Anyone Concerned About A Potential Pandemic?

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Lon
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Post by Lon »

Purusing the New Zealand and Australian news sources indicates they are much more concered about the possibilites of a Pandemic of mutated Avian Flu occuring at some point.
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BabyRider
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Post by BabyRider »

Ya know Lon, this may seem crazy to you, but if I worried about every thing that might kill me, I'd never leave my house, or open my windows, I'd certainly never ride, I'd never do anything.

You know, they've found that the #1 cause of death is living? Imagine how silly all the health nuts are going to feel when they're old, and dying of nothing.

I guess my point is, I can't waste energy worrying about what might happen. I might get hit by a truck tomorrow. I also might hit the lottery.
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Bullet's trial was a farce. Can I get an AMEN?????


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Accountable
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Post by Accountable »

*note to self: no sex with birds!





































again. :-2 *





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G-man
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Post by G-man »

LOL!... I had to look and see where you were from after I read that... :wah:

I'm concerned slightly but... I'm not going to lose any sleep over it thinking about things that might kill me... there are so many other things that are far more likely.


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orangesox1
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Post by orangesox1 »

Lon wrote: Purusing the New Zealand and Australian news sources indicates they are much more concered about the possibilites of a Pandemic of mutated Avian Flu occuring at some point.


I really should start watching the news:D
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theia
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Post by theia »

orangesox1 wrote: I really should start watching the news:D


I wouldn't bother, I don't...watching the news can seriously damage your health
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Post by orangesox1 »

theia wrote: I wouldn't bother, I don't...watching the news can seriously damage your health


How? By making a person depressed:-3
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Post by Bez »

Here in the UK they have banned bird shows and bird at markets etc as there have been confirmed deaths of imported exotic birds. The virus has to mutate into a human version first and then it may not be a 'killer' type.

In my opinion there's no point in worrying about something that may not happen. Eat healthy and stay fit is all we can do....and live for today .
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Post by theia »

orangesox1 wrote: How? By making a person depressed:-3


Yes. What is the point of broadcasting different people's opinions on an issue and causing the public to worry? Particularly when no=one actually knows what the outcome will be. It can cause unnecessary stress. Now if the information was purely factual (whatever that might mean), then fair enough...but I work with people who can become really ill by worrying about what they hear from the media...
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Post by G-man »

orangesox1 wrote: How? By making a person depressed:-3


For starters... :wah:


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Post by Accountable »

I recommend everyone avoid coughing. An estimated 89% of all people who cough end up getting sick soon after.
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Post by Bez »

Accountable wrote: I recommend everyone avoid coughing. An estimated 89% of all people who cough end up getting sick soon after.


And a 100% of those they cough over.....and don't forget the sneezing !!!!
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OpenMind
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Post by OpenMind »

My chimney has a flue. Can anyone tell me what tablets I should take for it??
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Post by Bez »





The Department of Health have stated that masks "will provide a physical barrier and minimize contamination of facial mucosa by large particle droplets, one of the principal ways influenza is transmitted.", and the Chief Medical Officer has stated that "clean hands are the best defence against the threatened flu pandemic".



:lips: :lips:
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Post by LilacDragon »

Puleeze! Who has time to worry about bird flu? I have to figure out what to feed the kids for dinner, where I am going to come up with the money for this months bills and a bizzillion other things!

My daughter, on the other hand, refuses to fill the bird feeder for the poor chickadees because she is afraid she will get bird flu!
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Post by Clint »

OpenMind wrote: My chimney has a flue. Can anyone tell me what tablets I should take for it??
If a bird flew down your flue and died it could be said that it flew your flue with fatal flu.:D
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Post by tedhutchinson »

Those who are interested in the Bird Flu topic may be interested in consider an item here about the Bird Flu Hoax. http://www.mercola.com/2005/oct/25/rums ... u_hoax.htm#

If you do actually want to consider the serious question of pandemics and influenza epidemics might find http://www.cholecalciferol-council.com/pascal.pdf interesting.
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Post by SOJOURNER »

It seems to be this year's mad cow.
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Lon
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Post by Lon »

There is a huge difference between worrying about a big flu outbreak and being prepared. I don't worry about it, but I am prepared.
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Post by Accountable »

The old guys on Meet the Press yesterday said everyone should stockpile enough so they could stay home for 3 weeks, just in case. They didn't say how to keep a job during that time.
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Lon
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Post by Lon »

Accountable wrote: The old guys on Meet the Press yesterday said everyone should stockpile enough so they could stay home for 3 weeks, just in case. They didn't say how to keep a job during that time.


