dayam, wonder what rummy has been up to lately – i had forgotten that he was involved with the politicization of swine flu during ford’s administration.

hey lisa

In startling news wiht a truly tragic cultural impact, Radar reports that the cast and crew of Real World Cancun may have been exposed to swine flu

RadarOnline has learned that MTV reality staple The Real World wrapped the filming on their 22nd season on April 17 in Cancun.

That’s 7 able-bodied cast members and countless crew vulnerable to the disease while taping the series on the coastal city, not far from the first reported case in Oaxaca in Southern Mexico.

Radar also reports that:

Universal Studios–who is said to be rethinking a proposed summer shoot of their drugs blockbuster Cartel, slated to film in Mexico City. The movie reportedly has Oscar winner Sean Penn attached in the lead role.

http://www.radaronline.com/exc…..-hollywood

Michelle Bachman got that wrong today..http://blogs.citypages.com/blo…..intere.php

Rep. Michele Bachmann came up with another doozy during her interview Monday with Pajamas TV. Does anyone think it’s “interesting” that the last time we saw swine flu was during another Democratic president? Probably not because the last time we saw a swine flu outbreak was under a Republican president. Another fact check fail by Bachmann.

Here’s the quote (at 12 min in): “I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.”

she really giving doug the dumbest man in the world feith competition.

Michelle Backman got that wrong today….

Impossible!

damn – now where am I gonna get my most trustworthy information?

Like, people are freaking out, but in reality, 36,000 people in the US annullay die form “seasonal” (anticipated) flu, and 200,000 are hospitalized from flu related stuff…
http://lafiga.firedoglake.com/…..nuts-flap/

People want a PANIC, and media feeds it…I think it is a fascinating social study, but I am not fraking out. Like wash your hands

Nothing like a little death and destruction to get the wingnuts all lathered up. Especially like the way some have been saying that it was spawned in an Army lab and released by Obama for some arcane reason that only makes sense to crazy people.

Basically,a virus lives in a warm wet pace, say pig (swine or long) and runs its course in its host. End of story. Unless it gets spread..which is why we have sick days at real jobs. And why we should wash out hands and stuff. But basicallly viruses aren;t designed ot kill their hosts before they can replicate and/or mutate. And each flu we get can hopefully help our immune system strenghten (and mutate) to fight the next one

So far, Mexico has a public health crisis, but the rest of the world only has the possibility of one. All the cases in the US have been pretty mild so far (which does not guarantee they will continue to be so). Obama has had exactly the right response, prepare, don’t panic.

what – you don’t believe that swine flu is the result of dirty, brown, illegal-immigrant-walking bio-terror machines?

oh wait – I might have heard that from Michele Bachmann too….

Oh like “it’s a way to quarantine us and take away our rights, a false flag…FEMA CAMPS!”

I love it when right-wing beeyotches propose “interesting coincidences” as a way of getting their lunatic fringe views into mainstream media. Wendy Wright of Concerned Woman For America did it yesterday, saying that the swine flu emergency was trumped up to get Kathleen Sebelius confirmed as HHS Secretary.

Haha, Wendy, it worked, all your crazy anti-abortion Senators caved again!

And then CrazyEyes Bachmann blames Jimmy Carter (who wasn’t even President yet!) for the seventies-era swine flu fiasco.

Oh, and Rumsfeld got a cushy job — actually two of them in a row — with Big Pharma after ginning up the Ford Swine Flu

it sure knocked the torture memos story off the airways

facepalm.jpg seriously. I was astounded by the quick marketing response on line–all the tee shirts and so forth. meanwhile the fringenuts have writtne stuff like “tamiflu supplies were set to expire by the end of the year..convenient, eh?” WTF?

re Mexico–worse health care, poor nutrition,not great sanitatin, Smithfield farms..combo platter for infections

And all in all, our government and our practices in place HAVE reacted fast, and not so badly.

So that’s a good side to all of this.

Supplies of tamilflu are in place, and available in quantity.

Given how fractured our government, country, and people are, I think the present sitch is quite manageable, regardless of whether it’s sitch normal, or beginning of a pandemic.

