So this is Swine Flu?

Yep, I caught the dreaded bug that is certain to kill half the known world in record time....if you believe the drivel coming from the major news networks. I'm a health care provider and was exposed to a child who was very sick from this flu. Five days later, I'm starting to feel achy and my lungs are rattling junk around in them, so I head over to Occ.Med. to get tested. Sure enough, the rapid test comes back 'Influenzae A', and two days later the slow test comes back H1N1.

So, how does this flu make you feel? About like any other flu. You ache, you might have a temp.; you feel like crud for about five days; some people might develop pneumonia from this flu, as the kid did that I was exposed too. Like most flu, the folks most likely to get dangerously sick are the very old, the very young and those with a chronic medical conditions.

As for the rest of us, this is a pretty easy bug to catch. The numbers of cases is rapidly increasing in my area, and this in spite of 100 degree temps, when the rest of the flu viruses have gone dormant until the fall. Anyway, if you catch this bug, go home and hibernate for a week. Rest, drink lots of fluids, and take Tamiflu if the docs. catch the infection in the early stages.

What bothers me about this flu is the hoopla being given to it. For three years now, the press, the World Health Orgainization and the CDC/FDA have done their living best to scare the hell out of everybody worldwide about a flu pandemic. First, there was the Avian Flu, and the slaughtering of millions of birds to prevent a resevoir that could allow the flu to mutate and jump into the general population. That didn't happen.

Now you have the Swine Flu, and it's once again 'the end of the world as we know it'. This, in spite of the very low death rate of approx. 700 worldwide. The regular flu varities kill approx. 36,000 every year. So why all of the fuss?

Simple, money and control. The vaccine makers are making a fortune off these vaccines, especially if the governments force people to take the vaccines. Control is the second reason as declaring a 'Public Health Emergency' allows our government to do all sorts of things to you. They can quarantine you; they can force you to take vaccinations; they can declare curfews to try to curb the spread of the vaccine....to name just a few options. You can call this 'tin foil hat' thinking, but the Obama administration is all about control over all aspects of our lives. If I had to guess, I would guess that we are going to see lots of emergency measures and fear mongering this fall when the infection rate from this flu continues to climb.

Just remember, it's the flu and it's not as bad as some of the regular varities that hit us every year! It's not the time to panic.