Effect Measure

Open letter to the pandemic influenza virus

Posted by revere on April 7, 2010
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Dear influenza virus:

You owe the Council of Europe and a number of others an apology. They are angry — and rightly so — that you didn’t kill many more people and wreak havoc in every country on the globe. You could have. Other influenza viruses killed a lot of people, especially when there was no natural immunity in the population. As far as anyone can tell you aren’t any different. When you surprised us there was no effective vaccine. You had the perfect opportunity and you blew it. As for the vaccine we got later, it’s no excuse. I read in the British Medical Journal the vaccine might not work. “Might not” is the same as “doesn’t” when it’s in a big time medical journal like BMJ. I wish I’d known that before I got vaccinated. What a waste. You didn’t even make me sick.

So don’t bother me again. I’m not interested in hearing how good your qualifications for the job are. Too late for that. We’ve seen how you performed. I’ll grant you your family has a good track record, but it’s only “what have you done to us lately” that counts. Even if you were much more efficient in killing young and healthy people, it’s the bottom line that’s important, and the bottom line is that you didn’t live up to your illustrious 1918 parents in total killing power. You didn’t live up to expectations this time so why should we expect you to ever live up to them? You were just like ordinary carpet bombing, not a nuclear holocaust.

I know I write for everyone not killed by you, as well as for the Council of Europe, that we are very, very disappointed.

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Comments

  1. #1 Snowy Owl
    April 7, 2010

    Salutations Revere,

    As promess here is the Canadian study (mainly the Québec datas concerning, seasonnial flu vaccine and its effects on the pandemic H1N1 on those vaccinned for seasonnial flu, wich led last Fall Québec to refuse to give seasonnial flu shots but instead focus on H1N1

    TUESDAY, April 6 (HealthDay News) The traditional seasonal flu vaccine may have increased the risk of infection with pandemic H1N1 swine flu, according to the results of four new studies by Canadian researchers.
    Click here to find out more!

    In one study, the researchers used an ongoing sentinel monitoring system to assess the frequency of prior vaccination with the seasonal flu vaccine in people diagnosed with H1N1 swine flu in 2009 compared to people without swine flu. The researchers found that seasonal flu vaccination was associated with a 68 percent increased risk of getting swine flu.

    from PLOS

    Snowy

  3. #3 revere
    April 7, 2010

    Snowy: Thanks. Also sent to me by reader gilmore. Thanks to you both. We are finishing the grant this week (actually assembling the pieces today) so I hope to have more time to devote to these non-grant activities again and this is a paper I want to read carefully.

  4. #4 Namnezia
    April 7, 2010

    I can’t find the article in the BMJ that the H1N1 vaccine is ineffective. Would you be able to point me in the right direction? Thanks.

  5. #5 revere
    April 7, 2010

    Namnezia: Sorry. Link to my post on the controversy added. Here it is again, though:
    http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/10/journalists_sink_in_the_atlant.php

  6. #6 Paula
    April 7, 2010

    The PLOS article was actually referred to in a couple of mass media articles this week, and I’ve been hoping you’d comment on it, revere. Good you’re finishing up the grant application–for this reason, too. Good luck with it (the grant).

  7. #7 Alex
    April 7, 2010

    @Revere: I also heard about the article Snowy just linked. I got vaccinated for both. Anything to worry about? I mean this isn’t some anti-vax pseudo-science publication…

  8. #8 influentialvirus
    April 8, 2010

    I do apologize to all for not putting on the show macabre you were expecting. Yes, I laughed st the ineffective vaccine – as smart as a cow. I hang out misleading epitopes and have no difficulty adapting around the keystone cops of immune system. Yes, I so wanted to have the blackened faces and protruding tongues of yesteryear. But here’s what happened – I was swamped out by a benign virus, a socialistic sponge actually, that crowded my ineffective niche. But next year I plan to get a foot-hold, so keep the bull-dozers ready, and I will be more famous than Lady Gaga.

  9. #9 M. Randolph Kruger
    April 8, 2010

    Yep, I was going to send it to you too Revere but do, after you send your stuff in let us know what you think… It looks to me like it has and has had an undesirable effect. It will play into the hands of the holistics out there if its correct. I didnt take the vax, and neither did the kids. One got sick, paid attention to daddy and was down for two days and recovering for a week. The daughter didnt and went out partying, got it and brought it back to mom. Daughter was up and down in spurts for about ten days and really flu-crapped out for almost a month. Mom recovered very slowly.

    Both had taken the vax, the son didnt. Mom had fever, headaches for weeks off and on. I may have had it for a couple of hours when I got a headache, no fever though. Its interesting on this report, and it could set flu vax back several years if it causes a predisposition to getting newer versions of flu.

  10. #10 Snowy Owl
    April 8, 2010

    Last fall I was deeply involved in the deliberations and executuins of the Pandemic Response and I have learned so much that it is not all digested yet. lol

    The Establishment was more destabilize by Internet Influencers, no doubdt about that. (The Big Pharma, The Govs, Public Health Devoted Ones and Security).

    Timing is of Essence as they say and I appears that a lot of multidisciplinary informations got somehow synthetized and we should in the next few months get a clearer picture.

    From what I witness all I can say now is Security + Public Health makes govs cave in, wich is IMHO a good thing.

    Snowy

  11. #11 revere
    April 8, 2010

    All: there wil be a post about the Canadian study tomorrow a.m.

  12. #12 Aitch Wun Enn Wun
    April 8, 2010

    Dear Reveres –
    Stop with the 1918 comparisons, OK? Do you know how hard it is to live up to an older relative’s reputation? Great-Grannie 1918 had a lot of help from her bacteria friends, she wasn’t being picked apart by virologists the moment she showed up, and what passed for supportive care then made people a lot easier to kill off. That was then, this is now.

    I tried as hard as I could to build a killer epidemic with the crappy genes those damned pigs dealt me, but the virulence factors weren’t what I was hoping for. Maybe next time.

    Sincerely;
    Aitch Wun Enn Wun

    PS: Great-Grannie 1918 didn’t have those damned vaccines, either. How can I get a raging epidemic under way if my chain of transmission keeps getting broken.