Flu pandemic looms as major global crisis

[Carolab]

I KNEW this was coming...

Flu pandemic looms as major global crisis

World Health Organization urges more efforts to develop vaccines
Updated: 4:28 p.m. ET Nov. 12, 2004

GENEVA - The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday urged governments to provide funds to drug makers developing vaccines against a feared influenza pandemic, which could kill millions of people.

Representatives of 11 drug companies, governments and vaccine licensing agencies ended a two-day meeting amid fears Asia’s lethal bird flu virus endemic could mutate and infect humans.

Klaus Stohr, head of the WHO’s global influenza program, said companies were reluctant to invest some 11 million euros ($14.15 million) to develop a vaccine that may never be used.

“There is a need to raise the profile of pandemic preparedness as a matter of national security planning,” Stohr told a news conference.

Funding was the “most important barrier” to making vaccines against a pandemic that could strike a third of the world population with a fatality rate of about 1 percent, he said.

“It looks as if the companies will not come up with this money -- somebody else has to step in,” Stohr said.

<snip>

Few doses available
Only two drug makers -- Aventis-Pasteur of France and British manufacturer Chiron Corp have been working on potential pandemic vaccines with funds from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.


(more) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6470897/

[aquart]

1. George is going to let us die.

[vetwife]

2. He believes in full birth Abortion ! We die after we enter the world

Full Birth Abortion. That has a pretty good ring to it ..hmmmmmmmmmm. Or AfterBirth Abortion.

[fortyfeetunder]

4. Yes, he's the biggest afterbirth abortionist

100K civilians about 2000 military?

[NuttyFluffers]

6. y'know, 'full-birth abortion' has a great ring to it...

keep that. it'll be useful later. it's fully inarguable against by wacko 'lifers,' and it is wholly true...

i think you are onto something brilliant, keep repeating it. if we've learned nothing from all this it is repetition is a temporary replacement for truth. and 'full-birth abortion' is something that needs to be repeated.

[vetwife]

14. Thanks Nutty Fluffers !

[ogradda]

7. sure he is.

you know he and his got their shots. i gotta grant george bush one thing i think he's the most selfish sonofabitch i've ever seen.

[aquart]

16. You haven't met my cat.

And then there's Dick Cheney.

[DemBones DemBones]

26. Or any cat. And I like cats. nt

[leesa]

31. No. George is going to MAKE us die. Remember, the Bush's have long

advocated eugenics. The neocons insist that the world's population needs to be reduced by billions. What better way than to introduce a virus?

[Polemicist]

3. Everything should be just fine...

The Chiron Corporation is making vaccine for the Bird Flu? Why should we get concerned?. The odds of them screwing up the American vaccine supplies two years in a row are like really low, isn't it?

I would think we would find somebody other than Chiron to do this, don't you?

[newyawker99]

32. Hi Polemicist!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Maple]

5. Except they've

predicted this faithfully every year since 1918. Scaring people frees up a lot of grant money.

[amandabeech]

8. Actually, epidemiologists expect a nasty round of flu

every 30 years or so as new flu viruses jump the species barrier from fowl to pigs to humans.

The last really nasty epidemic was 1968. I was a kid and got unbelievably sick.

Right now there are at least three new flu viruses that have jumped from birds to humans but not from humans to humans. We do not have much if any resistance to these new viruses.

If these viruses mutate to be able to jump from person to person, we could get a really, really severe flu season like '68 or even 1918.

[DemBones DemBones]

10. We are overdue for a flu pandemic and our fine

"moral values" administration has set us all up as potential victims.

[lebkuchen]

9. 46 euro at a German doctor's office will get you a flu shot

Germany has all the vaccine it needs.

These vaccines used to be available at the base bookstore for free.

[DemBones DemBones]

11. Is flu vaccine widely available throughout Europe?

I know the UK dealt with the shortage when they learned of it in September by finding another manufacturer to make the vaccine in time, while the Bush** misadministration sat on their hands.

It's the George W. Bush Faith-Based Health Care Sytem -- PRAY you don't get the flu and die!

[Kellanved]

18. yes

, AFAIK all European countries have plenty. It has to be ordered quite some time in advance, as the production needs time.

