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10/24/2005 Archived Entry: "Common sense on bird flu"

BIRD FLU. Steve Trinward injects some common sense.

I can't vouch for the types of alternative medicine he mentions, but his piece is a good reality check. (And that info about why it might not be a good idea to bring down a fever with aspirin was thought provoking.)

Another observation: A number of articles have said that these "killer flus" are different in that they kill healthy young adults as readily as old people or small children. As far as I can tell, that assertion is based on the Spanish Influenza epidemic that swept the world in 1918-19. That flu struck young men 18-40 particularly hard.

But the notion that those young men were healthy might be bogus. Millions had just returned from the trenches of World War I -- in other words, from months or years of exposure to brutal cold and heat, poisonous gasses, poor sanitation, and the general stresses of war. Men who'd been gassed often returned home with chronic lung problems, making them especially vulnerable to respiratory infections. "Healthy" they most likely were not when the flu hit.

Posted by Claire @ 01:54 PM CST
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