New member

Posted July 20, 2005 · July 20, 2005

Hi Lori

I would like to welcome you and assure you that even though there have been some recent off-topic issues, the intent of this list's founder and membership is to be here as a supportive group for new members. I hope you'll give us an opportunity!

I would like to know more about your situation or questions that brought you to this list. You'll find a family here with a variety of life stories, but one issue in common: scoliosis and perhaps you are dealing with flatback issues or upcoming surgery. We have veterans of at least one or many surgeries or revisions to correct flatback or other conditions resulting from Harrington rods. Members come from all walks of life.

I hope you'll share your story with us, and speaking for myself, I'm glad you are joining us.

Jennie in Texas

Posted July 20, 2005 · July 20, 2005

Lori,

If you have any specific (or general) questions, I will do my best to

help you find answers. I am having revision surgery February 28 and

March 7 and have done quite a bit of research in the last 3 months.

There is a wealth of information and support available here. I hope

you will find it accessible.

kam

Posted July 20, 2005 · July 20, 2005

Thank you for your responses. Glad to know the background, etc.

I've been diagnosed with Flatback for four years, and as yet haven't

had surgery. I've had various opinions from various surgeons and

specialists, varying from " Let's do it now, " to " Don't attempt it at

all, the hardware is to enmeshed and the success rate is only about

50%. It's too risky. "

I have prescriptions for Darocet and Flexeril, but avoid them unless

it's unbearable because I can't function on them. I periodically get

sent to physical therapy, which helps in the short term, but my

insurance always stops it as soon as I feel better. They treat this

as a series of acute flair-ups when the pain gets really bad, but

offer me know long-term therapy to keep the pain from returning.

I'm 41 and have lost an inch in height already from pitching forward

and to the left.

Does anyone else have difficulty getting straight answers? Is there

any alternative to surgery that will lead to less pain without

becoming drug-dependent? (I have a husband, three teenagers, pets and

a part-time job!)

Thanks so much! Lori

Posted July 20, 2005 · July 20, 2005

You are in the right spot. There are many who can relate to your

story. Where do you live?

Posted July 20, 2005 · July 20, 2005

Lori – this is a great website for information.

Based on the information I received from this website this past year, I decided

to have surgery this coming November. The arguments will pass – this is

unusual for this website.

Lorrie

From:

[mailto: ] On Behalf Of loriw196

Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005

9:21 AM

To:

Subject: New member

Wow. I just joined this

group in hopes of finding information and

help concerning my chronic pain due to Flatback

Syndrome. Yet after

reading many of the most recent posts, the bulk of

what I see are 1.

arguments about money andd 2. chit-chat that has

little to do with

Scoliosis at all.

I'm in need of information and real help.

Can anyone disavow me of

the notion that this board has wandered far afield

from 's

attempts to help everyone here?

Lori

Posted September 26, 2005 · September 26, 2005

Hi ,

My name is Lyn from Australia, I suffer from Seno-negative Rheumtoid

Arthritis, Fibromyalgia, Anklosing Spondylitis. IBS, CFS, Asthma.

I have had the effects for at least 40 years or more the Rheumy says.

From the experience of going through most of the drugs and having no

success, I am now on Methotraxate weekly injections.

The Meth. has help me to control the high ESR levels and the joint pain.

Keep in touch if I can help you.

Bye Lyn

Posted September 28, 2005 · September 28, 2005

Hello,

I am sorry that you have Spinal Stenosis, I have that to, also Degenerative Disc Disease. I am in contant pain, can barely walk. Have had this since 1999. I have taken all kinds of medicines, had the Epidural shots and nothing has helped. I am so afraid of surgery as they want to put those metal cages in my lower back with screws and all and I am just petrified. I am so afraid I will be unable to walk at all soon. My family Dr. says avoid surgery at all costs, that I might be paralyzed and just so many bad things. I am so heart broken as this has ruined my life. Hope you can find something to help you. I know they have some non-invasive surgery, but it isn't anywhere near where I live in Arkansas.

