the bird flu has jumped

Status
Not open for further replies.
Well, they said there was evidence of it, but i'm not ready to head for the hills yet...oh wait, I already live in the hills:D
 
This report is unconfirmed. Don't panic just yet.
Also, Flu viruses are very unstable things. When they undergo an antigen shift (major mutation) they tend to bear little resemblance to their ancestors in terms of morbidity/lethality. It may eventually mutate into something transmissible between humans, but when it does it's not likely to kill.
Read up on the subject. You'll sleep better.
/*all* flu is "bird flu".
// Regular ol' influenza killed 38,000 Americans last year.
///The real danger is from H1N1 Swine Flu.
 
I would agree with both Second Amendment and GoSlash but this is also something to keep a watchful eye on, it is good however that the United States and Europe/United Nation countries do have decent plans of actions to deal with an outbreak. The plans are better than I would have expected.

The media always blows anything out of proportion.
 
This thread needs to have a legal or political focus to be on topic. This isn't a current events forum.

Anyone want to steer the discussion in the right direction?

-Dave
 
WHO has really been on top of this stuff. reading the article it sounds like they are not 100% sure yet.

Who has been designated by the Bush Administration Response Plan for avian flu as the leading organization for the fight against avain flu.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/pandemic-influenza-implementation.html

"The economic and societal disruption of an influenza pandemic could be significant. Absenteeism across multiple sectors related to personal illness, illness in family members, fear of contagion, or public health measures to limit contact with others could threaten the functioning of critical infrastructure, the movement of goods and services, and operation of institutions such as schools and universities. A pandemic would thus have significant implications for the economy, national security, and the basic functioning of society.

The center of gravity of the pandemic response, however, will be in communities. The distributed nature of a pandemic, as well as the sheer burden of disease across the Nation over a period of months or longer, means that the Federal Government’s support to any particular State, Tribal Nation, or community will be limited in comparison to the aid it mobilizes for disasters such as earthquakes or hurricanes,


translation: bend over, put your head between your legs and kiss your butt goodby if you local agencies are not prepared. Hospitals are going to become zones of infection if the CDC protocols are not heeded.

sounds like it political to me.........
 
I would say the subject is very political under the circumstances. Here we have an administration that bungles every job thrown it's way and the only success they can really claim is protecting us from the dreaded "bird flu", something that has required no participation on their part. Bird Flu makes a convenient distraction from their other screw-ups and a way to unify the nation through fear.
Just how well protected are we really? Do we have access to a vaccine? No. We've got major problems acquiring vaccines to the strains that are actually killing Americans, no thanks to their protect-the-pharmaceudical industry's profit margin policy on health care.
For the present time, the best protection we have against the bird flu is to not lick dead birds. By the time it makes the jump to human-human transmission it's not liable to be any worse than a light head cold.
You want to worry about a flu strain, worry about one that's actually going around. At any moment it can mutate into something approaching the 1918 Spanish flu, which was killing young adults in horrifying ways in a span of hours.
 
GoSlash-
That is simply so far out as to deserve a Clownie.

Bird Flu happens to be real and a breakout is pretty much inevitable. Scientists worldwide agree with that. As to vaccines, one can hardly develop a vaccine for a Yet-To-Be-Mutated Life Form. So stop with the Global Military-Pharmaceutical Complex stuff. It's embarrassing.

Lastly, worrying about "one that's actually going around" IS worrying about Bird Flu...The killers are pretty much ALL Bird Flu. But, then, I'm certain you knew that based on your intensive study of the topic.
Rich
 
It's probably not the first time of a human to human transmission. This article, and many others on the same topic mention that probable human to human transmissions happened before in Thailand in 2004.
 
Rick-
You're correct. Given the rate at which viruses mutate, at an given time there probably exist human-transmittable strains awaiting a human host. They fail to find one and die off; a different strain may develop and infect a few people before the chain of infection stops; these, too, die off. Yet another strain, non-deadly, might develop and make it into the generalized human population...this we see yearly.