If there ever was a Pandemic of Bird Flu, staying alive would be the main priority, not a job.
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Post by Bez »

Lon wrote: There is a huge difference between worrying about a big flu outbreak and being prepared. I don't worry about it, but I am prepared.


I'm not really worried....still feeding the birds in the garden etc. How have you prepared Lon ?
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Post by chonsigirl »

1918 Spanish Flu epidemic wrecked devistation globally. There isn't alot to do to prevent that again, stockpiling up items at home is useful for all types of emergencies, but if you've been exposed prior to your lockdown, what good will it do?
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Post by BabyRider »

Bez wrote: How have you prepared Lon ?
That's what I'd like to hear, too. Sure, I'm not going to obsess over it, but I will take precautions! Teach me, Lon!! :yh_bigsmi
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Bullet's trial was a farce. Can I get an AMEN?????


We won't be punished for our sins, but BY them.




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Lon
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Post by Lon »

Hey, no big deal folks. Believe me, I am not spending sleepless nights over this thing. I do have a supply of Nano Masks and Tami Flu, that's it.

Do a Google Search on flu and pandemics for an interesting read.
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Post by cars »

So we should eat FISH then right?



(Then the "mercury" contained in fish will get you, so. . . . .)
Cars :)
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Post by tedhutchinson »

Lon wrote: Hey, no big deal folks. Believe me, I am not spending sleepless nights over this thing. I do have a supply of Nano Masks and Tami Flu, that's it.

Do a Google Search on flu and pandemics for an interesting read.Well I seem to be wasting my time pointing people to sensible information.

What happens in overwhelming infections situations isn't that the bug gets you it's you kill yourself. When infection starts your body creates an army of cytokines which fight infection. Most of these chaps are sorted as they pass through your thryoid but a certain percentage probably 2% are pro-inflammatory cytokines and these chaps are resistant and are just determined to keep fighting and so unless they are brought under control they continue to gobble up your own cells and because they are appear to be you none of your immune fighting cells will touch them. It's like a pacman game where your body no longer has any defence because it is it's own cells which are doing the damage.

The immune regulatory system is contolled by ultimately by the presence of Vitamin D. The reason we only have flu epidemics in the Winter is because that's when everyones immune systems are at their lowest because the sun don't shine as much or as strongly. Your skin can only make vitamin d when the sun has sufficient UVB rays and if it isn't strong enough to burn you it's not strong enough to create vitamin d.

There is a calculator here http://zardoz.nilu.no/%7Eolaeng/fastrt/VitD-ez.html which can tell you if you can strip off and go sunbathing and get your vitamin d ration at midday. You may need google earth or multimap to work out your latitude and longitude. However if you live north of Boston USA it's probable you won't get much Vitamin D until next April depending of course on the cloud cover and pollution level.

You could buy a sun tanning lamp to make up the deficit or you could use 4000iu of Cholecalciferol vitamin d3 every day. Keeping your levels of vitamin d up to Summer levels should be sufficient to stop the proinflammatory cytokines zapping you instead of the flu virus. You need to keep your own control system up to scratch.This means keeping your vitamin d levels at summer strength.
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Post by BabyRider »

tedhutchinson wrote: Well I seem to be wasting my time pointing people to sensible information.
If it's a waste of time, why bother at all? And why do you sound so.....sardonic?
[FONT=Arial Black]I hope you cherish this sweet way of life, and I hope you know that it comes with a price.
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Bullet's trial was a farce. Can I get an AMEN?????


We won't be punished for our sins, but BY them.




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Post by tedhutchinson »

cars wrote: So we should eat FISH then right?



(Then the "mercury" contained in fish will get you, so. . . . .) It's the oily fish you need to be eating, or Cod Liver Oil. Why ?