God Bless!!

nachobaby2@...

new member

Hello,I was just diagnosed yesterday with spinal stenosis. My doctor hasn't really discussed this with me but has set me up with a pain management plan and I will be having steroid injections. I am 37 years old and I am in constant pain. Can anyone tell me how they cope or what treatments they have had that gives some relief? I really do not want to live the rest of my life all loopy on pain meds. I am hoping that the steroids will help, but are there side effects of these shots?

Posted September 28, 2005 · September 28, 2005

Hi Tammi,

I'm sorry to hear about your diagnosis, but at least

you have an idea now what you are up against. I have

cervical spinal stenosis, arthritis, and fibromyalgia.

I am 45. I had the epidural steroid injections last

summer ('04). I was pleased with the results. I got

about a 50-60% reduction in pain - enough to make a

real difference. I started having some periods of

time on some days where I was pain free. What a

relief that was!

There are side effects to the injections as far as bad

long term effects on your bones, but your doctor will

monitor you and won't give you the injections

frequently enough to cause serious effects. My doctor

was willing to give me another series as soon as 6

months after the first one, some doctors wait a year

minimum.

I had a series of three, two weeks apart. Each time,

I was told to take a day off work and rest the balance

of the day after the injection. It was not very

painful to get the injections. It is done as an

outpatient procedure. I was at the hospital about 2

hours each time. Once I got home, I felt a little

tired and a little dizzy. I also had a mild sensation

of heat along my spine. By the next day, those

effects were gone. It took several days to get pain

relief after each injection, and I got a little more

relief with each one.

I was told that the effects of the injections can last

anywhere from 3 months to 18 months. I started

feeling that they were wearing off after about 9

months. My relief is almost all gone now, but I am

trying to wait until next year to have the next

series, since I have no more sick leave this year.

There is also a slight chance that the effect can be

permanent. I'll try to explain this, but I'm no

doctor. The pain of spinal stenosis comes from the

spinal cord rubbing against the boney structures. The

more it rubs, the more irritated it is and the more it

swells - like a vicious circle. The steroids work by

shrinking the spinal cord so that it is no longer

pressed up against bone. Sometimes when the cord is

relieved of rubbing on the bones, the lack of

irritation will be sufficient to keep the cord from

swelling again, or at least to keep it from swelling

to the point of being impinged by the bones. It's

just a slight chance, but it's something to hope for.

For me, the injections were definitely a positive

experience. I hope that if I can get about a year of

relief each time I have the injections, I can hold off

on surgery until they have made enough advances to

make it more of a sure thing. Right now, the surgery

is too iffy for me to want to try it.

Some other things I do to cope are to use heat a lot,

walk a lot and stay active, and minimize the amount of

heavy lifting I do. I use heating pads frequently, as

well as the Thermacare patches. I also do gentle

stretching exercises.

Before I had the injections, I was sent to a pain

doctor who put me on morphine. I could not tolerate

it and went off after a couple weeks. I understand

what you are saying about not wanting to be loopy - I

hate that feeling. I take Neurontin and Celebrex

daily for pain. At first the Neurontin made me

incredibly sleepy, but after a couple weeks I got used

to it. I also have Robaxin and Vicodin that I use

really sparingly when I absolutely have to.

I hope you get a lot of relief from the injections.

Best of luck to you --

--- Tammi <tammigirl1967@...> wrote:

> Hello,

> I was just diagnosed yesterday with spinal stenosis.

> My doctor hasn't

> really discussed this with me but has set me up with

> a pain management

> plan and I will be having steroid injections. I am

> 37 years old and I

> am in constant pain. Can anyone tell me how they

> cope or what

> treatments they have had that gives some relief? I

> really do not want

> to live the rest of my life all loopy on pain meds.

> I am hoping that

> the steroids will help, but are there side effects

> of these shots?

>

__________________________________

- PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005

http://mail.

Posted October 10, 2005 · October 10, 2005

Ezekial & Essene bread are made from the sprouted grain (explained by someone

else) but regular bread is made from unsprouted grain that is ground into flour.

Butter is dairy but there are different degrees of dairy. At any rate butter is

best made into ghee or used very sparingly.

