Agreed!

I was reading on the 1918 flu pandemic and this was something I found interesting:

In Japan, 257,363 deaths were attributed to influenza by July 1919, giving an estimated 0.425% mortality rate, much lower than nearly all other Asian countries for which data are available. The Japanese government severely restricted maritime travel to and from the home islands when the pandemic struck.

In the Pacific, American Samoa^[21] and the French colony of New Caledonia ^[22] also succeeded in preventing even a single death from influenza through effective quarantines. In Australia, nearly 12,000 perished.^[23]

OMG....

   Yep - same beasties, different color. and they get to be the same size. Biggest black widow I found was living in a junk yard near here and had a body as big as my thumb nail. It could hardly walk it was so heavy - it just dragged itself along. I found the one in the picture out back and it seems to be about average in terms of size (maybe an inch and a half long including the legs). As you can see the colors can vary quite a bit - I've seen them jet black, brown, dappled and almost white. I watched a program on a local channel the other morning about how brown widows came to California and became a native species. That's how I found them under the trash cans - the program mentioned it was a favorite hiding place, and as it was trash day I went out and looked under the handle and found two of them. I guess it depends on the individual as to the effects (and maybe the size of the spider and amount of venom). I'm not sure which variety got me, but I had a large figure 8 mark on my arm where the two bite marks were joined together by red rings around each one. Black widow venom causes cramps in large muscle groups, often the abdomen, but it was my back that was hurting me the most. It lasted until the following night and I had no other symptoms after that, although the cramping was bad while it lasted. I managed to work but it was pretty miserable. To be honest I never thought of going to the doctors. I could have had morphine? Damn...

   They are everywhere here - just this morning I just found a couple of brown widows guarding egg cases under the handle of the trash can when I wheeled it to the street. I did get bitten by one last year and my back was cramping for a day or so, but nothing too serious. You get used to them. A friend of mine in the UK doubted they were as plentiful as I'd claimed, so I took my camera into the back garden and e-mailed pics of the biggest ones I found. They're under all the patio furniture and my kid's outdoor toys, and I'm having to move them constantly when I work on my car as dozens of them have now taken up residence under it since I parked it a few months ago. They don't really worry me as they only bite when they feel threatened or they're being crushed, which is how I think I got bitten - I was moving boxes in the back just before I noticed the bite on my arm. I don't kill even them - I just move them.
   It's a shame they're not worth anything. I'd be rich. 

    mazinn - you're welcome. It was getting a little contentious in here and I didn't want to add to it if I could help it.
    Jessme - sorry I didn't reply sooner. Haven't been doing much online the past few days. A lot of medical supplies have expiration dates. As was mentioned on another thread recently, some become dangerous after a certain time, while most just start to lose their efficacy. My wife has asthma so I have inhalers stored. They're getting close to expiring so those in particular are being rotated out for new ones.
   Your medical preps should ideally have general items to cover most situations you might encounter and specific ones for your health needs. Your MD might be okay with some extra prescription meds if they're on board with the possibility of a pandemic. In my wife's case she's fortunate that she can use either the prescription albuterol inhalers or over the counter Primatene mist. They both do the job equally well.
   I have bandages, bandaids, trauma dressings, splints, Neosporin (lots), iodine, hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol, antidiarrheal meds, peptobismol, syrup of ipecac, heat/cold pads, OTC cough/cold, lots of mucinex (it clears chest congestion very well), allergy meds, ibuprofen, Tylenol, antifungal creams, antihistamine creams, sleep aids, emergency dental kits, eye drops, calamine lotion, dried potato flakes (a cheap and very effective coagulant), epsom salts, etc. I can't remember everything, but it fills two large rubbermaid containers to the top. From my days as an EMT I even have a full set of cervical collars, and if I had to I could even pull the oxygen bottle off my welding gear and use that for a while (although it wouldn't last more than a few hours) 
   Masks are a must in your preps. They can be expensive unless you shop around - I got lucky a while ago and found a shelf full of N95 3M masks on clearance in a local Home Depot that was relocating. I filled a shopping cart (literally - you should have seen the looks I got at the checkout) and got about 100 packs of them at 80% discount. I also have a Dixieline Lumber near here and they sell boxes of N95s (3M again) for about $15. It's an idea to make sure they fit you - they come in different sizes. If it comes to it, I've heard of people using surgical tape to seal them around the edges - any gaps will allow viruses to go around the filter medium. They don't work with beards for the same reason.
   Gloves should be in your preps too (nitrile or vinyl if anyone has a latex allergy) and learn how to remove them properly. It might sound silly, but you can infect yourself taking them off wrong.
   Buy lots of alcohol based hand cleaner - it'll be at a premium in a pandemic. A sick person sneezing/coughing into their hand or blowing their nose infects everything they touch after that. Anyone touching the same things is then at risk from inadvertently transferring the virus from their hands to their mouth or nose. Make sure you have bottles of hand sanitizer you can easily carry with you and use it often, and get the strongest one you can (at least 60% alcohol I think is the recommendation - Purell is 62%, and the stuff we have at work is 70%). Buy some small bottles (the pocket/purse sized ones) and  refill them from the larger pump bottles to save money.
   Hope this helps.

mazinn wrote: DANNYKELLEY wrote: Albert ,sometimes i wonder how you can do this without going off on some of these people.   small minded tyrant

Hey all.  Happy Monday!  I would just like to say that I am not personally in any type of panic.  I didn't come to this website all weekend in fact.  Still, I do believe that we have to keep an eye on changes in corporate thinking (as someone previously stated) and discuss it, investigate it and remind people to have a stockpile of food for this type of event or any other type of event.  It does not mean there is widespread panic, just widespread preparedness....which is WISE...and why we are all here.  Every single one of us on this website that seem to some others to be in a panic, well here is food for thought, we hope your view of the situation is RIGHT.....because we do not want bird flu....so heres to hoping all of us that thought the panasonic news could mean something ARE WRONG!

jacksdad wrote: Albert - I've already started to bulk up my preps after reading that. Bought another 25lbs of beans today and I'll be rotating my medical preps in the next few weeks/months. I think you're right. False alarm or not, we should pay attention to this one. For a major corporation to do this, something's potentially in the pipeline. Just hope they're wrong.

He has ALOT of patience...If your afraid or panicking, maybe you shouldnt be on the avian flu forum. I do not trust the govt to tell us the truth ..but I also read and make my own decisions