Mexico fights swine flu with 'pandemic potential'

[berlitz23]

The media will adeptly exploit and manipulate the emerging fear about this flu pandemic, everyone of us needs to make conscientious effort to observe astutely what tactics the government will take in the upcoming weeks to thwart a possible pandemic.

[STJ]

Yes we do.

[Marx22]

I'm just loathing the fact that soon enough TV networks will be flooding our screens with those made-for-TV movies about how terrible this flu is (remember all those bird-flu movies? horrible!) and make a bunch of money off of it.

[cyu]

I can't help but be reminded of that Mission Impossible movie. From http://www.epinions.com/review/mvie_mu-1097287/mvie-review-47C5-10AE47DB-3955A4BB-prod5

"The plot is that of the last 11 James Bond movies: Bad loonie has killer virus. He will kill all of Sydney if he doesn't get billions of dollars and also STOCK OPTIONS. (Hey, Robert Towne wrote it. Blame him.)"

[KurtFF8]

While we certainly need to make sure that this isn't exploited to further those who could benefit from it, we can't get too caught up in conspiracy theories of how this is "all an evil corporate plot!"

Flu pandemics are real, they have happened throughout history, and whether this is being overblown/exploited or not we can't just ignore it as some conspiracy. Governments do have an obligation to deal with health crises like this (granted they also facilitate capital making profit off of things like this as well).

So I suppose the moral of my post: yes watch out for the exploitation of this health concern, but don't get too caught up in that idea: it can be counter productive to do so.

[Zurdito]

I prefer the idea of using the pandemic to show the degraded state we are living in under capitalism; it is no coincedencde that these things always happen where people live in dirty and cramped conditions and eat unhygenically rpepared food, where humans are forced to live amongst animals, where public health is non-existent, where multinational companies have the impunity to do what the hell they want with people's environment and with the water, land, vegetables and meat, etc.

Here in Argentina there is a dengue epidemic FFS, in the 21st century, in a world with the material capacities for everyone to live comfortably, we have to be lookign over our shoulders in case a mosquito bites us! 25 people here die every day of preventable diseases. In Mexico, I don't know the statistics, but I can be sure that it is much higher given the much greater amount of poor people there. Throughout Latin America and the third world this happens and the first world could also very soon be hit by something like this. People are right to be scared and right to be outraged.

But we could take the conspiracy theory view as well and just dismiss the "sheeple" and their petty concerns.:rolleyes:

[Oneironaut]

This influenza epidemic is by no means some creation of the Mexican government. You honestly think the ruling class wants to essentially shut down the largest city in the western hemisphere?

[Saorsa]

They interrupted the TV last night to tell us that 10 New Zealand high school students who just got back from Mexico have the disease. Hopefully it doesn't spread to here... apparently the 1918 Influenza Epidemic was swine flu!

[Revy]

I just suppose it's a matter of time before it hits Florida.

[Oneironaut]

I just suppose it's a matter of time before it hits Florida.

They are saying it came from the States in the first place.

[KurtFF8]

I just suppose it's a matter of time before it hits Florida.

Don't say such things!

[Coggeh]

Ukraine have banned pork imports from the US , Mexico and other effected countries .

This is stupid , and a clear result of the media creating huge panic , if you cook pork at a reasonable degree their is NO chance of getting swine flu . Its the same thing that happened with bird flu last time when countries banned imports hurting economies because of the media stirring up idiocy .

Swine flu is a real virus that should be monitored and acted against by all governments but this is just irrational .



No. Swine influenza viruses are not transmitted by food. You can not get swine influenza from eating pork or pork products. Eating properly handled and cooked pork and pork products is safe. Cooking pork to an internal temperature of 160°F/71°C kills the swine flu virus as it does other bacteria and viruses.

Source : http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/key_facts.htm

[Coggeh]

They are saying it came from the States in the first place.
It did . In 2005 their was an outbreak in the States .

[KurtFF8]

Ukraine have banned pork imports from the US , Mexico and other effected countries .

This is stupid , and a clear result of the media creating huge panic , if you cook pork at a reasonable degree their is NO chance of getting swine flu . Its the same thing that happened with bird flu last time when countries banned imports hurting economies because of the media stirring up idiocy .