Suggestion --- consumption from any food group that has very limited or no

beneficials should be kept to a minimum. Like grains & dairy.

Try to get new favorite foods. As you may have been reading in another group of

posts, focus on what you can eat and not on what you cannot.

KM

ratardif <rtardif@...> wrote:

Hello. I've recently found out that I am highly sensitive to most of

the foods I love, including wheat, dairy, sugar (cane & beet), corn,

yeast, eggs, and soy. I was searching through some food allergy

information and decided that I was going to starve to death if I had

to stay on the food allergy rotation diet. But then I came across the

Eat Right 4 Your Type book on allergies. And realized that most of

the foods I'm supposed to be avoiding for my type - O - are also the

ones I should be avoiding according to this diet. I'm going to try it

for a month and see what happens.

But I have a few questions. I've noticed on some lists that butter is

okay to eat, but in general dairy is not. Butter is dairy. How is

this possible?

Also, type Os are supposed to avoid most grains, especially wheat, but

are allowed to eat Essene Bread and Ezekial bread. From the recipes

I've seen, both breads have grains, but they are sprouted. What's the

difference? And if I have wheat sensitivities, can I eat these breads?

I've got a lot to learn. Please help me some. I'm really missing my

favorite foods.

Robin A.

Posted October 11, 2005 · October 11, 2005

In a message dated 10/10/2005 3:50:46 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

rtardif@... writes:

Butter is dairy. How is

this possible?

Butter is fat with the caesin (sp) removed. It does not contain the harmful

lectins found in milk and other dairy products.

Posted October 11, 2005 · October 11, 2005

In a message dated 10/10/2005 3:50:46 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

rtardif@... writes:

Also, type Os are supposed to avoid most grains, especially wheat, but

are allowed to eat Essene Bread and Ezekial bread. From the recipes

I've seen, both breads have grains, but they are sprouted. What's the

difference? And if I have wheat sensitivities, can I eat these breads?

Sprouted grains have left the shell casing behind that contains the majority

of the gluten and harmful lectins. Sprouted wheat breads are an avoid,

however, because they contain wheat flour that is not sprouted. Same for rye

bread.

It also has wheat flour added.

Grains are just not good for Os. I for one can't eat much Ezekial or Essene

bread. Rice is about the only grain I can tolerate.

I grew up eating corn, wheat, potatoes, etc and was astounded to find that

they made me very sick after I detoxed on the diet.

Posted October 11, 2005 · October 11, 2005

In a message dated 10/10/2005 3:50:46 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

rtardif@... writes:

I've got a lot to learn. Please help me some. I'm really missing my

favorite foods.

Once you detox and get sick from eating your " favorite " foods, you'll change

your mind.

Good luck,

Max

Posted January 7, 2006 · January 7, 2006

Hi Cooky.

Sorry your mother is dealing with so much. My scoliosis is congenital.

Was fused when I was 11yo & my pain is mild. My right hip & left knee

hurt some. My knee is worse but I'm still years away from needing

replacement.

My mother on the other hand had terrible knee problems. She knew she had

scoliosis but had never had any treatment. We learned about our

scoliosis together when I was diagnosed. My surgeon examined her at one

of my appts & told her she had it. No xrays were done at the time since

I was the patient. My surgeon speculated that it was probably

idiopathic. Since congenital scoliosis is not considered hereditary it

seemed highly unlikely hers was congenital as well as mine. In the last

couple years, during the course of diagnostics for other problems, she

found out she has a hemivertebra causing her scoliosis. (She only just

told me this New Year's day.) That appears to make us a rare

mother/daughter pair with congenital scoliosis.

In my mother's case her knee problem was actually a result of additional

wear & tear on that side caused by her scoliosis. She also has a prob

with the opposite hip. For her, knee replacement surgery was first

because it was the priority. Actually, she has minimal back problems so

I doubt she will seek treatment for her scoliosis. If mom had needed

back surgery I simply cannot imagine her making it through the recovery

with her knee in the condition it was. So for her the knee would have

had to come first I think. Like yours, my mother hates taking pain meds.

She will take if needed for post surgical pain but otherwise gets by on

ibuprofen.

