My boss asked me this morning if I was still going to Cancun and my answer was yes... He said well if you look at the map... You are closer here to cases then you will be in Cancun... See the map he found.... http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...0.390625&spn=15.738151,25.488281&source=embed Can't wait to see everyone pool side Thursday... We land around 11am and will get there ASAP. T
I believe that the opposite may be true in regards to human immune systems. Over the years there have been studies and reports (around the world) showing over use of "germ killers" and anti-bacteria hand soap has lessened our immune systems abilities. Look I am not an expert by no means but I have heard this in past and we just have to be careful when making public statements without backing it up. The Truth About Antibacterial Soaps--And Why You Should Avoid Them By Dr. Joseph Mercola with Rachael Droege It used to be that antibacterial soaps were used mainly in clinical health care environments. Now, antibacterial soaps are used in households across the country where they amount to a $16 billion-a-year industry. Some 72 percent of all liquid soap sold in the United States now contains antibacterial ingredients. The active ingredient in most antibacterial products is triclosan, an antibacterial agent that kills bacteria and inhibits bacterial growth. But not only does triclosan kill bacteria, it also has been shown to kill human cells. Triclosan was introduced into consumer products in 1995, and its use has spread rapidly. Antibacterial ingredients have become so prevalent in the United States that there are now antibacterial soaps, laundry detergents, shampoos, toothpastes, body washes, dish soaps and many household cleaning products. Consumers use these products because they have been marketed as an effective and necessary way to lower the risk of infection. However, many scientists fear that the widespread use could lead to a strain of resistant bacteria, or "superbugs," and cause the ingredients to lose effectiveness for the times when they really are needed. And now, the first major test in people's homes has found that using antibacterial products apparently offers little protection against the most common germs. The study represents the first time scientists have attempted to evaluate the products under real-life, day-to-day conditions in homes. It is dangerous for anyone, especially chidren to live in a sterile environment. There is a natural and beneficial symbiotic relationship that exists between humans and microrganisms. However, there is one caveat to this statement. In order for infant's immune sytems to function properly he or she must be breastfed. The benefits of breastfeeding extend well beyond the breasteeding period. For non-breastfeeding parents, their fear of microbes might be justified in some cases. It is amazing to me that these antibacterial soaps are so popular that you literally can't buy a soap marketed for children that is not antibacterial. Therefore, if your kids simply MUST have a soap with their favorite television character on the dispenser, then simply use the dispenser and fill it with a mild natural soap. The best way of getting the dispenser would be to get one from someone who uses the product, although if that is not possible, you may have to purchase and empty it. In the study, published in the March 2, 2004 journal Annals of Internal Medicine, people who used antibacterial soaps and cleansers developed cough, runny nose, sore throat, fever, vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms just as often as people who used products that did not contain antibacterial ingredients. The researchers pointed out that most of the symptoms experienced by the study participants are typically caused by viruses, which the antibacterial soaps don’t protect against. And for the symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea, which may be caused by bacteria, the people who used regular soaps had no greater risk than those who used antibacterial products. Further, many traditional medical circles now accept the hygiene hypothesis, which centers on the idea that children need to be exposed to some bacteria in early childhood in order to strengthen their immune systems. Children who are not exposed to common bacteria, which are wiped out by antibacterial soap, may be more prone to allergies and asthma. Even the American Medical Association (AMA) does not recommend these products. So why do they persist? Simple; the manufacturers have relied on using fear to convince people that they need to use them to stay healthy. So, avoid being duped by these companies. All you need to use is a plain, chemical-free soap that you can pick up in your local health food store, as washing with plain soap and water will get rid of most all bacteria. vvvvvvvvvv Antibacterial Soaps Should be Avoided Ingredients in soaps and cleansers intended to fight bacteria could promote the growth of drug-resistant "superbugs" that might otherwise be kept in check with little more than a vigorous scrub, warns microbiologist Dr. Stuart Levy of Tufts University. Dr. Levy had some interesting comments that he presented at a recent conference. He states: * "Dousing everything we touch with antibacterial soaps and taking antibiotic medications at the first sign of a cold can upset the natural balance of microorganisms in and around us, leaving behind only the 'superbugs." * Older cleansers such as soap and hot water, alcohol, chlorine bleach and hydrogen peroxide are sufficient for most purposes. * Strong antibacterial cleaners are needed only when someone in a household is seriously ill or has low immunity. * A recent Italian study found that exposure to bacteria is essential for development of an infant's immune system. Dr. Levy said a baby must be exposed to germs during its first year in order to develop antibodies needed to fight infection later in life. Many people are aware of the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The only difference between anti-bacterial soaps/lotions (e.g., triclosan) and antibiotic drugs is the method of application. vvvvvvvvvvvv Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Worry Experts A fourth report in the US of a patient with a Staph bacteria infection resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin has prompted officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to emphasize their guidelines on preventing the spread of these bacteria. The CDC also reported January 6 that laboratories around the US might not be correctly testing for these antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, which is crucial in preventing their spread. One bacteria of concern, Staphylococcus aureus, is a common cause of infection in hospitalized patients. In recent years, experts have become very concerned about the increased incidence of strains of the bacteria that fail to succumb to all but a few antibiotics. This is known as antibiotic resistance, and most experts think that it is due to worldwide overuse of antibiotics. As the theory goes, if all the bacteria causing an infection are not eradicated with an antibiotic, then the remaining bacteria become stronger and more resistant to future use of the same antibiotic. Eventually, this can lead to strains of bacteria that show resistance to antibiotics held in reserve for such cases, such as vancomycin. This raises the specter of infections for which no antibiotic treatment may be available, putting patients' lives at great risk. The CDC reports a case in April 1999, of a 63-year-old woman in an Illinois hospital with a Staph infection. The woman had kidney failure and had already received the antibiotic vancomycin, which should kill most strains of Staphylococcus aureus. However, after being on vancomycin for 25 days, the physicians found three strains of Staphylococcus resistant to several different antibiotics, including vancomycin. Despite treatment with vancomycin and two other antibiotics, the women died. The hospital screened family members, healthcare workers at the hospital, and other patients at the hospital and found no evidence that the antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains had spread to any of them. The CDC officials note that in response to reports of infections with antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria it is conducting a nationwide search for other cases like the one described here. vvvvvvvvvvv Antibacterial Agents May Cause Drug Resistance Bacteria, including E. coli, can develop resistance to household antibacterial compounds such as triclosan, a biocide commonly added to soap, toothpaste and other products. The finding raises concern that widespread use of these chemicals could give rise to dangerous drug-resistant organisms. Scientists have traditionally discounted the possibility of such a threat, believing instead that household 'biocides' kill germs in so many different ways that no one organism could ever develop full resistance. These are just four articles I found while doing a very fast search under this topic and I just caution people on what they read and/or say. On a side note, like others have said we just as at risk home here in the State, Canada or Europe. But the big question is where would you rather be if you happen to become infected? Home or in another country far from your own bed and healthcare? On last question on the our immune system, why do you think we cannot drink the water while in Mexico? Because of our immune systems are not built up to handle the bacteria and nothing to do with our "great county". :lol: :lol: :lol:
Swine Haley and I still plan on going at this point. I have a call into my primary physician and I work in healthcare so I know basic rules of health safety - I will be cautious and go from there. We don't leave until the 14th so I think a lot will develop over the next week to let us know what is going on for sure.
