Letter From “Dr. Buckaroo Banzai” Re: Pneumonia Risk–Time for Your Pneumovax?

Dear Mr. Rawles,
I think the pneumovax is a good idea. However, there are simply no data to support your statement that “pneumonia co-infections are the biggest killer associated with the Asian Avian flu.” Whether even a single victim of the current H5N1 avian flu in Asia has even developed pneumococcal pneumonia has not been reported. I doubt it. These people appear to be dying too quickly for that to be the problem. I think they are simply dying from viral pneumonia.

In 1918-1919 many flu victims died within 24-48 hours of becoming febrile. Those deaths certainly had nothing to do with pneumococcal pneumonia.

That being said, in ordinary flu epidemics, old and debilitated people do develop secondary bacterial pneumonia after their systems are further weakened by viral pneumonia with the flu. In many cases, these secondary pneumonias are caused by the pneumococcus.
So there is undoubtedly some utility in the pneumococcal vaccine. Remember, it only protects against 23 varieties of a single microorganism, the pneumococcus. As you can gather from its name, though, the pneumococcus is the poster child of bacterial pneumonia, and it certainly can and does kill.

Whether or not there will be a worldwide pandemic of H5N1 avian flu depends only on the virus — if it has become or will become easily transmissible from human to human, there will be a pandemic, because it is antigenically novel and nobody has much if any immunity to it.

In the final analysis, the scope of the pandemic also depends only on the virus — on its attack rate and case fatality rate. The attack rate means how many people in a population become infected –105 — 25% — 50% — and the case fatality rate means how many of those people die. An attack rate of about 25% appears likely for a true flu pandemic. Currently the case fatality rate in Asia appears to be about 50%, but I think that is wildly over-estimated, since only the dead and dying are being counted, and there may be many milder cases that are going undiagnosed and unreported. A case-fatality rate of 0.5% to 1% would be typical of a bad flu, and a case fatality rate of 2% or 3% was usual in most communities in 1918-1919. Anything more than that, even 5%, would be devastating. Remember that some isolated communities were more susceptible, and wiped out, in 1918-1919. All the best, – “Dr. Buckaroo Banzai”

JWR Replies: Your point is well taken, Buckaroo. When I saw references to “pneumonia co-infections” I mistakenly assumed that they were mostly pneumococcal pneumonia infections. So I went back and did some more reading. I was mistaken.  Most of the pneumonia deaths were indeed due to H5N1 viral pneumonia–which of course Pneumovax 23 won’t prevent.  But I’m glad to hear that you agree that it is a good thing to get a Pneumovax 23 inoculation, nonetheless.

Letter Re: Rokon Off-Road Motorcycles

Dear Mr. Rawles:
Look forward to your blog everyday – keep up the great work! A question and suggestion for an article, from the point of view of those who must have a good bug-out plan….1. Got a source for a mechanical (as opposed to electronic) power out alarm? Under many scenarios the first warning of a Schumer / fan interface will be the power out (or confirmation that TS is REALLY HTF). Electronics are vulnerable to EMP, but a mechanical alarm could give you hours head start of TSHTF….2. Bug out vehicle. The first thing I thought after seeing the jam on the freeways out of Houston was – gee, a motorcycle could sure come in handy – less fuel needed, weave around stranded cars, drive on the grass or cross-country around roadblocks, etc., etc. Seriously looking at the Rokon TWO- wheel drive all-terrain motorbike as a BOV.  See: www.rokon.com
Pros
1. A motorcycle can weave around stranded cars, drive on the grass or cross-country around roadblocks, etc., etc.
2. In a Rokon, BOTH FRONT & BACK wheels get power – can go rugged places no other ATV or motorcycle can
3. can carry 1,000 lbs. and tow a trailer up to 3,000 lbs.!
4. Multi-purpose – a mini-tractor in power and accessories – many agricultural implements such as:
* Disc Harrow
* Log Skidder
* Moldboard Plow
* Lawn Mower
* Broadcast Spreader
* Power Take-Off Kit
* Agri-Sprayer,
5. 5 to 6 hours on one tank, plus alternate fuel storage in the hollow wheels (if wheels not used for gas, can float the bike to ford a river!)
6. extremely rugged, high ground clearance, fat wheels for traction, etc., etc.
Cons
–Less cargo capacity vs. a car or truck
— Less protection for occupants versus a car or truck
— Max 40 mph.
–“Ignition Electronic Magneto” in the engine – potential EMP problem?
How vulnerable would you rate this vehicle to EMP?
http://www.kohlerengines.com/common/resources/tp_2503_a.pdf  – “N.” in Texas –

