I don’t know what it is about me, but I rarely panic.  A trait I inherited from my mother I think.  My mother has always been cool, calm and collected, regardless of how dire or desperate the situation.

I’m a lot like her in this regard, when I hear about “epidemics” and “pandemics” and the latest scare, I hardly take notice.  The media almost always exaggerate the situation, remember that fears sells.  And newspapers and news channels have to sell advertising space and airtime to make money, and the more shocking and scary their stories, the more viewers and readers they have, which leads to more advertisers, and more profits.

Remember also that the media is hungry and desperate for stories.  There are many 24 hour news channels these days, and they need to have a constant inflow of stories, and when they have a good story they milk the hell out of it.

So when I first heard about this swine flue pandemic, I took it with a massive grain of salt, knowing what the media is like.  But the “grain of salt” goes much further than just the media.

There is a great alternative health newsletter entitled What Doctors Don’t Tell You, which I was reading yesterday.  The June 2009 issue has a great article on the swine flue by Bryan Hubbard.  Here’s part of what he says:

“This latest health panic [the swine flue] coincides almost exactly with when vast consignments of Tamiflu – bought to fight against avian or bird flue (caused by by the H5N1 subtype of the influenza A virus), another epidemic that never happened – are coming to the end of their shelf life.  Without the latest scare, billions of dollars of Tamiflu stock would have to be discarded – with our health guardians forced to have to explain themselves to their governments in these cash strapped times.”

According to the article, the US and UK governments have  billions of dollars worth of Tamifluiflu stock that they must use within the next few months, or they’ll expire.  Interesting, huh?

According to the article, the number of confirmed deaths is only seven!  Can you believe that?  According to Dr. Joseph Mercola, the number of deaths from the swine flue are just 145 world wide!  Compare that to the 500,000 deaths that occur due to the annual seasonal flue (source: WDDTY), and the 3,000 deaths that occur DAILY due to malaria (source: Mercola).  Makes you think, right?

So What Are The Symptoms of Swine Flue?

According to the aforementioned Mercola, the symptoms of swine flue are:

* Fever of more than 100 (38 degrees C)
* Coughing
* Runny nose and/or sore throat
* Joint aches
* Severe headache
* Vomiting and/or diarrhoea
* Lethargy
* Lack of appetite

That’s it!  All these precautions and panic for these symptoms!  To make things even more interesting, the Tamiflu side effects are almost identical to these symptoms.  How scary is that?!

So how can you avoid the swine flue, or any other flue for that matter?  By having a healthy immune system.  This is done through good food and nutrition; limited sugar and processed food intake; enough sleep and rest; stress reduction and control; and exercise.  That’s pretty much it really, being healthy and disease free is not that difficult.

I urge to subscribe to the WDDTY newsletter, and to read Dr. Mercola’s blog for provocative and interesting health updates.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and talk to you soon.

PS.  For a children’s swine flue first aid kit click here, and here.