Look Out For School Closings and Vaccine Rationing with Swine Flu

Today there was the first death in the US from swine flu, a 23 month old in Houston, Texas, and the earliest case found so far was identified in La Gloria, Mexico, a five year old named Edgar Hernandez. Schools are closed throughout Mexico, and the virus continues to spread, with over 150 dead in Mexico (20 confirmed), and 91 CDC confirmed cases in California, New York, Texas, Ohio, Kansas, Indiana. Based on this news we have to consider the possibility of school closings here. Some have already started to close in California, South Carolina, Connecticut and Ohio. Protective masks are flying off the shelves in the US. Oh, and Israel said that the name “swine flu” is offensive to Jews.

Check out this nifty graphic for a world wide map of the spread of the flu and what countries are doing about it.

Swine Flu World-Wide Distribution

The biggest death toll so far is in Egypt, where they are slaughtering all 300,000 of their pigs. That’s a real rational move, considering it is mostly human-to-human transmission anyway. But considering the fact that only the 10% Christian minority have pigs there anyway, they probably figured it was no big deal.

Roche and Glaxo, makers of Tamiflu and Relenza, respectively, are watching their stocks shoot upward with beady little eyes, thrilled that they get to pursue their primary aim of making profits while looking like good guys to boot.

Meanwhile Representative Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) suggested that swine flu was a plot of the Democrats to foist national healthcare and increased spending on medical research (hmmm, maybe not such bad ideas after all), taking her cue from yesterday’s rants by talk show host Rush Limbaugh and his unemployed white male fan club. And Republican leader Michael Steele defended the previous Republican opposition to spending in the stimulus bill on preparation for pandemics on the grounds that “it couldn’t have been predicted“. Yeah right, like the breach of the New Orleans levees. Go figure.

As I wrote yesterday, current flu vaccines are not effective against the swine flu, and it will take six months to make an effective vaccine. What is more disturbing is that our wonderful war on terror has not resulted in an ability to manufacture vaccines, with only one site in the US, Sanofi Pasteur, currently able to manufacture vaccines. And those are made from hen’s eggs. Go technology, go war on terror. And with current manufacturing capability we will only be able to make 6 million doses by September, which is 10% of the total needed to vaccinate the population of the US. Which introduces the possibility of rationing. Who should get the vaccine first? Well public officials, of course.

Meanwhile acting CDC Director Richard Besser continues to tell the lie that 36,000 people die every year from influenza and that we need to start thinking about the “conventional flu” vaccine. As I wrote here before (“Flu shots are for idiots“) only half of those really had the flu, those who did were often the elderly who might be immune impaired and unable to benefit from flu shots anyway, and since the flu virus mutates by the time they make a flu shot less than half of the bugs are blocked by the current flu shot. In spite of the fact that experts tell us that flu shots for the conventional flu are a waste of time and money, public officials at the CDC and elsewhere continue to tell us to get them. One thing that is sure, though, is that 34,000 people will die this year from car accidents.

We're sure glad we don't live in Egypt!

Another thing that hasn’t been covered in the media which I wrote about yesterday, and have been harping on since last year, is the fact that some H1N1 strains of flu are resistant to the anti-malarial drug Tamiflu. For instance, as I said yesterday the CDC claims swine flu is susceptible to Tamiflu. But on what evidence? It takes them a week to grow out the virus and see what drugs it is susceptible to. And why didn’t it save that 23 month old in Houston? Is the government continuing its pattern of hyping Tamiflu inappropriately? Maybe the same confluence of commercial interest and misplaced concerns discussed in relation to conventional flu shots described by flu expert Thomas Jefferson a few years ago.

Ominously, vaccine expert David Fedson MD, was quoted today as saying countries are likely to ration their flu shots to their own countries. Since all but one are out of the country, we aren’t looking too good. And we haven’t exactly been nice to France, at least during the Bush years. Can you say “s’il vous plait?”

Dr. Fedson is sitting pretty though, living in France with his second wife and consulting to drug companies. I’m sure he will get his flu shot.