Health Care Photo of the Day

Hundreds lined up in the rain in Wisconsin for hours waiting for swine flu shots and a Tea Party broke out (h/t Gateway Pundit):

Gotta give him points for creativity.

We've seen huge lines here in California as well. At one drive-through location yesterday people waited over 3 1/2 hours in their idling cars before they could get their shots. What do you suppose is the carbon footprint of that?

More than 4,000 people got shots in two days at another location in Los Angeles.

The thing is, according to the flu experts, the swine flu peak has already occurred. Unlike the seasonal flu which tends to peak in January or February, the swine flu peaked in October and that means we should begin to see fewer cases rather than more. This flu is being portrayed as much scarier because instead of taking its toll on old people, like the seasonal flu does, it's killing more younger people. However, the death toll is not out of the norm of our annual flu statistics.

And if you want to know how best to spread the disease, here's a story I heard last night. A local fireman reported that they responded to a call for a woman who fainted at a hotel near the beach. The fire personnel contacted the young woman's father who informed them that she had been diagnosed with swine flu right before she left on her trip, but didn't want to miss a chance to see her friends. She flew down to Southern California, thus merrily spreading the infection all along the way. Who knows how many more cases will result from this one irresponsible person.

I can't help but feel this outbreak is being over-dramatized for purposes yet unknown (if you don't count the massive Obama effort to promote socialize medicine).

A Swine Flu "National Emergency"

Really?

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency and empowered his health secretary to suspend federal requirements and speed treatment for thousands of infected people.

The declaration that Obama signed late Friday authorized Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to bypass federal rules so health officials can respond more quickly to the outbreak, which has killed more than 1,000 people in the United States.

The goal is to remove bureaucratic roadblocks and make it easier for sick people to seek treatment and medical providers to provide it immediately. That could mean fewer hurdles involving Medicare, Medicaid or health privacy regulations.

Interesting that this news came out on Friday night, a time when the White House loves to dump news it doesn't want anyone to pay attention to.

Why don't we declare a national energy emergency and remove federal hurdles to oil drilling and nuclear power? That has to potential to do far more for people than this pig flu thing.

Crazy Black Leaders Against Flu Vaccines

Here's a guy we haven't heard much from lately:

Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan told an audience in Memphis he believes the H1N1 flu vaccine was developed to kill people, a witness said.

Farrakhan, 76, spoke for nearly three hours Sunday at a gathering to observe the religious group's Holy Day of Atonement, which also marked the 14th anniversary of the Million Man March in Washington, the (Memphis) Commercial Appeal reported, citing a source who attended the speech.

"The Earth can't take 6.5 billion people. We just can't feed that many. So what are you going to do? Kill as many as you can. We have to develop a science that kills them and makes it look as though they died from some disease," Farrakhan said, adding that many wise people won't take the vaccine.

Let's hope all the people who think Farrakhan is a wise man follow his advice.

Connect the Headlines

Why do I think these two headlines are connected?

UN SHOCK REPORT: Swine flu 'could kill millions; Pandemic may result in anarchy...

OBAMA PUSH FOR 'WORLD' REGULATIONS

It's almost as though we're flipping through the pages of Revelations.

26 Miles Across the Sea

I saw an article the other day about the state of the West Coast cruise industry, and patrons holding tickets for cruises in the next few weeks are not happy. They signed up for exotic Mexican Riviera ports-of-call, and instead are being told their cruises will go to places like San Diego, Santa Barbara and San Francisco. The swine flu virus is the culprit.

The cruise lines, already in trouble in a tough economy, aren't budging. Customers can't get their money back and at best can get a discount on a future cruise. The passengers are ticked.

Thanks to the virus, that we now know is not as much a threat as the media hype suggests, the little town of Avalon on Catalina Island is a booming place these days:

Reporting from Avalon, Santa Catalina Island -- City crews, dispatched before sunrise, hosed down streets, scrubbed public restrooms and strung up Christmas lights. Boutique shops were placing urgent orders for more T-shirts and swimsuits. The semi-submersible vessel Nautilus added three daily tours of Avalon's crescent-shaped harbor.

Then there was Michael Upton, owner of Wet Spot Rentals, whose family worked late into the night at their kitchen table painting white and blue images of Dodgers jerseys on fist-sized dried starfish, souvenirs he sells for $7.50 each.

"It's too bad it had to happen because of a nasty bug," he said from behind the small counter of his wood-framed business a few yards away from a pier where cruise ship passengers disembark. "But we're enjoying an unexpected windfall."