I realize these situations are different but thought I'd share.

--- " cooky " <brntcooky_2000@...> wrote:

Hi,

I joined the group as my mom has scoliosis, stenosis and

osteoarthritis of the spine and I'd like to learn more. It seems she

has a hard time convincing herself to take the pain meds and is in

alot of pain. Anyone have any suggestions about this dialema?

She will see the scoliosis specialist to see if surgery is possible

and will also see an ortho about a knee replacement within the next

two weeks. Anyone have any recommendations about which surgery to do

first if both are recommended? I have no doubt that both will be

recommended.

Thanks in advance for your help/suggestions.

cooky

Posted January 8, 2006 · January 8, 2006

Thanks for sharing and I can appreciate your words regarding

your mother's conditions. Something I forgot to throw in there is

that mom took Arimidex for breast cancer, and the Ortho and

Oncologist said this caused the worsening of bone problems. I hope

we will find some positive things to work towards after the

appointments in the next few weeks.

cooky

>

> Hi,

>

> I joined the group as my mom has scoliosis, stenosis and

> osteoarthritis of the spine and I'd like to learn more. It seems

she

> has a hard time convincing herself to take the pain meds and is in

> alot of pain. Anyone have any suggestions about this dialema?

>

> She will see the scoliosis specialist to see if surgery is

possible

> and will also see an ortho about a knee replacement within the

do

> first if both are recommended? I have no doubt that both will be

> recommended.

>

> Thanks in advance for your help/suggestions.

>

> cooky

>

Posted February 4, 2006 · February 4, 2006

Welcome Elke... I think people should be concerned about the Bird

Flu. But at the moment it is still totally unknown as to where its

headed. I think it could easily be stopped in its tracks and never be

heard from again. Our ability to map these sorts of things is greater

than ever before. Our methods to control and treat have also

advanced. I do think we should be prepared, but we can also go

overboard. I like the idea of stocking up on some things like water

and canned goods, and having other essential items stashed away.

These things could also come in very handy for many other possible

disasters.

Pete

>

> Hi all,

> I just signed up for this group a few minutes ago.-My husband and I

live

> in the hills of WV. I have been keeping up with all the latest news on

> the bird flu through the internet. I'm stocking up on canned good and

> water just in case. What bothers me is the fact that I seem to be the

> only one in my immediate environment who takes the threat of avian flu

> seriously ,

> Glad to have found this list with of other concerned folks.

> Elke

>

Posted February 4, 2006 · February 4, 2006

Hi Elke, Welcome to the group. You will find that people in New

Zealand, Australia and in Europe are far more concerned than most

Americans are about the mutation of bird flu. Since the USA has troops

all over the world at about 750 military bases, such lack of concern is

strange: the military would be an excellent conduit for strange foreign

diseases to come to the States. Indeed, the military stopped

monitoring diseases among its troops some time ago (for lack of funds).

If you are interested in the topic, I may recommend that you read

Laurie Garrett's book " The Coming Plagues. "

Posted February 4, 2006 · February 4, 2006

This is from our Files

Panic Everywhere By STEPHEN S. HALL;

THE COMING PLAGUE Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance.

By Laurie Garrett. 750 pp. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $25.

AS far as we know, viruses do not daydream. But if they did, if one

of the so-called " hot " viruses lurking in the rain forest plotted the

perfect dream sequence for breaking out, it would go something like

this:

Civil war erupts in a small, politically unstable country in

equatorial Africa. Decades-old ethnic enmities, suddenly aroused,

lead to the wholesale slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent

civilians. Fleeing almost certain death, a quarter-million refugees

stream into neighboring countries. There, incubated in the

overcrowded, unsanitary refugee camps, the old familiar contagions --

cholera, drug-resistant malaria and tuberculosis -- soften up the

crowds for a final, swiftly fatal punch by an even more terrifying

pathogen, an airborne version of the highly lethal Ebola virus.

Ebola is a virus to which the adjective " deadly " clings like spandex

in the overheated, sensationalistic shorthand of popular medical

prose, and not without reason. It can kill up to 90 percent of the

people it infects, and that would become horrifyingly apparent in the

African refugee camps within a week or two.