PS. I have no affiliation to Rokon, financial or otherwise, other than that I am a potential customer

JWR Replies: Your letter ties in nicely with today’s article about tiller/tractors. “Sturdy, slow and low tech” maybe the order of the day, come TEOTWAWKI.

RE:  …Got a source for a mechanical (as opposed to electronic) power out alarm?  That should be fairly easy to construct. These are probably already commercially made, but if there aren’t;  Imagine a relay, (powered from AC to DC adapter) that is in the normally open position when current is available. When the AC power goes out, the relay trips to the closed position and activates a battery powered alarm–something piercing like a Mallory Sonalert. Alternatively, it could even trip something low tech like an old fashioned spring-powered alarm clock bell.

Letter Re: Asian Avian Flu

Hi Jim,
Thanks for your excellent site. I read it every day but Sunday and enjoy most every article. However, while I believe it is important to be as prepared as possible for pandemics and every other kind of emergency, I’m convinced that the Avian “Bird” flu is contrived and a needless scare. Bill Sardi, on his excellent website, has numerous excellent articles, all well researched and documented, showing that this crisis is hysteria being fanned by government authorities (http://www.knowledgeofhealth.com/report.asp?story=Bird%20Flu%20Hysteria%20Fanned%20By%20Inaccurate%20News%20Reports.). I heartily recommend this site to all your readers. – G.M. in North Carolina

JWR Replies: There may be some exaggeration and hyperbole, but I do believe that the A.A. flu threat is real. Don’t count on on anyone in government saving the day.  Make plans to provide for yourself. Make plans to hunker down in self-quarantine for an extended period, preferably in a lightly populated farming region.

Pneumonia Risk–Time for Your Pneumovax?

With all of the recent conjecture about the possibility of an Asian Avian flu pandemic, the subject of pneumonia inoculations has come up. (Because pneumonia co-infections are the biggest killer associated with the Asian Avian flu. Most of those cases are viral, but some could be pneumococcal.)  Merck makes a widely used pneumonia vaccination called Pneumovax 23.  It is administered intramuscularly before exposure to pneumococci (streptococcus pneumoniae), and reportedly only rarely has adverse reactions. It will not prevent viral pneumonia, but at least it is effective at preventing 23 strains of pneumococcal pneumonias. The threat of Asian Avian flu mutating into a strain that easily transmissible by humans constitutes a novel threat. In this particular instance, I have come to the conclusion that it is worthwhile to have everyone in my family vaccinated with Pneumovax. [But Jim is always a worst case scenario kinda guy! – The Memsahib.]  I predict that if a readily transmissible strain does break out into a pandemic that there will be a huge rush for the relatively few available doses of Pneumovax. Give it some serious thought and prayer. If you feel convicted to get your family vaccinated, do not hesitate. Do so while Pneumovax is still readily available.

The Dreaded Pin Prick–Approaching a Housing Bubble Near You

There are starting to be some clear indicators that the U.S. housing market bubble has reached its apex, though there are some that disagree. The signs of irrational exuberance are all to apparent. Witness, for example, the mad bidding wars for Miami condominiums that are being pre-sold, long before the ground has been broken at the construction sites. 

The housing markets have already headed south in much of the rest of the English speaking world.(Prices are already dropping in Australia and England.) But not yet in the United States. Today’s housing market is the embodiment of “The Greater Fool Theory“, on steroids. One of my compadres said this is like watching the equivalent of the Dutch Tulip Mania, in modern times.

