It is better to be an outcast, a stranger in one’s own country, than an outcast from one’s self. It is better to see what is about to befall us and to resist than to retreat into the fantasies embraced by a nation of the blind. Chris Hedges
Those looking for a hot stock to buy should consider a flutter on Dow Global Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DOW). They have developed a new technology to ferment vaccines much quicker than traditional methods, especially important in finding vaccines for recombinant strains of virus' such as H1N1. Merck and Pfizer have both signed agreements with DowPharma for the new technology.
This carved wooden Maori cenotaph was erected at Te Koura marae in memory of those who died in the 1918 influenza pandemic. The cenotaph was designed and carved by Tene Waitere of Ngati Tarawhai. He also created a similar cenotaph at Te Ihingarangi marae, Waimiha. This photograph was taken in 1920 by Albert Percy Godber.
Serviceman returning from The Great War brought the flu to New Zealand with them. The population in 1918 was 1,150,000. One characteristic of the flu was that it came in waves. The first wave served to immunize communities to some extent. Many people were lulled into believing it was not the same flu as the one that had killed so many elsewhere. But it was the second wave of the flu, catching previously unaffected communities that caused the majority of the 8,600 deaths in New Zealand. Maori were seven times more likely to die from the flu.
Maori suffered heavily: their overall rate of death was 42.3 per thousand people, seven times that of Europeans. In one community, Mangatawhiri in the Waikato, about 50 out of 200 local Maori died. Whina Cooper recalled similar suffering at Panguru, Hokianga:
Everyone was sick, no one to help, they were dying one after the other. My father was very, very sick then. He was the first to die. I couldn't do anything for him. I remember we put him in a coffin, like a box. There were many others, you could see them on the roads, on the sledges, the ones that are able to drag them away, dragged them away to the cemetery. No time for tangis. (writer's note: official statistics identify only 9 deaths in the Hokianga.)
But there was an exception. Mortality amongst Maori on the East Coast of the North Island was, according to historian Geoffrey Rice, ‘much less than expected in comparison with other North Island districts'. This may have been because they had received partial immunity from the first wave which was reportedly widespread in the district during August and September.
To date, nobody has died from the flu outside of Mexico. However health officials there cannot say whether the deaths there, which are now more than 100 people, are because what we are seeing is a second wave asserting itself.
Certainly, this H1N1 virus sweeping through Mexico bears striking similarities to the 1918 flu. Both have origins in swine and both are claiming the lives of healthy people between the ages of 19 - 35. What makes this virus more alarming than the 1918 variety is the hybrid nature of it: This virus contains elements of Avian Flu from two different continents, elements of different swine virus' from two different continents, along with a human influenza virus.
The last pandemic fear was during the SARS scare 3 years ago. That virus proved to be a false flag because it did not make the transition from, bird to human transmission, to human to human transmission. This new virus, almost certainly a virus that was manufactured in a laboratory, has combined the most dangerous elements of both the swine and avian varieties. Because of the exotic nature of this strain, it is highly unlikely that tamiflu or any other vaccine will be effective. A new vaccine - specific to this virus, is estimated to take months to develop; most of those who died in New Zealand, did so in the two months following the first outbreak wave. http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/influenza-pandemic-1918
On October 5th, 2005 the CDC announced they had successfully reconstructed the virus that caused the 1918 flu pandemic. The work, done in collaboration with Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory, determined the set of genes in the 1918 virus that made it so harmful. The 1918 pandemic killed an estimated 20-50 million people worldwide, including 675,000 in the United States. The pandemic’s most striking feature was its unusually high death rate among otherwise healthy people aged 15-34.
The vials contained samples of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, a virus that sickens horses and can be spread to humans by mosquitoes. In 97 percent of cases, humans with the virus suffer flu-like symptoms, but it can be deadly in about 1 out of 100 cases, according to Caree Vander Linden, a spokeswoman for the Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. There is an effective vaccine for the disease and there hasn't been an outbreak in the United States since 1971.
The vials had been at the research institute's facility at Fort Detrick, home of the Army's top biological research facility, for more than a decade. The three missing vials were among thousands of vials that were under the control of a senior scientist who retired in 2004. When another Fort Detrick scientist recently inventoried the retired scientist's biological samples, he discovered that the three vials of the virus were missing. The original scientist's records about his vials dated back to the days of paper-and-pen inventories.
Health officials in Dallas County are urging anyone with upper respiratory ailments to be tested for a rare strain of swine flu after two cases surfaced in Texas.
Elsewhere across Texas, health departments are on the lookout for the illness, which sickened two high school students from Guadalupe County near San Antonio and a 10-year-old boy from San Diego who visited Dallas before his diagnosis. All three, and the other four victims in the U.S., have recovered and are fine.
"This virus that has been isolated has never been seen before," said Dr. John Carlo, medical director for Dallas County's health department. "The good news is this has been very mild."
It's unclear how anyone caught the virus that combines pig, bird and human viruses in an unusual way, he said. None of the seven people were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other.
Test results the state received from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed the Texas illnesses were caused by a swine influenza-A virus that appears to closely match the viruses from the five in Southern California.
It's not yet known whether those cases are related to the swine flu virus that may have killed 60 people in Mexico, sickened hundreds of others there and has health officials fearful of a possible global flu epidemic.
There have been no reported deaths in the United States and health officials say there's not yet cause for alarm here.
This programme from PBS is a stunning look at the first days of the economic crisis. It is clear from this programme that Goldman Sachs engineering a short run on Bear Stearns that almost brought the whole shooting match down. It was a near run thing.
I stumbled across this Vblog from an economist who experienced the collapse of the Argentine economy firsthand. Speaking today, he discusses how out-of-control shadow bankers are intent on a controlled dissolution of individual state governments.