First people would develop fevers and headaches, and then they would

begin to bleed from every orifice -- suffering nosebleeds, bleeding

gums, bloody diarrhea, bloody vomit, bleeding eyes -- until, in a

viral end game, they would be reduced to a feverish slush of blood, a

single soggy imploding hemorrhage (thus the name " hemorrhagic "

virus). Once it was loose in the camps, the Ebola virus would hop

from refugee to refugee, then to aid workers, U.N. peacekeepers and

the volunteer doctors and nurses who minister to the dying. In less

than two weeks, carried far and wide by soldiers and relief workers

returning home, Ebola virus would disembark on three continents.

Pandemic, panic, public health disaster.

It sounds more like a nightmare than a virus's daydream, and it also

sounds an awful lot like Rwanda, but as Laurie Garrett reports in her

book " The Coming Plague, " this viral dream sequence was actually

a " war game " scenario, set in the fictional country of " Changa " and

concocted by infectious disease experts five years ago at the 1989

meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in

Hawaii.

The good news is that Ebola hasn't made an appearance in Rwanda --

not yet, at least. The very bad news, according to Ms. Garrett, a

health and science writer for Newsday, is that if this worst-case

scenario came true, even after five years of fret and preparation, no

national or international agency (not even the World Health

Organization or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) would

be equipped to do much about it.

VIRUSES are never out of season, but they have become so trendy of

late that perhaps they should all have their own agents. The hottest

of late are the " emerging viruses " -- either new viruses suddenly

appearing or recognized viruses suddenly expanding their range, often

hopping from rodents or monkeys, where they usually cause little

harm, to humans, where they can cause a great deal of harm. Ever

since a 1989 meeting organized on the subject by Morse of

Rockefeller University, emerging viruses have become a topic of

intense scientific interest, which in turn has generated a growing

library of books that bridge two genres, popular science writing and

Gothic horror tales.

Emerging viruses have found their latest Cassandra in Ms. Garrett,

who has ably covered recent outbreaks of disease for her newspaper

rather like a war correspondent. But these viruses form only part of

the larger medical alarm sounded by " The Coming Plague, " a

meticulously researched, genuinely disturbing but ultimately

unsatisfying chronicle of the increasing dangers humankind faces from

all sorts of microbes, including re-emerging bacteria and parasites.

After a century of onward-and-upward public health triumphs against

diseases like smallpox and polio, the laws of optimism have begun to

catch up with medical intervention. Ms. Garrett argues that we are

falling back to earth swiftly, that " the disease-causing microbes of

the planet, far from having been defeated, " are " posing ever greater

threats to humanity. "

The old bugs are back, badder than ever, and a new breed of miscreant

seems to be crawling out of the rain forests, the oceans, even the

air conditioning ducts, to assail us. As this century of medical

miracles draws to a close, the eminent microbiologist Avrion

Mitchison is quoted as writing, " Will Homo sapiens and the microbes

continue to coexist, or will one side win? " That such a question can

even be asked speaks volumes about the fear and pessimism taking hold

in the medical community.

When Marshall McLuhan popularized the concept of the global village,

his vision encompassed lots of electric plugs and no bugs, yet no

global world view can be said to be complete, much less reliable,

without microbes teeming in a corner of the picture. One of the

book's persuasive themes is that the global village is really a vast

biotic sea of genetic possibility, of viruses mutating, of bacteria-

swapping genes that confer resistance to our most powerful drugs, of

ships and airplanes shrinking the geography of contagion, of a larger

ecology where human recreations like making love and waging war and

leveling undeveloped wilderness facilitate the spread of diseases,

and where the endemic poverty of " Thirdworldization, " as Ms. Garrett

puts it, insures that a permanent global underclass of malnourished,

chronically ill and overcrowded victims will serve as human petri

dishes where future epidemics will be cooked up.

