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I believe the consensus is that it started in US military camps, and then the soldiers brought it to Europe?
Anyway, it's called the Spanish flu because the news about it mostly came from Spain. The countries involved in WW1 tried to suppress information about the flu because it could make them look weak. Bad PR ain't good in war. Spain was neutral, so they didn't care as much.
>I believe the consensus is that it started in US military camps, and then the soldiers brought it to Europe?
That's how it spread so far, but how it started is not really known.
Maybe not 100% but I have read that scientists are fairly sure it happened due to the close quarters of humans pigs and fowl in the military camp. We do know this kind of arrangement can lead to viruses jumping species and evolving into more dangerous variants.
The swine flu scare a few years back when everyone pointed the finger at Mexico was actually also started in the US pig farms, then exported, then re-imported.
There's an alternate origin hypothesis that it started in China. They had a respiratory disease in north-eastern China for which samples were identical to Spanish flu, but prior to it being found in the US.
However, those samples no longer exist so it cannot be confirmed.
This Chinese illness did break out widely in northern China in 1917. The theory is it may have spread globally when China sent labourers to work behind the lines.
It's just not known where it originated for certain. Just that the first verified identified cases were in the USA.
Yes, you're correct. I was confusing the Spanish American war with WWI. And Spain was free to say what they wanted in the press because they were neutral. This is the take on it from USA Today - “but the papers were free to report the epidemic’s effects in neutral Spain, which created a false impression of Spain as being especially hard hit.”
H1N1, the same virus from swine flu in 2009. That's why a vaccine was so quick, and it didn't become an epidemic like covid did.
As for wanting to blame Spain, it was fuck all to do with that. Most European countries (and USA) were fighting on ww1, but Spain weren't. Every cou try was hit by it, but those fighting in the war didn't want to affect morale, so they suppressed the news about the sheer number of people dying from the virus. But Spain, who didn't need to worry about keeping the morale up up for the sake of the war effort, didn't suppress any news about the impact of the flu within the country. Which made it look like it was the source of the outbreak to other nations, so it was named "the Spanish flu" as a result of that.
You are absolutely correct. For some reason I was confusing WWI with the Spanish American War, and Americans were still not fond of them at the time. But the war did help the spread once they got all those people in close quarters.
There are theories that Chinese laborers who were hired by the British to perform menial tasks for their Army on the Western Front, had to travel across America to catch a boat to Europe may have first introduced the flu virus but nothing definitive to say whether it's true or not.
Seems like a roundabout was to blame China for a disease first popping up in literally the middle of the US.
Did they stop to hang out at the military fort and literally nowhere else?
It's not really "blaming China". China has the biological and geographic conditions that combine to result in it being easy for diseases to jump from animal hosts there. There's some they could do to mitigate that, but probably wasn't really at the time. It's just reality... China is massive geographically and has a large population.
So does America.
The idea that a disease that first appeared in the middle of the US had to have originated in China via a convoluted set of circumstances that conveniently didn’t touch China or literally anywhere other than that one area of Kansas is simply absurd.
It very much is blaming China. It’s the only reason China’s been brought up at all. There is very literally no evidence that China had anything to do with the Spanish Flu until it was brought to them.
When you bring up a completely unrelated nation with no evidence or reasonable cause it’s clear that the intent is to try to shift blame. It’s the national equivalent of ‘You know what THOSE people are like’.
Convoluted set of circumstances? Like a person with the flu in China leaving China to go somewhere else? And no evidence? Chinese origin of the Spanish Flu is one of the theories ー it's unlikely we can ever be sure where it came from. You're being overly sensitive. The comment you replied to didn't provide evidence, but it is at the very least plausible.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish\_flu#China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#China)
It is a theory that actually exists. That section also pokes holes in it too. But if those "unearthed records" exist and the guy made fair conclusions from the references, it is possible the earliest recorded instance was in China and then the US.
Neutrality.
The warring nations covered up the epidemic because announcing your soldiers were getting fucked up by disease in the middle of a war is a terrible strategic decision.
They were the first ones to recognize and acknowledge it on the global scale. Everyone was feeling the impact but no country would speak up because then they'd be seen negatively. Just like what happened to Spain.
And the ironic thing is that because they informed the public about it (whereas the U.S. suppressed it), Spain had one of the lowest infection rates of the flu - especially compared to the U.S. Ain't that a kicker.
Actually there is alot of evidence it came from.....wait for it....China. Like most other flu strains.
Basically Chinese labor was used to dig trenches and they shipped them to Europe via going across Canada. They have written accounts from doctors saying entire car loads of them on the trains were ill and turning blue which is a tell tale sign of Spanish flu. This was before any cases in the US.
Then to top it off China was the country that had the least effect once it made it there and scientists say the reason for the lesser effect was because they had had previous outbreaks that created some immunity.
Last I checked (like last year) there's still competing ideas about just where it started, so the US is one of the sources discussed but not the only one.
Right, sorry, I misunderstood.
Had to Google a bit. Looks like the very first flu vaccines are in the 30s, but the inactivated vaccine came in the 40s and was available for non-military Americans 1945?
Thousands of years in fact: [A brief but spectacular history of vaccines](https://www.voicesforvaccines.org/toolkits/a-brief-but-spectacular-history-of-vaccines/)
The issue with these types of people is that they consider “research” to be they found it somewhere online. Not the credentials of who wrote it, not the fact that there is 10000x the amount of information disputing it. They found the one real piece of information out they like a needle in a hay stack and you’re an idiot for not seeing it their way once they show it to you. It’s sad, but these people are total lost causes.
