> We in England have not got immunity to a lot of these viruses coming from abroad

Eh?  The majority of the H1 and H5 strains are mutations anyway, and will continue to mutate, so NO-ONE has immunity to them, not just people in England?

I am amazed that people are so silly to do flu parties!! Would we do T.B parties, chickpox parties, I could go on. We do not and should not ever put our children at risk. That is "failure to protect" a very serious affence. Then we expect the hospitals to put our doings right. They are under great stress with the flu epidemic . It will drain the finances for other important surgery.
People are a little silly at times and a little selfish. It is more than a flu epidemic.

Denese

chickpox parties
Yep!!!! I regularily hear of chicken pox parties!!!!!
My thought on it is, if you are healthy then there is nothing to worry about, it is the people with compromised immune systems etc that will have the problems.
You are more likely to get it from opening a shop door, holding a supermarket trolley handle, or a basket or even money(I did read somewhere years ago how many germs were on a supermarket trolley handle :o :o :o :o)
So unless your going to go around wearing surgical gloves, washing your hands every 2 minutes etc etc its better to just get on and live your life and if you get it you get it, if you dont you dont!!!!
Its not a case anymore of IF its now When!!!
Rupert Grint (Ronald Weasley in Harry Potter) had it a few weeks ago, he was sent off set for a week, but was fine, no hospital trip, just rest.
These things have to be put into perspective and not jump on the Media hype on it.
Yes it is sad people have died, but they may well have died from the yearly type of flu we get, they just wouldnt have been broadcast on the media!!!!
Lea :) :)

I think so many people  nowadays live in such a sterile environment that they are more susceptible to catching things than those who follow basic hygiene rules but are not fanatical about cleanliness.

One of my SILs was totally fanatical about hygiene with her children and they seemed to catch every bug going, and still do - in fact the whole family seem to catch anything and everything going, whereas my children, who were allowed to dig in the garden, investigate creepy crawlies, paddle in streams etc coped well with the various childhood illnesses and bugs that they were guaranteed to come into contact with during the process of having a childhood. Everyone has to eat a little bit of dirt before they die :-)

>I am amazed that people are so silly to do flu parties!!

Supported by the GP, by the way.

> Would we do T.B parties, chickpox parties, I could go on.

Chickenpox parties are quite common too. It's natural immunisation, and far safer done when the individual is otherwise healthy.

>Then we expect the hospitals to put our doings right. They are under great stress with the flu epidemic

Because people are over-reacting and not using their common sense by just staying at home when they're poorly.

>It is more than a flu epidemic.

No, it isn't. It's less of a threat to health than the regular seasonal flu we get each winter, which kills thousands in this country alone.

I agree, Harley :) It really shocks me at the number of people who use anti-bacterial cleaners etc. I wouldn't have them in the house. All these have contributed to the lessening affects of ABs :( My children are the same as yours Harley - hardly ever ill :) When my son was small he got mumps. My GP told me to go out and let him mix with other children (particularly young boys) as it was better for them to catch mumps as young children than to get it as adults. This was, of course, before the MMR jab :) I would rather get swine 'flu now and get some immunity to it :)

Daisy

>It really shocks me at the number of people who use anti-bacterial cleaners etc.

We use them at work, but a vet's surgery is a special case - I don't use them at home. I think my son took about a fortnight off school ill in the whole 14 years. Developing natural immunity is definitely to be recommended.

>I would rather get swine 'flu now and get some immunity to it

Me too.

Ditto JG,
I have a 14 yo and a 10yo.
When all his class mates are going down with bugs, sickness, flu etc they dont get it!!!!
They both get their reports every year and they have at the most 3 days off, and one of them is normally from a day I have taken them out for something important like funeral, wedding, dentist appointments etc!!!!
Lea :) :)

> I think my son took about a fortnight off school ill in the whole 14 years. Developing natural immunity is definitely to be recommended.

Yes :) I think I only ever took my son twice and daughter once to the doctor's when they were children :) Son only had ABs once when he was a child and daughter had her first lot when she was over 20 :) :)

Daisy

Freds mum said I'm beginning to think now its not a case of 'if' but 'when'.

i feel like this if son didnt have it then we are all still waiting to get it, i'd rather have it before my mother comes in November ,

think it would finish me off totally if she went down with it and i had to nurse her thu it , im already under enough pressure at home looking after her and my son when she's here and it seems to get more difficult every year for some reason,

So look out peeps i'll be on here looking for a space in someones barn to hide away if worse come to worse :-(

When all his class mates are going down with bugs, sickness, flu etc they dont get it!!!!


