I am SO SICK of hearing about friggin bird flu that I could...

[LuCifer]

(this made too good of a blog on myspace, I got so many replies saying "THANK YOU! ME TOO!" that I said aw what the hell, let's do it on DU!)

...I could :puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke: BLOOD AND LIVER BILE!!! HUUUUWAAAAK!

Oh butt Rummy the Dummy standing to make money from it has NOTHING at all to do with the bullshit HYPE we hear day in day out.

Ya know what is VERY interesting kids?! On George Carlin's 1999 album "YOU ARE ALL DISEASED" (great title!!!!) he goes OFF on these twits who are germphobic and all that, and guess what?! Guess what one of the things he mentioned was?! BIRD FLU! So, muthafunkaz, this is NOTHING NEW! People act like this crap bird flu is some new SUPER DUPER VIRUS! GET REAL PEOPLE!

Meanwhile the yapping head on CNN (Crappy Nazi Nimrods), MFGOP, and Fux Nukes keep spewing out:
"We're all gonna die! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!"

Hey folks, we already know that! SO SHUT IT!

Lu

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. I know Bushco is using it to cry wolf

but you might read a little about epidemiology before insisting that there's no threat.

[TheWraith]

15. Speaking as someone who knows more than a little,

Both about epidemiology and about history, bird flu is vastly overexaggerated. It's the most recent in a long line of disease panics including Ebola, SARS, super AIDS, swine flu, and others. It's supposedly going to be the end of civilization, right up until the point when nobody's interested anymore and it disappears. At least, I don't recall ebola sweeping across the United States, despite the urgent warnings issued by scientists. Likewise the swine flu, estimated by epidemiologists to result in 1,000,000 US fatalities in 1976, missed the mark by 999,999. Though to be fair, some dozens more were killed by the vaccine.

[bleedingheart]

2. Bring out your dead....Bring out your dead...

that is what I start saying when they start blathering about flu on the idiot box.

[daveinchi]

4. Don't belittle the 20 people died worldwide . . .

. . . from bird flu last year.

This is a HUGE INTERNATIONAL DOO-HICKEY!!!

[LuCifer]

27. TOASTY!

What next?! The Super Cold! "Don't sneeze on me!"

Lu

[SomewhereOutThere424]

3. How do they stand to gain from this if they're doing a piss poor job

at making vaccines for it? O.o Last I checked, they were adamantly against the assertion it held a threat. This is the kind of attitude that pisses ME off. They did the same thing with the black death. Then what did they do? They killed friggen cats because they thought witches did it.

When will people learn to take these things seriously? Plagues don't kill people because it's some kind of political point.

[Old Smokey]

5. Im sick of it too

This is how they keep people scared and living in fear.

Iam also tired of getting this lame ass email. I've recieved it 12 times this week.

Symptoms of the BIRD FLU...
The Center for Disease Control has released a list of
symptoms of bird flu. If you experience any of the
following, please seek medical treatment immediately:
1. High fever
2. Congestion
3. Nausea
4. Fatigue
5. Aching in the joints
6. An irresistible urge to shit on someone's windshield

[bigscott]

10. this is HUGH!!!!

I heard a bit on the local news this morning about how to keep your family safe from bird-fucking-flu at your thanksgiving meal :wtf: I was in the locker room at the gym and I just blurted out "OH YOU HAVE TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME" The moran on TV said that the flu germs would be killed with proper cooking. I freaking lost it - there is NO bird flu in the US. ALL INFLUENZA VIRUSES have fowl as natural hosts - BIRDS WITH FLU IS NOTHING NEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Once again did BushCo control the WHO

as early as 1995?

that is when the first, very first warnings were issued.

Read a tad on this, you need to learn some

[WinkyDink]

7. I KNOW! Gee, another PARROT has joined the Choir Celestial!

It has CEASED to BE!

Terra! Terra! Terra!

[Avalux]

8. With all due respect

One must separate the real threat of a possible avian flu pandemic from the government/media hype that accompanies it.

H5N1 was first discovered in 1998, and George Carlin, being the very astute and intelligent man that he is, probably knew about it then.

We have been following surveillance for years; it is expected this virus will cause some sort of human pandemic.

Instead of trying to scare the hell out of us, our government should be taking the measures necessary to protect us when and if it occurs. Funding for vaccine development and a plant that can mass produce vaccines in short order (kinda like the Manhattan Project). Not gonna happen though; we will all be on our own.

So don't throw the baby out with the bath water here. Best thing you can do is read scientific data (WHO, CDC) about the virus and stay informed that way.

[SidDithers]

18. Now, don't go being sensible...

with all your facts, and science, and good advice. Everyone knows it's just easier to rant about the Bush administration than to actually read about why avian flu is a global concern.