Sooner or later, a deadly and virulent strain intersects with the Human Race at a time and place where it is transmitted to a large enough number before detection. By then, the genie is out of the bottle. Given worldwide urban population density, mankind's mobility and (especially) air travel, continental jump is a certainty.

That's what happened in 1919. As to vaccines, as the article states, mutations are generally significant and viruses do not lend themselves to "broad spectrum" treatment like bacteria do. Vaccines must be fairy specific to the strain at hand; and until it is "at hand" you can't develop that vaccine.
Rich

Edited to add: I defer to my Co-Moderators here, should they close this as off topic. To the extent that a real outbreak may occur and our President (as he has stated) suspends civil liberties in certain locales, it might barely squeak over the line as topical.
 
Gentlemen,
Go online and research colloidal silver,olive leaf extract,grapefruit seed extract and oregano oil. These are potent natural anti-virals and they work. Defend your health also.
 
Rich,
That is simply so far out as to deserve a Clownie.
Click to expand...
Right back atcha, bud. ;)

Bird Flu happens to be real and a breakout is pretty much inevitable. Scientists worldwide agree with that.
Click to expand...
I never said it wasn't real and those experts also agree that by the time the breakout occurs it's lethality is going to drop. This whole subject is much ado about nuthin'.

As to vaccines, one can hardly develop a vaccine for a Yet-To-Be-Mutated Life Form.
Click to expand...
Excuse me, but they do it every year. It's a hit-or-miss proposition but it's improving every year. And FYI there's already a vaccine for the "bird flu", it's just not yet available to the general public here in the states.
"Of course, you knew that already...." Once again, right back atcha.

Why is it (and the yearly vaccine) not generally available? If it's not the 'military-pharmaceudical industry" you so readily scoff at, perhaps you could grace us with the real answer. :rolleyes:
Know where we get our vaccines from? The French. Know why we don't make them ourselves? There's no profit in it.
Know why Tamiflu and Relenza cost twice as much here as they do in Canada, despite the fact that they're made here? Know why it's a felony to purchase and import Canadian pharmaceudicals?

Here's yer clownie.

Hey, at least we've got a political thread going now, eh?
 
Also, to correct an error, the 1918 outbreak began as generic ol' flu. It mutated into a killer during the second wave and lost it's mortality rate by the third wave. It killed roughly 10% of the entire world's young adult population in a matter of months. And the manner in which they died.....have you ever seen the movie "outbreak"?
 
those experts also agree that by the time the breakout occurs it's lethality is going to drop.
Click to expand...
Source please?

And FYI there's already a vaccine for the "bird flu", it's just not yet available to the general public here in the states.
Click to expand...
Had you specified "vaccine for the H5N1 strain, which is not readily transmitted human to human", you might have been given a pass. Instead your blanket pronouncement regarding all present and future mutations of H5N1 begs the question: Source please?

If it's not the 'military-pharmaceudical industry" you so readily scoff at, perhaps you could grace us with the real answer.
Click to expand...
Free Market Supply and Demand? Cost of FDA Approvals? Liability of new drugs, rushed to market, in answer to the demands of anonymous internet posters? Of course, it's always possible that this is in the Grand Plan of King George to declare martial law and take over the nation with the help of UN Peacekeepers. :rolleyes:

Rich Lucibella
Masters in Public Health
Johns Hopkins University
 
source, please?
Click to expand...
Take your pick. JAMA, CDC, the WHO, every epidemiologist on the TV... they all say the same thing: They are concerned about the current mortality rate but it is unlikely to remain at the same level following antigen shift. It's called "reversion to the mean" and somebody with your impeccable e-credentials should be more familiar with the concept.

Had you specified "vaccine for the H5N1 strain, which is not readily transmitted human to human", you might have been given a pass. Instead your blanket pronouncement regarding all present and future mutations of H5N1 begs the question: Source please?
Click to expand...
I never made any such blanket assertion. Let's not put words in my mouth in order to lower the bar.
The vaccine for the currently predicted antigen drift does exist but is unavailable to the general public here. It is, however, available to the general public in several European nations.
And to correct you once again, H5N1 influenza *is* readily transmissible between humans. Just not this particular mutant swarm of H5N1.