Swine flu is a real virus that should be monitored and acted against by all governments but this is just irrational .




Source : http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/key_facts.htm

Well I'm vegetarian so I must be completely safe! (joke)

The media does indeed create panic with situations like this. I don't think there's any "sinister" intent behind it, it's just the structure of the media (at least in the United States) to go for ratings and do whatever they must to get there. This leads them to induce panic when no such panic ought to be induced.

[punisa]

Makes you wonder who would be left to die if this flu really becomes a pandemic killer..
Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but one effect is already visible - multinational pharmaceutical companies are making millions as we speak.

I'm no conspiracist, but from a capitalist point of view it makes sense to kill 100 or so in order to sell millions of your product (like tamiflu that is all over tv screens in the last 24 h).
I really doubt that today in 21st century there does not exist a way to systematically make a small population ill in order to create a global panic.
Everyone is talking about this damn swine flu today, from US to Gaza strip all the way to North Korea.

[Revy]

Makes you wonder who would be left to die if this flu really becomes a pandemic killer..
Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but one effect is already visible - multinational pharmaceutical companies are making millions as we speak.

I'm no conspiracist, but from a capitalist point of view it makes sense to kill 100 or so in order to sell millions of your product (like tamiflu that is all over tv screens in the last 24 h).
I really doubt that today in 21st century there does not exist a way to systematically make a small population ill in order to create a global panic.
Everyone is talking about this damn swine flu today, from US to Gaza strip all the way to North Korea.

I was thinking, maybe it is an international conspiracy to maintain order during an economic crisis. I mean, this is four different viruses from different continents put together. It makes you wonder.

[Revy]

The xenophobes have been ramping up their rhetoric about it. A lot of fearmongering about undocumented immigrants covertly spreading it. Despite the fact that the virus spreads internationally by other means than crossing a border. Even if the border maniacs were able to seal off the border, the virus could still spread easily and quickly.

[STJ]

No way????????? Here are you serious.:confused::confused:

[punisa]

No way????????? Here are you serious.:confused::confused:
Who and regarding what?

[STJ]

It was about stancel's post above me.

[Revy]

I'm just going on some comments I've read. I'm on MySpace and they have groups with political debate. One conservative said "this is why we must secure our borders" as if that had anything to do with it.

if you're talking about the conspiracy theory, I don't officially think that. It's just something I wondered. The timing seems suspicious.

[Killfacer]

It's one of those things that i sketch out about a bit but will probably never happen.

I seem to remember Bird Flu was going to kill us all fairly recently, SARS was going to tear through the world and destroy 90% of the population and our brains were going to be turned to mush by mad cow disease.

[BIG BROTHER]

I think is also important to remember in this case the shock doctrine. In situations like these were the masses are in Shock, the bourgeoisie government will try to do things that normally people would react against. But since they are in shock they go rather unnoticed.

[STJ]

Who remembers the Y2K nutters running around screaming the worlds gonna end?

[berlitz23]

My intent was not to instill the idea that this is a goverment conspiracy, This is a tangible and concrete 'concern', yet the fear is becoming endemic over the country and worldwide, and governments might indeed exert anamalous control over the population to combat the virus.I am just admonishing people here, that we need to examine analyze and dissect how the media report this, they have injected unprecedented fear in the masses.

[Dr Mindbender]

while i'm concerned about the health implications part of me wonders how much of this is a ploy by the right media to scapegoat immigrants.

Only about 6 people east of north america have the illness, and nobody thinks they're going to die.

It stinks of the same politics of fear as 'terrorism'.

[Dr Mindbender]

It's one of those things that i sketch out about a bit but will probably never happen.

I seem to remember Bird Flu was going to kill us all fairly recently, SARS was going to tear through the world and destroy 90% of the population and our brains were going to be turned to mush by mad cow disease.

Quite.

What worries me is that the ''little boy who cried wolf'' analogy fits this so well.

If a real epidemic of biblical proportions was to happen, we'll be completely unprepared because no-one will take the media warnings seriously anymore.