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gosh, we have the brightest president ever!
of course it’s the presidents fault… I’d like to just pretend that we don’t have three branches of government and countless other agencies that are in charge of this kind of stuff. Oh, I think I’ll blame it on John Kerry whose been in his office for 20 years vs. Bush whose been there for 4. look at both sides… that’s all I ask. Both candidates suck but we can’t pretend that the president is responsible for everything. God….
Influenza is a virus, which last time I checked were incurable and all that can be done is fight the symptoms or at best try and prevent it with a vaccine, which doesn’t always work. Bacterial diseases (which Anthrax is) are curable, which is why so much is spent to find better/faster ways to cure them.
And I have to agree with Andrew, the person you should blame isn’t just Bush. I am not saying that there is some fault on his fault but there is fault in other places (namely Congress). People just like to one side things so that they fit their viewpoint.
Thank you for agreeing Stephan,
People really need to learn the lesson the Jon Stewart was trying to tell those boys over at crossfire. I’d explain it but it’s better if you’d watch it yourself.
Leaving the elected officials aside for a moment…
The vaccine is helpful since it helps prevent fatalities among the old and young, not cures the flu. To say that it’s incurable may be correct, but it’s certainly no argument against research or weakening the impact of potentially fatal strains.
There is no such thing as a ‘fatal strain’ of the influenza virus. There are three types of the virus that all have the same symptoms and effects but they differ in the way they split and reproduce. The way the flu kills is by causing complications with other diseases/infections/weak immune systems (which is why babies and senior citizens are at risk). Like I said before, the flu vaccine works but not 100% of the time. The statistic that is missing is the one that gives the amount of people who receive the vaccine but still get the flu and as a result of complications pass away.
I have no problem with more research going towards influenza but I think that anthrax and influenza (no matter the death rates) are on different playing fields. You can come in contact with the influenza virus and not catch it because your immune system is able to fight it but I haven’t read any reports of anthrax being something that the immune system can fight by itself.
According to the CDC the shot for elderly nursing home residents is 80% effective in preventing death from the flu. http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/flushot.htm
I hope the decision of priorities is not purely a political one but a well reasoned one. Hazards don’t just come from terrorists. Talk about a different playing field, I hope something like Spanish flu (20 to 50 million deaths in one year; nobody knows exactly) never returns.
From the little I know about the Spanish flu it was attacking healthy immune systems and since people who have strong immune systems (teens, young adults) do not usually get flu shots then it could happen. Yeah, that’s scary.