Thursday, November 19, 2009

Commonground Comments

In Vietnam, China, Taiwan and South Korea, we get disclosure on the age, location, when they were put on antiviral medication, we get the onset of their illness, and date of death.

The U.S. does not report on names, locations, or ages of it’s victims of A/H1N1. We do not usually get a date of death. We do not get a duration of their illness. Because of the laws that the health officials are beholden to, they also do not report any specifics on their medical protocol for any given victim.

Therefore, we can not track any human-to-human transmission, nor can we track geographic spread. We also can not track any Tamiflu or Relenza resistance.

Some of this is not important for this particular pandemic. It is mild. Some of it is still important...like resistance to antivirals.

We have to wait for the authorities to hand us an update on the situation.

That goes against the grain of my driving force to investigate this pandemic. I have been tracking H5N1 for almost 4 years....because I needed to know myself. Not wait for an update from the “authorities”, with whatever it is they choose to tell me.

I can’t begin to tell you how frustrated and cynical I have become.

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