Ronin Tetsuro

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...600103_pf.html

This bird flu is becoming quite the epidemic. Any chance this will hit stateside? The article mentions the razing of millions of euro's worth of free-range poultry in an effort to contain the virus and keep it from spreading to humans.

Anyone know anything more detailed about this?

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bobert

Well there is a very real possability it could hit the usa if it develops the ability to spread from person to person. Im from the Uk and it has been in the news here quite alot. Farmers in holland have been orderd to keep all of their free range birds inside, as have a few other countrys in europe, but as of yet there has been no such order here in the uk. but i think one will coem soon as the migratory birds start to migrate from russia to europe.

Bird flu is coming, and there isnt alot we can do about it at this moment in time. depending on who u listen to it could kill millions, or billions all over the world. The main place everyone is looking at for the human to human infection is asia because thats where its most probably to happen, so if your worried then keep an eye on asia. but when it is confirmed u will know about it.

Zeraph

Wow, mad cow disease (I think it was called?) all over again. So how do you "destroy" birds? Flamethrower?

anleja

There is an article here about a vaccine which shows promising, but even if it DID work, the article says the US gov't would only order 20 million, which I think is roughly only 6% of the US population.

We're way past due for one of these things... scary.

highthief

It's already killed a bunch of people in SE Asia, but human to human transmission is so far rare. Most people affected have been in direct contact with infected poultry. We have no real natural defense against this form of flu, so death rates will be higher.

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justinrazs

sorry to say it, but i'm a damn conspiracy theorist, bird flu, mad cow, west nile, flesh eating virus, IMO, were and are all just scare tactics to use the power of fear to control the masses, keeping them from paying too much attention to the important happenings and not to mention boosting news ratings. Anything to keep us Americans afraid and in our houses, with our televisions, afraid to walk out into the smog filled world. just a theory.

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highthief

Disease has been around for millions of years, affecting the first chimps to walk upright and call themselves "men" to today - why is it that diseases today can't be real? Or was the Black Death and the 1918 flu just "scare tactics"?

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justinrazs

but.. i said nothing about those diseases, our bodies have evolved a lot since being chimps, making us immune to most disease, not to mention the black plague can be cured with antibiotics, and it formed because of humans being disgusting and unsanitary, and it was carried by creatures that have much more of a population. i'm pretty sure i'm not going to go to kfc one day and suddenly come down with an uncontrollable uncurable disease, i'm pretty sure that only idiots will get this disease kidding, i'm just saying that the hyping up of all these diseases that have in the past barely effected us could quite possibly be a media "scare tactic"

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Ganggreen

sorry to say it, but i'm a damn conspiracy theorist, bird flu, mad cow, west nile, flesh eating virus, IMO, were and are all just scare tactics to use the power of fear to control the masses, keeping them from paying too much attention to the important happenings and not to mention boosting news ratings. Anything to keep us Americans afraid and in our houses, with our televisions, afraid to walk out into the smog filled world. just a theory.
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i'm a conspiracy theorist too. and its not things like this that scare me..its the government

Lwang9276

but how do we explain those people dying form the diseases? Fake names put up by the government? It could be true, but if you know somebody who had died then hearing this thought must suck.

NoSoup

That statement is terribly inaccurate....

If we were immune to most disease, we'd only have a couple of diseases out there that affect humans. That, unfortunately, is not the case. I agree that there certainly are diseases in the past that we can cure now, but there are many diseases from the past that simply went away due to the ridiculously high mortality rate of them. It's difficult to spread a disease when everything it infects is dead. Nowadays, the threat of an epidemic or pandemic are much greater simply because of how often people travel. If there is a small incubation period, the disease could potentially get cross continent and begin infection there as well, not to mention how quickly one can now move from city to city.

Here's a couple snippets of a very interesting article that shows that the bird flu may have been responsible for nearly 50 million deaths in 1918.

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Just in case you were wondering...

Vales419

It is interesting to think that if this is a "conspiracy theory" not all news sources would be playing this. I have seen Dubya speak to reports for over 55 minutes and I don't think he has the first clue on what to do if something like this would hit, say Chicago. Quartaine the entire area? The world and the people inside of the United States would change forever, simply do to the fact, that Martial Law would get instated. Now, please believe me that I don't trust my government, which many of us don't, but if it would get down to where a huge population would be quarantined it would be mass chaos and basically, each man/family for themselves.

Famous quote from the book/movie: Steven King's The Stand, it reads: "The world will not go out in a bang, but a whimper"

If this type of thing would start, look/read/watch/listen about the U.S. coasts.

Just my two cents.

Peace.

V.

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anleja

Okay, I remember this thread from a while ago, I am surprised it has not gotten more traffic (it may now be in a more general area, I'll check in a minute).

Anyway, All this talk by scientists who have nothing to prove politically is concerning me. Y2K was a false alarm, but that is miles away from this which already has proven in the past to devestate humankind.

I am thinking that it would not be a bad idea to get some sort of plan worked out for families in case this does happen. I can't really think of anything besides a ton of food and water and batteries and the usual disaster things, though. Maybe a shitload of Tamiflu and some guns? I don't know. But if every single scientist says that, without a doubt, this is going to happen... scientists are pretty smart people, you know.

onewolf

The modern media has changed the world.

anleja

Very true, but 25 to 50 million people (of only 1.8 billion) in 1918-19 died from what many scientists are a calling a milder strain of what they think we may see. I suppose even 50 million of 1.8 billion is not TOO large, but also keep in mind that the world population is more than 3 times that size, in addition to the world being a much smaller place, with people going from one continent to another a very frequent and common occurance... much more than in 1918.

Humans DO build up immunities, but if this strain spreads from human to human there is no one alive who would have a natural immunity to it.

One more thing... during the Spanish flu, the only populated area in the world to not have any documented cases of this was Marajó. Any place that was NOT Marajó had this flu.

I'm not saying people should freak out, but I do think it would be foolish to chalk this up to a mere media-driven hysteria. "An ounce of prevention" etc etc.

*edit* I wrote all this assuming you made the media statement to mean that people are over reacting. I suppose you MAY have meant it to merely state that we are more aware of what is happening in the world as far as this flu thing goes... but people rarely have good things to say about the media (and for good reason, but I think I'll just stick to this particular topic).