Buk-buk-buk

[Dru]

a) we're all doomed! or b) it's about damn time some of the crowded masees on this dirtball bit it

[Billygoat]

Yikes!

[catbirdseat]

Better become familiar with the following trade names. These two neuraminidase inhibitors are about the only treatments available. I'm not sure about amantadine for Type A. Is avian flu Type A or Type B or neither?

 

Relenza

and

Tamiflu

 

The answer is yes, it's type A.

Reference

Edited January 14, 2004 by catbirdseat

[whirlwind]

its too bad the us isn't more self sufecient, we could just nuke the rest of the world and then shit like this wouldn't happen... oh wait but there is that whole mad cow thing, but thats just the stupid canadians, even though they test 100x more cattle than we do

[catbirdseat]

Now you're starting to sound like Necro.

[catbirdseat]

In today's news.

 

Here's the deal in a nutshell. Avian flu spreads between chickens and from chickens to humans but not between humans. If a human happens to be infected with human flu and at the same time gets infected with avian flu, the genes can recombine. The resulting strain could then spread between humans but would be much more virulent, that is kill a higher percentage of those it infects. That would be very bad. No one knows when it will happen, but when it does let's hope they have a vaccine for it.

[Dru]

that would be very bad

you should have posted that in the post like cbs thread

[whirlwind]

makes sence to me, but i dout anything to devistating will happen, shit even if it whips out half the worlds popultion there would still be 3 billion people and thats alot of people.

[catbirdseat]

It's one thing to think of the effect of flu on the population in the abstract, but yet another when it comes to you as an individual. We are accustomed to thinking of the flu as something that kills only the very young and very old. When the Spanish Flu hit in 1918, there was no discrimination by age. Frequently, the most healthy and fit were the ones that died. We're talking about 18-20 year old soldiers in top physical condition.

[lI1|1!]

No one knows when it will happen, but when it does let's hope they have a vaccine for it.

 

i think this is a critical component of many CBS posts - veiled beneith the condescending tone is a naive longing for optimism, as if at some point in the future when everyone finally learns to tether their ice axe to their harness loop there will be no more self arrest accidents. perhaps in the CBS world view all human suffering can be solved not so much through the minutia of scientific knowledge, but through an underlying act of faith?

[lummox]

i dont feel so good.

[catbirdseat]

I'm not sure what you just said, but it sounds deep, man.