21 February 2013/10 Raby’ ath-Thani 1434/03 Esfand 1391
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the results of their own vaccine study, and it has them shocked!
First off, for overall effectiveness this year’s vaccine is 56% effective, not 62% effective as has been claimed since the beginning of the season. Secondly, when you break it down by flu strain and the age of the victim, things get worse.
The vaccine is only 9% effective in preventing influenza strain A in people 65 years of age or older!
So far this season almost 9,000 people have been hospitalized because of the flu, the majority are old people and includes those who got flu shots!
To help support my previous claims against vaccines (that the virus mutates too fast for vaccines to be effective), the University of Louisville recently released preliminary results of their ongoing study of the H1N1 pandemic of 2009-10. They found that each person’s immune system reacted differently to H1N1 (a type of flu A): “This study underscores the potential variability in the virulence of 2009 H1N1 influenza A strains circulating in Kentucky during the pandemic. These data suggest the hypothesis that the high severity of disease seen in certain hospitalized patients may be related to infection with H1N1pdm viral variants that, due to cell tropism and replication levels, may exacerbate certain types of disease associated with comorbidity.”
Minnesota Department of Health reporting 12 new flu deaths. The total for the North Star State is now 148 deaths. Last week five nursing homes, and nine schools reported outbreaks.
In South Dakota, a 6th grader was the latest person to die. He died from flu A, the type of flu the vaccine has proven to not work on.
The maker of Tamiflu, the anti-flu medicine, says get the children’s version (Tamiflu OS) while you can, ’cause they ain’t makin’ anymore: “…we have shipped all quantities of Tamiflu OS to distributors, some retail pharmacies may still have it…….Given the amount of time it takes to manufacture Tamiflu OS, we don’t plan to make more for the 2012/13 flu season, as it wouldn’t be ready in time.”-Tara Iannuccillo, Genentech
Canadian scientists claim they have a new drug against flu: “Our drug agent uses the same approach as current flu treatments, by preventing neuraminidase from cutting its ties with the infected cell. But our agent latches onto this enzyme like a broken key, stuck in a lock, rendering it useless.”-Steve Withers, University of British Columbia
Oklahoma State Department of Health reporting 26 flu deaths.
In Michigan, Ottawa County reporting double the number of lab confirmed flu cases compared to 2010-11, and five times higher than last year. So far 20,000 people in the County have complained of flu related illnesses.
Pennsylvania Department of Health reporting that flu related visits to doctors and hospitals are going down. At this point 154 people died.
New Jersey officials say flu is alive and well in their state: “We still do have high influenza-like illness activity throughout our state.”-Tina Tan, State Epidemiologist
The New York State Health Department is reporting fewer cases of flu. That is, there were fewer cases of people going to the hospital because of the flu, but, the number of people making flu related doctor visits is unchanged. Also, the number of kids dying from flu has gone up, now eight children have died in New York. Pediatric deaths make up 38% of lab confirmed flu cases in the Empire State. There have been 484 outbreaks. Health officials do not track adult flu related deaths.
Health officials in Colorado are warning that March could be a bad month for flu cases: “March historically is an active time for the flu locally, so we can’t say for sure that the flu season is over.”-Tamara Capp, Mesa County Health Department
In San Diego, California, County health officials are reporting decreased cases. San Diego got hit hard, with 4,175 lab confirmed cases and 40 deaths. The flu season isn’t over. For some reason State officials are still reporting far fewer deaths, for the entire state, than whats being reporting in San Diego County.
The next time you hear an “official” telling you not to go to work if you’re sick, tell them its time they take their own medicine! In Virginia there have been a number of cases of elected officials ending up in the hospital, because they continue to go to work when they are sick: “Almost no matter what, you’ve got to try to be here every day. This time of year, we’ve got all these bills coming across, and some of them are 20-20 votes.”-Jeffrey L. McWaters, State Senator
The Wall Street Journal reported that flu season is good for OJ. Orange Juice that is. The WSJ reported that not only is OJ sales up, but that it’s the older people who’re gulping the citrus juice down.
In Oregon, veterinarians are warning horse owners after a horse came down with equine influenza. It’s being treated at Oregon State University, the horse originally came from Texas. This time of year is not good for horses and flu: “Equine influenza is especially dangerous to foals and the foaling season just started.”-Keith Poulsen, OSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
Flu season recently began in Europe, and the United Kingdom is reporting a doubling of cases in the past two weeks (fortnight).
In Mexico, nine new outbreaks of H7N3 being reported, this time in the state of Guanajuato. So far 34,889 chickens have died and 53,553 are infected in these latest outbreaks. Get ready for chicken and egg prices to go up, as this new H7N3 has killed hundreds of thousands of poultry in Mexico since last year.
In Cambodia, a seventh person has died because of bird flu. The 20 months old boy was the eighth Cambodian to be infected with the H5N1 version of bird flu, so far this year.
Bird flus rarely infect humans, but when they do they have an extremely high kill rate.