Because it contains vitamind as well as Omega 3. Omega 3 (EPA and DHA) are antiinflammatory agents and will help your body cope with infection BUT it can only be absorbed through the cell walls in the presence of Vitamin D. In the Winter when the sun don't shine or if it does it's too low in the sky for the UVB rays to penetrate, the skin doesent' get stimulated to produce vitamin d. So not only doesn't your body have full control over the immune response but also it cannot absorb properly the omega 3 it needs to calm the inflammation down.

You don't need to worry unduly about the mercury. About 4 portions of oily fish a week will provide sufficient omega 3 and this won't contain sufficient mercury to ruin your brain. Both Vitamin D and Omega 3 are necessary to prevent Altzhiemers, MS, Cancer, diabetes, Crohns, ADHD, depression, shitzo, diabetes, prostate cancer, breast cancer obestiy and a few other things I can't remember at the moment. So all in all it time you got down to the sun tan palour and invested ten minutes or so boosting your immune system. No point in staying longer, once you've made your daily ration 12000iu any further vitd is junked. If you don't want to use the sunbet route then 4000iu of vit d daily will keep your levels topped up. You could, if you felt bird flu was a possibility and you really thought the infections had started down 50,000iu In the UK we can only buy 400iu tabs so that would mean 125 pills in one go. It's called STOSS therapy and it would be sufficient to bring your immune system up to strength in one short sharp shock. You'd need to keep taking 4000 iu daily though to keep at this level.

There is a presentation at the link below which will help you understand some of the importance of Vitamin D. It may be a bit hard going and it doesn't cover the effect on the immune system but I think you might be better informed if you give it a try. Sorry if I sound a bit superior, I'm just bloody furious that this information has been around for so long but the bloody medics just don't seem to take any notice of it.

http://www.insinc.com/onlinetv/directms13oct2005
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Post by lady cop »

BabyRider wrote: If it's a waste of time, why bother at all? And why do you sound so.....sardonic?i think the word may be "superior" BR :rolleyes:
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Post by tedhutchinson »

SnoozeControl wrote: Ted, are you a vitamin salesman by any chance?It's clear you don't bother to read posts before replying critically.

Let's that is slowly stage by stage.

Vitamin D is usually FREE. Your skin makes VITAMIN D itself FREE from SUNLIGHT.

So most of the year if you live south of Boston you just need to strip off into your cossie and go outside and in 10 minutes you will make 12000 iu of vitamin d for nothing. So noone is going to get rich selling you stuff you can mostly get for free. Thats the reason why Pharmeceutical companies don't research it. They can't make money out of something folks can get for nothing.

It's only between September and April in Northern latitudes.See the calculator linked to above when you cannot get vitamin D for nothing.

But even so Cholecalciferol is about the cheapest Vitamin you can buy. In the UK you can get 360 tabs for about a £5 which isn't going to make anyone a fortune and a £36 solaria (suntanning lamp) would enable you to not even bother with the tablets. So no one is interested in flogging vitamin d. This is why nobody is interested in researching it and why it has been neglected.

If you can flog people drugs that cost Thousands of pounds to cure cancer who the hell wants to tell people they can get stuff for free which will prevent them getting cancer?

The drugs to prevent the progression of MS cost a fortune and are making the pharmeceutical companies millions. Are they going to be pleased if people prevent others getting MS by informing them they could reduce the chances of getting MS by sunbathing and getting a tan.

For every one person who dies with skin cancer caught directly through exposure to the sun 250 die from cancers which could have been prevented if they had more exposure to sunlight. The details are all here in PDF] SUNLIGHT ROBBERY: if you don't believe me.

Yes I do believe that vitamin d and omega 3 would if people took more would reduce the number of cases of

# Alzheimer's disease

# Asthma

# Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

# Bipolar disorder

# Cancer

# Cardiovascular disease

# Crohns disease

# Depression

# Diabetes

# Eczema

# High blood pressure

# Huntington's disease

# Lupus

# Migraine headaches

# Multiple sclerosis

# Obesity

# Osteoarthritis

# Osteoporosis

# Psoriasis

# Rheumatoid arthritis

There are a good few others I could mention but I doubt you would believe me. Try searching http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi and you'll find plenty of others. But no the only thing I get from pointing out the bleedin obvious is a load of hassle. It's a case of the Emporer's new clothes. I feel I'm the only person who can see the doctors haven't got a shred of evidence to cover their negligence but nobody seems to be paying attention.