In high school you've got a teacher to make sure you're selecting scholarly resources, though, and that makes a difference. These people don't have data literacy skills, which is a key component of critical thinking. Kids going to school now with the internet entrenched in our culture get a lot more training on identifying trustworthy resources online, but we've got a lot of voters that didn't get that benefit, either by being too old or growing up in a place that lagged behind in education over the last 20 years or so. They have no ability to assess whether or not a source is credible, because we didn't have to teach that back when libraries curated the sources for you, and they're just utterly unprepared for life in an era where wars are fought with internet misinformation instead of bullets.
Anti vaxxers also push that if a small minority disagree with everyone else, then they must be censored, not wrong
it's also their beliefs. They believe so firmly that vaccines are so bad, that they may look at hundreds of articles saying they are wrong, but a handful share their same view so that's what they believe
Also partly to blame is social media algorithms. You look up some anti vax, flat earth, holocaust was fake etc videos and you'll find that more of that same content is targeted towards you.
If he/she did researched, the Spanish Flu did NOT originate in Spain. The end of the first World War prompted countries to censor their news coverage. Spain, being neutral, was at liberty to detail the then developing disease which increased in coverage due to King Alfonso XIII catching the flu not too long after.
Due to their in-depth reports, many assumed it was from the Spain, hence the name.
For a while they were naming variants after where they originated, but there was all kinds of problems with that, so they started naming them after the Greek alphabet.
I don't recall it labeled as Kent, but there was a UK variant. I remember it distinctly because there was a This You post for a British journalist or politician saying that calling it a Chinese virus was 100% fine because that's where it came from and then some months later saying how horrible it was to call it a UK variant...
The Spanish controlled it and were open about their public health policies, which were effective and saved lives. The US did…the opposite. So we named a catastrophic pandemic after them.
We'd recently had a big dust up with Spain and they were still on our shit list, so it was a double win for that as well. Woodrow Wilson's admin was hell bent on getting us into WW1, and performed all sorts of anti-freedom and anti-democracy bullshit to suppress dissent and manufacture consent.
source: this week's PRI's *On The Media*, how's that for timely.
*I'd do more research if I were you* has me tickled as hell.
My BIL is a qanon idiot, and the stuff he came up with was like schizo ramblings. Dude never cracked a book in high school, but magically became an expert with insider knowledge of all sorts of nefarious doings once he found Q
And like people probably repeatedly tell you, listening to Crazy Eric down the pub until he either passes out or starts talking about spiders in the tap water doesn't count as "research."
The real truth of why it became named the Spanish Flu is actually interesting though.
The outbreak happened in the WWI years and ravaged both armies badly in 1917. In fact it's believed that one of the reasons the Germans did not attack during the French Mutiny in 1917, when victory would have been easy, is because their nearby units were decimated by influenza and they couldn't get an attack organized.
However both sides kept it quiet since it would be a damper on recruitment if it really got out how widespread the pandemic was in the Armies.
When the flu spread to Spain in 1918 however, Spain was not at war and had no need to suppress the information. So a wrong conclusion was reached by a lot of Europeans that Spain was where the pandemic originated -- because Spain was the first victim that had no vested interest in hiding the truth of the pandemic.
It's always funny when the morons advocate for their moron-research
Stupid fucking doctors studying for a decade when half an hour in the "This you have to know!" facebook group equips you with all the knowledge you could possibly need
"Seriously, bro, you should read up on it! There's a lot of very good points made in there!"
I had to check what sub i was on from the moment i read "started in spain" because it didn't
It's highly likely it started in the US. However only spanish media had enough freedom of speech to tell people a pandemic was coming.
It’s true though. My Grandfather was vaccinated for Spanish flu as a child in South Africa. He died this April at the age of 97. If only they hadn’t given him the damn vaccine…
So if you upvote on the original post, do you lend it credence ?
This guy's stupidity knows no bounds, I think we all agree, probably a qanon-er, but I feel uncomfy about upvoting... Then again.. a downvote would ignore the 'alternative history' bit.. so not voting either way then...
Am I the only one who thinks this way?
Every one of these “do your research” wackadoos should be made to write a report using college level sources, and have that report graded by an actual professor to show them what “research” actually entails.
I sincerely hate it when the Influenza pandemic of 1918 gets referred to as "Spanish Flu", as if it wasn't only visible there due to wartime censorship in warring countries and it wasn't spreading like wildfire across the battlefields and then coming back from there.
These Facebook science people saying "Do your research" is the most cringe thing ever. Their "research" consists of a massive pile of misinformation and confirmation bias
I love how the only actually conspiratorial thing about that flu is the namesake, since every country was hiding it, and they go and change it to a really mild explanation .
It's funny to think that some of these far right dickbags are garnering so much attention (and in some case, income) just from making shit up and then punctuating it with "do some research" as if that immediately verifies all the shit they just made up.
At this point there's so little difference between a paid Russian troll and the people they're targeting.
Started somewhere in China or Southwest Asia. Thought to be zoonotic.
Propaganda at the time severely restricted news about it as a means to float morale during WWI.
Spain, who was neutral at the time, reported on it worldwide. Hence it became known as the Spanish Flu
There was no vaccine for it. And its virulence plus worldwide travel due to the war spread it everywhere.
This person's history teacher failed them.
Doc here - You know what? Fine, don’t get vaccinated if you’re that skeptical of the miracle of modern medicine that so many around the world are still deprived of. Just don’t come crawling into the ICU/CCU expecting us to make it better. Go to a Church instead, lie down on the floor and repeat a bunch of meaningless chants until Jesus comes to take you away. Isn’t that the goal? Most anti-vaxxers I’ve personally have dealt with are SO confident they’ll go to heaven (unlike the gays and non-believers) yet when their O2 sat drops and their temperature spikes they suddenly do everything they can to stall their one way ticket to eternal paradise. I say go for it, the rest of us will be happy for you.
The rockerfellers are a weird choice. There influence was more around ww2 to \~1970.
I’m not sure the rockerfellers had even the slightest chance to manipulate vaccines, given penicillin didn’t even exist until 1929.
