No, you are going to die, really. I guarantee you that.
I am quite amazed I have lived this long. I survived the real flu epidemic of 1968. I survived the coming of HIV/AIDS. I survived the scares over SARS and avian flu. Now I have to survive swine flu as well. Given the apocalyptic warnings over SARS, avian flu and swine flu, it is quite incredible that not only have I survived them, but all my family have too.
Except, of course, it is all bollocks. Viruses are a fact of life. Death is the most important fact of life. Nobody lives forever. Of course healthcare is important, of course deaths are sad. But the extraordinary over-reaction to a possible flu epidemic, and extreme distortion of the scale of individual threat, appears to indicate a societal belief that death shouldn’t happen at all.
The media projects a fear of death and sickness which is positively unhealthy.
Women get colds, men get flu and governments get swine flu. I expect with almost total certainty that I’ll survive it. If not, I’ll die. So what? I was going to do that anyway.
How long till the Civil Contingencies Act is invoked?
Mary, thanks, yes I did know the connection. There’s a mass of information available on the web. One that gives a pretty good overall summary is here:
http://upswing.newsvine.com/_news/2009/04/26/2735113-donald-rumsfelds-swine-flu-vaccine-tamiflu-could-paralyze-or-kill-you-while-it-makes-investors-rich
‘Windmills’ and ‘BGD’ above also mention Rumsfeld’s connection with Tamiflu, and Congressman Ron Paul’s commentary in BGD’s posted link says one person died in a 1976 flu outbreak, whereas 25 died from having Tamiflu innoculations.
I also read somewhere, don’t remember where, that Gilead long ago transferred the marketing of Tamiflu to Roche because it did not want to be tainted by reports that Tamiflu was pretty useless at treating flu. (Gilead retains ownership of the drug). As recently as January this year the New York Times published this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/health/09flu.html?em
“Virtually all the dominant strain of flu in the United States this season is resistant to the leading antiviral drug Tamiflu, and scientists and health officials are trying to figure out why.”
“…….The only Tamiflu-resistant strain is an H1N1.”
The BBC reported yesterday that swine flu is an H1N1 strain.
I wonder how much of our money Gordon Brown has spent on Tamiflu?
…….It’s not only bankers and arms dealers who have been viciously grabbing the planet’s wealth and stuffing it into their own pockets.
Tony, I do live in London and I can assure you that your assumptions about the NHS here are mistaken. For all its management faults, the consultants who have treated me over the past four years for two chronic illnesses are wonderful people, dedicated to keeping me alive for as long as possible. When I first became ill I thought that being in my late 70s I would probably be written off as a useless expense; but in fact they go to great lengths to obtain the expensive drugs I need to control my leukaemia. I cannot praise them highly enough.
As for woods and bluebells, I’m not able to walk far these days but I do have a pretty garden to sit in when the weather permits.
One son came in today full of shock/horror ‘They’re calling it a pandemic now! It’s all over the papers! Omigod!’ etc.
When I told him that ‘pandemic’ simply means ‘widespread’ and pointed out that the virus has been found, in small isolated outbreaks in many areas of the globe, it seemed to calm him down. ‘Asthma is pandemic, the common cold is pandemic’, I told him.
I asked another son who works in Ohio, where there have been a small handful of confirmed cases, whether all the locals were wearing masks (as all the press photos show). He thought I was joking. No one there on the ground is worried (this son works in television, he has his eyes very keenly on what’s actually happening).
This enormous hyperbole fuelled by a government that’s desperate to distract is nothing short of evil terrorism. Yet all part of a very corrupt piece.
“You Are All Going To Die”
http://tinyurl.com/cqqrl7