Bird flu: staying calm about panic

Good call Revere. So who is it they are cautioning? The rest of the world is not only not panicking, they appear to be virtually comatose when it comes to bird flu and possible pandemic. They are reminding themselves to be cool headed even when things might seem dicey. Reminds me of the worlds economic situation.

This morning on the BBC the IMF stated the recession we can expect this year in the U.S. will be mild. It is fore-casted the projected growth rate would be dipping 1/2%. US specialists have avoided the word recession. Why? Because even uttering the world will have tremendous ill effects on the health of the economy. What doesn't follow here is when dealing with the economy suggestion does indeed affect the outcome. This is not true with the H5N1 virus. The virus has no ears, mind, or feelings. Which makes it bizarre to not inform human populations that the threat is still present and has not significantly diminished. But then I forget, the real reason the world remains in the throes of ignorant bliss is that the economy would be adversely affected if it was faced with a probable pandemic. Funny how everything we see and hear is filtered through the lens of what happens to business first.

Yes, I know that the admission of a possible even probable pandemic will also have severe consequences on the daily lives of millions if not billions of people. However, at some point the two sides of the equation must be seen as tipped not in the balance but rather dipping towards the side of ensuring far more loss of life as a pandemic sweeps across a completely unprepared sea of humanity. So when do we tell people? The answer appears when they have zero chances to prepare thus ensuring panic. How sad that humanity, even those charged with our welfare, still see only short term monetary losses as more important than long term mass casualties.

Myself, I see it in a different way. I think the government, our govnment and probably most governments want the pandemic to come and to thin out the population of the world.

I think you had better have food and a means to have a way of getting water for up to 3 motnths so you can survive on your own. Oh yea, you had better have a weapon so you can protect yourself, your family, and food cache.

The government just tells the people propaganda to control them. During a pandemic, society can breakdown and food riots can occur. The National Guard can be called out. Curfews can be enforced and martial law can be instituted in times of National Emergency. http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/911

Just shelter in place and don't go out until the pandemic has passed.

Shannon,

I disagree. Not entirely, but in part.

The main stream media does NOT succumb to the wishes of big business. Quite the opposite in fact.

If it were so...would we be hearing so much about the Airlines current inspection problems? Is that good for business? Has information been "with held". Absolutely not. It's all over the news.

How about the Olympic torch? Think of the tourism industry and other "big business". You think they want any negatives associated with the Olympics? Absolutely not...yet they continue to report on it hourly the last few days!

I respectfully ask you and others to refrain from forming "conspiracy" theories. They might be more exciting than the truth, but they are lunacy and deteriorate credibility.

The truth of the matter is H5N1 got some air time, but now it generates a big yawn. I know this comes as a shock to some here, but there is nothing imminent about H5N1. You can only squeeze so much juice from an orange. Now...all of us here know that it could become a whole GROVE of oranges. But for the moment, it's not. And it's stale news. It's got nothing to do with some conspiracy.

And then Big Dude REALLY wipes the poo around.

A year ago, flublogia had declared level 4 on information such as this. But with no apparent change in the genetic makeup of the virus, I'm not sure we are there even with these admissions. What do you think Revere?

Anything having to do with China relative to the bird flu should be taken with a pound of salt. I find it amazing that China is so open because they told the world something that happened months ago. Speaking of big business: the Olympics will be huge for China, more a reason to keep the occurences of the bird flu on the down low. Anyone remember SARS?

marvella: 8-8-08 at 8 p.m. IF we make it to that point at all. Meaning BF could explode at any moment.

By the way bigdudeisme I do agree with you in degree over a planned attempt at thinning out the population of the world.

If you're at all interested Jesse Ventura has a new book out 'Don't Start the Revolution Without Me'.

The radio press (ABC Australia) I heard about this case was emphasizing the genetic disposition in human to human cases. They were interviewing the Doctor at Hanoi hospital and he stated that ALL human to human cases were between blood relatives, not husband to wife for example. Therefore the risk of a pandemic was much lower. Hmmmm?

From memory, I don't think this is accurate although the preponderance of cases may well be related by bloodline.

Any comment on this aspect, Revere?

Rob: You are correct. This is inaccurate. We posted on this earlier. Suffice to say the evidence on genetic predisposition is not yet in.

