Horror

I used to not understand why the concern about stories like <a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10550673%255E30417,00.html">this</a>. I mean its just the flu. That was all before I read a very scary book this summer. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670894737/qid=1093395351/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/103-2816069-5615013">The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History</a><br />n<br />nThis is the scariest book I have ever read in my life. It talks about and analyzes the flu pandemic of 1918 and its consequences. It starts a little slow talking about the state of medicine at the time this happened and then gets into the pandemic and its consequences. It is estimated that between 50 million and 100 million people died from this 1918 flu worldwide in the course of a year. With todays population numbers that works out to 150 million to 300 million if it were to happen today.<br />n<!–more–><br />nOne of the real bad things about this flu was the age group of people it killed. Normally flu kills the young and/or the old but the 1918 Pandemic killed the majority of people in the prime of their lives from 18-35 years of age. This was because their immune system was healthy enough to mount such a strong defense against the disease that the person would literally drown in their own fluids in the lungs overnight. The slower response in young and old actually helped them to fight the disease more effectively.<br />n<br />nI see <a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/flu_pandemic">here</a> that more preparations are being taken all the time in expectation of another pandemic but most of these preparations are on how to take care of the large amount of flu cases not stopping it. It really appears to me there is no effective way to stop it once it starts, just try to cope with it while it happens. One of the ways officials say they can control a flu pandemic is with some of the new antiviral drugs that are being developed but that is beginning to look like that might not be the case. It's being <a href="http://www.scienceblog.com/community/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3846">reported now</a> that one of these drugs instead of helping in all case might actually allow the flu to mutate even more and infect more people. The adaptability of the flu virus is staggering in its implications.<br />n<br />nLike I say this book scared the living s__t out of me on how actually deadly the "simple flu" can be. I have been getting a flu shot for quite a few years now and after this book I definitely will continue to do this and hope the witch doctors get the strain right in the vaccine to protect us. Now if I can just convince my Darling Wife to get a shot and to get the kids shots I would feel a little better.<br />n<br />n<b>You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do. Eleanor Roosevelt</b>