Will the bubble gradually and gently deflate, or will pop with a resounding bang?  I’m not certain, but I’m betting on the latter.  This will most likely happen in the Spring of Aught Six, when the expected annual home buying season fails to materialize. There will be a collective “Ah-hah”, as some home sellers begin to drop their prices. Buyers will sense a soft market, so they start putting in “low ball” bids.  The sellers will then get panicky and drop their prices even more, to “be certain of a quick sale.” This downward ratcheting may very well turn into a outright snowballing effect as everyone with a spec house realizes that the music has stopped and their are precious few chairs in the room. Economist Dr. Gary North sagely opines that it is currently a good time to be a renter. If you have a vacation home, a house that you rent out, or any houses that you’ve bought on speculation, I then I strongly recommend that you sell them, ASAP!  If the decline is as great as I anticipate–perhaps as much as 70% in the most overpriced regions–then it may take ten years for house prices to return to their 2005 levels.  If you are planning to move within the next four or five years, then you might consider selling your house to a property management and renting it back. This may sound crazy, but as early as next June you may be congratulating yourself for your foresight.

As I mentioned back in a post on August 20, 2005, the popular “Mr. Housing Bubble” T-shirt sums up the current situation nicely.

Letter Re: On Gold, Silver, and Barter

James:
First of all, I want to say thank you for putting so much effort in to an active blog on this subject. I try to read daily, and I always play catch-up once a week. I know it takes a TON of work to keep something like this alive and post as much each day as you do, so again, thanks. I was moderately concerned for the first time reading your blog this past week in regards to the post on Gold and Silver Barter. In there you referred to the American public as having “been robbed”. My concern is that this is one of the few places where survivalists get the bad rap of being crazy. I want to point out something: whether it’s gold, a paper dollar, or a rock, the value of whatever item is determined by faith, not intrinsic value. Gold is only valuable to us because we decided that shiny stuff was so important that we were willing to trade long, hard days of work for a little bit of it. At one point in our nation’s past we limited the currency in the market to be equal to the value of the gold the US Treasury has on hand – but there was a problem. By the 1950s, during our rebuilding of the country post-WWII, there was so much growth going on that we actually were outpacing the availability of gold in the market. We were slowly stifling our own economy because we could not produce more goods and services that there was physical gold in the market. Finally, common sense prevailed when we realized something: The American public did not need gold, they needed dollars. They can not use gold in the grocery, the feed store, or the mall. Dollars they can use. People have more faith in the dollar than they do in the ounce of gold. Let the economy grow! To imply that we have been fooled is to imply conspiracy and breeds distrust. We may differ here, but I believe that is completely possible to work within the system until there is no system. When there is no system, I will be beside the other readers here making the best of the barter system. Until then, I will happily use my U.S. Dollars to purchase those items, never once believing I have been duped. To summarize, whether it is gold, paper currency, diamond, or potato – the value of any item is what we’re willing to trade in labor or tangibles to obtain it. The U.S. Dollar’s value is not, and should not be based on our perceived value of gold, since gold has no value of its own other than what we assign it. Gather your junk silver and gold for WTSHTF, but don’t believe in it more than the dollar. Oh, and don’t worry about the feds coming to take away your gold – since we’re not on the gold standard then they don’t need it. – L.C.

JWR Replies: I really appreciate you taking the time to articulate your opinion because I’m sure that there are many other people that feel the same way. But I do beg to differ. We have been robbed. When the Federal government decreed that our 90% silver coins in circulation be replaced with essentially worthless copper tokens (worth perhaps 2% of what a silver is worth, in terms of their metals content) it was both a violation of the public trust and a violation of the Constitution. (Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution states, “No State shall make any Thing but Gold and Silver Coin a tender in payment of debt.”) It is no wonder that the pre-1965 coinage vanished from circulation in less than two years after the switch. Gresham’s Law is inescapable: “Bad money drives out good.”

By law, a pre-1965 dollar was convertible into real silver coinage. In contrast, a post-1964 Federal Reserve Note (FRN) “dollar” is merely an non-convertible “I Owe You Nothing” certificate. Whenever I get handed handed FRNs, I convert most of them into tangibles as quickly as possible.  Someday, probably within the next ten years, there will be a dollar crisis.  At the far end of that crisis, I predict that the dollar will revert to close to its real value. (Essentially, nothing.)