Rob/Revere I think have the pulse on this. There may be a genetic predisposition in some villages/towns in Indon for instance due to lack genetic diversity. Not incest but closely tied cousins type of thing. Are we there yet. Not according to my local drinking bud. His opinion is like Robs and Reveres. When it say infects a family and then the next door neighbor truck driver gets it, then not knowing he is sick drives 50 miles and a store clerk gets it as he is paying for his gas and they are able to track it back to the family, then the bird doo is going to hit the rotary grinder.

Good post Revere, I am poring over records from Russia right now to see if the "Russian Flu" had any connections to H1N1and in this manner. It apparently came and went with the winter...

Patch, certainly you weren't referencing me for a conspiracy theory? Perhaps I didn't state my case clearly enough. I am not accusing msm or anyone else specifically of deliberately filtering the news. The only case I would point fingers at would be the WHO. They have already stated their fear of inhibiting tourism as more important that raising the status level of avian flu. I along with every epidemiologist firmly believe that at some time we are going to look pandemic in the eye again. Not today but perhaps some time soon.

I do disagree with you regarding the msm yawning mightily. The reason for msm ignoring H5N1 or any other flu is because it is being down-played by everyone from the WHO to French ornithologists. Given the extremely cautious messages being put out by experts, government and health officials or, in this case, a reminder for the experts themselves not to panic. Is it any wonder that it is business as usual? We are more afraid of panic than we are of anything else.

My point isn't one of a conspiracy to do away with humanity but rather, we now have time to prepare for a future pandemic, because it is in the future. Waiting until the SHTF means increased rates of morbidity and mortality. It also guarantees panic when this or any other flu eventually flies free. At some point we are going to be embroiled in another flu pandemic. I'd rather everyone knew going into the game what the consequences of not being prepared were and, how to avoid being a statistic.

BTW Patch, I would respectfully ask that you stop telling me to stop sharing what it is I think. I am far from fear-mongering. Helen Branswell does a better job of raising eyebrows than I ever have. You are tarring me with a brush I haven't earned. Please do not equate what others say in flublogia as having come from my keyboard. I do think it is wise to think ahead and plan for possible consequences. It is the prudent thing to do whether we get hit with bird flu, lose our jobs, or are visited with a devastating family illness. In this case the LDS church got it right. Plan for bad times and they won't be so bad.

This is very interesting. I find myself in agreement with Shannon, Bigdudeisme and Marvella. Patch, take off your blinders bud and smell the rotted roses, join the paranoid crowd.

We have obviously been at Phase 4 for a couple of years. It is my belief, with no facts to back it up, that indeed the Chinese are one of the major reasons why the WHO has not done the right thing and declared it. I dont think the pandemic will likely begin on 8/8/08 but I do think the irresponsible action of the WHO is related to that date and the Summer Olympics in particular, which seems to be more important to the Chinese than human rights or life itself.

I am so jaded to think that the above captioned report of the recovery of the father of the index patient given serum may well be the first salvo in a Chinese sponsored enterprise to sell serum of people vaccinated with H5N1 or who have recovered from infection with the virus to those wealthy enough to afford it. Surely, this will be a big money maker for the PLA who owns many businesses in China.

That said, the idea of using specific antibodies to combat H5N1 is a viable one. This approach may well be what we find ourselves looking to for treatment of MRSA as it seems to be uncannily able to escape our best and brightest new antibiotic compounds. As I recall, prior to the development of penicillin, the most efficacious treatment for Pneumococcal pneumonia was transfusion of plasma containing specific antibody.

Since we are able to mass produce specific antibodies today and scale this production up pretty quickly, this might indeed be a good treatment for pandemic H5N1 once it becomes pandemic. I hope that someone is looking at this possibility especially since developments on the vaccine front while promising seem to be much to slow for my liking and more than a few H5N1 strains have acquired Tamiflu resistance.

The Doctor

Revere-Even though its dead ending and I feel for the victims I have been retracing the steps to now. Its been mostly one off cases as you know, but not confirmed clusterings until 2005. Now we have the clusters emerging in a 1 to every 6 cases on average. That of course means that the cases themselves are included but familial clusters are popping up on an average of 1 for every 6. Its not so scientific of course because the information is very sketchy when they do put something up there for us to read.

