S.A.R.S.: SIMPLY ANOTHER RIDICULOUS SCAM

NewsWithViews.com ^ | April 8, 2003 | Mary Starrett

[Prospero]

"Ben Franklin would be mightily ashamed of us for how easily we're allowing ourselves to be enslaved"

Just a moment... Didn't Franklin himself oversee the quarantine of parts of Philadelphia, as an official of that city, many years before the Revolution?

I weakly recall some real controvery with the families in those areas... perhaps Yellow Fever or cholera, the latter quite common in 18th Century Phily.

[thegreatbeast]

There are different strains of SARS like there are different "strains" of AIDS. The US SARS is not nearly as deadly as that experienced in the Far East. American AIDS is a completely different set of diseases than is that that comprises African AIDS.
But so much of what is being passed out as reportage is poopycock. Recently I'd heard a report that posited that SARS was some bacteriological/viriological hybrid which I hope to God is impossible.
I think we are a long way off from knowing what is what with SARS.
Meanwhile, the interested parties are scrambling for the research and ancillary monies and making ridiculous and scary claims in the process.

[Betty Jo]

The author of this article is a twit!

[aruanan]

And exactly how much media attention did this executive order to QUARANTINE Americans receive?

Yoo hoo, Mary! There were already provisions in place for the federal government to quarantine for certain diseases. SARS was just added to the list. Let's see if we can coax you down out of the tree and smooth your hackles.

Bush issued an executive order adding severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, to the list of illnesses for which the government can order someone held to prevent contagion.

It is the first time in 20 years that the list of diseases subject to federal quarantine has been expanded. In 1983, the disease caused by the deadly Ebola virus was added. The last time anyone was detained in a federal quarantine was in 1963, to prevent the spread of smallpox.

Bush Puts New Disease On U.S. Quarantine List
BYLINE: Rob Stein, Washington Post Staff Writer

[aruanan]

Fred Mertz missed the announcement because he is living in 1950's B&W New York.

[aruanan]

3) Could it be because sick people in places with lousy medical care and sanitation usually die anyway from things that don't effect [sic] people with better health care?

Mary, in this sentence you've told us all we need to know about your powers of analysis.

[TaxRelief]

Welcome to the
SARSaholic Therapy Group!

Come on in, let's discuss your fears!
How do you FEEL about the trauma of disease outbreaks.
Don't worry someone here will listen to YOU,

[George W. Bush]

...and I had no trouble hearing about Bush's quarantine order.

I suspect a lot of FReepers would feel differently had that E.O. been signed William Jefferson Clinton.

Just a hunch.

The article is correct about the political utility of the SARS scare allowing cover for governments to mask other political agendas, both internal and external. And it's a WHO power-grab. Just ask Toronto. Wonder if they're still so happy with their global village.

[George W. Bush]

I thought I heard it was the Jews who did it!

I think I read over at DummyUnderwear.com that the Jews are poisoning our wells. Then they'll move in to kidnap Christian children for Satanic rituals. Same old, same old.

[TaxRelief]

The Executive Order merely amended the Public Health Act to add SARS to the list of quarantinable diseases. Without this change, the government would have no authority to

1) close the borders to "quarantine" the country.
2) to keep a mentally ill contagious person in confinement.
3) to close down schools or cities in heavily affected areas. or
4) to ground airplanes and control traffic into or out of heavily infected areas.

Our constitution and our courts protect us from any massive abuse of power that quarantine authority could produce. Unlike China, who can use SARS as a way to eliminate dissidents, our Bill of Rights is sound enough to prevent any such occurence here. BTW, look for an unusually high number of "college age" and otherwise healthy individuals to start dieing from SARS, in China and maybe even Hong Kong. (Read: convenient dissident elimination)

You are right, though, that if Bubba had done it, some freepers would have been hard to calm down, but with good reason.

===> Nobody trusted Bubba and nobody ever will.<===

[George W. Bush]

I agree. This is for the Lefties vis-a-vis Bush what some of our rightwing stuff was against Klinton.

Sensational propaganda doesn't really work better for them than it does for us, a lesson too often lost. I guess it depends on whose ox is being Gored.

[Brian Allen]

During the past 12 months, 173,000 chinese died from respiratory illnesses, about 200 of them from "SARS." [AKA Acute Respitory Syndrome Epidemic]

[Consort]

If more poeple die from all these SRAS threads than die from the disease itself, then someone has some explaining to do, heads must roll, posters must be deported to France, and worse.

[Lijahsbubbe]

Isn't it true that SARS started in Fla. in the Jewish community as a result of the hanging chad (pronounced with a guttural 'ch') epidemic?

[The Pheonix]

Just read the PeoplesDaily, where the Chinese PM told the students at Beijing University that, " we must not blame anyone, but unite and do our best to fight the disease..."

Our great and humane President, GW Bush took the trouble to telephone Chinese Pres Hu Jintau, to discuss the SARS outbreak and to offer US help to tackle the disease. Bless his heart. He will have my vote, in 2004

[xm177e2]

In the meantime you can be comforted by the Executive Order President Bush signed Friday afternoon saying "health authorities" can hold you against your will if they even think you have this "virus".

Putting "virus" in quotation marks implies this conspiracy nut doesn't even think SARS is caused by a virus. What a freak.

[P-Marlowe]

ALL pneumonias have about a 10% mortaility rate. This one is no different. I would be willing to bet that the risk of contracting penumonia due to this particular virus might be about the same or perhaps a little higher (due to the fact that it is a new strain of FLU) than other Hong Kong variety flus but once pneumonia sets in, there is going to be a 10% mortality rate whether the pneumonia is caused by SARS or the Standard Hong Kong Flu (which usually kills a lot more people every year than this SARS has managed to kill).

So what makes this particular strain of flu any different than prior strains? PUBLICITY and PANIC..

[TaxRelief]

Well put.