I can't believe one country (can't remember which) has ordered the slaughter of all of the swine in their country. Oh my! :( We have a freezer full of pork and don't have swine flu. What is wrong with people!?

Have there been reports of abnormal hoarseness with the H1N1 flu other than that seemingly bogus e-mail from the doctor that was posted here earlier? I ask because I have a friend in Knoxville, TN. She is a nurse and about a week ago, she had this bizarre illness where she had a sore throat, then popped a fever of about 102. The fever lasted a day or so and then she got this really odd hoarseness. She never had fever again, never felt all that bad, but even her doctor said that was "weird." Then I read about odd hoarseness with the H1N1 flu and it made me think...hmmmm. LOL - not to mention that I spent the day with her this Saturday! (for the first time in about 2 years that we had not seen each other. Go figure!)

This is how we are trying to approach it for now. But I am definitely keeping informed and trying to prepare for the worst while hoping for the best!

So it is something that is hard to determine? I wish they hadn't released reports until they knew for sure. What bugs me is that this news comes AFTER people start speculating openly that, if it is a 3 part combo like it was originally thought to be, it sounds more "engineered" than natural.

Looks like "new" information. The issue I am having with all of this info that changes by the minute is that it is totally contradictory to itself half the time. I mean, come on! Either it is or is isn't a combo of human, bird, and swine. Can't the people who do this for a living tell the difference? Is it really that hard to tell? How frustrating it is. I know the media is trying to keep us informed, but all of the misinformation and cross information and conflicting information is making my head spin.

Well, in all fairness, the WHO is the World Health Organization...so not the USA. They raise the levels based on World Wide spread.

So does the Spanish flu apparently (1917/1918 the end of the first WORLD WAR. Hmmmm)

Oh thank God! Thank you Perry for hunting that down. I was having NO luck at all.

Avian flu. Please tell me they were lying.... Can you link me to a story? That is just totally not natural at all!

Whoa. And I bet the store mgr or employee who told him that would get in so much trouble if whoever ordered it found out they had leaked it... Unfortunately, I think this is probably common...even here in the US. People panic, they buy up all the supplies, and when/if something happens, there are none left...but one buffoon is sitting there with 900 N95 masks. :glare:

We stay stocked up on food. We fill a chest freezer and an extra pantry closet all year long - always stocking and rotating. I am confident that my MIL, FIL, Dh, the kids and I could live for up to 6 months on the food we have stored...not to mention the food we grow. We just picked the first round of baby greens from the garden today. Yummy! As for medicines...I made sure we had tylenol, Aleve, Vitamins for the kids, Vitamin C in 500mg doses for all of us. We love garlic here and eat it like it is going out of style. Maybe we will stink too much for anyone to get near us and give us the swine flu. LOL I have gloves, lysol, food for my animals, and I purchased gatorade. Other than this, I really have not gone out of the way to "prepare."

I wondered this too, but the research seems to say no. The boy they are tracing it back to (which is horrible) had the disease in Mexico in late March. Prior to this, they had not seen this mutation in the H1N1. There may have been H1N1 circulating in the population (the human form), but not the mutation until this child in Mexico (at least that is as far back as they can trace it right now).

Curiousity...where is the information coming from about how young people are dying with this one moreso than with others. I have yet to see that posted in any reputable place and would love to read more on this. There have only been 7 "confirmed" deaths from the swine flu in Mexico (though many more are "suspected") and out of those 7, how many were between 20 and 50 with no underlying conditions?

Interesting isn't the word! That is just dead on with a LOT of what I have been thinking since it started. WOW. Thanks for posting.

So he is saying the virus is a definite threat? Or that the media is overplaying it?

LOL - so most of you would go it sounds like? I just keep thinking, "of course we need to go!" Then, I see my poor sick kids lying in the bed with flu a week from now and me thinking "WHY DID I GO!?" ARGH! Hard decision!

Government conspiracy. LOL I laugh, but sure it could be true.

LOL...you all sound about like me and dh..."stay home, go." ;)

oh, come on...you know you want to chime in. :)

Does she have swine flu (confirmed)? I suppose lots of people go into respiratory distress from other issues (asthma, etc). Family members are not allowed in either because she is critical and they are trying to stabilize her or because they don't want anyone to spread bacteria (that could cause an opportunistic infection) to her already weak system. Do you know this woman personally?

My responses are in red.

They are counting the child from Mexico as an American death (see the CDC website). Hawaii and Alaska are just part of the US up there.

Well, let me be the first to announce that he has now rewritten his paper. It currently says, "soon I will be a grown-up man who is expected to no longer say fun things like, "dude." Apparently, he was bound and determined to fit the word "dude" into this paper. :001_rolleyes: Little punk! :lol:

:lol:

No, there wasn't. Not really. It was contained to one army base in Ft. Dix Mass. 1 person died, 200 people got sick and recovered. That is hardly an "outbreak."