But no I don't have shares in any vitamin companies and no I can't get any kickbacks from the omega 3 suppliers so the only satisfaction I can get the pleasure of knowing that there is plenty of evidence to support my reasoning but the medical politics will not allow the matter to progress.
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Post by chonsigirl »

:-6 .............my way to go for vitamin D. I walk outside every day nature permits.

I'm just wishing for New Year's.......................

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Post by tedhutchinson »

SnoozeControl wrote: Believe me, I've read most if not all of your posts and they all have a recurring theme... Vitamin D. Its beginning to get rather tedious.Well there's a simple answer to that. May I suggest you don't bother to read my posts and I'll happily not read your's either, fair's fair.
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Post by Accountable »

tedhutchinson wrote: Well there's a simple answer to that. May I suggest you don't bother to read my posts and I'll happily not read your's either, fair's fair.snooty
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Post by tedhutchinson »

Accountable wrote: snootyThat's your opinion. We have a situation where common sense tells us that our bodies make 12000iu at a time but the medical profession tells us that anything more than 400iu could be toxic. Yet a 2 yr old a few months ago took 2400000 iu, that's five years supply for an adult, and just had a couple of days in hospital. Do you know any other toxic medication where a 2 yr old could take an adults five year supply and not suffer long term consequences?

The daily RDA for water is what 8 glasses or so. Try taking 5 years adult daily requirement and you'll drown or die of waterlogging before you get past the first months worth.

The point is that vitamin d is safer than water by far but the drug companies would rather us be ill than admit the solution to many of our health problems is to take enough vitamin d to maintain the levels we normally achieve in the summer just by going into the sunshine.

What's complicated about that?

It may be boring but it's not expensive and I'm not going to get anything out if it if you do or you don't.

I just want folks to know where the information is and that providing you take 4000iu daily you will stay at the levels you achieved on your own after sunbathing in the summer. Doing this will reduce your chances of getting the conditions listed previously and if you combine this with consuming 4 portions of oily fish weekly (or using a high strenght omega 3 supplement) you will improve the risk reduction significantly further. The factor that is common to most of these conditions is that they involve an autoimmune response to inflammation and controlling the pro-inflammatory cytokines will stop the body attacking itself.
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Post by Accountable »

tedhutchinson wrote: That's your opinion. We have a situation where common sense tells us that our bodies make 12000iu at a time but the medical profession tells us that anything more than 400iu could be toxic. Yet a 2 yr old a few months ago took 2400000 iu, that's five years supply for an adult, and just had a couple of days in hospital. Do you know any other toxic medication where a 2 yr old could take an adults five year supply and not suffer long term consequences?

The daily RDA for water is what 8 glasses or so. Try taking 5 years adult daily requirement and you'll drown or die of waterlogging before you get past the first months worth.

The point is that vitamin d is safer than water by far but the drug companies would rather us be ill than admit the solution to many of our health problems is to take enough vitamin d to maintain the levels we normally achieve in the summer just by going into the sunshine.

What's complicated about that?

It may be boring but it's not expensive and I'm not going to get anything out if it if you do or you don't.

I just want folks to know where the information is and that providing you take 4000iu daily you will stay at the levels you achieved on your own after sunbathing in the summer. Doing this will reduce your chances of getting the conditions listed previously and if you combine this with consuming 4 portions of oily fish weekly (or using a high strenght omega 3 supplement) you will improve the risk reduction significantly further. The factor that is common to most of these conditions is that they involve an autoimmune response to inflammation and controlling the pro-inflammatory cytokines will stop the body attacking itself.Sorry. Meant to post in the word association thread.



Honest mistake. :rolleyes:
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Post by chonsigirl »



Now back to the topic of this thread, the potential for a pandemic.

I heard that a sure cure for the avian flu was eating kimchee-it saved the lives of 3 people in Korea who came down with it.

Would you eat it to save your life? (I have, it is ghastly, no offense to people who like it)
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Post by tedhutchinson »

chonsigirl wrote:

Now back to the topic of this thread, the potential for a pandemic.

I heard that a sure cure for the avian flu was eating kimchee-it saved the lives of 3 people in Korea who came down with it.

