Quote:
Originally Posted by TDK1044
If you are are an adult in a normal state of health and your immune system is not compromised, swine flu is NOT going to kill you.
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Not necessarily true. The Spanish flu was MORE lethal to young, healthy adults. There are *unconfirmed* signs that the same may be true for the current Swine Flu.
The reason the Spanish flu was like that was because the disease caused the patient's immune system to go into uncontrolled overdrive. It was sort of like an infinite loop in computer programming. If your immune system was strong enough, it could kill you. That's why healthy, young adults with strong immune systems were most at risk of dying, while older or sickly people had a better chance of surviving. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm
There is speculation that the same trend may be true for the current flu:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/wo.../25mexico.html
However, all this is SPECULATION and UNCONFIRMED. I am not a medical expert, so don't take my word on this.