Maddenation
H5N1
I’ve been meaning to post some info on the new “threat” of bird flu. It is incredibly fascinating - touching on areas as diverse as science, virology, epidemiology, economics, politics, and panic (like the NYT article post before this). I thought I’d include a few sites for you to look over. I have read/listened to all of these sites and I approve.
Avian Flu websites:
Up first - NPR has a big page dedicated to it. Also - for you iTunes/iPod users - there are a number of interesting NPR Podcasts (more on Podcasts in an upcoming post) available for you to download.
Then there’s last month’s National Geographic cover story, The Next Killer Flu. The NatGeo site has good info - the Multimedia section is strong and the Learn More section is tight as well.
The third part of my favorite science triumvirate is PBS (let’s review now - NPR, NatGeo, PBS). PBS has this show called Wide Angle. I guess it’s pretty good. I’ve only seen it once, and that was the program H5N1 - Killer Flu. You can watch this episode online. Also, (for those with less time/interest) there’s a solid interview with this guy named Dr. Anthony Fauci. The site also has a Fast Facts section for those folks who don’t want to spend endless hours learning about this stuff (like me!).
You may want to investigate John Barry’s book, The Great Influenza (winner of the National Academy of Sciences 2005 book award). If you search inside this book you’ll find some haunting facts about the Spanish Flu of 1918 (the nastiest infectious agent in the history of the world, one that was recently rebuilt and that somehow evolved a way to infect humans and be spread from human to human - it was an H1N1 virus - so named because of its protein receptors).
Fact = The Spanish Flu of 1918 killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has in 24 years, more people in a year than Black Death did in a century.
Certainly there is an unreal amount of sensationalism flying around about bird flu. And so far it has proved more contagious than even the Spanish Flu of 1918 - a virus that was breathed by every human on the planet (possible exceptions being Pacific Islanders), that infected 50% of all people, and killed ~ 2% of those infected.
David • News • 10/30/05 • 4 comments
Comments
AJ • 11/07/05 • 7:12 PM:We are all going to die of bird flu. Here are some bird flu links proving it, in no particular order:
Rumsfield’s Flu?
Flu is a Hoax?
Tamiflu is the answer!
Liars!
Crimes
Insanity?
What do I do!?
It’s extrodinarially easy to watch TV and read newspapers to find out what’s going on and what the right opinions are. Nevertheless, I keep feeling like thinking what they tell me to think isn’t right. So I turned off the TV and stopped reading the news. It hasn’t made my life worse.
By the way Pat, I can’t post links using the type codes above the reply, but have to use html coding instead.
Dad • 11/07/05 • 10:47 PM:AJ, your links don’t work.
David • 11/11/05 • 5:17 PM:I have an idea. Instead of using billions and billions of dollars to pay off all the world’s smartest scientists, and forcing them to make up this crazy “hoax” about the flu, why don’t we use the money to solve world hunger?
As Mercola says, everything is a government conspiracy. Seriously, that guy is a joke.
Perhaps some of the Bush/Rumsfeld tactics/motives are used to spark fear and make money. Fine. But come on - the whole world scientific community is not evil. And ‘they’ do know infinitely more about H5N1 than Mercola. Unless of course you want to buy his book so you can prevent all illness. Including all these flus. Had The Total Health Program been around, I’m sure no one would have died in 1918.
Dad • 11/13/05 • 4:19 PM:Dr. Mercola trying to sell his book is a much more direct monetary connection than the government/pharmaceuticals connection.
Mercola seems to be saying that the dire predictions of potential deaths resulting from a pandemic are not credible because they are based on a few “third world” cases in bird handlers, and the H5N1 virus hasn’t even figured out how to jump from human to human yet. He doesn’t seem to consider the fact that flu pandemics have occurred in the past, and have always resulted from mutations that formed a more virulent strain. It’s a good bet it will happen again, even if we can’t be sure exactly when or how.
Having said that, I must admit to having some other thoughts about “the politics of fear” that has been prevalent throughout my lifetime. I grew up with the fear of “the bomb” a very real threat we appear to have mostly dodged with the fall of the Soviet Union. Of course, we now have the terrorist “dirty bomb” or tactical nukes or anthrax etc. but that isn’t as bad as the previous doomsday scenario. Most governments seem to promote a fear of some menace “out there” to unite their people behind the powers that be. We look upon dictatorships and wonder how their people put up with that kind of oppression. Fear, of course, is the answer. We like to think that our “democracy” is the best form of government, yet most of us have no direct knowledge of how the government works, and have a poor basis on which to make voting choices. And we live with a wide variety of fears, of which terrorism is one of the least. What about fear of loosing your job, of being “outsourced”, of catching a debilitating illness, of not having money for retirement, or having our children kidnapped, or being “invaded” by illegal aliens. The list goes on. If you want more input, watch the cable news networks.
What’s the answer? I suppose we need perspective. There are lots of risks out there, and people are killed or die every day. We will all face that reality some day. But we still drive our cars and fly our planes and sky dive and rock climb and travel to Asia and Africa and, alas, smoke. And living a life in fear isn’t too good for your health, I’m told.
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