Swine Flu - Pandemic or Pants?

[suityou01]

The incubation period of flu can be anywhere between 1 and 5 days.

[AlfredJPruffock]

Pharmaceutical companies can't profit from hunger.

Ah - Big Pharma - theyre never far away - are they ?



While pharmaceuticals may often be lifesavers, they are also the product of a massive global industry that manufactures compounds that can interfere, in myriad and unintended ways, with complex biological functions.

They are often designed to break down slowly and have yet-unknown consequences to the environment. As a new Government report points out, they also contribute significantly to global warming: NHS drug-purchasing alone is responsible for millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

We are an overmedicated society with older people and children receiving the vast majority of needless drug prescriptions, according to a 2003 report in the Journal of Social and Administrative Pharmacy. Our over-the-counter drug use is spiralling: UK sales of the painkiller Anadin in 2007 totalled nearly 27 million packs. As its maker, Wyeth Healthcare, boasts: 'If stacked on top of each other, they would reach over 56 times the height of Mount Everest.'

Our ever-growing consumption is encouraged by a powerful triumvirate: Big Pharma with its demanding shareholders; doctors who fire off quick fixes from their prescription pads and health journalists hungry for the next ‘medical breakthrough’ story.

Having worked in health journalism for 20 years, I have frequently witnessed how lazy writers and headline-hungry editors ignore clear evidence of thin or dodgy science when publicising drug cures for everything from shyness to brain tumours.

The ecological cost is publicly invisible, but all the bioactive chemicals we ingest ultimately enter the water system, either through lavatories or refuse disposal.

Thus they contaminate the food chain and our drinking water. As a result, each of us now consumes between 50g and 150g of active pharmaceutical ingredients a year via our tap water, according to a report by the UK Drinking Water Inspectorate in November 2007.

The cumulative result is… Well, we don’t know, because nobody is trying too hard to find out. Despite oficial indifference, however, a picture is starting to emerge.

And it looks worrying.

[TimberWolf]

Is the panic over now?

Oink

[TimberWolf]

GlaxoSmithKline up 4% on the day and Astrazeneca up 3%.

[ThomasSoerensen]

Is the panic over now?

Oink

Yup

[AlfredJPruffock]

OK so onto the next crises then - how about a solution that we can make a quick buck from regarding the Andromeda Galaxy/Milky Way Collision - I know some say its 3.5 Billion years away - but Tempu Fugit - and this will be a truly global impact.

And - you cant be too careful nowadays.

[HairyArsedBloke]

Oh no. I think I've got it.


Feeling a bit poorly. Not done anything all day. Though, it could be the result of having a bit too much to drink yesterday.

[Cyberman]

Swineflu confirmed in Manchester.

[weemster]

http://www.gaire.com/e/f/view.asp?parent=1196373

The pictures are a personal favourite

[CheeseSlice]

The bunker has been dusted off and re-stocked.

I'm bolting my doors and turning the lights off.

And if the WHO can't fix this one, I'm sure the army can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmm5iOS2IRk
(WARNING: don't open if you don't like zombies and gore)