10.26.2009

pushing fear harder than a crack pimp

1. Worst Case - choosing who survives a flu epidemic

by Sheri Fink

[NYT puts a dramatic photo up top of baby with "a flu" being treated with an inhaler to prime the pump of your emotions - ed.]

New York state health officials recently laid out this wrenching [HYPOTHETICAL PULLED OUT OF THEIR ASS UNREALITY - ed.] scenario for a small group of medical professionals from New York-Presbyterian Hospital:

A 32-year-old man with cystic fibrosis is rushed to the hospital with appendicitis in the midst of a worsening pandemic caused by the H1N1 flu virus, which has mutated into a more deadly form. The man is awaiting a lung transplant and brought with him the mechanical ventilator that helps him breathe.

New York’s governor has declared a state of emergency and hospitals are following the state’s pandemic ventilator allocation plan — actual guidelines drafted in 2007 that are now being revisited. The plan aims to direct ventilators to those with the best chances of survival in a severe, 1918-like flu pandemic where tens of thousands develop life-threatening pneumonia.

read more @ nyt

Sheri Fink of ProPublica also covered a similar story in Florida


2. 194 Michigan schools closed due to illness - hysteria much?


LANSING, Mich. (WXYZ) - Michigan officials say 194 schools with 71,666 students [NATCH! WINK WINK WINK - ED.] have closed because of illness as swine flu spreads through the state.

The Michigan Department of Community Health figures for Thursday don't indicate that the H1N1 virus has been confirmed in the closings.

The largest district to close is Mount Pleasant, with 11 schools and 3,895 students. The Hastings district has closed seven schools with 3,155 students, and the Thornapple Kellogg district has closed six schools with 3,045 students.

The Sparta district has closed seven schools with 2,943 students, and the Gull Lake district has closed seven schools with 2,906 students.

read more @ pimpin turtle


3. Obama's H1N1 national emergency declaration could invoke FEMA reponse to pandemic (option)

(NaturalNews) President Obama's declaration of a national pandemic emergency is "no cause for alarm," reported the mainstream media throughout the weekend. The declaration is nothing more than a "precaution," they say. "It's really more a continuation of our preparedness steps," said Anne Schuchat, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, in a USA Today story.

In other words, there's not really any emergency at all. So why declare a national emergency in the first place? The media reports this was done to allow hospitals to bypass federal regulations concerning the setting up of large-scale triage sites -- emergency medical camps quickly constructed to deal with large numbers of sick people.

But at the same time, H1N1 isn't causing large-scale sickness. As USA Today reported, an expert on infectious disease, P.J. Brennan (the chief medical officer for the Penn Health System at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia) said, "The public ought to take some solace, some relief in this. It's not a suggestion that things have deteriorated in any way. In no way is the virus more severe or more difficult to manage."

So let me get this straight. The H1N1 virus remains mild. The CDC reports that swine flu infections already peaked out in mid-October. There have been no new developments in swine flu that would be cause for alarm and no reason to suspect huge numbers of sick people flooding into the hospitals. And yet, for some reason, the Obama administration has declared a national pandemic emergency specifically for the purpose of speeding the ability of hospitals to process large masses of sick people through emergency medical triage tents?

What are these people not telling us?

Something doesn't add up here. Why would the U.S. government need to declare a national emergency to enable hospitals to handle a flood of sick people when there is no flood of sick people (and the pandemic seems to be fizzling out)?

This is more like the kind of preparation you might expect in advance of a biological terrorism attack, not for a flu that appears no more dangerous than the seasonal sniffles.

read more @ natural news

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