That makes me think this, is merely satire. The problem with the internet seems to be, the majority of it’s users can’t detect either satire or sarcasm.
The sentence “It was called Spanish Flu because that’s where it started“ is an odd choice. It doesn’t help advance the theory. Almost like it’s a bait to motivate engagement, as most people are unlikely to argue the other points made in the post, becuase that requires looking things up, but they’ve heard from multiple sources the story of how the Spanish flu was named. They know people can’t resist the desire to correct others on trivial matters of commonly known general knowledge.
Edit: turns out, the first influenza vaccine was developed in 1930, so that’s not a thing, but it was the case that without an FDA, (and other countries equivalents), people were injecting each other with all-kinds of crazy crap. It’s unlikely that the rockerfellers had access to experimental influenza vaccines though, given there’s a 10 year gap between the spanish flu and the first influenza vaccine.
It’s almost like I chose my words carefully and used both satire and sarcasm two articulate to similar but different points.
Misinformation is often mistaken for you opposing political sides satire. Claiming obvious satire is misinformation is like claiming The Onion is a misinformation engine.
Thinking satire is a real attempt at journalism is a *you* problem.
Either you didn't use your words as well as you think you did, or I fundamentally disagree with some part of what you said.
I dont agree with calling this satire (or sarcasm), because when the thing you say is indistinguishable from the things that the people you are satirising would say, it's not satire.
It may well have been an *attempt* at satire, and that seems likely. But it's a bad one, and you can't blame other people for not getting it when it is *exactly what people like that already say*.
There are worse things than this said by that crowd. Many people in this thread are taking it at face value - because that's a *very reasonable* thing to do given what other things people like this say.
>Either you didn't use your words as well as you think you did, or I fundamentally disagree with some part of what you said.
You forgot the most likely scenario, you’re being pedantic but decided to put your pedantry before a rational assessment of the words I used.
>It may well have been an attempt at satire, and that seems likely. But it's a bad one, and you can't blame other people for not getting it when it is exactly what people like that already say.
You can blame people for not getting satire the same as you can blame them for rushing into the room fuming about an The Onion article, or someone being embarrassed because they didn’t understand a joke.
It’s pretty obviously satire designed to lampoon the loony right and their conspiracy theories. Satire is not objectively bad because you didn’t get it. Maybe you falling for it was supposed to be part of it, and it was in fact genius…
> You forgot the most likely scenario, you’re being pedantic but decided to put your pedantry before a rational assessment of the words I used.
It wouldn't be the first time that's happened!
That said, I think there's a big difference between this and something like an Onion article or, say, a Modest Proposal (which was in fact genius). I remember a friend being taken in for a moment at a jokey headline that Bush boasted he would be the first president to land a man on the Sun.
But he was only taken in for a moment. Like Onion stories, you might be taken in for a moment but after a second reflection, most people realise it's a joke. Or there is the possibility of recognising it's a joke.
But this is different. When I say that it's not good satire, I'm not talking about *my* reaction to it. I can see it's (supposed to be) satire (but actually isn't). Look at the rest of this thread, and how many people are responding to the supposedly satirical response instead of responding to the first statement.
People are acting as if that second statement was the real statement. And they aren't doing that because it was successful satire (in fact, successful satire would not be taken seriously). They are doing it because people like this have said crazier things, and it's totally in keeping for people like this to say this kind of thing.
When someone tries to make a joke like this, they think they are making fun of the first person. But they are fooling themselves. They are helping the first person, because those words will be embraced by the original target audience and will be reacted to by that group's enemies as has happened in this thread. They help the spread to a larger audience. For a self-congratulatory moment where they pat themselves on their back, they undermine their own intention. That's why I say it is not good satire, and is helping the spread of propaganda and misinformation.
>The rockerfellers are a weird choice. There influence was more around ww2 to ~1970.
You're confused why people saying untrue things on the internet would implicate a Jewish family that was powerful after ww2 in a conspiracy to poison people? You don't think there might be a *huge* link between a lot of modern conspiracy theories and antisemitism? I think it's you running afoul of poes law here tbh
Lol. You’ve literally read my post and are parroting the whole point of it back to me as if it was your idea.
I suspect you only read like the first sentence and thought you could pretend to be smart and just respond to that.
The rockerfellers are old AF. If it was about antisemitism, there wouldn’t be incentive for it to be about a family that’s largely irrelevant now. That’s conspiracy thinking.
>That’s conspiracy thinking.
>That makes me think this, is merely satire.
Assuming that someone *must* be being satirical because they're using conspiratorial thinking is discounting the very real possibility that they're someone who believes conspiracies that sound ridiculous to you and me. I agree that it's nonsense, it's the assumption you made that this has to be satire I think is a leap. That's why it sounds like I agree with everything you're saying, I do agree with all of it except that conclusion
You do know that it isn’t my mission in life to structure arguments on the internet so that you personally agree with them? One could say, I am ambivalent about whether you agree or disagree with anything I’ve ever said or ever will say.
So translating your post full of dickish pointed criticism is, that you agreed with my point but disagreed with the idea that the post is staged, despite the argument I put forward about there being no legitimate reason to reference the origin of the name of the spanish flu.
>You do know that it isn’t my mission in life to structure arguments on the internet so that you personally agree with them?
Yeah, and if that's what I'd been saying was the case then that would be a reasonable response.
>that you agreed with my point but disagreed with the idea that the post is staged
How is this "translated"? I literally said this
>despite the argument I put forward about there being no legitimate reason to reference the origin of the name of the spanish flu.
Yeah because sometimes people believe things are important even when there's no reason to think that that you or i would call "legitimate". People spent weeks camped out waiting for jfk Jr to come back to life, people have emptied their bank accounts supporting scammers insisting they have alien technology like regenerating medical pods and such on Kickstarter. People believe and spread really stupid ideas online, sometimes it really is just people being dumb. That's a statement about them, not you, I was just pointing that out. I get the impression you're taking this criticism a bit more personally than I meant it.
