Bird flu 'could take 142m lives'

Post by **JulesWinnfield** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:03 am

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditio ... index.html

Finally a real WMD.

Post by **Dave** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:06 am

bring it on

Post by **Scarface** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:16 am

lol, cnn

Post by **mjrpes** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:28 am

1 out of every 40 people on earth? Pittance.

Post by **Massive Quasars** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:32 am

scan it and pm me, if it pleases you

Post by **HM-PuFFNSTuFF** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:33 am

mjrpes wrote:1 out of every 40 people on earth? Pittance.

more like 1 out of every 70 i think

(and that's a worst case scenario) more like 40-50 million if it's bad

Post by **jester!** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:35 am

gg that 95% of any deaths will be either in china or india and that the other 5 will be elderly.

Meanwhile how many millions are being spent in america to make ppl rich?

Not concerned.

Post by **mjrpes** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:49 am

HM-PuFFNSTuFF wrote:
mjrpes wrote:1 out of every 40 people on earth? Pittance.
more like 1 out of every 70 i think

(and that's a worst case scenario) more like 40-50 million if it's bad

1 / 46 if we go off of this number:

http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop

Post by **mjrpes** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:54 am

I like the the categories they give to the scenarios: mild, moderate, servere, and "ultra".

As in, if we overclock the bird flu we'll reach ultra radeon X1900XT death rates.

Post by **Massive Quasars** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:16 am

noted, thnx

Post by **jester!** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:41 am

riddla wrote: be concerned, its already been through a few key mutations to make it more human-friendly and pervasive to lung tissue

Nah. I dont doubt that it will transfer to humans in time. Even a short amount of time, but up here in alberta its not going to kill off a ton of people, its the huge dense cities, especially large international airport types, that are going to get fucked dont you think and the largest cities here are hardly blips on that radar...

Post by **mjrpes** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:56 am

yeah, you don't have to worry. even viruses hate canada.

Post by **Pooinyourmouth** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:02 am

CNN, FOX and all these other news outlets need to change their names to "Scare Tactics".

Post by **jester!** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:04 am

Sweet. :icon32:

But seriously, when bird flu goes away its going to be a select bunch of people a lot richer, and everyone else moving on to the next big SARS/WMD/TERRORISTS/BIRDFLU type american fearmongering campaign...

Post by **Zyte** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:50 am

Post by **Grudge** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:17 am

The media over here have been full of this the last couple of months. One of their first "alarms" caused people to run out and buy large stockpiles of flu medication just before christmas, completely depleting the supply all over the country.

Post by **Ryoki** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:40 am

People are always secretly hoping for terrible things to happen to the world, so that they may be lifted from their dull, meaningles little lives.

Post by **Mr.Magnetichead** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:43 am

Aslong as it kills alot of old people I'll be happy.

Post by **Dave** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 10:24 am

You'll be dead

Post by **4days** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 10:27 am

Grudge wrote:The media over here have been full of this the last couple of months. One of their first "alarms" caused people to run out and buy large stockpiles of flu medication just before christmas, completely depleting the supply all over the country.

same in blighty.

at least it sounds like the various agricultural bodies are taking it seriously after bse and the foot and mouth thing.

Post by **seremtan** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 12:43 pm

and yet poor countries still can't afford AIDs drugs because the pharmaceutical companies' patent gives them a monopoly to charge whatever ridiculous price they want

Post by **R00k** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 3:24 pm

It's the same situation with the Tamiflu drugs. There's not much chance that the poorer countries will even be able to afford them.
Of course Rumsfeld will profit like a mad man - not uncharacteristic of him though I guess.

TBH, I have a hard time getting all scared about this. I think it's extremely overhyped.

OMG SARS!@

Post by **Ryoki** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 3:40 pm

R00k wrote:It's the same situation with the Tamiflu drugs. There's not much chance that the poorer countries will even be able to afford them.

Not even Western countries can afford that stuff apparently.

Was talking to a docter-friend of mine about Tamilflu... i asked him what he'd do with it if there was a flu pandemic: give to patients or to family / friends?

He said 'hah, there's hardly enough of the stuff to inoculate all docters with - i'll probably get one dose for myself and no more. So, not much of a choice there.'

Post by **Don Carlos** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 4:15 pm

1 in 40?? pffffffft Get a real illness

The Plague (Red : Black Death) 1 in 3

That my friends, is a real illness.

Post by **obsidian** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:02 pm

Bird flu will only become a major problem if:
* Bird flu mutates into a human strain and we are unable to contain it.
* Everyone in the world spontaneously starts owning and handling chickens and other birds.

Both are unlikely. The only people who are worried are the same people who built backyard bunkers for Y2K, bought facemasks for SARS, tinfoil hat wearers and CNN.

Other than that, if you really wanted to be prepared, I think it's better for developed nations to spend money ensuring that livestock owners properly dispose of sick birds. A lot of owners are currently hiding sick birds since bringing it to the authorities will often mean loosing a large part of their stock, meaning loss of revenue. By compensating them for sick birds, I think we can prevent the spread of bird flu in the first place, which is a lot better than spending a bunch of money stockpiling inoculations which may or may not work, waiting for a human strain to pop up and then having an epidemic.

So everyone put on your foil hats and let's all panic. Starting..... now.