I just recieved this web link from a friend.
It helps explain alot more about the flu and other viruses than I ever imagined.
Dr. Mercola seems to be a very intelligent person and well versed on this topic.
Please use this link if you are having problems reading this newsletter:http://articles.mercola.com/sites/current.aspx
April 29, 2009 - Issue 1261
The newsletters are also available via RSS:
http://rss.mercola.com/NL/rss.aspx
Critical Alert: The Swine Flu Pandemic -- Fact or Fiction? (AA)
Urgent and vital information you need to know about the new swine flu threat that should help you sort through all the mixed messages the media is giving you.
Normally our editorial process has us test, research and review articles over a three week period before it finally reaches the newsletter. However, this article is an exception which is why it is coming out as a special alert.
The searches for swine flu on our search engine has broken all our records, so it is obvious there is an urgent and strong demand for this information. I regret that the report could not come out sooner but I was lecturing in Orlando last week at the American Academy of Anti Aging and when I went to return home on Saturday night, they closed O'Hare airport due to heavy rains - and they cancelled my flight. I was not able to get back to Chicago until Monday.
Read my ten page special report on this vital topic so you can avoid deception and manipulation by the conventional media.
Read on for more information:
Critical Alert: The Swine Flu Pandemic – Fact or Fiction?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Bankruptcy Looks Likely for Chrysler- And with Obama at the Healm
I say let this Automaker go the way of the Dinasour...
Enough is enough with helping to bail out these big boheamoths....
As I write this President Obama is currently speaking on tv about the new bailout plan that he is now talking about that includes Bankruptcy for the giant automaker....
His speech right now is talking about the deal that Fiat and Chrysler are working out with each other and how the government and the government of Canada are throwing money at this company to help stave off it's extinction...
When will all this shedding of OUR money to these big companies cease??
I think it will go on and on.......
I am starting to loose faith in this president. Where is he finding all this money? Pulling it off of trees??
He talks a good talk but I honestly feel he is going the wrong direction
So look for a new story soon but this was as of 58 minutes ago....
Bankruptcy Looks Likely for Chrysler - NYTimes.com
Enough is enough with helping to bail out these big boheamoths....
As I write this President Obama is currently speaking on tv about the new bailout plan that he is now talking about that includes Bankruptcy for the giant automaker....
His speech right now is talking about the deal that Fiat and Chrysler are working out with each other and how the government and the government of Canada are throwing money at this company to help stave off it's extinction...
When will all this shedding of OUR money to these big companies cease??
I think it will go on and on.......
I am starting to loose faith in this president. Where is he finding all this money? Pulling it off of trees??
He talks a good talk but I honestly feel he is going the wrong direction
So look for a new story soon but this was as of 58 minutes ago....
Bankruptcy Looks Likely for Chrysler - NYTimes.com
Tamiflu has unitended Side Effects...
Main Medicine for Swine Flu Has Disturbing Side Effects
The FDA, after receiving reports of self-injury, suicide and delirium, told the manufacturer of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to add a warning label to the medicine.
This is one of the drugs recommended to help treat, and perhaps even prevent, Swine Flu.
Children who took the drug in Japan 3 years ago exhibited these symptoms, which showed up within a day of their taking the drug. These reports came from Japan because the drug is prescribed far more frequently there.
The FDA, after receiving reports of self-injury, suicide and delirium, told the manufacturer of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to add a warning label to the medicine.
This is one of the drugs recommended to help treat, and perhaps even prevent, Swine Flu.
Children who took the drug in Japan 3 years ago exhibited these symptoms, which showed up within a day of their taking the drug. These reports came from Japan because the drug is prescribed far more frequently there.
HiN1 Flu-The Woman Who Started it All??
From Unknown Country's Website
The Woman Who Started It All??
The first person to die of Swine Flu in Oaxaca, Mexico, where the disease originated, was a 39-year-old female census taker who spread the disease throughout the city by making door-to-door visits to at least 300 people while she was highly contagious.