And, re:  “…there was so much growth going on that we actually were outpacing the availability of gold in the market…”  That is hogwash invented by Keynesian economists. If the free market were allowed to exist, then we would have had a free-floating currency, still backed by gold and silver.  (The “bi-metallic” system.) A convertible, metals-backed currency acts as a natural check on the growth of government, not the economy. It is no coincidence that the Federal debt exploded after we went off the gold standard.  With an unbacked currency, there is no limit to a government spending like a drunken sailor.  (BTW: I mean no offense to drunken sailors. In my experience they act much more responsibly than governments.)

And, re: “…gold has no value of its own other than what we assign it.”  You make it sound as if gold is just a pretty rock (“shiny stuff”) that has arbitrarily been assigned a high value.  But gold’s high value is due in part because of its unique intrinsic properties. Gold is the most malleable and ductile metal known; (a single ounce can be beaten into a sheet that is 300 square feet). Heat, moisture, oxygen, and most corrosive agents have very little chemical effect on gold. (Gold coins recovered from 3,000 year old shipwrecks come up from the bottom of the ocean looking bright and shiny.) Because of its high electrical conductivity and resistance to corrosion and other desirable combinations of physical and chemical properties, gold is an essential industrial metal. Since it is a good reflector of both infrared and visible light, it is used for the protective coatings on many artificial satellites.Gold coating enables biological material to be viewed under a scanning electron microscope.Gold alloys are used as a catalyst in organic chemistry, as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, cancer treatments, and restorative dentistry.The resistance to oxidation of gold has led to its widespread use as thin layers electroplated on the surface of electrical connectors to ensure a good connection. Gold performs critical functions in computers, communications equipment, spacecraft, jet aircraft engines, and a host of other products.
(Source of information for the preceding paragraph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold )

On MREs and Their Shelf Life

1






I’m often asked how long the U.S. Military “Meal Ready to Eat” (MRE) rations can be stored. SurvivalBlog reader “Mr. Tango” (BTW, don’t miss reading his fascinating profile) had a round of correspondence with the U.S. Army’s Natick Laboratories in Massachusetts, on the potential storage life of MREs. The data that they sent him was surprising! Here is the gist of it:

Degrees, Fahrenheit Months of Storage (Years)
120 1 month
110 5 months
100 22 months (1.8 years)
90 55 months  (4.6 years)
80 76 months  (6.3 years)
70 100 months  (8.3 years)
60 130 months  (10.8 years) — See Note 3, below

Note 1: Figures above are based on date of pack, rather than inspection date.

Note 2: MREs near the end of their shelf life are considered safe to eat if:
   A.) They are palatable to the taste.
   B.) They do not show any signs of spoilage (such as swelled pouches.)
   C.) They have been stored at moderate temperatures. (70 degrees F or below.)

Note 3: Not enough data has yet been collected on storage below 60 degrees F. However projections are that the 130 month figure will be extended.

Note 4: Time and temperature have a cumulative effect. For example: storage at 100 degrees F for 11 months and then moved to 70 degrees F, you would lose one half of the 70 F storage life.

Note 5: Avoid fluctuating temperatures in and out of freezing level.

Jim’s Comments: As with other storage foods, heat kills the shelf life of MREs in a hurry. So if you keep some “just in case” MREs in the trunk of your car, be sure to rotate them frequently. (Make sure that it is those MREs that you use for your hikes or hunting/camping/backpacking trips. For any large quantities of MREs that you intend to keep more than a year, be sure to store them in the coolest part of your house. The same applies to all of your other storage foods. The differential in temperature between the top shelf and the bottom shelf in your pantry room can be considerable. Reserve those upper shelves for heat-insensitive items like bottled water, salt, and paper products!)

The above cited figures are for palatability, not nutritive value. You should plan to supplement with a good quality double encapsulated multi-vitamin (such as VitaVim brand), good quality B-complex tablets, and 500 MG Vitamin C tablets. Vitamins should be stored in a cool, dark place for best shelf life. (Many tablets are light sensitive.) I recommend rotating your multi-vitamins and Vitamin C every 24 months, and the Vitamin B every 18 months. Remember that most of the fat, carbohydrates, and protein will still be available in MREs, even after many years of storage, but the vitamins won’t. Plan accordingly.

