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Tests Show That Deadly New Flu Could Spread Among People
An anonymous reader writes in with another news story about how the bird flu may wipe us out. "A new bird flu that has killed 36 people in China can spread from ferret to ferret through the air. A laboratory test showing airborne transmission of the H7N9 avian influenza virus between the animals has raised fears that the virus is poised to become a human pandemic.
The H7N9 avian influenza virus emerged suddenly at the end of February and has infected 131 people. A few patients may have caught the virus from other infected people, but no evidence has emerged that H7N9 can readily transmit from human to human."
The editor shamelessly says that the bird flu "may wipe us out", yet it has killed 36 out of 131 known cases -- hardly enough to wipe anything out -- and the quote in the actual summary says "no evidence has emerged that H7N9 can readily transmit from human to human."
In 3... 2... 1...
Just a friendly bit of constructive criticism... if you'd just read the entire summary, you'd have found out that the quote taken from the actual story pretty much directly contradicts both the sensationalistic title and the sensationalistic lead-in.
You don't have to read the articles; but please, at least glance at the summary that was submitted.
#DeleteChrome
If I read the article, would it explain why there are more tests on this needed rather than just reviewing case studies from the Spanish Flu of 1918 that's already in history books?
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
I am not a ferret.
Hey if you want more funds for your kind of research and/or development, this is what gets some bucks shaken out of the money tree. Since most everybody out there is either unequipped to properly evaluate risks, Stossel did a nice piece on this, it usually works. Bugs (insect, bacteria, viral, or even surveillance), terrorism, ecological disasters, cyber this or that, whatever. Film at 11! Or worse, yet another FUD piece on /.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
The flu to watch out for will be one discovered to be carried by wolves. You will know it by the symptoms of the wolves' eyes getting all weepy and the infected wolves whimpering and crying constantly. It will be quite ironic that the flu that will finally get us will be the Crying Wolf Flu that everyone will ignore due to so many alarmist warnings of other strains of flu over the years that ended up not being such a big worldwide threat after all.
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Please stop teasing me with talk of a massive population-thinning plague this planet desperately needs. It gets my hopes up, only to later be dashed by hearing only a few dozen people ultimately die. Disappointing to say the least.
"... A few patients may have caught the virus from other infected people, but no evidence has emerged that H7N9 can readily transmit from human to human."
Whew, that's a relief. Boy for a minute there I thought you said that a few patients may have caught the virus from other infected people, but since we have no evidence...
(One cannot express enough sarcasm without visiting Planet Sarcasm deep in the Witty Nebula.)
...if they were referring to Spanish Flu as "FUD" in 1917. /. can do with a serious culling.
Then again, armchair visionaries on
The older I get, the more I realize that there are very many people in the world who just don't feel comfortable unless there is some horrible world-ending danger looming over mankind. And it's usually wildly overblown. Here's a short list of all of the things that are supposed to kill me - nuclear war, nuclear power, the end of the ozone, the end of the rain forests, global warming, and pandemics, just to name a few. I'm sure I left out a ton of false armageddons from that list. Overfishing, fertilizers, the end of oil and gas, and clear cutting forests are also supposed not to kill, but to cause us irreparable harm some time between 50 years ago and 'just around the corner'. You can only cry wolf so many times before no one believes you. I'm getting so cynical, I may take up smoking.
Yes, when we are old, when we are young, when we are ill, when we are runover by a drunk idiot, when we are wiped out by a predadtor (drone)!
Wipe out human population, but please start with "National Pornographic" catastrophy shows like "What will then happen is ... that .." are "Death Pornos"
As I said, start paniking, we will all die, someday!
I saw the title and said to myself, "No shit flu can spread from person to person."
Then they talk about "bird" flu and say it spreads from ferret to ferret. I've had a public school education, so maybe I missed the day where they told us ferrets were birds and not mammals.
Be seeing you...
with a quantity of safrole and a specific frequency of visible light, easily achieved with commercial sources, one can make mdma (obviously there are a few more steps, but the entire process much simpler than other methods)
that's why it's prohibited
bird flue comes from cages ... those birds who are caught, they died.
it is same with human victims ... those who were caught in hospital or in homes for retired, are more in danger, than them
who can move at fresh air.
the panic about bird flue is much too much exaggerated.
Call me cynical, but am I the only person who *wants* a wide scale pandemic that kills off a large percentage of the human race?
We have shown that we cannot, by ourselves, take care of the human population explosion.
Nature could possibly take care of this highly political problem all by itself.
I ran this simulation over a dozen times now, the results are terrifying. Try it for yourself, I believe it's called "Plague Inc" in the Android play store. Gulp!
Every time a new version of the flu surfaces everyone loses their minds
I don't know of anyone who says that large size sodas are armageddon level events. Or smart meters. Or...or anything you said, with the exception of Monsanto, but only because maybe genetic engineering will cause some kind of agricultural/ecological collapse (no, genetic engineering is not as harmless as selective breeding...you can do a lot more a lot faster with genetic engineering and introduce very novel traits you never could by selective breeding).
