Fall 1918, relief can be felt as the Great war of Europe was coming to an end, armed with rifles, machine guns, bombs and cannons, and the worst weapon the Germans used against their enemies, mustard gas, as the new world emerged looking different. What was unexpected no one could have predicted, a new war was emerging far deadlier then the brutal years in the trenches, this war no amount of advanced weapons could kill the enemy, but the enemy killed millions. This war came in the most natural form, not a war of man against man but a war of man against nature; its name, the Spanish flu.
In March and April of 1918 the first wave of this influenza emerged, unfortunately due to all the attention on the war people around the world failed to notice the new enemy digging a path, quick and silent. By the fall of 1918, people were dying in the thousands, men to sick to fight in the trenches and as a new world of peace emerged, this new enemy didn’t target a cause, or peace or freedoms, it didn’t care which side you were on, or your status in life, this enemy knew no boundaries.
By the end of the epidemic in 1920, estimates that 50 to 100 million people died of the estimated 500 million infected worldwide.
What is different today then 90 years ago when it comes to influenza? Today besides our medical advancements in identifying strains as they are emerging and the communication advancement for warnings of impending viruses, in today’s society people with mild cases of influenza continue with their daily living, shopping, work, school. Those who feel the effects of influenza enough to immobilize them stay home in bed and those with severe cases are in hospitals quarantined. Life was different 90 years ago, a world war was in progress, men in trenches with a mild case of the flu, stayed, and those who were severely sick were loaded onto crowded trains put in crowded field hospitals with no ways of quarantine but spreading the deadly virus faster. Those who recovered from the first wave were lucky enough to gain immunity as the second wave emerged in a deadlier form by August as it swept through from city to city, state to state, and country to country.
This virus crept up in the spring, mutated to a deadlier form by autumn, but died off just as quickly, it came, it killed, and it left. A known pattern of the Spanish flu was it did kill younger healthy adults, but remembering during the war soldiers fighting in the trenches exposed to days without sleep, stress levels in high gear and conditions that would make any healthy body unable to fight off this kind of attack. Older adults at the time seemed less affected by the virus, this possibly because of 1889 pandemic of the Russian flu. This influenza didn’t strike during the usual season of winter months but the summer/autumn months in the Northern Hemisphere it peaked.
The entire pandemic strain of the actual flu lasted only nine months; it was the following year into 1920 the aftermath of secondary bacterial infections appeared, those who contracted it death was primarily from pneumonia whereas the slower progressing cases led to bacterial pneumonia and from malnourishment.
In 1976, fear flew into high gear when one Fort Dix army recruit died after contracting the swine flu, immediately a vaccine was put into force as 48,161,019 American were inoculated. The vaccine proved to do more harm then good when 1098 cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome and 25 deaths occurred. Soon after the immunization program was halted but it was too late for many who trusted the government, believing this would turn into another 1918 pandemic. According to an article in The Toronto Star, in 1976 Nobel Peace Prize winning scientist Linus Pauling “argued that Vitamin C would fight swine flu better than any vaccine.”
Since 1976 there have been other smaller outbreaks of the swine flu, in 1988, a 32-year-old pregnant woman contracted the virus after her and her husband was at a county fair in Wisconsin. The 32-year-old, eight month pregnant woman died 8 days later from pneumonia but not before inducing labour and a healthy baby girl was born. Her husband recovered from the flu. Other’s at the fair mainly exhibitors aged 9-19 tested positive for the antibody but no illness was detected. Three health care workers who had contact with the 32-year-old woman developed flu like symptoms with evidence of contracting the swine flu, but all three recovered.
In 1998, swine flu was found in pigs in four states in the U.S., it took a year for the virus to spread throughout pig populations in the United States.
In 2007 an outbreak of swine flu in hog farms across the Philippines raised a hog cholera red alert across the country.
Now we are faced again with another scare of yet another H1N1 virus, and although it has spread over the summer months since it reared it’s first symptoms in April, still more people die annually from the flu influenza then the swine flu has killed to date. It’s estimated annually between 6,500-7,500 Mexicans die from the seasonal flu, 36,000 Americans and according to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the seasonal flu kills approximately 2,500 Canadians a year. The total estimate worldwide deaths occur from seasonal influenza 250,000-500,000 people.
As our fear level has heightened there are pockets of those who are rushing to get the H1N1 vaccine, and those who are standing back with concern over the harmful effects this new vaccine can produce. How safe can a vaccine created in such a short time period be without longer testing and enough known about the virus and whom it is really causing fatalities.
Director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci has admitted he does not know how the human immunity responds to vaccinations when speaking of the HIV experimental vaccine. One article I read raising a red flag of getting this vaccine stresses we should consider what other health professionals are saying regarding the use of the H1N1 vaccine government health officials are so eager to give.
“Government health “experts” leading “biopreparedness” campaigns, including Dr. Fauci, neglect these common sense, highly effective, low cost, no risk alternatives to deadly vaccinations. They exclusively promote flu vaccines “fast-tracked” for administration this fall; falsely claiming their safety and efficacy.”
“There’s no possible way these “fast-track trials,” lasting only six weeks, can assure safety,” Dr. Horowitz warns. “Most vaccine injuries occur months, not weeks, following injection.” source
Let’s ask ourselves, if the 1918 flu pandemic and 1976 pandemic is thought to have passed on immunity to generations now as we hear from health officials, how many people since this outbreak has probably encountered someone that has contracted the swine flu already this season as the increase began over the summer months as did the Spanish Flu in 1918? Is it possible this flu will die out just as quickly as the pandemic of 1918, or labeled a farce with deadly effects as the 1976 swine flu outbreak that never was and health officials are continuing to look for a needle in a haystack that just isn’t there?
2. Right-Click then Copy
3. Paste the HTML code into your webpage