Because MREs and other emergency foods are relatively high in bulk and low in fiber, this could lead to digestive problems. Therefore, I also highly recommend storing a bulk fiber supplement such as Metamucil with each case of MREs. Don’t overlook this precaution!

In summary, I consider MREs a good short term/tactical food. For more info, including equivalents made for the armed forces of other nations, see: http://www.mreinfo.com. They are ideal to keep in your “Get Out of Dodge” (G.O.O.D.) packs.  However, they are very expensive, per meal.  The majority of your storage food dollars should be spent on bulk storage foods. Most of those should be purchased be in #10 cans and 5 gallon food grade storage buckets. Bulk storage foods are available from a number of vendors including:

Freeze Dry Guy
JRH Enterprises
Ready Made Resources
 Safe Castle
Survival Enterprises
 Walton Seed.
Live Oak Farms
AlpineAire Foods
Best Prices Inc. Storable Foods of Texas

MSG, By Any Other Name

The food additive monosodium glutamate (MSG) is now used in an alarmingly wide variety of processed foods. MSG has a bad reputation for more than just inducing “Chinese food headache.”  IMHO, it is nasty stuff and should be avoided.  But that is difficult these days because food processors hide it by applying umpteen clever nom de guerres.  These can include:

Autolyzed yeast,
Barley malt,
Broth,
Bouillon,
Calcium caseinate,
Carrageen or carrageenan,
Enzyme modified,
Fermented,
Flavoring,
Natural flavoring,
Gelatin,
Glutamates,
Hydrolyzed oat flour,
Hydrolyzed protein,
Hydrolyzed vegetable,
Malt extract,
Maltodextrin,
Natural flavors,
Pectin,
Plant protein extract or extracts,
Potassium glutamate,
Protein fortified,
Protein isolates,
Sodium caseinate,
Soy protein or soy protein isolates
Soy sauce,
Stock,
Teriyaki sauce,
Textured protein,
TVP,
Ultra pasteurized,
Whey protein,
Yeast extract,
Yeast food.

(Special thanks to the authors of  The Carbohydrate Addicts’ Official FAQ on Monosodium Glutamate. See: http://www.carbohydrateaddicts.com/msg.html )

I don’t go so far as to recommend that you go on a MSG “witch hunt” in your pantry.  Rather, just be more aware and look at labels carefully whenever you are re-stocking.

Reader Product Review: Wiggy’s Hunter Sleeping Bag

Jim,
This past Thursday thru Saturday was spent by me and a like minded, survival oriented friend in the mountains doing a cold weather shakedown. We headed up to the mountains, and did some primitive camping out in the middle of Bigfoot country at about 3,500 feet. This was a well scouted area, and I had found that nobody in at least the last year had been in the area but me. One of the items that we “shook-down” was my Wiggy’s Hunter. When I opened the box that it came in, I could see right off that it appeared to be one of the best put together products I had seen in a long time. It just seemed to shout “QUAILITY!” It is a 0 degree bag, so I knew it should have no problems with 20 degree nighttime temps that we expected. (And from what I’ve heard it probably would have little problem with temps below 0 degrees.) The temps did indeed get down into the 20s, but I slept very warm and comfortable in my Wiggy’s bag. I just wished it would have gotten even colder, to give it a real test. But I feel that considering how warm I slept this time, as opposed to just about freezing to death with my old bag, (in temps that were even warmer) that the Wiggy’s Hunter will not let me down even to temps below zero. Also the [compression] stuff sack (that for an extra 20 FRNs comes with it) is really nice, and worth every penny. Thanks for turning me and no doubt many others on to Wiggy’s via your book Patriots, and the ad that now runs on your site. Also I must highly recommend expedition weight polypropylene (PolyPro) Long Johns. They really made sitting around the campfire after the sun went down a pleasure. Sincerely, – Gung-Ho

Odds ‘n Sods:

A reader alerted me that the manufacturer of Gamma Seal Lids (those nifty screw top lids that fit on standard 3 to 7 gallon food storage buckets) are now available directly from the manufacturer at very reasonable prices if bought in quantity.  See: http://www.gammaseals.com.

