Bird flu causes fatal immune storm, study finds. This will be "Spanish Flu" Redux.
 

This is what I didn't want to find out.. H5N1 causes a cytokine storm. :(

The more healthy you are, the more your immunity system will kill you. A cytokine storm is a cascading hyper-reaction of the immune system so severe that attacking the flu virus actually kills the host.

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Bird flu causes fatal immune storm, study finds

http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsAr...mber=1&summit=

CHEMICAL STORM

The H5N1 viruses brought in a storm of cytokines -- the immune system's inflammatory chemicals -- including IP-10, interferon beta, RANTES and interleukin-6. The H1N1 virus caused a much smaller effect.

And the later, Vietnamese strains caused a bigger cascade than the 1997 H5N1 strain.

This could be because of continued mutations, the researchers said. "The H5N1 viruses have continued to reassort, acquiring different internal genes from other influenza viruses of avian origin," the researchers wrote.

The study, published on the Internet at http://respiratory-research.com/, may explain the severe respiratory distress suffered by H5N1 patients, who often say they struggle to breathe.

Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota who has been advising the U.S. government on the risks of a flu pandemic, said the study supports predictions that any possible H5N1 pandemic would be especially severe.

It means being young and healthy could actually work against people who become infected.

"Anyone could experience this very severe, life-threatening illness," Osterholm said in a telephone interview.

"This is looking more and more like an H1N1 1918."

The worst recorded influenza epidemic was in 1918, when an H1N1 strain swept the globe in a few months, killing anywhere between 20 million and 100 million people, depending on the estimate. In comparison, a pandemic in 1957 killed 2 million and one caused by an H3N2 virus in 1968 killed 1 million.

"In 1918, even among the very young and the very old, there was a ten-fold increase in deaths," Osterholm said. "There was a 1,000-fold increase in young adults."

Fauci said researchers are now testing various drugs that may affect the immune system to see if they would help patients better survive H5N1.

I think I'm gonna give up condoms. Why bother? Gonna have some fun on the way down! :winkwink:

On a serious note - I'm on interferon medicine for my MS. It deadens some of my immune system so it won't attack my body. I wonder if that will help or hurt if/when this breaks out.

Hell yeah!
If being healthy is a risk, I'm safe :winkwink:

I've read somewhere that Elderberry (Sambucol) can actually help prevent the cytokine storm. But I'm not so sure about the sources and scientific facts.

NoCarrier how long do you think is left before this virus mutates into the human form ? I'm seriously interested, what are you going to do when there is a full scale flu pandemic ? I'm not really sure there is much we could do, this thing will spread so fast

3 days, 2 hours and 1 minute...

How the fuck can he answer that question ?

Stay at home, get food / fuel / generator supply, and lock your doors ...

Perhaps based on past flu's, I don't fuckin know

NoCarrier seems to be the most educated person on this board about the bird flu situation. We all know it's just a matter of time before this flu mutates to the human form. Go fuck yourself :321GFY

I'm a heavy smoker, I eat unhealthy so I feel safe haha

I really don't know. I've been following H5N1 since it started in 1997. But the shit really hit the fan 2 years ago when it started spreading across Asia. There are really bad signs that it's rapidly learning and adapting to infect human cells. We're seeing more clusters, especially in Indonesia. It could start next week or in 3 years. My personal prediction is fall 2006, but like I said, even scientists don't know when.

Same here buddy :thumbsup Smokers UNITE!

i got a gun and hundreds of rounds so when all you fuckers get sick call me and I'll come whack ya :winkwink:

See, posting on GFY will save your life.


Sitting in this chair, moving as little as possible, and eating shit foods and smoking few packs a day...


I will be KING of the survivors.

you guys are really shitting your pants over this "flu". might as well line you all up for the test vaccines right now and pump you full of that shit.

out of the 6,446,131,400 people on earth, what.. 60 died by something that could have been related to the bird flu? not to mention that those 60 people were farmers who came into direct contact with blood and shit of the birds in question which is why they were infected.

this is a classic "shit your pants" tactic used by the government to have all you little dumbass bitches shitting your pants and not paying attention to the real problems.

sleep tight..