This woman might be called the Mexican version of "Typhoid Mary," who was an Irish woman in who lived in the second half of the nineteenth century. She was a chef who spread typhoid fever to over 50 people. She was finally identified as the source of the disease and despite denying it, was quarantined and died in 1938.
The NEW Typhoid Mary, Maria Adela Gutierrez, was admitted to a local hospital on April 8 and died five days later, 3 weeks before the new virus was officially identified.
The following link will take you to a google page where lots of info can be found on this modern "Typhoid Maria":
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GWYE_enUS307US307&q=Maria+Adela+Gutierrez
She is believed to have directly infected almost everyone she came into contact with, who then went on to spread the disease to other people.Hispanic researcher Scott Corrales states in his blog, that Mexican researcher Marco Reynoso, who is tracking flu developments in that country, is saying that the actual situation is not being reported.
He describes Mexico City as being nearly desolate, and that officials are believed to be denying that some cases, for example in Sinaloa on the Gulf of Cortez, are actually swine flu.
In Michoacan, three cases have been confirmed, but people are dying of similar symptoms and one person was incinerated just a few hours after death. This flu is probably not a bioweapon.
The first cases were reported from a town near a gigantic pig farm near the town of La Gloria, where a large number of people have been sick with flu-like symptoms, and one child is confirmed to have had swine flu, and to be among the first cases.
This outbreak is probably a natural result of mass concentration swine agribusiness practices in Mexico that have dramatically accelerated since the signing of NAFTA in '93.
Because of the rise of these gigantic farms, which are breeding ground for swine flu, outbreaks like this have been predicted for years.
The Smithfield Corporation, the world's largest pork processor, claims that its pigs are routinely vaccinated against swine flu and that their pigs were not infected. The Mexican pig industry goes farther, denying that the virus originated in pigs at all.
The UN plans to investigate Smithfield's farm as a possible source of the new strain of swine flu.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
An Excellent Primer on Swine Flu-Mexican Flu.....
...That is now becoming a pandemic affecting quite a few nations of the world.
The first cases have now been reported here in the Milwuakee area and I fear things will get worse before they get better. The Milwaukee Health officials have now closed three schools where infections are said to be present....indefinetely.
I am posting the story about Swine Flu and how it was predicted in it it's entirety. The story comes from New Scientist Magazine:
Swine flu: The predictable pandemic?
29 April 2009 by Debora MacKenzie
For similar stories, visit the Epidemics and Pandemics Topic Guide
THE swine flu virus has been a serious pandemic threat for years, New Scientist can reveal - but research into its potential has been neglected compared with other kinds of flu.
As New Scientist went to press, cases were being reported far from the original outbreak in Mexico. The clusters of milder infections in the US suggest the virus is spreading readily among people.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says this strain is so different from existing human flu viruses that most people have no immunity to it. There are no existing vaccines.
All this means the virus could go pandemic. Or it might not: if the virus spreads less readily than is feared, it might not be able to maintain itself in the human population and could fizzle out (see "What makes flu go global?").
We could have seen this coming, though. This type of virus emerged in the US in 1998 and has since become endemic on hog farms across North America.
Equipped with a suite of pig, bird and human genes, it was also evolving rapidly.
Flu infects many animals, including waterfowl, pigs and humans. Birds and people rarely catch flu viruses adapted to another host, but they can pass flu to pigs, which also have their own strains.If a pig catches two kinds of flu at once it can act as a mixing vessel, and hybrids can emerge with genes from both viruses.
This is what happened in the US in 1998.
Until then, American pigs had regular winter flu, much like people, caused by a mutated virus from the great human pandemic of 1918, which killed pigs as well as at least 50 million people worldwide. This virus was a member of the H1N1 family - with H and N being the virus's surface proteins haemagglutinin and neuraminidase.
Over decades, H1N1 evolved in pigs into a mild, purely swine flu, and became genetically fairly stable. In 1976, there was an outbreak of swine H1N1 in people at a military camp in New Jersey, with one death. The virus did not spread efficiently, though, and soon fizzled out.
But in 1998, says Richard Webby of St Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, swine H1N1 hybridised with human and bird viruses, resulting in "triple reassortants" that surfaced in Minnesota, Iowa and Texas.