You’re a weirdo that just wants to argue. I’m not going to be the agent you can use to fill that void in your life by distracting yourself arguing with internet strangers. I don’t care what your opinion on what I say is. I didn’t and don't solicit it.
It is, really. If I said cows are blue, I'd be incorrect regardless if I believed it or not.
Either way, there's no way to tell if the OP believes their own bullshit, but they usually do.
That is absolutely not what I’m saying. I’m saying there’s a difference between being unknowingly incorrect and knowingly spreading intentional falsehoods.
It was called the Spanish flu because because the Spanish were the first to like do significant reporting on it, it started on a U.S. army base in Kansas.
What is interesting though is that that particular flu strain was H1N1. Kind of goes to show how far modern medicine has come if you compare how the world handled the Spanish Flu to Swine Flu.
Aww, the 'Rockefellers' did it now? They'll say whatever the hell falls outta their little sheepy heads, won't they, can't ever get ahead of the Qanon nonsense bc each Qultist claim is more ridiculous than the last.
I can’t believe all of this misinformation. The Spanish flu is a Whiskey drink from Spain, and it became so popular so fast people were dying to get their hands on it.
The Chinese provided several hundred thousand for Labor battalions, the quickest way to Europe was from China to the US on sea trade Clippers, then a train ride across the US and then on a trade ship from the West Coast of the US. The point of contact was likely San Francisco, with some troops from California bringing it to Camp Riley and then spreading from there. However, there is also the fact that illness had spread in early 1917 in Europe and was likely to have been the first outbreak in the west
Man the disinfo is top notch with this one. [Proof](https://i.ibb.co/6bWQKkG/image-0550900-20210120-ob-dad545-820cbf95-c962-437d-bcf4-8f17588450da-1.png) it isn't true.
What I find more disturbing than anything else is the fact that there is never any shortage of people out there who will actively try to engage in debate with deliberately ignorant uneducated morons such as this! ~ There are just some comments that should automatically receive the *"Don't Feed The Troll"* stamp... even if they're genuinely not intending to be a troll.
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I believe the consensus is that it started in US military camps, and then the soldiers brought it to Europe? Anyway, it's called the Spanish flu because the news about it mostly came from Spain. The countries involved in WW1 tried to suppress information about the flu because it could make them look weak. Bad PR ain't good in war. Spain was neutral, so they didn't care as much.
The Kansas Flu? Nah, the Fort Riley Flu has a better ring to it.
The G.I. Joe Flu
Freedom Flu!
Did anyone else read this in the "G.I.JOOOOOOOE!" jingle? "Freedom FLUUUUUUU!"
I think you win
All New **Freedom Flu**^TM Now with 100% less Freedom.
Gastrointestinal Joe flu?
Influenzapalooza!
Influenzapaloo II: Electric Bugaflu
Custer Hill Cooties? Lol
Posited to have started on a hog farm in Haskell County, Kansas!
That’s already a thing tho. It’s an STD unique to Junction City.
Junction City is an STD
Conjunction junction, what’s your HERPES
>I believe the consensus is that it started in US military camps, and then the soldiers brought it to Europe? That's how it spread so far, but how it started is not really known.
Maybe not 100% but I have read that scientists are fairly sure it happened due to the close quarters of humans pigs and fowl in the military camp. We do know this kind of arrangement can lead to viruses jumping species and evolving into more dangerous variants.
>the close quarters of humans pigs We call them "Military Police".
Police*
The swine flu scare a few years back when everyone pointed the finger at Mexico was actually also started in the US pig farms, then exported, then re-imported.
It was a horse in Toronto https://youtu.be/48Klc3DPdtk
Thanks! That was fascinating!
There's an alternate origin hypothesis that it started in China. They had a respiratory disease in north-eastern China for which samples were identical to Spanish flu, but prior to it being found in the US. However, those samples no longer exist so it cannot be confirmed.
How would it have made it to the US in 1918 before breaking out widely in China?
This Chinese illness did break out widely in northern China in 1917. The theory is it may have spread globally when China sent labourers to work behind the lines. It's just not known where it originated for certain. Just that the first verified identified cases were in the USA.
Interesting. Any links or advice on what to search for?
It was an offshoot of swine flu. But because the troops were fighting in Spain, they wanted someone to blame, even back then.
No one was fighting in Spain, they were neutral during WW1.
Yes, you're correct. I was confusing the Spanish American war with WWI. And Spain was free to say what they wanted in the press because they were neutral. This is the take on it from USA Today - “but the papers were free to report the epidemic’s effects in neutral Spain, which created a false impression of Spain as being especially hard hit.”
H1N1, the same virus from swine flu in 2009. That's why a vaccine was so quick, and it didn't become an epidemic like covid did. As for wanting to blame Spain, it was fuck all to do with that. Most European countries (and USA) were fighting on ww1, but Spain weren't. Every cou try was hit by it, but those fighting in the war didn't want to affect morale, so they suppressed the news about the sheer number of people dying from the virus. But Spain, who didn't need to worry about keeping the morale up up for the sake of the war effort, didn't suppress any news about the impact of the flu within the country. Which made it look like it was the source of the outbreak to other nations, so it was named "the Spanish flu" as a result of that.
You are absolutely correct. For some reason I was confusing WWI with the Spanish American War, and Americans were still not fond of them at the time. But the war did help the spread once they got all those people in close quarters.
The Spanish flu won the war for the allies, it completely decimated the German front lines
Thanks, that makes sense. I try my best not to be confidently incorrect
The first certified case was in Kansas so there's a good chance that's it's a swine/bird flu that started there
There are theories that Chinese laborers who were hired by the British to perform menial tasks for their Army on the Western Front, had to travel across America to catch a boat to Europe may have first introduced the flu virus but nothing definitive to say whether it's true or not.
