[Logaleta]

the most compelling reason why i believe much of what we are hearing is indeed fear-mongering by the media and others is the fact that almost nobody is pointing out that it was bacterial pneumonia which caused most of the deaths in 1918. in fact, the us department of health and human services national institutes of health issued a report on this just last august. i remember because i recall seeing it in the news at the time. yet almost nobody in either the government or the media is emphasizing this very important point now.

why would pneumonia be a problem in 1918? think about it. there were no antibiotics! david already touched upon this in his blog, but all of this is really driven home by the nih report:

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/aug2008/niaid-19.htm

so there really is no true correlation to the severity of the 1918 pandemic, except that the flu spread to many people. one cannot draw any parallels regarding the mortality rate, as statistically the 1918 pandemic would have much different mortality characteristics if it occurred today.

and another aspect of this i find interesting is that the government has made many little mention of making stockpiled antibiotics available. if they were following their own report, they would be prepared for that, but maybe there are sufficient quantities of antibiotics available already.

in peace,
bridgebuilder