The viruses initially had human surface proteins and swine internal proteins, with the exception of three genes that make RNA polymerase, the crucial enzyme the virus uses to replicate in its host. Two were from bird flu and one from human flu. Researchers believe that the bird polymerase allows the virus to replicate faster than those with the human or swine versions, making it more virulent.
By 1999, these viruses comprised the dominant flu strain in North American pigs and, unlike the swine virus they replaced, they were actively evolving. There are many versions with different pig or human surface proteins, including one, like the Mexican flu spreading now, with H1 and N1 from the original swine virus.
All these viruses still contained the same "cassette" of internal genes, including the avian and human polymerase genes, reports Amy Vincent of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Ames, Iowa (Advances in Virus Research, vol 72, p 127). "They are why the swine versions of this virus easily outcompete those that don't have them," says Webby.
But the viruses have been actively switching surface proteins to evade the pigs' immunity. There are now so many kinds of pig flu that it is no longer seasonal.
One in five US pig producers actually makes their own vaccines, says Vincent, as the vaccine industry cannot keep up with the changes.
This rapid evolution posed the "potential for pandemic influenza emergence in North America", Vincent said last year. Webby, too, warned in 2004 that pigs in the US are "an increasingly important reservoir of viruses with human pandemic potential". One in five US pig workers has been found to have antibodies to swine flu, showing they have been infected, but most people have no immunity to these viruses.
The virus's rapid evolution created the potential for a pandemic to emerge in North America
Our immune response to flu, which makes the difference between mild and potentially lethal disease, is mainly due to the H surface protein. The Mexican virus carries the swine version, so the antibodies we carry to human H1N1 viruses will not recognise it.
That's why the CDC warned last year that swine H1N1 would "represent a pandemic threat" if it started circulating in humans.
The avian polymerase genes are especially worrying, as similar genes are what make H5N1 bird flu lethal in mammals and what made the 1918 human pandemic virus so lethal in people. "We can't yet tell what impact they will have on pathogenicity in humans," says Webby.
It appears the threat has now resulted in the Mexican flu. "The triple reassortant in pigs seems to be the precursor," Robert Webster, also at St Jude's, told New Scientist.
While researchers focused on livestock problems could see the threat developing, it is not one that medical researchers focused on human flu viruses seemed to have been aware of. "It was confusing when we looked up the gene sequences in the database," says Wendy Barclay of Imperial College London, who has been studying swine flu from the recent US cases. "The polymerase gene sequences are bird and human, yet they were reported in viruses from pigs."
So where did the Mexican virus originate? The Veratect Corporation based in Kirkland, Washington, monitors world press and government reports to provide early disease warnings for clients, including the CDC. Their first inkling of the disease was a 2 April report of a surge in respiratory disease in a town called La Gloria, east of Mexico City, which resulted in the deaths of three young children. Only on 16 April - after Easter week, when millions of Mexicans travel to visit relatives - did reports surface elsewhere in the country.
Local reports in La Gloria blamed pig farms in nearby Perote owned by Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of US hog giant Smithfield Foods. The farms produce nearly a million pigs a year.
Smithfield Foods, in a statement, insists there are "no clinical signs or symptoms" of swine flu in its pigs or workers in Mexico. That is unsurprising, as the company says it "routinely administers influenza virus vaccination to swine herds and conducts monthly tests for the presence of swine influenza." The company would not tell New Scientist any more about recent tests. USDA researchers say that while vaccination keeps pigs from getting sick, it does not block infection or shedding of the virus.
All the evidence suggests that swine flu was a disaster waiting to happen. But it got little research attention, perhaps because it caused mild infections in people which didn't spread. Now one swine flu virus has stopped being so well-behaved.
What makes flu go global?
A "pandemic" is an epidemic that goes global, so technically there is a flu pandemic every year. But the term is usually reserved for bad outbreaks that follow large changes in the virus.
The influenza virus constantly evolves, and pandemics happen every few decades when the flu virus gets new surface proteins that people have little immunity to, generally because they come from an animal strain. The lack of immunity means the virus affects more people more severely.