Would you eat it to save your life? (I have, it is ghastly, no offense to people who like it)But I'm sure if you have read my posts and the links provide you will be aware that Pandemics only occur when the sun isn't strong enough for us to synthesise vitamin d in our skin. Thats why Pandemics only occur in the Winter, In the rainy season, or when cities have very polluted atmospheres. Keeping your levels of vitamin d topped up, by supplementation or sunlamps will ensure you have the same chance of getting it in winter as you would have done in summer. If everyone did that the pandemic wouldn't get started because their wouldn't be sufficient vulnerable people to spread the virus.

Rather than work out what to do when it happens why don't we think about boosting our immune systems so we don't get it in the first place?

Mind you if we all had a 50,000iu vitamin D tablet ready to take at the first sign of the flu this would also be a good idea.

50,000iu vitamin d is called Stoss therapy and should provide enough vitamin d to last you a fortnight at around 4000iu daily. This would provide sufficient control needed to ensure our pro-inflammatory cytokines, the hit swad that deal with infection, don't get out of control and attack our own cells.
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Post by Accountable »

tedhutchinson wrote: But I'm sure if you have read my posts and the links provide you will be aware that Pandemics only occur when the sun isn't strong enough for us to synthesise vitamin d in our skin. Thats why Pandemics only occur in the Winter, In the rainy season, or when cities have very polluted atmospheres. [...]Sorry, Ted, but that doesn't make sense as a blanket statement. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I couldn't verify it online. The Bird Flu News Site has a history of pandemics. Apparently, most of the pandemics were spread through shipping ... on the ocean. Lots of sun on the ocean.



I'm not saying you're wrong about vitamin D. You may be spot on. I just don't see a cause & effect here.
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Post by tedhutchinson »

Accountable wrote: Sorry, Ted, but that doesn't make sense as a blanket statement. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I couldn't verify it online. The Bird Flu News Site has a history of pandemics. Apparently, most of the pandemics were spread through shipping ... on the ocean. Lots of sun on the ocean.



I'm not saying you're wrong about vitamin D. You may be spot on. I just don't see a cause & effect here.I was taking my information from http://www.cholecalciferol-council.com/pascal.pdf

As we wait for this year’s influenza epidemic, keep in mind we are also waiting for the big one, the pandemic (pan: all, demic: people). A severe influenza A pandemic will kill many more Americans than died in the World Trade Centers, the Iraq war, the Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina combined. Perhaps a million or two in the USA alone. Such a disaster would tear the fabric of our society. Our entire country would resemble New Orleans after Katrina.

Also, it’s only a question of when it will come, not if it will come. Pandemics come every 25 years or so, severe ones every hundred years or so. The last pandemic, the Hong Kong flu, occurred in 1968, killing 34,000 Americans. In 1918, the Spanish flu killed more than 500,000 Americans. So many millions died in other countries, they couldn’t bury the bodies.

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918

Young healthy adults, in the prime of their lives in the morning, drowning in their own inflammation by noon, grossly discolored by sunset, were dead at midnight. An overwhelming immune response to the influenza virus - macrophages releasing large amounts of inflammatory agents called cytokines and chemokines into the lung of the afflicted - resulted in millions of deaths in 1918.

Nature. 2004 Oct 7;431(7009):703-7.

Keep in mind, that the Germans recently discovered that vitamin D is intimately involved in reining in the macrophages, holding their cytokine production back, so they don’t overshoot, and kill their owner along with the invader.

Blood. 2005 Aug 23; [Epub ahead of print]

Your annual flu shot won’t help when the big one hits, the antigenic shift one. Once the pandemic starts, a new vaccine, specific to the new virus must be manufactured and that takes time. You can and should get some antiviral drugs from your doctor in advance. Once the pandemic starts –this year, or ten years from now - the supply of antivirals may be limited and the lines will be long.

It may surprise you that influenza remains an enigma. Current theory holds that influenza infects like measles, one person gets it, gives it to others, in a chain of infectious events. That theory has some problems. For example, Dr. Carolyn Buxton Bridges, of the CDC, recently published a review paper on the ransmission of influenza. She noted, "Our review found no human experimental studies published in the English-language literature delineating person-toperson transmission of influenza."

Clin Infect Dis. 2003 Oct 15;37(8):1094-101

Most experts also think pandemic strains originate in birds or other animals. Dr. Ann Reid and Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology recently wrote, "it is important to recognize that the mechanisms by which pandemic strains originate have not been explained yet." Furthermore, there is a persistent theory that influenza lies dormant in humans, not birds or swine, where it mutates into a killer strain.

