Mexican flu

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Orwell
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25 Apr 2009, 9:41 pm

Concenik wrote:

pbcoll wrote:

Anyway, as I posted earlier, if one were attacking the US, one wouldn't release the strain far south of the border. Since Mexico itself is extremely unlikely to be a target of bioterror, by Occam's razor it's sensible to assume this is a natural mutation - it's not as if a virus mutating were unheard of.

No, it's not necessarily sensible to assume it's a natural mutation as the 'Occamic' evidences point distinctly in the opposite direction.

How so? We've seen this family of viruses before, it has not changed host ranges, it is behaving largely as it historically has. Influenza has a long history of jumping between its three main hosts (humans, pigs, and birds) and causing pandemics. It happened several times last century, and I'm sure it will happen at least once or twice this century.

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monty
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25 Apr 2009, 10:17 pm

pezar wrote:

Concenik wrote:

so wtf - can some geneticist or biochemist tell me if this can happen so rapidly in 'natural' condition? - such multi species viral combinations which are previously unknown??- or does Occam's razor suggest it is engineered?

Nature is capable of some pretty odd things. That said, pigs, birds, and humans are biologically so far apart that a hat trick virus that combines all three seems unlikely. Two has happened. Three seems rather odd.

Well, viruses routinely cross back and forth between species, and they mutate when in any given pool, sometimes picking up genes from other viruses. Humans would be in the middle, as humans raise large number of birds and pigs in agricultural settings. So the idea of a virus moving from birds to humans to pigs and back to humans is plausible.

On the other hand, we are at a point in time when the manufacture and release of viruses engineered by psychopaths is also quite plausible.

Cyanide
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25 Apr 2009, 11:04 pm

Since I'm not very old or very young, I'm not afraid of this killing me

CanyonWind
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25 Apr 2009, 11:52 pm

Okay, so I'm imagining I'm like the cigarette smoking guy in X-Files and I secretly control the world. Bill and Hillary just stopped by for a few bong hits. I'm not sure anybody believed her when she said that the upsurge in bombings in Iraq is a sign that the country's getting more stable, but she's doing a great job of stirring up a civil war in Pakistan for me. Both sides are crazy about her.

So anyway, my James Bond movie type mad scientist genius calls me on the secure video link from his trillion dollar lab and he says he's finished with the new flu virus and it's ready to go. Mass death guaranteed, 1918 was small potatoes. My CIA contact owns forty seven MacDonald's in Mexico City and he's ready to make the virus a secret ingredient in the special sauce.

So I'm thinking about what's gonna happen if I deploy the thing. Let's see, mass death. That means dead bodies all over the place and not enough healthy people to get rid of them, so any place there were people living is gonna look disgusting and smell terrible for a long time.

The economy's gonna collapse along with the food production system, so I'll still be ruling the world, but I'll be king of the starving skeletons.

Governments will collapse too, most of them anyway, so in the United States I'll be ruling over a permanent civil war between the mormons, the hell's angels, and the Montana militia. The big cities smelled so bad the crips and bloods decided to leave, but they didn't have much luck trying to farm and they used up all their ammunition shooting the grasshoppers that were eating their tomato plants. They aren't around any more.

Similar stuff will be happening everywhere else in the world. My income is gonna be severely reduced because nobody's gonna be paying taxes or have enough to be worth exploiting.

Hey, get Obama on the phone. Tell him I've changed my mind.

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Sand
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26 Apr 2009, 12:03 am

CanyonWind wrote:

Not so quick, fella. You neglected to mention the morph factor.
When those corpses start to pop out of the ground with elongated canine teeth hungry for human flesh you will no doubt be able to capitalize on a new branch of McDonalds specializing in human fleshburgers and the staff will greet all the customers with huge smiles with teeth extending below their chins and just below their eyes. A huge business coup.

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26 Apr 2009, 6:07 am

And now, for some light heartedness...
Even though xkcd has a strip for everything, I am going to go with one of that authors favorites.

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claire-333
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26 Apr 2009, 8:46 am

Cyanide wrote:

Since I'm not very old or very young, I'm not afraid of this killing me

As mentioned earlier in this thread, or perhaps in one of the links...not sure...this seems to be more of a concern for the healthy who are neither young nor old.

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26 Apr 2009, 9:51 am

Orwell wrote:

Concenik wrote:

Orwell wrote:

Concenik wrote:

Yes, it can and does happen in nature. Our own knowledge is not sufficient to reliably engineer this type of thing, and certainly not very quickly. Bioweapons research also has largely stalled since the end of the Cold War- the most advanced bioweapons facility ever built was from the 80s in Kazakhstan.

With all due respect Orwell, unless you actually work as a microbiologist within a military construct ( which would lower your life expectancy considerably judging from the amount of mysterious fatalities having such a career seems to engender) you have no grounds to evince a knowledge of what can and can't be done in these spheres, for it surely isn't in the public realm..