A 1991 outbreak of cholera in Peru perfectly illustrates how

genetics, culinary tastes, sanitation policies and even global

weather patterns can all conspire in an epidemic. The El Tor strain

of Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera, made its first

appearance in 1961 in Indonesia, but by then, as Rita Colwell, a

scientist at the University of land, discovered two decades

later, the germ had become unusually tenacious; it had survived in

ocean water by shrinking itself to 1/300 of its normal size and

hibernating inside algae. In January of 1991, a Chinese freighter

docked at Callao, Peru, and discharged its bilge water, teeming with

algae drawn from Asian seas, into the harbor. The cholera bacteria,

dormant stowaways inside the algae, made their way into local

shellfish, which made their way into the popular raw seafood dish

ceviche. And soon the bacteria spread into the water supply. Because

of a feared link between chlorine and cancer, Ms. Garrett

writes, " Peru had abandoned the longstanding disease control practice

of using the chemical to disinfect public drinking water. Later,

C.D.C. studies would show that the majority of Peru's cholera

microbes were transmitted straight into people's homes, dripping from

their water faucets. " Meanwhile, the currents of El Nino carried the

infected algae to other Latin American ports, and airplane passengers

infected with the virus brought it to Los Angeles. The epidemic rages

on even today, the most conservative figures suggesting 900,000 cases

of cholera and more than 8,000 deaths as of October of 1993.

Whereas Preston's book " The Hot Zone " wisely conveys the

threat of emerging pathogens by exploring one riveting episode, the

outbreak of a strain of Ebola virus in an animal facility in Reston,

Va., Ms. Garrett has opted for a different and less wise strategy.

She has made a nearly encyclopedic survey of virtually all the

emerging and rebounding diseases, as seen through the eyes of the

field epidemiologists she calls " disease cowboys. "

WE learn about the emergence of an early hemorrhagic virus, named

Machupo, in 1962 in Bolivia, and the epidemiological work that traced

it to rodents. We learn how another lethal hemorrhagic agent, the

Marburg virus, an excruciating torment whose symptoms include peeling

skin, spread from Ugandan monkeys to German vaccine workers in 1967.

We learn of the appearance in 1969 of the highly contagious Lassa

fever (during which a Yale University researcher became infected with

Lassa but refused to believe his illness had anything to do with his

work). We learn of mutant microorganisms that can survive a hit of

Clorox and of a relatively common bacterium that genetically

engineered itself to cause toxic shock syndrome. We learn of last

year's hantavirus outbreak in the American Southwest. And we get what

is by now an obligatory account of the dramatic outbreak of the

highly lethal strain of Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976, in which 18 of

21 people infected by one gregarious individual perished, including

family members and friends who prepared the body for burial.

That would be plenty for any book, but there is more: the swine flu

scare in the United States in 1976, the story of Legionnaire's

disease, the emergence of deadly forms of bacteria in hamburger meat,

the comeback of malaria, updates on drug-resistant cases of herpes,

tales of how we breed some of our most virulent pathogens in

hospitals, even detailed accounts of disease outbreaks (or zoonoses,

as they're called) in seals, ducks, pigs and dolphins. And in the

middle of all this comes what is practically a book within a book, a

lengthy account of the emergence of AIDS, which -- whatever its

virtues -- will make no one forget Randy Shilts's impassioned, highly

readable book " And the Band Played On. "

It might seem churlish to complain about a book's thoroughness

(especially a 750-page tome that was composed in longhand because the

author, as she tells us in her acknowledgments, suffers from an

occupational injury that prevents the use of a keyboard). Still, " The

Coming Plague " covers an awful lot of ground, way too much for the

casual reader. The obsession with detail -- dozens of bugs, hundreds

of scientists and, by my count, 1,348 footnotes -- is as huge as Ms.

Garrett's energy and enterprise. Her journalistic instincts are

excellent. She cites the key articles, talks to the right

researchers, focuses on the crucial scientific issues. Unfortunately,

the book's flaws are huge, too.

Any writer attempting to work on such a vast canvas needs exemplary

compositional skills and fine stylistic brushwork for the details.

The writing here is, at best, journeyman journalism; it tells more

than it shows, and usually it does so in the passive voice. That kind

of prose, coupled with an almost compulsive inclusiveness, creates a

narrative that ultimately becomes as deadly as its subject matter.