Santa Catalina Island merchants and restaurant owners were scrambling Saturday to prepare for their most lucrative May in memory as cruise lines rerouted from destinations in influenza-plagued Mexico to Avalon.

It could not have come at a better time, according to residents of Avalon, which has a year-round population of 3,500. The end of winter saw a precipitous drop in business because of a distressing combination of problems: the ailing economy, higher cross-channel fares from the mainland 22 miles away, and a lingering lull in visitors since much of the island was charred by a devastating fire in May 2007.

Business was down 18% in February and March, Avalon officials said.

All that changed after the U.S. State Department on Monday issued an advisory that U.S. citizens should avoid unnecessary travel to Mexico.

The next day, Wayne Griffin, president of the Catalina Island Chamber of Commerce, and his staff "started making telephone calls to the cruise lines with this message," he said. "We hate to benefit at someone else's expense, but if you are looking for alternatives, we'd love to have you drop by."

The results far exceeded his expectations. "We're expecting 25 cruise ships in May, instead of the usual eight," he said. "Each one of those ships means $300,000 in passenger spending and tax revenues," or about $7.5 million.

"For two or three Avalon businesses I can think of," he added, "this unintended benefit means they may not have to close up shop."

Avalon's a neat place. My family vacationed there a number of times when I was a kid, and my wife and I have gone over there a couple of times ourselves. It's a great day trip (if the waters in the channel are relatively calm), and if you've got a couple of days a nice place to stay overnight.

Putting a bunch of cruise ships in there probably takes some of the charm out of the place, though for their sake I'm glad they're getting some much needed business at a trying time.

If You've Been Getting Flu Shots You May Not Have Much To Worry About

A couple of doctors discussed the effect of flu shots on the Swine Flu outbreak, and if you've been getting regular immunizations you may not have much to worry about:

Q: Dr. Manny: The reason that this flu pandemic seems to be less deadly than what we saw in Mexico is perhaps that the American population has some passive immunity to some portion of this new virus — and that indeed — one of the unintended benefits of the regular flu vaccine we have been administering over decades is that it’s created some protection — even from this latest virus that has popped up. Is there any truth to this?

A: Dr. Gross: In the flu vaccine — for more than the past 30 years — we’ve had an H1N1 strain in the standard flu vaccine that everyone gets… at least since 1976 when we had the last swine flu scare. So the theory goes that if you’ve had a vaccine that has a N1 in it... when you encounter a slightly different H1 (which is what the swine flu is) that you will be protected from severe illness and death, but not from getting a cold or a bad cold from that flu strain.

The other thing is we haven’t seen reports of a lot of older people getting H1N1 influenza A… so they must certainly be immune. An educated guess here would be that these older people may not be coming down with this new strain because most of them – particularly if they got the standard vaccine — would have some degree of immunity.

So the big question to ask here is: Did most of the people in the U.S. that had pretty mild cases of swine flu — did they get vaccinated with the regular influenza shot in the past couple years?

And the same goes for the victims in Mexico.

Did the people who fell ill or die get the standard flu vaccine?

These are very good indicators about the effectiveness of our standard influenza vaccine. And of course this all points to the importance of getting immunized every year.

At the advice of my doctor I've been getting flu shots every year since 1994, back when people who were my age weren't encouraged to get them. At that time they only recommendeded shots for elderly or people with unusual health issues. Today they recommend it for everyone and I make sure and get my whole family a shot every Fall.

It's the best $30 you'll spend.

The Seinfeld Flu

The Swine Flu could end up being the Seinfeld flu - the flu about nothing:

As the World Health Organization raised its infectious disease alert level Wednesday and health officials confirmed the first death linked to swine flu inside U.S. borders, scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza — at least in its current form — isn’t shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics.

In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks that occur each winter without much fanfare.

“Let’s not lose track of the fact that the normal seasonal influenza is a huge public health problem that kills tens of thousands of people in the U.S. alone and hundreds of thousands around the world,” said Dr. Christopher Olsen, a molecular virologist who studies swine flu at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison.

This pretty much confirms the conversation I had yesterday with a pulmonologist at UCLA Medical Center. The hype is worse than the actual disease.

Joe Biden: Don't Fly or Take Subways

Joe Biden decided to add to the panic that is probably completely unnecessary regarding the swine flu:

Vice President Biden was a little off-message this morning about what he would advise his family in terms of the current flu crisis.

