I know someone who thinks the new swine flu virus was released by the government as a way to control the population. What this person means is that there are too many people and the government wants to get rid of a lot of us. I don’t believe it. What do you think of this? Is it totally ridiculous?

The government wouldn’t want to destroy its tax base.

In most of the developed world, population is *juuust* barely stable, or else about to start rapidly falling because of years of low birth rates.

Governments in these areas (S. Korea, US, Japan, Canada, Europe) really do not want to population to fall, as that will create tax and labor shortages, making it difficult to pay Social Security and similar entitlements, and difficult to maintain basic infrastructure and provide basic health care. The latter is especially important in light of the fact that the average age of the population is increasing.

In addition, with the recent economic collapse, governments of many places (France and Britain for example) are actually quite afraid of the potential for unhappy, stressed-out people to start rioting. The stress and fear of an epidemic, combined with the human desire to find someone to blame, threatens to increase the potential for destabilization even more.

So it is extremely unlikely for the government to want an illness like this. In addition there are known risks associated with factory farming that make it quite likely to be the source of swine flu. Animals do not naturally congregate in the densities found in factory farming. These densities tend to increase the chances for disease to spread and mutate.

In addition, the virus has killed only a handful of people, all of whom were in Mexico. It appears, so far, to be treatable in most cases, especially here where we in general have better nutrition and better air quality. So it would be extremely stupid to release an illness to kill people if it is only capable of killing a few hundred people out of thousands that have contracted it. You could better argue that automobiles were invented to kill people!

So what your friend is saying is *almost* totally ridiculous.

However, not quite. There is a history however of concern over population that reaches far back and has at times had a very serious impact in government policy. This is such a serious historical issue that we need to keep it in mind; Never Forget.. In some other cases or in the future, to think a government may be pursuing a policy for eugenic or population control purposes might be realistic. So even though your friend is wrong and this case is not related, the idea that this could or did happen at some point isn’t always ridiculous.

Malthus for example worried that population increases of his time (due to better hygiene, health care and economic factors) would lead to mass starvation, and to the elites (who had traditionally kept their numbers down in order to keep money centered in a small number of families) being swamped by poor people. The poor people in this case were in large part from Celtic ethnic groups. Similarly people like Margaret Sanger and other eugenicists favored using force, such as forced sterilizations, to keep "undesirables" from surfacing in the population. The US in fact historically forced a number of people, especially Native Americans, to be sterilized against their will:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization#United_States

Combining this fact with the fact that in history there are things like governments doing experiments on people with serious illnesses even at the risk of their lives (see: http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/Story.asp?s=1207586 ), and you can see that the basic idea isn’t so ridiculous. Governments don’t always treat their citizens well, and citizens do need to be eternally vigilant to check government abuses.

Still, your friend is being really silly and paranoid about the swine flu, for all of the reasons I gave in the first part of this answer. Crying wolf like that will just make concerned people look stupid the next time there is actually something real to be worried about.

These are just some examples. You can read more about government-engineered mass deaths and about the connection between eugenics and certain overblown population fears here:

http://web.mit.edu/racescience/links/index.html

I was wondering how long the swine flu virus stays infective on inanimate objects such as a gasoline pump?

Could I get the swine flu if someone with the influenza pumps gas before I do? How long will the pump stay infectious?

The swine flu, like so many other viruses, can go dormant but remain hazardous for years. If it has gone dormant, it usually isn’t all that dangerous. But here’s a chance for a health professional to do what we do best: preach hand washing.
That’s right: after all these years of experience and all these years of careful laboratory research, we recognize that the best preventive of all is -still- simple and frequent hand washing with warm water and soap. So get out ya bar of Dial, dude!
P.S. Antibacterial soap is not necessary – cheaper soap and warm water are just as effective. As for the gas pump handle – usually not a problem, but carry some of those antibacterial hand-wipes in your briefcase or purse and use one after ya fill your tank.

It’s a proven fact that the Illuminati plans to reduce the earths population to under 500,000,000. There bird flu didn’t work as well as they intended, is the swine flu the ext and possibly final generation of the virus they inted to use to cull the heard so to speak? Is there anything we can do about it?

