It is disheartening to note that while most of us are concerned about swine flu and there a some out there who are currently suffering from it, there are others who are out to make an extra buck out of someone elses panic, fear or misery.
The Better Business Bureau (BBB) has issued a warning against web sites and e-mails that are out to scam people out of hard-earned cash under the guise of being of assistance towards keeping swine flu at bay. The BBB reported an unprecedented sudden increase in web activity, which includes the registration of domains, which are normally indicative of scams. Hundreds of new sites that have swine flu in the URL have cropped up. There are also reports of spam e-mails being sent out that claim that Madonna and other celebrities have contracted swine flu, and within these e-mails are links to online pharmacies.
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Getting Prepared for a Pandemic. At a minimum you need duct tape, work gloves and a cell phone. For protection, there is mace, pepper spray, a whistle, an ax and a Taser. Full description is in Preparing for Pandemic Asian Flu.
We all know it all too well by now the United States is one of the countries with confirmed swine flu cases. But what exactly is being done about it at this time?
Isnt there a flu vaccine available? Yes, there is, but not for this one. The good news is that the CDC and the WHO are working on one, but it will probably take months before a vaccine will be available. If you had a flu shot recently, it will protect you from the more common human flu strains but not from swine flu. So be careful just the same.
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My view of the health care system in Hillsdale College's Imprimis and at Forbes.
While no one wants to simply dismiss the issue of swine flu the number of cases and the wide cross section of places to which it has spread does merit attention and concern it is also important to keep calm and to not blow the situation out of proportion. The best way to do this is to arm ones self with the appropriate information regarding this disease. Here are things that might help you breathe easier and look at swine flu from a more academic point of view, thanks to WebMD and Google News.
What is swine flu? If we humans get sick with the flu, so do pigs, and both flu types are caused by a virus. The swine flu virus is different from that which usually infects humans and this virus normally does not infect us. In rare cases in the past when human infection did occur, it was with people who had direct contact with pigs. This time around, though, even people who did not have any contact with pigs have become infected.
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Basically no, according to Robert Frank, writing in the New York Times. Luck, not hard work and dedication, determines a lot of people's success in life, he says - citing winner-take-all salary differentials in sports and in music. Yet the one field he and I know the most about is economics. Did Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson win Nobel Prizes because of luck? Not a chance. Frank says childhood environment and genes explain nearly everything - and you didn't choose either one. So if you don't deserve your income, who does deserve it? Frank doesn't say, but he implies that if you don't deserve it, it's okay for the government to grab it.
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Filed Under (eDrug News) by Admin on 29-04-2009
I recently came across a remarkable blog rant by a man named Jim Thornton, a competitive swimmer at age 56. Under a list of his latest swimming times, he shared the story of some of the struggles he’d recently been having with healthcare and prescription drug costs.
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As we continue to watch developments regarding swine flu, we could not help but heave a sigh of relief at the same time. While it may be true that there is a cause for concern, concern at least does not have to equal panic. To quote the World Health Organization, it looks like everyone is more prepared to handle situations such as this now more than ever.
Cases are still spreading, though. Canada has confirmed cases, and the first confirmed case in Europe was reported in Spain. Scotland also has confirmed cases, while suspected cases in Brazil, Australia, Israel and New Zealand are awaiting confirmation. Health ministers of countries within the European Union met and discussed the ongoing situation. Mexico and the United States are both under Public Health Emergency status, and everything is being done to address and treat those who have contracted swine flu. The good news is that while there have been fatalities there are those who were able to recover; the US has a milder strain than the one in Mexico.
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Yesterday, the United States declared a state of public health emergency amidst rising concern about the swine flu virus. The announcement was made by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, who said further that this is standard operating procedure that will enable the country to take the appropriate steps to prepare itself despite the fact that there will be no way of knowing for sure how big and severe this outbreak will be at this time.
The Department of Homeland Security will be releasing 25% of stockpiled anti-virals Tamiflu and Relenza to the states as part of the emergency declaration, according to a report from WebMD.
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