Now, are there OTHER forces at play, trying to capitalize off of this swine thang?

Sure, lot’s of profiteering to be had, lots of political swindling and power at stake.

But the general reaction so far, looks good to me.

There’s a threat, we are told how to deal with it, and our local communities are ahead of the curve.

UNLESS this thing DOES go viral, I’d say someone is overlooking a good job done, compared to Katrina, and such . . . ya know?

As did Arlen.

I know what you mean. Each morning, I look for my Bachman updates so I know what to think.

Who could possibly survive without these insightful memos?

i give the mexican government credit for noticing the small number of cases and taking immediate action to alert the people with information to help prevent the spread.

you noticed that too?

Especially at Fux News.

(Is that a now-newly-prohibited “f-word”?)

Problem is that this is a new variant which has just partially adapted to a human host. These are often quite lethal. It is only well adapted pathogens which do not unduly harm their hosts. Witness the lowly rhinovirus, probably one of our oldest pathogens and one of the most benign if thoroughly annoying.

As you said Lisa the best defense it to wash your hands many times a day. Also you should stay from those who have symptoms of the Flu!!

Hi Pups no call yet (:>((

Oh, and bonus, pork prices at the supermarket are WAY down!
Freezer’s full, and I got hardwood fires and marinades on my mind.

*G*

well, I know that *I* am gonna be walking around with a blank look on my face for a while….

they are gonna have to change their name to murdoch news to avoid that no fwords in media rule.

I was a little shocked by the EU minister who suggested yesterday taht no one take unnecessary trips to the US–I mean last I checked we’re a pretty big country! But Cuba is wary flrughts fomr Mexico…

Flu seems to have at least 48 hr incubation, so stopping people at the border who look healthy seems really nuts–OH WAIT FEMA CAMPS!

Seriously the prepare and be pratical approach seems to be greta–I am sure we’ll hear more tomorrow at O’s first 100 days event (boycotted by Fox)

I wondered about that. The Specter switch changes nothing but kept everybody distracted from more important matters (I am certain).

The 1918 variant started out mild. Still, I find the media whipped frenzy a tad premature and very irritating.

Seems like it would be simpler to quarantine the wingnuts. Perhaps confine them to Utah?

Glenn Greenwald and Scott Horton both have posts on the Torture crimes posted today! At least some are not letting it slip under the radar!

and neither one of them is on cable news – they are all about the flu fear flu story.

Well of to Dinner see ya latter on the Late Late Nite(:>))

Thank Lisa, I’d been wondering what the die-off from regular flu is. This has seemed like a tempest in a teapot from the beginning to me.

And then, this, right here on this blog:
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/5005

SWINE FLU: THE SEQUEL – brought to you by NAFTA!!!!!
Get your tickets NOW!. See Donald Rumsfeld make more $$$ off disease scare tactics. Stock put on TAMIFLU ( disclaimer: it will not work on this strain, but, WHO CARES????)Hurry, hurry! Free useless masks to the first 100 viewers!!!

Exactly. As I said in my post, the fact that current cases are mild is no guarantee that future cases will be. It does mean that there is no immediate need to panic. Obama, HHS, and CDC have done exactly what needs to be done in a situation like this. They mobilized the needed resources and prestaged them for delivery where they will likely be needed, as well as activating the monitoring networks that give realtime detailed updates on th progress of the disease. Almost shocking to watch federal disaster response teams operating like a well oiled machine after the last 8 years.

I am eating bacon as a homeopathic prophylactic, and Teddy, i have to give props to conservative talk show hosts John & Ken on KFI–today they said they won’t talk about swine flu in Los Angeles until thee are conformed cases–that its foolish

I’ve also been impressed by the government response. Clearly the pertinent agencies were planning for this even during (and despite) the Bush Administration.

CDC last night said that Tamiflu does in fact work on this strain (so far). What we do not currently have is a vaccine for this strain and tonight they were saying 3-4 months to get one in production. Face masks do help inhibit the spread of the disease though they do not provide absolute protection.

Has Michelle Bachmann been tested for Moron Pox?

-G

Not sure what ya mean by “greta”, but prepare and be ready is good, and I think our nation and all have done ok to this point.

