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How worried are you about Bird Flu?

How concerned are you about Avian Flu?

  • Not at all or only marginally concerned.

    Votes: 7 58.3%
  • Concerned it may pose major problems in Asia-Europe-Africa, but not in the Americas.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Will likely lead to major regional human outbreaks, but no pandemic

    Votes: 1 8.3%
  • Will become a pandemic among poultry in Asia-Europe-Africa, but not significantly affect humans.

    Votes: 1 8.3%
  • Will only affect birds worldwide, and may result in the lose of bird species.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Human pandemic, tens of millions dead.

    Votes: 3 25.0%

  • Total voters
    12
  • Poll closed .

ludahai

Defender of the Faith
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Of course, Avian Flu, especially the H5N1 strain, is on the move again with the Northern Hemisphere spring migratory season underway. It has spread to Nigeria and has now spread to several European countries. India has had two outbreaks in recent days. China has an unknown number of outbreaks. Most of Southeast Asia has had to deal with it. So far, only South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan have dealt with it successfully to far, but figure to have to deal with it again this spring and summer. While thus far, relative isolation has protected the Americas and Australia, there are migratory birds that make the trek from Siberia to Canada, and if any of those flocks get infected this summer, that blissful isolation will be gone.

Fortunately, while this disease has shown most of the signs of a pandemic-level disease, one factor is missing. It has yet to develop the ability to become easily transmissible from human to human. The 1997 and 2003 Hong Kong outbreaks were easily contained. However, it is spread all throughout the supercontinent and is becoming endemic in poultry populations in China, Southeast Asia, Turkey, and perhaps parts of Africa and Europe. Is it only a matter of time that the jump is made?

Here is a fact sheet from the WHO on Bird Flu.

Needless to say, living in an Asian country that is in close proximity to both Southeast Asia and China, I am gravely concerned. Taiwan has a large poultry industry (it is a major regional exporter as well as consumer of poultry products - especially chickens, ducks, and various kinds of eggs). How concerned are YOU about Avian Flu?
 
It's only a matter of time before bird flu (or something similar) does mutate into a form where it's transmissable from human to human. While it might be nice to think that we haven't had a flu strain like the 1918 outbreak because of advanced medicine, the reality is that we've simply been lucky. This luck will not continue forever; the world is long overdue for a major flu pandemic.

So to answer the poll question, I voted for "Human pandemic; tens of millions dead."
 
Kandahar said:
It's only a matter of time before bird flu (or something similar) does mutate into a form where it's transmissable from human to human. While it might be nice to think that we haven't had a flu strain like the 1918 outbreak because of advanced medicine, the reality is that we've simply been lucky. This luck will not continue forever; the world is long overdue for a major flu pandemic.

So to answer the poll question, I voted for "Human pandemic; tens of millions dead."

Very sobering comments, and I definately see the possibility of that happening. I voted for major regional outbreaks because quarantine methods are far better than they were in 1918 (or even in the 1960s with the last pandemic.) However, if the quarantine system breaks down (Africa and China are the greatest fears there), it could result in a global pandemic.
 
I am not really worried about it.
 
ludahai said:
Why not? I think there are compelling reasons to be gravely concerned.
There are proably several reasons to be concerned.There will proably not be a repeat of what happened long ago.I think the governments around the world will better prepared to prevent a huge outbreak.
 
jamesrage said:
There are proably several reasons to be concerned.There will proably not be a repeat of what happened long ago.I think the governments around the world will better prepared to prevent a huge outbreak.

I doubt it. If the government couldn't handle a simple hurricane, confined to a single major city and the surrounding region, which they saw coming days ahead of time...what makes you think they'll be able to handle a pandemic that quickly spreads around the world with little warning?

And if the American government can't handle it, I doubt other countries would fare much better.
 
It could mutate into an ariborne strain, but we could fight it pretty well by the time this might happen.

China is the problem. The whole world has to pay billions upon billions of dollars every year to deal with bugs that come out of their culture's insistence on living in close proximity to livestock and chickens.

It is economically well within their reach to change this, but it is a cultural thing, and we all just have to be at its mercy until they do the right thing.
 
aquapub said:
It could mutate into an ariborne strain, but we could fight it pretty well by the time this might happen.

