Bird flu...a bad thing?

[Sc@tterbrain 0]

This topic is meant in a very serious way. There is no doubt a global pan-demic would be truely tragic in terms of humanity due to the loss of life and its effect on a personal level.

What I wish to create discussion on is a maco rather then micro view. What would be the effects on morality, religion, politics, the global order....global warming?

We constantly ponder the destruction of humanity by the hands of humans in scenarios such as nuclear war, or as the result of catastrophic natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods.

Now consider the effect of a natural threat that would leave the legacy of mankind untouched, and would only effect the human organism.

The scenario is simple and mirrors the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 and 1919 caused by an unusually severe and deadly strain of the subtype H1N1 of the species Influenza. In the 12 months of the pandemic, 50 million to 100 million people worldwide were killed (estimated at 2.5 – 5% of the human population). With todays large urban populations and global travel you can barely imagine the impact.

However I want you to try and think beyond that and generate your own views on how civilization might be affected. Go ahead and streach your mind a bit.

***While this thread is asking for people to express opinions and theories, I do expect responses to stay on the side of good taste. If this gets carried away with inappropirate posts then if the moderators dont close it, I will have to ask them too.

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[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Personally I think this bird-flu topic is highly dramatised by the media and by fame-seeking 'scientists'. The whole idea about it being a 'new decease' is rather hilarious in my mind, and I bet it have been around for thousands of years.

Very few people have died of it, and it seems logical that people dying ealier from it would simply have been marked as a normal flu victim (or other). Especially when the symptoms is lung-decation.

Around 155 people have died from it until now, but my guess is alot more, since not every part of the world is that good at identifying.

(Source: http://online.wsj.com/public....c.html)

Anyway, let's say the number is 300 people to be on the safe side.

There is 6679611714 people on our planet. That is 0.00000449% of the world population have died of the bird flue - and that's in three years.

I think the numbers speak for themselves, try compare them to victims of hunger and poverty, where 25000 people die EACH DAY. (Source: http://www.youthxchange.net/main/b221_hunger-a.asp)

Why does the bird flu suddenly get all this attention? Well, I believe there are more factors involved. First of all, people need something to fear from. And the idea of som distant decease in Asia is alot more comfortable than your average gunman around the corner.

Also, who benefit from all this hype? The medical industry of course, and the powerful men behind them. These people and companies won't earn anything on AIDS medication to poor people, food for the hungry and other medical threatment to the poor.

But manufacturing and selling flu-medicine (That even didn't seem to work too good) to the west is a safe-investment. Especially when you have your average newsposter and 'experts' on tv telling us how likely this doomsday decease is gonna spread to your neighbourhood.

To sum it up.

The bird flu have been there all along.

It's more dangerous than the normal influenza, but it's very passive and the only way to get infected is by inhaling excrements from infected animals or humans.

I know this has (almost) absolutely nothing to do with ya topic, except the title. But I wanted to express my feelings and I don't believe it deserves its own topic.

[Messiah 2]

but its that level of 'not caring' thats the marks the seriousness of the disease.

I agree whole heartedly with your diagnosis that media hype whipped this beyond recognition, and as we all know, when it comes to selling papers, bad news is good news. And the pharmaceutical companies do very well out of it.

unfortunatly the risks are very real. Currently you're correct in saying that you need direct contact with the infected organism, or contact with bodily fluids/excrement. As you say, this is the passive nature of the disease. Unfortunatly, the Flu virus is never in a single state. Its constantly evolving, forming new strains, stronger and weaker, resistant to last years vacines etc

the worry, and it is of course only a worry, is the mutation of the bird flu virus, with that of the human infuluenza, to form a diease that spreads as quickly as the human flu, but with the mortality of the bird flu virus. My family has been involved in the pharmaceuticals industry for 3 generations, and my father has been head of his field for the last 30 years. Whilst this of course meas nothing in terms of my own knowledge of bird flu, and I am not using it here as a 'my father is a doctor, si i'm right type argument', when he's concerned and worried over the possibilities of bird flu mixing with human influenza, then I'm very sure there's a need to be worried about the possibilities.

in the 20th century there were 3 flu pandemics. These pandemics occur after every major mutation of the flu virus. If bird flu were to mutate with the human virus, this would again be the case. Consider that the 1918 pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, and that it only had a 30% mortality rate. The estimated mortality rate, according to the research I could dig up through my father, of a bird flu hybrid would be more of the order of 70%.

its very real... it deserves no more attention that AIDS, starvation and the such, and you're completetly right about that. Its one of those natural occurances that will come about every century, as sure as the san andreas fault will move again, a flu pandemic will strike again. Whether the next one will have mutated with bird flu, or 500 years later... thats up to nature i guess.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Yea, it may evolve or it may not evolve. Personally I believe there are so many more deceases out-there to take our breath away before this bird-flu evolves.