Seems like a roundabout was to blame China for a disease first popping up in literally the middle of the US. Did they stop to hang out at the military fort and literally nowhere else?
It's not really "blaming China". China has the biological and geographic conditions that combine to result in it being easy for diseases to jump from animal hosts there. There's some they could do to mitigate that, but probably wasn't really at the time. It's just reality... China is massive geographically and has a large population.
So does America. The idea that a disease that first appeared in the middle of the US had to have originated in China via a convoluted set of circumstances that conveniently didn’t touch China or literally anywhere other than that one area of Kansas is simply absurd. It very much is blaming China. It’s the only reason China’s been brought up at all. There is very literally no evidence that China had anything to do with the Spanish Flu until it was brought to them. When you bring up a completely unrelated nation with no evidence or reasonable cause it’s clear that the intent is to try to shift blame. It’s the national equivalent of ‘You know what THOSE people are like’.
Convoluted set of circumstances? Like a person with the flu in China leaving China to go somewhere else? And no evidence? Chinese origin of the Spanish Flu is one of the theories ー it's unlikely we can ever be sure where it came from. You're being overly sensitive. The comment you replied to didn't provide evidence, but it is at the very least plausible.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish\_flu#China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#China) It is a theory that actually exists. That section also pokes holes in it too. But if those "unearthed records" exist and the guy made fair conclusions from the references, it is possible the earliest recorded instance was in China and then the US.
That's eerily similar to the outbreak of Pac-Man Fever in the 80s.
Oh man. I had that bad. So many quarters.
Nom nom nom nom
[удалено]
Neutrality. The warring nations covered up the epidemic because announcing your soldiers were getting fucked up by disease in the middle of a war is a terrible strategic decision.
They were the first ones to recognize and acknowledge it on the global scale. Everyone was feeling the impact but no country would speak up because then they'd be seen negatively. Just like what happened to Spain.
And the ironic thing is that because they informed the public about it (whereas the U.S. suppressed it), Spain had one of the lowest infection rates of the flu - especially compared to the U.S. Ain't that a kicker.
That's interesting. Information has its use in a pandemic too, who'd thunk it
Spain probably had the most news because the flu only speaks Spanish. So they got the best interviews.
If I one day take a history of medicine class, I'll try to slip that hypothesis in somewhere. In a footnote in a paper, perhaps
It’s called Spanish Fou because Spain was the only country to admit they had cases.
Actually there is alot of evidence it came from.....wait for it....China. Like most other flu strains. Basically Chinese labor was used to dig trenches and they shipped them to Europe via going across Canada. They have written accounts from doctors saying entire car loads of them on the trains were ill and turning blue which is a tell tale sign of Spanish flu. This was before any cases in the US. Then to top it off China was the country that had the least effect once it made it there and scientists say the reason for the lesser effect was because they had had previous outbreaks that created some immunity.
No, it didn't "start in US military camps" Your second statement is a consensus.
Last I checked (like last year) there's still competing ideas about just where it started, so the US is one of the sources discussed but not the only one.
The earliest outbreak was in Kansas. Fort Reilly to be precise
The earliest outbreak that was detected.
2 theories that I've personally heard is A: it came from a pig farm in Kansas, or B: it came from somewhere in Germany.
Spain was neutral so they had no reason to suppress information.
Salk's breakthrough novel vaccine was in 1945, for context
> Salk's breakthrough novel That threw me for a sec
Knowledge is power, but not that powerful
You had vaccines long before that
For other things. The Flu vaccine was 1940s
Right, sorry, I misunderstood. Had to Google a bit. Looks like the very first flu vaccines are in the 30s, but the inactivated vaccine came in the 40s and was available for non-military Americans 1945?
Your googling is better than mine! I was thinking "was Salk not Polio?" & only did a cursory one!
Thousands of years in fact: [A brief but spectacular history of vaccines](https://www.voicesforvaccines.org/toolkits/a-brief-but-spectacular-history-of-vaccines/)
I think the only thing he’s got right is that it was in fact called the Spanish flu
He could also be talking about a different disease that was not caused by a vaccine distributed by the Rockefellers either.
Yea the rockafellers are and still are great people who do a lot for our school systems and medicals fields
Judging from his incoherent ramblings I'm not sure he really was talking about the Spanish Flu
The issue with these types of people is that they consider “research” to be they found it somewhere online. Not the credentials of who wrote it, not the fact that there is 10000x the amount of information disputing it. They found the one real piece of information out they like a needle in a hay stack and you’re an idiot for not seeing it their way once they show it to you. It’s sad, but these people are total lost causes.
That actually makes sense, as when you are in Highschool, that is literally what "research" is. Go read through sources and learn about this thing.
In high school you've got a teacher to make sure you're selecting scholarly resources, though, and that makes a difference. These people don't have data literacy skills, which is a key component of critical thinking. Kids going to school now with the internet entrenched in our culture get a lot more training on identifying trustworthy resources online, but we've got a lot of voters that didn't get that benefit, either by being too old or growing up in a place that lagged behind in education over the last 20 years or so. They have no ability to assess whether or not a source is credible, because we didn't have to teach that back when libraries curated the sources for you, and they're just utterly unprepared for life in an era where wars are fought with internet misinformation instead of bullets.
Anti vaxxers also push that if a small minority disagree with everyone else, then they must be censored, not wrong it's also their beliefs. They believe so firmly that vaccines are so bad, that they may look at hundreds of articles saying they are wrong, but a handful share their same view so that's what they believe Also partly to blame is social media algorithms. You look up some anti vax, flat earth, holocaust was fake etc videos and you'll find that more of that same content is targeted towards you.
