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