Sid

Edit: spelling

[MissMarple]

9. Jack Cafferty read a funny e-mail yesterday re the bird flu.

They were reporting that the much ballyhooed pandemic was not imminent at this time.

A guy from Missouri e-mailed, "I wish I had known about this sooner, I just shot my canary."

Just a little joke. ;)

[OhioChick]

14. LOL.......... That's funny.

My doctor said that his elderly patients are truly frightened to death over this. Many keep asking him if they should get rid of their pet birds.

[AlCzervik]

11. Bird flu hype--sponsored by The Beef industry, it's what's for dinner!

[dkofos]

12. They are prepping us for a real flu pandemic.

Don't forget the recent report on the gop wish list for a terra-ist
hit to rally the citizens around the pResident.
Don't forget that the Spanish flu (1918 ?)has been reserected in the lab.
It is just a matter of time before these lunatics decide to use it.

Removeing my tinfoil hat now.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. They don't need to use the 1918 bird flu

yes that is why they resurrected it... the pig recombinant lab is running full speed ahead, just a matter of time

[teenagebambam]

16. In 1918....

....the great majority of deaths were from pneumonia and other secondary infections. We have antibiotics now, just relax!

[Sgent]

19. Yet tens of thousands of people

die every year in the US from a less virulent form of influenza.

Look, this is serious, but its not the hype that has been made by the media and Bush Administration. That being said, discounting it completely is a recipe for disaster.

This viral strain's sibling has already shown it can kill hundreds of millions of people (see 1918), so it would be idiotic to not be prepared for it. That being said, it could happen tommorrow, in 10 years, or never.

Good preparations for it are no different metaphorically than those required for earthquake proofing buildings or windproofing buildings in hurricane areas.

[NNN0LHI]

22. "has already shown it can kill hundreds of millions of people (see 1918)?

Is that like Brazillions? That number keeps going up for some reason? I have heard tens of millions but never hundreds of millions of people dying in 1918. Christ man they still had a baseball season with a world series and everything during the 1918-19 period with tens of thousands of people in attendance.

Don

[SomewhereOutThere424]

21. Heh

Unrelated, but related at the same time. I think paranoia is a bad thing to mix with medicine. I remember I almost died of pnuemonia, on my birthday (which is way into december) because I had a small viral infection I didn't know about when I got my flu shot. I almost died FROM the flu shot. So I agree mass hysteria over this is obsolete, if not dangerous.

That being said...I've done enough research on plagues and pandemics to know that the only thing far more dangerous than the disease, is the complacency to prevent one.

[Bridget Burke]

23. Pneumonia & other secondary infections cause many flu deaths.

But the 1918 flu was more directly virulent. Instead of killing the very young, very old or already sick--quite a few young people died, rather quickly.

When/if the Bird Flu mutates so that humans give it to each other--how will it work? So far, it's had about 50% mortality--& most of the victims got good medical care. Even if the mutated form is less lethal--how will our health care system handle it?

I won't "relax"--but I'm certainly not panicking, either.

www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. That is not correct. In most flu strains the majority of deaths are

as you say, but with the Spanish flu deaths primarily resulted from overexcitement of the immune system in healthy adults, resulting in a rapid filling of the lungs with fluids. A person could be healthy in the morning and dead that evening - heardly enough time for treatment of about any kind. We might be able to deal with it a little better today, but since most people would wait for it to pass, about 12 hours from the first symptoms, before going to the hospital there would still be a great number that never would make it, and those that do get to the hospital would find a healthcare system that is not up to the challange.

The mortality rate would probably drop after it mutates to human/human transmission -- 1918 had only a 2% mortality rate -- but as it stands right now the virus has a 50% mortality rate. Flu also typically has a fairly protracted window of transmissibility, enabling it to spread farther before any symptoms show, unlike a disease like Ebola which has a 90% mortality and a very short window between infection and symptom, limiting it's ability to spread.

Avian flu is not an imminent danger, so panic mode is premature, but there is definitely a potential threat.

[Avalux]

26. This virus targets the deep tissue (cells) of the lungs

It invades them, uses them to replicate, they explode and die, and eventually the lungs fill up with fluid.

This is different than human influenza; the mortality rate will probably be around 50%.

[izzie]

17. Did I read that GOP big wigs have a hand in the 'right' stocks.

I really wonder how I ever got to this old age. I had every childhood thing that went around and my sister swears I gave them all to her. Polio was a worry for all but it seems to me it was only a certain times of the year.

[SpiralHawk]

20. Time to 'jump the bird' LuCi

before you jump the shark

[RSchewe]

25. It is the new Boogeyman, like terorrism to control the public opinion. n/t