However...I'm surprised the GP doesn't consider nuclear war an armageddon level event. It might not kill every last person...but it will do a pretty good number on the population.
...there exists a virus that can reproduce and spread from one host to another. What an amazing scientific discovery!
Tests Show That Deadly New Flu Could Spread Among People
Something tells me that they're using the term "deadly" just for sensationalism as usual, in the same way that they're making it seem like such a big deal as if it's breaking news that a virus is capable of spreading from human to human...
Well, if you think about it, to get closer to knowing if it might spread from person to person, without actually testing people which is unethical, it would make sense to use an animal, yes? And maybe people who've spent their time in epidemiology know more than you about how well ferret transmission correlates with human transmission. Maybe the fact that you aren't an expert in this field actually has fucking consequences for your understanding of the field, you know?
Also, maybe it is called 'bird flu' because it is genetically similar and likely derived from a known bird flu, and maybe this flu has been identified in birds.
Maybe you ought to just shut the fuck up until you learn something about the topic you want to bitch about.
I just hope it only wipes out the people who write these kinds of sensationalistic articles.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
It's all a government plot, aka Captain Trips to end life on Earth as we know it.
Troll? Really? It was an actual question!
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Slashdot has been a psyop website for years, thinking nobody has noticed. Idiotic fearmongering story.
In 2003 when a bird flu was sweeping through Asia, Maurice Hilleman, a 20th century virologist who created more vaccines than all other virologists combined, said it would not turn into a pandemic. He turned out to be right: the pandemic didn't happen. During his career, Hilleman noticed that the flu pandemics have all been been associated with H1, H2 and H3 hemoglutens. The other 14 hemogluten groups, H4 through H17, haven't been associated with pandemics. Hemogluten is a protein that enables the virus to attach to the throat, and the flu virus has 17 different variants, numbered H1, H2, ...H17.
The other thing Hilleman noticed was that each of the flu pandemics has been separated from its former instance by 68 years. H2 caused pandemics in 1889 and 1957. H3 caused pandemics in 1900 and 1968 and H1 caused pandemics in 1918 and 1986. Based on that pattern, Hilleman thought the next flu pandemic would occur in 2025 when most people who were alive during the H2 1957 pandemic have died.
A key difference between the 1957 instance and the 2025 instance is the fact that the US no longer has any company willing to manufacture vaccines here - they're all overseas. Hilleman spotted the 1957 outbreak before anyone else did and bulldozed the design and manufacture of an effective vaccine in a matter of months. He knew the manufacturers personally and was able to coordinate them into gearing up the necessary production. A lot of what he did then would be impossible today given the FDA's increased power.
I'd be scared to get the vaccine. Vaccines don't work. Here is a good example.
“In 1954 the Americans pushed forward a polio campaign. What happened within the first year was that to their horror they found that particularily one type of the polio vaccine was causing polio. Because the vaccine is not a killed virus, your giving polio in a partly killed form. They got rid of that particular type of the vaccine. Then they realized that all the forms of the polio vaccine caused polio. So what they did is redefine it. They only called it polio if you still had paralysis after 60 days. Now in most cases polio paralysis resolves after a few days. So that's how the statistics of polio went down. By changing the definitions.” Dr. David Ritchie
“Polio has not been eradicated by vaccination, it is lurking behind a redefinition and new diagnostic names like viral or aseptic meningitis...According to one of the 1997 issues of the MMWR there are some 30,000 to 50,000 cases of viral meningitis in the United States alone. That's where all those 30,000 - 50,000 cases of polio disappeared after the introduction of mass vaccination” Dr. Vera Schiebner
Let's call it "The Boy Who Cried Wolf Flu", or "FUD" for short.
Yes, the abbreviation makes perfect sense.
-Styopa
The disease first spread to humans via the wolfaboos. The wolfaboo's spread it to the general furry population at various cons. Then the disease mutated and infected the bronies. Through the bronies, it now threatens to mutate again and infect the Hipster population. Symptoms of the wolf flu in humans are intense interpersonal drama, ie whimpering and crying that manifests itself on the internet, unwarranted selfi-importance and obsessive compulsive behavior. A similar strain wiped out the goths.
I am literally shaking in boots.
I see I'm not the only one fed up with these "Tests show that X could cause Y disaster so please give us Z" stories. Where Z is typically more research money. Well, tests show that my boot could cause your ass to be kicked so please give me your money.
So if these avian flu strains are so virulent and deadly, why aren't we seeing dead birds everywhere? Maybe because the mutations that make the virus airborne also reduce its affinity for avian receptors. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/349926/description/Mutation_makes_H5N1_flu_lose_its_grip . So now interest in H5N1 is waning we need find a new strain of avian flu to scare up some juicy research grants. Queue H7N9.
test showing airborne transmission of the H7N9 avian influenza virus between the animals has raised fears that the virus is poised to become a human pandemic
Shut.
Down.
Everything.
Mutated by Scientists.
If so many people didn't work so closely with so many animals in meat industries around the world global pandemics like bird and swine flu would never materialize.
Is everything made in China these days?
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.