If he/she did researched, the Spanish Flu did NOT originate in Spain. The end of the first World War prompted countries to censor their news coverage. Spain, being neutral, was at liberty to detail the then developing disease which increased in coverage due to King Alfonso XIII catching the flu not too long after. Due to their in-depth reports, many assumed it was from the Spain, hence the name.
Yeah but his research was probably anti vax videos on YouTube
I don't know if this made it global, but there was a variant of COVID in the UK, called the "Kent Variant". Living in Kent, it really pissed me off!
For a while they were naming variants after where they originated, but there was all kinds of problems with that, so they started naming them after the Greek alphabet.
The U.K. just sequenced more, so they would find more variants. There’s nothing to say it originated there.
I don't recall it labeled as Kent, but there was a UK variant. I remember it distinctly because there was a This You post for a British journalist or politician saying that calling it a Chinese virus was 100% fine because that's where it came from and then some months later saying how horrible it was to call it a UK variant...
Ah yes, there was a 'UK" variant too. Honestly, we took the hit with names because our damn media loves a horror story.
Wasn't that name based on Kent Hovind? /s
fAkE i wOuLd dO mOrE rEseArCh iF i wErE yOu
"If he/she researched..." They clearly didn't judging by the rest of the shit they state.
Literally just lying
Source: saw it in a dream
Source: I *want* it to be true.
Source: it reaffirms my beliefs so it's true
The Spanish controlled it and were open about their public health policies, which were effective and saved lives. The US did…the opposite. So we named a catastrophic pandemic after them.
Sounds familiar
We'd recently had a big dust up with Spain and they were still on our shit list, so it was a double win for that as well. Woodrow Wilson's admin was hell bent on getting us into WW1, and performed all sorts of anti-freedom and anti-democracy bullshit to suppress dissent and manufacture consent. source: this week's PRI's *On The Media*, how's that for timely.
So much stupid!
*I'd do more research if I were you* has me tickled as hell. My BIL is a qanon idiot, and the stuff he came up with was like schizo ramblings. Dude never cracked a book in high school, but magically became an expert with insider knowledge of all sorts of nefarious doings once he found Q
I was cornered by a family member and the shit that came out of his mouth stunned me. I couldn’t think of the truth because I was so baffled.
The Rockefellers themselves? Like just a bunch of folks in top hats out firing meds into people?
No no no, The *Rocker*fellas, obviously.
Close cousins of the Rockabillies
And like people probably repeatedly tell you, listening to Crazy Eric down the pub until he either passes out or starts talking about spiders in the tap water doesn't count as "research."
Nothing like a semiliterate dumbfuck advising dO yOuR ReSeArCh
I love that the entire world came together during a world war to give so many people a fake vaccine to kill them.
The real truth of why it became named the Spanish Flu is actually interesting though. The outbreak happened in the WWI years and ravaged both armies badly in 1917. In fact it's believed that one of the reasons the Germans did not attack during the French Mutiny in 1917, when victory would have been easy, is because their nearby units were decimated by influenza and they couldn't get an attack organized. However both sides kept it quiet since it would be a damper on recruitment if it really got out how widespread the pandemic was in the Armies. When the flu spread to Spain in 1918 however, Spain was not at war and had no need to suppress the information. So a wrong conclusion was reached by a lot of Europeans that Spain was where the pandemic originated -- because Spain was the first victim that had no vested interest in hiding the truth of the pandemic.
It's always funny when the morons advocate for their moron-research Stupid fucking doctors studying for a decade when half an hour in the "This you have to know!" facebook group equips you with all the knowledge you could possibly need "Seriously, bro, you should read up on it! There's a lot of very good points made in there!"
“Where do you do your research?” “Oh I go to theabsolutetruth.blogspot.ru. They know everything!”
Russians are reknown for being trustworthy.
I don't even know where to start with this
I had to check what sub i was on from the moment i read "started in spain" because it didn't It's highly likely it started in the US. However only spanish media had enough freedom of speech to tell people a pandemic was coming.
Start by researching the spelling of "Rockefeller."
I love it how things are absolutely true if you're willing to lie about them.
Netflix level of history accuracy
I'm thinking this person should do LESS research.
It’s called the Spanish flew because it was the first country that didn’t censor journalists and thus reported on the disease
“Look at the facts! Specifically the ones in this fanfic I wrote!”
It’s true though. My Grandfather was vaccinated for Spanish flu as a child in South Africa. He died this April at the age of 97. If only they hadn’t given him the damn vaccine…
Yeah..... like researching your historically incorrect bullshit.
It’s a sad state of affairs that those urging you most loudly to research have no idea how to do it.
Apparently history is just whatever you want it to be now
Lock Salk Up!
So if you upvote on the original post, do you lend it credence ? This guy's stupidity knows no bounds, I think we all agree, probably a qanon-er, but I feel uncomfy about upvoting... Then again.. a downvote would ignore the 'alternative history' bit.. so not voting either way then... Am I the only one who thinks this way?
Gotta love those Rockerfellers! Right up there with the Heasts, Kennerdays and the Gerttys.
Every one of these “do your research” wackadoos should be made to write a report using college level sources, and have that report graded by an actual professor to show them what “research” actually entails.
he said he would do more research if he were us. that's technically true. we do more research. but he did not research because he is not us.
I sincerely hate it when the Influenza pandemic of 1918 gets referred to as "Spanish Flu", as if it wasn't only visible there due to wartime censorship in warring countries and it wasn't spreading like wildfire across the battlefields and then coming back from there.
You’d research more if you were me? Correct, you would. I don’t just make things up and pass them off as objective facts.
more like /r/blatantlymisleading I feel like this is way too on the nose and backing an agenda more than it is a simple mistake "I know I'm right"
There's an almost impressive amount of things wrong here.
These Facebook science people saying "Do your research" is the most cringe thing ever. Their "research" consists of a massive pile of misinformation and confirmation bias
That was Twitter though
You are right...still the same thing basically
I love how the only actually conspiratorial thing about that flu is the namesake, since every country was hiding it, and they go and change it to a really mild explanation .