my eldest son he's 22 next week he has never been a sickie kid never got colds flu nothing when he was a boy and still dont know and he was given SMA fomular milk as a baby never breast feed him at all,

my youngest 11 years WAS breast feed and was sick all the time as a baby , you say cold he gets it even had mild measles after his first mmr , it always angered me that people would say "Breast is Best" id just think yeah right.  as my boy was sick from colds, virus, tummy bugs, ear aches, you name it he got it he seemed to have a cold at least once every other month ,
after his first mmr he was constapated so bad had to go into hospital then he came out with Diarrhoea went on for 3 weeks his stools like water then he got a rash , was told it was mild measles then after that he just stopped smiling and would scream at everyone who passed us in the street it was the worse time of my life I used to cross the road from people as I wouldn't want them looking at him as he would start having a screaming fit and it would go on ALL DAY long,  was a total nightmare then on 11/9/2001 YES that dreaded day we had it confirmed he was Autistic,

after coming out of the child health care centre after his assesment i heard what had happened went home put the news on and well what more can i say nothing else seemed that important after watching that,

When all his class mates are going down with bugs, sickness, flu etc they dont get it!!!!

Ditto my boys are very rarely ill, some people's children always seem to have constant colds. Chelzeagirl there mentions breast versies powdered milk and I must admit when I use to see how ill some of my friends children were and how mine never seemed to catch all the nasties going around with their friends, it did make me think perhaps it is because I breast fed my boys that their immune systems seem so good.

However, with one particular friend I realised that maybe a lot of it is to do with personal hygiene. Now my boys know to wash their hands before eating or after playing outside, they know if they use a hanky they wash their hands, all very simple things I would have thought, but sorry if this makes anyone feel queezy, don't read any further if you are:

One day I had a friend of mine over and as usual her son had a cold, the whole family were always having colds going round and round, his nose was dripping away as usual, you know what that looks like. YUK! (I've never had a problem with my own children, but wiping other childrens noses always makes me wretch, I can do it, but I hate doing it. However, my friends sons nose was dribbling and do you know what she did, she grabbed my washing up sponge wiped her sons nose with it and put it back in my washing up bowl. I stood there gipping, saying "that's disgusting, use a tissue!" and she laughed and said well that's what I do at home, no wonder the whole family were always full of colds, imagine washing your dishes up after it's been wiping a dirty nose, vile!!!  I was so appauled I  wiped her sons nose with a tissue myself for the rest of their stay and believe me that made me feel ill in itself.

I also wouldn't drink from her cups anymore until she got a dishwasher and I felt reasonably safe. But I guess that kind of thing goes on, just normal hygiene not used.

I think animals are also great for building up the immune system and of course plenty of outdoor play and the occassional roll in mud! :-D All followed by a wash of hands. :-)

YUK!! was my own fault for reading on you did warn lol
thats disgusting ,
as for Breast verses Bottle i found it worked  the opersite with my boys my bottle feed boy was never ill , my breast feed was a very sicky baby, i think i was probebley more concious of germs with my second child being an older parent and he was only 2lb7oz when born, but then we didnt have any dogs for the first 6 years of his life so id say the house was alot cleaner with regards to dog hair,

Personally I think that breast is best - it is the food entended for babies :) :) Both my children were breast fed. It was much easier than bottle feeding as there were no bottles to be made up and cleaned and night feeds were very quick with no bottles to be warmed up :) Some people have difficulty breast feeding or bottle feeding is much better for their life style, but breast feeding has to be much safer in avoiding infection etc. Perhaps the resaon why your younger son was more sickly was because he had a low birthweight and this outweighed the advantage of being breast fed :)

Daisy

Lea,
This isn't information from the media!! what ever made you assume that?
I think you ought to get your information right, and put it into perspective!!!

Denese

denese would you like to explain what you are questioning???????
Lea :)

Jeangenie,
Get your facts striaght, this time you are way off!!

Denese

Lea,
You said "things have to be put into perspective and not jump on the media hype on it"

The media have no where got all the facts, probly never will. A death that can be prevented must.

You should never put a child in an  environment that compromises that child in any way, being health, or safty, this is a very serious offence, and can in some cases, be to removing the child. To place in a safer environment. Fact!!

Denese

> You should never put a child in an  environment that compromises that child in any way, being health, or safty, this is a very serious offence, and can in some cases, be to removing the child. To place in a safer environment. Fact!!

that's all very true, but to apply that to children that catch natural illnessess from the same environment we all live in, is going OTT.

Some people choose NOT to have thier children vaccinated against illness, yet they do not have thier children taken off them for putting the childs health at risk, just as somebody who exposes thier child in a controlled manner to a naturally occuring illness will not have thier child taken from them, as contraction of these illnesses is the only way they can gain any immunity and build a healthy immune system.

Simply allowing our children out of the house is putting them at risk of contracting viruses. In fact, simply being on this planet is being in an environment that can put our childs health at risk!!

