Did you know that flu viruses with the characteristics H1N1 are quite common in humans? Some years they occur more frequently than others. The vaccine makers adapt their product to the virus types that they expect to predominate that particular year. But some years they gamble wrong. I'll bet they didn't include H1N1 in this season's vaccine, and now they're making a big deal out of Swine Flu.
Pigs also have a whole slew of flu viruses: H1N1, H1N2, H3N1, H3N2, etc.
The reassortment of genetic material (RNA) really occurs... mainly in cell cultures in the lab. From these experiments it is concluded that it must also take place inside human body cells. As I said before, this is possible but not very probable.
The CDC is presenting us with old wives' tales such as the following:
"In September 1988, a previously healthy 32-year-old pregnant woman was hospitalized for pneumonia and died 8 days later. A swine H1N1 flu virus was detected. Four days before getting sick, the patient visited a county fair swine exhibition where there was widespread influenza-like illness among the swine."
Oh, sure! They found something that reacted H1N1, and the woman had visited a county fair. So it had to be a swine flu virus that killed her, right? No question about it. <sigh> With this kind of sloppy reasoning, science will be gradually pushed back into the dark ages.
And the gullible public buys all this hogwash? I need a dark corner to cry...
Saturday, May 9, 2009
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