Sorry all. I couldn’t help it. I once spent a 3 day weekend in Maine once (Rockport to be exact) and found it to be one of the most wonderful places I’ve ever been to. The land was breathtaking, and the people, oh the people! I met so many and each one I would have been ecstatic to have as a neighbor. It just upsets me that a band of hypocrites, liars, backbiters and know nothings will be anywhere near a place I treasure with all my heart. It’s like seeing soot drop on a valley white with snow; a painted mustache on the Mona Lisa and a host of other despoiling ugliness. Please you wonderful people of Maine , keep them out! Well really I’m not that worried though. Maine houses some of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. Maybe they’ll just laugh them out of town.

On a serious note, Americans travel all over the world to see exotic and beautiful places. To tell the truth, so did I for a while until I visited Maine, and although I was born and raised in the Bronx, Maine was the only place I ever really felt at home.

OK. Enough about that. Now on to Ron Paul. I just happened to put in his name and of course came Wikipedia and Ron Paul’s website and was pretty much impressed by the man. First the media tries to paint him as a fool. the man is a doctor for goodness sakes! But some of the other thing i found out about him really surprised me:

He’s a republican who opposed all efforts to define marriage (I guess he believes the government should keep out of people’s personal lives. Maybe he believes it’s not a Federal government problem)

He believes that the war on drugs is a failure and only enriches drug lords. It also unfairly targets blacks and Hispanics, many of which receive long prison terms for minor offenses instead of using so much money incarcerating but  to teach and  rehabilitate them (my question is: you slap a felony conviction on some stupid 18 year old-and really how many of us know what the hell we’re doing when we’re 18) and what happens? They can’t vote, they can’t get a job, etc. so what the hell do you think their going to do?).

He voted against the Iraq War. Yeah, you may say ‘chicken little” until your thousands of miles from your family, sweating in 110F weather and getting your but blown off, but hey, who am I to try to change you mind

He wants government hands of the market system .the smartest people get into business, let them run it (yeah I know economic downturn. but when your pressured by gov officials to increase lending to people who can’t afford it, things happen

He’s not so much an isolationist but a person whose first priority is America

He states he would never violate Habeas Corpus

Voted for the was in Afghanistan

Only congressman to get an A+  rating by Guns of America

Voted against almost all government spending and incentives (many times his ears deafened by the howls of his fellow congressmen)

Is against conscription

Opposes eminent domain (in other words the government can’t take away your home to build an office tower, amusement park or a congressional parking lot without duly compensating you)

End all affirmative action

Stated “Don’t bail out banks, bail out people’

Overthrowing foregoing nations and the Federal Government taking part in assassinations

He is against the National Security agency spying on American citizens

There are others I can enumerate but the dog has my one of my favorite slippers in his mouth and I’ll be damned if he going to chew another to shreds!

So there you have it. He’s my choice. Oh, and by the way he doesn’t go hiding behind flag or bible when making a statement. He says what’s on his mind, like it or not. I wouldn’t mind having a talk with him one night over a nice soothing bottle. Hey, Ron if your ever in Wappingers Falls, NY look me up. I’d consider it an honor to BS with you over dinner. good luck and take care

Listen, the sky is not falling. America is not collapsing (and never will), and the anti-christ has better things to do with his time than to spend it on morons. All those who are stocking up on dried foods, gold, guns and penile enhancement formulas are all going to feel pretty stupid in another year or two when….nothing happens. And that is when their troubles will really start! That’s when their wives’ patience will finally run out and they’ll begin to get really pissed because they’ll soon begin to wondering why these  hairy-chested, bald-headed, once a week shower-taking gorillas spent thousands on distasteful food that even a hungry rat would turn his nose up at; why they spent a year sleeping in tents on the lawn because there was no room in the house because it was filled with all this unnecessary crap; why all three televisions were set constantly blaring, all on the same channel for months on end; but ultimately they will wonder why they allowed their lives to be made miserable by a bunch of imbeciles who sat screaming at the television when they could (and should have) been out looking for work. And that is when the civil war will really start. A woman scorned is bad enough but when you add to that her realizing that she was ultimately scorned by an imbecile, well I think  Elvis put it best when he sang “That’s when your heartache begins”.