It’s been used, exploited and ginned up and down, but that’s predictable, it’s how the world works in this age of advanced inter/intra communications baby . . . . *G*

Hyperbole aside, we don’t know what it is yet, or how lethal it is, but we’re alerted and prepared.

That’s a LOT different than previous issues that have failed the American People (Katrina).

Thanks for the reply, always love your thoughts . . . .

It is what the CDC does and they really are very good at it (despite Dubya’s best efforts). This is a standard response to any kind of potential epidemic and they have had plans on the books for decades. They simply vary the program slightly to fit the particular disease. Probably have contingency plans for a smallpox (RIP) epidemic as well.

A long time ago I tried the sheepskin variety but never used bacon as a prophylactic. Might be a problem since served hot or cold it seems like bacon would incur (or induce) some shrinkage.

I think she has Mad Cow Disease.

Has CDC actually confirmed that?

I read a comment somewhere, sorry, no linky, that the means of analysis they use (forget the name of it) to research swabs reveals there are components of swine, human, avarian flu strains in the analysis, but they don’t really have a full makeup of WHAT it is, cuz the test means can’t determine if it’s one or the other, just that all forms are present in the swab.

Meaning, they don’t KNOW what it is, yet?

Asking only to learn . . . do they actually KNOW what it is?

I have thought at this point, they don’t. The press, the PR, and the media are faulty all along the trail, as always with these issues (SARS, AIDS, etc).

Thanks for the info Doc . . ;-)

Doesn’t that result from cannibalism? Can’t say I’m surprised…

Chalk one up for Dana ”Pig Missile” Perino. She always told us that swine flu.

Dr. Dick, read your other comments, and I agree . . . thanks for the info, again.

Time will tell, but we are on the game . . . I say, a well done to government in our lives. /s

Gee, and I thought all those pressers were just the baying of pigs at the moon.

To Dr. Dick @42:

Denny Crane! Denny Crane!
Glad to meet you.
Denny Crane.

Paris Hilton says she wont get swine flu because she doesnt eat pork

Should have stated that a bit more cautiously. This appears to be a new strain, which appear fairly frequently, but they do not know for sure as yet. Thing with flu viruses is that there are several different types. Humans and swine generally share the same (or at least very similar) varieties. Avian flu generally cannot live in human hosts, but for some reason can live in pigs. The human compatible varieties and the avian varieties then swap genetic material in the pigs producing new varieties which can spread to humans.

Further proof that great wealth causes permanent brain damage.

Kind of surprising the wingnuts haven’t yet attributed the outbreak to those pork avoiding Islamofascists. It’s a plot, I tells ya.

I’d still be willing to risk it. Don’t stand to lose much anyway.

Well, conservative radio is saying Israel wants it called mexicna flu because even saying “swine” is offesnive..CRAZY

They really have gone over the edge since the election. It has gotten absolutely pathetic.

I’d better remember to keep shoes on my little cloven hooves.

Too many conservative voices attempting to one-up each other to attract a dwindling demographic.

I bet there has been a run on bacon airfreshner and squeezable bacon..

I think the bigger problem is that they have distilled down to their batshit crazy base at 21% (we are talking flat earther, faked moon landing territory here). Attracting that demographic (and I know ’cause I grew up with them) calls not only for going over the top, but setting yourself on fire and sacrificing small children.

When the pandemic is deemed officially over will the CDC say, “Th-th-th-th-That’s all, Folks?”

Finally an air freshener I can get behind.

Gee, and I thought all those pressers were just the baying of pigs at the moon.

Beware the werepigs. They used to be werewolves but then Americans got into that whole obesity thing. Neither of these has anything to do with vampires. Those are all Republicans. (See Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.)

Unfortunately the First Amendment also protects snake-handlers… well, up to a point (or two) anyway.

the really funny part of all this is,………NOT ONE PIG AS BEEN INFECTED…go figur

I think they get to blast the “all clear” sirens left over from the civil defense programs in the 50s and 60s.

I really think it’s a conspiracy to bring back the 1980’s punk band “Swine Flu” led by the charismatic Ian Welsh.