Asked by NBC's Matt Lauer what he would tell a member of his family who came to him and asked whether he should fly to and from Mexico on a commercial airliner in the next week, the Vice President gave an answer that goes much farther than the precautions the President suggested last night, or the travelers' advisories given by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I would tell members of my family, and I have, 'I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now,'" the Vice President said. "It's not that he's going to Mexico,
it's that you're in a confined aircraft, and one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft."

"That's me," the vice president said.

"I would not be at this point if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway," the president said. "So from my perspective what relates to mitigation, if you're out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes, that's one thing. If you're in a closed aircraft or a closed container or closed car or closed class room, it's a different thing."

The airline industry thanks you, Joe.

Yesterday I had a brief conversation with a pulmonologist at the UCLA Medical Center regarding the swine flu. This is a guy who deals with and specializes in diseases of the lungs such as pneumonia. As soon as he heard the words "swine flu" he kind of rolled his eyes and then told me that the regular human flu that goes around each year is much more virulent than the swine version, and the human flu kills something like 36,000 people each year. There's no sign that this swine version will be nearly as bad as that. You're less likely to get it than the human version, and less likely to die from it.

He sees this whole "crisis" as a lot of unnecessary media hype and panic. Who are you going to believe - a lung specialist or Joe Biden?

This may explain why there's been no move by the federal government to close our borders or restrict travel to Mexico. The threat simply isn't that great, but it benefits the administration to keep the hype going so that people will be more inclined to believe that only a nationalized health system and can adequately deal with such a "crisis". Obama needs public support to get his socialized medicine plan through Congress.

The people who claim this is a crisis aren't acting like it's a crisis. That should tell you something.

UPDATE: Bloomberg to ride subway from Gracie Mansion to City Hall... Hizzoner is slapping Biden around a bit.

UPDATE 2: Travel Industry to VP Biden: Zip It It's beat up Joe day!

Egyptian Bacon for Everybody!

This is what passes for disease control in the Middle East:

CAIRO (AP) - The Egyptian government says it has begun slaughtering all pigs in the country as a precautionary measure against the possible spread of swine flu.

The Health Ministry says the slaughter of the country's 300,000 pigs will begin immediately.

The ministry has stated several times that there are no cases swine flu in the country, however neighboring Israel has reported two.

That'll show that old swine flu a thing or two.

By the way, this picture is circulating that reportedly shows the Patient Zero in the swine flu epidemic:

Both pig and kid are doing fine.

Name That Pandemic

Mark Steyn reports in The Corner on problems with the flu naming conventions:

How come those deadbeats at CAIR weren't on to this before the Jews? The naming of influenzas:

JERUSALEM – The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed "Mexican" influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.

What about Mexican sensitivities? Undocumented Flu?

And here's something they didn't have in 1918 during the last pandemic - Google maps showing where the cases are appearing. Plan your vacations accordingly.

Swine Flu Creeping Closer to Pandemic Status

Want to have some fun? Get on an airplane and start coughing. I'll bet you get more attention than if you'd shouted "BOMB!":

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A new virus has killed up to 149 people in Mexico and the World Health Organization moved closer on Monday to declaring it the first flu pandemic in 40 years as more people were infected in the United States and Europe.

The WHO raised its pandemic alert level for the swine flu virus to phase 4, indicating a significantly increased risk of a pandemic, a global outbreak of a serious disease.

The last such outbreak, a "Hong Kong" flu pandemic in 1968, killed about 1 million people.

Although the new flu strain has so far killed people only in Mexico, there were more than 40 confirmed cases in the United States, including 20 at a New York City school where eight cases were already identified.

In Mexico City, fearful Christians paraded a centuries-old statue of Jesus, believed to protect against disease, through the streets for the first time in more than a century.

Yeah, idol worship always helps.

Then there was this addition to the story:

The swine flu is not caught from eating pig meat products, but several countries imposed import bans on pork from the United States.

You may think that's kind of silly, but Iowa Senator Charles Grassley actually sent this out on Twitter:

U can't get swine flu fr eating pork. Eatup. Regardless of epidemic.

So go ahead and have that BLT or ham sandwich. The pork producers are counting on you.

Today's Talking Point - Blame the GOP for Swine Flu

Our first entrant, the SEIU union thugs:

The Service Employees International Union has launched an online petition criticizing Republicans for delaying the confirmation of a Health and Human Services secretary in the face of a swine flu outbreak.