I am a microbiology student, and I know that if you attempt to study microbiology at even a very basic level you will quickly run into questions where the best answer anyone can give you is "I dunno." We know virtually nothing about biology. I have also heard and read statements from people who are competent in the realm of bioweapons, and they attest that it is not a trifling matter in terms of its complexity. It really is very difficult to produce bioweapons.

I know you are a microbiology student, that's why I said - 'with all due respect' - nevertheless my point stands, have you come acroos the story yet that bio weapon samples are missing from Fort Detrick?

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26 Apr 2009, 10:06 am

Orwell wrote:

Concenik wrote:

pbcoll wrote:

No, it's not necessarily sensible to assume it's a natural mutation as the 'Occamic' evidences point distinctly in the opposite direction.

It's entirely debatable what prompted the 1918 epedemic in itself..

There has been NO KNOWN instances of this strain being found in any pigs whatsoever! - so the initial report that it must have re assorted in pigs does not fly...these pigs do not fly.

The USAF report from 1996 predicting a pandemic in 2009 seems like it may well of been uncannily prescient :roll:

Or Joe Biden's prophecy about Obama's first months..

Or that there was a significant mock pandemic drill just before this outbreak became known of..

Or the pulled story that advance warning was given to the Mexican officials..

The samples which are now said to be missing from Fort Detrick..

Experts fear escape of 1918 flu from lab
New Scientist | October 21 2004 - I traced this article and it makes some very INTERESTING reading - unfortunately I am not allowed to post full articles - the only link I have for it is on the concen forum *shrugs*

And there's a lot of other material suggesting that this reassortment is absolutely incongrous to be a naturally occurring viral strain..

I'm still sitting on the fence - I think it's too religious to make a conclusion one way or the other at this time, all considered *shrug*

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26 Apr 2009, 11:11 am

Maybe the purpose of a deliberately caused pandemic is to help the economy by creating more jobs in the health care industry.

Of course, in economic terms, the only product of the health care industry is healthy workers.

This would make sense in the context of the US government's overall approach to fixing the economy, spending trillions of dollars that don't exist to create lots of temporary jobs with no prospect of increasing long term employment.

Orwell
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26 Apr 2009, 12:55 pm

Concenik wrote:

It's entirely debatable what prompted the 1918 epedemic in itself.

They've isolated and reconstructed that particular strain of flu. The etiological agent is well established.

Quote:

There has been NO KNOWN instances of this strain being found in any pigs whatsoever! - so the initial report that it must have re assorted in pigs does not fly...these pigs do not fly.

When viruses jump around species, they mutate. Viruses have very high mutation rate, especially since the genome of the influenza virus is composed of a single strand of RNA, making it orders of magnitude less stable than a traditional double-stranded DNA genome seen in most organisms.

Quote:

The USAF report from 1996 predicting a pandemic in 2009 seems like it may well of been uncannily prescient :roll:

Historically, we see pandemics periodically, and to be honest we're overdue for the next one.

Quote:

Or Joe Biden's prophecy about Obama's first months..

Meh, that quote has been badly taken out of context by those claiming a false-flag operation is in the works.

Quote:

And there's a lot of other material suggesting that this reassortment is absolutely incongrous to be a naturally occurring viral strain..

Not really. From what I've read, the current flu is behaving in the way cross-species flu historically has. Even if it acted differently than we expected, as I've already said, viruses are tricky little bastards.

You never explained your link-filled post. I'm still confused on that one.

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DentArthurDent
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27 Apr 2009, 10:07 am

Concenik wrote:

Orwell wrote:

Concenik wrote:

Well I for one would rather listen to a microbiology student that has some grounding in the subject than the subjective musings of a perpetual conspiracy theorist. Next you will be asserting that HIV is man made.

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vibratetogether
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27 Apr 2009, 11:26 am

Cyanide wrote:

Since I'm not very old or very young, I'm not afraid of this killing me

I'm sorry to tell you this, but Swine Flu, as well as Avian Flu, will affect those in the 25-45 range much more drastically than the very old or very young. Something to do with our healthy immune systems. The virus causes our immune system to go into overdrive, so those with healthy immune systems are at a greater risk.

DentArthurDent
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27 Apr 2009, 4:50 pm

how childish and petty minded can a society get

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/28/2554199.htm

ruveyn
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27 Apr 2009, 7:50 pm

DentArthurDent wrote:

how childish and petty minded can a society get

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/28/2554199.htm

As petty as a society that names a disease German Measles. Or a species of insects Japanese Beetles.

ruveyn

DentArthurDent
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27 Apr 2009, 11:44 pm

ruveyn wrote:

DentArthurDent wrote:

how childish and petty minded can a society get

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/28/2554199.htm

As petty as a society that names a disease German Measles. Or a species of insects Japanese Beetles.

ruveyn

Maybe, what I am getting at is the authorities there think that the population will become offended if they get Swine Flu.

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