Move along Ebola, here comes H7N9 Bird flu to end the world

So Ebola was a blank (unless you live in africa and ruined your life killing all you knew) and dint end humanity, don't worry news outlets already picked a contender to fear monger it to death, the Chinese H7N9 bird flu

Scientists in China have identified an influenza virus that they say has the potential to spread around the world, sickening and killing people whose immune systems have never faced a threat like it.

The H7N9 flu emerged in humans in eastern China in February 2013, sickening 133 people and killing about a third of them before winding down in May. It seemed that the outbreak was over, but it re-emerged in October 2013 and has been spreading steadily since.

"H7N9 viruses should be considered as a major candidate to emerge as a pandemic strain in humans," they wrote in a study published Wednesday by the journal Nature.

Yay the news outlets wont die of hunger now, they got the new panacea to all their illness, although if they want to pick more ratings they need a more catchy name than H7N9

H7N9 bird flu has the makings of a pandemic virus, scientists warn

Bird Flu Spreads Across China, Posing Threat to People: Report

But after all,this may be the real deal and ends us all, if they keep coming with possible pandemics twice every year at some point it will be true...

Well whatever it is, or is not, or might be etc., it will take my mind off of global/cooling/warming/shrinking/swelling/changing.

a reply to: pikestaff

Global shrinking is among my top ten concerns that keep me awake at nights

a reply to: Indigent

JFYI, the active ingredient in Tamaflu for the treatment of the birdflu is found in Star Anise. www.drugs.com...
So if tamaflu isnt in your budget, stock up on some Star Anise. It tastes like licorice and makes a great tea.

a reply to: misskat1

Shikimic acid is produced by most autotrophic organisms, and whilst it can be obtained in commercial quantities elsewhere, star anise remains the usual industrial source. In 2005, a temporary shortage of star anise was caused by its use in the production of Tamiflu. Later that year, a method for the production of shikimic acid using bacteria was discovered.[3][4][5] Roche now derives some of the raw material it needs from the fermentation of E. coli bacteria. The 2009 swine flu outbreak led to another series of shortages as stocks of Tamiflu were built up around the world, sending prices soaring.[6]

en.wikipedia.org...

So its a good time to invest in star anise, or maybe there is a conspiracy on all this and the anise producers are the one that come with flu outbreak every now and then to inflate their prices

a reply to: misskat1

Tamiflu makes people sick. Give me the natural version any day. Thanks for the tip.

a reply to: Indigent

"H7N9 viruses should be considered as a major candidate to emerge as a pandemic strain in humans," they wrote in a study published Wednesday by the journal Nature

So here's a question.

Who has better survivability against an aggressive and novel form of influenza, a person vaccinated yearly or a person that has contracted and recovered from a different, less aggressive form of flu? All other things being equal, who has the advantage? Do your research and find the answer. Don't listen to fear mongers and shills.

originally posted by: misskat1
a reply to: Indigent

JFYI, the active ingredient in Tamaflu for the treatment of the birdflu is found in Star Anise. www.drugs.com...
So if tamaflu isnt in your budget, stock up on some Star Anise. It tastes like licorice and makes a great tea.

Did you read the entire article you linked?

The second half of the article said that as a tea Star Anise does not help with the flu, it stimulates digestion (increases bowel activity - not what you need when you have the flu). The drug is extracted from the immature pod (the tea is made from the mature pod) and then chemically changed to create Tamiflu. There was a warning that Japanese Star Anise in tea form can be toxic.

So Chinese star anise tea won't hurt you to try if you have the flu, worth a try if you have the flu and no diarrhea or loose bowels. It is very unlikely to help you with the flu on a medicinal level. But if you like licorice, it would make a tasty tea.

a reply to: grandmakdw

I must have read a different article when I was reading about this last time the bird flu scare was around. I just randomly grabbed one off google. Or maybe they just know more about it now. But the article I read said you can make tinctures with Alcohol that will extract the useful ingredient and use it.

originally posted by: misskat1
a reply to: grandmakdw

I must have read a different article when I was reading about this last time the bird flu scare was around. I just randomly grabbed one off google. Or maybe they just know more about it now. But the article I read said you can make tinctures with Alcohol that will extract the useful ingredient and use it.

Can't say I haven't done the same thing, grabbing a "proof" off Google.

That is one reason why I stopped the whole "proof" thing, unless my source was really good and I read the whole article.
The Mods shut me down on posting my best and most reliable proofs because I used them too much "copy and paste" they said (I gravitate to the same topics over and over). So between that and I did the occasional boo boo like you did I've just stopped responding to requests for "proof".
No big deal. We all live and learn.

a reply to: grandmakdw

Thank you for your kindness, people can be brutal on this site. lol

originally posted by: Indigent
So Ebola was a blank (unless you live in africa and ruined your life killing all you knew) and dint end humanity, don't worry news outlets already picked a contender to fear monger it to death, the Chinese H7N9 bird flu

The attitude about these things really does astound me sometimes.

While I agree that often news outlets are looking for any reason to scare people (keep people scared, then chuck adverts in their faces to make them buy things that will make them forget all the terrible things they just saw) we have to learn from history and not instantly ignore when genuine threats present themselves.