J Gen Virol. 2003 Sep;84(Pt 9):2285-92.

Vaccine. 2002 Aug 19;20(25-26):3068-87.

So, get your flu shot for this year’s flu, stock up on some antivirals, and let’s go looking for some ignored facts that might improve your family’s chances when the next pandemic comes. Last month we saw that aggressive treatment of vitamin D deficiency prevented children from getting infections. Dr. Rehman didn’t differentiate between viral and bacterial infections but most of the illnesses vitamin D prevented were probably viral.

J Trop Pediatr. 1994 Feb;40(1):58.

When looking for ignored facts, one should always start with epidemiology, the detective branch of medicine. Epidemiologists look for clues, clues that lead to theories, theories that can be tested, and, if true, save your family’s lives. One of the world’s pioneering epidemiologists died recently, R. Edward Hope-Simpson. He used meticulous, and solitary, detective work to discover that the chickenpox virus was reactivated in adults, causing shingles. Dr. Hope-Simpson became famous.

Proc R Soc Med. 1965 Jan;58:9-20.

In 1979, he turned his attention to influenza A. He studied two remote populations, one in Wales and the other in England. He found that most affected households had only one case of influenza. Furthermore, no serial time intervals could be identified in cumulative household outbreaks, that is, different families didn’t get sick one after another, but around the same time.

He discovered other facts that just didn’t fit with the theory that influenza A is primarily spread by person-to-person transmission of this year’s virus.

J Hyg (Lond). 1979 Aug;83(1):11-26.

Then he spent the rest of his life trying to alert us to one of the basic facts of influenza. It is distinctly seasonal. All theories about its transmission must take into account its seasonality.

Hope-Simpson reminded us what Davenport said, "Epidemiological hypotheses must provide satisfactory explanations for all the known findings – not just for a convenient subset of them."

Going back to 1945, he discovered that influenza epidemics above 30 degrees latitude in both hemispheres occurred during the six months of least solar radiation. Outbreaks in the tropics almost always occur during the rainy season. Hope-Simpson concluded, "Latitude alone broadly determines the timing of the epidemics in the annual cycle, a relationship that suggests a rather direct effect of some component of solar radiation acting positively or negatively upon the virus,

the humans host or their interaction." That is, something may be regularly reducing our immunity every fall and winter.

J Hyg (Lond). 1981 Feb;86(1):35-47.

In 2003, researchers confirmed that influenza epidemics in the tropics occur, with few exceptions, during the rainy season - when vitamin D levels should be falling.

Paediatr Respir Rev. 2003 Jun;4(2):105-11.

Furthermore, in his 1981 paper, Hope-Simpson wondered how the same virus could cause influenza outbreaks at exactly the same time (middle of winter) over a six-year period (1969 -1974) in two widely separated areas (Prague, Czechoslovakia, and Cirencester, England). Surely, during the middle of the Cold War, infected people did not arrive at two locations hundreds of miles apart, in the middle of winter, for five years in a row to infect the well people.

On thing Prague and Cirencester do have in common, they are both at 50 degrees latitude. In 1990, researchers confirmed a relative lack of country-to-country transmission, by looking at two countries with heavy tourist traffic between them.

J Hyg Epidemiol Microbiol Immunol. 1990;34(3):283-8

Hope-Simpson rejected the theory that this year’s virus is only transmitted from ctively infected persons to well persons, concluding instead the facts were more consistent with transmission by symptomless carriers who become contagious when the sun is either in the other hemisphere or obscured by the rainy season. He theorized that annual movement of the sun caused a "seasonal stimulus that reactivates latent virus in the innumerable carriers who are everywhere present, so creating the opportunity for epidemics to occur in the wake of its passage." And thus the celebrated Dr. Hope-Simpson committed heresy.

Everyone knows influenza transmission is direct; the ill people infect the well people. The accepted theory of pandemics is that the virus first spreads in birds, perhaps jumps to a mammal (pigs in 1918), then jumps to humans already infected with a common influenza strain.

There it combines and mutates (reassortment) to a hybrid virus in the index case and that single person spreads it to others who spread it to others, etc. No, said Hope-Simpson, the epidemiology just does not fit that theory. Heresy, said the experts.