I agree that the media does over-hype everything and to be honest it is getting very old... The WHO will be meeting again before tomorrow to decide if they will raise the "threat level" from phase 3 to phase 4 (Pandemic). If this happens we may not need to worry about cancelling your trip as international travel to or from countries with confirmed cases could be prohibited. This was taken from TIME this morning: 1. Is this a flu pandemic? The influenza virus is constantly mutating. That's why we can't get full immunity to the flu, the way we can to diseases like chicken pox, because there are multiple strains of the flu virus and they change from year to year. However, even though the virus makes us sick, our immune systems can usually muster enough of a response so that the flu is rarely fatal for healthy people. But every once in awhile, the virus shifts its genetic structure so much that our immune systems offer no protection whatsoever. (This usually happens when a flu virus found in animals - like the avian flu still circulating in Asia - swaps genes with other viruses in a process called reassortment, and jumps to human beings.) A flu pandemic occurs when a new flu virus emerges for which humans have little or no immunity and then spreads easily from person to person around the world. In the 20th century we had two mild flu pandemics, in 1968 and 1957, and the severe "Spanish flu" pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 40 to 50 million people worldwide. The WHO has the responsibility of declaring when a new flu pandemic is underway, and to simplify the process, the U.N. body has established six pandemic phases. Thanks to H5N1 avian flu, which has killed 257 people since 2003 but doesn't spread very well from one human to another, we're currently at phase 3. If the WHO upgraded that status to phase 4, which is marked by a new virus that begins to pass easily enough from person to person that we can detect community-sized outbreaks, such a move would effectively mean that we've got a pandemic on our hands. The H1N1 swine flu virus has already been identified as a new virus, with genes from human and avian flus as well as the swine variety. And since it is apparently causing large-scale outbreaks in Mexico, along with separate confirmed cases in the U.S. and Canada and suspected cases in other countries, it would seem that we've already met the criteria for phase 4. But though an emergency committee met on April 25 to evaluate the situation, the WHO hasn't made the pandemic declaration yet. Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's interim assistant director-general for health, security and environment, said on Sunday that its experts "would like a little bit more information and a little bit more time to consider this." The committee is set to meet again by April 28 at the latest. As health officials have repeatedly emphasized, with good reason, the swine flu situation is evolving rapidly, and more lab tests are needed to ascertain exactly what is going on in Mexico and elsewhere. "We want to make sure we're on solid ground," said Fukuda, a highly respected former CDC official and flu expert. 2. What will happen if this outbreak gets classified as a pandemic? Moving the world to pandemic phase 4 would be the signal for serious containment actions to be taken on the national and international level. Given that these actions would have major implications for the global economy, not to mention the effects of the public fear that would ensue, there is concern that the WHO may be considering politics along with science. "What the WHO did makes no sense," says Osterholm. "In a potential pandemic, you need to have the WHO be beyond question, and (April 25) was not a good day for them." Of course, declaring a pandemic isn't a decision that should be taken lightly. For the WHO, phase 4 might trigger an attempt to keep the virus from spreading by instituting strict quarantines and blanketing infected areas with antivirals. But we appear to have missed the opportunity to contain the disease at its source since the virus is already crossing borders with ease. "We cannot stop this at the border," said Anne Schuchat, the CDC's interim director for science and public health. "We don't think that we can quench this in Mexico if it's in many communities now." That would leave the WHO and individual countries to fall back on damage control, using antivirals and old-fashioned infection control - like closing schools, limiting public gatherings and even restricting travel - to slow the spread of the virus. But such efforts would likely inflict serious damage on an already faltering global economy - and the truth is, we don't know how well those methods will work. 3. Why have the U.S. cases been so much milder than the ones in Mexico? This is the question that has health officials from Geneva to Washington puzzled. In Mexico, swine flu has caused severe respiratory disease in a number of patients - and even more worryingly, has killed the sort of young and healthy people who can normally shrug off the flu. (Fueling such concerns is the fact that similar age groups died in unusually high numbers during the 1918 pandemic.) Yet the cases in the U.S. have all been mild and likely wouldn't have even garnered much attention if doctors hadn't begun actively looking for swine flu in recent days. "What we're seeing in this country so far is not anywhere near the severity of what we're hearing about in Mexico," said the CDC's Besser. "We need to understand that." Some of the difference may be due to the fact that Mexico has apparently been grappling with swine flu for weeks longer than the U.S. As doctors across the U.S. begin checking patients with respiratory symptoms for swine flu, CDC officials expect to see more severe cases in the U.S. as well - and as better epidemiological work is done in Mexico, we'll probably hear about more mild cases there too. Right now, however, the true severity of the H1N1 swine flu virus is still an open question, whose answer could change over time. The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic began with a fairly mild wave of infections in the spring, but the virus returned a few months later in a far more virulent form. That could happen with the current swine flu as well. "It's quite possible for this virus to evolve," said Fukuda. "When viruses evolve, clearly they can become more dangerous to people." 