Flying Pig Flu

A quick sidenote while I'm compiling the 20th century timeline:

A summary of the excerpt if you don't have time to read the full post:

• The H1N1 flu virus is actually a mix of 4 different flu strains: North American swine influenza, North American avian influenza, human influenza, and a swine influenza virus typically found in Asia and Europe --> that is, 1/2 swine, 1/4 bird, and 1/4 human
• The only way get H1N1 by eating pork is by eating infected pork
• The H1N1 vaccine does not give you the virus - it gives you a dead virus that your body learns to fight.
• H1N1 is more deadly to people younger than 30 - especially those with current health problems already --> thus it is very important for students to get the vaccine (schools are a veritable playground for germs; think of all the ways students interact with one another, get the germs, and bring them home for their siblings to distribute in other schools)
  
• The 1918 Spanish Influenza was also an H1N1 strain - though the current one is turning out to be less deadly (we also have better health procedures now)
• An epidemic is an infectious disease that spreads rapidly to a limited population, a pandemic is an infectious disease that spreads rapidly across countries/continents (an epidemic that is not limited in area)
  
• June 11, 2009: The World Health Organization labeled the current H1N1 flu a pandemic - the first to be labeled such since the 1968 Hong Kong Flu

Remember, the first steps to avoiding the flu are pretty common sense:

1. STAY HOME IF YOU ARE SICK - THIS IS THE EASIEST WAY TO PREVENT THE SPREAD OF THE GERMS!!! You can afford to take a day off to get better - focus on your health first rather than suffering for weeks and weeks battling the flu and infecting others
   
2. Take precautions: wash hands frequently and well (especially before eating)
3. Don't touch your mouth, eyes, nose, or any open wounds without first washing your hands - germs can travel into your bloodstream from any opening in your body
4. Cover your mouth if you cough or sneeze -- DO NOT USE YOUR HANDS! Instead, cough/sneeze into an article of clothing (NOT A HANDKERCHIEF TO BE REUSED AGAIN) - this way, the germs do not get onto your hands to be spread somewhere else
5. See asklittlestar for YouTube videos for demonstrations of the proper way to cough/sneeze
   
6. Germs can survive in the air after someone coughs/sneezes, make sure to keep your food/drink away unless you too want to become sick
   

This is an excerpt from the guy who writes the This is True Blog: Randy Cassingham.

The presumption in North America right now is that if you have flu this early in the season, you most likely have Swine Flu. (And I did get the regular "seasonal" flu shot last month....). And yes, I *am* going to call it "Swine Flu" rather than the "H1N1 flu virus" -- mostly BECAUSE I refuse to bow to the panicking pork industry's pandering to public ignorance. Yeah, some people actually think they might get "swine flu" by eating pork. It doesn't happen like that, of course, but pork producers are having their own fever, body aches, and shortness of breath over it, and demand everyone say "H1N1" instead. Pfui, as Nero Wolfe liked to say. The only way you could get influenza from pork is to eat *infected* pig meat raw, and that's already considered a completely unhealthy thing to do. And really: do ANY of you (outside the doctors!) have any idea what "H1N1" even means? Some of you may -- I do, in part because I was on our county's pandemic disease disaster planning committee two years ago, and I took the trouble of looking it up so I'd understand it. Type A influenza virus strains are categorized according to two proteins found on the surface of the virus: hemagglutinin and neuraminidase -- the H and the N. Each Type A strain is assigned an H number and an N number based on which forms of these two proteins the strain has; there are 16 H and 9 N subtypes known in birds, for instance, but only H 1, 2 and 3 -- and N 1 and 2 -- are commonly found in humans. "Birds?" you might ask. You likely remember that "bird" (or "avian") flu was supposed to be the big scare a couple of years ago. But this one is *swine* flu, right? Well, sorta: genetic sequencing has shown that the current H1N1 pandemic virus is an amalgam of four different strains: North American swine influenza, North American avian influenza, human influenza, and a swine influenza virus typically found in Asia and Europe. In other words, half swine, a quarter bird, and a quarter plain ol' human influenza, strains found around the world all mixed together. It's that mix that helps make it so easily passed around. (And when I sent out a note to some friends saying that I was recovering from Swine Flu, one of the wags, knowing the above, replied that it wasn't pure swine flu, but one mixed with bird flu, and thus it was more properly termed "Flying Pig Flu". Yeah: I like hanging around smart funny people. :-)

The 1918 "Spanish Flu" pandemic, which killed 50-100 million people in an age before jet travel, was also an H1N1 flu, but obviously it's not exactly the same strain; thankfully the current one is much less of a killer. The Spanish Flu also started with a mild version, but then came back much worse the next year. How did we know this year's H1N1 wouldn't do the same thing? WE DIDN'T. That's why it was so important to prepare, just in case it did. We dodged a bullet; we may not be as lucky next time. The media has done a poor job helping people understand all of this, and both apathy and panic has ensued. But frankly, it's VERY difficult to get people to stop and pay attention to the important stuff without freaking them out, so I have a lot of sympathy for the task. I've found most people don't even have a clue as to what the difference is between an epidemic and a pandemic. An "epidemic" -- from the Greek epi ("upon") + demos ("people") -- is an infection that spreads rapidly and extensively and affecting many individuals in an area or a population at the same time. (The key is that limited area.)

A "pandemic" -- from the Greek pan ("all") + demos ("people") -- is an epidemic of infectious disease spreads through human populations cross a large region: like a continent, or worldwide. Medically it doesn't really mean "all" people, as the Greek root implies, but enough so to be a real health problem. The World Health Organization declared the current Swine Flu a pandemic on June 11, 2009 -- the first global pandemic since the 1968 Hong Kong Flu, which killed about 2 million. (Even seasonal flu is a killer, though: it takes out up to a half- million people per year worldwide, about 36,000 in the U.S. alone -- yeah: every year.) My case was pretty mild, despite the shortness of breath. (I have a blood oxygen monitor that I use on EMS calls, and I could see that I was getting enough air; that was reassuring.) It may just be that I'm older. Seasonal flu usually kills older people, but the current Swine Flu is killing kids more -- aged into their 20s and 30s. The younger you are (and the more health problems you have, especially respiratory problems, like asthma), the more you need to get the vaccine. I've seen quacks on TV say that the shot will give you the flu (it doesn't: the virus in it is dead), or that it will give kids autism (long ago disproved: the UK "study" that "proved" that was completely discredited). Those quacks are betting with YOUR (and your kids'!) lives; don't let them panic you.