Avian Flu!!!!  Pandemic!!!  We are DUE for the FLU!
  The last pandemic, the misnamed 1918-1919 Spanish flu, killed 50,000,000. This flu made its debut not in Spain but in the US of A, with fresh World War I recruits camped in Kansas. Many of these soldiers were fresh from farm country, with limited exposure to such germ cauldrons as, e.g., a Manhattan subway.  Their healthy backgrounds made them ripe for the picking.  The fact that fewer older folks got taken down by Spanish flu has led scientists to wonder if a related  but less deadly strain had wafted through the world around the 1850’s, granting some immunity to the aged.  The 1918 flu was a H5N1 flu, like the bird flu pandemic we’re threatened with as I write.

  Curiously, this 1918 flu had a presequel in 1916 in an obscure part of France. Some British soldiers became violently ill, dying quickly. Their faces took on a bluish hue, a sign that some lethal bug had ravished their lungs and was now sucking oxygen from red blood cells in their faces. The 1918 victims had a similar bluish tinge.
  All we need with this new avian flu outbreak is a slight mutation that would allow the bug to pass from human to human. As we know, flu bugs are always mutating. That’s why we can’t use the same vaccine year after year. The vaccine fits into the bug like a latch key fits into a lock. However, the lock keeps changing shape just a little bit so you have to keep changing the key.  Occasionally a mutation is positive. The scarlet fever that we read about in the early 1900’s mutated in a way that made the illness much more benign.  But we’re not expecting that kind of break with bird flu.
  The 20^th Century had a number of start-up flu’s but none of them graduated to pandemic status. Old timers might remember:

1957 Asian flu – Elderly suffered the most.
1968 Hong Kong Flu – Children took the biggest hit, suggesting that their seniors, who might have whiffed the scent of the Asian flu, had a bit of immunity.
1976 – Swine flu scare in America. Nothing much happened.  I remember one of my elders remarking at the time that if the flu’s didn’t have such scary names, people wouldn’t be so worried about them. Hong Kong was a foreign, alien (and therefore frightening) name to some of the locals. “Swine flu” does, I admit, sound like something to run from!
1977 Russian flu – This again gave a harder hit to people who weren’t around in 1957.
1997- Avian flu pre-scare.  Prequel?
  Wild birds carry viruses in their intestines.  Usually, these birds stay well. Domesticated birds like chickens and turkeys can catch avian influenza from the wild birds. Infected birds spread the virus through saliva and feces. Water, feed or cages used by sick birds can sicken well birds.
  The Avian Flu has crept through China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Turkey. Thus far, the victims are thought to be people who have raised birds, sold birds, butchered birds or had some kind of intimate contact with birds. The virus can go from birds to person but not person to person- yet. It awaits one small genetic mutation.  As we’ve seen, these mutations easily occur. Often another animal is the conduit for the virus to travel from bird to person. In the 1916 France outpost that sickened British soldiers, there were pig farms. Pigs are an excellent intra-species jumping off place.

The scientists stand ready to save us all. They claim they have some medicines that might help in treating avian flu. Yet, the U.S. hasn’t even been capable of distributing ordinary flu shots to the population that is the most vulnerable to ordinary flu!

Modern Day: Even more Things to Worry About

  Today the list of things to worry about is unfortunately greatly expanded. Sadly, terrorism is added to the list-as are economic difficulties in the U.S. with widespread unemployment and a growing budget deficit. The list of things to worry about shows little sign of diminishing.

 Symptoms of Bubonic Plague:  Fever, headache, vomiting, pain, delerium, coma, death. The site of the original flea bite forms,  first a blister, later a blackish carbuncle.  Lymph nodes swell and suppurate, forming "buboes." Red colored spots appear on the skin. The formation of these red spots inspired the nursery rhyme "Ring around a Rosy."
 A "Health" item from the BBC online, September l999, raised the spector of possibility that the original l7th Century Black Death might return to Britain. Some black rats, rattus rattus,   the host with the most so far as plague-bearing fleas are concerned, have been sited in parts of the Scepter'd Isle. By the way, the transmission route is rat-flea-man.  "Man bites rat" might also work.
  The world's shrunk quite a bit. With folks just as quick to jet back and forth to all four corners of the globe  as we used to be to walk down to Main Street for a soda,  your disease in Tanzania is my disease in the U.S. of A. and visa verse.  (Now that's smart, how can a globe have corners!)

  These animals are regular reservoirs for bubonic plague. There are a lot of prairie dogs in the S.W. United States. And while on the subject of bubonic plague…….
  Other Stories
  I read also that a woman has given her husband part of her liver, the first transplant in the US involving a living adult liver donor who is not a blood relative of the recipient.  I guess if I donated part of my liver to someone, they would come up with anxious depression.
  A story came across the AP wire that Polar bears in the arctic are endangered by PCB's.  Researchers reported they found seven female polar bears with vestigial male organs. This anomaly might be caused by chemical toxicity. I start getting worried when I see sex organs changing, sperm counts being lowered, that sort of thing. I mean--reproduction--that's the Whole Hog, isn't it?
  Along that line, a new antidepressant has been approved in the U.S. by the FDA.  It is still another SSRI, called citralopram  (Celexa). The more, the merrier?