It takes pretty long for a virus like the bird flu to evolve, and it needs alot of 'safe nests'. The time is there, of course, but being that mortal as it is, it will have a hard time finding human nests to occupy... The people infected simply dies instead of mutating the virus.

[4 IN 1 0]

SARS would be a good morden example on what will happen when a vires came out from no where suddently hits our world

[xawery 0]

Yes, SARS is an excellent example of a hype. I'm not saying that it's not a potentially dangerous disease, but the actually occurances have been blown out of proportion. 774 deaths around the globe, mortality rate of 9.6%. Hardly blood-curling, but the panic which ensued would suggest that we were dealing with some kind of sure-kill Virus of DEATH . Remember that fellow who choked on his Coke when on a plane and started coughing? Panic ensued, the flight was cancelled, and the passengers fled the plane in utter terror.

Bottomline: no threat should be ignored or bagatellised, but the response should be proportional.

[fardwark 0]

The Spanish Flu virus is a subtype of the Influenza A virus, and the H5N1 virus (Avian Flu/Bird Flu) is also a subtype of the Influenza A virus. So that people were/are afraid of the H5N1 virus is not surprising, I think it's reasonable to be cautious about it.

However, as Xawery says, you can't treat it as the sure-kill Virus of Death because then it quickly turns into the boy who cried wolf. When the Virus of Death does come along and starts turning people's intestines into liquid shit people aren't going to listen because "Hey, look what they said about the bird flu thing".

The main problem is overmedication and overcleanliness. Doctors subscribe antibiotica for anything, which means that the virii become immune to the only treatment we have for them, and more and more they evolve into 'super-virii'. If the antibiotica-craze continues, we will stand completely helpless in the face of even relatively harmless virii such as the garden variety influenza.

Overcleanliness means we kill all the bacteria we can, and in our hunt for the percieved filth we not only kill bacteria that are good for us we seriously mess up the immune system of our bodies. As George Carlin puts it, "My immune system is equipped with the biological equivalent of fully automatic assault rifles with laser scopes, and they've recently acquired anti-personell mines and fragmentation grenades and when they see germs they don't fuck around. And do you know why? IT GETS A LOT OF PRACTICE".

When we remove all the relatively harmless germs from our surroundings our immune system gets fat and lazy, so when those dangerous germs come along we can't do anything to stop them.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

The Spanish Flu virus is a subtype of the Influenza A virus, and the H5N1 virus (Avian Flu/Bird Flu) is also a subtype of the Influenza A virus. So that people were/are afraid of the H5N1 virus is not surprising, I think it's reasonable to be cautious about it.

However, as Xawery says, you can't treat it as the sure-kill Virus of Deathâ„¢ because then it quickly turns into the boy who cried wolf. When the Virus of Deathâ„¢ does come along and starts turning people's intestines into liquid shit people aren't going to listen because "Hey, look what they said about the bird flu thing".

The main problem is overmedication and overcleanliness. Doctors subscribe antibiotica for anything, which means that the virii become immune to the only treatment we have for them, and more and more they evolve into 'super-virii'. If the antibiotica-craze continues, we will stand completely helpless in the face of even relatively harmless virii such as the garden variety influenza.

Overcleanliness means we kill all the bacteria we can, and in our hunt for the percieved filth we not only kill bacteria that are good for us we seriously mess up the immune system of our bodies. As George Carlin puts it, "My immune system is equipped with the biological equivalent of fully automatic assault rifles with laser scopes, and they've recently acquired anti-personell mines and fragmentation grenades and when they see germs they don't fuck around. And do you know why? IT GETS A LOT OF PRACTICE".

When we remove all the relatively harmless germs from our surroundings our immune system gets fat and lazy, so when those dangerous germs come along we can't do anything to stop them.

