The victims of the H1N1 virus
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What happend with all the victims of the
H1N1 swine flu virus? Is it possible that a bit of the hype was generated and exaggerated by the pharmaceutical industry itself to sell a bit more swine flu vaccine? The swine flu vaccine has recently been approved and bought by governments around the world, certainly a multi-million dollar business. Somehow, the hype was largest when the vaccine was under development and nearly finished. This makes me wonder if it is possible that the pharmaceutical industry generates the threat of a possible pandemic to make money, just as the industrial-military complex is able to generate the threat of WMDs to create revenue. A ministry of defense which triggers a war and a ministry of health which causes a pandemic - this sounds like George Orwell. Is our fate in the hand of evil global corporations? -J. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 10:20 AM, Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Is our fate in the hand of evil global corporations? Yes. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-4
But Jochen asks a serious question--well, several serious questions,
but the one I mean is, what happened to all the victims? Mass die-off? A nasty week and it was all over? Why don't we know? "I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper." Steve Martin ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-4
Jochen,
I have been wondering that as well. I keep having flashbacks to the imminent demise of the technological world at the stroke of midnight, new years eve, Y2K. Certainly there is a pandemic in the limited technical sense that the disease has spread globally. However, the implied meaning of the term (taken advantage of by politicians, some scientists, and the drug industry) of something that will kill many, many people seem not to have materialized. It may yet, I suppose. The level of near-panic, and the resources spent pre-planning, at Penn State is quite impressive. They are acting like it is polio, or the pneumonic plague. I'm sure some industry sale's rep will retire happily off of our vaccine purchases alone. Of course, when all is said and done the "evil global corporations" will be vindicated either way. If a bunch of people die, then the evil corporations will say how right they were in warning us and emphasize that we should give them more money next time. Alternatively, if few die, then the evil corporations will say how good it was we bought their vaccines and did every thing they said (also demonstrating the effectiveness of my elephant repellent necklace). Orwell would definitely understand. Eric On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 10:20 AM, "Jochen Fromm" <[hidden email]> wrote: What happend with all the victims of the H1N1 swine flu virus? Is it possible that a bit of the hype was generated and exaggerated by the pharmaceutical industry itself to sell a bit more swine flu vaccine? The swine flu vaccine has recently been approved and bought by governments around the world, certainly a multi-million dollar business. Somehow, the hype was largest when the vaccine was under development and nearly finished. This makes me wonder if it is possible that the pharmaceutical industry generates the threat of a possible pandemic to make money, just as the industrial-military complex is able to generate the threat of WMDs to create revenue. A ministry of defense which triggers a war and a ministry of health which causes a pandemic - this sounds like George Orwell. Is our fate in the hand of evil global corporations? -J. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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Having been a Java hacker on a multimillion dollar "Y2K remediation" project for two years from 1997-1999, I've often wondered how much of the whole thing was hyperbole, and how much was real. According to Wikipedia's article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y2K), about $300 billion US was spent worldwide on the effort. Just as with H1N1, the dire predictions never materialized, but it is far from clear whether or not this was becasue of the effort and capital spent. Same with the massive military spending in the 1980s: did the Soviet Union fall because of it, or simply because some critical mass of something had been reached?
Sounds like some good candidates for a bit of Agent Based Modeling, but then <cynicism>history seems much harder to model than to rewrite</cynicism >. ;; Gary On Sep 20, 2009, at 10:05 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:
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Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-4
Well, if you really are interested in tracking down all of those mythical H1N1 deaths, here's a good starting point:
http://portaldev.rti.org/midas-h1n1/reports/ Honestly, the naiveté on this list still sometimes surprises me. H1N1 is real, It is a pandemic: a brand new flu virus that has never before circulated in the human population. It has not (yet) mutated into a more deadly form, like the 1918 strain, but it still kills people. So does seasonal influenza. The current circulating H1N1 could mutate into a more lethal strain, just as the 1918 variant did. It has not done so yet. Sure, the big, evil drug industry corporate entities are going to make a huge amount of money off of H1N1. Yawn. The Bechtel Corporation is making a huge amount of money off of LANL. Yawn. The insurance companies in the United States make a huge amount of money off of the health care industry. Yawn. --Doug On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 8:20 AM, Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote: What happend with all the victims of the H1N1 swine flu virus? Is it possible that a bit of the hype was generated and exaggerated by the pharmaceutical industry itself to sell a bit more swine flu vaccine? The swine flu vaccine has recently been approved and bought by governments around the world, certainly a multi-million dollar business. Somehow, the hype was largest when the vaccine was under development and nearly ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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In reply to this post by Pamela McCorduck
Why don't you ask the victim's families what happened to them?