Can it be a coincidence that a Front-Pager on the filthy-mouthed Fem-blog FireDogLake is named Ian Welsh…and he has been writing on “The Economics of Swine Flu Pandemics”?

LOL!

Dr Dick, the fringenuts would be amusing if they weren;t fer realz.

I will fight to the death for their right to be batshit crazy as long as they do not try to impose it on the rest of us. Really do not care what they do to themselves, but they are not allowed to fuck with those of us who live in the reality based universe.

When I was a kid I had an actual civil defense bomb shelter sign on my bedroom door. Don’t know what happened to it, I hope it’s still around but my parents might have pitched it at some point.

Shhhh..shhhh you weren’t supposed to tell!

Too true. Part of why I left my native Oklahoma more than 20 years ago (that and no jobs and summers there).

Unfortunately, imposition appears to be a large part of their crazy.

Some of my neighbors as a kid in the 50s and 60s had actual bomb shelters in their backyard. My parents, being somewhat rational, kind of snickered politely.

Time to wrap things up here. Nighters to all.

Ah-Ha! You see…it could be one grand plot by either those who oppose the eating of
“the other white meat” or perhaps Al Qaida’s efforts to destroy America by starving Americans of what (they think) is the fundamental dietary staple “HAM”-Burgers.

Absolutely central to it in fact. Big part of why I left Oklahoma more than 20 years ago and have no desire to return.

Sleep well.

Speaking as a Southerner, there is no life without pork products.

There is a booklet for what to do in the event of an atomic attack alert:

Remove door from frame
Dig hole in yard
Lie down in hold and pull door over you.

NO it wont protect you from radiation, but it wil make clean up easier since you’ve dug own your grave…

Have one in my home now. 12″ concrete walls and ceiling, the latter reinforced by railroad rails. Good storm shelter although if the sump pump quits working you might be standing in water up to your knees.

ha!

It’s really odd but the first major (known) swine flu outbreak in 1917-1919 was called, for no very good reason…the “Spanish Flu”. In fact, it probably began to reach pandemic levels in the trenches of WW1 near the French-Belgian front.

My favorite from that period is the ironic instructions (based on the inane duck and cover drills we had to do) to kneel down, bend over, tuck your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.

Evening, all-
just listened to fringenut AM radio on the way home. What a fever-swamp; I had no idea-AIDS, SARS, and swine flu are all engineered bioweapons, and swine flu been released by the Illuminati to both beta-test the weapon and condition the population to martial law and internment camps.
I feel so much better, knowing the news is not as bad as they say, while also knowing they are a lot crazier than I thought.

we had abandoned empty missle silos at the end of my street as kid, up in hills between Brentwood (land of OJ) and the Valley (land of Valey Girl)

Well, since that new movie Angels & Demons is about the Illuminati, I sense a marketing tie-in..it’s one big PR stunt

Is it time to whip out the “Duck Tape” again? Maybe carry a “Pig Iron”?

Recently I read that there were three Japanese men who survived the bombing of Hiroshima and returned to their homes in Nagasaki, where they also survived the blast that occurred a few days later. If I’m not mistaken, two of them are still living. Amazing…

FRINGENUT ALERT (i can;t make this stuff up)
http://www.siude.com/voices/co…..-1.1735260

The Illuminati have struck.

Just two weeks before the sinister under-doings of the centuries-old secret society are plastered across the big screen they decided to strike. They don’t want the world to know about them through some Tom Hanks film. They’d rather we feel their power and wrath firsthand.

The swine flu started in Mexico, one of the strongest holds of the Illuminati’s archenemy — the Catholic Church. With more than 80 million Catholics in Mexico it only made sense to strike there first. Also, Mexico is so close to the United States and the border is so frequently crossed that it was strategically vital to infect Mexico first to transfer the flu here.
In Mexico, people are scared to go into the streets. They are scared to go to mass and school. That is exactly what the Illuminati want.

My elementary school had an old hand-cranked air-raid siren on a pedestal outside the office. When you heard it-DUCK AND COVER!

