Bird Flu, OMG the world is ending!

Bird Flu is pretty serious stuff - very deadly to the avian population. It's been devastating to the exotic waterfoul of Florida. **broken link removed** of Bird Flu in the Everglades.

oh! the flamingo-manity!

You know when you're too prone to blaming others for your stupidity?
From article:

One fighter climbed into the lion enclosure but was immediately killed by Marjan, the zoo's most famous inhabitant. The man's brother returned the next day and lobbed a hand grenade at the lion leaving him toothless and blind.

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Sceadwian said:

Harvey, I just checked the CDC's website, there as of yesterday have been 403 confirmed cases of the swine flu in the US, and 1 associated death. More than likley thousands more have already had and are spreading it and the bulk majority of them are going to get better just like any other time you get the flu. This happens EVERY year, I think in the US during bad flu seasons something like 20 thousand people die.
So why the hell is the Media blowing this crap up our asses now? The only thing viral going on here is the story itself =)

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This isn't flu season for starters. Been less than two weeks since the flag went up, and almost every state has confirmed cases. There has been a second death reported in the US. Haven't gone to look at the details, but doesn't look very old, or very young... Yeah, I guess we should all just relax, until people in our own towns start getting sick, before we start trying to contain this thing. Sure, 20k dying isn't many compared to the 300 million, but it's too many if it includes people you know. If nothing else, it's still good practice, if something really deadly gets loose on the population. I don't think we are ready for it, not enough people take it seriously, until they get puked on or something. If a lot of people have to die, before anyone wants to get started trying to control something like this, it's going to be way too late.

If I'm following this correctly, the numbers should start growing even quicker, since everyone seems to be relaxing their stance.

Oh, before forget this time... What was that Canadian pig farmer doing to those pigs he infected? Probably don't want to know the answer...

Harvey if it's already in every state there's not much to be done about it except take reasonable precautions like wash your hands and avoid coughing on people. There's simply put no way to block something like that from happening. Yes the number of cases is going to skyrocket, it's still too early to say what the mortality rate is going to end up being.

Mikebits said:

That is just absurd.

Most people in the pharma business are there because they want to help people, and make money. And how could they possibly make money on something that is not helping people. You somewhat contradict yourself.

Creating a drug for a new viral strain that crops up does not happen overnight, as these new treatments must be tested rigorously in vitro, then in vivo and finally in humans. This is a time consuming and expensive process, and the safety to the public must be considered as a major factor. In the mean time, we have to take what is currently offered such as Tamiflu.

If you care to educate yourself more on the Drug discovery to Market process then start here.

**broken link removed**

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Money is money. They make money when people are sick and buy medicine.

No one makes money off the flu Krum.

No one makes money off the flu Krum.

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Ever get real sick real fast?
I got Guardia poisoning two summers ago. I had to go the emergency room. $2083 to be told I was sick and probably wont die. 3 hours mostly by myself for one IV transfusion of about a gallon of water. $2083! WTF WTF WTF.

And my health insurance would not cover it because to be delared an emergency I needed to stay over 4 hours in the emergency room to get any partial coverage and overnight to get 90% coverage!

Someone makes big money off of people being sick!

Damn... I would have hung out in the waiting room and drank coffee =O Then again you don't find these little 'catches' until they happen right =\ Damn pencil pushers. In those cases it's the blood thirsty insurance companies involved not the medical industry itself. Insurance is a whole other industry all by itself.

It was only in a half dozen states last week...

Yes, lots of people make money of colds and flu. There are the simple 'Get well soon, will see after you quit puking' cards, flowers - to cheer you up or the funeral, and shelves full of ineffective medicines, which do absolutely nothing at all, to barely easing some of the symptoms. The only actual flu medicines are prescription, so cost a small fortune, and probably not worth it, since the flu would have run it's course in a few days anyway. Most people wait a day or two, before going to a doctor. Yeah, huge profits to be had, guess its part the economic recovery plan Obama was working on...

Pretty sure it was the hospital that sent me the bill and happily took my money!
The insurance company was separate and had nothing to do with the bill.
I told them to bill me just so I could get in and looked at to see if I was dieing.

I was 300 miles from home and bad enough off to feel I needed to go to the emergency room, Over 5 years since the previous visit and the first time in my life for a non injury related visit, so I was not in a mood to argue about who and what insurance coverage I had before I got admitted.

Glad I had friends to drive me. I hear an ambulance ride is pushing $2000 now in these areas.
Next time I am that sick I will drive my self and hope I get pulled over. Then the patrolman can take me to the emergency room for free! Or at least for the price of a speeding ticket.

Well thank goodness I own no birds or pigs.

It's probably all media hype. I'm with Sceadwian, the news is so far out there.

Reports here in SE Florida, it hits the young people worse than the elderly. That is a change for the flu. We had 6 maybe cases in Miami this week. Google I think has a tracking map for it as well (imagine that).

At my age, I guess I am OK and will tough this one out (if the news is correct).

I would like to see some large population studies about how the number of laboratory confirmed cases correlates to the population that ends up coming down with the bug in the first place. How they determine the death was caused by the bug and not an underlying condition as well. Modern communications networks have so vastly expanded our ability to track these pesky microbes in the first place that it's difficult to interpret the numbers in the first place.