That's why H5N1 bird flu is so dangerous. Its H5 surface protein is totally new to humans, and the virus has killed more than half of the people it infected. It or another bird flu that can infect humans, such as a virus from the H7 or H9 families, only needs to become readily contagious to go pandemic.
H1N1 has received less attention partly because an H1N1 strain already circulates in humans.
The problem is the Mexican strain carries different versions of H1. Still, that alone is not enough to make this virus pandemic.
It must also transmit efficiently in people. Every victim must infect more than one other person for the virus to spread. The new strain could do this, as it is packing an altogether faster engine than previous H1N1 strains. It has an avian gene that has powered it to dominance in pigs, though no one knows for certain if this will make it dangerous in people.
The first cases have now been reported here in the Milwuakee area and I fear things will get worse before they get better. The Milwaukee Health officials have now closed three schools where infections are said to be present....indefinetely.
I am posting the story about Swine Flu and how it was predicted in it it's entirety. The story comes from New Scientist Magazine:
Swine flu: The predictable pandemic?
29 April 2009 by Debora MacKenzie
For similar stories, visit the Epidemics and Pandemics Topic Guide
THE swine flu virus has been a serious pandemic threat for years, New Scientist can reveal - but research into its potential has been neglected compared with other kinds of flu.
As New Scientist went to press, cases were being reported far from the original outbreak in Mexico. The clusters of milder infections in the US suggest the virus is spreading readily among people.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says this strain is so different from existing human flu viruses that most people have no immunity to it. There are no existing vaccines.
All this means the virus could go pandemic. Or it might not: if the virus spreads less readily than is feared, it might not be able to maintain itself in the human population and could fizzle out (see "What makes flu go global?").
We could have seen this coming, though. This type of virus emerged in the US in 1998 and has since become endemic on hog farms across North America.
Equipped with a suite of pig, bird and human genes, it was also evolving rapidly.
Flu infects many animals, including waterfowl, pigs and humans. Birds and people rarely catch flu viruses adapted to another host, but they can pass flu to pigs, which also have their own strains.If a pig catches two kinds of flu at once it can act as a mixing vessel, and hybrids can emerge with genes from both viruses.
This is what happened in the US in 1998.
Until then, American pigs had regular winter flu, much like people, caused by a mutated virus from the great human pandemic of 1918, which killed pigs as well as at least 50 million people worldwide. This virus was a member of the H1N1 family - with H and N being the virus's surface proteins haemagglutinin and neuraminidase.
Over decades, H1N1 evolved in pigs into a mild, purely swine flu, and became genetically fairly stable. In 1976, there was an outbreak of swine H1N1 in people at a military camp in New Jersey, with one death. The virus did not spread efficiently, though, and soon fizzled out.
But in 1998, says Richard Webby of St Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, swine H1N1 hybridised with human and bird viruses, resulting in "triple reassortants" that surfaced in Minnesota, Iowa and Texas.
The viruses initially had human surface proteins and swine internal proteins, with the exception of three genes that make RNA polymerase, the crucial enzyme the virus uses to replicate in its host. Two were from bird flu and one from human flu. Researchers believe that the bird polymerase allows the virus to replicate faster than those with the human or swine versions, making it more virulent.
By 1999, these viruses comprised the dominant flu strain in North American pigs and, unlike the swine virus they replaced, they were actively evolving. There are many versions with different pig or human surface proteins, including one, like the Mexican flu spreading now, with H1 and N1 from the original swine virus.
All these viruses still contained the same "cassette" of internal genes, including the avian and human polymerase genes, reports Amy Vincent of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Ames, Iowa (Advances in Virus Research, vol 72, p 127). "They are why the swine versions of this virus easily outcompete those that don't have them," says Webby.
But the viruses have been actively switching surface proteins to evade the pigs' immunity. There are now so many kinds of pig flu that it is no longer seasonal.
One in five US pig producers actually makes their own vaccines, says Vincent, as the vaccine industry cannot keep up with the changes.