I think you are being overly optimistic. It is doubtful an effective vaccine will be viable BEFORE it becomes airborne transmissible from human to human.

China is the problem. The whole world has to pay billions upon billions of dollars every year to deal with bugs that come out of their culture's insistence on living in close proximity to livestock and chickens.

China's culture isn't the only one where poultry live in close proximity with humans. It is just incredibly unsanitary. If you have been to bird or other animal markets, even in cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, they are amazingly unsanitary.

In Taiwan, we also have bird markets. It is common to choose the live bird that will be killed and trimmed for you, ready in ten minutes. However, the conditions are far more sanitary here.

It is economically well within their reach to change this, but it is a cultural thing, and we all just have to be at its mercy until they do the right thing.

Most Chinese are poor. Don't let the glitz on TV fool you. You see Pudong, but you never see Nanshi or the shantytowns put up by laborers around major construction projects in Shanghai and other major cities.
 
Well considering i was told about H5N1 reaching britains shores over a year ago i am very worried.

I was told by a researcher that not only would birds be infected in the first half of 2006 but that a vaccine would be developed to fight the disease spreading to humans, as this has so far come true (after mnths of me being called a Conspiracy nut) it is my belief that the second half of the prophecy will come true, that being; that the vaccine will facilitate the spread of the disease among humans as a means of controlling or more appropriately downsizing, the population, this has been a long term goal of the elite in many countries, the lacklustre clean up effort in New Orleans has confirmed this to me.

The fact that there is still such talk of a Pandemic in the Mainstream- considering there have only been a very small number of cases- is in my opinion a plan to manipulate us into believing a pandemic is likely therefore spurring us into recieving a vaccine which combined with chemical spreying (weakening our immunity) will be the ACTUAL cause of the pandemic infecting humans.

I know very little in regards to Virus and Vaccination so will add some links i found informative.

The Pandemic -
They Keep Telling Us It's Coming
Nancy Levant
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=5600
By Nancy Levant
February 8, 2006

Conspiracy theories are tough on the American mindset. We have been corrupted by group rationalism to the point of fearing intuitive logic. One + one equals two, but only if everyone agrees and an elite body backs the equation. Fear has become an intellectual silencer, which makes life awfully easy for organized conquerors. However, conspiracies often prove true once historical smoke clears. For instance, many governments experiment on people. They always have and continue to do so. Soldiers have often been used as lab rats as have many people of color. It’s unconscionable, immoral, evil, but factual.

The ensuing pandemic is being dribbled out to the public via media and governmental experts and centers for disease “control.” It’s fascinating to be told in advance that a plague is coming. It’s very creepy, but surely has purpose. It’s not to difficult or far fetched to imagine that telling the public upfront turns the powers that be into the good and knowledgeable, as if they were forewarning us, but let’s think about that for a minute.

The AIDS virus was manufactured in labs. Super strains of small pox, flues, and poisons have been manufactured in labs. Why would anyone in his or her right mind do such a thing? No doubt for the same reasons that chemical and nuclear weapons have been and continue to be manufactured – to eliminate masses of people in one fell swoop.

The AIDS virus all but destroyed Africa. It is, bar none, the greatest genocidal accomplishment in human history. It is equally the greatest atrocity, to date, in the history of human kind. And other atrocities are in the pipelines, and I am very worried about America’s Baby Boomers.

The pharmaceutical industry is a wholly public-private entity and a fully Fascist industry. It is targeting American people at every age. Compulsory mental health screening has a very direct link from our currently elected to every American child in the public school system. Pregnant women are also targeted, as are all American women via the daily, prime time commercials for anti-depressants and other psychotropic drugs of many makes and kinds. Senior citizens are targeted via television commercials, as well, on a daily basis, and in most print media. The American male has also come under prescription drug attack on the airwaves, in magazines, and on television. The mass marketing of pills, mental health problems, and illness now dominates marketing and advertising industries. I find it most interesting that with a history of human experimentation of not only large populations and racial groups, entire continents are subjected to genocidal experimentation while TV encourages 30 times a day to take more and more and more drugs. I find it interesting that many of the most aggressively marketed diseases and drugs have made people sick.