___

In a recent phone conversation, the gent who was the basis for the “Roger Dunlap” character in my novel Patriots mentioned: “In inflation-adjusted dollars, gold’s $850+ per ounce peak back in 1979 would be the equivalent of about $1,550 per ounce today.”  Despite the price increases since 2001, gold is still dirt cheap. He recommends taking advantage of the still low price and stocking up before it zooms up past $500 per ounce.  And silver, he said, is “an even better buy.  Gold may double or triple in the next two years. But silver is likely go way up–five or ten times its current price!”  Both he and I strongly recommend: Buy silver! To make it a real survival asset, buy physical silver–not mining stocks–and take personal possession. Keep it at home, well hidden.  (Get creative and construct yourself a hidden wall cache.) Silver in a vault under the Paradeplatz in Zurich will do you no good when you need it to barter for groceries.  Ditto for silver or gold in a safe deposit box at your local bank. In the event of a monetary crisis you can count on bank “holidays.” And, if and when the banks do re-open, you can expect a government busybody with a clipboard to be standing there when you access your deposit box.

___

See www.freebuck.com  for an inflation calculator that will help you appreciate inflation’s long term effects.

___

Dr. Geri Guidetti of The Ark Institute recommends the book Country Wisdom & Know-How: A Practical Guide to Living off the Land (By the editors of Storey Publishing’s Country Wisdom Bulletins.)  A copy of this book should be on your bookshelf, right next to your copy of  Carla Emery’s Encyclopedia of Country Living.  See:  http://www.arkinstitute.com/bookstore.htm

Note from JWR:

I encourage you to continue to spread the news about SurvivalBlog. Our readership is growing fast, but there are still millions out there with web access who have never heard of it. A brief e-mail to your like-minded friends or mention of SurvivalBlog when calling in to talk radio shows would be greatly appreciated! Every friend that you help motivate to get prepared represents one less person that you’ll find sheepishly begging on your doorstep, come TEOTWAWKI+1. Instead of being part of the problem, they’ll be part of the solution.

From The Memsahib: Asian Avian Flu and the Home Poultry Flock

Here at the Rawles Ranch the chicken-loving Memsahib couldn’t help but be dismayed when her DH suggested the immediate sale of her sizable flock of terribly cute and tame chickens.  So off to the internet in search of answers…

Wild birds can be the carriers of Avian Flu to domestic chickens and turkeys.  Bird flu can be spread from country to country by migratory birds.  Waterfowl can carry avian flu without clinical signs of infection. With that said, how can any government in the world keep the Avian Flu from reaching their shores? To prevent Avian Flu infecting your home poultry flock, your fowl must be protected from coming into contact with the saliva, respiratory secretions and feces of wild birds.  Furthermore you must prevent wild bird saliva, secretions, and feces from contaminating the food and water of your poultry flock, or contaminating your poultry equipment. This means here at the Rawles Ranch, letting the chickens have free range is a thing of the past. We have to redo our chicken housing too.  First, the poultry wire will be replaced with much smaller mesh so that small wild birds can’t enter the pens. Next, all parts of the pens will have solid tops so that if wild birds do perch on the top their feces cannot drop into the pen.   

It appears that all humans who contracted Avian Flu had direct contact with live birds.  Transmission occurs when human breathe in droplets of secretions or dried feces of infected birds.  There is no evidence that suggests the virus is transmitted by consuming poultry products.  Reducing your exposure to the birds’ secretions make sense.  How about nest boxes with doors to the outside so that you can collect eggs without entering the coop?  How about food hoppers and waterers that can be filled from outside the coop?  (But make sure they are covered and that wild birds can’t contaminate them.)  What about keeping the chickens in raised pens and letting their feces drop below into bins with earthworms to compost it ? 

To be frank, not being able to let my chickens free range spoils it for me. I built my flock up to about 30 laying hens, so that I would have plenty of eggs to share. The cost of the extra feed was offset by their ability to free range for grasshoppers and other chicken treats in the pasture.  But if all of the feed has to be store bought, then the feed costs really start adding up in a hurry, not to mention taking up storage space!  So in the end it seems more logical to cut the flock waaaay back to just enough laying hens to provided eggs for family use and to put up more storage food for people instead of chickens.  That’s too bad, because I really enjoy the pastoral picture of my contented chicken catching bugs in the barnyard.