Whilst is is encouraging to see so many Governments taking action, like stockpiling vaccines and culling infected flocks, we should try to keep some perspective on this situation.
Bird Flu has killed 60 people - hardly a pandemic.
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[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Knute wrote: [/QUOTENAME]I find it slightly disturbing that so many of you are laughing this off as though a flu pandemic can never happen again.
In fact it's really a question of when it will happen again, not if.
Don't get me wrong, I sure as fuck don't want a influenza virus that destroys my lungs, but our civilization is primed for a catastrophic event and it wouldn't take much for a hearty, many-times mutated and highly contagious virus to spread throughtout the entire planet's population like wildfire.
I don't know if this particular strain is a good canidate or not, but I sure don't feel comfortable pooh-poohing mother nature's ability to wipe out a good percentage of us if it was so inclined.
I'm certain something like this is going to happen, I just don't know if it will be in my lifetime or not.
It seems we have something like this coming to us.
We've lived out of balance with nature a long time and we've done a lot of damage to our ecosystems.
Anyways, I hope this flu virus don't jump to us and take off.[/QUOTE]
I have been a weekly reader of The New Yorker magazine for years. It has the most extraordinary in-depth factual articles from a wide variety of sources in each piece. Its two-part section on global warming was chilling, and its article on bird flu was frightening as well. SARS affected relatively few people because of the outstanding response of the scientific communicable disease control and prevention experts worldwide. No, I don't take bird flu lightly. My understanding is that viruses in poultry have never "mutated" to humans before, and what with birds' migratory patterns and droppings, it is a real threat. Because of international travel, the world is a small place when it comes to transferring diseases. Tuberculosis is on the rise in the USA because of that, and recently we have had four cases of polio discovered in a small town in Minnesota, USA. If we didn't have humor around, no matter how misplaced, I would go insane.
In fact it's really a question of when it will happen again, not if.
Don't get me wrong, I sure as fuck don't want a influenza virus that destroys my lungs, but our civilization is primed for a catastrophic event and it wouldn't take much for a hearty, many-times mutated and highly contagious virus to spread throughtout the entire planet's population like wildfire.
I don't know if this particular strain is a good canidate or not, but I sure don't feel comfortable pooh-poohing mother nature's ability to wipe out a good percentage of us if it was so inclined.
I'm certain something like this is going to happen, I just don't know if it will be in my lifetime or not.
It seems we have something like this coming to us.
We've lived out of balance with nature a long time and we've done a lot of damage to our ecosystems.
Anyways, I hope this flu virus don't jump to us and take off.[/QUOTE]
I have been a weekly reader of The New Yorker magazine for years. It has the most extraordinary in-depth factual articles from a wide variety of sources in each piece. Its two-part section on global warming was chilling, and its article on bird flu was frightening as well. SARS affected relatively few people because of the outstanding response of the scientific communicable disease control and prevention experts worldwide. No, I don't take bird flu lightly. My understanding is that viruses in poultry have never "mutated" to humans before, and what with birds' migratory patterns and droppings, it is a real threat. Because of international travel, the world is a small place when it comes to transferring diseases. Tuberculosis is on the rise in the USA because of that, and recently we have had four cases of polio discovered in a small town in Minnesota, USA. If we didn't have humor around, no matter how misplaced, I would go insane.
This is a very good argument for free-range poultry farming. Free-range poultry are allowed to scratch around in the dirt and build up natural immunity to things like this, whereas chickens kept in appalling barn conditions are far more likely to spread it between each other and because there are so many of them it'll be harder for the 'farmers' to catch infected birds in time.
In this case, I suggest everyone boycotts the battery farming industry and only buys free range chicken and eggs. The added bonus is that they taste much better and the egg yolks are much brighter.
In this case, I suggest everyone boycotts the battery farming industry and only buys free range chicken and eggs. The added bonus is that they taste much better and the egg yolks are much brighter.