Some bright grad student could do a paper on that particular aspect of it to see if it matched up with 1918 flu where there wasnt a lot of surveillance, to the 1957 and 1968's. Its more than my EXCEL based mind can stand but I sure would like to see if there is any correlation to the three and now our one. Might be worth the time.

I wouldnt be surprised if suddenly, about 15 minutes after the Olympics are done that we suddenly are at Pan 4.... Auntie Margaret of course making the decision to call it. I mean shit, we have been upping the internal levels in the countries that are doing anything about it for almost a year and we threw the Tamiflu blanket in Pakistan in January?, to stop the spread of the aforementioned cases. They dont do that unless there is clear evidence of Pan 4 stuff such as human to human spread in an uncontained manner. They launched that from the old Clark airbase in the PI. So the Doctors is right, Patch is right, everyone is right and we get to be right up until the time it starts to break. And then someone gets to be wrong.

Patch has got it exactly right. H5N1 is going nowhere fast, much to the chagrin of the fear mongering crowd. The situation has remained unchanged over the past 4 years and there is ZERO evidence that it's evolving into a human pandemic virus.

Thanks to Patch for bringing some sanity to the board.

On telling people to stay calm:

Here is an excerpt from Appendix 5, "The Problem with Saying 'Don't Panic', which I wrote as part of the draft background document for WHO's Outbreak Communication Guidelines in 2004:

Officials clearly have the fear or belief -- the mental model -- that panic is imminent. Instead of diagnosing, validating, and addressing the public's actual level of anxiety, officials repeatedly warn them not to panic.
To the public, "There is no need to panic" implies at least four things:
1. "The officials think or know that people are close to panicking. Things must be pretty bad." This increases public alarm.
2. "The officials think we're about to panic. How insulting." This decreases respect for officials.
3. "The officials are close to panicking themselves." This increases public alarm.
4. "Sometimes there must indeed be a need to panic."

Very hard lessons to teach officials.

Shannon,

You said:

"......Which makes it bizarre to not inform human populations that the threat is still present and has not significantly diminished."

I think they HAVE informed us of that. My question is, has it significantly increased?

Little has changed. And THAT is my point. It's got nothing to do with any group (MSM or WHO) or anything (Olympics).

I apologize, if you feel I attacked you wrongfully or personally. That was not my intention.

I think this is a legitimate threat. And I begin to doubt my sanity and the legitimacy of the threat when I suddenly find myself surrounded by conspiracy theorists and doomsday prophets. Certainly the general public must feel the same way!

I could go on, but I hope you understand my position.

And when I'm told "not to panic" I think more in terms of reacting to (or believing) people like herman and bigdude.

Also in regard to "don't panic" propaganda, TPTB know that this is closely and intensely watched by some of us. They also know that WE are the ones listening. When they say "don't panic" I think they are talking to a specific audience, not the general public. I further believe that their audience has had panic attacks ever since we were ready to declare stage 6 during the Turkey clusters. They are speaking to the people listening!

Notice that I say WE. I'm with you. I'm just trying to remain practical. The most practical solution appears to be to continue to contain spread to the best of our ability, research new drugs or treatment options, research vaccine techniques and most importantly, shore up a public health care system that is crumbling without the stress of a pandemic. Prepping has merits for any disaster. But preparing for such a long duration just doesn't seem practical for most of us with ordinary, everyday lives and concerns.

Maybe these things are too simple, but it's worth thinking about IMHO.

Very interesting responses. Most of us appear to be at least open to a pandemic. Whether or not it is H5N1 seems to be the sticking point. My position is while it hasn't yet made a significant jump it does keep trying to expand its host range.

Flu viruses strength is in its instability. It just keeps making flawed copies of itself thus gradually opening the door to new hosts. Nearly all of which are viral dead ends. But since there are so many billions of virus already in existence, many of which are still in waterfowl hosts, it has no pressure to not infect anything with lungs.

It is now endemic in India, Bangladesh, as well as in Indonesia. It is probably endemic in Egypt, all of China and Indochina. So the opportunity to infect humans is now far greater than at any time in the past. Every single time this virus infects a human it will have millions/billions of times adapt. While the changes needed are obviously critical, the odds of the virus stumbling on the keys aren't good in the long run for humans. Sooner or later, I suspect, the virus is going to get it right.

