Government plans to vaccinate us.

by hmmmmm Sat Jun 10, 2006 22:05

examine the qoute from Harney's department

The main treatment for pandemic influenza is antiviral drugs. Antivirals can shorten the duration of the disease and alleviate symptoms. They are not usually considered effective after 48 hours from the onset of illness. An emergency supply of over 45,000 treatment packs of antivirals (Tamiflu®) was purchased in 2004. A further 1 million treatment packs of antivirals (Tamiflu®) are being stockpiled. This quantity is sufficient to treat 25% of the population. 600,000 packs have already been delivered. The remaining 400,000 packs will be delivered in 2006. Tamiflu® capsules are not suitable for young children. Arrangements have therefore been made to procure a supply of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) to treat children aged between 1 and 5 years of age. Recommendations for the stockpiling of antivirals are kept under constant review by the Influenza Pandemic Expert Group. The Expert Group has advised that a quantity of zanamivir (Relenza®) should be stockpiled in addition to oseltamivir (Tamiflu®). Arrangements for the purchase of this additional stock are being finalised.


behind all this is "money" ........well no its "patents" ............ well no its...... "semiotics"
€ / $ / © / ™ / ®

for background on H5N1
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=68157
http://indymedia.ie/article/72487
curiously only one person at EU level our MEP Kathy Sinnott (sits with the far right) has bothered to talk about H5N1 to us -http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=72368
& even more interestingly the top UK medical officer only estimated death-tolls of 50,000 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4346624.stm Which suggests a lot of money is being spent on something silly by Harney. Why can't her old mates in the Enterprise Section or her chums in Elan and other Biotech / drug companies campaign for a generic license to produce Tamiflu® and all other epidemic or pandemic drug treatments needed by the 3rd world on a non-profit basis?
That would even save the Irish state the mere billions it gives to vaccine programes every year....
help people help themselves...
http://indymedia.ie/article/72487

they will rebel & kill you

by ollie Sun Jun 11, 2006 01:21

The most important document on the whole situation regarding bird flu is one released a couple of months back by an International NGO called Grain. It can be found here: http://grain.org/briefings/?id=194

More info on bird flu can also be found here:

http://www.grain.org/go/birdflu

Below is an article I wrote about this research undertaken by Grain, for the Irish Examiner's farming supplement.

At present, there is only one dominant perspective on preventing the spread of bird flu. This perspective presents the problem as wild birds and outdoor birds, and the solution as indoor, regulated birds. In the interest of balance I think it is worth keeping an open mind to other perspectives.

While it is important to avoid overstating the risk, there are serious consequences at stake.

These include global human health, international trade, the survival of the small poultry farmer and indeed rural communities in the majority world, the survival of organic poultry production in the 1st world, genetic diversity, co-existence between different ideologies of farming and animal welfare.

While I don’t necessarily fully endorse the position, it is noteworthy that another perspective is emerging on how to treat the most virulent strain of bird flu, the H5N1 strain.

The alternative scenario has been most strongly put recently by the biodiversity-supporting international NGO, Grain.

Firstly, they make the point that bird flu has been around for years, but that the current virulent strain is new, and it is as new as the transnational chicken industry. The countries in south east Asia where the disease has been most prominent, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, along with China, are the countries with the most intensive production and the widest geographical reach of produce.

The argument is that densely populated chicken houses, with a genetic uniformity, are the perfect breeding ground for ever more rapid strains of diseases in general, including H5N1. This, coupled with the speed of and range at which poultry and poultry by-products are transported is spreading the disease.

When wild birds do come into contact with the stronger strain, they cannot cope and they die. Wild birds have ‘co-existed’ with a weaker stain for years, but cannot cope with this ‘industrially-led and spread’ version.

"Everyone is focused on migratory birds and backyard chickens as the problem," says Devlin Kuyek of GRAIN. "But they are not effective vectors of highly pathogenic bird flu. The virus kills them, but is unlikely to be spread by them."

So it is the occasional geographical proximity between the two systems, ‘open’ and ‘closed’ that is the problem, not the existence of an open system.

Indeed, the genetic diversity of the open system acts as a buffer against disease spread. According to Grain, ‘there are reports from the World Organisation of Animal Health of local chickens surviving the H5N1 virus’.

The Laos anomaly is used to back up this thesis. Laos does not have anything like the intensive production system of its neighbours, and importantly, there is very little contact between the two systems, intensive and backyard. (In neighbouring countries, day-old chicks and feed are sold from the intensive to the backyard systems) Laos has not had anything like the bird flu problems of its neighbours – the ones mentioned earlier. It’s only problems have been in and around the few intensive poultry farms it has. According to Grain, ‘Laos effectively stamped out the disease by closing the border to poultry from Thailand and culling chickens at the commercial operations’.

Grain claim that outbreaks in south east Asia have been specifically liked to large scale trade in poultry and feed from a particular Thai company. Likewise, trade between the Netherlands and Nigeria has been cited as a cause for an outbreak in the latter. Indeed, acting on the basis of trade as a cause and not migration prevented further outbreaks in Nigeria, it is claimed.

In lay terms, the argument is that backyard flocks can accommodate a mild but fairly widespread version of the problem, but intensive systems amplify and develop the problem for all concerned - including, potentially, humans.

In this context, ironically, the solution of global restructuring towards more regulated, closed and intensive system is also the cause.