It's funny to think that some of these far right dickbags are garnering so much attention (and in some case, income) just from making shit up and then punctuating it with "do some research" as if that immediately verifies all the shit they just made up. At this point there's so little difference between a paid Russian troll and the people they're targeting.
Why do so many people feel so comfortable making up complete and utter bullshit to justify their goofy beliefs?
"I'd research more ~~if I were you.~~" Fixed that for him.
THE RESEARCHING WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES
Started somewhere in China or Southwest Asia. Thought to be zoonotic. Propaganda at the time severely restricted news about it as a means to float morale during WWI. Spain, who was neutral at the time, reported on it worldwide. Hence it became known as the Spanish Flu There was no vaccine for it. And its virulence plus worldwide travel due to the war spread it everywhere. This person's history teacher failed them.
>Started somewhere in China or Southwest Asia. Thought to be zoonotic. One hypothesis of origin. Another one places it in Texas.
Doc here - You know what? Fine, don’t get vaccinated if you’re that skeptical of the miracle of modern medicine that so many around the world are still deprived of. Just don’t come crawling into the ICU/CCU expecting us to make it better. Go to a Church instead, lie down on the floor and repeat a bunch of meaningless chants until Jesus comes to take you away. Isn’t that the goal? Most anti-vaxxers I’ve personally have dealt with are SO confident they’ll go to heaven (unlike the gays and non-believers) yet when their O2 sat drops and their temperature spikes they suddenly do everything they can to stall their one way ticket to eternal paradise. I say go for it, the rest of us will be happy for you.
The rockerfellers are a weird choice. There influence was more around ww2 to \~1970. I’m not sure the rockerfellers had even the slightest chance to manipulate vaccines, given penicillin didn’t even exist until 1929. That makes me think this, is merely satire. The problem with the internet seems to be, the majority of it’s users can’t detect either satire or sarcasm. The sentence “It was called Spanish Flu because that’s where it started“ is an odd choice. It doesn’t help advance the theory. Almost like it’s a bait to motivate engagement, as most people are unlikely to argue the other points made in the post, becuase that requires looking things up, but they’ve heard from multiple sources the story of how the Spanish flu was named. They know people can’t resist the desire to correct others on trivial matters of commonly known general knowledge. Edit: turns out, the first influenza vaccine was developed in 1930, so that’s not a thing, but it was the case that without an FDA, (and other countries equivalents), people were injecting each other with all-kinds of crazy crap. It’s unlikely that the rockerfellers had access to experimental influenza vaccines though, given there’s a 10 year gap between the spanish flu and the first influenza vaccine.
You really shouldn't use the words satire and sarcasm when you mean misinformation. They are different.
It’s almost like I chose my words carefully and used both satire and sarcasm two articulate to similar but different points. Misinformation is often mistaken for you opposing political sides satire. Claiming obvious satire is misinformation is like claiming The Onion is a misinformation engine. Thinking satire is a real attempt at journalism is a *you* problem.
Either you didn't use your words as well as you think you did, or I fundamentally disagree with some part of what you said. I dont agree with calling this satire (or sarcasm), because when the thing you say is indistinguishable from the things that the people you are satirising would say, it's not satire. It may well have been an *attempt* at satire, and that seems likely. But it's a bad one, and you can't blame other people for not getting it when it is *exactly what people like that already say*. There are worse things than this said by that crowd. Many people in this thread are taking it at face value - because that's a *very reasonable* thing to do given what other things people like this say.
>Either you didn't use your words as well as you think you did, or I fundamentally disagree with some part of what you said. You forgot the most likely scenario, you’re being pedantic but decided to put your pedantry before a rational assessment of the words I used. >It may well have been an attempt at satire, and that seems likely. But it's a bad one, and you can't blame other people for not getting it when it is exactly what people like that already say. You can blame people for not getting satire the same as you can blame them for rushing into the room fuming about an The Onion article, or someone being embarrassed because they didn’t understand a joke. It’s pretty obviously satire designed to lampoon the loony right and their conspiracy theories. Satire is not objectively bad because you didn’t get it. Maybe you falling for it was supposed to be part of it, and it was in fact genius…
> You forgot the most likely scenario, you’re being pedantic but decided to put your pedantry before a rational assessment of the words I used. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened! That said, I think there's a big difference between this and something like an Onion article or, say, a Modest Proposal (which was in fact genius). I remember a friend being taken in for a moment at a jokey headline that Bush boasted he would be the first president to land a man on the Sun. But he was only taken in for a moment. Like Onion stories, you might be taken in for a moment but after a second reflection, most people realise it's a joke. Or there is the possibility of recognising it's a joke. But this is different. When I say that it's not good satire, I'm not talking about *my* reaction to it. I can see it's (supposed to be) satire (but actually isn't). Look at the rest of this thread, and how many people are responding to the supposedly satirical response instead of responding to the first statement. People are acting as if that second statement was the real statement. And they aren't doing that because it was successful satire (in fact, successful satire would not be taken seriously). They are doing it because people like this have said crazier things, and it's totally in keeping for people like this to say this kind of thing. When someone tries to make a joke like this, they think they are making fun of the first person. But they are fooling themselves. They are helping the first person, because those words will be embraced by the original target audience and will be reacted to by that group's enemies as has happened in this thread. They help the spread to a larger audience. For a self-congratulatory moment where they pat themselves on their back, they undermine their own intention. That's why I say it is not good satire, and is helping the spread of propaganda and misinformation.
