North American Human

That is the new name for this influenza.

Influenza A (H1N1) North American Human.

First cases being reported in Orlando and Indiana. The Orlando case is a tourist from Mexico who was visiting Disney attractions.

Recommendations: Consider starting a garden. Even if this does not become a pandemic, you will have fresh food to eat. If this does become a pandemic, you have a food source. Even if you live in a small apt, you can grow lettuce, spinach, radishes on a windowsill. In the winter this can be fresh food for you.

Why not go pick up a book of local edible wild plants? Did you know that kudzu, for example, is almost entirely edible, and apparently really tasty? Dandelions are also edible--flowers, leaves, and roots (which can be roasted, ground, and drunk like coffee). Did you know that you can make an aspirin tea from willow bark? That hips from wild roses saved children in England from scurvy?

You can also spend a day researching local edible plants. Print off pictures and make SURE you know what you are looking at. Don't go to mushrooms--very little nutrition and even the experts mess those up with deadly consequences--they are not worth the risk when you have better wild edibles locally.

I would make this one of my first steps in preparedness.