Slashdot Mirror
Deadly Version of Bird Flu Found in Romania
CMan0 writes "The BBC reports that a deadly version of the bird flu has been found in Romania. Several ducks and chickens have died on a farm in Romania this month of the disease, it has been confirmed. It's mentioned that the disease is spreading very rapidly, as the last known location of the disease was Siberia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan in August and the 1st of October in Turkey." From the article: "People appear dazed by what is happening, but since it was confirmed that this is the strain of the bird flu virus found in Asia, they have begun co-operating closely with officials sent to collect their birds, our correspondent says. Turkey has already reported the discovery of the lethal strain of the virus among birds in the west of the country. The EU has banned imports of live birds and poultry products from Romania and Turkey. EU veterinary experts said on Friday that the bird flu outbreak did not represent a risk to the general public 'at present'."
So forgive me if I am underwhelmed by a web site that quotes ten year old research papers and where the emerging deseases pages don't list (any strain) of influenza and hasn't been updated since April.
Think global, act loco
um, how about "you're an idiot"?
The most doom-laden worst-case scenarios I've seen are 50,000 deaths in the UK (i.e. about one in a thousand people), with the death-rate disproportionately borne by the very young, the very old, and those with impaired immune systems. An appalling tragedy should it happen, but a long way off the end of the world as we know it.
I call bull on the bird flu hype. It's likely this disease has been around for a much longer time that it has been fashionable to run frantic news reports on it.
And your credentials as an authority on this are...
When I see goverments concerned with carrying pencils in airplanes is one thing. When I see them concerned with migratory birds passing a deadly virus, it's another.
Can you comprehend the difference or should we draw a picture? Hint: ulterior motive. What would be the motive for spreading panic all over the world? This case is quite different from the terrorist hype.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
"No human cases of bird flu have been linked to eating poultry"
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/DS/00566.html
In regards to madcow though I would like to state that my whole family stopped eating beef since the first suspicions regarding the illness in cattle in this country. My grandmother's sister Caberia Hind died at St. John's hospital in Santa Monica, California and was never counted in the official statistics regarding variant-cjd despite that being the diagnosis that came back after they shipped her head to the CDC for analysis. I am not making this up. This occurred in the mid 90s.
They claimed she had acquired it from her europe trips where she traveled frequently. If i recall correctly they CLAIM the only person to die in the united states acquired it overseas and died in florida. To this day we're still seeking an answer as to why she was never counted in the official record.
My family after seeing the horrible death Caberia went through decided they were better off without the risk of eating beef.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
The poultry farmers aren't just motivated by money. Poultry to them, especially in some of these poorer nations, is what provides them their ability to live.
I don't think you would like it much if your nation's government came along, proceeding to confiscate and destroy your computers, even those running Linux or OS X, to prevent the spread of a computer worm. Now remember, you most likely could get by without your computers, unlike many of the poultry farmers.
Perhaps the richer countries should purchase these birds at market prices, and then proceed to destroy them. It gives the farmers incentive to get rid of the birds, and helps ensure a greater number are destroyed. It costs a bit of money, but probably far less than if the flu were to spread.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Your body attacks it, your lungs fill with liquid and you die. Those who are very young, old, or with unhealthy immune systems will survive it. The 55% mortality rate is acros those who've gotten it so far. The mortality rate of a healthy person is around 80%.
SearchIRC - Now with live chat directory!
End of the world , The single most predicted thing ever . .The List of Anti-Christs is rather impressive also .
The Rapture has been predicted on several thousand dates over the last 1600 years or so (Perhaps a little longer)
Around each of those times , about all of these things have occurred
Bird Flu has not yet Mutated in this way .
Here's another few thing that the Media could run with .
There is a chance (however miniscule ) that HIV could mutate into an airborne virus .
There is a chance that the common flu could mutate into a form where it could potentially become near fatal in 90% of cases.
Malaria could mutate and start killing us all off .
An Asteroid could hit the planet and wipe us out.
An accident could occur and set off a few nuclear war heads and start a Nuclear Holocaust .
The Apes could evolve and enslave humanity .
Tom Cruise could make another movie .
Start buying up your tinned food now , move underground and isolate yourself .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Uh, the part where God kills all the chickens?
Why is this put so apocalyptically? Wake me up when it starts spreading among humans. AFAIK, the real problem is that when the next pandemic hits, we don't have a way to manufacture immunizations.
I tell you what, how about we start investing more money in science and research, and less in crazy religions?
Currently hooked on AMP
This concept is something that I was taught in 6'th grade science (and that was in the 60's), so I would think that even today 6'th graders get it.
You'd think so wouldn't you. But, these days schools are more interested in being politically correct than in encouraging independent thought which might result in non-politically correct thinking. As long as the kids can do "acceptably" well on standardized tests (based mostly on memorization as opposed to independent thought) everyone seems happy enough.
Thank your luck that you were in the school system in the 60's when an educated workforce (primarily science and engineering) was seen as necessary to avoid eventual subjugation by the Soviet Union.
These days, with the Soviet Union no longer a threat and with globalization the current management paradigm, we don't worry about dumbing down the workforce since you can always hire the appropriate workforce overseas.
So excuse me if I don't seem too concerned about this whole avian flu thing.
I'll tell you why this concerns me. For the last couple of weeks we have been hearing bird flu everywhere, then Bush announces that if the flu hit the US he will use the military to keep order. They see their power slipping, this could just be the ace in the hole to retain power and finally transform us into the facist state they have been laying the groundwork for for years.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
So is this evolution taking place, or is the Intelligent Designer designing a virus that could potentialy wipe out a whole bunch of us?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Mate. Can we PLEASE stop with the conspiracy theories??? If you can bring yourself to even suspect that the avian flu might have been manufactured by big pharma, what's next? We never went to the moon? Aliens built the pyramids?
As for the Iraq seed bank - get real for a second. It's WAR. The Yanks don't give two flying fucks what they are bombing as long as it looks good on Fox News. Stop seeing a conspiracy in everything - it's war (and worse, a war based on a monumental set of lies which they can no longer cover up, so it's bound to get even more senseless).
Not that this matters, but I am from Romania and would rather people talk about scientific facts and give sensible ideas on how to deal with the flu, rather than go on about evil conglomerates.
Come ON.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -- G.B. Shaw