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The Mexican Flu pandemic of 2009 is over.  Flu will always be a problem the world around and until the next major outbreak of one type of flu or another, our blog family is turning their attention to healthy living and nutrition.  We invite you to bookmark this site and come back often for more nutrition tips.

Good nutrition is a 24/7 effort. Your body requires you to be educated in this arena. Eating a nutritional diet requires work and research. Are you ready to make a change? No matter how you answered, these tips will be helpful for you.

Protein is not just found in meat dishes. You can find protein from many other sources. You can consume nuts, soy, tofu, or beans. These food items are great because you can use them as main dishes or as an additive to others. Eat more than one type of protein so that you do not get bored with your diet.

Junk food can become quite addictive. Getting rid of this type of addiction can be hard, but also rewarding. It’s easy to get into the habit of eating junk food over the years because it is designed to provide quick satisfaction. These junk food cravings can even continue after improving your diet. It is crucial to acknowledge cravings for junk food and trade them in for enthusiasm for healthier choices.

Just because you are eating healthy foods does not mean that you can stop monitoring how much you eat. Portion control is crucial if you are on a weight loss program. The only benefit from eating more will be added calories.

Eat as little salt as possible. Diets that are high in sodium are linked to health issues, including but not limited to stroke, kidney failure, high blood pressure and heart disease. Salt can be bad for your bones, salt makes you get rid of calcium.

Adequate hydration is essential to a healthy lifestyle. Our bodies have a high water content, so proper hydration is important. You should strive to drink at least eight glasses of water each and every day.

Quit drinking soda and other drinks filled with sugar. Sweetened drinks like sodas contain too much sugar. This can cause blood sugar levels to rise and has been shown to cause diabetes. Citric acid is another common, harmful ingredient in soda that can rot your teeth. The sugar in the high fructose corn syrup also spurs the growth of bacteria on teeth, which releases acidic by-products and adds to the already negative effect of the citric acid.

Now you see that nutrition is a lot more that just eating an apple. Staying healthy takes a commitment to find out what you need to know about a healthy diet. Hopefully, the advice you have received here will help you move forward.  We invite your input.  Please leave comments below.

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If you are interested in operating a very popular domain name and website, this will be of interest to you.

As you know through history influenza outbreaks take on a common name in addition to their technical or medical name.

Flu names normally are associated with a year and a location of the outbreak, such as the 1918 Spanish Flu, The Asian Flu etc.

These names carry on for many years and become far more memorable than the official name.

Here is an opportunity for someone to take over this site and it could become extremely famous with just a little effort.

PleaseContact the owner for the price.

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Well it is official the U.S Government is making preparations to use U.S. military troops this fall to ‘assist’ the civilian population and medical authorities in controlling the distribution of vaccines and medications during the Mexican Flu outbreak this is likely to re-appear this coming fall.

As reported today on CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. military wants to establish regional teams of military personnel to assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall, according to Defense Department officials.

The proposal is awaiting final approval from Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The officials would not be identified because the proposal from U.S. Northern Command’s Gen. Victor Renuart has not been approved by the secretary.”

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/07/28/military.swine.flu/

I have a mental image of the movie “Outbreak”.

Perhaps if they had used the troops to close the border last spring we might not be in this condition now.

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We are very pleased to announce to our readers that this site has been selected by ALLTOP to be in their online directory magazine rack.

ALLTOP is operated by Guy Kawasaki and friends and is an aggregator of websites in most all different categories. They do not accept all websites as the content is screened by their staff in advance and not just any old website will qualify.

We are honored to be part of their collection and encourage you to check out the following video that will explain all about ALLTOP.

You may follow @GuyKawasaki on Twitter.

Create your own “My ALLTOP” page and collect the types of websites that you like to read regularly.

Here is a link to the ALLTOP page where you will find the Mexican Flu 2009 website posts.

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In an attempt to halt the spread of Mexican Flu airlines are now implementing policies to train employees on how to observe passengers at the check-in point to look out for any flu like symptoms and to not allow them to board the flight.