So Denese, if you are not getting your info from the Media where are you getting it from????
And I was talking GENERALLY, not attacking anyone ;)
Lea :) :)

>Jeangenie,
>Get your facts striaght, this time you are way off!!

>Denese

Could you please explain which bit is wrong, and I'll inform my GP of what you say.

Scaremongering over swine flu.
""We have no evidence that this is in any way worse than winter flu, yet the approach has been taking clinicians away from more serious problems with patients and causing great fear among the public.

But I challenge anyone in the Government to come out and say this is worse than ordinary winter flu. It's clearly not."

Denese
Try not to be so defensive.
Try and understand that this is pretty scary for a lot of people who don't have the advantage of first hand information from an authoratitive body (which I'm assuming here that you do, based on your comments, so please don't shoot me down if I'm wrong!lol)
Many people are only able to get information from the press, and even then it's not always accurate.  Even the 'official' health websites such as the WHO, HPA, CDC and so on, won't give out the significant information to the public on their sites, so it can be pretty daunting.

Also bear in mind that I did ask you where you are getting your information and you declined to reveal that (which is completely your prerogative of course), but perhaps it would be helpful if you just said where without giving too much detail?  I don't know.  I always like to try and back up things I have said or typed.
My assumption (again!) would be that you work for the NHS in some capacity, based on the comments regarding the vaccines and issue thereof.  I have seen the letter circulated by David Nicholson to all health care professionals and it basically covers what you've mentioned, i.e. the vaccine being ready and issued to front line staff in August.

I'm with JG though, currently there are far more deaths attributed to 'seasonal' influenza than the swine flu at the moment, but based on what I do know from sources that deal with these viruses day in day out, it does have the ability to become worse.
The information even to those who are involved with pandemic preparedness is conflicting.
But at the moment, the spread is unpreventable, hence why the UK has gone into the treatment phase.
Also has been previously stated, personal hygiene is key just now.

Tessies Tracey,
Sorry if I shot you down, didn't mean to! yes it is very frightening to all ,No body will ever know all the facts. There is, and will be alot more deaths than the yearly flu. As the yearly flu will also be about. The swine flu is just an added worry.
Even in my own family, I have a grandaughter with server asthma, two with asthma, and grandson two weeks old. A son with asthma, Beside the other grandchildren. A very close uncle that has has triple by-pass, my aunty has just had a breast removed with cancer.
So I am worried. It worries me that people always accuse others of scare mungering, when it is common sence, pre-warned is pre-armed.
These are the people that do not take it seriously. This is how it can spread.
Mis-management in the midlands inercity schools didn't help. The health department is not giving the same advice to all.
In truth, they do not know how to handle it. If Doctors are giving false information this is also very worrying, reassurance Yes!
They are only closing schools when the teaching staff have the virus.
It is great to hear, which I was told today, a lot of schools have anti-bacterial hand gel out side there class rooms, and in corridors.
If any of your schools havn't ask the head teacher to consider it.
I think the press, print what they can, if the Health Authorities were truthful and forth coming, the press would not have to, they could print the TRUE facts. The Health Authorities are annoyed that the death of a healthly person has hit the news, they wonted it kept under wraps.

Denese

      

> Health Authorities are annoyed that the death of a healthly person has hit the news, they wonted it kept under wraps.

I can understand why they are annoyed, people will now be in even more of a panick, rushing to thier Dr's at the slightest sniffle, for fear of dying from the flu :(

"To put the scares in perspective, about half-a-million people die from common flus in an average year." Taken from here

"Fourteen patients are now thought to have died in the UK after contracting swine flu, the government has said." "Not all of those had died as a direct result of swine flu, but they had all had the virus, England's chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson said. " taken from here

Agree that the press is now responsible for instilling panic when there should be no more concern about this flu than any other flu.  It is, for example, a lot less threatening than Avian flu.   And *any* virus can mutate, it is the nature of a virus.

Saying that, my husband long ago was told he would not likely survive catching the (any) flu.  So I last Winter with the normal flu about and now with swine flu I am afraid of catching it, soley because I would likely pass it on to him.   He is needle phobic, will not get the flu shot, so as soon as the vacinne becomes more widely available I am going to phone my GP to see if I can get a shot, even though personally I am not in a high risk group.

A friend's son visited this week.  He is a doctor and assistant professor of infectious diseases at a university.   He said there is no reason for panic about swine flu.    He also said the virus can only live for 15 minutes outside of the body.   It is not spread in the air (unless someone sneezes on you, of course) or that sort of thing.    Standard stuff.

>He is a doctor and assistant professor of infectious diseases at a university. He said there is no reason for panic about swine flu.

That's what all the medical professionals are saying. The media whipping people up into a frenzy and the Government's policy seems to be that if you keep people afraid you keep control of them; if the public are running around like headless chickens and drinking Dettol (don't try it - it won't help!) then they won't have time to notice what else is going on in the country.