All right morons. Be quiet a moment and you’ll here something surprising. Wait!Wait! Quiet. There you hear it. It sounds, why it sounds like laughter doesn’t it? Yes it is! From the east,north,west and south! The whole damn world is laughing at us! I’m laughing too! Because I always knew that most American’s were somewhere intellectually on the same plane as kangaroos,buzzards and evangelical preachers.  It is without a doubt the greatest show on earth. Hordes of  our country’s citizens egged on by a gaggle of  failed disc-jockeys stifling debate about something they have not the slightest idea about, namely HRA 3200(or for those of you more intellectually inclined Obama’s Socialist, Communist, Evil, Beezlebub’s takover of healthcare). A few things I’d like to point out to you Einsteins of the corn belt:

Did you full bred American’s know that under Obama’s plan bankruptcies due to medical bills would become a thing of the past?

There will be no denial of insurance for those with pre-existing disease?

Smaller businesses would be able to buy into health care plans because they would become part of a large pool of insured, thus drastically reducing price per policy?

Doctors would be reimbursed for discussing end of life issues with patients(such as living wills, health care proxies,etc..Why is this important? Lets say you’re 85 years old and down to 95 pounds due to some kind of illness. You’re in constant pain. your mind is alert but you body is shot. One day your in bed when you feel a warm glow coming over you, the pain starts to decrease, Ah! Rest! Finally rest! Next thing your waking up with a terrific pain in your chest due to some 250 pound paramedic pushing on your chest as if he was attempting to stuff you in a sardine can. “No!No!” you yell,”leave me alone I want to go back to that peaceful place”. But the words never cross your lips. You see you’ve had a severe stroke while you were out enjoying the scenery. Your conscious but you cannot speak, you cannot move. All you can do is lay there as the other medic yells”One!Two!Three!” and your shoved like a piece of rotted meat onto a stretcher for a long ride to the hospital where the half hour is spent made nauseous by the twists and turns the ambulance is making and the wretched smell of the garlic fries the medic gobbled down en route to pump on your chest with all his might. At the hospital you are scooted over to another stretcher where you are disrobed and grabbed and probed by at least 6 pair of hands. Their being convinced your stable you have now lost their interest. They leave you agonized by the constantly chirping alarm of the cardiac monitor that nobody ever pays attention to. Blanket! Not a chance. Shiver on the inside all you want no one is going to notice. Next to your surprise, a drunk is placed in the stall next to you who for the next 5 hours does noting but yell, threaten, piss and shit on himself. You are now ready to go up to you room. Your in the hallway when all of a sudden that peaceful feeling starts to come over you. “Thank God! I’m being released from this living hell”. ZAP!!! Not so fast. You were just brought back to “paradise” courtesy of 360 joules of electricity from a defibrillator that suddenly fills you with empathy for all those who have been struck by lightening or bit through live electrical cords. Thankfully that fat bastard wasn’t around to play Devil’s pattycake on your chest and belch garlic into your unprotected face. Ah, now you’ve reached the floor. Your bed. Here comes one of those angels of mercy to help with a young assistant in tow. “Another plant I’m gonna have to water for the next 12 hours”.” What plant could need 12 hours of watering?” you absentmindedly ask yourself. Then to your widening horror you realize she’s looking at you when she’s saying it. “Come on!” our Florence Nightingale recoils in disgust”she’s full of shit and piss. You know what, I get off in one hour. Cover her up and we’ll make like we never saw her”. Just then there comes that now familiar feeling of drifting away, of lightness, pain easing. Your on your way. Then you hear an electronic “Beeeeeeep” coming from the machine above the bed on your left. Immediately you see standing over you the big brother of the medic, 450 pounds of him with 2 electric paddles in his hand and then…..). This scenario brought to you courtesy of the Republican Party who want to save you from those death panels that will discuss living wills, health care proxies, and Do Not Resuscitate Orders with you.