From Avionews Security Report Monday July 20, 2009:
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic block passengers with A/H1N1 virus
London, UK – Employees have been trained to check the symptoms

Alarm grows in the UK concerning A/H1N1 virus, the so called swine flu, or Mexican flu. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic airlines have in fact taken measures in order to control, and if necessary block, at the check-in those passengers who might show this disease’s symptoms.

A British Airways spokeswoman, quoted by the “Reuters” press agency, explained: “We’ve given our staff advice in terms of the symptoms to look out for. If they have any concerns about a passenger when they present for check-in, they have a 24 hour medical number to call and the passenger can then be checked. Obviously -she added- with swine flu spreading, we have to be responsible and make sure we do what we can to prevent the disease spreading”.

Similar measures have also been taken by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic, according to the “Sunday Times”, even if at the moment Virgin Atlantic has not issued any official communication on this matter. (Avionews)

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This is a report about a friend of mine and his experience in the Mexican flu 2009 scare. He was a passenger on Dragon Air flight KA912 from Manila to Hong Kong on June 6th 2009. Before landing in Hong Kong all passengers were required to fill out a Health Declaration form for the Hong Kong Department of Health. The purpose of this form was to collect not only health data but contact information that included local addresses, passport numbers and phone numbers. On this flight from Manila was a person coughing. Upon touchdown in Hong Kong all passengers were thermally screened at the airport for signs of infection. Later it was confirmed that the coughing passenger had the Mexican flu or H1N1 swine flu.

My friend left Hong Kong the next day and did not return until June 9th at about 6:30pm. Upon his arrival at his home at 7:30pm he was notified by his apartment manager and by a note left in his mailbox that the police were looking for him. After about 2 hrs he received a phone call from the department of health. At first they got his passport number wrong, so he thought they might have confused him with another passenger. After talking to a health official a doctor from the holiday village got on the phone he explained what was happening. This is when he was notified that there was a passenger on his June 6th flight that was confirmed to have the Mexican flu. Of course coming from a long haul, he was tired and jetlagged and hungry.  He was told that they are sending a van to pick him up and it would take about an hour.

Almost 2 hours had passed and the van had still not arrived.    11pm he received another phone call from the holiday village and was told that the driver is not allowed to park by the driveway and that he was to meet him at the curve side.  So he went down and met up with the driver.  As he got into the van, he was offered a mask and the driver also put on his mask.

The driver was also assigned to pick up an elderly Chinese person.  As he got into the van my friend saw he already had a mask on. The drive was about 45 minutes to the holiday village.  There were 2 check points, one to check and make sure that they are the people they say they are.  The 2nd check point was near the clinic.   Going inside the building, was like going into a warehouse, like those sci-fi movies where they found aliens….not a lot of people, no fog but still eerie feeling. He doesn’t know what the building was for but as they were escorted inside he saw about 2 people who were being processed and about 5 to 7 employees. The clinic personnel were protected with gowns, masks and gloves.
He was asked to fill out an info sheet and the older gentleman was called first.  Then about 10 to 15 minutes later, he was called.  By this time the 2 people ahead of him were done.  The nurse called him up and she gave him a stack of masks and a bottle of rubbing alcohol and she took his temperature and confirmed the information on the sheet. He was asked to fill out more forms and was asked to wait.  In about 10 minutes his name was called and he was being seen by a doctor.  When he did not have a temperature he was given a choice of either 10 days in the Holiday Village under strict quarantine rules or 10 days of taking tamiflu under the supervision of Hong Kong health officials and agreeing not to leave Hong Kong for the next 5 days. He agreed to take the medication and was told about it and asked to read the info about the medication tamiflu. He was then asked more questions and told about certain facts regarding pregnancy, or wanting to get pregnant and some other health questions.  Then the contract was showed to him. In the contract, he had to agree to go to one of the 4 clinics closest to his flat and if he missed a day, there would be a  fine of hkd 5,000 and or, up to 6 months in jail.  After he signed the contract, the doctor gave him a capsule of the tamiflu.  By this time the older gentleman was done and the driver took them home.

At 3 pm on June 10th he was called by the police to ensure he had reported to the clinic. When he informed them that he had already reported they wanted proof to confirm this and they sent a car.
Each day for the next 4 days he had to report to this clinic where his temperature was taken and was given a dose of tamiflu under the watchful eye of a health official. Each time he reported there was a steady stream of people in the same situation as he was. On the 14th of June he was given 5 doses of tamiflu and instructed to take them, one a day for the next five days.

