swine flu information

Hey Everybody,

The swine flu thing is an important concern right now and the information about it is really hard to find sometimes. I've found a little bit of info and wanted to share it, please pass on anything you have as well, or let me know if you notice anything amiss. I'd love to know the rest. Elizabeth and I went to a talk last week by a U of W prof on infectious disease, and I've been doing a lot of research.

What we heard in the talk is this: the contagiousness of a virus is represented by a figure R subscript zero, (read r not.) The models run for studying swine flu (H1N1) put the R0 between 1.3 and 1.6. If swine flu is at 1.6 then the peak of incidence (the most people coming down with it) would take place and begin to subside before the vaccines have been administered enough to make any recognizable difference in the spread of the virus (we would have missed our chance and vaccinating for no reason, these narrow windows is one of the reasons that vaccines get out to the public with so little clinical trial information). The other end of the accepted values of the R0 (1.3) put the peak of incidence later and by that time aggressive vaccination practices will have lowered the numbers considerably, predicted to be about 5 million fewer cases of the swine flu. Of those 5 million swine flu in the US has been killing about 0.01% of the people it infects I'll leave the math up to you. So the bottom line: the R0 is right on the line between making the virus useless this winter and making it valuable. We can't be sure.

Another factor to consider here is that if the R0 is 1.6 and we missed our window for prevention this winter, we still may get benefit from it when the H1N1 virus resurfaces next fall. We also may not get benefit. Any influenza type virus changes rapidly and by next fall the vaccine currently available may not be useful against its new form. Again, maybe, maybe not helpful.

Another thing to concern is the long term life resistance. People that were around back in '57 seem to have a much higher baseline immunity to the current H1N1 virus. Apparently there was something going around then that was similar enough to the H1N1 that it created immunity. If someone is vaccinated now we don't know that they will have that type of life time resistance. Although we don't know they won't. The chances, in my opinion, of having lifetime resistance is much higher with nature exposure, and not with the vaccine. Just my opinion.

The treatment of choice for swine flu once it has been contracted is Tamiflu. It must be administered within 48 hrs of onset of symptoms. If you decide not to vaccinate yourself or your children check out the symptoms and make sure you know them by heart. Straight from the Center for Disease Control the symptoms are:

"fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people may have vomiting and diarrhea. People may be infected with the flu, including 2009 H1N1 and have respiratory symptoms without a fever."

The safety of Vaccines:
The vaccines available to the public have all been given the stamp of approval by all the powers that be. If you, like me, aren't put entirely at ease by that then here is some information you may want.

Thimerosol: This is the preservative added to vaccines in the past that have generated such a frenzy with links to autism in children. The harm was thought to be due to the high level of mercury included in them and when given to an infant or small child that is still in the stages of neurological development significant harm was thought to be done. This is included in many of the vaccines for H1N1. As far as I know the only vaccine that doesn't contain this is the Flumist nasal vaccination for children. I should note for fairness that there were plenty of studies done that exonerated Thimerosol, as well as the ones that incriminated it.

Squalene: this was thought by some to be a big culprit in Gulf War Syndrome and has been accused of causing all sorts of other things from Lou Gehrig's disease to fibromyalgia. Again, studies prove that there is no connection. Squalene occurs naturally in humans, and most biological organisms with moderate complexity. When obtained for commercial purposes it comes from shark liver oil, and therefore may contain high levels of mercury. To my knowledge Squalene hasn't been approved for use general use in the United States (correct me if you know otherwise).

Flumist: of all the vaccines this one is significantly different. The vaccines are all dead viruses (meaning that they need a preservative to maintain the purity of it) except this one which is live virus. As the virus is alive no preservative could be added or else the harsh chemicals would kill the virus. While it is alive it is attenuated, meaning weakened to avoid actually causing an illness. Also it is a nasal spray rather than an injection. The nasal mucosa contains a large number of immune system cells in a place where the body can be exposed to it without causing a full blown infection. Evolutionarily that's what all that snot is for. Our digestive systems do similar work studying and making antibodies for bugs that come in with our food. Increasing our resistance. It's a more natural approach than an injection, more in line with what our bodys' expect. There are however some dangers associated with this vaccine. 1.) As it is a live virus, if it were given to a child with a compromised immune system it is possible that it could precipitate an infection with the virus. 2.) as it is a live virus it is thought possible to shed the virus and possibly infect others with a compromised immune system in contact with the vaccinated person. However, given the possible dangers associated with high levels of mercury in other vaccines, if I was to get vaccinated or if I had children that I wanted to get vaccinated, and I thought the R0 closer to 1.3, I would chose this as, in my judgment the safest option.

If you chose not to get vaccinated or to not have your children vaccinated you can do a lot of things to improve your chances of not being infected. There are all the obvious things: wash your hands, carry around hand sanitizer for all those things touched by a million people everyday (think the door handle at the mall, be the way we health nerds call them "fomites"). Avoid activities and life styles that are going to tax your immune systems or run down your general energy reserves (get enough sleep, eat healthy, not processed, exercise, laugh: found to increase immunity, make love: found to increase immunity (assuming of course you aren't making love to everybody), relax: found to increase immunity). Other things you can do: take the chinses herbal formula Yu Ping Feng San, eat the following regularly: daikon radish, radish, ginger, mint, chrysanthemum tea, and Cinnamon. These are foods that from a Chinese Medical standpoint coincide with the energetic nature of fall, and act to release pathogenic factors from the surface layers of the energetic anatomy.

Stay well. Pass any questions or additional info on, as I'd love to know the rest.