This rapid evolution posed the "potential for pandemic influenza emergence in North America", Vincent said last year. Webby, too, warned in 2004 that pigs in the US are "an increasingly important reservoir of viruses with human pandemic potential". One in five US pig workers has been found to have antibodies to swine flu, showing they have been infected, but most people have no immunity to these viruses.
The virus's rapid evolution created the potential for a pandemic to emerge in North America
Our immune response to flu, which makes the difference between mild and potentially lethal disease, is mainly due to the H surface protein. The Mexican virus carries the swine version, so the antibodies we carry to human H1N1 viruses will not recognise it.
That's why the CDC warned last year that swine H1N1 would "represent a pandemic threat" if it started circulating in humans.
The avian polymerase genes are especially worrying, as similar genes are what make H5N1 bird flu lethal in mammals and what made the 1918 human pandemic virus so lethal in people. "We can't yet tell what impact they will have on pathogenicity in humans," says Webby.
It appears the threat has now resulted in the Mexican flu. "The triple reassortant in pigs seems to be the precursor," Robert Webster, also at St Jude's, told New Scientist.
While researchers focused on livestock problems could see the threat developing, it is not one that medical researchers focused on human flu viruses seemed to have been aware of. "It was confusing when we looked up the gene sequences in the database," says Wendy Barclay of Imperial College London, who has been studying swine flu from the recent US cases. "The polymerase gene sequences are bird and human, yet they were reported in viruses from pigs."
So where did the Mexican virus originate? The Veratect Corporation based in Kirkland, Washington, monitors world press and government reports to provide early disease warnings for clients, including the CDC. Their first inkling of the disease was a 2 April report of a surge in respiratory disease in a town called La Gloria, east of Mexico City, which resulted in the deaths of three young children. Only on 16 April - after Easter week, when millions of Mexicans travel to visit relatives - did reports surface elsewhere in the country.
Local reports in La Gloria blamed pig farms in nearby Perote owned by Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of US hog giant Smithfield Foods. The farms produce nearly a million pigs a year.
Smithfield Foods, in a statement, insists there are "no clinical signs or symptoms" of swine flu in its pigs or workers in Mexico. That is unsurprising, as the company says it "routinely administers influenza virus vaccination to swine herds and conducts monthly tests for the presence of swine influenza." The company would not tell New Scientist any more about recent tests. USDA researchers say that while vaccination keeps pigs from getting sick, it does not block infection or shedding of the virus.
All the evidence suggests that swine flu was a disaster waiting to happen. But it got little research attention, perhaps because it caused mild infections in people which didn't spread. Now one swine flu virus has stopped being so well-behaved.
What makes flu go global?
A "pandemic" is an epidemic that goes global, so technically there is a flu pandemic every year. But the term is usually reserved for bad outbreaks that follow large changes in the virus.
The influenza virus constantly evolves, and pandemics happen every few decades when the flu virus gets new surface proteins that people have little immunity to, generally because they come from an animal strain. The lack of immunity means the virus affects more people more severely.
That's why H5N1 bird flu is so dangerous. Its H5 surface protein is totally new to humans, and the virus has killed more than half of the people it infected. It or another bird flu that can infect humans, such as a virus from the H7 or H9 families, only needs to become readily contagious to go pandemic.
H1N1 has received less attention partly because an H1N1 strain already circulates in humans.
The problem is the Mexican strain carries different versions of H1. Still, that alone is not enough to make this virus pandemic.
It must also transmit efficiently in people. Every victim must infect more than one other person for the virus to spread. The new strain could do this, as it is packing an altogether faster engine than previous H1N1 strains. It has an avian gene that has powered it to dominance in pigs, though no one knows for certain if this will make it dangerous in people.
First U.S. swine flu death reported
And the prize goes to a 23 month old baby from Texas as the 1st U.S. casualty of the Swine Flu.
Let the numbers begin to pile up......
U.S. Human Cases of Swine Flu Infection(As of April 28, 2009, 11:00 AM ET)
The State and the # of laboratory confirmed cases
California
10 cases
Kansas
2 cases
New York City
45 cases
Ohio
1 case
Texas
6 cases
TOTAL COUNT
64 cases
International Human Cases of Swine Flu Infection See: World Health Organization
Read on:
First U.S. swine flu death reported - JSOnline
Let the numbers begin to pile up......
