - Sticky Pickle - where we'll finally get some poor schmuck to pay us for this nonsense just out of complete lack of competition.

That's right, we'll fill your dirty little brains with tales of viruses and explanations of how your body battles them both naturally and with the aid of naturally occuring solutions. We'll stumble down memory lane as we all sip our wine coolers and laugh about the Spanish Influenze of 1918 that killed more people than the first world war. We'll make tasteless jokes about what might happen when the old "blue death" comes knocking around again.

The world can be a terrible and misery inducing place, you don't need other "legitimate" news sources to tell you that, just stick around right here with the Viking Youth, we'll bring you down with as much panache as the best of the big boys.

www.vikingyouth.com

[armchair president]

I just came across and listened to your show and have a few comments.

Comparing aids mutating to become airborne with h5n1 mutating to more efficiently pass from person to person is a big difference.

Flu deaths from bird flu.
100 mil is a false assumption that is promoted to reduce fear.
Think about it. The data right now shows almost a 75% mortality rate from this virus in people (that's when people are being treated individually, not going to get such care when a pandemic). A typical flu infects about 25% or so of all the people on the planet and there are 300 million Americans. So, that's about 50 million Americans dead and about 1 billion world wide. That's the 'worst case scenario' based on the data from the field. The estimates given to you by the government is based on the 1918 virus, which was a lot less virulent than this current strain.

Do you think that communication and commerce will shut down? People need to make money. That was how it was during the 1918 and other plagues, people kept doing their daily routine, if for no other reason, but to maintain a sense of reality.

I disagree with you for control at the outbreak point of virus wrong. The situation where person to person spread occurred in indonesia, the WHO didn't even know about it for 4 weeks! No way is there going to be an effective response anywhere in Asia/SE Asia area for a pandemic that will be able to adapt to each situation in that region where the outbreak could occur. This is an organisational nightmare under best case scenarios. Response time will be crucial to keep containment and this just will not happen, it's too problematic.

The only solution is to spend resources where they can make a difference. Isolation and delay the spread to the US hopefully long enough that vaccines could have an impact.

Not everyone gets the virus, although studies in mice show that this virus is 100 times more capable of causing an infection than the 1918 strain. Delaying infection time is the only thing that will possibly enable a vaccine to be made, so this is the most important issue that can be controlled.

Elderberry extract? Many alternative medicines and supplements, if they actually do anything, are affected by theextraction process - temp, time, solvents used for extraction, etc. can all diminush or eliminate beneficial activity. Plus, something that works on a regular flu, unless it targets a fundamental flu viral mechanism is not going to work on a bird flu and may actually be worse (ie, immune system boosters). Finally, small studies can often show wonderous results and that's in people. Studies in cell culture or animals can show perfect cures that translate into no effects in any people. However, even in people, the small numbers can and do all the time show statistically significance, but most of these results, when tested on larger sample sizes of people (100 patients) fail with a high frequency.

The government says that supply chain disruptions may occur for 2 weeks so that means in real world that it will be at least 4 weeks and probably 6 weeks. So, if you want to survive that is how much food and water that is needed.

How does the one person know that women's bathrooms are typically more dirty than men's bathrooms. Was this from an earlier show???

Pharmaceutical sales reps are not different than any other sales rep. Pharma pays more than most companies do to sales reps so they get the best selection. Even a cute babe gets almost no time to see or talk to a doctor.

People do not pay for health. People do not pay for their own preventative healthcare because it comes out of their own pocket. People will not get a treatment because they have to pay for it. Insurance won't cover it and they would not consider spending money on themself, but $4k for that big plasma tv is an impulse buy at costco. Priorities and responsibility. Nobody expects that they should pay for their own healthcare and doesn't or won't.

I think that your point of taking responsibility for your own health care is excellent!
Pointing our things like public keyboards was very good - people don't think and if you haven't thought about it before hand you are much more likely to panic and not act in your best interests. You might have wanted to mention mail - that was a major spread of the virus in 1918 to remote places, they think.

Good show.