I find it interesting that substances are sprayed from airplanes upon populated areas. And I find it interesting, again, that highly educated and skilled human beings continue to use other humans for the testing of substances in the forms of manufactured viruses, drugs, and weapon compounds that are specifically created to eliminate large masses of their own kind. I find this to be not only criminal, but highly pathological.

One + one equals two. But there is no way that an intelligent species would ever try to eliminate its own kind. One + one equals two. But the pharmaceutical industry tries to save and extend human lives. One + one equals two. But drugs are tested and cleared in clinical trials for safety and public consumption. One + one equals two. But the AIDS virus began with African monkey bites. Mad Cow Disease began with cows eating feed. Bird Flu began with dirty Asian poultry. SARS began in crowded Asia cities. Contemporary sickness cannot possibly be the result of conspiracies!

But global governance can, as can the elimination of global private property rights and the take-over of the Earth and all natural resources, and the corralling of the commoners, and the taking of global water rights, and the forced manipulation of human knowledge through enforced outcome-based education, and the building and staffing of global detention camps, and ELF, RFID, Real ID, GPS, Laser, chipping, and psychotronic technologies; the limiting of mobility, the genetic altering and control of global food, fluoridation and chlorination, highly funded eugenics research, enforced housing codes and deed-restrictions, the total global control of eco-systems and nature, the elimination of entire species of plants and animals, the enforced erasing of national borders and sovereignty, and God knows what else I can’t think of at the moment – but planned and controlled genocide cannot possibly be real! No one could conceive of such a thing!

One + one equals two, and the U.N., big conservation, big pharma, and all other big money is looking for the road map to the least expensive and least messy global population reduction. Who is to live and who is to die? Who serves the corporate government, and who is a drain on global corporate profits?

If you don’t believe in conspiracy theories, don’t worry. There is no such thing as a conspiracy theory in a Godless world of enslaved species where lies and crimes against freedom and humanity are legislated and normal. In this world, one + one always equals two no matter who believes it.

Websites for Wisdoms:

http://www.acl.us.tt

www.federalobserver.com

www.newswithviews.com

www.sierratimes.com

www.americanchronicle.com

www.klamathbucketbrigade.com

Rally To Enforce the Laws and Legal Operation of this Nation!

On April 17, 2006 at 1:00 pm EST, victims of legal abuse, legal reformers, Constitutionalists, and freedom-minded people and organizations, who demand legal Constitutional governance, will:

· Join together at the Rayburn Congressional Office Building, the location of the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, DC, to demand that the Committee hold hearings on legal abuse in America.

· Lawyers and activist organizations are needed to attend and take action/organization plans home to their individual states.

· For information on how to get involved NOW, and to advertise this rally in all 50 states, please contact The Patriot Caucus at www.patriotcaucus.com and the Citizens Justice Institute at www.citizensjustice.com.

It’s time to enforce the laws and legal operation of this, OUR nation! Pass this information onto at least 5 people and/or organizations, and ask them to do the same.

Promoted by The Patriot Caucus and the Citizens Justice Institute
 
ludahai said:
Most Chinese are poor. Don't let the glitz on TV fool you. You see Pudong, but you never see Nanshi or the shantytowns put up by laborers around major construction projects in Shanghai and other major cities.


The way I've always heard it, the proximity thing would be relatively inexpensive to fix (especially when you consider how much they spend every time a new disease comes out), but that it is a cultural custom that they insist on continuing to practice.
 
Mickyjaystoned said:
The AIDS virus was manufactured in labs. Super strains of small pox, flues, and poisons have been manufactured in labs. Why would anyone in his or her right mind do such a thing? No doubt for the same reasons that chemical and nuclear weapons have been and continue to be manufactured – to eliminate masses of people in one fell swoop.

I think you need a little less marajuana and other drugs and go on the straight and narrow for a few weeks. Can anyone recommend a good treatment center?
 
aquapub said:
The way I've always heard it, the proximity thing would be relatively inexpensive to fix (especially when you consider how much they spend every time a new disease comes out), but that it is a cultural custom that they insist on continuing to practice.

