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04/29/09 - A Pennsylvania Democrat Says "Ho Hum" To Arlen Specter's Party Switch

From: Brian Welch (e-mail him)

Re: Brenda Walker's Blog: Public Health Precautions Here And There

In its coverage of Swine (Mexican) Flu, the Main Stream Media wants to make something perfectly clear.

On the one hand, according to the Associated Press, maintaining distance between national populations simply doesn't work.  That strategy is not only alarmist, it's probably racist.

From its story:

" 'Sealing a border as an approach to containment is something that has been discussed and it was our planning assumption should an outbreak of a new strain of influenza occur overseas. We had plans for trying to swoop in and knockout or quench an outbreak if it were occurring far from our borders. That's not the case here,' acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Richard Besser told a telephone briefing of Nevada-based health providers and reporters. The idea of trying to limit the spread to Mexico is not realistic or at all possible.

"'Border controls do not work. Travel restrictions do not work,' WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva, recalling the SARS epidemic earlier in the decade that killed 774 people, mostly in Asia, and slowed the global economy. [Toddler in Texas becomes 1st swine flu death in US, Associated Press, April 20, 2009]

But, according to MSNBC, personal or "social distancing" does work

"'If it causes person-to-person transmission in the community in a virulent form, we're going to have a problem,' said Dr. Brian Currie, an infectious disease expert at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

"In that scenario, public health officials would be called upon to enact voluntary plans that could keep people away from work, out of school and in their homes for as long as it takes to quell the threat of infection.

"'Businesses would be advised to let workers telecommute,' Ira Longini, a national flu expert and professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle said.

"'In some cases, people could be advised to stay 6 feet away from others in public,' said Longini, who has built elaborate computer models that demonstrate how infection slows when such plans are implemented.

"'In severe situations, people may be told to stay 3 feet apart to avoid the infectious spray of droplets when someone coughs or sneezes,' Currie said.

"He was part of three teams of researchers commissioned by the federal government to study intervention strategies and published the results last year.

"'The least stringent scenarios cut the epidemic by half,' Currie said.  'The most stringent cut it by two-thirds.'" [Best swine flu strategy: Stay away, everyone | Little-known 'social distancing' plans could close schools, gathering spots by JoNel Aleccia, MSNBC.com, April 28 2009]

Got it?  According to the MSM, people transmit disease, not borders.  Allowing people to cross borders has no net effect on disease transmission—even if they're infected with the disease you're trying to stop. No need for alarm!

Yet from the AP story cited above:

"Kathy Barton, a spokeswoman for the Houston Health and Human Services Department, said Wednesday that the child had traveled with family from Mexico to Brownsville in South Texas. The child became ill in Brownsville and was taken to a Houston hospital and died Monday night, she said."

It would appear that the first non-Mexican victim to be claimed by this burgeoning international pandemic is… a Mexican.

I don't want to detract from the fact that this toddler's death is tragic.  I have a daughter a few months younger than this 23-month-old, and I can't imagine losing her.  Or for that matter, my four-year-old daughter, my three-year-old daughter, my unborn son or my wife.

My concern is that wrong-headed, strictly politically correct but totally ineffective moves by President Obama a and his cadre of incompetents could lead to the loss of my children and other innocent young ones.

Welch is a US Navy veteran who works in the nuclear power industry that, he says, "hasn't been outsourced—yet –only because they haven't figured out a way to do it effectively". His previous letters are here and here.

Read Welch's blog here.