Kieran Jones

The rest of the Ecuador story

Oh my god. I can't believe it took me this long to finish this thing. Wow. Sorry to anyone that is actually reading this. Here's the rest. We went from Quito to Latacunga to set up the climb of Cotopaxi with a local guide company, and to catch a bus to Chugchilan, a small village tucked in the Andes where we'd stay for 3 days before returning to climb Cotopaxi.

Our tour of the Andes involved going around something called the Quilotoa loop. It's a dirt loop from the main PanAmerican highway, out to a high elevation volcanic caldera lake and back. We stayed a few nights in the town of Chugchilan which is at the far point of the loop and relaxed, went for short hikes and got acclimatized. We stayed at a hostel called Mama Hildas. Every night children from the very small village of Chugchilan would go to our hostel and pull us outside and put on a dance demonstration wearing traditional garb and with traditional music. Very cute. they'd pull in a few of the unsuspecting tourists into the dance one by one, until everyone is spinning in a circle holding hands. When we were done dancing, dinner would be on the table inside and we would eat and drink and talk with the other travelers in Mama Hilda's small communal area. It was the nicest place we stayed for our whole trip. One morning at 4am, we caught the bus from Chugchilan to the town of Quilotoa, 15 miles away, and the location of the Quilotoa Lake, a 300km wide caldera. It was a little unsettling getting dropped off at 5:30 in the morning on the side of a rural road in the Andes at 11,000 feet in pitch black darkness. We stepped off the bus and nearly stepped right off the 45 foot cliff, seriously, not 8 feet from where our feet stepped out of the bus. We froze for about 40 minutes in Quilotoa waiting for the sun to come up. We were huddled together in a stick and straw stall used for the market, teeth chattering. When we could see enough to walk we started out on the trail around the lake. It was a grueling several hour hike made all the more difficult by the 13,000 feet that we were hiking at, and the loose dirt walkway. Painful as it was, it was important acclimatization in preparation for the peak of Cotopaxi, which at over 19,000 feet is the worlds tallest volcano. On our way out of Chugchilan we stopped at the town of Saquisili to go to the market, which was supposedly the best, most authentic market to be had in the Andes, where we saw some interesting things, and cool wares, but we were painfully aware of the effect that tourism has had on this "authentic" market which now seemed to be mainly selling the same overpriced knick knacks and alpaca sweaters that the locals can't afford, or wouldn't wear if they could. There was however a whole other side of the market where we could still see the whole fried pig head being sold, and my favorite, the line of old men and peddle driven sewing machines making a few bucks mending and altering things people brought up. We got a few things, a sweater, some socks and some other gifts for people back home, and were off for Latacunga. We got back to Latacunga, an incredible little city in the Andes which has been buried by the eruption of the nearby volcano Cotopaxi multiple times in the past several centuries. We know that because an old man at the Latacunga museum talked to us for maybe an hour and a half, in Spanish. Which we don't fully understand...and he would quiz us on what he already said. So we really had to pay attention. We got the parts about multiple eruptions and about the Mama Negra festival (especially when he pulled up the manequin's shirt to show that she had breasts), but for the most part it was gibberish, 90 minutes of it. We were exhausted trying to maintain attention to a nice old man while struggling to understand what he's saying. The next morning, we linked back up with the guide company and were off for Cotopaxi, which would be the crowning grand finally of our trip, before we headed back to unemployment, bills, and the rest of the reality of life back in the States. Elizabeth who hadn't been planning on climbing Cotopaxi decided at the last second, to go ahead and try, as the price was less than we had thought it would be.

We drove up to the refugio at 4800 meters, (15,750 feet). And had a small dinner, some conversation and headed to bed for a few hours of anxious restless sleep. We woke at midnight and had a quick breakfast and were out the door. We had a half hour hike to the glacier, then several more hours of glacier travel to the peak. When we woke, Elizabeth hadn't been feeling well and about an hour into the hike up the the glacier the guide asked Elizabeth how she was feeling. She was very nauseous so the guide told her that she would just get worse if she continued and if she had to turn back, I would have to turn back too. She ended up going back to the refuge before we got to the glacier, and spent the day nursing some serious nausea and stomach ache and headache she was always on the verge of puking but never did. The rest of our crew headed up towards the glacier, strapped on our crampons and pulled out our axes for the rest of the climb. We were roped up in a team of two and one of three. A guide and I on one rope, and the two Canadians we were with and another guide on the second rope. The climb was pretty simple, only a few crevasses to hop and pretty narrow. We made the peak just as the sun was coming up. Unfortunately it was completely socked in and we couldn't see a thing. The way back was pretty quick. we got back in an hour and a half or so. After rousing Elizabeth from bed and eating all the food in sight we got back in the truck to head back to Latacunga. Apparently the Cherokee we were in was having some trouble with the altitude and it was a damn lucky thing it was downhill for the next ten miles so we coasted stalled and sputtered, losing brake assist and power steering every few minutes. It was perhaps the most thrilling part about climbing Cotopaxi.
Eventually we got back to Latacunga, then to Guayaquil (10 hours on a bus) then to Miami (4 hours) then to San Fransisco (5 hours). The I drove to Bremerton (14 hours). So with climbing I traveled for a total of 42 hours in four days. After which I drove to Bellingham to climb the 9 thousand foot peak Mt. Shuksan with my brother Chad and spread our father's ashes. It ended up being the perfect finish to the trip.
Here we are in Bremerton now living it up, and looking for jobs and a place to live in Seattle. Hopefully we'll have another adventure very very soon.