Hope-Simpson practiced medicine in a small village in southwest England, Cirencester. He went back and looked at 16 years of his medical records and found evidence of 20 influenza outbreaks, spaced over those 16 years. In every outbreak, he found young children were the most frequently affected but in none of the 20 outbreaks did the children appear to be major disseminators of the influenza virus. Furthermore, all ages seemed to get sick around the same

time. He concluded, "Such age-patterns are not those caused by a highly infectious immunizing virus surviving by means of direct transmissions from the sick, whose prompt development of the disease continues endless chains of transmissions."

J Hyg (Lond). 1984 Jun;92(3):303-36.

No one listened. Everyone knew, and still knows: influenza only occurs when sick people infect well people, who in turn infect other well people. I don’t think so, said Hope-Simpson. In search of more evidence, he went to all the parishes in Gloucestershire, separated by many miles. He looked at burial records for the last 500 years and found evidence of repeated influenza epidemics. He concluded, "In each century, influenzal excess mortalities in Gloucestershire parishes coincided with the date of the relevant influenza epidemic as recorded from widely different parts of Britain." That is, long before modern rapid transit, everyone in Britain got the flu around the same time! How could one person come down with the flu, infect others, etc, when everyone in Britain got sick at the same time, long before planes trains and automobiles?

J Hyg (Lond). 1983 Oct;91(2):293-308.

In fact, after studying influenza epidemics in schools, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe also decided that direct spread by infected children could not explain what was happening. They theorized that influenza viral precursors were reaching earth on comets from outer space!

[urlhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi? ... uery_hl=30]Nature. 1987 Jun 25-Jul 1;327(6124):664.[/url]

Content to stay on earth, Hope-Simpson published a detailed theory of influenza’s infectivity in 1987, based on the facts he observed. Right or wrong, Hope-Simpson’s paper is wonderful reading for anyone interested in influenza. Here is a great mind at work. He noted any theory of influenza must explain a number of facts:

"Vast explosions of disease which may attack 15% or more of a large community within six weeks and then cease,"

"Successive outbreaks of type A influenza in small relatively remote communities often coincide closely season after season with those of the country as a whole and, although the virus changes, the identical strains of virus appear contemporaneously in the two situations,"

"Cessation of epidemics despite abundant available non-immune subjects,"

household outbreaks occur all at once, not one after another,

"Low secondary attack rates within households,"

"epidemic patterns of influenza have not changed in four centuries . . . and does not seem to have altered with the increasing speed and complexity of human communications."

Epidemiol Infect. 1987 Aug;99(1):5-54.

Hope Simpson proposed that symptomless carriers became infective in response to a seasonal stimulus and then infect others causing simultaneous explosions of disease in widely different areas. Furthermore, he concluded that those who got sick were not particularly contagious. He proposed that the stimulus for infection "is dependent on variations in solar radiation, an extraterrestrial influence unaffected by the rapidity of human travel. The rapidity of influenza spread was as rapid in previous centuries as it is at present because it does not depend on

case-to-case transfer."

He added, "The primary agency mediating seasonal control remains unidentified." That is, if something is weakening our immune system, every year, as regularly as changing of the leaves and declining vitamin D levels, he didn’t know what it was. Hope-Simpson’s 1987 paper was his last. In 1992, he compiled all his work on influenza into a book. He died in 2003, at the age of95.

The Transmission of Epidemic Influenza (The Language of Science)

I wish Hope-Simpson could have lived a while longer, to read Dr. Colleen Hayes and her colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is one of the brightest vitamin D researchers out there. In 2003, she reviewed the profound effect vitamin D has on the immune system, including the role vitamin D plays in fighting infections.

Cell Mol Biol (Noisy-le-grand). 2003 Mar;49(2):277-300.

Yes, as regularly as the flu season, vitamin D levels plummet in the fall and winter. Yes, vitamin has profound effects on the immune system. Yes vitamin D may be involved in influenza. But is there any direct evidence?

Two animal studies showed vitamin D prevents the flu and one showed it does not. Nothing after 1956. If you obtain and read the first citation below, you’ll see the very first animal paper indicating vitamin D protected rats from influenza was published in Japan during World War II, apparently part of Japan’s biological weapons research. The CIA confiscated the paper after the war.