Along with this, doubt is being cast on the migratory bird thesis itself. According to Birdlife, ‘When plotted, the pattern of outbreaks follows major road and rail routes, not (bird) flyways’ according to Birdlife’s Dr. Richard Thomas. He cites various countries that should have gotten the H5N1 strain last autumn, but didn’t, ‘if wild birds are the primary carriers’.

This thesis is both challenging and troubling, on many levels. But is deserves to be heard.

You can access the full report from Grain at: http://www.grain.org/go/birdflu
artcile ends--------------

by oliver cromwell (NOT Ollie) i suspect an impersonator!!!!!!! Sun Jun 11, 2006 23:31

Dr Susan Clark is Ireland's leading expert on STDs, in today's "Tribune" newspaper her thoughts on the approximately 50,000 teens screened with STD's were aired. 15% of under 18's who have gone to the Republic of Eire's Venereal Ailments wards with an itch, bump, trouble with the "passing water", one or more supporating sores, any type of foul smelling discharge, (more sinister this) no symptoms at all!!!! (told you) were found to be carrying STD's. This is Minister Harney's turf. We mostly know the Christian Brothers didn't go into supporating sores that much, so we'll leave Minister Hanafin alone............... great job they did in the time allowed them (there fore the illustration of the Artane Boy's band)

Dr Susan Clark is described as a "consultant" at James' Hospital Dublin, (where all afflicted with the pox in Eire must make their shameful way) But lack of expertise didn't stop her being reported by the Tribune as holding political opinions :

["She described the issue of dealing with teenagers under the legal age of consent as a "legal nightmare". She added that, legally, teenagers under the age of consent who present themselves at a clinic "should be reported to the gardai". The top consultant warned the Oireachtas health committee that many young people, especially men, do not exhibit any signs that they are carrying an STD, such as chlamydia, syphillis, gonorrhea and genital warts."]

(so less of the supporating pores in the new syllabus)

Now we do have drug treatments for all these things. If the Tribune is right in its analysis, our young people stand more chance of catching the clap than dying from bird flu'.

Where is the minister of Health & Children?

as they carry an anarchist flag - we must ask - are there enough vaccines against syphilis for the teens?

by muppet Mon Jun 12, 2006 23:53

thats the flag of county Down. I don't think there has ever been a case of an Artane Boy's band member with syphillis either. What is it with you looney leftwingers? You cringe! You mock!
Oh but you never come up with any useful suggestions. Sex education is what you want now? It will be free condoms next. What good will that do us? You can't stop genital warts with a condom.

by dustin Tue Jun 13, 2006 00:25

1)
"whose effin flag it is"
The GAA was set up by six troubled people in the holy hamlet of Thurles north riding the county of Tipperary between October the 27th and the 1st of November 1884. It was a long time before all county had teams and only then that flags came to be used. By 1884 it was common & accepted practise seen throughout the world for anarchists to fly a black or a black & red flag. & finally the Artane Christian Brother's Technical School for Orphaned Boys was set up in 1872 & though the "band" supposedly dated from then (many of its instruments probably did), they chose a modified version of an earlier protestant only marching band to commemorate the wars of 1688 -1689 -1690 - 1691.

ergo County Down GAA adopted the anarchist flag, arguably thus setting a precedent for the theft & subversion of recognised symbols seen in subsequent Irish nationalism.

2)
"the efficacy of condoms & stopping the spread of genital warts"

well you got me there.......... what do you suggest we do?
Put graphic warty pictures on cigarette packets, alcopop bottles, skateboard shops and in all youth disco-halls & GAA administered properties?
Ask the state to add stuff like that into the compulsory sylabus?

One thing I do know is that Tamiflu® has nothing do with it.

by Pushkin - Feline Anti Defamation League Thu Jul 27, 2006 16:46

Researchers suggest feline 'sentinels' could identify dangerous outbreaks.

Domestic cats may be widely susceptible to infection with the avian flu H5N1 virus, according to scientists who this week reported the virus in two dead cats in northern Iraq. The latest reports, following recent cat cases in Austria, Germany, Thailand and Indonesia, reinforce the hypothesis that cats may play a role in the spread of the virus, although none of the human victims thus far is thought to have caught the virus from a cat.

by Pushkin - Feline Anti Defamation League Fri Jan 26, 2007 13:27

Bird flu hasn't gone away [ye know]. The discovery, announced last week, that the H5N1 bird flu virus is widespread in cats in locations across Indonesia has refocused attention on the danger that the deadly virus could be mutating into a form that can infect humans far more easily.

In the first survey of its kind, an Indonesian scientist has found that in areas where there have been outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry and humans, 1 in 5 cats have been infected with the virus, and survived. This suggests that as outbreaks continue to flare across Asia and Africa, H5N1 will have vastly more opportunities to adapt to mammals than had been supposed.

by Pushkin - Feline Anti Defamation League Thu Feb 08, 2007 18:39

Now the UN are getting in on the act. Take care: get your cat vaccinated now.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today that cats should be monitored for signs of bird flu or avian influenza.

They said that cats, like humans, can become infected with the deadly strain of the H5N1 virus that causes avian flu, possibly from eating infected birds, or from being in very close contact with infected birds or their feces. But they emphasize there is no evidence of a sustained cat to cat transmission or of cats passing the deadly strain to humans.