Yet to read " The Coming Plague " is to come away with perverse

admiration for the invisible agents of so much suffering and

mortality. Viruses and bacteria do not care about national health

reform or the information highway; they do not think; they do not

daydream. They thrive in the chop shops of evolution, borrowing or

stealing or mutating the biologic tricks that will serve their single

reason for being -- to find hosts and replicate, to copy their

genetic material so they can borrow and steal and mutate another day.

They do so as part of a beautiful, if not always benign, ceremony of

adaptation and interaction. The bacterium that causes Legionnaire's

disease has learned to live in shower heads and water fountains, and

to spread via air conditioning ducts; the Plasmodium parasites that

cause malaria seem always to bob and weave around whatever

pharmaceutical punch we throw at them. Survival is biology's ultimate

meritocracy, and microbes do it exquisitely well.

IN recalling the history of the Black Death in 17th-century London,

Ms. Garrett quotes Defoe: " The plague, like a great fire, if a

few houses only are contiguous where it happens, can only burn a few

houses. " In the global village, though, where urban density and

poverty, the trafficking of goods and services and human desires all

conspire to crowd our houses together, Ms. Garrett suggests, we are

busily engineering an ecology ready made for biologic disaster. If

these disquieting scenarios are true, then Rwanda and the rain forest

and even a crowded New York City subway car at rush hour are all part

of the same village, and we are all -- to strike a match to Defoe's

metaphor -- so much human kindling.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html

S. Hall's most recent book is " Mapping the Next Millennium. "

See also the reviews on

http://www.lauriegarrett.com/

Posted February 5, 2006 · February 5, 2006

Hi

It's always a good idea to have some extra supplies on hand for any kind of emergency so just keep doing what you're doing. A lot of people aren't taking the pan flu seriously right now but hopefully that will change.

Cat~www.niteflytes.us

[Flu] new member

Hi all,I just signed up for this group a few minutes ago.-My husband and I live in the hills of WV. I have been keeping up with all the latest news on the bird flu through the internet. I'm stocking up on canned good and water just in case. What bothers me is the fact that I seem to be the only one in my immediate environment who takes the threat of avian flu seriously ,Glad to have found this list with of other concerned folks.Elke

Posted February 5, 2006 · February 5, 2006

Lee,

I am in the US and very concerned.

I was online doing my research the other evening when I came across an

article (with photo) of the 15 yr old girl in Iraq that died of the

flu. Interstingly right under that article was yet another article

with a photo of our troops and it stated how they will be coming home

by sometime in 2007.

I stopped for a while there looking at these articles and photos next

to them and wondered how many people made the connection.

I personally have run the gammut from I'm POSITIVE this is it and it's

coming soon to I'm really overreacting to finally... I just have to

prepare and hope that our world does as well and may be we CAN BE the

first ever to at least make a huge dent in the damage a pandemic can

do.

a.

>

> Hi Elke, Welcome to the group. You will find that people in New

> Zealand, Australia and in Europe are far more concerned than most

> Americans are about the mutation of bird flu. Since the USA has

troops

> all over the world at about 750 military bases, such lack of concern

is

> strange: the military would be an excellent conduit for strange

foreign

> diseases to come to the States. Indeed, the military stopped

> monitoring diseases among its troops some time ago (for lack of

funds).

>

> If you are interested in the topic, I may recommend that you read

> Laurie Garrett's book " The Coming Plagues. "

>

Posted February 5, 2006 · February 5, 2006

Funny that you mention this. I was thinking today how strange it is

that the outbreak in Iraq has not been mentioned a lot in the US media.

I was reading articles from Asian newspapers which told off 165 people

with bird flu symptoms were admitted to hospitals WHO mentioned today

that it is indeed fluu season and that some of those in hopitals

probalby just half the regular flu.. there finally was an article

today-which mentioned that 12 people were being tested and that there

maybe a human to human case-from the girl who died to the uncle. Like

you said, this would really put our service personnel at danger. it's

almost it isnot talked about on purpose.

Elke

Lee wrote: