What the fuck does it matter what it's called? I don't get why that is in any way a big deal...

Yeah, people didn't have problems with associating H5N1 with respective disease before.

They claim it's because it can "hurt the pork industry"

Pfffffft. What about the letters H and N? And the number 1? Their credibility is being cut to ribbons and nobody cares. Assholes.

Well this is where political correctness is leading us!

Hm... This seems helpful.

http://doihaveswineflu.org/

I dont mean to be alarming or sound crazy, But swine flu is much more deadly and has infected many more people then is being said. My mom sells medical equipment and she was talking to one of customers in Mexico, and he was saying that its much worse than what is being reported, he said that doctors were dying in the hospital. i think he said something like it causes you lungs to fail or something. I personally trust the Government with keeping us safe, but i dont trust them when it comes to what they tell us

I dont mean to be alarming or sound crazy, But swine flu is much more deadly and has infected many more people then is being said. My mom sells medical equipment and she was talking to one of customers in Mexico, and he was saying that its much worse than what is being reported, he said that doctors were dying in the hospital. i think he said something like it causes you lungs to fail or something. I personally trust the Government with keeping us safe, but i dont trust them when it comes to what they tell us

Uh yea...It is influenza after all, an upper respiratory virus...

It's a small flu like thing...it can be cured with anti-virus stuff....people are being cured..a few people have died but thousands of people every year die from normal flu

But the problem is, there is no anti-virus, and humans don't have a way of curing viruses I mean, I'm sure you know that, and were referring to flu vaccines. But if there was an anti-virus drug, HIV would be cured, perhaps cancer, ebola, you name it.

Anyways, swine-flu is scary. It makes me nervous too, but keep you head, take safety precautions, use good judgment, and hopefully things will take care of themselves.

It is incredibly sad that people have lost their lives though, so it is something to be aware of for sure.

They want us to call it H1N1 Influenza...it's "correct" name as they said

They claim it's because it can "hurt the pork industry"

What the fuck does it matter what it's called? I don't get why that is in any way a big deal...

It matters because it CAN hurt the pork industry. I think it was Ethiopia that was about to slaughter a shitload of pigs to avoid swine flu. There goes the pork industry. And two countries in Asia had already stopped selling pork.

Although I do agree that they should make a catchier name, since H1N1 is stupid and people are still going to call it "Swine Flu".

H1N1 is the name because all flu viruses are named in this way and it is the numbers that differentiate what flu is what. The avian flu talked about in the news, for example, is H5N1. The "H" refers to hemagluttinin and the "N" refers to neuraminidase - a couple of proteins on the surface of the virus. Since the immune system uses these proteins to identify the viruses, the experts decided to take a cue from mother nature, it would seem. In a way, I suppose this is the viral equivalent of calling a red-head, "carrot-top".

To clarify - anti-virals don't kill viruses. They just sort of take the sting out of them a little and shorten the course of the illness - IF taken early enough. This isn't like having a bacterial infection and being able to take antibiotics. The rumour mill as to how this bug got its start has been almost funny - if folks weren't dying on the other end of it all. The thing about viruses that makes them harder to kill is that they mutate as a natural means of survival. So, while it sounds weird to us that H1N1 has just naturally mutated to include bits of swine, human and avian viruses, the virologists aren't surprised. Regular flu mutates a little every year and has been undergoing a major mutation about every 10 yrs...which is why the flu shots don't last as long as, say, a tetanus shot...which protects against a bacteria.

For those of us at higher risk for being exposed, this one is scarier than the regular old flu because there is no vaccine for it that is available. It's kind of like being more scared of HIV from a needlestick than hepatitis B - even though hep is waaaaay easier to catch. Most of us have been vaccinated against it - but there isn't a vaccine for HIV. The H1N1 vaccine created from the Fort Dix strain in 1976 was created on too short a timeline thanks to government pressure and appeared to have caused a 7 fold increase in Guillain-Barre syndrome...causes paralysis...death if the paralysis happens to involve the diaphragm. So, vaccine scrapped and lawsuits abounded.

SARS was also a virus - which some healthcare workers still managed to catch doing everything right as far as masks/gowns, etc etc to prevent doing so. It's still early days - and now that everyone is watching this, it will be interesting to see where this goes. The sea of masks in my ER waiting room on Wednesday was somewhat sobering and disturbing, though...as was seeing twice our normal volume of patients. So, while humour is generally appreciated (loved the link, Phase - that was funny!), being even slightly sensitive of this when you are lucky enough to be unlikely to catch it, is probably the cool thing to be doing.

A disease which has a high communication rate does not have to have a high fatality rate to be alarming.
In fact in many ways it can be worse - diseases with high case fatality rates tend to spike quickly whereas less fatal ones drag on for a lot longer.
Imagine for a moment the place you live with 40% of the population seriously ill at any one time from now until October, say. Extrapolate that to a global scale. And think about our 'next-day delivery' infrastructure and how it's going to work.

chemists all over the place have run out of face masks

Of course this virus is a cause for concern. I work a job where I have to go to people's houses all day, so I know the need for concern.

If you've been keeping up with the news coverage of this, there are companies who are engineering a vaccine for this strain of swine flu, hopefully it will work and help keep things from getting too bad.

It is now confirmed in Holland, Germany and just now, Denmark. HOW ABOUT CLOSING SOME FUCKING AIRPORTS.

But the problem is, there is no anti-virus, and humans don't have a way of curing viruses I mean, I'm sure you know that, and were referring to flu vaccines. But if there was an anti-virus drug, HIV would be cured, perhaps cancer, ebola, you name it.

We do have ways of combating viruses! For one thing, there's our immune systems which can often develop a resistance to viral infections naturally (and it appears as though that's what's happening outside of Mexico, considering nobody but Mexicans have died from it). For another thing, there are anti-viral drugs which slow down the multiplication of the infection. Not to mention the new-fangled inferon drug treatment, which attempts to stimulate the immune system and make it combat a range of pathogens.

I'm no longer worried about this, although it is sad that Mexico have been dealt such a nasty hand at this table.