Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Is Swine Flu the new health Armageddon or can it simply be sneezed at?

We all remember bird flu, earlier this decade, which sounded bad but killed fewer than 1000 people globally, that sounds a lot but malaria kills more than 500,000 every year but never makes headlines. During the anthrax scares in the post 9/11 period, I think two people died of exposure to this disease. I recall reading later that in the US in any typical year, around 5 people die from anthrax. You could say the anthrax scare lessened the incidence of anthrax deaths to below an average level, ergo improving it, probably because people were more careful around exposure to it.

Is this latest scare just that, a scare? Is Big Pharma looking to clear down some drug stocks? Is it just a getting back at those filthy Mexicans for stealing our jobs? Is it the former and the latter is a bonus?

I’ve not bought any Tamiflu, but I’d be curious to see a pack so I could check its use by date. My guess is it’s around 5 years after the manufacturing date. Remember, every Western government and many others too, stockpiled Tamiflu in 2003. If this all needs to be biffed, it’ll need to be replaced too, especially given there’s a new ‘threat’.


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