U.S. Human Cases of Swine Flu Infection(As of April 28, 2009, 11:00 AM ET)
The State and the # of laboratory confirmed cases
California
10 cases
Kansas
2 cases
New York City
45 cases
Ohio
1 case
Texas
6 cases
TOTAL COUNT
64 cases
International Human Cases of Swine Flu Infection See: World Health Organization
Read on:
First U.S. swine flu death reported - JSOnline
Monday, April 27, 2009
Pandemic, Economic Ruin, Global Warming.....Armageddon??
Wow is all I have to say.
The world sure is going through a hell of a lot right now and it just keeps on coming.
If the worsening weather patterns over the course of the last few years were not enough (add a 5.0 earthquake that shook Mexico today....ha ha)we are now adding to that with a very uncertain economic future for the world civilization and just as that is hitting (Today alone GM announced 20,000 U.S. job cuts and the elimination of the Pontiac Auto Line), we now have a potential "World Killer Flu" taking hold on the planet....this is all too crazy and almost too much information to take in....my brain is fried!!
After reading a few articles this evening, I came across this little snippet from a news story that the AP produced which may offer a beginning point for this latest world hopping virus:
Cordova said 1,995 people have been hospitalized with serious cases of pneumonia since the first case of swine flu was reported April 13. The government does not yet know how many were swine flu.
He said tests show a 4-year-old boy contracted the virus before April 2 in Veracruz state, where a community has been protesting pollution from a large pig farm.
The farm is run by Granjas Carroll de Mexico, a joint venture half owned by Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, Inc. Spokeswoman Keira Ullrich said the company has found no clinical signs or symptoms of the presence of swine flu in its herd or its employees working anywhere in Mexico.
Mexico's Agriculture Department said Monday that its inspectors found no sign of swine flu among pigs around the farm in Veracruz, and that no infected pigs have been found yet anywhere in Mexico.
He said tests show a 4-year-old boy contracted the virus before April 2 in Veracruz state, where a community has been protesting pollution from a large pig farm.
The farm is run by Granjas Carroll de Mexico, a joint venture half owned by Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, Inc. Spokeswoman Keira Ullrich said the company has found no clinical signs or symptoms of the presence of swine flu in its herd or its employees working anywhere in Mexico.
Mexico's Agriculture Department said Monday that its inspectors found no sign of swine flu among pigs around the farm in Veracruz, and that no infected pigs have been found yet anywhere in Mexico.
And to think a U.S. Company (at least the farm is partly owned by a corporation in the U.S.) may have some link to what started in Mexico....very interesting.
(see below for a sypnosis from the U.S. government as sent to me in an email from a friend and then read on after):
Situation: A National Incident Communications Conference Line (NICCL) call wasconducted April 26, 2009 at 2:15 pm EST to discuss the federal coordinationand response to MX/Swine Flu outbreak.
Participants included Statecommunicators from California and New York, DHS OPA, USDA, DNI, DOJ, EPA, HHS, VA,American Red Cross, CBP, FEMA, ICE, DHS Civil Rights Civil Liberties, DHS Private Sector and Health Affairs Offices, NGB, USNORTHCOM,USCG, and TSA.
International communicators on the NICCL were from Public Safety Canada,Public Health Canada, representatives from the EU Health Commission, Germany Public Health office, the United Kingdom
Public Health Office and the Mexican Embassy.The call was led by Chad Wood, DHS Incident Communications and Bill Hall,Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, HHS. Summary:
The White House press briefing announced today that as of 12:30pmET there were 20 confirmed cases of swine flu in the U.S and one additional suspected case.
Public Health Office and the Mexican Embassy.The call was led by Chad Wood, DHS Incident Communications and Bill Hall,Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, HHS. Summary:
The White House press briefing announced today that as of 12:30pmET there were 20 confirmed cases of swine flu in the U.S and one additional suspected case.
Confirmed cases announced include:
New York City: 8,
Ohio:1,
Kansas: 2,
Texas: 2 (and one additional suspected case in TX),
California: 7.