4. How ready is the U.S. - and the world - to respond to a flu pandemic? In some ways, the world is better prepared for a flu pandemic today than it has ever been. Thanks to concerns over H5N1 avian flu, the WHO, the U.S. and countries around the world have stockpiled millions of doses of antivirals that can help fight swine flu as well as other strains of influenza. The U.S. has a detailed pandemic preparation plan that was drafted under former President George W. Bush. Many other countries have similar plans. SARS and bird flu have given international health officials useful practice runs for dealing with a real pandemic. We can identify new viruses faster than ever before, and we have life-saving technologies - like artificial respirators and antivirals - that weren't available back in 1918. "I believe that the world is much, much better prepared than we have ever been for dealing with this kind of situation," said Fukuda. At the same time, the very nature of globalization puts us at greater risk. International air travel means that infections can spread very quickly. And while the WHO can prepare a new swine flu vaccine strain in fairly short order, we still use a laborious, decades-old process to manufacture vaccines, meaning it would take months before the pharmaceutical industry could produce its full capacity of doses - and even then, there wouldn't be enough for everyone on the planet. The U.S. could be particularly vulnerable; only one plant, in Stillwater, Penn., makes flu vaccine in America. In a pandemic, that could produce some ugly political debates. "Do you really think the E.U. is going to release pandemic vaccine to the U.S. when its own people need it?" asks Osterholm. Indeed, the greatest risk from a pandemic might not turn out to be from the swine flu virus itself - especially if it ends up being relatively mild - but what Osterholm calls "collateral damage" if governments respond to the emergency by instituting border controls and disrupting world trade. Not only would the global recession worsen - a 2008 World Bank report estimated that a severe pandemic could reduce the world's GDP by 4.8% - but we depend on international trade now for countless necessities, from generic medicines to surgical gloves. The just-in-time production systems embraced by companies like Wal-Mart - where inventories are kept as low as possible to cut waste and boost profit - mean that we don't have stockpiles of most things. Supply chains for food, medicines and even the coal that generates half our electricity are easily disruptable, with potentially catastrophic results. Though we'll likely hear calls to close the border with Mexico, Osterholm points out that a key component used in artificial respirators comes from Mexico. "We are more vulnerable to a pandemic now than at any other time over the past 100 years," he says. "We can't depend on ourselves." 5. So how scared should we be? That depends on whom you ask. Officials at the CDC and the WHO have emphasized that while the swine flu situation is serious, they're responding with an abundance of precautions. Even Osterholm, who has been highly critical of the U.S. government's long-term failures to better prepare for a pandemic, gives the CDC a 9 out of 10 for its response so far. Outside of Mexico, the swine flu hasn't looked too serious yet - unlike during the SARS outbreaks of 2003, when an entirely new virus with no obvious treatment took the world by surprise. In the U.S., the normal flu season is winding down, which should make it easier for public-health officials to pick out swine flu cases from run-of-the-mill respiratory disease. And there are simple things that people can do to protect themselves, like practicing better hygiene (wash hands frequently and cover mouth and nose when sneezing) and staying away from public places or traveling if they feel sick. "There's a role for everyone to play when an outbreak is ongoing," said Besser. But the truth is that every outbreak is unpredictable, and there's a lot we don't know yet about the new swine flu. There hasn't been a flu pandemic for more than a generation, and there hasn't been a truly virulent pandemic since long before the arrival of mass air transit. We're in terra incognito here. Panic would be counterproductive - especially if it results in knee-jerk reactions like closing international borders, which would only complicate the public-health response. But neither should we downplay our very real vulnerabilities. As Napolitano put it: "This will be a marathon, not a sprint." Be prepared.
We couldn't give two shits what anyone says, we really need this holiday and unless the stpo the flight we're coming. I have to say I'm not a believer in sudden new strains on viruses, I honestly believe it's just another excuse for the big companies to make money. We get panicked into spending billions on wars over oil and then we get panicked into staying alive. Doesn’t matter if someone’s trying to kill us or save us, someone's always making big money out of it
I think we should just cover Lynfa in Peanut M&M's... let's see a virus get through all that to get to her....