The union accuses Senate Republicans of delaying the confirmation of nominee Kathleen Sebelius to “curry favor with extremist outside groups” and depriving the department of leadership as the nation confronts a potential flu pandemic.

“This is simply unacceptable,” the union says on its website. “This disease is spreading as we speak, but right now, a Bush-appointed accountant is running the department. We need an HHS secretary NOW. Sign the petition telling the Senate to vote immediately to confirm Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. If we don't act, the swine flu might just turn into another Hurricane Katrina.”

Yeah, Kathleen Sebelius will save us all from the evil flu.

Second item, a lefty writer for The Nation:

When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year’s emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.

Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse — with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.

But former White House political czar Karl Rove and key congressional Republicans — led by Maine Senator Susan Collins — aggressively attacked the notion that there was a connection between pandemic preparation and economic recovery.

Once again evil Republicans put us all at risk by refusing massive spending.

But wait, there's more. It turns out that Dem Senator Chuckie Schumer wasn't a fan of the pandemic spending either. Here's his quote (h/t Michelle Malkin):

“All those little porky things that the House put in, the money for the [National] Mall or the sexually transmitted diseases or the flu pandemic, they’re all out,” Schumer said.

"Porky things". I'll bet he's wishing he'd used a different description now.

White House Missing Key Players in Flu Crisis

If this Swine Flu outbreak turns into something really big the White House is missing some important people who would be needed to oversee the crisis:

The Obama administration declared a “public health emergency” Sunday to confront the swine flu — but is heading into its first medical outbreak without a secretary of Health and Human Services or appointees in any of the department’s 19 key posts.

President Barack Obama has not yet chosen a surgeon general or the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His choice to run the Food and Drug Administration awaits confirmation.

In an unusual Sunday briefing at the White House, acting CDC Director Richard Besser appeared on camera with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Obama homeland security adviser John Brennan to announce the emergency declaration in response to the swine flu outbreak.

Napolitano is the former Arizona governor, and Brennan is a longtime CIA counterterrorism specialist once thought to be in line to run the agency.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs insisted the vacancies won’t hinder Obama’s response.

“I want to be very clear here: There is a team in place. Part of it is standing behind me, and part of it working as we speak to identify exactly what [Besser] and others have talked about,” Gibbs said. “This notion that somehow that if there is not currently a secretary, that there is not the function that needs to take place to prepare for either this or any other situation is just simply not the case.” “I think it’s all hands on deck, and we’re doing fine,” Gibbs said.

If the president could nominate people who haven't skipped out on their taxes or who weren't in the pocket of the nation's most ardent abortionist, perhaps he could get a nominee through.

The team in place has not chosen to place additional controls on our borders or screen people coming into our airports from Mexico for flu symptoms. The same cannot be said for our European allies.

The EU has issued a travel advisory for trips to Mexico AND the United States, and the Brits are screening every passenger getting off flights from Mexico. I don't see why we couldn't try and do the same.

Wouldn't it have been nice to have a big, secure fence along the Mexican border right about now?

Man Who Obama Met in Mexico Died of Flu Symptoms

There was some concern that President Obama's visit to Mexico may have exposed him to the swine flu outbreak. Based on this those fears might be well founded:

The first case was seen in Mexico on April 13. The outbreak coincided with the President Barack Obama’s trip to Mexico City on April 16. Obama was received at Mexico’s anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported. The newspaper didn’t confirm if Solis had swine flu or not.

The Mexican government is distributing breathing masks to curtail the disease’s spread. There is no vaccine against the new strain of swine flu, health authorities said.

Maybe the Mexicans didn't give the flu to Obama, maybe he gave it to them.

Today's Pandemic Headlines

All courtesy of Drudge:

Possible Swine Flu Outbreak At NYC Prep School...
Most fatal flu victims aged between 25-45...
Swine flu could infect trade and travel...
Schwarzenegger has 'rigorous' plan...
WHO ready with antivirals...
The mysterious respiratory illness...
CDC says too late to contain...
60 DEAD: Mexico City launches huge vaccination campaign...
CLOSE TO 1,000 SUSPECTED CASES...
Heighten Risk of Pandemic...
Concerns in California, Texas...
Mutated from pigs, transmitted to humans...
Mexico has not suffered serious flu epidemic before...
MEXICO CITY CANCELS ALL PUBLIC EVENTS

Is this the next big flu pandemic? We haven't had a worldwide outbreak of deadly flu since 1918 and we're certainly due.