But we do the same here in Taiwan, and we don't have a major problem. The problem is sanitation and most of them are so poor that they are simply not concerned with it.
 
I voted for "Human pandemic; tens of millions dead too.

Did any of you watch the Oprah show when she had Dr. Michael Osterholm on?

Asked at a breakfast meeting for the press at NIAID what we could do if a bird flu pandemic hit today, Dr. Michael Osterholm, one of the world's experts on infectious disease public health and director of The Center for Infectious Disease Reserch and Policy (CIDRAP) could only say:

"I don't know what we could do about it except say, 'We're screwed.'"

(CIDRAP is the Center for Infectious Disease, Research & Policy)

Here is a site that might explain what happened on the show. It was alarming. I am very concerned, becuase shoudl this break out in the United States.......we are not prepared and we are not preparing.

http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200601/tows_past_20060124.jhtml

He said, "One year of working to create a bird flu vaccine would only yield enough for about 300 million people: less than 5 percent of the world's population."

"We may not get such a deadly strain of bird flu, but as for completely escaping another pandemic, Dr. Osterholm says, "This is not a probability issue, it's going to happen. What we don't know is which strain it's going to be or when it's going to happen. It could be tonight. It could be 10 years from now. The bottom line is we have a lot to do to get better prepared."
 
RightatNYU said:
If it's going to come to the US, it better hurry the hell up and get here soon.

I've got some $$ invested in a futures contract on it showing up here by March 31.

https://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/common/c_cd.jsp?conDetailID=297881&z=1141201363531

If it arrives by migrating birds, it isn't likely to get to the U.S. anytime before next year. If it develops human to human transmission capability before then or some idiot brings a bird from an infected are to the U.S. (like an idiot smuggled in infected birds from China a few months ago), then all bets are off.
 
A German cat, two more Indonesians, Ni/ger (north of Nigeria) appeals for aid, and now perhaps even the Bahamas, just off the coast of Florida, now has H5N1.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060301/hl_afp/healthflubahamas_060301134329

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060301/hl_afp/healthfluniger_060301134050

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060301/hl_afp/healthfluindonesia_060301140342

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060301/hl_afp/healthflugermanycat_060301134835

note: Why did the country "Nig-er" get censored?
 
ludahai said:
note: Why did the country "Nig-er" get censored?

Because the censorship program is stupid.

Hey moderators, do you really need to censor EVERY word that might possibly offend someone? There are threads on this board that openly discuss why the white race is superior to all others, how the American government engineered 9/11, and how the Jews are plotting to take over the world. So is someone dropping an F-bomb really going to cause the other forum-readers to burst into flames?
 
Kandahar said:
Because the censorship program is stupid.

Hey moderators, do you really need to censor EVERY word that might possibly offend someone? There are threads on this board that openly discuss why the white race is superior to all others, how the American government engineered 9/11, and how the Jews are plotting to take over the world. So is someone dropping an F-bomb really going to cause the other forum-readers to burst into flames?

For goodness sake, it censored a word that is both the name of a country and one of the major rivers in Africa. Idiotic!
 
Kandahar said:
Because the censorship program is stupid.

Hey moderators, do you really need to censor EVERY word that might possibly offend someone? There are threads on this board that openly discuss why the white race is superior to all others, how the American government engineered 9/11, and how the Jews are plotting to take over the world. So is someone dropping an F-bomb really going to cause the other forum-readers to burst into flames?

Uh, its not the moderators. Do you think we go around censoring **** **** *** balls?

The forum software automatically censors certain words, nothing we can do about it.
 
I'd be a whole lot more concerned with the "dumbing down of America" by the politically correct.
This was originally "avian flu", NOT bird flu !
If one does not know what this avian flu is, they should go the library- for the first time in their lives !:rofl
I do not vote on this one either, but I do trust our government to do their best to control this problem..
 
earthworm said:
I'd be a whole lot more concerned with the "dumbing down of America" by the politically correct.
This was originally "avian flu", NOT bird flu !
If one does not know what this avian flu is, they should go the library- for the first time in their lives !:rofl

Direct quote from my Politics of NY class this week:

Prof: "So what other crises are we facing here in the city recently, we've got the anthrax, the avian flu..."
Girl: "What about bird flu?"
Prof: "Yea, that would be avian. Nice try though."
 