Keep up the fight America! I haven’t seen such good comedy since Sanford and Son was canceled.

I am constantly getting hassled for performing flu tests, the majority of which are positive(the Centers for Disease Control has stated that any flu test with a positive result is presumed to be H1N1).”It’s not necessary”, “what’s the difference, not a lot of people are getting really sick”, I’m told , often with a menacing grin.I was even told by one doctor”they(who? I don’t know) are trying to stop the influenza probes from running out”. So let me get this straight:

if a patient has probable signs of the flu and he and/or close family contacts have underlying illnesses like asthma, you don’t test.Everybody gets Tamiflu. Well that’s  damn smart; you don’t test to see if the patient has influenza because your worried about wasting cotton tipped applicators but you hand out Tamiflu as if there were infinite quantities of it? Furthermore, we don’t have an accurate account of the number of cases, just a lot of speculation( see how much speculation sucks when it’s your kid that is sick)

Meanwhile, no one is notifying the schools that these children are testing positive for influenza insuring that their not yet symptomatic playmates will be lined up and marched into schools the next day ready to share their “gift” with all the others.

Let me make this clear for you out there. If my experiences of  the past few days are any indication of what’s going on in the rest of the city, then the media and city officials are not being forthright about the magnitude of this illness.

But, why? What reason would anyone have for not reveling all the details of this current epidemic?

Several, including:

Schools close, parents can’t get to work. “Business”(you know nothing is personal these days. It’s all business) slows, economy slows. Less taxes, less money for the scoundrels to play with.

People call out sick from work(officially you’re told “stay home if you’re sick”. Yeah, go ahead and try it; see how long  it  takes before you’re on a first name basis with the people at the unemployment office)

Tourists stay away(the tourists, they no come a to New York and spenda the money, the government no getta the tax)

And the granddaddy of them all, to avoid”panic”(45 years of disaster research has proved that “panic”- as  commonly defined as irrational behavior, hysterical flight, selfishness, helplessness- is a myth not worthy of consideration by anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of emergency and  disaster management. Anyone that uses “panic” as an excuse for withholding information from the public should have “imbecile” branded on his/her forehead and given directions to the nearest unemployment office). It has been suggested that historically more people have died from efforts to avoid panic than have ever died as a direct result of it.

So what are you to do? Act like sheep or demand accurate information? Watch your children get sick and suffer needlessly or assume your responsibility in protecting them?

My kid is protected. Is yours?

One more thing, be wary of the term “confirmed cases”. I’ve explained in an earlier post the torturous process of confirming H1N1. Citing  confirmed cases(usually a very low number as compared to the nation’s population) is used as a diversion to keep the public in the dark and ignorant.

http://www.enewspf.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7763:h1n1-flu-swine-flu-cdc-update-tenth-death-confirmed-may-25-2009&catid=88888984:h1n1-virus-swine-flu&Itemid=88889934

Yes ladies and gentlemen 7700 confirmed and probable cases out of  a  population 330 million. So why is everyone making such a big deal out of this illness? More people slip in the tub…and become impaled on their faucets each day; more people riding motorized wheelchairs are cited for DUI each day than get the flu; more call the Maury Povitch show each day asking for help in finding out who their babby daddy is.  I could go on and on. But wait, one more thing.

That 7700 number is bullshit. Wanna know why?

I’ll use NYC as an example:

In New York City the only people(in the majority of cases) being tested are those who are admitted to the hospital with life threatening respiratory illness. Otherwise it is being communicated throughout the medical community not to  test those that a medical provider believes is infected with only a mild case of the flu (one could use their judgment in testing those with underlying illnesses). Yes, I know you can go to your primary care doc and squeeze him into doing it. But to a large swath of NYC’s population the emergency room is their primary care office(and they have security!). So  the number of “confirmed and probable cases” may be just the tip of the iceberg(sorry for the old cliche but had a hard day at work and I’m tired).

