Is the swine flu virus man made??

[OneLight]

it does seem the virus has been dormant for a long time... but the article makes it sound like it's been non-existent. i probably should have read more thoroughly instead of just scanning it, but i didn't notice any mention of the history of the swine flu.

is everyone aware that this flu was around in the 70's? they even had a vaccine for it back then.

I remember this from the 70's. Wasn't there something about people dying from the vaccine back then?

I remember my Daddy would not let any of us take the shot. Parents still had final say over their kids back then.

Yeah, only 1 person reportedly died from the flu itself, but many died from the vaccine.

[MorningGlory]

I think it's weird how it just "popped" up out of nowhere with several cases breaking out at pretty much the same time.

One day you hear x number dead in Mexico and x number infected in the US. Later in the day you read x number suspected cases in another city in the US. Then you hear x number infected in this country and that country....

It does make one suspicious.

(Shades of Ted Dekker's The Circle trilogy.)

This is how it happens though; HIV and Ebola also jumped species and just appeared out of nowhere. Same with SARS. Usually what happens is that these diseases have been around for a while but science doesn't focus on them until they appear in humans.

[nebula]

While it is being called swine flu, it doesn't seem to infect Pigs.

Where did you read this?

[nebula]

Researching facts:

We know so far that the viruses contain genetic pieces from four different virus sources. This is unusual. The first is our North American swine influenza viruses. North American avian influenza viruses, human influenza viruses and swine influenza viruses found in Asia and Europe.

That particular genetic combination of swine influenza virus segments has not been recognized before in the U.S. or elsewhere. Of course, we are doing more testing now and looking more aggressively for unusual influenza strains. So we haven't seen this strain before but we haven't been looking as intensively as we are these days.

http://www.cdc.gov/media/transcripts/2009/t090423.htm

3 parts North American, 1 part Asian/Europe?

[nebula]

"It's potentially scarier than the outbreak of avian flu," virologist and influenza expert Douglas Richman of the University of California, San Diego, said in an online report in the journal Science.

That is because most strains of swine flu that infect people are spread only from pig to person, but the new strain of H1N1 swine flu seems to spread easily from human to human.

<snip>

But WHO flu expert Keiji Fukuda said in a teleconference from Geneva that two of the virus's eight key genetic components appear to have come from a strain of swine flu common in Europe and Asia, while the rest were similar to the US strains of swine flu.

Source

[MorningGlory]

I don't think these things just "jump out." I think reason and planning are done well before there are any jumps. I could be wrong, and hope I am, but I suspect I am not.

Are you saying the mutations that allow these things to jump the species barrier are being manipulated by man?

[Guest LadyC]

well now i understand why there isn't a vaccine available now!

[Ovedya]

Okay, okay, let's all just put the "kibosh" on the conspiracy theory thing. No need to get all worked up over a flu, which is not now, nor likely to become a pandemic. More people are killed every year by traffic accidents than have been killed by the flu in nearly the past decade. Let's not allow the media's attention to this turn in to paranoia for us.

[Guest yod]

I don't think these things just "jump out." I think reason and planning are done well before there are any jumps. I could be wrong, and hope I am, but I suspect I am not.

Are you saying the mutations that allow these things to jump the species barrier are being manipulated by man?

Who knows? Really, How would any of us know?

I only know that I listened to News all day and the Drug companies once again are gonna make out big....no matter what the cause. I always follow the money.

OK then...in the interests of shutting it all down in a big heap of trouble as traveller (are you coming Ovedya?) comes to my town next week....

I'll see that conspiracy theory and raise you one

Just checked statistics and got this:

Death rate extrapolations for USA for Flu: 63,729 per year, 5,310 per month, 1,225 per week, 174 per day, 7 per hour, 0 per minute, 0 per second. Note: this automatic extrapolation calculation uses the deaths statistic: 63,730 annual deaths for influenza and pneumonia (NVSR Sep 2001); estimated 20,000 deaths from flu (NIAID)

So there aren't as many deaths from swine flu by FAR when compared to just "the flu". So what is all the fuss about?

I really am expecting to see some government "solution" that takes a step (if not a leap) towards giving them pervasive powers of monitoring every single person in America.

[Guest yod]

Thanks! From the article

But states say they are ready to protect the public if the infection intensifies.

Many states adopted new legislation to deal with emerging health emergencies in the wake of Sept. 11, says James Hodge, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and executive director of the Centers for Law and the Public