Saturday, August 29, 2009

Personal Recollections of the 1957 H2N2 "Asian Flu" Pandemic

Please read the below recollection of the 1957 H2N2 "Asian Flu" outbreak. This is the pandemic that time seems to have missed. In fact, the H2N2 was quite deadly, killing over 2 million people in 1957. You can read more about the H2N2 "Asian Flu" by clicking this sentence.

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By: JT Coyote
Infowars
August 28, 2009

The students in the farming community I grew up in were having a grade school “fair” in the fall of 1957. It was the beginning of fourth grade for me. We were setting up props for the weekend festivities, when parents and students would all attend. We were busy converting the 4 room school into a frontier town. It was all part of the run up to the Colorado statehood Centennial celebration and we chose an Old West theme. 1957 was the first year of school polio and smallpox shots, which we had all received a couple of weeks earlier. I remember that I wasn’t feeling well that day, but I didn’t want to miss the fun, yet by mid afternoon — let’s just say, I had to go home early that Friday.

featured stories   Personal recollections of the 1957 H2N2 flu pandemic

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Citizens line up for their vaccinations in the 1950s.


By Saturday morning I was running an incredible fever. I was in a constant state of vomiting and dry heaves, I couldn’t keep anything down, and for the longest time my only conscious moments were filled with fever, vomiting, and delirium. Within hours of one another, one by one, my brothers and sisters came down with the bug, though I have little conscious recollection of those first three days.


By Sunday my parents had also succumb. The only one who was still standing was my maternal grandmother, who while in her late teens, had survived the 1918 Spanish flu. Lucky for us she knew what to do and in her immunity, she nursed us all through the critical first few days of ordeal and the week of recovery. I also thank providence for the other two families that worked on the dairy farm. They had no grade school age children and were able to maintain the milking chores and other things necessary to keep the farm running. Yet within a week or two, one after another they all came down with flu as well. I know of people who were killed by this virus. There were some members of the Victory Grange, and the Tower Baptist Church, that we never saw again.

There must be a reason why the authorities are not talking about this strain of flu — primary obfuscation perhaps, by the weak red herring H1N1, that’s my gut feeling. I say this because when the story first broke in 2004/2005, about the 3000 or so H2N2 (1957) flu test kits that were “accidentally” mailed all over the world, it suddenly disappeared from the media. I repeat the word accidentally with a “don’t you believe it” advisory, (”nudge, nudge,- wink, wink, – know what I mean, known what I mean.”)

To quote the reference source: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H2N2>

“From October 2004 to February 2005, approximately 3,700 test kits of the 1957 H2N2 virus were accidentally spread around the world from the College of American Pathologists (CAP) <http://www.cap.org/apps/cap.portal>. CAP assists laboratories in accuracy by providing unidentified samples of viruses; private contractor Meridian Bioscience in Cincinnati, U.S., chose the 1957 strand instead of one of the less deadly avian influenza virus subtypes. “CAP spokesman Dr. Jared Schwartz said Meridian knew what the virus was but believed it was safe. In selecting it, the company had determined that the virus was classified as a biosafety level 2 (BSL-2) agent, which meant it could legally be used in the kits. [...] Before the problem came to light, the CDC had made a recommendation that the H2N2 virus be reclassified as a BSL-3 agent, Gerberding said. She promised to speed up the reclassification. The CDC determines the classifications in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health. In BSL-3 labs, agents are handled with equipment designed to prevent any airborne contamination and resulting respiratory exposure.”[10] <http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/…april1305labs.html> The 1957 H2N2 virus is considered deadly and the U.S. government called for the vials containing the strain to be destroyed.”

So just how many of these vials were actually destroyed? Do we know how many were opened and cultured? Well, the one thing we do know for sure is that they contained the BSL-3, deadly, live H2N2 virus. No need to dig up dead, obese, Inuit Eskimo women from which to extricate and resurrect the virus, all they had to do was ship out the existing 50 year old, culture test kits and allow the eugenics clinics to do what they do best… namely, culture, replicate, and distribute, the known killer, H2N2 (1957) avian flu virus.

I’ve had what they call the flu since then, a couple of days of achiness in the military in ‘68, and then again when I took the “mandatory” Air Force swine flu shot in 1972/73 and got sick from that. But again, just achy joints and muscles, a little nausea, and a fever for a few days, but nowhere near the 1957 flu. After 1973, I haven’t had the flu at all really, not even the most subtle symptoms. I seldom even have a cold beyond the sniffles, and achy joints, mostly now in my later years.

You would think that this latest scare, would bring the national media to mention the pandemic of 1957. After all, according to the WHO, (World Health Organization), it killed 2 million+ people world wide that year. Other credible sources say 4 million died. The official stats for the number of deaths in the United States during that pandemic is 70,000. I wonder if the folks who died that I knew, and folks in other out of the way rural areas in the country, and the world for that matter — were they counted in those statistics? Sources other than the WHO say that the number is more likely between 100,000 and 140,000 American deaths by flu in ‘57-’58…

This past Friday night there was a flyover above my home at about 8:30 in the evening. It happened again at just before midnight on Saturday, and then a third fly by — and I will never forget the exact time of this one, it was 2:09 AM Monday morning August 24th. The airplane was a twin-engine turbo prop that rumbled the house rafters as it went over. The valley where I live is about 9000 feet in elevation, about a mile wide and is rimed on opposite sides by 12,000 to 13,000 foot peaks. I could hear the aircraft feather its propellers on approach as it dropped down in a crop duster like swoop. It breezed across the valley in only a few seconds, then it powered back up into a climbing turn and disappeared over the reservoir. I should alert you to the fact that large twin engine aircraft flying at low altitude over our little valley in the wee hours of the morning, is as rare as snow storms in Pensacola Florida, yet it happened three times, in as many nights.

The reason I won’t forget the last flyover is this — in hopes of catching a glimpse of the noisy bird, I scurried out the front door onto the porch. I was immediately hit with a smell and taste that I can never forget. A sensation I have not experienced since the first time I tasted it. It was the taste and smell of that deathly ill three days I lived through, back in 1957.

I for one will not be surprised at all when they announce that what is taking people’s lives this time, will not be the H1N1 at all, but a variant of the H2N2 virus! — Still — why doesn’t the press even mention the 1957/58 H2N2 flu pandemic… seems curious, don’t you think?

“What we meant, in going for those redcoats was this –we had always governed ourselves, and always meant to…they, didn’t mean we should.” – An old New England militia captain, after the battles of Lexington and Concord April 19, 1775

Source: Infowars

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