So here’s how I see it:

1. There are many more cases of Swine Flu out there than we’ll ever know

2.When city officials explain rising absenteeism in New York City schools as being mostly due to  parent’s baseless fears of their children contracting H1N1, remember many children are being given a presumptive diagnosis of influenza by either their doctor or by emergency room staff. This may be the true reason these kids are not in school( remember also these are not counted as “confirmed or probable cases”)

3. These presumptive diagnosis’ are not being reported to schools, so the kid who was fine yesterday but absent today may have had the flu and no one but they may ever know(why is this important: because a kid that came into contact with the sick one yesterday may not be showing symptoms until the end of the school day today. By that time your child was probably breathed,sneezed and coughed on dozens of times). If that child’s parents had been notified that he/she had contact with a schoolmate with H1N1 the parents may have kept the kid home (or the school may have insisted on it).

4. Guidance from NYC’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene advises that  those who are believed to be infected with flu and who have underlying underlying illnesses such as asthma be treated with antivirals such as Tamiflu. Included would be  household members and other close contacts with the affected person also having underlying illnesses (Relenza is not prescribed for people with asthma because it could induce asthma attacks).

Now here’s a hypothetical situation(well, maybe not so hypothetical;)

Kid comes in with cough, fever, bodyaches, chills for 2 days.

No test is done. Presumptive diagnosis: Influenza.

Discharge instructions include: Rest; tylenol or motrin for fever or pain; insure the child is adequately hydrated; return to school 24 hours after symptoms resolve; return to the emergency room with any problems or concerns. Simple enough.

But wait! The kid’s 3 other siblings(all present)  have asthma so according to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene they should be treated with Tamiflu(the sick kid without asthma is not).

Problem number 1: we didn’t test the kid so we’re not sure she had influenza. So are we giving the other children prescriptions for Tamiflu unnecessarily and thus helping to waste a key resource in battling the flu(and a scarce resource at that)?

Problem number 2: I’m going to give you the link to Roche Pharmaceuticals and a letter they sent to  healthcare providers in 2006 regarding a little idiosyncrasy involving Tamiflu and children(it’s in pdf). See what you think about it.

http://www.fda.gov/Medwatch/safety/2006/Tamiflu_dhcp_letter.pdf

In my opinion this illness is much more widespread than is being reported by the media either because our government officials were  caught unprepared , were too busy chasing schizphrenic, crack smoking , purse snatching terrorists(you know, the Four Imbeciles of the Apocolypse recently arrested in NYC for sleepwalking through a terrorist plot) or are  looking to avert “panic”.

My advice to government officials would include:

-closing schools early this year, at least for our kid’s sake(you know those little tykes  always used as tools for tears and outrage when your trying to raises taxes on cigarettes and booze or trying to collect fines through seat belt, helmet and leash laws )

-re-think this business of handing out antivirals in such haphazard a manner. I mean you would tar and feather anyone found wasting water in such fashion

-being a little more forthright with the public when giving details of this epidemic.

Remember Mr. Governor, Mayor, County Executive and all other such barons and  beelzebubs. Our nation’s people have been through a lot this year and have remained remarkably patient. They find out your keeping secret valuble information, they ain’t gonna be happy. And your going to need all the help you can get when this thing comes riding back next season, not like a kid on a tricycle but  a drunk behind the wheel of a speeding Mack truck. Then you may have course to re-think that stinging quote of H.L.Mencken that is the axiom of all elected officials:

“No one has ever lost money or an election underestimating the intelligience of the American people”

“If you look at past pandemics, it would be a reasonable estimate that a third of the population[of the world] would be infected” if the current swine flu outbreak became a pandemichttp://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=14252&icid=1&d_str=

Now lets play a little mathematical game.

