Ottawa sends body bags to Manitoba reserves

[CHIMO]

Source: CBC News

Aboriginal leaders in Manitoba are horrified that some of the reserves hardest hit by swine flu in the spring have received dozens of body bags from Health Canada.

The body bags — which were sent to the remote northern reserves of Wasagamack and God's River First Nation — came in a shipment of hand sanitizers and face masks.

"It really makes me wonder if health officials know something we don't," he said. "I have a right to speak for my people. I make a plea to the people of Canada to work with us to ensure the lowest fatalities from this monster virus. Don't send us body bags. Help us organize; send us medicine."

"This disturbed our community members and continues to be a major concern. We had asked for funding so we can get organized and to ensure medicines, hand sanitizers and other preventative kits were in place but, instead, we are shocked to receive the body bags," he said. "To me, this is unacceptable and I am demanding an answer.



Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/09/16/mb-o...

[earcandle]

1. Test your vaccines before you give it out to your people.

The Cheques did and found live virus, which will surely kill
instead of heal.

Don't be a sap, or gullible.  If someone is sending body
bags, don't take the medicine until it is tested.

Good luck.

[tocqueville]

5. somebody who can't even spell to Czech isn't credible....

besides the story is about an accident during the TESTING of an experimental vaccine, accidentally contaminated. And the live virus that was found there doesn't infect humans easily.
Finally the vaccine was against seasonal flu, not swine flu.

Alex Jones is a dangerous moron. Don't be a sap or gullible.

[Mika]

6. I had to paws for a minute to figure that one out.

[earcandle]

11. Thanks for the spelling correction of Czech. However, I don't think a spelling error discredits.

Just be warned that vaccines may not be authentic or useful
and might even be dangerous.
Body bags?  Hmmmm, hint.... hint. 

[applegrove]

2. My mother was amazing they mentioned that on the news in Canada. They

did mention that remote populations in Canada would get first access to the vaccine because they are so far away from hospital care. Maybe they want to scare people into taking the vaccine in remote areas. Because the news did really stress that they should be able to completely block the virus in small isolated communities.

[CHIMO]

4. H1N1 vaccine priority groups released

Canada released new guidelines Wednesday on who should be first in line for H1N1 pandemic flu vaccines.

The groups include:

People with chronic medical conditions under the age of 65.
Pregnant women.
Children six months of age to under five years of age.
People living in remote and isolated settings or communities.
Health-care workers involved in pandemic response or who deliver essential health services.
Household contacts and caregivers of individuals who are at high risk, and who cannot be immunized (such as infants under six months of age or people with weakened immune systems).

Don't know who is first. But looks like everyone else is at the end of the line.

[FarCenter]

3. Swine flu strikes Amazonian Indians

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-scienc...

Indigenous communities have little to no immunity to outside pathogens, which is why many Native Americans succumbed to disease when Europeans first arrived on the continent

Indeed, swine flu deaths are already stacking up in tribes around the world. Last month, H1N1 took its first casualty in Australia, a 26-year-old Aboriginal man in Kiwirrkurra, one of the country’s most remote Outback communities, the BBC reported.

Aborigines are being hospitalized at five times the rate of the general population.

In Manitoba, Canada, swine flu has struck First Nations people at a rate seven times that of the general population, and Inuit people have been infected at a rate 70 times greater than the general population, or about 1 in 10. Canada's indigenous people were heavily hit during the 1918 Spanish flu.

[DCKit]

7. Agreed, but they should be ramping up to help people survive the flu...

not admitting defeat before the battle. Incredibly callous of them.

So wrong.

[FarCenter]

8. These places are unlikely to have very many intensive care units, respirators, etc

Preventive measures, like the hand sanitizers and face masks were provided. I'd think that they send Tamiflu or other antivirals. But if you get a bad case of flue, you die. They may well need the body bags, and there is only another month or two of dependable flying weather to locations hundreds of miles north of Winnipeg.

[DCKit]

10. No doubt it would be impossible to provide respirators, etc... NOW to a central location...

for distribution, as needed, when the flu strikes.

C'mon, they've had all summer in addition to "another month or two of dependable flying weather" to prepare for this, and it's not as if the durable equipment is going to go bad in storage. This is an economic decision, and wrong, wrong, wrong.

This is the kind of situation centralized governments were invented to combat on behalf of the people. There is no excuse.

[mikekohr]

9. Here are the cold (and frightening) facts that First nations People face in this and other epidemics

and the following is just another reason that national health care and delivery MUST be improved on a federal level:

From the website of "International Brotherhood Days."

The stunning death rates of Native Americans to European pathogens was due in part to lack of exposure, but also due to genetic traits that limited Native Peoples ability to deal with these unseen killers. Native People are free of many genetic diseases but have a relatively narrow genetic range. Four mitochondrial haplogroups, named A, B, C, and D, account for 96.9% of all Native Americans. More than 90% of Native People of North American and nearly 100% of Native South Americans have type O blood. Europeans are relatively evenly split between types A and O. More importantly American Indians have only about 17 Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA's) classes as opposed to Europeans having on average about 35 HLA classes. HLA's are one of the human body's two main lines of defense against sickness. In addition Native Americans HLA profiles are dominated by a small number of types. There is evidence that the other line of defense in humans against disease, Helper T cells, are in the case of Native Americans oriented predominately against parasites but not as focused on bacteria and virus' as are the immune systems of Europeans.

No-where in recorded human history has such a catastrophic depopulation of people as befell the Native People of the Western Hemisphere ever been recorded. These plagues rank as perhaps the most seminal events in the recorded history of mankind. 75.

http://www.brotherhooddays.com/interestingfacts.html