If you read my other posts you will see what I mean by the Polio incident being a crime. A crime commited by people like you scaring people into not having the vaccine, leading to Polio, which was on the verge of extinction, reinhabiting areas once declared Polio free.
Swine flu being blown out of proportion? Yes and no...
The main concern between H1N1 and seasonal flu is that H1N1 in it's current for has not been seen in the human population before, unlike seasonal flu strains, therefore noone will have natural immunity to it which allows it to spread that much faster.
The very young, very old, and anyone who may be immunocompromised are at a real risk of dying from flu, and as you pointed out, so are people with existing conditions. If you are in any doubt look at the seasonal flu death rates.
With a virus that can spread easier, more people can be infected, and logically one can conclude that more "at risk" people will die.
If you or I get H1N1 we will feel crap for a week then get over it, if someone's newborn or grandmother catches it, they can die.
Understand?
You have touched upon one thing though, mainstream media is generally poor when it comes to science reporting. This is why it's important to be able to look at the actual research being performed and have a good knowledge of Biology, Chemistry and Physics if you want to be able to figure out exactly what's happening out there.
Fortunatly for those unable to get a science degree we have sites such as this http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx which do all the hard work for you, investigating the claims made in newspapers and looking at any avalible evidence.
As for your "ARGH MADE ON ANIMALS" and other graphic attempts at trying to link negative emotional images with something helpful, you do know that just about every medicine youu have and will ever take is tested on animals, some are even grown using animals or bacteria, insulin comes to mind, would you tell a diabetic not to take insulin because it's made from mashed up animal pancreas or harvested from bacteria? Regardless, they all go through the same high quality testing procedures.
If you read my other posts you will see what I mean by the Polio incident being a crime. A crime commited by people like you scaring people into not having the vaccine, leading to Polio, which was on the verge of extinction, reinhabiting areas once declared Polio free.
Swine flu being blown out of proportion? Yes and no...
The main concern between H1N1 and seasonal flu is that H1N1 in it's current for has not been seen in the human population before, unlike seasonal flu strains, therefore noone will have natural immunity to it which allows it to spread that much faster.
The very young, very old, and anyone who may be immunocompromised are at a real risk of dying from flu, and as you pointed out, so are people with existing conditions. If you are in any doubt look at the seasonal flu death rates.
With a virus that can spread easier, more people can be infected, and logically one can conclude that more "at risk" people will die.
If you or I get H1N1 we will feel crap for a week then get over it, if someone's newborn or grandmother catches it, they can die.
Understand?
You have touched upon one thing though, mainstream media is generally poor when it comes to science reporting. This is why it's important to be able to look at the actual research being performed and have a good knowledge of Biology, Chemistry and Physics if you want to be able to figure out exactly what's happening out there.
Fortunatly for those unable to get a science degree we have sites such as this http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx which do all the hard work for you, investigating the claims made in newspapers and looking at any avalible evidence.
As for your "ARGH MADE ON ANIMALS" and other graphic attempts at trying to link negative emotional images with something helpful, you do know that just about every medicine youu have and will ever take is tested on animals, some are even grown using animals or bacteria, insulin comes to mind, would you tell a diabetic not to take insulin because it's made from mashed up animal pancreas or harvested from bacteria? Regardless, they all go through the same high quality testing procedures.