Proc Soc Exp Biol Med. 1949 Dec;72(3):695-7.

Virology. 1956 Jun;2(3):415-29.

One last thing, when you give flu shots to hemodialysis patients, those taking activated vitamin D develop significantly better immunity.

Nephron. 2000 Sep;86(1):56-61.

Will normal vitamin D levels protect your family against the flu? No one knows. It would be nice if we had a report from a big hospital, were some patients were on vitamin D and some who weren’t and see what happened when the flu struck the hospital. Were the patients on vitamin D less likely to get the flu?

In the meantime, it seems to me the smart thing to do is to take enough real vitamin D (cholecalciferol) or get enough UVB light to get and keep your 25-hydroxy-vitamin D level at about 50 ng/ml. Of course, it is a good idea to keep your level around 50 ng/ml year around even if you don’t fear the coming influenza pandemic. 50 ng/ml is the normal human level and protects the owner from a myriad of chronic diseases.

J Nutr. 2005 Feb;135(2):317-22.

Eur J Clin Invest. 2005 May;35(5):290-304.

Also, don’t depend on high levels in the summer being stored and used in the winter. Vieth believes that the intracellular kinetics of vitamin D metabolism means that declining vitamin D blood levels may cause rapidly declining intracellular levels. That is, declining levels in the autumn may be as dangerous as low levels in the winter.

Int J Cancer. 2004 Sep 1;111(3):468

Professor Robert Heaney believes healthy blood levels may require up to 4,000 units a day for those with no sun exposure. Most people need to take more in the winter than the summer. Big people need more than little people. African Americans need more than whites. Sunphobes need more than those who enjoy God’s invention.

J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2005 Jul 15

Children over 50 pounds need up to 2,000 units a day. Under 50 pounds, about 1,000 units a day. There is no way to know for sure how much you need without a blood test, called a 25-hydroxy-vitamin D. That test should be conducted in the late winter, when your levels are the lowest, and at the beginning of fall, when your levels are the highest. Then you can figure out how much you need to take to keep stable levels. Or adults can simply take 4,000 units a day, every day, except for those late spring, summer, and early fall days when you go into the sun.

It might be a good idea to keep pharmacological doses (50,000 units) of vitamin D next to your antivirals and take a 50,000 unit capsule at the first sign of the flu, although there is not one study to support such a practice. It might help tame those unchained macrophages and save your life or it might not help at all. You can buy 50,000 unit capsules from Bio-Tech-Pharm.

Single administrations of ten times that amount have repeatedly been found to be safe and are routinely used in Europe as stoss therapy for vitamin D deficiency. Furthermore, 50,000 units is about what your skin makes after a summer day at the beach. So, maybe vitamin D will help your family survive the coming influenza pandemic, maybe not.

Let’s gamble. Ever heard of the vitamin D variation of Pascal’s wager ?

"If you erroneously believe vitamin D helps influenza, you lose nothing, whereas if you correctly believe vitamin D helps influenza, your family may live. But if you correctly disbelieve in vitamin D, you gain nothing, whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in vitamin D, your family may die."

John Cannell, MD

The Vitamin D Council

9100 San Gregorio Road

Atascadero, CA 93422
tedhutchinson
Posts: 254
Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2005 11:02 am

Anyone Concerned About A Potential Pandemic?

Post by tedhutchinson »

SnoozeControl wrote: Someone sweetly suggested in a PM that sunning my hemorrhoid might be helpful. Do you think that's true, Ted?I can't find anything on Vitamin d and Hemmorrhoids but you may want to try acupuncture see The needling technique and clinical application of point Zhibian.

Point Zhibian (BL 54) is often used for treatment and hemorrhoid. As for the needling, the direction of the needle tip may vary, generally in three directions: 1) along the channel itself, 2) pointing to the genitals, and 3) pointing to the anus, the purpose of which is "leading qi to the diseased area" so as to obtain "effectiveness upon the arrival of qi". This point can also be used in combination with moxa stick, cupping, and point injection according to the individual conditions.
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Accountable
Posts: 24818
Joined: Mon May 30, 2005 8:33 am

Anyone Concerned About A Potential Pandemic?

Post by Accountable »

I'm not taking the time to read all that. The pandemic would be here & gone by then. :-2
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