Of course there is a reason to be cautious about this, but we need to put things in perspective. Who knows if we will see a pandemic within the next couple hundreds of years? Maybe in 10 years We don't know it.

If a REAL threat arise, we will be in great trouble, though, since the flu will spread like ever before (with modern transportation).

The bottom line is, that it's rather pathetic producing enormious stocks of strains for Influenza A, when it haven't even evolved yet. This will (if it has minimum effect on the virus) only result in the virus evolves even quicker into something completely immun to our current drugs.

We need to wait until we have a precise Vaccine before production should start.

In the meantime we could buy some food for the poor

[Messiah 2]

Just have to say I agree with Fradwarks discussion on societies over cleanliness. Its something I've been talking about amongt colleagues and friends, and our current level of nanny state, kills 99% of germs and air filters, means our children are living in biologically sterile envrionments. Mothers wont let their children outside and get dirty, pick stuff up from the ground, and generally experience the world as it should be.

its no suprise then that the new generation of children all seem to suffer from one allergy or another. When i was in school, asthma and allergies were rare amongst the school populace. Now it seems every other child is allergic to something or another. I pressume this is due in part to our better understanding of asthma and how to diagnose it, but I am without a doubt that a large amount of this is caused by over zealous cleaning and higene

In my whole life i've not once had a case of food poisoning or hospitalised for anything bug or germ related. Perhaps im just lucky, or perhaps I dont mind cutting mould off cheese and eating the stuff underneath, and this obviously hasnt done any harm, if anything its boosted my immunity to the more common bugs and germs around the house.

Quote[/b] ]Of course there is a reason to be cautious about this, but we need to put things in perspective. Who knows if we will see a pandemic within the next couple hundreds of years? Maybe in 10 years We don't know it.

this is of course the problem... if we go by the last century, we could reasonable expect a pandemic every 33 years. Pandemic on what scale, and when is of course the question.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Just have to say I agree with Fradwarks discussion on societies over cleanliness. Its something I've been talking about amongt colleagues and friends, and our current level of nanny state, kills 99% of germs and air filters, means our children are living in biologically sterile envrionments. Mothers wont let their children outside and get dirty, pick stuff up from the ground, and generally experience the world as it should be.

its no suprise then that the new generation of children all seem to suffer from one allergy or another. When i was in school, asthma and allergies were rare amongst the school populace. Now it seems every other child is allergic to something or another. I pressume this is due in part to our better understanding of asthma and how to diagnose it, but I am without a doubt that a large amount of this is caused by over zealous cleaning and higene

In my whole life i've not once had a case of food poisoning or hospitalised for anything bug or germ related. Perhaps im just lucky, or perhaps I dont mind cutting mould off cheese and eating the stuff underneath, and this obviously hasnt done any harm, if anything its boosted my immunity to the more common bugs and germs around the house.

Quote[/b] ]Of course there is a reason to be cautious about this, but we need to put things in perspective. Who knows if we will see a pandemic within the next couple hundreds of years? Maybe in 10 years We don't know it.

this is of course the problem... if we go by the last century, we could reasonable expect a pandemic every 33 years. Pandemic on what scale, and when is of course the question.

Yea, although I believe many of the allergic reactions we see among young people these days is also caused by what poison manufactures put into the food we are eating. It's the same problem though - the majority of the consumers must be priotizing how long the food lasts over health. We obviously want clean homes, clean food etc.

This comes with a cost that we simply cannot pay.

Children gets allergic reactions. Mens sperm quality decreasing etc. And all we can talk about is CO2 levels and global warming - just to get our mind away from the real problems.

If you look through the past many thousands of years, CO2 and temperature have always jumped up and down. Why should it be different? People tend to forget we are living in the beginning of an iceage - and one like it have never resulted in stable temperatures before.

I still believe the biggest threat to the human species is the 'need for focus on single problems' and the demand for hyping it.

[Messiah 2]

well, CO2 levels I can see how they would be going up with the current level of human activity and the burning of fossil fuesl, its undeniable that it would be directly related.

but i agree like you that temperature fluctuations are natural, they've occured over millions of years. Lets not forget the ice age... we were hardly a blip on the industrial radar back then, soi doubt we caused that

[fardwark 0]

You mean the ice ages?