I am commenting on this almost daily on by blog at this point. The spring migration season begins here soon. With the problems in Indonesia (one of the main source areas of birds for the spring migration for Taiwan), we are definately concerned here for the next couple of months.

Bird Flu - Is it in the Americas now?

Two notes of concern that those in the Western Hemisphere should pay attention too. Bird Flu has recently arrived in France. There are thousands of imported birds in Quebec that came from France. Those birds are being tested now for H5N1. No positves yet, but this story bears watching.

The other is the developing story from the Bahamas that was first reported yesterday. The unusual deaths of ten flamingos in the southern Bahamas has raised suspicions. Tests are underway. For the geographically illiterate American, the Bahamas are just off the east coast of Florida.

Serbia, formerly known as Yugoslavia, is now reporting its first case of Avian Flu. It is of the H5 family, but tests are pending to confirm if it is H5N1 or not.

Eritrea is now being identified as an area of concern by the WHO. Eritrea borders the Red Sea and lies between it and Ethiopia. It is a very poor country.

The United States is in the process of stockpiling millions of doses of anti-viral drugs to prepare for a possible pandemic.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060302/wl_canada_nm/canada_birdflu_canada_france_col_1

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060302/wl_afp/healthfluworld_060302072730

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060302/hl_afp/healthfluserbia_060302110254

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060302/hl_afp/healtheritreafluwarn_060302121317

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060301/ts_alt_afp/healthflupharmaus_060301234313
 
ludahai said:
I am commenting on this almost daily on by blog at this point. The spring migration season begins here soon. With the problems in Indonesia (one of the main source areas of birds for the spring migration for Taiwan), we are definately concerned here for the next couple of months.

Bird Flu - Is it in the Americas now?

Two notes of concern that those in the Western Hemisphere should pay attention too. Bird Flu has recently arrived in France. There are thousands of imported birds in Quebec that came from France. Those birds are being tested now for H5N1. No positves yet, but this story bears watching.

The other is the developing story from the Bahamas that was first reported yesterday. The unusual deaths of ten flamingos in the southern Bahamas has raised suspicions. Tests are underway. For the geographically illiterate American, the Bahamas are just off the east coast of Florida.

Serbia, formerly known as Yugoslavia, is now reporting its first case of Avian Flu. It is of the H5 family, but tests are pending to confirm if it is H5N1 or not.

Eritrea is now being identified as an area of concern by the WHO. Eritrea borders the Red Sea and lies between it and Ethiopia. It is a very poor country.

The United States is in the process of stockpiling millions of doses of anti-viral drugs to prepare for a possible pandemic.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060302/wl_canada_nm/canada_birdflu_canada_france_col_1

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060302/wl_afp/healthfluworld_060302072730

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060302/hl_afp/healthfluserbia_060302110254

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060302/hl_afp/healtheritreafluwarn_060302121317

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060301/ts_alt_afp/healthflupharmaus_060301234313


Hoo boy. I'm always skeptic about hysterical news coverage, for this reason precisely. Once something like this happens that actually warrants coverage, it gets lost behind "So, these selected exceprts of videos of Bush and others being briefed about Katrina that have been in the public forum for months and reveal absolutely nothing new...should we impeach Bush NOW? Hrmmmmmm..."
 
RightatNYU said:
Hoo boy. I'm always skeptic about hysterical news coverage, for this reason precisely. Once something like this happens that actually warrants coverage, it gets lost behind "So, these selected exceprts of videos of Bush and others being briefed about Katrina that have been in the public forum for months and reveal absolutely nothing new...should we impeach Bush NOW? Hrmmmmmm..."

Why am I not surprised. Not being Stateside right now, I can gague how this is being covered in the US New Media. I can only see Anderson Cooper 360 twice a week, and I haven't seen him mention this.

This is a REAL story. However, all the liberal media wants to do is hang Bush, the importance and real threat of Avian Flu be damned.
 
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