Here Is Why I Changed My Mind About Swine Flu

I suspect that for most people their concern about swine flu peaked the day that the World Health Organization raised their warning level all the way up to level 6 and declared that they were at "full pandemic status". Since then the world has not melted or anything, so we have all gone back to business as usual. I know that I have, and I think most people have taken the view that this thing is pretty much yesterday's story and that swine flu is about as harmful as a drink of water.

And you know what? So far, it looks as if that's about right (yes, some people have died of swine flu complications, but a lot less than were initially expected). I have to admit that I was starting to feel the same way, but I have just finished reading a book called "Survive Pandemic Flu - Understand and Protect Against Novel Strains Of Influenza", and what I found out is that looks can be deceiving when it comes to strains of flu. The author points out that the last time we saw a flu strain like this novel H1N1 strain begin spreading around the world, it ended with the deaths of about 100 million people.

It did not happen that long ago either. It was 1918, less than a century ago. An H1N1 strain came out of nowhere at about the same time of the year, spring time, and then vanished a month or two later without causing much of a problem. But then it came back in the fall.

This time it was completely changed, and that dopey virus that caused little loss of sleep in the early part of the year was suddenly dropping people in their tracks. Those that turned blue did not last very long, and in most cities around the world they quickly ran out of coffins and had to stack corpses in makeshift piles and bury them in mass graves.

Well, I could go on about the obvious parallels between the strain that emerged in 1918 and the one we are dealing with in 2009. But really, I would only be scratching the surface of a very involved story that actually goes back to Abraham Lincoln and something he did during the Civil War. Something which guaranteed that even if nature acting on its own does not come up with a twin version of that 1918 strain, we may yet get to experience it again anyway.

That was just one of the surprising things I discovered in Survive Pandemic Flu, and I can guarantee you that those "idiot" WHO officials that we all laughed at earlier when they raised the alarm and then nothing bad seemed to happen, well, they aren't quite the idiots we made them out to be. Not by a long shot.

Trust me, if you think all those swine flu warnings were hype and that our troubles are now behind us, then you are going to be one of the 99 percent of the population that gets caught with its pants down when the nasty hits the fan. No one knows whether it will be this year, the next, or five years from now. But if you would rather be among the one percent whose family isn't taken by surprise, get ahold of this book. Heck, for the cost of cheap family meal you get an education that might just save the life of a family member one day.

So drop what you are doing, and check out
Survive Pandemic Flu
right now so that you can get prepared well ahead of time. I know that my family is going to be a lot better off for me having learned what is in this book, and what I can do to make sure they are protected as much as possible against any pandemic threat - no matter when it makes its appearance.

Usually when someone tells you that some book they are recommending may be the most important one you will read this year, you already KNOW that it is a line. But in this case, that's just not true. At any rate, you can decide for yourself when you go check it out. You can thank me later for pointing you in the right direction.

Here is that URL one more time: http://survivepandemicflu.spcoffer.com/

At the very least, sign up to grab the introductory chapters of the book. If you read those and you still think you and your family have nothing to fear from the next pandemic you will at least know where to find the information later if you discover you were wrong.

Will You Be Denied The Swine Flu Shot?

Nobody enjoys going to get a flu shot, but we do expect that if we want one, getting in line for it should simply be a matter of showing up for the event. But what if that was not the case? What if you discovered that you were actually turned away from an inoculation center because you did not fit a predefined "profile" for who is eligible to receive a shot?

Ironically, in a year in which a pandemic strain is circling the globe, this is a very real possibility. Right now it looks as though swine flu vaccines will be in short supply until sometime in 2010. That means no everyone can be vaccinated against the new pandemic virus.

Right now this is not a huge concern, because the virus has not been the cause of a huge number of deaths. In fact, it has so far caused no more misery than the seasonal flu, which claims up to a half million lives across the globe every year. But that could change quickly, and if the new swine flu strain suddenly proves to be significantly more lethal than it has been, people will want to be vaccinated, and finding themselves denied the shot could be very worrisome.

So who *will* be allowed to get the shot when it first becomes available? First responders to emergencies need to remain healthy, as do doctors and other health workers who will take care of the sick. Members of the military are also likely to go into the line, as are children, who have shown a higher tendency to fall sick, pregnant women, and anyone with cardiac problems, high blood pressure, or other underlying health problems than can cause a lowered immune response.

If you are otherwise healthy, and you are an adult, then you will likely have to go to the back of the line and wait until early 2010 before you can be vaccinated. It is thought that the U.S. will get its hands on about 120 to 160 million doses of the new vaccine by later October, and depending on whether one or two shots are required to invoke an antibody response to the new swine flu, about one fifth, to one third of the population of the United States could be vaccinated during the first round.

But if you are NOT one of the lucky first to be vaccinated, and the virus does turn significantly worse, all is not lost. There are still antiviral drugs that can be administered to break an infection that has got started in your body. To learn more about your options I recommend that you check out Survive Pandemic Flu, which was written in response to the emergence of the new pandemic. It goes into great detail about pandemic influenza, and what you can do to protect both yourself and your family from the threat.

You can find out more about the book and the vaccine situation at http://survivepandemicflu.spcoffer.com/