Free Market Supply and Demand?
Click to expand...
Nope. That's exactly what it's not.
Cost of FDA Approvals?
Click to expand...
Merely the mechanism through which it occurs.
Liability of new drugs
Click to expand...
Tort reform?
Of course, it's always possible that this is in the Grand Plan of King George to declare martial law and take over the nation with the help of UN Peacekeepers.
Click to expand...
There you go, putting false arguments in my mouth again. Look, if you want to argue your case against an easier opponent, just put a sock puppet on your hand and have at it. I never said it was anything more than a cheap distraction. :cool:

GoSlash27
Guy who knows what "reversion to the mean" means. :cool:
Guy who knows that each year's flu vaccines are based on the predicted mutations
Guy who knows that the 1918 Spanish flu started out as regular ol' flu

See? I got good e-credentials too ;)
 
Like everything else that is bad or wrong, it's Bush & Cheney's fault.:barf:

Impeach them both!!! [crazed leftist rant mode off]
 
Yeah! W and his Oil Cronies ENGINEERED this branch of avian flu so that it would eventually mutate into human to human strains and cause a pandemic. Wait..... wouldn't that decrease oil dependency? Hmmm. Oh well, I tried.
 
Take your pick. JAMA, CDC, the WHO, every epidemiologist on the TV... they all say the same thing
Click to expand...
Um, that's not a source. That's simply repeating an earlier claim. Claims require only typing; sources require a bit more. Source please? I'll settle for the appropriate link to CDC.

I never made any such blanket assertion. Let's not put words in my mouth in order to lower the bar.
Click to expand...
Sure you did. You claimed, "And FYI there's already a vaccine for the 'bird flu'". Since "bird flu" includes numerous strains that threaten Man, your claim is read as a vaccine for all of them. Again, Source please?

Guy who knows that each year's flu vaccines are based on the predicted mutations
Click to expand...
"Predicted Mutations"? Damn, I hate to repeat myself; but you just continue to expand your claims: Source please?

reversion to the mean
Click to expand...
Intending no insult, I think you misunderstand the concept. While mean reversion is a well known statistical trend (in finance as well as epidemiology), it hardly states that the bell curve of virus strains and virulence will soon turn into one "mean strain". Rather, it recognizes that the individually virulent outliers will ultimately die off....usually as a result of exhausting the ready supply of hosts.

But it recognizes that additional "outlier strains" will take that position at the edge of the curve....Standard Deviation of the curve remaining approximately constant over time. The question is not whether the new outliers will also "revert to the mean", but how many "hosts" they will destroy in the process.

So, when you casually mention "reversion to the mean" you are talking about the H5N1 strain. But you fail to note the as yet undiscovered mutations which are the real threat. So, you contradict yourself when you whine that we can't get the available vaccine for H5N1 while in the next breath claiming that it will be relatively innocuous in pandemic form; all the while ignoring the fact that vaccines do not yet exist for tomorrow's virus strains. That's a whole lot of contradictions in one use of "regression to the mean".:D


And to correct you once again, H5N1 influenza *is* readily transmissible between humans. Just not this particular mutant swarm of H5N1.
Click to expand...
Oh, I'm just gonna love the source on this one! Source Required
You might start with a bit of additional reading from that little known agency you formerly "cited"- The Centers for Disease Control:
"So far, the spread of H5N1 virus from person to person has been limited and has not continued beyond one person."

See? I got good e-credentials too
Click to expand...
E-Credentials? My credentials are a Masters level diploma on the wall from the very institution that (at the time of my matriculation) was the architect for eradication of Smallpox on the planet. That tends to carry a bit more credibility in the area of epidemiology than the claims of an anonymous internet poster.

But, I'll bite. Just what are your credentials in this debate? ;)
Rich
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top