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Geek Culture / Bird Flu

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Killswitch
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 12:18
Is it me or does whole 'Bird Flu' situation seem very suspicious? Ok so the virus is fairly deadly to humans, but only 117 people have ever caught it - and yes it's deadly to birds too but aren't there lots of other viriuses that are far more dangerous? I keep hearing 'if it mutates the virus will become more dangerous', well can't it equally mutate and become less dangerous? Even then why are they so worried about this virus mutating? What if HIV mutated and was airborne? No one seems to be worried about this.

I'm very dubious about this whole situation. Either they're not telling us something or theres a massive conspiracy going on. (Have you ever seen Absolute Power? It looks like a storyline from that.)

What do you think?

~It's a common mistake to make, the rules of the English langauge do not apply to insanity~
Fallout
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 12:26 Edited at: 30th Oct 2005 12:28
It's just because flu is about the most contagious virus there is, so if it does mutate we could be in trouble. It just spreads like wildfire, and the normal flu virus kills old people and ill people by the 100s unless immunised, so an even more deadly version spreading at the same rate could be a cause of concern.

There's definitely been too much scare-mongering though. I hate the media and the way they grab onto anything remotely bad and push it in our faces until we're all 100% paranoid.

Edit: btw, it can only really mutate and become more dangerous. If it mutates and becomes less dangerous, those mutations will die. It's only the mutations that successfully survive in more situations and hosts (e.g. humans) that will survive.

Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 14:11
Quote: "I'm very dubious about this whole situation. Either they're not telling us something or theres a massive conspiracy going on. (Have you ever seen Absolute Power? It looks like a storyline from that.)

What do you think?"


Sounds like a lot of stories, using fear to control a country is the easyiest way, has happened in the past and still happens, even works in societies too. Its the way the media works, which is why I tend to ignore it, if feel safe sitting around watching Kids tv, simpsons,
south park, nevermind the buzzcocks etc. Hopefully we learn exactly how this works with the media in psychology.

Quote: "Edit: btw, it can only really mutate and become more dangerous. If it mutates and becomes less dangerous, those mutations will die. It's only the mutations that successfully survive in more situations and hosts (e.g. humans) that will survive."


Thats how the evolutionary theory works, but you still can have faulty mutations, but are generally recessive, otherwise how do we get genetic diseases etc.

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David T
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 14:11
12,000 people die every year from normal flu in the UK. Most are elderly people who are - no offence meant here - just ready to die. You have to die of something - you can't die of old age - flu is one of the most common actual causes.

Makes all the numbers they're throwing around on TV seem a lot less scary.

"A book. If u know something why cant u make a kool game or prog.
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Deep Thought 42
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 14:20
The media nowadays always blow things out of proportion.

"There are no stupid questions, just a lot of inquisitive idiots."
Killswitch
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 14:30
You're right about the media blowing this out of proportion, but I do wonder why... Someone must have started the stories - it's not like the BBC (or other) suddenly decided that sick chickens would be a good story.

I'm not worried about the virus it's self - even if all the speculation is true the Human race has survived similar pandemics (Spanish Flu, for example) with far less medical knowledge than we have today.

@Fallout

I didn't think of it like that, however isn't it possible for the virus to mutate and become less deadly (comparable to normal flu) while still being successful?

~It's a common mistake to make, the rules of the English langauge do not apply to insanity~
Benjamin
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 14:36
Its if it turns into something similar to what Spanish flu was, then we have to worry.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

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re faze
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 14:47
most of the people that die of the flu are 80+, cmon they lived their lives already sheesh!

Tinkergirl
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 15:30
Well, as Bejamin linked, if it became like the Spanish Flu, it affected young males, more than anyone else, and people could die in under 24hrs from drowning in their own bodily fluids.

Nice.
TDP Enterprises
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 16:05
sounds peachy

I'm here to do homework, and kick ass.....

and i just finished my homework.....
Killswitch
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 19:02
Hopefully it'll get rid of all the virilie, good lookg young men...then girls will have no choice up to put up with us!

~It's a common mistake to make, the rules of the English langauge do not apply to insanity~
Teh Go0rfmeister
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 19:23
bird flu did mutate in the past, but it infected a mother and daughter who lived in a very remote village so it didnt spread.

i dont see what the fuss is though. every yrs something hapens that's meant to hipe out our population; SARS, near-missing comet, etc etc. never happens. lets just sit back and let this thing fly... then it'll be bird flew

PowerSoft
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 19:45
I think i have it!


