Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : SARS - what next? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (941)	11/29/2004 10:03:11 PM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 1070

Mq, This morning's International Herald Tribune story definitely caught WHO's attention. Between this morning's story recombinomics.com and tonight's story in the New York Times recombinomics.com they brought out their big guns with MANY quotes, and I even lost my PhD degree.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (941)	12/1/2004 5:51:22 AM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 1070

Mq, If you really want to know how bad things can get, read The Threat of Pandemic Influenza: Are We Ready? Workshop Summary (2004) Board on Global Health (BGH) books.nap.edu In 1918 the population was 28% of today's population and the worldwide death toll appears to 50-100 million. The case fatality rate of H5N1 is considerably higher than 1918. This is from page 44: Here is part of a letter describing influenza sweep through troops. It does not sound like maodern medicine would help many: "These men start with what appears to be an ordinary attack of LaGrippe or Influenza and when brought to the Hosp. they very rapidly develop the most vicious type of Pneumonia that has ever bee seen...and a few hours later you can begin to see the Cyanosis extending from their ears and spreading all over the face, until it is hard to distinguish colored men from white. It is only a matter of a few hours until death comes...It is horrible. One can stand to see one, two, or twenty men die, but to see these poor devils dropping like flies...We have been averaging about 100 deaths per day...Pneumonia in all causes death...We have lost an outrageous number of Nurses and Drs. It takes special trains to carry away the dead. For several days there were no coffins and the bodies piled up something fierce.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (941)	12/1/2004 6:22:53 AM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1070

Mq, If the number dead isn't cause for concern, check out the symptoms for 1918 compared to 2004: From the bottom of page 45: Symptoms in 1918 were so unusual that initially influenza was misdiagnosed as dengue, as cholera, as typhoid. (The first reported human to human transmission of H5N1 in Thailand was initially diagnosed as dengue. recombinomics.com The thousands of dead ducks that were just reported in Vietnam were diagnosed as cholera. recombinomics.com ) Wrote one observer, "One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred." A German investigator recorded "hemorrhages occurring in different parts of the interior of the eye" with great frequency. An American pathologist noted: "Fifty case soft subconjunctival hemorrhage were counted. Twelve had true hemotosis, bright red blood with no admixture of mucus..Three cases had hemorrhage". The New York City Health Department's chief pathologist said "Cases with pain look and act like cases of Dengue..hemorrhage from nose or bronchi..peresis or paralysis of either cerebral or spinal origin..imparment of motion may be severe or mild, permanent or temporary..physical and mental depression. Intense and protracted prostration led to hysteria, melancholia, and insanity with suicidal intent." (Chickens infected with H5N1 and been reported to have looked fine in the morning followed by all dead by noon with blood oozing from every orafice).

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (941)	12/1/2004 6:40:13 AM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 1070

The report also comments on case mortality rates (which are 70-80% for H5N1) recombinomics.com The most reliable data was from the army camps where case mortality often exceeded 5% and in some instances 10%. British army in India had 9.6% for Caucasians and 21.9% for Indians. In Fiji islands, 14% of the population died in 16 days. In Labrador and Alaska at least 1/3 of the entire population died. A significant minority, and in some groups a majority of cases died from viral (not bacterial) pneumonia which was so violent that the lungs resembled those of victims of poison gas.