Article

2005-02-04 -Short Attention Span Theater-

Bird flu outbreak could kill 1.5 billion people

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Posted by phil_b 2005-02-04 6:26:10 PM|| || Front Page|| [11142 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 M-O-O-N spells 'bad'.

Posted by Rex Mundi 2005-02-04 6:51:34 PM|| 2005-02-04 6:51:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Is there any way to control which 1.5 billion?

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-02-04 6:56:32 PM|| 2005-02-04 6:56:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Mrs D, most fatalities would occur in 'disorganized' states - Africa, Middle East, Ex-soviet Union. India, China and SE Asia could go either way. Developed states could control it but it would require martial law.

Posted by phil_b 2005-02-04 7:05:18 PM|| 2005-02-04 7:05:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Disorganized ya say? Sacramento is toast.

Posted by Rex Mundi 2005-02-04 7:14:36 PM|| 2005-02-04 7:14:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 Howbout Berzerkly? Any chances that it would feel at home?

Posted by Sobiesky 2005-02-04 7:34:47 PM|| 2005-02-04 7:34:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Mr. Davis I was thinking along the same lines..How about the Blue States for starters? All joking aside, How about infecting Barbara Boxers panties with bird flu?

Posted by Mr. Peepers 2005-02-04 7:44:22 PM|| 2005-02-04 7:44:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 How about infecting Barbara Boxers panties with bird flu?

That would be an improvement over what she's most likely packing in there.

Posted by Lil Dhimmi 2005-02-04 7:49:51 PM|| 2005-02-04 7:49:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 It would be interesting to see how manyof the MSM showed symptoms the next day.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-02-04 7:50:53 PM|| 2005-02-04 7:50:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 "This is the worst-case scenario keeping virologists awake at night, yet the world's scientists have failed to develop a plan to protect us."

The site may be New Scientist, but this was not said by a scientist - it's idiot-talk. So I will write off New Scientist as yet another Science in the Public Interest wankeroo group.

Posted by .com 2005-02-04 10:07:35 PM|| 2005-02-04 10:07:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Wherever this shit is starting to break I want Eason's ass there pronto.......(Rove doing an impression of Ted Turner on the phone to the CNN home office)

Posted by Jeamp Ebbereting9472 aka Jarhead 2005-02-04 10:11:42 PM|| 2005-02-04 10:11:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 New Scientist is a widely read and respected magazine. While they are prone to orthodoxy they are certainly not a pressure group.

A longer article here covers the issue in more detail. I saw first-hand how a couple of hundred SARS cases caused panic and near collapse of a healthcare system, so perhaps I am more sensitive to the risks than others.

More generally, there are real risks out there and this is one of them (which is one reason I regularly attack teh global nonsense because it distracts us from the real risks. A point I made here 2 weeks prior to the Asian tsunami when I pointed out an undersea magnitude 9 earthquake was something people should worry about)

Will it happen? Probably not. Could it happen? You bet it could and there is not a lot we can do to stop it when/if bird flu becomes easily transmitted person to person. Will it kill a billion people? If it kills 10,000 then I doubt we can stop it killing at least that number.

Posted by phil_b 2005-02-04 11:09:59 PM|| 2005-02-04 11:09:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Take Fairbanks off the sign and put Bethel and you have a deal, heh.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2005-02-04 11:33:02 PM|| 2005-02-04 11:33:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 phil_b - What? Hmmmm.

Then your notion of the statement is what?

You know that it is a simple-minded statement befitting a 10 year old, not a professional - so that's why I reacted as I did.

There are cookbook reasons why viral strains are investigated, for both identification, initially, and possible intervention later -- or ignored, such as there's no value to the research. Why is the H5N1 bird flu virus being "ignored"? Or is it being ignored... I'd expect they could've discovered that info a hell of a lot easier than we can - and that's what the story should be about... Perhaps further in, in the subscription portion, they begin to get serious, I dunno.

Long ago I used to get Science News - an 8-16 page synopsis of what was hot across the bandwidth of science and medicine, but they didn't survive the print to online transition AFAIK. I've been looking for a decent replacement.

science.com might fill the bill, and a quick check offers the following article (subscription only) which seems to contradict this article.

GM Vaccine in the Works for Bird Flu
ScienceNOW 27 January 2004

Posted by .com 2005-02-04 11:47:55 PM|| 2005-02-04 11:47:55 PM|| Front Page Top

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