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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (42651)10/6/2005 8:40:31 PM
From: Karen Lawrence  Respond to of 361203
 
1918 influenza: It spread following the path of its human carriers, along trade routes and shipping lines. Outbreaks swept through North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Brazil and the South Pacific (Taubenberger). In India the mortality rate was extremely high at around 50 deaths from influenza per 1,000 people (Brown). The Great War, with its mass movements of men in armies and aboard ships, probably aided in its rapid diffusion and attack. The origins of the deadly flu disease were unknown but widely speculated upon. Some of the allies thought of the epidemic as a biological warfare tool of the Germans. Many thought it was a result of the trench warfare, the use of mustard gases and the generated "smoke and fumes" of the war. A national campaign began using the ready rhetoric of war to fight the new enemy of microscopic proportions. A study attempted to reason why the disease had been so devastating in certain localized regions, looking at the climate, the weather and the racial composition of cities. They found humidity to be linked with more severe epidemics as it "fosters the dissemination of the bacteria," (Committee on Atmosphere and Man, 1923). Meanwhile the new sciences of the infectious agents and immunology were racing to come up with a vaccine or therapy to stop the epidemics



To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (42651)10/6/2005 8:44:34 PM
From: Karen Lawrence  Respond to of 361203
 
It started in the US: The name of Spanish Flu came from the early affliction and large mortalities in Spain (BMJ,10/19/1918) where it allegedly killed 8 million in May (BMJ, 7/13/1918). However, a first wave of influenza appeared early in the spring of 1918 in Kansas and in military camps throughout the US. Few noticed the epidemic in the midst of the war. Wilson had just given his 14 point address. There was virtually no response or acknowledgment to the epidemics in March and April in the military camps. It was unfortunate that no steps were taken to prepare for the usual recrudescence of the virulent influenza strain in the winter. The lack of action was later criticized when the epidemic could not be ignored in the winter of 1918 (BMJ, 1918). These first epidemics at training camps were a sign of what was coming in greater magnitude in the fall and winter of 1918 to the entire world.



To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (42651)10/6/2005 8:46:28 PM
From: SiouxPal  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 361203
 
It is now jumping from one animal to another. No human connectivity. That's one mutation away.
Oh! Am I not to start a genetic mutation thing here?
That would explain our creation, and such dire things as that.
Me and my orangatan cousins?



To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (42651)10/6/2005 8:48:04 PM
From: SiouxPal  Respond to of 361203
 
(new keyboard tomorrow)



To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (42651)10/6/2005 9:07:42 PM
From: Karen Lawrence  Respond to of 361203
 
Most often, mammals to man, not birds to man. from what i read just now.