World Health Organization: Swine flu could spread globally

  tauboo said:

  kaini said:

there is also a theory regarding it coinciding with obama's visit to mexico

well the guy who showed obama around a museum, died the next day from swine flu. dunno what the theories are, but that actually happened.

jesus christ I already told you the guy didn't die of swine flu.

nevermind.. should read ahead.

Claim: U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld owns stock in the company that makes Tamiflu.

= True.

  Quote

It is true Donald Rumsfeld does indeed have stock holdings in Gilead Sciences, Inc., the California biotech company that developed Tamiflu (a product now manufactured and sold by the pharmaceutical giant Roche), and so he benefits financially from increases in that company's stock price. (Gilead receives a royalty from Roche equal to about 10% of sales.) Rumsfeld was a member of Gilead's board of

directors between 1988 and 2001, and he was its chairman from 1997 until he joined President George W. Bush's cabinet as Secretary of Defense in 2001. According to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld, he has Gilead stock holdings valued at between $5 million and $25 million.

 

The Secretary of Defense is not the only politically-connected person to have ties to Gilead. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead's board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead stock since the beginning of 2005. Another Gilead board member is the wife of former California governor Pete Wilson.

 

If Rumsfeld holds onto his stock and its share price rises (which one would expect it to do if an avian flu pandemic becomes a reality, or if concerns about such a pandemic continue to grow), he will be seen to be profiting mightily from sales of a product the U.S. government has been buying in large quantities. If he sells his stock and so divests himself of further interest in Tamiflu sales, he will be accused of locking up profits from the rise in share price that has already occurred. (In 2001, shares of Gilead Sciences, Inc. traded in a range between $6.64 and $17.93. Between January and April 2006, its price range has been $53.00 to $65.62.)

 

 

 

Sources:

 

Lean, Geoffrey and Jonathan Owen. "Donald Rumsfeld Makes $5M Killing on Bird Flu Drug."

[London] Independent on Sunday. 12 March 2006 (p. 46).

 

Page, Shelley. "Pandemic Paranoia."

Ottawa Citizen. 13 November 2005 (p. A9).

 

Schwartz, Nelson. "Rumsfeld's Growing Stake in Tamiflu."

CNN.com. 31 October 2005.

 

The New York Times. "Rumsfeld to Avoid Bird-Flu Drug Issues."

28 October 2005 (p. A13).

GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER!

I watched some of the news today; I sat there giggling and clapping my hands like a four year-old watching Saturday morning cartoons.  This whole thing is funny as hell for me.

  Bread said:

Think of all the shares in pharmaceutical companies sky rocketing because of this outbreak.

 

A manufactured strain?

i'm guessing this was worldwide too, but australian news was telling people not to worry about the swine flu, just to stock up on 14 days worth of food :D.. boost the economy a little perhaps ?

swine-11?

  pigster said:

i'm guessing this was worldwide too, but australian news was telling people not to worry about the swine flu, just to stock up on 14 days worth of food :D.. boost the economy a little perhaps ?

Haven't heard anything like that on the news, just to be aware of possible school closures.

Also, as of 11am ET, CDC has confirmed 160 US cases of H1N1 in 21 states.

Doesn't this virus comprise of human flu, bird flu and swine flu? One would think this is quite rare, to get all 3 combined together as a strain. Sure, it's not impossible I know..

yes. that's one of the reasons it's more interesting than other flu strains innit

forgot this wasn't the 'flu optimism' thread

edit ^

I just found out that "Swine flu" in Spanish is "la gripe porcina."  Doesn't that mean "the pig complaint"?

how soon before we forget this ever happened?

Someone should make a thread about all the news we've forgotten over the years.

  EDGEY said:

how soon before we forget this ever happened?

 

Someone should make a thread about all the news we've forgotten over the years.

Chronicle of the 20th Century is keeping my monitor at eye level, otherwise I'd open it and reference some random event.

  OneToThirtySix said:

I just found out that "Swine flu" in Spanish is "la gripe porcina."  Doesn't that mean "the pig complaint"?

No, it means swine flu.

---

Anyway thing is almost over, the mexican authorities now are slowly trying to put things back to normal, I think the only reason why they don't do it quickly is so that they don't get complaints for all the unnecesary economic losses there was.

  GORDO said:

Anyway thing is almost over, the mexican authorities now are slowly trying to put things back to normal, I think the only reason why they don't do it quickly is so that they don't get complaints for all the unnecesary economic losses there was.

You mean gripes.

what about egypt. they're gonna feel mighty foolish when they realise they killed all their pigs for nothing.

I heard talk on the news of banning public gatherings... meanwhile between 0 and 1 people in the US have died from this stuff.

That prospect is a fuck of a lot more terrifying to me than a slightly more deadly flu virus.

HOLY SHIT!

BBC reports zombie-like "ressurection" linked to swine flu!

"The Netherlands confirms its first case of zombie swine flu, in a three-year-old boy recently returned from Mexico. After passing away early this morning, he rose from the dead and lunged at his mother."

  jefferoo said:

HOLY SHIT!

 

BBC reports zombie-like "ressurection" linked to swine flu!

 

"The Netherlands confirms its first case of zombie swine flu, in a three-year-old boy recently returned from Mexico. After passing away early this morning, he rose from the dead and lunged at his mother."

If only it was true :(

Hey, xxx, my wife works at the hospital and they gave her some literature on the swine flu stating that the pandemic is supposed to peak in September (based on the 1918 Spanish flu  pandemic, [which was about a century ago,  :angry:]) and a vaccine is supposed to be available in November; do you know anything different, or are you in a low patient-contact position?

i don't know if this has already been posted in the thread, so i'll post it anyway:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/08/31/2009-08-31_1_out_of_10_new_yorkers_have_had_swine_flu.html

that's pretty good though for such a large city where infections are easily spread.

One 30 y/o in sweden just died from it according to the news

How many people get sick or die from the flu every year?

Each flu season is unique, but it is estimated that, on average, approximately 5% to 20% of U.S. residents get the flu, and more than 200,000 persons are hospitalized for flu-related complications each year. About 36,000 Americans die on average per year from the complications of flu.