The earth’s population currently stands at about 6.77 billion. If the above quote proves to be correct than a little over 2.2 billion people could be infected with this H1N1(Swine) Influenza

Now lets take the mortality rate so far in a first world country with an abundance of resources to combat this scourge. All right, the United States.

As of May 10, 2009, 2800 people have been infected and  3 people have died from complications of H1N1 in the US leading to a mortality rate of  approximately 0.1%. “Nothing”, “a mere bag of shells” you may be thinking.

Maybe? And maybe not!. Consider the following:

In its present state of virulence(and using the mortality rate of the United States as a benchmark) this “mild virus” could cause somewhere around 2 million excess deaths(30% of the world’s population of 6.7 billion becoming infected and an “optimistic” benchmark mortality of 0.1%”).

BTW. Please I am no mathematical genius what-so-ever so if someone finds I erred in my calculations please feel free to let me know.

2 million deaths. 2.2billion made ill. Now remember as a benchmark for mortality I used the United States, a first world country with resources other countries could only dream about . Now think of a pandemic afflicting a third of the population of Africa where some parts of the continent  contain countries with  populations already struggling mightily under the burdens of such diseases as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis plus drought, extreme poverty and civil war. Or the many third world countries where the best medical care available does not compare in any way to the United States’ worst.  Now you can see why I used the word “optimistic” in using the United States as a benchmark for calculating the world’s total mortality.  Darn, I almost forgot to mention that a significant minority of these people will be those in the most productive years of their lives(to put the term “significant minority” into something resembling a proper perspective remember George Steinbrenner was principle owner of the Yankees with 51% of shares in the team, the other 49% were held by a “significant minority”). Gone may be Joan the cardiologist, John the fireman, Abdul the train operator, Lee the paramedic, Paula the electrical grid supervisor, and a myriad of others who perform those vital functions necessary for a recognizably functioning world.

Oh, and don’t forget that the regular strain of influenza does not take a break during a pandemic(I tried to calculate the combined numbers of pandemic and seasonal flu but had to stop because my calculator started to smoke and make weird noises).

I’ll touch on the glorious complexities of vaccine creation, manufacturing and dissemination in my next post.

PS. Just as I was about to hit “publish” for this post I read that Mexico’s mortality rate has been calculated to be between 0.3 and 1.5% percent of those infected with H1N1.

http://health.usnews.com/blogs/on-parenting/2009/05/11/swine-flu-on-track-to-be-a-pandemic.html

Lather up well and make sure to wash for at least 15 seconds and don’t forget to pay attention to areas like your nails and the webbing between your fingers. Sometimes the best solutions are the most simple. Make sure your kids do the same!

Do I think they overreacted? No! It was(is) a novel strain  that was(is) killing  those in the healthiest age groups, those 20-50 years old. When had this occurred before? In all three 20th century pandemics(1918, 1957, and 1968). It began in a country that is a popular spot for vacationers from all over the world and spreads somewhat easily from person to person. Overreacted? No, I think they were truly scared.

Now to what scares me. Research has shown that each 20th century pandemic began with a “herald wave”, a less lethal, widespread round of influenza that occurred in the months prior to the onset of each pandemic, mainly the preceding early to late spring. Could this have been Swine’s herald wave? It remains to be seen. This is  why I’m concerned about the upcoming fall and winter flu season. Apathy , skepticism and scare mongering  will only make matters worse. 

If this was indeed a herald wave, then there’s a distinct possibility that we’re going to have some real serious problems come fall and winter.

What do,

Smallpox

Anthrax

and Plague,

all have in common?

1) They can all be used as bio-terror weapons

2) They all manifest  initially with “flu-like symptoms”

Now I’M NOT SAYING that H1N1 is a bio-weapon. I’m saying that some maniac (or maniacs) could use the current influenza outbreak to mask early detection of these agents.

Don’t be like the poor unfortanate that was blinded by the sun as he crossed the street and was creamed by a truck.