This has become the common routine when flying into Hong Kong during the current pandemic conditions. For those out there thinking about not cooperating, there is a $5000 HK dollar fine and 6 months in prison for non compliance with this procedure or the giving false information on the health declaration form.

Since then it has almost been a month. Last night his niece Carla just passed away at the age of 6 with complications of pneumonia. This is the leading cause of death from the Mexican Flu 2009.

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Computer team leaders from Northwestern University and Indiana University had predicted that by the end of May there would only be from 2,000 to 2,500 cases of this highly contagious disease in the United States.

Seems they missed their mark slightly.  The Center for Disease Control (CDC) states now that there are more than 100,000 cases of the Mexican Flu at this time in the U.S.

Read this in depth report in the New York Times article by Donald G. McNeil Jr. of June 1, 2009.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/health/02model.html

To the readers of this Blog, Mexican Flu 2009, we encourage you all to stay vigilant, avoid crowds when possible, wash your hands, use hand sanitizer, do not be embarrassed to wear a protective breathing mask.  This is highly unusual for an Influenza to still be rampant and spreading in the northern hemisphere at this time of the year.

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From New Mexico ABC TB News station, KVIA website comes information on May 29, 2009 that Mexico might have had as many as 23,000 people infected with the Mexican Flu before they made the announcement that there was an epidemic.

Former president of Cuba, Fidel Castro publicly accused the Mexican government from holding back on making the announcement of the Mexican Flu outbreak until US President Barack Obama visited that country on his way to the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad on April 16th.

http://www.kvia.com/global/story.asp?s=10348016

It seems quite likely that the US and Mexican governments are playing down the severity of this Influenza as there is no doubt that it affects both economies at a period in the economic cycle that we are in at this time. There also is no doubt that the economic cycles go up and they go down and this one will recover in spite of government intervention. Let’s hope that there are enough healthy people left to enjoy it when we go back into the upswing.

From the same website a rather alarming announcement by the World Health Organization (WHO,) “The World Health Organization said Thursday that up to 2 billion people could be infected by swine flu if the current outbreak turns into a pandemic. The agency said a pandemic typically lasts two years.”

http://www.kvia.com/global/story.asp?s=10322430

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The dangers of the Mexican Flu 2009 are still being felt. A good example is what happened in the Philippines. Two guests from Taiwan were at a wedding. Neither of these guests knew they were infected with the Mexican Flu and mingled with friends and relatives. Upon returning to Taiwan they were diagnosed with the Mexican flu. All of the other guests at the wedding were identified and tested. Two of these guests were diagnosed with the Mexican Flu.

This is the danger of this new strain of flu, the infected and contagious victims do not show any signs of illness for days after being infected. Everyone they come in contact with is in danger of becoming infected. In this particular incident two infected persons only infected two other people. This was mostly in an outdoor area where the gathering occurred.

A Carnival Cruise ship has reported that there are 53 confirmed cases of the Mexican Flu on board one of their vessels. This is a better example of what will happen this fall and winter in the northern hemisphere when most of the population will be indoors to stay warm. The air will be recirculated in all the buildings and the virus will spread.

The reporting is better today than back in 1918 when so many people died but the pattern this year is still following the same course. This fall will be the most dangerous time.

To this day there are 15,510 confirmed cases of the Mexican flu in 53 different countries. Of those that have been confirmed, there is only a 0.3% death rate of 99 deaths. If this percentage holds true and only a quarter of the world’s population becomes infected then it is predicted that only 20 million people will die.
The 1918 flu pandemic had a kill rate of 3%. Are all the countries reporting the number of deaths honestly?

A vaccine is being prepared but the first doses will not be ready until late this year. I hope the models for the spread and deaths from this Mexican Flu 2009 virus are wrong because for the general population will be on their own when the Mexican Flu 2009 hits this fall.

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From El Paso, Texas, “To Cancun for $499 for 7 nights including air and hotel, which is very good,” so says travel agent.

That’s if you dare.

ABC News via KVIA.com.

http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?S=10396829&nav=abc0

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