Texas Doctor Claims Swine Flu Cases Far Worse Than Reported

 

Dr. Marcus Gitterle, an emergency medicine physician based out of New Braunfels, Texas, sent out an internal alert which contains several stunning claims about swine flu that, if true, officials have presumably sought to keep from the public.

Dr. Marcus Gitterle, an emergency medicine physician based out of New Braunfels, Texas, sent out an e mail alert to his patients which contains several stunning claims about swine flu that, if true, officials have presumably sought to keep from the public.

“After I returned from a public health meeting yesterday with community leaders and school officials in Comal County and Hays County, (name removed) suggested I send an update to my patients in the area, because what we are hearing privately from the CDC and Health Department is different from what you are hearing in the media,” writes Gitterle.

The doctor claims that the actual number of confirmed cases of swine flu is 10 to 25 times worse than has been reported, and that people are not recovering easily, as has been claimed, but that many Americans are in fact seriously ill.

“The way they fudge on reporting this is that it takes 3 days to get the confirmatory nod from the CDC on a given viral culture, but based on epidemiological grounds, we know that there are more than 10 cases for each “confirmed” case right now,” claims Gitterle.

 
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“This has not been in the media, but a 23 month old in Houston is fighting for his life, and a pregnant woman just south of San Antonio is fighting for her life,” he writes.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Gitterle’s mention of a “23 month old in Houston” obviously refers to the Mexican toddler who died on Monday night and was announced as the first U.S. fatality on Tuesday morning.

Quick access to drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza, as well as ventilators, is preventing fatalities on the scale of Mexico, but Gitterle warns that “within a couple of weeks, regional hospitals will likely become overwhelmed”.

Gitterle warns, “ER’s south of here are becoming overwhelmed — and I mean that — already. It is coming in waves, but the waves are getting bigger.”

The doctor states that the severity of the situation has already crossed the threshold of the definition of a WHO phase 6 pandemic. “This has not happened in any of our lifetimes so far. We are in uncharted territory,” he writes.

Gitterle claims that President Obama is being advised to declare a national emergency and that this could happen within the next 48 hours.

“This may not happen, but if it doesn’t, I will be surprised. When this happens, all public gathering will be cancelled for 10 days minimum,” writes the doctor.

Gitterle advises people to avoid all public gatherings, especially those held indoors, to avoid going to their ER if they feel ill, and to take the nutritional supplements N-Acetyl-Cysteine and Oscillococinum. He recommends Relenza as a more powerful drug than Tamiflu but warns that supplies of both drugs are running out fast.

The doctor states that swine flu is infectious for about two days prior to symptom onset and that the virus can spread for more than seven days after symptom onset. The symptoms are the same as normal flu, although it has been discovered that swine flu causes a distinctive “hoarseness” in many victims.

“Since it is such a novel (new) virus, there is no “herd immunity,” so the “attack rate” is very high. This is the percentage of people who come down with a virus if exposed. Almost everyone who is exposed to this virus will become infected, though not all will be symptomatic. That is much higher than seasonal flu, which averages 10-15%. The “clinical attack rate” estimation from CDC and WHO may be around 40-50%. This is the number of people who show symptoms. This is a huge number. It is hard to convey the seriousness of this to those outside of the medical fields,” he writes.

This article was posted: Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 8:53 am

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