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/854819.html "H1N1 virus claims 6th victim in Stanislaus County Flu strain appears widespread in area" On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 10:37 AM, Pamela McCorduck <[hidden email]> wrote: > But Jochen asks a serious question--well, several serious questions, but the > one I mean is, what happened to all the victims? Mass die-off? A nasty week > and it was all over? Why don't we know? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2
Fact is: there was a strong hype around H1N1,
although H1N1 itself is known since 1976. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_influenza#1976_U.S._outbreak And there are large pharmaceutical companies who are very interested in informing the public how dangerous H1N1 is. Hoffmann-La Roche produces Tamiflu and has an extra page about influenza (http://www.roche.com/roche-influenza.htm). Novartis produces a H1N1 vaccine, and has an extra page for it, too: http://www.novartis.com/newsroom/swine-flu/ GlaxoSmithKline makes the anti-flu drug Relenza and produces a special H1N1 vaccine. These are Number 4, 5 and 6 of the big pharmaceutical companies. Producing these drugs and vaccines is a good thing. But what if they exaggerate a bit too much in marketing? It would not be evil to influence governments using lobbyists (e.g. in the WHO), just selfish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pharmaceutical_companies I think marketing can be very problematic, if a company produces military or pharmaceutical products, because it often distorts the truth. A bit of the "Communist threat" in the McCarthy area was probably exaggerated by lobbyists of the industrial-military complex, too. A statement like "we need more bombs because the communits threaten us" sounds like "we need more vaccines because swine-flu is threaten us". -J. ----- Original Message ----- From: Douglas Roberts To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 5:59 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The victims of the H1N1 virus Well, if you really are interested in tracking down all of those mythical H1N1 deaths, here's a good starting point: http://portaldev.rti.org/midas-h1n1/reports/ Honestly, the naiveté on this list still sometimes surprises me. H1N1 is real, It is a pandemic: a brand new flu virus that has never before circulated in the human population. It has not (yet) mutated into a more deadly form, like the 1918 strain, but it still kills people. So does seasonal influenza. The current circulating H1N1 could mutate into a more lethal strain, just as the 1918 variant did. It has not done so yet. Sure, the big, evil drug industry corporate entities are going to make a huge amount of money off of H1N1. Yawn. The Bechtel Corporation is making a huge amount of money off of LANL. Yawn. The insurance companies in the United States make a huge amount of money off of the health care industry. Yawn. --Doug ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2
You're suggesting that we read real, authoritative reports? That's not really in the spirit of this list Doug...
-- R On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:
Well, if you really are interested in tracking down all of those mythical H1N1 deaths, here's a good starting point: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-4
On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote: Fact is: there was a strong hype around H1N1, Well, no kidding. There is a huge financial opportunity for the drug companies, and a huge readership opportunity for the media. Exactly why is the hype a surprise?
Again, no kidding. And again, where is the surprise factor?
Finally, and again: no kidding. Please tell me where the surprise factor is that a big deal is being made of H1N1. Hype factor aside, H1N1 is real, it kills people, there is no (or little) natural herd immunity to it yet. It is a true pandemic. If you get exposed to it, you will probably get it. Some people will die from it in plus/minus the same proportion as those who die from contracting seasonal influenza. ***Plus/minus seasonal influenza mortality rates that is, unless or until the current circulating H1N1 strain mutates to a more lethal variant, as happened in 1918. If this occurs you will *really* start to hear some hype.