OK. We have officially achieved unified field crazy. When the wingnuts and Black militants agree (on the AIDS thing) it creates a dangerous hole in the space time continuum.

We have some nicely filled ones just over on the other side of the mountains here that you are welcome to.

i am laughing to hard to copypasta the rest but basically if we al wear masks it will be easier for the Illuminati henchment to move aroud in crowds

As the swine flu spreads and more and more people wear masks they can move in larger numbers, take over cities, set up secret death camps and steal every freedom you had but never really had because they’ve always been in control. You only thought you were free. But now you won’t be free. You’ll only be dead.

But as anyone who has read the late great Robert Anton Wilson knows, the Illuminati are the good guys

Doc, are you familiar with Alex Jones (infowars, prisonplanet)? That’s who was being interviewed.

Whoa. Parody has just suffered an agonizing death.

Think Progress also has a post on By By bybee

Never heard of him. There are far to many batshit crazy conspiracy theorists to even pay attention to them. Had a long argument with a black guy in a bar in Chicago 15 years ago about the AIDS thing.

they are out-onioning the onion – and they forking believe it

There’s a lot of this linked in with the anti-immunization people, as well. In fact, the anti-immunization movement made a major comeback as a result of the 1975 Swine Flu fiasco. And in that case they had a point. The vaccine was largely unnecessary as there was very little evidence that the illness was a pandemic or that it had high lethality. Many people who took the shots had a toxic reaction and developed Guillan-Barre syndrome.

An interesting poster from the time.

http://www.whale.to/b/ford400.jpg

Exactly. How in the fuck do you parody this shit? Nothing you can dream up is even half as crazy as what they actually believe and say.

I rea dsome of Prisonplanet earliers this week. I do find it freaky when leftwing and righwing meet in the same crazy place which is basically They are taking over, They will come and get us and we wil al be taken to FEMA camps (and um, then what..that;s they part that’s never explained..like how could the plutocrats survive if everyone is in FEMA camps?)

Yeah, I’ve had that argument too. We have all heard this allegation so many times, that if something like that really were to happen, nobody would believe it. “The Boy Who Cried Plague”. Although, there was a bio-war wargame back in the 90’s, where the Red team targeted trade shows to spread their weapon (a flu variation). Final projections were 10 million dead.

One more bit of idiocy (anti-immunization) that I can blame on conservatives.

One thing that has the fringers freaked out is that in Guadelupe county TX, there’s a dry run for a major emergency/immunization planned anyway…
http://www.seguingazette.com/s…..003405a409

Gee, if I were the Illuminati and I wanted to take over, I think I’d just subvert the financial system and then offer people an alternative to a Depression.

Oh, wait..

The angle Jones was arguing tonight is, they want an 80% reduction in Earth’s population, in order to save the planet for themselves. Hence covert bio-war.

The original story line on the AIDS thing was not wholly outrageous. Had something to do with developing a vaccine using chimpanzees and then doing experimental trials on Africans. Unfortunately that story has long since been totally discredited (did not happen). Not too far off what we think really happened, which is Simian Immunodeficiency Virus was transferred from a chimp to a human in the process of butchering “bush meat.” Only it happened in the late 19th century (may actually have happened several times, but has been in the West African populations for at least that long).

Rush blames Obama for everything, earthquakes, flu…sheesh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz5_QxmMRog

I can think of several much more effective mechanisms than influenza off the top of my head. Smallpox anyone? If not entirely extinct already, it only exists in bioweapons labs and places like the CDC.

Rush blames his impotence and hangovers on Obama.

rush is doing his usual flinging, hoping something sticks

Yes. I was once told by an epidemiologist that they had actually tracked down “patient zero” for AIDS in the US, a French airline employee who came to the US for the Bicentennial in ‘76.

Throw in the Creationists, too. Many of the original signatories of the “HIV doesn’t cause AIDs” document were hard-core Creationists (Philip Johnson, Jonathan Wells)…who are now in the Discovery Institute in Seattle (home of the Intelligent Design movement). These same folks are involved in the “anti-Global Warming” movement, too.

Their goal is to marginalize the work of hard-working research scientists and substitute in an ideological based pseudoscience that serves their end goals (Armageddon).