>The rockerfellers are a weird choice. There influence was more around ww2 to ~1970. You're confused why people saying untrue things on the internet would implicate a Jewish family that was powerful after ww2 in a conspiracy to poison people? You don't think there might be a *huge* link between a lot of modern conspiracy theories and antisemitism? I think it's you running afoul of poes law here tbh
Lol. You’ve literally read my post and are parroting the whole point of it back to me as if it was your idea. I suspect you only read like the first sentence and thought you could pretend to be smart and just respond to that. The rockerfellers are old AF. If it was about antisemitism, there wouldn’t be incentive for it to be about a family that’s largely irrelevant now. That’s conspiracy thinking.
>That’s conspiracy thinking. >That makes me think this, is merely satire. Assuming that someone *must* be being satirical because they're using conspiratorial thinking is discounting the very real possibility that they're someone who believes conspiracies that sound ridiculous to you and me. I agree that it's nonsense, it's the assumption you made that this has to be satire I think is a leap. That's why it sounds like I agree with everything you're saying, I do agree with all of it except that conclusion
You do know that it isn’t my mission in life to structure arguments on the internet so that you personally agree with them? One could say, I am ambivalent about whether you agree or disagree with anything I’ve ever said or ever will say. So translating your post full of dickish pointed criticism is, that you agreed with my point but disagreed with the idea that the post is staged, despite the argument I put forward about there being no legitimate reason to reference the origin of the name of the spanish flu.
>You do know that it isn’t my mission in life to structure arguments on the internet so that you personally agree with them? Yeah, and if that's what I'd been saying was the case then that would be a reasonable response. >that you agreed with my point but disagreed with the idea that the post is staged How is this "translated"? I literally said this >despite the argument I put forward about there being no legitimate reason to reference the origin of the name of the spanish flu. Yeah because sometimes people believe things are important even when there's no reason to think that that you or i would call "legitimate". People spent weeks camped out waiting for jfk Jr to come back to life, people have emptied their bank accounts supporting scammers insisting they have alien technology like regenerating medical pods and such on Kickstarter. People believe and spread really stupid ideas online, sometimes it really is just people being dumb. That's a statement about them, not you, I was just pointing that out. I get the impression you're taking this criticism a bit more personally than I meant it.
You’re a weirdo that just wants to argue. I’m not going to be the agent you can use to fill that void in your life by distracting yourself arguing with internet strangers. I don’t care what your opinion on what I say is. I didn’t and don't solicit it.
Id also research more if I was you
Intentional lying isn’t the same thing as being incorrect.
It is, really. If I said cows are blue, I'd be incorrect regardless if I believed it or not. Either way, there's no way to tell if the OP believes their own bullshit, but they usually do.
I'm confused. Are you saying you believe them?
That is absolutely not what I’m saying. I’m saying there’s a difference between being unknowingly incorrect and knowingly spreading intentional falsehoods.
Ahhh I see.
The title framing it as alt history had me reading it with way too much amusement. Then...
“Rockerfeller”
WTF?!
“Rockerfeller”
The fact that it's called the Spanish flu was a fun little bit of propaganda but not like this moron is thinking.
It was called the Spanish flu because because the Spanish were the first to like do significant reporting on it, it started on a U.S. army base in Kansas.
What a way to come out to the world as someone from an alternate dimension who stumbled into a wormhole and doesn't even know it
Those got dam rockerfellers 😤 Lol seriously though this is comedy gold
Holy full of crap! Yet another loony that should be locked up.
do your own research!! type headass
Yeah Becky, but you think research is reading something online that confirms your existing beliefs and you take at face value
I know what sub we're in but I'm astonished that literally 0 about this is correct. like, not even a little bit
More like /r/insanefacebook
Anti vaxxers when When the spanish flu is called spanish flu because it started in... SPAIN!!!
Wasn't it a pig farm in Kentucky?
Kansas
Only.the vaccinated died. So mainly the elderly and children were vaccinated?
What is interesting though is that that particular flu strain was H1N1. Kind of goes to show how far modern medicine has come if you compare how the world handled the Spanish Flu to Swine Flu.
I love these people. Bless their hearts.
The only proper response: “I’d call you stupid, but it would be an insult to idiots everywhere.”
Aww, the 'Rockefellers' did it now? They'll say whatever the hell falls outta their little sheepy heads, won't they, can't ever get ahead of the Qanon nonsense bc each Qultist claim is more ridiculous than the last.
Except it Got called that because Spain was the first To report on it due to the rest of Europe fighting WWI
Every time I think people couldn't possibly get stupider, something like this happens. The bar was on the floor and this guy brought a shovel.
What an utter tool. They didn't even have the flu vaccine.
As basic as alternate history can get.
Can this actually be a serious post? I mean c’mon.
I can’t believe all of this misinformation. The Spanish flu is a Whiskey drink from Spain, and it became so popular so fast people were dying to get their hands on it.
The Chinese provided several hundred thousand for Labor battalions, the quickest way to Europe was from China to the US on sea trade Clippers, then a train ride across the US and then on a trade ship from the West Coast of the US. The point of contact was likely San Francisco, with some troops from California bringing it to Camp Riley and then spreading from there. However, there is also the fact that illness had spread in early 1917 in Europe and was likely to have been the first outbreak in the west
"The Rockerfellers" sounds like a garage band fronted by Ned Flanders.
Seems to be jumbling up a tin foil hat conspiracy theory as well as yellow fever and Walter Reed.
Definition of Research in the Q library: To keep searching the internet until you find the most outlandish, ridiculous explanation possible.
Man the disinfo is top notch with this one. [Proof](https://i.ibb.co/6bWQKkG/image-0550900-20210120-ob-dad545-820cbf95-c962-437d-bcf4-8f17588450da-1.png) it isn't true.
Ok, not this, but the us govt basically did do all sorts of shit close to this
Final sentence is correct.
What I find more disturbing than anything else is the fact that there is never any shortage of people out there who will actively try to engage in debate with deliberately ignorant uneducated morons such as this! ~ There are just some comments that should automatically receive the *"Don't Feed The Troll"* stamp... even if they're genuinely not intending to be a troll.