U.S. health officials say 20 to 40 percent of Americans could become ill from swine flu over the next two years.
That estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is twice the number of people who usually get sick in a normal flu season. Officials said that projection would drop if a planned vaccine campaign and other measures are successful.
Based on the new projections, the number of swine flu deaths over two years could range from 90,000 to several hundred thousand, if efforts to stem the flu failed. The CDC said the estimates are based on a 1957 flu pandemic.
The CDC’s latest estimates put the number of confirmed and probable cases of the swine flu is 40,617, with the greatest number of cases diagnosed in Wisconsin (6031), Texas (4975) and Illinois (3357).
(Source: WCBSTV)
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5 Responses
Have these people ever been right about their warnings? I still remember the first swine flu scare, when President Gerald Ford (in ’74, I think?) told everyone to get swine flu shots. If I remember correctly, very few people got them, and they turned out to be tainted anyway and caused health problems, and at the end no one got the swine flu anyway!
I understand things are different today, but how seriously do we need to take these warnings?
I’m willing to bet the CDC is asking for an increase in its appropriation. It appears from their numbers that the odds of dying from swine flu are similar to the odds of winning the lottery, especially if one discounts for the number of people who die from complications of regular flu on an annual basis.
Perhaps this “panic” explains a lot of why health costs are so high.
I can’t wait for September when all of the ‘experts’ and by that I mean people who know nothing about medicine or yeshivas, will be demanding that yeshivas be closed down for weeks and ‘decontaminated’.
I believe this whole flu epidemic is man made, and there is an agenda behind it. The powers that be could be spraying it in the air or infecting our water or food supply.
One reasonable Hishtadlus is to maintain high blood levels of vitamin D, which can have a profound effect on immunity (in addition to greatly reducing one’s risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and more).
The many benefits of vitamin D are now recognized by conventional medicine – it’s no longer touted only by alternative health practitioners. Blood levels of above 50 ng/mL are highly recommended, and above 60 ng/mL is even better.
If you have your blood levels tested in the summer, keep in mind that they will likely plummet in the winter, when the body experiences less exposure to the sun. This may be the main reason why flu season tends to peak in the winter, although the influenza virus is around throughout the year.
To achieve optimal blood levels of vitamin D, you may need to take as much as 5000 IU of vitamin D3 daily (sometimes more). I took 2000 IU for a two- year-period, and my blood levels went DOWN from 40 ng/mL to 32 ng/mL. I then increased my daily dose to about 4400 IU, and my levels went up to 56 ng/mL in less than 3 months. I have maintained that dose ever since, and will have my blood tested periodically.
Note that vitamin D3 should be used; it is the natural form of vitamin D and is much better absorbed than vitamin D2.
Discuss with your doctor or healthcare practitioner, but don’t delay in raising your blood levels of vitamin D for both the short and long term benefits.
P.S. With regard to cancer prevention, in a double-blind study of post-menopausal women, those who took vitamin D (plus calcium) had a 60% reduction in cancer incidence over a four-year-period. See American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2007;85:1586–91.