Interview with Teresa Forcades

Transcript (Part 1):
Bell tolling for the Swine Flu
Interview with Teresa Forcades
Monastery of Saint Benet
Montserrat- Barcelona
9/23/09

TC: Teresa Forcades has corrected on the subtitles some of the figures and data quoted in this interview.

My name is Teresa Forcades i Vila. I am a Benedictine nun at the Montserrat monastery. Before joining the monastery I practiced medicine for several years.

I'm a physician specializing in internal medicine and I have a phD in Public Health at Barcelona's University. I carried out the specialization in the USA, at the State University of NY.

What we call swine flu (A), it's also called, mainly in Catalonia, "the new flu" this term (the new flu) may lead some people to believe that the "A" type flu virus is a new virus. Well, this isn't a new type of virus. "A" type viruses are part of the yearly common flu... the seasonal flu.

Regarding flu viruses we have, maybe everyone's aware of this, but I always start with the basics, we have A, B, and C type viruses. These are the known flu viruses affecting humans. Because the "C" virus only normally affects a smaller proportion of the population, it's not used for the manufacturing of the yearly vaccines. Therefore every year seasonal flu vaccine is a mixture of "A" and "B" type virus.

Therefore the so-called "new flu," or swine flu, is not new because of being an "A" type. Then some could argue that it's new because of the antigens of the A-H1N1 virus, the hemagglutinin (H) and the neuraminidase (N). These are surface proteins that could appear to give it the novelty nature. Well, this isn't the case. It must be said, these proteins are not providing a novelty nature to this virus. Because this same group, A-H1N1, was the same flu virus group that in 1918 caused the terrible pandemic that killed more than 20 million people worldwide. It was this same type of virus, and it existed amongst the population until around the mid 50s. In 1957 it seems to disappear from what is known as seasonal flu viruses. It disappears and reappears in the year 1977. This can be looked up by any physician or anyone, in the New England Journal of Medicine, where last month, an article was published about the history of flu viruses, and I quote the New England Journal of Medicine as it's the most well known and respected medical journal.

The article confirms as fact that this virus reappeared (the A-H1N1 virus) in 1977 because it had been resynthesized in a lab. Therefore it came from a lab. And I say resynthesized but it seems that what happened was that they went to exhume the body of an Inuit, and Eskimo woman who died from this flu in 1918, as her body remained under the ice it was possible to recover from the tissues the necessary elements to produce again, or to resynthesize this virus. To recap, this happened in 1977, and according to the New England Journal of Medicine, this is an established fact. From 1977, we have then the A-H1N1 flu virus being part of the pool or mixture of the seasonal flu viruses.

Well, what is then new this year? The novelty is the viral strain S-OIV. This year's viral strain (S-OIV) is a strain unknown until now. And it's this new strain which was first diagnosed on April 17th, 2009. It seems that's the origin of the first diagnosis with two cases in California. These are the first cases on record when we first heard about a new virus. Therefore the novelty is just the strain S-OIV.
This is the first scientific fact.

The second important scientific fact to bear in mind is that since it began on April 17th until September 15th, which is when I last read the statistics, the figures recorded (now, I'm quoting this figure by heart, so it may not be exact but I won't be so far off), 137 deaths worldwide [TC: 137 in Europe, 3,559 deaths worldwide]. Therefore having already gone through the South hemisphere countries, through what's called Austral Winter, with this new virus, and having had a lower mortality rate than usual during this period. The numbers, as I say, are by heart, but from April 17th to September 15th, 137 deaths in Europe and 3,559 worldwide. And I quote them because, it's important to do so. There have been lots of declarations, but I'll quote one by a member of the National Medical Ethics Committee of France, whose name is J. Dupre. Or for instance, another by the President of the General Spanish Medical Association, Rodriguez Sendin. Both prestigious doctors have confirmed that, based on the scientific data that we have at hand, that this new virus has a lower mortality rate than the common flu, or than common seasonal viruses.

I'll end this scientific part with an important note, an important piece of data fully accredited on medial literature, that says that people older than 60, have already a 33% immunity against this new virus. These are important objective facts to take into account before getting into an in-depth assessment.


[Edited on 12/1/2009 8:27 PM]