Oh good lord...our local NBC news anchor was flailing and shrieking over the fucking flu.

[Sannum]

She kept saying "this is so scary" and "there is no cure for it" and shrieking when the medical reporter was reading statistics.

Bitch, Please.

I am going to write an email to the station complaining about her level of hysteria. I would hate to see what condition she would be in if there was a real crisis.

[FLAprogressive]

1. what station?

[Taverner]

2. Tamiflu is its CURE

It doesn't always work, but neither does penicillin

[MercutioATC]

7. Technically, Tamiflu doesn't "cure" anything...

It prevents the influenza virus from spreading inside one's body.

More like a birth control pill for the virus than a bullet...but it will (in many cases) allow the body to overcome the virus.

[Taverner]

8. Well yes - but the point is that this is not a hopeless death sentence

[MercutioATC]

9. Correct. Mortality of this strain is probably low and there are treatments.

Maybe not 100% guaranteed treatments, but treatment exists.

There will be some that still die, but it should be a relatively small percentage.

[kestrel91316]

15. Oh, please. In most cases the human body mounts an appropriate

immune response and "cures" itself. Antivirals may limit symptoms or prevent severe complications or decrease spread, but without our good old immune system, it wouldn't do much good.

[Taverner]

16. Well exactly

This is not something to be feared

[derby378]

3. Can you YouTube it?

:evilgrin:

[Sannum]

5. I wish I could

It was quite funny in a strange way.

:)

[jimshoes]

4. Hey darlin' if your number's up

your number is up. No one is going to live forever and there are certainly no guarantees in life. No matter what, there is no amount of money that is going to keep everyone safe all the time. That's just how it is.

[RagAss]

19. Amen !

[KharmaTrain]

6. This Is Surreal...Anyone Remember The Hong Kong Flu??

We had REAL flu epedemics when I was a kid. I remember one strain that knocked out more than half my 7th grade class. Guess what. We survived!!!!!! Hell, I caught that strain twice that season.

Each day people die in this country of all sorts of diseases...a good share of them transmitted from the things we eat. Do we run a newsflash every time someone gets spastic colon?

80 deaths in a country of 100 million. More people die from car crashes each day in that country.

[skooooo]

11. hell ya..

I started a thread on it yesterday. Now THAT was a bad flu.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. this is a common meme on right, left and center

but this COULD BE far more serious than you are making it to be

[KharmaTrain]

18. Concern Trolls...

I heard someone cite that 36,000 people die of the flu every year...just a fact of life. The world is a dangerous place...bring a life raft. LOL.

This could be a serious situation, but the corporate media coverage has taken on the carnival atmosphere...more fear and sensationalism. But...then, that's what they do.

Who knows...maybe this can scare the mediatypes into a serious discussion about healthcare reform...but I doubt it. My bets are we'll see lots of big pharma commercials. Since, ya know...they're the only one who can save us... :sarcasm:

Cheers...

[barbtries]

17. yeah i do

my next door neighbor had it. i could only talk to her through her bedroom window for about two weeks. i don't know anyone who died of it, but i do have 2 great uncles i never met; they both died of flu during WWI.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Antivirals

and my local station last night NOT ONE MENTION OF IT

And we have had a CLUSTER locally

[Dollface]

12. The recurrence of the 1918-19 pandemic has always been a possibility so wash your hands.

But if this news woman is losing it already that is pathetic.

It has been estimated that there were about 20,000,000 cases of influenza and pneumonia in the United States in 1918-19, with approximately 850,000 deaths. In 1918 alone, 464,959 deaths from influenza and pneumonia were registered in the registration States and the District of Columbia as compared with 115,526 in 1917. This includes deaths in the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps which occurred in registration States. Eighty percent of the deaths in 1918 occurred in the last 4 months of the year.

[L0oniX]

14. All local news = dog and pony show. I never watch the circus anymore.

[mrs_p]

20. very irresponsible of her