Finally, we know from Taubenberger that avian flu's do cause human pandemics. Deciding that since this one has yet to make the grade after failing for 10 years, means it won't ever overcome the obstacle's, is ludicrous. We don't know how long it took for H1N1 to move from a bird virus to a human virus. We don't know how many false starts it had nor, do we know if it was endemic in poultry populations first. We are still guessing about many key aspects of the last avian flu pandemic. And until H5N1 disappears from both wild bird and poultry populations, we remain under threat.

Demanding answers from anyone in the know does not automatically foment panic. Asking people not to panic, as noted above by Jody, does increase the speculation. When you treat the public as if they were incapable of rationale behavior, they distrust the messenger. A no-brainer. Whether the audience consists of experts, quasi-experts or just plain people. All of us who are reading this information are now primed to expect the message to be dumbed down and sometimes flawed. Distrust from the messengers side equals distrust on the recipients side. Questioning the WHO only means we have learned to think critically about their motives. They are not the altruistic body they would have us believe. Politics, business, and open distrust of those reading the papers, all reflect the reality of this body. That doesn't make me a conspiracy nutter. It only means I too have learned to weigh what I read and filter it through a sieve with a historical perspective. I no longer trust them and suspect very few of us here do either.

Patch, I don't agree with your assessment of prepping for a disaster. I can think of at least two populations in the U.S. who do/did this as a matter of course. Mormons are told to keep a certain amount of food on hand to help them over any financial rough spots. They are given information of what to store, how long to keep it in storage and, in what amounts. I know this from first hand observation as my mother is a member.

The second group is anyone who served or, was married to a member of the armed forces. We were paid monthly when my dh was serving his country. (This may no longer be the case but, was when dh served.) Careful measuring of what we ate, how often we ate it, and storing and using what we bought was critical to us. A paycheck once a month meant we had to be careful or risk going hungry. All of us learned to adapt. You do what needs to be done and move on. I still make one major grocery purchase monthly even though I am no longer forced to do so.

I don't think we are so far apart Shannon. I apologize again, for appearing to attacking you personally.

I've been reading so much, I might be mistaken, but if I remember correctly, we know through Taubenberger's research that avian flu's CAN cause pandemics. But we do know that they DO cause pandemics (as you stated). If I'm correct, that is a significant distinction.

I've been reading and watching for all of these 4 years (has it been that long!!!) and with few exceptions, there is little evidence we are closer now than we were 4 years ago. The fact that it's endemic and we have a exponential number of "exposures" yet it appears that infections numbers have NOT increased significantly in recent years should point to one thing...the transition to human host is a difficult one. Impossible? Taubenberger says no, not impossible, and I believe! But it doesn't make it so.

I'm not aware of anyone (including experts and TPTB) that disputes that Pandemics do and will again happen.

Patch apology accepted.

We do know there have been multiple cases of second generation infection and, we also suspect there was a third generation infection in Indonesia last year. Passing the virus is possible but still difficult.

Sorry hit the post button instead of the preview button.

My point about the second and third generation infection was that the threat has indeed escalated over the last four years. It has just done so at a very slow rate. So slow that nearly everyone views it as exciting as watching paint dry.

(Sigh) You know..when I re-read my posts...I begin to wonder if I make sense. My thoughts get ahead of my fingers and vice versa sometimes. Does anyone understand me?

Sorry for typos and lapses in grammar and logical thought!

Yes Patch I understand you. And this has been an interesting exchange.
Anyone seriously interested in the possibility of a pandemic though is going to be one who has read until they're blue in the face, so to speak. That's why exchanges of thoughts and what has been learned are good to repeat.

As for my sharing on particular subjects Patch, I have to be in the "mood" for anything "clear" to come out. My background is technical writing and that means I take what other people write and clean it up. Basically I don't have to think about the initial publication, just the end product. And then that goes to an editor, so... .
Anyway, this has been interesting and thanks to everyone who commented.

As for the public at large, they truly are brain dead and unaware of the ramifications of a pandemic.
And the mormons. Oh god, having been involved with them long ago I can tell you for certain that stockpiling food is not just to help them over any financial rough spots.

i've had my prep ready for over a year and a half...i just wanted to be ready and prepared for me, my kids and my grandkids (especially the children!)...

i'm not panicked - yet - i keep reading about what's going on with as many sites as i can find...i love 'prepareforpandemic' and 'flutrackers'...

'being prepared means never having to say PANIC!'