--Doug
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Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-4
On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Fact is: there was a strong hype around H1N1, > although H1N1 itself is known since 1976. Probably longer than that. H1N1 simply means the virus contains the first identified hemagglutinin (H1) and neuraminidase (N1) variants. There have been and will be many different strains of influenza named H1N1. This one wasn't any fun, I spent four days lying around watching video, reading, and sleeping, because standing up and walking around were not advisable. -- rec -- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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Want some more media hype? This time from the UN:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/20/swine-flu-costs-un-report Is the hype justified? We'll see. If the virus does not mutate into a more lethal form, this level of hype might not have been justfiied, even though the characteristics of the currently circulating variant of H1N1is not yet fully understood. If it does mutate into a more lethal form, there will be hype galore. BTW, it appears that some of the readers on this list do not fully understand how complex the influenza virus is, and how many opportunities there are for mutations. Take a quick look at the pictures of the sequence evolutions of these virus strains for a tiny bit of insight. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v422/n6930/fig_tab/nature01509_F1.html As Roger points out, the descriptor "H1N1" covers a lot of territory. --Doug On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Roger Critchlow <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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In reply to this post by James Steiner
"Doctors are seeing patients with symptoms such as vomiting or
difficulty breathing. And those struck with H1N1 generally are younger than the target population of the seasonal flu." That's not good.. plug time for me.. it's just a toy model, not really H1N1 per se, but I think it might be interesting pedagocially and I'd appreciate any feedback about that. http://milesparker.blogspot.com/2009/05/agent-based-model-for-influenza-h1n1.html (there are three follow on articles.) What I'd really like to add is some kind of multi-scale model with viruses and mutation. On Sep 20, 2009, at 10:21 AM, James Steiner wrote: > Why don't you ask the victim's families what happened to them? > > http://www.modbee.com/local/story/854819.html > > "H1N1 virus claims 6th victim in Stanislaus County > Flu strain appears widespread in area" > > > > On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 10:37 AM, Pamela McCorduck <[hidden email]> > wrote: >> But Jochen asks a serious question--well, several serious >> questions, but the >> one I mean is, what happened to all the victims? Mass die-off? A >> nasty week >> and it was all over? Why don't we know? > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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In reply to this post by Robert Holmes
I stand duly chastened, Robert.
On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 12:13 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote: You're suggesting that we read real, authoritative reports? That's not really in the spirit of this list Doug... -- Doug Roberts [hidden email] [hidden email] 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The victims of the H1N1 virus
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Doug / Robert,
In at least minor defense of the original poster (and my reply): We all know that people are sick, and we DO know that some people have died. However, the fall out thus far is not in proportion to the current level of panic or rhetoric involved, and no where near the level of panic or rhetoric that dominated the airwaves for a long time after the initial outbreaks. I know, because my quaint suburban street doesn't look anything like the end of a George Romero movie. While the problem still might escalate, a deadly mutation might occur, etc., many of us on the sidelines are still trying to figure out what the current fuss is about. Frankly, in the last two months I have sat in many meetings and read many memos where people describe the (somewhat more rational) current estimates of the "imminent dangers". All the advice we are being given is good advice, but it would be good advice in ANY year. The current estimates, sounds to me a lot like normal flu season. Normal flu season is, on a national level, a major concern, as lots of people do die every year... but it's about the same every year, and hence on some level very mundane. The only noticeable difference, as presented, is the demographic likely to be effected. That difference, at least somewhat, justifies increased concern on a college campus. However, it still doesn't seem to warrant quarantine beds (14 on standby), and the other extreme measures we are talking about (e.g., discussion of shutting down the entire campus). So, we are not idiots. We are just making comment / inquiry regarding a strange cultural phenomenon. Eric On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 09:17 PM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote: Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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