current official [b]predictions[/b] on H5N1 in US

Lizza · #21 09/06/06, 10:59 PM

I completely agree! Better safe then sorry. Like I've mentioned before we have 5 kids and 4 adults in our family. It seems like it would be remiss of us not to prepare for "something" that might happen in the future. Wether that "something" be natural disaster, a pandemic, job loss, or whatever life throws our way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Well, I don't see that there can be any harm in being able to sustain your household for several weeks or months without having to make a trip to the store, especially if you rotate your stock. I see that as the primary action for individuals against a human pandemic. It also works against any other kind of disaster that might strike you, from flood to civil unrest to earthquake...about the only disaster it won't help is fire, which would consume the preps, though some cans might survive.

And the modifications recommended for coops, at least as I understand them, are do-able and have advantages even if there isn't a virus problem in birds--and they help against other common poultry viruses, like Newcastle Disease, that definitely is here in the US. So I don't see much harm in doing those things either.

Better safe than sorry.

The biggest national expert on this topic is Michael Osterholm. His stated goal has been to 'scare people *into* their wits, not out of them'. I just wish that articles like the one I linked to would tell people what to do about the threat, not just say 'the boogeyman's gonna get ya!' A better message is, "we think there's a boogeyman, and here's what you can do about it just in case."

suburbanite · #22 09/06/06, 11:02 PM

Oh, the other thing about the commercial biosecurity--I strongly suspect they're worried about terrorists trying to deliberately infect commercial flocks as a form of economic disruption.

If you are in doubt about the problem this virus causes in birds, the best way to reassure yourself that it isn't some US government plot to keep us all scared is to read articles about it from the foreign press, who pretty clearly have no interest in placating the US government.

www.babelfish.altavista.com can do a decipherable translation of european language articles.

www.toggletext.com can do translations of articles in Indonesian.

I can't remember what the best international search engine is, so if someone wants to jump in with that information?

Right now, Indonesia has the virus in birds in counties scattered all over the country, and they'll have reports of, say, 500 chickens dying mysteriously all on the same day, then they go out and cull a bunch more. Then they find a dozen people with febrile illnesses, and have to test them all for bird flu. They find about one new human case per week.

The indonesian phrase for 'bird flu' is 'flu burung'. But you have to use an international search engine to find the articles, and then toggletext to translate them. Anyone who speaks a foreign language knows that word order and grammar can be very different from english, and the machine translators translate word for word, so the results can be hard to decipher. Toggletext often reverses pronoun genders--saying 'her' instead of 'him' and vice-versa. Toggletext can also take a long time to generate a translation.

The Indonesians also count chickens by 'tails', where we generally refer to animals by 'head'. I find that detail kind of charming.

silverbackMP · #23 09/06/06, 11:26 PM

Antibiotics would probably have no effect againts Bird Flu. Bird Flu is a viral infection. It is my understanding that anitbiotics are effective only againts bacterial infections. Am I missing something?

suburbanite · #24 09/06/06, 11:47 PM

silverback--you are right, antibiotics wouldn't have any effect on flu virus.

bird flu kills people by causing ARDS, a situation where inflammatory chemicals made by the body cause the lungs to essentially disintegrate. The virus itself kills people directly.

Most deaths from seasonal flu kill people by setting them up for a subsequent bacterial pneumonia. In those cases, antibiotics are given, not for the flu, but for the bacteria that moved into the lungs to take advantage of the damage done by the virus.

I think the use of antibiotics against bacterial pneumonia that sets in after regular flu is the source of the confusion here.

stars01 · #25 09/07/06, 05:43 AM

We have our chicken coop set up that at the first sign of anything they will never go outside. They are lucky, they have eight windows so they can see out and get plenty of light and watch the other birds outside. We also set it up so we can access the coop from our house, never going outside at all if need be. We only have eight chickens so it makes it easy for us.

We just purchased 3 bottles of sambucol, think that would help? I check the World Health Organization, Flu Wiki, pandemicflu.gov, and the us dept of agriculture on a weekly basis to keep up with things, as well as a few other sites. It can't hurt to keep informed.

Paula

gypsymama · #26 09/07/06, 08:31 AM

this site has some interesting info on bird flu and there is a thread on elderberry extract (sambucol). You'll have to dig for it but well worth the effort.

www.mrssurvival.com

Another site for bird flu info:

www.pandemichelp.org

Personally, I'm not too concerned at this point. There are too many if's, when's and maybe's.

One thing for sure, you'd better be well versed in medicinal herbs. IF/WHEN an epidemic hits overseas it may cripple our ability in the US to get our prescription meds and vaccines even if the flu is not on our shores.

stars01 · #27 09/07/06, 08:44 AM

Gypsymama, thank you for the info. I'm trying to learn as much as I can now, maybe it would help me later.

Paula

Trixie · #28 09/07/06, 09:42 AM

As to commercial biosecurity - I don't think it has anything to do with terrorism - and everything to do with the transfer of diseases.

That's from talking with people in the industry -

suburbanite · #29 09/07/06, 10:02 AM

Trixie, my local egg farm has had problems with PETA attacks, so they'r'e worried about both, but its a different kind of terrorism.

suburbanite · #30 09/07/06, 10:10 AM

Gypsymama, do you have more information about the owners and moderators of that second forum? They seem to be affiliated with AvianFluTalk, a for-profit forum notorious for making up sensationalized bird flu 'news releases' to promote itself.

AFT is run by a guy whose primary business is medical collections (hunting down sick people to take their last dime to pay medical bills), and who has repeatedly stated that he's only doing the forums for the money (sites with high traffic sell ad space to make money). For that reason most 'respectable' flu forums won't link to AFT, the fact this one does makes me suspicious despite its '.org' designation.