The flu isn't what kills you. The virus takes over the immune system, to reproduce itself, and spread to other hosts. The infected person isn't able to fight of other illnesses anymore. Usually, its a bacterial infection that causes the fatalities in flu victims. A virus isn't an organism in itself, it needs a specific host. Mostly a virus is genetic instructions in a protein shell. It's important that the host survive, so it continue to produce and spread the virus. If it were to kill it's host, it would essentially be killing itself, and eventually be extinct...

Sceadwian said:

I would like to see some large population studies about how the number of laboratory confirmed cases correlates to the population that ends up coming down with the bug in the first place.

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Here in Knox County (pop. 400,000), we've had two suspected cases of swine flu, neither confirmed as of yet. The state CD lab reported Tuesday two confirmed cases statewide out of 301 samples submitted.

I tend to agree with you that we erred wildly on the side of precaution, flamed by a newly empowered media with ever stronger feelings of importance in telling us what to think.

The big media hype is about the CDC's alert that this is the re-emergent strain of H1n1 Spanish Flu. I don't think we have ever been so alarmed by West Nile or other's as much as this one.

Current Research by Health Organizations :One theory is that the virus strain originated at Fort Riley, Kansas, by two genetic mechanisms – genetic drift and antigenic shift – in viruses in poultry and swine which the fort bred for food; the soldiers (1918) were then sent from Fort Riley to different places around the world, where they spread the disease. However, evidence from a recent reconstruction of the virus suggests that it jumped directly from birds to humans, without traveling through swine. This suggestion is however controversial, and other research suggests that the strain originated in a mammalian species.
An effort to recreate the 1918 flu strain (a subtype of avian strain H1N1) was a collaboration among the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York; the effort resulted in the announcement (on October 5, 2005) that the group had successfully determined the virus's genetic sequence, using historic tissue samples recovered by pathologist Johan Hultin from a female flu victim buried in the Alaskan permafrost and samples preserved from American soldiers.
On January 18, 2007, Kobasa et al. reported that monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) infected with the recreated strain exhibited classic symptoms of the 1918 pandemic and died from a cytokine storm – an overreaction of the immune system. This may explain why the 1918 flu had its surprising effect on younger, healthier people, as a person with a stronger immune system would potentially have a stronger overreaction.
On September 16, 2008, the body of Yorkshireman Sir Mark Sykes was exhumed to study the RNA of the Spanish flu virus in efforts to understand the genetic structure of modern H5N1 bird flu. Sykes had been buried in 1919 in a lead coffin which scientists hope will have helped preserve the virus.

This portion is what HarveyH42 is talking about.

In December, 2008 research by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of University of Wisconsin linked the presence of three specific genes (termed PA, PB1, and PB2) and a nucleoprotein derived from 1918 flu samples to the ability of the flu virus to invade the lungs and cause pneumonia. The combination triggered similar symptoms in animal testing.


kv

Interesting how the media has put this issue on the back burner .... even on the Internet, I have to search for articles on it ... no longer front page stuff. Now, the headlines are the Taliban muscling in on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

From the CDC
Lab reported cases 896, death's 2.
That's only slightly higher than the normal death rate every year from the flu so far, as the data set gets bigger I'm sure it will be on par if slightly higher than a normal flu year. So far as yet, there has not been one single indication that we should panic about anything at all.

And Harvey as far as this not being 'flu season' there is absolutely no such thing. It's flu season whenever one of the buggers gets out, just because it statistically only occurs during a narrow period of time means absolutely nothing. I personally have had the flu during the middle of summer here at least twice in my life. Believe me I know when I get the flu, I have a bad fever reaction to most flus. 104-106 the hallucinations are.. trippy =)

Believe me I know when I get the flu, I have a bad fever reaction to most flus. 104-106 the hallucinations are.. trippy =)

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When I was in college several years ago I was suspected of having contracted the West Nile virus. There were around 20 -30 confirmed cases and people getting hospitalized within two weeks and all were within a half mile of were I was living.

I lost over 20 pounds in one week and 15 more over the next two weeks and hurt to the point I could not move.
It messed me up so bad that it took over two years to get most of my strength and stamina back and 5 years later I still dont feel I have 100% of it back yet even with very active exercise and healthy living habits.
So I doubt it was just the flu. I get the flu about once every two to three years and its nothing like what I had that time.
Guardia poisoning was the closest I have felt to being like that but it had no lasting side effects And I was only messed up from it for about 4 days.

The college nurse said that I had every common symptom of the West Niles Virus and should have gone to the hospital immediately but I had no insurance at the time. A few days earlier I was told by a neighbor that a guy a block away from me had contracted it and it cost him around $15K for 5 days in the hospital. (No insurance either)

My last bout with the flu, was in High School, at least 30 years ago. Well, except a few bottle-flu experiences (not much of a drinker). Not overly concerned about catching it myself. It was just amazing how quickly it spread throughout the country. Guess since they pulled up all the stops, a vaccine is meaningless. Should have hit most of the population in the 3-4 months it'll take to make one, and of course several months of testing, before manufacture and distribution.

So New York has nearly 100 cases confirmed, anybody in your neighborhood? Guess that isn't many, where there are thousands of people living in a single building...