That said, there are plenty of issues with profit-driven research studies…but this fortifies the need for independent cross-checks on actual research reports, peer review, and a severing of the lionks between Universities and pharma corporations (with adequate research funds coming from the government).

Oh that’s it, blame the French now..LOL. FREEDOM FRIES are back on the menu…wait, there has never ben a FRENCH FLU…hmmm

I have also heard very scary stories about attempts to weaponize the Ebola virus.

I believe that they have revised that scenario a bit. Latest I saw is that the virus spread from West Africa to Haiti and from there to the US. From here to pandemic. God bless globalization.

ideological based pseudoscience that serves their end goals (Armageddon).

which, if they read the freaking Bible, they’s know it’s not their job to bring it on! That’s their Dude’s work!

Truth is that the military (ours or somebody else’s) has almost certainly attempted to weaponize every nasty disease you can imagine and several you never heard of.

Agreed.

I called the O’Reilly radio show like 5 years ago, when he was huge on anti-French boycotts. I puffed him up, told him how much I agreed with him, and then said: “I think we ought to tear down that damn Statue of Liberty and throw it back in their face!” Silence from the other end-the line was dead.

ooooh, nicely done rond. i gotta remember that one – after the french finance minister’s interview on the daily show last nite… i expect a new round of french bashing to erupt any day

*spit take* I coffeed my screen

Off to bed for me. Have to corrupt young minds in the morning and we are doing gender tomorrow. Love to watch their little heads explode when we talk about kathoey, muxe, sworn virgins, and hijra.

g’nite dr (pause) dick

‘night, Doc. Soft landings to you.

teh EU is calling the flu NOVEL FLU to not be offensive to pigs or people.

night Dr D, thanks for the fun!

night all, and thanks for hamming it up!

Quick drive by: Against my better judgement I recently got a Twitter account and am now “following” — also against my better judgement, I might add — the CDC Emergency feed. But it all paid off in comic gold 2 hours ago when the following “tweet” came in:

CDC reminds you that you can NOT get swine flu from eating pork.

Our tax dollars at work…

There have been several transmissions to humans over the decades, and likely from different Primate sources. HIV-B, which is more of a West African variant, and less virulent, possibly derives from sooty mangabeys. The HIV-A2 form, much more deadly has now been found to be endemic in Central African chimps (paper of about two years ago with a huge coauthor list including Goodall) . Some populations have about 30%, others only about 5%…and it also seems to have been in those groups for some time…and may have derived from the chimps eating or being bit by an infected red colobus or other species.

It was a pretty elegant paper, given the number of chimp populations and size of groups tested, using a fecal blood method of obtaining viral DNA and then actually sequencing those rather than simply looking at antigen-antibody response. They also posited that over time some chimps have developed genetic resistant to strains of HIV that have evolved lower virulence (the more deadly strains wiping out hosts before transmission or sometimes whole sub-groups in an epidemic).

evenin’ all, just drivin’ by.

nahant,
I linked it in a diary. Just leaving it so the early birds dont miss it.

Mexico? A stronghold of the Catholic church? Well sort of…but the Mexicans really keep the Church away from the government since the Revolution.

Let’s not forget Rummy’s role in the carcinogen Aspartame as ceo of Searle.

.
The real story on the swine flu.
.

Check out this website http://www.swine-flu-tracker.com/ that tracks the spread of swine flu, it really puts things in perspective.

Rumsfeld was Ford’s chief of staff not his defence secretary.

The man is amazing. I have a plan. Have him defect and join al Qaeda. He’d probably lead them to total destruction in a month.

* from the archives of snow-moon

Remind you of a small tent party around DC?

The media hype is suspect. But, just to be fair, the 1919 flu pandemic did kill enormous numbers of people, most of them fit and young. There is no reason to believe that it could not happen again. Public health people are thus understandably skittish about unusual flu strains.

Vaccination, staying home when sick, and masks in crowds make a lot more sense than ignoring the problem and relying on TamiFlu when you get sick. I get regular flu shots. I even got the infamous Ford-era swine flu shot. Nobody got the swine flu. But that was, after all, the point.