While there are natural fluctuations in the average temperature on earth, global warming is an observable effect, according to the IPCC:

Quote[/b] ]

In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

What im talking about is, that the past 3000 years we have begun a new ice-age.

Iceages don't happen from day to day, ya know

It's not because of us, it''s just the circle of things .

Anyway, that the CO2 we pump into our enviroment has of course some influence on the planet.

Just like any other subject - different research groups have different results. Even the IPCC thát you reffered to concluded the following:

"Our judgement is that: global mean surface air temperature has increased by 0.3 to 0.6 oC over the last 100 years...; The size of this warming is broadly consistent with predicion of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability. Thus the observed increase could be largely due to this natural variability; alternatively this variability and other human factors could have offset a still larger human-induced greenhouse warming. The unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect is not likely for a decade or more. "

To sum it up.

The CO2 incriese happends because of human activity. The temperature increase, however, may or may not be because of the CO2 incriese.

What my point is, it is pretty cryable that we still talk and talk about the greenhouse effect and CO2 levels, but we neglect to discuss all the chemicals that we put into our own food.

Hell, we even put stuff in our groceries that we do not allow to put in pet-food.

[mattxr 9]

Weather it be tomorrow, or week after or in 100 years time there will be another major outbreak of some sort of virus. We have every right to be worried, but in a modern world we leave our worrying with the people who research this stuff.

Just like there will be a major earthquake hit san andreas. or there will be a big mega tsunami hit the hole south of America when that volcanic island collapses. or when an Super Volcano erupts or a comet hits the earth or aliens invade.

But.. there is so many ways for our species to get wiped out, and look we have survived this long. With every virus, eventually there will be an anti virus [exception of AIDS for now ] ..

[fardwark 0]

Our species have not been around for a long time at all when you compared to species that roamed the earth way before we did.

Dinosaurs inhabited the world for over 160 million years, whereas the hominid species first reared it's head about five million years ago.

So we still have about 100 million years to go before we can make any kind of claim to be a long-lived species, I'd say.

That being said, I do think it's unlikely that the hominid species is going to be wiped out in the same way that other species were (and are) wiped out, as we can never let things be and keep trying to change everything. This means that at least parts of our species will most likely survive even the most disastrous of scenarios, be it super-virii or meteors fucking up everybody's shit.

[Messiah 2]

well, in 5 billion years or so, we have the excitement of the sun begining its death, and becoming a red giant, thus engulfing mercury and scorching the earth.

that should be a fun day

[blackdog~ 0]

I think it's just like SARS, Anthrax, Killer Mold, and all the others. Just media hype...

[mattxr 9]

Scared of a Space Impact.. Check this high quality movie of what could happen.

- You tube

its a well made vid. nothing gonna survive after that.

[mattxr 9]

well, in 5 billion years or so, we have the excitement of the sun begining its death, and becoming a red giant, thus engulfing mercury and scorching the earth.

that should be a fun day

Yeah unfortunately its got to end at some point. maybe if the human race is still alive in 5 billion years we will have big big space ships but that outta the question how can we make such things with what we have on this planet. We can only get so technologically advanced.

[fardwark 0]

well, in 5 billion years or so, we have the excitement of the sun begining its death, and becoming a red giant, thus engulfing mercury and scorching the earth.

that should be a fun day

Five billion years is five thousand million years, it's not really possible to make any kind of predictions as to the existence of human kind in that kind of time span.

[Messiah 2]

it isnt a prediction... the lifetime of the star is said to be around 10 billion years. Our sun is roughly 5 billion years old, hence another 5 billion to go. When the hydrogen is used up, it will expand into a red giant, whilst not engulfing the earth, it will boill away our water and atmosphere

[edit]

but this is obviously vastly off topic

[fardwark 0]

Quote[/b] ]Five billion years is five thousand million years, it's not really possible to make any kind of predictions as to the existence of human kind in that kind of time span.

We have no idea if we're still here in five thousand years much less five thousand million years.

[Messiah 2]

aaah yes, now I see your point

[NeMeSiS 11]

There are dozens of ways humanity could come to an end, why should it be the bird flu?

And hell, everything is hyped nowadays, ive no idea why though

[JdB 151]

The great flu epidemic of 1918 was said to be humanity's end as well as countless other events in history, the only thing capable of destroying the human race is the human race itself (or TeH Alien of course ).