Key Facts:
CDC continues to assist Mexican health officials in the investigation
To date, all 20 patients/cases in the U.S. have recovered.
No decision yet by WHO to change phase** level for pandemicinfluenza plan or to declare a public health emergency.
No U.S. travel restrictions are posted.
No border restrictions are in effect.
CDC continues to assist Mexican health officials in the investigation
To date, all 20 patients/cases in the U.S. have recovered.
No decision yet by WHO to change phase** level for pandemicinfluenza plan or to declare a public health emergency.
No U.S. travel restrictions are posted.
No border restrictions are in effect.
(The rest of the email can be found at the bottom of this post)
What next??
The release of information that we reveals that alien speicies are among us on this planet?
I would not be suprised in the least.
A foot note of sorts:
Did anyone hear about the 747 escorted by two fighter jets:
(click on link above to watch the video and link below to read the story):By the way who is the man in the black "costume" towards the end of the video with that senator?? He looks like one of the characters (think Darth Vader's assistant) from Star Wars..OMG!!
(which was supposedly an empty "Airforce One" plane) that flew through the Manhattan skyline today and freaked out tons of Highrise office workers in downtown NYC?? I would have been like "Oh my the world really is ending"......
More on this as things evolve.....
Rest of Government Email continued:
ControlLead State Responsibilities
State Public Heath: California, Texas, Ohio, New York, Kansas
Lead Federal Responsibilities
Lead Federal strategic communications direction - White HouseCommunications
Lead Federal Communications Coordination - DHS Public Affairs
Lead Federal Public Health - HHS/CDC
Lead International (Consular Affairs) – DOS
Coordination
NICCL 1 will be the primary coordination line
DHS National JIC (nationaljic@dhs.gov) was activated remotelytoday and will be staffed tomorrow beginning at 8:30am ET
State Public Heath: California, Texas, Ohio, New York, Kansas
Lead Federal Responsibilities
Lead Federal strategic communications direction - White HouseCommunications
Lead Federal Communications Coordination - DHS Public Affairs
Lead Federal Public Health - HHS/CDC
Lead International (Consular Affairs) – DOS
Coordination
NICCL 1 will be the primary coordination line
DHS National JIC (nationaljic@dhs.gov) was activated remotelytoday and will be staffed tomorrow beginning at 8:30am ET
Director of Incident Comms: Jeff Karonis, 202-282-8014 or703-674-6738
HHS, Acting Secretary for Public Affairs, Bill Hall,202-690-6344 or 202-459-7175
Chad Wood, 202-282-8151 or 202-538-5211
Communication
HHS, Acting Secretary for Public Affairs, Bill Hall,202-690-6344 or 202-459-7175
Chad Wood, 202-282-8151 or 202-538-5211
Communication
WHITE HOUSE
The White House conducted a press briefing today at 12:30 pm ET to providean update about the swine influenza. The briefing consisted of SecretaryJanet Napolitano, DHS, Richard Besser, MD, Acting Director, CDC and JohnBrennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security.DHS: Secretary Napolitano announced that the Department of HHS has declared theswine flu cases as a public health emergency.
The Secretary was designated as the Principal Federal Official (PFO) forIncident Management to coordinate the Federal response to the swine fluoutbreak. Secretary Napolitano is doing NBC nightly news tonight and Morning Joe at7:15 tomorrow morning.
HHS Bill Hall provided a summary from the White House press briefing.
He also explained why there is a lag time between the time State public healthofficials report a case and the CDC.
The CDC confirms the results once theyreceive lab results from State health officials. No travel restrictions are in place due to the swine flu. An outbreaknotice went out today - if you're planning to travel make sure you're awareof the local situation and check for updates to vaccinations.
All U.S. (20) patients / cases have recovered. CDC DHS, Richard Besser, MD, Acting Director, participated in the White Housepress briefing. New travel recommendations, use of mask in community settings and otherinformation can be found on www.cdc.gov/swineflu andhttp://www.cdc.gov/flu/swine/investigation.htm
You can reach the CDC PIO contact at nrb0@cdc.gov during normal businesshours and at the EOC/JIC functional mailbox at eocjicpubh@cdc.gov and (404)838-7179 from 7 am to 8 pm eastern OPM OPM leadership is working on providing guidance for Federal employees.