I always feel a bit peckish.

Undercover Steve
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 20:33
Quote: " Hopefully it'll get rid of all the virilie, good lookg young men...then girls will have no choice up to put up with us!"

rofl.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 20:35 Edited at: 30th Oct 2005 20:40
Are you guys serious? x_x

Quote: "Is it me or does whole 'Bird Flu' situation seem very suspicious?"


I don't think so.

The problem is that these asian countries are incredibly over populated. For example, take China,
http://www.citypopulation.de/China.html

From what I've been told, and I don't know if this is true or not, but I wouldn't doubt it, everyone and their uncle owns pigs and chickens. The problem with putting these two animals together is that the pigs can become carriers but are generally unaffected by bird virii. Then it mutates and can be carried to humans. The pigs are more apt to getting the virus because they're around chickens.

That is what I gather is how the virus would mutate, through the pigs acting as carriers.

Now, if the bird flu were to become something like the spanish flu, which is somewhat likely because of the living conditions of these Asian countries and the overpopulation.

The wiki put the mortality rate at 5%. However, with the population in China at 1.2 billion, even if the mortality rate didn't get above 5%, the number of deaths would be 6 million!

What would you do with that many bodies? More deaths would occur because of the dead bodies that can't be rid of.

And frankly, with a population of 1 billion, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.

And with Spanish Flu trait out of the way, what if it were to mutate into something like the black plague?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_plague

Quote: "The initial outbreak of plague in the Chinese province of Hubei in 1334 claimed up to 90 percent of the population"



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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 21:54
@Teh Groofmeister, yup, I never worried about any of those probs, and they passed by, mad cows disease, foot and mouth, alien domination, France invading england. This years turn is for bird flu and the apocalypse (if you read my Hitman thread you know why) If people want to worry about something, worry about chavs, I mean, one pull out their car as we were backing up and stuck their tongues out so my mum gave them the finger, they drive worse than old people

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Jeku
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 22:30
Quote: "From what I've been told, and I don't know if this is true or not, but I wouldn't doubt it, everyone and their uncle owns pigs and chickens."


Maybe only in the poor sections of China.

JoelJ
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 22:31
so, my friend reminded me about SARS the otherday, I completly forgot about that, and that was a 'big scare' too

I don't think this means it should be ignored, because you can't solve problems by ignoring them.

I also think that expecting the worst is also a good idea. Then we won't be taken by surprize

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re faze
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 22:41
you live and you die. Thats the way the world works.

Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 23:28
Quote: "because you can't solve problems by ignoring them."
Never failed me before...maybe I should try it on someone like Jimmy...got rid of my ex-best friend who is the most irritating person in the world now...

As greed said you live and die, thats life really, you can take precautions and take on survival, there are far worse things that are completely ignored

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Benjamin
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 23:37 Edited at: 30th Oct 2005 23:39
Quote: " you live and you die. Thats the way the world works."
Now you see thats what is wrong with society; people don't care about eachother.

As for ignoring the situation, that is a completely idiotic comment. Yes SARS didn't turn into a highly serious situation, but it may well would have been if people hadn't of taken precautions.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 23:45
Quote: "Maybe only in the poor sections of China."


Certainly doesn't nullify my point. Not to mention in the poor sections of China you can only imagine how poor hygene would be.

I've heard that we probably wouldn't have as large of a mortality rate as other poor countries simply as our hygene is much better.

As for ignoring the situation, what do us non-epidemiologists have to do beside ignore it until it happens^_^ Trust me, I'm not sweating about it. Just passing on how bad it could get if it were to happen.


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Antidote
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Posted: 30th Oct 2005 23:53
The reason these diseases don't spread and kill everyone is because as soon as a threat is identified thousands of precautions are taken to keep it from spreading. Keep it from spreading, it dies off. That's why SARS isn't big anymore.

Things like madcow have NEVER gotten to the U.S. because as soon as the threat was identified America cut off all of it's meat importing from the U.K. Once everything was open to control again, we reopened our meat trading routes and madcow has still not gotten here.

If we didn't take the precautions then there would be problems, we just take the precautions so there aren't and it looks like the media is just trying to scare us.

Now to some degree they do try to get the worst possible scenario put on the news for two reasons.