It is supposed that this is a beta test, for sure this disease is man-made to what end we don’t know (That is unless you believe that Asian swine flu, European swine flu, US swine flu, avian flu and human influenza somehow combined and infected a small rural town in Mexico). The thing you must always bear in mind in cases like this is Who Benefits? Research it, of course the Illuminati "don’t exist" do they? And for those sceptics out there I propose to you, no one ever died from stockpiling food and water.
(Hmm look Rumsfeld has stock in Tamiflu, interesting…)

What is the difference between the regular flu and the swine flu? And if someone has the swine , how long does it take to recover from it , esp if there are no vaccines available ? What should one do in that case? I have consulted a doctor and even he does not know what i should do, he himself said he had the swine already and has not fully recovered and i have had it now for three weeks . I have congestion so badly that sometimes i simply can not breathe properly.

There is no difference. The flu is the flu. This swine nonsense is just the media’s way to once again manipulate people into thinking they need flu shots and dangerous vaccines.

My 2 year old was around a family member today who just returned from Mexico. Trust me I had no idea he would be around her and was livid when I found this out. I am really nervous that she could be a carrier for swine flu (she has no symptoms). If she has the virus and passed it to my son how long would it take for him to start showing symptoms?

The incubation period is two days to seven days, regardless of where your son were exposed.
There is a similarity between the swine flu epidemic centered in Mexico City and the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918-19. Infants and elderly were spared. It was the young adults with robust immune systems that were the prime victims and the disease took them literally by storm. What happens with young and healthy patients is that their immune systems react so strongly that they can triggers something known as a "cytokine storm".

How much of the Swine Flu virus can kill an individual? There were a number of people who can essentially die from the virus. What can it take to make even lesser failed attempts to cure someone affected by the Swine Flu virus?

This year’s H1N1 flu affects people with stronger immune systems. THe elderly and young aren’t as at risk. The stronger immune system over reacts and that causes the biggest problems. This is similar to the flu of 1918. But, relatively few people are dying from it. There isn’t much to worry about.

"People cannot get the swine flu from eating pork or pork products, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And health officials say there is no evidence the flu originated from hogs. The new flu strain is a mix of genetic material from swine, avian and human flu viruses."

Its a mix of swine, avian, and human flu viruses. Was this flu released on purpose to control population numbers?

Oi you people need to get a lesson on how infectious disease works,

pig carries virus aka a vector… people living in close proximity to pigs pick up virus and becomes the new host and as people come into contact with one another the virus gets passed along. How did people in 3 unrelated countries get it, well they came into contact with the virus… its pretty simple and unfortunately pandemics are a natural occurrence…also flu viruses mutate all the time, the flu vaccine given each years is always based on the previous years strain which is usually not the same as the strain going around…

Hello,

I just need to know who will take the swine-flu swab tests? I know anybody with symptoms can take it but who in particular would take it? (This is for my coursework) Please help and thank you very much-apperciated.

Never heard of it. But sure, i’d go for it. I might even test with a false-positive, because I had H1N1.
Might not too, i’m not sure what the mechanics are for the swab tests.

I’ve asked this in the infectious diseases section, but wanted to ask in the biology section too since there may be people who know more about influenza.
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Not to sound paranoid, but there are a few odd things about this virus that are emerging. The most alarming is that it appears to have genetic material from avian flu, human flu, and swine flu. Since flu viruses do not exchange genetic material during their reproductive cycle, how could this be a natural phenomenon?

The answer to that question is another question.
While a virus mutates all the time, there must be stages of milder versions around.
In the case that there are absolutely no mild versions of this virus around, then the chance is bigger that it may have been engineered.
If there are many mild versions around, then it is probably of natural origin.

So the question is: Are there many mild versions around and is there a killer mutation.

If the mild version and the killer version is the same virus that acts differently in different people so in the case there is no mutation, then with 100 deaths if there are 100.000 infected people around, you can call this a regular flu with less than 1% death rate.

If we have 200 people outside Mexico that got infected by just going there for a couple of days, then inside Mexico we must have at least a couple of million infected people. They are infected people we don’t know about because they just have a mild flu. Assuming there was no mutation, then 100 deaths is no issue and we just discovered a new flu by checking some death causes.
In this case it is probably not engineered.

Caution must be taken to rule out a killer mutation, and a new virus has the potential, and that is the hysteria you see in the media.

If some person get infected with swine flu by a swine and a human flu at the same time, then it can recombine in the human. I think it is also possible a swine got a human flu and a swine flu and the virus recombined in the swine. Note that the swine will not cover its nose when sneezing and spread the flu with other swines, infecting humans as well.

Ok I have the swine flu right now, bleh.

For everyone else that has had it, do you think it was any worse than the regular flu? I have had the regular flu twice and both times it was wayyy worse than the swine flu.

I totally agree. I had the regular flu a few times too, and it was HORRIBLE. I had the swine flu a couple wks ago and it wasn’t as bad. Mostly just body aches and nausea.