Remember SARS?

I just can't help but see how similar the bird flu threat is to the SARS threat a couple of years ago.

Remember how SARS was gonna kill us all and sweep the globe? Then, you stopped hearing about it after a while. And now, we have the killer bird flu.

Look, I know evolution, and I don't doubt that a virus will emerge someday that will wipe out tons of people worldwide. BUT, I can't help but notice that this bird flu thing seems like fear mongering.

Any thoughts?

Ya I get the same sorta feeling . Though we usaully get a big new virus or disease that kills millions evey so often and were very over due . I also like your bush quotes ... Made me laugh .

once they stop allowing people to enter or leave asian countries, i will then think of this as SARS. I hope that indo. countries will do something about this, though i doubt they will

Originally posted by unbeltedjoker
Ya I get the same sorta feeling . Though we usaully get a big new virus or disease that kills millions evey so often and were very over due . I also like your bush quotes ... Made me laugh .

Glad you like the quotes.

I too also feel that a new pathogen will appear and wipe out tons of people, but I don't think you'll hear fear -mongering on that issue. For ex, here in Austin, there's a new lethal strain of tuberculosis going around. There's also those diseases like leprosy that you don't hear about in the US, but are spreading. This is likely due to the waves of illegals coming in...

Its not like diseases that are "genocidal" never existed though.

The Bubonic Plague killed over 12 million people.

The Black Death killed a third of europe with out 200 million victims

And in recent years, in 1919 the Spanish flu, which was an avian (aka bird) flu, killed 50 million people worldwide.

I remember SARS very well, I lived in the middle of one of the Epicenteres. If the public didn't act the way it did during SARS then allot more people Would have died. You see when the first cases happened China-town became a ghost-town overnight limiting the vectors of transmission. That is a good thing and when H5N1 breaks out in a pandemic I hope we react the exact same way again as it most likely saved lives last time.

As unpleasant as they seem to the individual diseases are actually good for mankind in general. It is population control. Where would we be today if it were not for things like black death? Take out 50 million here and 100 million there and you keep your population in check. As smart as humans think we are we are honestly dumb enough to breed ourselves to extinction.

It's silly to think we are still subject to Natural Selection(or that it's even good for us in the long run, what if Nature selects our extinction hmm?), it's also amoral to let people die for the good of the species(Eugenics) if a means exists to combat it. Nature is a heartless bitch.

Losing some of your population isn't natural selection in the form of extinction. Its no different than a fish that lays a hundred eggs with the hopes that a couple of them make it to adulthood. Or a sea turtle that lays a pile of eggs. If we didn't have this kind of death we'd be waging massive wars for food because we would overpopulate. There is a limited supply of food and a limited space for shelter. Since people are too dumb to limit their breeding you need something like disease to keep the population in line. Whats worse? Having 50 million people die from disease or billions from starvation?

Notice the places with the highest population tend to be the poorest amoung us and the most vulnerable to pandemics? You do know that Poverty not anti-viral drugs(and other methods of prevention) are actually is the root cause of overpopulation? 1st World Birthrates are plummeting while the 3rd World continues to grow unchecked.

It has nothing to do with intellect, but Education and Economic opportunities/burdens that influences population growth. Your vast oversimplification is well

It's like this, if you're a poor farmer living in India and your children only have a certain lower % chance(compared to the Cities in the First world) to survive birth and then another lower % chance to survive to adulthood and full farming efficiency then it's in that farmers best interest to have as many children(and sometimes wives) as possible to make as much money as possible(or grow as much food as possible). They could care less about overpopulation as having a kid is cheap in the Rural regions of this planet, in Urban Areas(which 70% of us will live in by 2050) kids are a burden and cost money pushing the birthrate to dangerously low levels.

[edit on 12-12-2005 by sardion2000]

What strikes me as odd about the whole Bird Flu problem is the way we are reacting. I remember SARS, I also remember West Nile. During the WNV scare we were killing every mosquito we found, as it turned out there was nothing to be afraid of. It seems most of the info we recieve regarding h5n1 is along the lines of "It's coming look out!" It's especially suspicious when the "warnings" coincide with somthing the media wishes you to forget, like the Libby indictment.

Dude SARS was highly contaigous and very deadly. The ONLY reason it didn't spread all that far was due to the fact that people just freaked out and limited their exposure by pretty much right away avoiding contact with people for weeks to months in some cases.

www.thestar.com...

[edit on 12-12-2005 by sardion2000]

Maybe it's just me but it seems that the "powers that be" really aren't too worried about this whole thing. Obviously rich powerful people don't need to worry about much. But there was just a report that the Tamiflu vaccine is ineffective against h5n1 and no one really seems to care.