[HeeBGBz]

19. Faith-based health care

Ain't that the gawd-awful truth. I'll have to save that one too for my verbal armory.

[Kellanved]

20. interesting

I paid about half of that :shrug:

Then again, I guess with patients from abroad, the doctors can make their own prices. The city health offices ("Gesundheitsamt") are usually the cheapest and fastest way to get a vaccination.
:hi:

[Hello_Kitty]

12. Millions of Americans died in influenza epidemic of early 20th century.

More than the deaths of soldiers in WW1. This is serious stuff.

[vetwife]

13. I have worried about it for some time ! Bush doesn't care

He is a Full Birth Abortionist !

[Cooley Hurd]

21. The majority died in October, 1918...

...a month before the Armistice. My great Uncle Frank succumbed to it that month.

[wordout]

15. 11

11 drug companies

11 million euros

$14.15 million (1+4+1+5 = 11)

[Cronus Protagonist]

17. $14 million is chump change for pharmaceutical companies

Why the fuck should we fund any of their work?

Show your support for the president, wear a FUCK BUSH button!

http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13
(We usually ship same or next business day by first class mail)

[snippy]

22. True. They spend more than that every year on wine. n/t

[Thoth]

23. NWO Population Reduction Phase I

in preparation for the world's lessening ability to support 6+ billion people as we near peak oil and the soon to worsen climate crisis that will hurt global agriculture.

As soon as I heard that there's a huge shortage of flu vaccines this year, I thought "Oh Oh", massive flu epidemic that will kill thousands or more coming up.

Better stock up on that vitamin C and throw this post election funk out the window :-(

[eternalburn]

24. Additional articles....

Flu plan anticipates worldwide outbreak (August 26, 2004)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2002015807_flu26.html


Russian Expert Says Flu Epidemic May Kill Over One Billion This Year

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/10/28/pandemic.shtml


WHO Calls Summit to Address Flu Pandemic

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=213471

[Catchawave]

25. Dubya can't even protect us from the flu....

much less biological wmd's. Not a very comforting :::cough, cough::: thought, is itx(

[DemBones DemBones]

27. Keep that line in store for when the flu hits -- it's a great meme. nt

[xpunkisneatx]

28. This issue pisses me off

I work in an intensive care unit with very very sick people. The hospital I work at has recieved NO vaccine whatsoever. We are not allowed to get the flumist vaccine either because it uses a live virus and thus can be spread to immunocompromised people (aka the patients I take care of). The problem is I am in college as well...and we ALL know how sicknesses spread like wildfire on a college campus...I have a bad feeling that I am gonna come down with the flu...and since I can only call out one day a month at work (if i call out more than one day I get disciplinary action and i am suspended 3 days without pay...talk about bullshit!) I am afraid I am going to spread this flu to all of the patients I take care of...which in turn would cause many of them to die. The flu is serious. it kills 36,000 americans every year. I hope they do something about the shortage before it is too late.

[Tab]

29. This stuff runs in cycles

A lot of flus start in Asia and work their way over here. That's why we have to come up with a new flu vaccine every year - we see what strains are "popular" this year in Asia and guess which have the characteristics to make it over here later in the year. Some years they get it wrong, some years they're spot on.

With the pandemics, though, they work in larger cycles. If I recall correctly, the 1918 flu was unique because it hit people in the prime of their lives, not the very young and old as is more common. If I recall correctly, this was because the elderly had lived through a weaker "pre-pandemic" and had gained immunity, and when it roared around a few years (decades?) later, they were fine but the "young and strong" were actually sitting ducks (no pun intended) for the avian flu that hit.

A few years ago we had SARS, and there's been a lot of reports of strains hopping from species (which is a very ominous event), and yes, we're about due for a good pandemic. Which one? We don't know. But we'll have to react smartly - not for political purposes - by quarentining and doing what's necessary to contain it.

[area51]

30. pandemics & healthcare

We in the U.S. are ripe for a pandemic b/c we don't have affordable universal/single-payer healthcare in this country.

[BUSHOUT]

33. Bird Flu NOT RELATED to flu vaccine issue.....n/t