There are several provisions for emergency pay and off site work guidance ifnecessary for employees who are directed to stay home.
No Federal employment decisions make been made at this time.
California
California reported an additional confirmed case in Imperial County.
Thismost recent case was confirmed yesterday has been discharged; local cases isnow three; so far they are all recuperating.
Texas
According to yesterday's press release, the Texas Department of State HealthServices announced that Byron Steele High School in Cibolo will temporarilyclose effective immediately as public health and school officials work tokeep swine influenza from spreading.
Swine flu was confirmed earlier this month in two students from the school,and a third student is listed as a probable case with confirmatory lab testresults pending.
The original two have recovered, and the third isrecovering. The school is part of the Schertz-Cibolo-Universal CityIndependent School District in Guadalupe County near San Antonio. More information about Texas cases can be found on this page:http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/news/releases/swine_flu.shtm
New York
Governor David A. Paterson is in New York City. He is holding a 5:30pm pressconference on swine flu today. NYC and NY State communicators discussed the confirmed cases of human swine flu among students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens. The school is suspending classes on Monday. The affected students have experienced only mild symptoms and many are already improving. Eight cases tested in Long Island turned out to be negative.NYC Health Dept website is:http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/home/home.shtml
NYC has established a call center to answer general questions for thepublic.
Ohio:
>From the SICCL call at 4pm: The Ohio Governor will conduct a press briefingtoday with Ohio public health at 5:30pm ET to discuss it single case.
Mexico: The Mexican Embassy provided clarification on discrepancies reported by themedia. "For the record: 20 dead by the, 61 suspected of victims of havingthe flu with confirmation today or tomorrow and 1,324 patients throughoutthe country with symptoms. The Mexican government is conducting an extensive public informationcampaign to include some of the country's most remote areas informing theircitizens how to take appropriate measures to prevent illness.
Canada
Canada PHA - Officials in Nova Scotia conducted a press conference earliertoday to discuss 4 cases in Nova Scotia. The cases are mild, nohospitalizations in NS. Canada expects a 3pm Eastern press briefing in British Columbia today.There are 2 cases there in the west; Canada, Chief of Public Health Officewill give an update. Public Health Agency of Canada has issued a travel notice as a precautionarymeasure:http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/tmp-pmv/2009/swine_flu_cal-tex-090425-eng.php
Germany
A Germany Health Official discussed one suspected case with no firm details. European Union Health Commission No further decisions for European
Travel restrictions
CBP: CBP and the CDC continue to work in a collaborative interagency manner todevelop policies, procedures, and protocols to identify travelers that areknown by US public health officials to have a communicable disease and tohandle in a manner that minimizes risk to the public. These procedures havebeen utilized collaboratively by both agencies on a number of occasions withpositive results. When a traveler is identified with a possible communicable disease oridentified from information that is received from the CDC, the CBP Officerwill take the appropriate safety measures.
The traveler may be isolated from other travelers and given a surgical maskto wear. CDC will be notified along with local public health authorities.The public is urged to be mindful of the potential health risks to othersand seriously heed the advice of medical professionals if diagnosed with apotentially communicable disease.
There are no travel advisories in effect and ports of entry in the UntiedStates remain open. ICEWorking on a plan for detention centers in the event cases are reported. DHS Strategic Communications:
The HHS/CDC widget is live on http://www.dhs.gov/. It includes links to swine flu general information, the ongoing public health investigation and safety measures.
It is updated by HHS so it will remain current.
The White House press briefing transcript is posted on the dhs.gov website.
Note a DHS SItate Incident Communications Conference Line (SICCL) call was conducted at 4pm with communicators from:Arizona, California, Delaware, Georgia, Guam, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana,Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, NewHampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania,Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, HHS, OPM, CDC, FEMA hq and numerous FEMA regions. _______________________________________________
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