Novel (reassortment) influenza viruses can be far more dangerous to young, healthy people than seasonal influenza viruses. During the 1918 flu pandemic, young adults were especially vulnerable to dying within a few days of the onset of symptoms. Many influenza researchers believe that the otherwise healthy, young adults who died in this pandemic, likely succumbed to a cytokine storm produced by an extremely robust immune response to a virus to which they had no immunity. Even the relatively mild 2009 Novel H1N1 virus is hitting young people and pregnant women harder than seasonal flu does.

Smallpox? You must be kidding. Smallpox was eradicated in 1977. Yes, the U.S. and Russia have some frozen smallpox virus, but why would the Russians sell it to the Iranians when it could be used against them? This is an excellent argument for destroying the remaining frozen smallpox virus stocks.

Misplaced Priorities: Swine Flu vs. Smallpox:
Why is the central government making such a fuss about H1N1 Swine Influenza? And before that the H5N1Chicken Influenza? And before that the Duck Influenza A? Our government is telling us, if they don’t immunize our people, we might have another 1918 type epidemic. Horse feathers! In 1918 we had no antibiotics to treat the secondary pneumonia and the bacterial pleural emphyema that were the real killers back then. Today we have readily available, effective antibiotics and the physicians and surgeons who know how to use them. This, rather than some government immunization program, is the reason 1918 has not, since, been repeated!
I find it ironic that it was the central government’s “expert” Dr Anthony Fauci who capitulated to the demands of “President Cheney.” And disallowed patients and their personal physicians from being able to voluntarily immunize against smallpox. During the run up to Cheney’s phony war against Iraq. Cheney didn’t want (the extremely low incidence of) smallpox adverse reactions to spoil his little gift to the military industrial complex.
Except for the military, there’s been no smallpox immunization program in the United States since 1972. For you see it is the loss of the herd immunity to smallpox that has left us highly vulnerable to smallpox biological warfare. Attention! There is a distinct possibility that the Russians have sold weaponized smallpox to the Iranians. And in the event of an Iranian smallpox attack on our people, no Fauci crash smallpox immunization is going to save us. Why, Fauci and the government can’t even supply the vaccine, in a timely manner, in the relatively innocuous Swine Flu situation.
If you want to do something for the this country, Dr. Fauci, pull your head out of the sand, and go back and undo the smallpox trap that you and the CDC’s Dr. Julie Gerberding, on the orders of President Cheney, unwittingly, set for the American people. It’s for
patients and their own physicians to decide re: smallpox vaccinations, carried out in a timely and orderly fashion.
Listen! A biologic warfare smallpox attack on the American people, who are rapidly losing their herd immunity, is the real threat. Not the swine, chicken or duck flu. If you don’t believe me just ask the American Indian who, unlike the Europeans, had no herd immunity to smallpox!
George Meredith MD
Virginia Beach