Here Comes The Plague Again...

Discussion in 'World Events' started by superstring01, Jun 5, 2009.

  1. superstring01 Moderator

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    An interesting tidbit. Here I thought the Plague was gone forever.

    ~String
     
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  3. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Good. Just in time.
     
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  5. PieAreSquared Woo is resistant to reason Registered Senior Member

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  7. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    string of course its still around, it infects everything not just humans, there is no vacine and its a bacteria.

    the really frightning prospect is that these casese (especially in asia and south america where medications are expensive) could alow it to become drug resistant

    if that happens we are back in the middle ages
     
  8. superstring01 Moderator

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    I'll stock up on the Cipro and Keflex.

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    ~String
     
  9. PieAreSquared Woo is resistant to reason Registered Senior Member

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    http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local News/S-F--County-boy-dies-of-plague

    My sister dog had it earlier this year.. this Vigil guy is a frigging idiot and needs to get the fuck out.. he's just another lame ass Richardson nepotism appointee. One of many.

    He's a nice guy and all.. but worthless

    Gary Johnson was a hell of a better Governor, he didn't play the nepotism game.
     
  10. Repo Man Valued Senior Member

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    Here's a fun fact from Wikipedia that I wasn't previously aware of.

    Other symptoms include spots on the skin that are red at first and then turn black, heavy breathing, continuous blood vomiting, aching limbs, coughing and terrible pain. The pain is usually caused by the actual decaying, or decomposing of the skin while the infected person is still alive.

    Whew, 50% mortality without treatment. Damned tough bug.
     
  11. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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  12. PieAreSquared Woo is resistant to reason Registered Senior Member

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    by doing something ..or at least trying to do something

    good thing we don't have mosquitoes here
     
  13. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    what? Most are because of wild animals. Do you recommend culling? Pesticides? What would work in this case?
    Does the number of deaths warrant the amount of money needing to be spent?
     
  14. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    Bubonic plague responds to antibiotics, like streptomycin. You put the patient on them asap and then track down and watch over everyone he's been in contact with, and do the same to them if they start showing symptoms.

    So long as treatments occur while the number of patients are low, the odds of a drug resistant version developing are limited. Those sorts of mutations are numbers games. The risks of those mutations is only truly significant after the number of infected starts to get high.
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Ain't no parrot fever

    It turns up regularly. I don't regularly read the CDC-MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report), but I do recall looking for something once and coming across plague statistics. I don't think a year goes by without it striking somewhere in the U.S.

    For instance, if you look back—taking an issue at random—to December, 2001, Volume 50, Number 50, you'll find on p. 1143 a table, "Summary of provisional cases of selected notifiable diseases, United States, cumulative, week ending December 15, 2001 (50th week)". There were two reported plague cases. There were also eighty-six reported cases of leprosy. And remember the hantavirus scares of the '90s? All of six cases reported through the first fifty weeks of 2001. No polio, though.

    But, yes, the plague is still with us. It's just not as scary these days as parrot fever (or "psittacosis", a chlamydia contracted from birds) or hemolytic uremic syndrome (a result of E. coli infection).
    _____________________

    Notes:

    United States Centers for Disease Control. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, v. 50, n. 50. December 15, 2001. CDC.gov. Accessed June 7, 2009. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm5050.pdf
     
  16. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    tiassa, i have to disagree with you there. its more treatable, its no less sary. the thought of a multiple drug resistant form starting in asia and travling to eroupe or south america and travling to the US scares the shit out of me.

    thats ignoring some lab making it either and either delibratly or acidently releacing it.
     
  17. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    (Insert title here)

    It is in part because it is more treatable that it is less scary.

    Well ... in that case, we can just bust out the gatifloxicin again. Dangerous stuff, apparently, but holy shit it worked. Multipath quinolone antibiotics are pretty hardcore.

    But, in truth, bacterial infections don't scare me. Sucks to have 'em, and even more so if it's the bloody plague. But viral infections are the ones that get my attention. I mean, sure we just had a swine flu outbreak, but it wasn't PRRS, which was rumored to have transferred to humans in 2006. Bleeding to death by my lungs and balls? Yeah, that prospect would scare me.

    Wouldn't make sense to deliberately unleash a bubonic plague superstrain. An accident? It's possible, but not likely. Again, viruses. Captain Trips (The Stand) is not beyond my realistic imagination in terms of accidental release, but deliberate release? I would expect something more like Gray Death, the nanovirus at the heart of the video game Deus Ex—although incurable, there is a "vaccine" that needs regular (e.g., monthly) administration. However, in the game the point was to take over the world, not just make a lot of money.

    I'll probably be a bit cynical about the idea of a deliberate release until it happens.
     
  18. superstring01 Moderator

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    It's interesting to touch on ecophagy.

    While the thought of an extinction level virus is scary (enough to make numerous movies and video games) I'm not sure that I think it'll happen anytime soon. There are a lot of viruses out there and they mutate millions of times a year and in the past 2 million years of human existence, mother nature has never come up with one that would effect the whole of humanity exactly the same way.

    ~String
     
  19. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    tiassa, bacteria can be just as scary as a virus. though ebola is scary as hell the disease which scares me the most is actually a bacterial infection, meningitis and manigococal. they kill in hours (just like the plague is reported to have done in the middle ages i might add) and even with antibotics alot of people are simply treated to late. a multiple drug resistant plague could wipe our a fair proportion of the worlds population because bacteria unlike virus can live on in the enviroment without a human hoast.

    look at anthrax which lives in the ground forever (for instance in victoria)

    oh and by delibrate releace i was thinking criminal, psycological or terroist motive rather than profit one.

    its much easier to quartine people rather than flees and the bacteria itself which arnt going to stop moving because of the health department workers or the millatry
     
  20. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, that is how a doctor would treat a patient with it. I was wondering how PieAreSquared expected the Secretary of the Dept of Health Dr. Alfredo Vigil to stop the plague.
     
  21. Repo Man Valued Senior Member

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    Extinction level seems incredibly unlikely. But the teeming mega cities that we now have are an ideal environment for a high mortality virus. Billions could die, and it is likely more a matter of when rather than if.

    The epidemiologist's nightmare about plague is a victim with the pneumonic plague in a large city. It can be spread by coughing, victims can die in as little as two days, and mortality is estimated at 90%. Imagine the swath that could cut through a city in Bangladesh.
     
  22. justwonderingjoe Gosh,the weather is nice today Registered Senior Member

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    I remember camping with the kids when they were younger and plague warnings were posted at the rangers station when we would check in. I think it's always been around.
     
  23. PieAreSquared Woo is resistant to reason Registered Senior Member

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    it seems to happen in New Mexico more often than other areas of the southwest. perhaps they could look to other states that have similar eco-systems and take measures that they may be taking.

    but there's the mañana program in effect here :shrug:
     

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