1. It keeps people watching longer. Think about it.
"SARS is a very deadly disease, but can be contained"
Compared to
"SARS is gonna kill us ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Much more effective

2. It acts as a watch dog on things like the FDA(in America) and other food regulating and health regulating departments in government to make sure those precautions are taken so that it doesn't spread.

bitJericho
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 00:00
Considering the black plague incubated for 30 days... I think no amount of precaution would keep a global epidemic from happening


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re faze
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 00:09
Quote: "Now you see thats what is wrong with society; people don't care about eachother."


Yeah, but your french, in the us, nobody cares about nobody

Quote: "Things like madcow have NEVER gotten to the U.S. "

not quite a number of people the most prominent being in washington dc have been suspected of dying from BSE aKa mad cow

Antidote
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 15:48
Hmm. Didn't know that. However, it only happened in one area so it's more than likely some resturaunt sold mad cow beef or something.

re faze
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 16:39
probably, but it was quashed very quickly.

Jimmy
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 19:36
Quote: "Never failed me before...maybe I should try it on someone like Jimmy..."


You can't rid me that way.

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Dazzag
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 19:44
Quote: "You can't rid me that way"
Are you a viral infection? I have some cream that could help.... not to be used internally?....

Cheers

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tpfkat
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 20:03
flu used to kill people,some of the vaccinations you got as a kid help to turn it into just a bad cold, if you catch a mutated version of bird flu your baby injections might not protect you from it.
that basically sums it all up.
re faze
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 20:38
what if you get bird flu and become a vector of the disease by taking the vaccine?

Jeku
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 22:21
Quote: " what if you get bird flu and become a vector of the disease by taking the vaccine?"


A vector? Just use the dot product of the vaccine vector and yourself. That will get you the angle of the intended use. Or are you talking about something else?

SirFire
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 22:48
Some facts you may find interesting:

1. The government has placed an order for 200,000,000 bird flu shots.
2. Each shot costs $100. That's a $20,000,000,000 order.
3. Dick Cheney used to be the CEO of the company who is making these shots.
4. Dick Cheney is the Vice President of the US.
5. Dick Cheney still owns a lot of stock in said company.

The media is hyping up the potential pandemic to sell the shots.
It's all a vicious circle. Not to mention my own personal paranoia about what is ACTUALLY in the shots.

This concludes today's conspiracy theory.

tpfkat
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 22:53
why not just shoot all birds....damn things keep crapping on my cars.
Jeku
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 22:56
All that proves is Dick Cheney is a very wise investor Wish I'd invested in that company beforehand.

Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 31st Oct 2005 23:42
Quote: "Now you see thats what is wrong with society; people don't care about eachother.

As for ignoring the situation, that is a completely idiotic comment. Yes SARS didn't turn into a highly serious situation, but it may well would have been if people hadn't of taken precautions."


I do care about people, my point is I'm not scared about illnesses, nor should anyone, if you get it, you get it. And people are too worried about it, when its less deadly than other killers, and think its stupid.

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Antidote
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Posted: 1st Nov 2005 00:38 Edited at: 1st Nov 2005 00:38
I'm not scared either. Maybe it's just from living in the U.S. and being sheltered all my life, but I really don't think it will reach us.

Also Dick Cheney isn't just a good investor. He's also his first name.

re faze
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Posted: 1st Nov 2005 00:53
yup he's a real richard all right

I dont believe the bird flu thing is as serious as theyre making it out to be, and well if im wrong and i die, well too frickin bad.

also the vector was a typo i meant vector for the disease not of the disease, cause a vector is the mechanism by which it is spread like mosquitoes

bitJericho
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Posted: 1st Nov 2005 05:24
I certainly won't go get vaccinated... But I think you're foolish to believe that it's harmless


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DARKGuy
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Posted: 1st Nov 2005 08:24
Quote: "Now you see thats what is wrong with society; people don't care about eachother."

That could have not been said better... sadly, it's true.

Quote: "2. It acts as a watch dog on things like the FDA(in America) and other food regulating and health regulating departments in government to make sure those precautions are taken so that it doesn't spread."

If people would take such precautions all the time and not just when there's a state of emergency or the virus has already spread, this wouldn't have happened, and it would be avoided.

Now... well if the virus was in chickens, and infected pigs, pigs are our food, and as such our body thinks the virus is food and not a harmful organism, thus the body doesn't attacks it - what a backdoor in our firewall, huh?

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