It's not "imaginary" that viruses can kill hundreds of thousands of people.
It's not a "conspiracy" that people die of flu every year.
It's not a nonsense that a virus is capable of mutating to become a significant threat to large swathes of the Human population.

I agree that everything a news source reports should be taken with a healthy pinch of salt (or a bucket of salt if it's the likes of Faux News), but lets not throw all common sense and rationality out of the window with that healthy skepticism.

The Human race has experienced pandemics thousands of times in our history, it didn't all miraculously just stop. If anything the risks are greater now because of two things...

1. Massive increase in travel.
2. Massive germophobia, meaning millions of people are increasingly developing ineffectual immune systems.

Geez! I stopped caring about diseases after SARS failed to meet the hype. Something has to kill us, we are designed to die.

a reply to: Rocker2013
Right, and most people know of the risks, so why make it frontline news to scare people? What purpose does it serve? Are you going to avoid everyone that has come in contact with people that have flown or come into contact with someone from an infected area? Impossible.

Like I said, I stopped caring about this crap years ago. It's fun to imagine a dystopian world, but, it probably wouldn't be as much fun living in one. I'll worry when they tell me not to worry! lol

a reply to: Rocker2013

It's not "imaginary" that viruses can kill hundreds of thousands of people.
It's not a "conspiracy" that people die of flu every year.
It's not a nonsense that a virus is capable of mutating to become a significant threat to large swathes of the Human population.

So if it happens every year why should i care? you know what you are completely right my attitude is irrational, this should be a sane response to the twice every year news than a flu from china will wipe us all

a reply to: misskat1

Did you read what you posted because this is at the end of your article:

Why Star Anise Won't Work
In its original form as a spice, star anise offers little or no help to flu sufferers. Shikimic acid is extracted from the fruit's distinctive seedpod only by a lengthy and complicated process-and the details are Roche's trade-secret. Even Chinese medical practitioners advise consumers not to bother stockpiling star anise as a protection against the flu.

grandmakdw beat me to it, never mind

a reply to: Indigent

Ebola was never all that scary. And anyone that paid attention to what I said knew that.

Flu viruses, on the other hand, are where it's at. The good ol' common flu has far more potential to become a global killer than Ebola ever did. I always keep an eye on these new strains.

originally posted by: Indigent
So if it happens every year why should i care?

Because the Flu that doesn't hurt you kills thousands of elderly and infirm people every year, and is not even a strain capable of wiping out hundreds of thousands of people during a pandemic, like the H7N9 virus has the potential to do.

You've never been exposed to this virus, therefore you have no immunity to it.

Do you understand that this strain is not the same as the common Flu? The one that kills thousands each year already?
You do understand, I take it, that as a virus like this becomes more widespread it also evolves and mutates to become more resistant to treatment?

Do you also understand that we are already facing a massive problem with antibiotics no longer acting as they should, and that it could only take one variation in a Flu virus to create a strain we will not be able to treat with any medication we currently have?

originally posted by: Indigent
you know what you are completely right my attitude is irrational, this should be a sane response to the twice every year news than a flu from china will wipe us all

You seem to think that these things just magically go away without any action from anyone.

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but Ebola was only stopped because of the millions of $'s, the medications and brave medical professionals working to stop it.

If there's a threat posed by a virus twice every year, what do then think happens? Do you think it's fictional? Do you think all agencies just do nothing and sit on their behinds watching the news? People are put in quarantine, people are treated, people are prevented from traveling to stop it spreading to your country.

If we all had your attitude and believed this was all nonsense, completely ignoring the hard work thousands of people put in to developing vaccines and treatments, risking their lives treating the ill and dying, preventing the spread of disease through travel, you would probably have experienced hundreds of thousands of deaths from Ebola all over the USA already.

Ebola (and other viruses) didn't just stop, people stopped them.

a reply to: Indigent

The reason you should care about this is because it is a novel strain your immune system has never seen.

When the Spanish Flu killed so many people, it killed the young and healthy more than any other demographic. This was because our immune systems had never seen it. As a result, they over-reacted to it, and it was our own immune system that tended to kill in most cases, not the flu. New flu strains provoke cytokine storms. These can kill very quickly. In the normal course of things, modern medicine is our best friend, but in a flu epidemic, the contagious nature of the flu can quickly overwhelm the capacity of the medical system so that people who might otherwise have survived with good supportive care will die because the hospitals are full to bursting.

In short, it creates a perfect storm, something Ebola simply could not do without extensive mutation.

So, yes, the flu is frightening because it has a much easier time turning itself into a global pandemic of frightening proportion.

a reply to: Rocker2013
I hate to break it to you, but these things are highly exaggerated in order to sell more American meds. These people that you seem to be putting on a pedestal are only concerned with making money - not with our welfare. If they can get people paranoid enough to get every shot and "medicine" that they peddle, then it's a win for them. Money money money - that's their only concern.

And when we get tired of their complete and utter fear mongering and start ignoring their doom predictions, then we'll have government mandated vaccinations to fill their coffers. Oh, wait...