flu (Page 5)

Physicians can’t figure out why the Swine Flu pandemic never happened and why there is so little ordinary flu around. It could be that the stress of the economic recession is strengthening our immune systems (and many of us have other types of stress as well!)

A new study using mice suggests that a repeated stressful situation that triggers the animals’ natural “fight-or-flight” response may actually enhance their ability to fight disease when they are re-exposed to the same pathogen. The study showed that the stressed mice had a 10-fold increase in their resistance to an influenza infection, and that this protection lasted at least up to 3 months after the stressful episodes.
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Something strange is going on: Normally, this is the peak period for the flu in the United States. But that just doesn’t seem to be the case this year. Since both bird flu and swine flu turned out to be scares that went nowhere, many people are turning their backs on new flu scares, considering them to be just more hype. But should they? When scientists combined the two viruses in a lab, the newly-created virus proved extremely lethal to mice. If it happens in nature, what will it do to us?
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What happened to the Swine Flu epidemic that frightened us all so much (not to mention the Bird Flu epidemic)? Swine Flu did kill some people here in the US, but Bird Flu seems never to have made it to these shores (and may only have been transmitted directly from poultry, not between people). Could these warnings be some sort of disinformation campaign from big pharmaceutical companies that stand to make millions from medicines (such as Tamiflu) and vaccines? Once initiated, well meaning people could then take up the warning and spread it far and wide.
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The Swine Flu “epidemic” seems to be over, for now: Unused H1N1 vaccine is being stockpiled in warehouses across the US. Some of it expires in March, although most will be effective through May. What happened (or didn’t happen)?

One major concern was that children are twice as likely as adults to catch swine flu. A study of more than 800 people in the UK found that one in eight people developed the infection after someone else in their house, often a child, got it. This is partly caused by the fact that, despite the fact that more children die from it than adults, many children who have been infected do not display symptoms.
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